Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
In the instant that Moses opened his mouth to speak, although with no idea what those words would actually be, the door opened once more.
“Baxter,” he almost shouted, and the servant jerked in surprise.
The butler bowed. “Apologies for startling you, sir,” he said a little reproachfully, as though fully aware that he had done nothing wrong for entering a room, “but you had requested a gown for Miss Vaughn, and ‘tis only now that I have procured one, seeing as it is not an item I often have on my…ahem … person.”
It was all so absurd that Moses almost laughed.
Here he was, desperate to be left alone and quite successfully so for almost a year, and now he was thrust with a woman dripping on his carpet who seemed quite unawed in his presence, and now a butler who, against all previous experience of his character, was attempting to make jokes?
All he wanted to do, thought Moses as he gritted his teeth, was to be left alone. Did that have to be so difficult?
“Why, thank you, Baxter,” Miss Vaughn swept towards him, gracefully putting the plate down as she moved. “It looks wonderful. There is a place, I take it, where I may change?”
Lightning flashed across the window, illuminating the three of them in some sort of grotesque theatrical scene: the butler gaping at Miss Vaughn, Miss Vaughn evidently delighting in the effect that she was having on both master and butler, and he – he was utterly lost in her presence.
He had never experienced anything like this before: she left him speechless, whether shouting at him or identifying unusual birds. What sort of sprite was she?
And then she was gone. As the shimmer from the lightning faded, Moses looked around himself like a fool, certain that she had vanished into the light. She was like a dream, like a daydream that drifted into the mind and then vanished again.
It was difficult to believe that she had been there at all.
“Baxter, where did she come from?” He asked hoarsely.
Baxter frowned, as though the question was impertinent. “I have no idea, sir. Miss Vaughn appeared at the front door with a certain amount of noise and a definite amount of water, sir, and she begged for entrance. I did not deem it wise to leave her out of doors.”
“But she was alone?” Moses pressed. “None were with her, no one at all?”
Baxter inclined his head, and Moses felt a flicker of irritation spark in his gut again.
“Vaughn. Vaughn of Chequerbent,” he repeated in a low voice. “I have never heard of Sir William Vaughn, have you?”
This time Baxter smiled slightly. “Why do you not ask the young lady these questions, sir? Surely she will have an easier time answering them than myself.”
Moses coloured slightly. Baxter did not have to say the word, but he knew that he was being chided for his impertinence, and perhaps rightly so.
There was no need for him to enquire about a young lady’s family; not unless you had particular designs on said young lady, and that part of him had died a year ago.
Most of it. It certainly felt as though a small part of it was resurrected each and every time that Miss Chloe Vaughn looked his way.
There was a servile cough. Moses looked up and saw Baxter looking at him with the first knowing smile that had ever graced his lips.
“May I make a suggestion, sir?”
Moses nodded curtly. Miss Vaughn’s fierce anger, the way her fingers twitched to touch the specimens but knew that she could not, the way the air seemed to change around her …
He was smiling. Why was he smiling?
Baxter’s smile broadened. “If you are so curious about the lady, sir, I suggest that you ask the one person that I can guarantee will have all the answers that you seek.”
Something leapt in Moses’ stomach. So, there was a person who knew all of Miss Chloe Vaughn’s secrets, was there? “Who?”
Baxter bowed his head and took a step to the side as the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen walked through the door. “Miss Chloe Vaughn, sir.”
Moses found his breath utterly taken away and cursed himself inwardly to be so affected by a woman, by anyone.
But just one look at her was enough to force his lungs empty.
His head started to spin with the lack of oxygen, and with a control he barely thought possible, he reminded himself to breathe.
The gown was a deep buttercup yellow, richly made from silk, but it was nothing to the woman that it encircled.
Her eyes were brighter now that she was out of those wet things, her hair completely undone and flowing over her shoulders.
There was an archness to her eye and a smile that threatened to dance across her face at any moment, as though she knew, as if she could see inside his mind and read the confusion there.
And then Moses saw that her fingers, slender but shaking slightly, were clutched to the capped sleeves of the gown, and they would not let go – and little wonder, for as she walked forward a ribbon danced in the breeze she created, and Moses almost groaned aloud as he realised that the gown was not done up at the back.
