“Nothing untoward has happened.” She resented her need to defend herself, although Leath was within his rights to doubt her intentions. “He’s bored to distraction. I read aloud and write letters for him and try to ease his idle hours.”
“If you’re easing anyone’s idle hours, choose me,” he growled.
“You don’t have any idle hours,” she said, wondering at his reaction to her visits to Mr. Crane. The secretary had a small apartment on the second floor. She hadn’t ventured beyond his sitting room. Looking at Leath, she decided that he wasn’t likely to appreciate the distinction.
“Perhaps that should change.” Leath stared at her meaningfully. Except that Nell had no idea what meaning he wanted to convey.
She tried to ignore how handsome he was. She’d always thought him striking, but these days, she saw so much character and intelligence, that he was the most remarkable man she’d ever met. She had a sinking feeling that any man she met after she left Alloway Chase would feel second-rate.
“Are you asking me to work longer hours so you can take more leisure time?”
His laugh held an acerbic note. “That’s not what I’m asking. And while your innocence does you credit, it makes me feel like a satyr.”
Oh, dear Lord in heaven…
Nell rose on watery legs and stumbled back. “This isn’t about work, is it?”
“No.”
“You’re asking me…”
It was a novelty to see self-assured James Fairbrother look awkward. He shifted on his feet, then drew up to his impressive height and glared as if about to order her to write a complicated report. “I’m asking you to become my mistress, Miss Trim.”
From the moment he’d mentioned her innocence, she’d guessed what was coming. Still the blunt words shocked her. Her hat tumbled from nerveless fingers and she regarded him unblinkingly.
When she didn’t respond, he ground his teeth. “You’d like to send me to the devil, I can see.”
She swallowed to moisten a mouth dry with trepidation. “But you want to avoid scandal. It’s why you’re in Yorkshire.”
He gripped his crop in front of him with both hands so hard that surely it must break. “I haven’t reached my decision lightly.”
“I can imagine.” She whirled away and stared blindly into the trees. Nothing in the world felt stable anymore. This was like standing in the middle of an earthquake.
He went on more urgently. “I’ll find you a house in a place where nobody knows us. Somewhere like Scarborough or Beverley. Somewhere within a few hours’ ride so I can visit regularly.”
“I’d leave Alloway Chase?”
Strangely she wasn’t appalled at his offer, although she should be. After all, she’d been raised to keep herself chaste before marriage and she had Dorothy’s sad example to deter any wayward impulses.
“Yes.”
She turned. “I love it here.”
His expression softened, but he still looked like he faced a firing squad. “There really would be a scandal if the world learned that I debauched my mother’s companion in my mother’s home.”
“I… see,” she said slowly. And she did. “So I’m to become a dirty little secret?”
He winced. “I’ve offended you.”
Nervously she fiddled with a button. “Not as much as you should have,” she confessed. When he stepped forward, she raised a hand to stop him. “You don’t seem overjoyed at the idea of my ruin.”
He looked troubled. “I’m not overjoyed.”
“Oh,” she said, stung.
/> He made an impatient sound deep in his throat and gestured with one large gloved hand. “I’m making a cursed muddle of this, aren’t I?”
She linked her hands together at her waist to stop them trembling. “You’re not… you’re not displaying your usual aplomb.”