She leveled her shoulders and tried to convince herself that this wasn’t a horrible mistake. “My lord, I’m willing to try. Thank you for your confidence.”
Which raised another question. Why on earth did he want to work with her when he didn’t trust her?
Leath soon recognized his blunder in taking Miss Trim as his secretary. But he needed help to finish these reports. And despite the thaw in their relations—a thaw that had turned into a tropical heatwave in his bedroom—he still didn’t trust her. He wanted her under his eye until he learned her scheme.
He hadn’t bargained on how disturbing her nearness would prove. After a week of struggling to pretend that Miss Trim was a female version of Crane, he was exhausted. And making vilely small progress in his work. The moment she glided into his library, all thought of political economy scurried out the opposite window.
He couldn’t even censure her for encouraging his distraction. She’d reverted to perfect servant mode. If she was infatuated with him, she did nothing to put herself forward. Instead, she was almost eerily self-effacing, speaking only when spoken to, willing to assist but not to make suggestions, fading into the background in her gray dresses.
Perhaps his kisses had killed her romantic interest. Perhaps she’d never had a romantic interest and she’d been in his room for some other purpose. For the life of him, he couldn’t think what that could be. He found it impossible to see this self-possessed woman succumbing to curiosity and invading his room, however much she fancied him.
Even now, when she read out a list of figures that would bore any reasonable man into catatonia, he couldn’t help recalling what they’d done in that wide bed upstairs. Her soft sighs when he’d kissed her. His hand curving around her breast. Worse, he couldn’t help imagining what would have happened if she hadn’t protested.
Leath stood staring out the window at the unseasonably fine day. He hoped the view would distract him from Miss Trim.
No chance.
Her docility should make things easier. But it… didn’t.
“My lord?” She clearly thought that low voice placed them on a purely professional footing. Instead it made him imagine her whispering naughty suggestions in his ear as he slid inside her. He burned to see her naked with that fairy hair drifting around her like a veil, offering glimpses of the white body beneath. Eve before original sin.
He turned. “I’d like to ride out to the drainage project in the west pastures.”
From behind Crane’s desk, she regarded him with that unreadable gaze that had driven him mad all week. “I’ll finish that letter to your agent in Staffordshire.”
“No, I want you
to come with me,” he said, and saw his own surprise at the suggestion he hadn’t intended to make reflected in her face.
Then she once again became a cipher. “I don’t ride, my lord.”
She didn’t want to accompany him. He couldn’t blame her. She’d have to be dead not to feel the prickling sexual awareness.
“We can take the gig.” He paused. “It’s probably the last good weather. Don’t you long to be out in the fresh air?”
Something wistful flashed in her eyes, but it vanished so quickly that he couldn’t be sure. His voice deepened to persuasion, although they both knew that if he issued an order, she must obey. “Even my mother is sitting on the terrace. It’s inhuman to stay cooped up.”
At Miss Trim’s reluctant smile, triumph surged. Lately she hadn’t smiled at him, much as he resented noting the lack. Damn it, he should be glad that she played down the sizzle between them. But he’d reached a point where one more minute in this room would have him flinging her onto the couch and taking his pleasure.
“As you wish, my lord. I’ll fetch my bonnet and shawl.”
Cursing his susceptibility to this prim female, he rang to order the gig brought around. Perhaps a brisk moorland breeze would blow some sense into his thick head.
As he sat beside Miss Trim in the gig’s confoundedly confined seat, Leath derided himself for a mutton-headed idiot. Every jolt bumped his hip against hers. On the drive from the house and bowling through the village outside the gates, that created a damned suggestive rhythm.
Bump. Release. Bump. Release.
He thought he’d go mad with it.
Worse came when they struck the rough track over the moors and the bumps became more violent. The contact of hip to hip lasted until he felt her heat through her serviceable merino dress, and her sweet, fresh scent filled his senses. He wished to Hades he could buy her some new clothes. Scarlet. Cut low. Clinging where gray wool suggested. What quirk of his nature made her puritanical costumes so provocative? Perhaps if she dressed to seduce, he’d lose this itch to tear every respectable thread away.
He pulled the gig to a stop at the crest of the hill that brooded over the western end of his estate. The horses needed to get their breath back.
So did he.
He tried to shift away, but the narrow seat stymied him. Illogically, her lack of response to his nearness chafed.
A ridiculous contraption of a bonnet hid her face, except for her chin and that lovely mouth. Her gloved hands lay clasped loosely in her lap. The wind that always blew here, even on the finest days, flirted with the fringe on the pretty paisley shawl that added unexpected color to her appearance.