“I…I was wondering, Sir Moses,” she said in a faltering voice, and then she stopped, as though his face was murderous and she dare not take a step forward.
Moses swallowed and thanked his stars that he was seated and hence able to hide the very physical reaction that her reappearance had made to his body.
“Yes?” He managed to force his typical gruffness back into his voice, but it was an effort.
The last thing he wanted to do was be gruff to this creature, this nymph of beauty that stood before him, vulnerable, almost certainly naked from the back, and his body responded to the licentious thought that rocked through him.
Miss Vaughn smiled nervously, but the colour in her cheeks spoke more of embarrassment than merriment. “‘Tis most unfortunate, but I must admit that I typically have a girl to help me into gowns this complex, and I find myself unable to … to tie the ribbon. At the back.”
No matter how many times Moses swallowed, it did not seem possible to moisten his mouth. With a croak, he said, “What a conundrum.”
“Is not it?” She was speaking now as though they had just been introduced at Almack’s and she was explaining that she had dropped her fan and could barely deign to pick it up, but Moses was not fooled.
Behind the brevity, there was a deep crimson growing in her cheeks – and why not?
This was a scandalous situation in itself, a young lady and a man alone in a house.
And now gowns, and ribbons, and what he felt surely would soon be a request?
He was not wrong.
“And so I was wondering,” Miss Vaughn was saying cautiously, “if … well, if you would be so kind as to …”
Her voice trailed off, and Moses rose automatically, the shining knight without armour ready to rescue the damsel in distress.
The moment that the thought had crossed his mind, he cringed at it – and at every muscle in his body, which seemed unable to remember how to walk properly.
With Miss Vaughn’s gaze on him, his legs did not move with the typical strength and grace that he had once been noted for. What in God’s name was wrong with him?
The answer came as soon as she turned around to reveal yes, the slender curve of her neck, and the bare skin of her back. There was a sharp intake of breath, and to Moses’ shame he realised it was his own.
He was but a step away from her now – and now he was right behind her, inches away, mere fingertips if he could have but the strength and reach out to her –
“‘Tis a simple pattern,” breathed Miss Vaughn. “I do not think it will give you too much trouble.”
Moses almost laughed at her words, but that would require breath, and he had none. His fingers were shaking now at the mere prospect of grazing that warm soft skin, but he could not stand here all night with a half-dressed lady before him.
This damned dress had to be either off or on, and while he knew the preference that every inch of his body was crying out for, he would not countenance it. He was not a seducer of young ladies.
“I can see the pattern,” he said hoarsely. “I will be but a moment.”
Swallowing hard, Moses reached out his fingers and took the wayward ribbons in each hand.
This was closer than he had ever got to a woman, and it was a challenge to keep his mind on the winding ins and outs of the ribbons as his fingertips danced closer and closer to that skin which he wanted to taste, not just touch.
For one crazy, heady moment, he imagined it: pulling out the ribbon instead of weaving it through, and pulling down the gown in one silky fluid moment, turning her round to face him and seeing the startled look on her face but also the forbidden desire, her breasts heaving with shock and excitement, and his hands moving across her body to bring her closer to him –
And then he was finished. With one shaky knot, the ribbon was secure, and Miss Chloe Vaughn was safe from his wildest fantasies.
“There,” he exhaled.
Unsure exactly what he was expecting, Moses was nevertheless disappointed when Miss Vaughn took an experimental step forward, as though to check that the gown was indeed securely tied, and then picked up her plate of food and returned to her seat.
With a raised eyebrow, she stared unashamedly at it with curiosity that Moses was unaccustomed to. He scowled at her, and threw himself back into his own seat, but before he could reach out and retrieve his book – this time, the correct way up – she spoke.
“You asked me before how I knew about the quail’s name.”
Moses glanced at her. Miss Vaughn’s expression was open, and she was smiling at him gently as she finished her food – clearly famished. He nodded.
“I am a natural philosopher,” she declared with a wry smile. “Or perhaps more accurately, I wish to be one.”
Moses stared at her, and she laughed at his obvious incredulity.