Chapter 3 #3
“Because this is my home, and I can do whatever I wish in it, whenever I choose to do so,” he snapped, annoyed with the fire in his blood, all caused by her.
She was unsuitable. Far from a lady. Appallingly mannerless. He disliked her. Quite strongly. This mad awareness of her was base lust, and he could control himself. He was a gentleman above all else.
But then she smiled serenely, and when Miss Adelia Fox smiled, she was nothing short of gorgeous.
“Of course this is your home,” she said agreeably. “You may sleep wherever you like. Perhaps in the stables, even.”
She was mocking him, the daring minx.
He clenched his jaw. “You are astonishingly brazen, madam.”
“I’ve been told so on more than one occasion.”
He didn’t doubt that.
“The lack of contrition in your voice suggests you don’t care.”
She winked and leaned toward him as if she were imparting a delicate secret. “You are correct, Your Graceship.”
She smelled so alluring. And her green eyes were dancing with amusement. He didn’t know which he wanted to do more—argue with Miss Fox, or kiss her.
Neither was the best course of action, naturally.
“Your Grace,” he corrected coolly instead, though he was fairly certain that Miss Fox was more than aware that her form of address was wrong.
She bent and scooped the seated dog into her arms while Lion made every effort to avoid looking at her luscious breasts swaying beneath her nightgown. Dandy licked her cheek adoringly.
“That is what I said,” she informed him without a hint of humility. “Now, if you will excuse us, I fear all this travel has made me quite exhausted. Dandy and I must return to our room.”
She was dismissing him? And carrying away that blasted dog to once more roost in one of his beds?
“Dogs don’t roost, Your Graceship,” the hoyden called over her shoulder. “They aren’t chickens, you know.”
Christ, had he spoken aloud? Lion watched her leave the library, the subtle movement of her hips mesmerizing him as he rubbed his jaw.
“Your Graceship,” he muttered to himself.
It damned well better stop snowing by the morning.
The next morning, Addy was sneaking from the breakfast room bearing a napkin laden with bacon, kippers, and a poached egg for Dandy when a frigid voice stayed her.
“Is there a reason you are carrying a sack of food away from the breakfast room, Miss Fox?”
With a sigh, she stopped and spun about to find the Duke of Marchingham looming, dressed this morning in tweed and looking like the epitome of a handsome English country gentleman, quite as if he had stepped out of the pages of a monthly fashion publication.
Pity his exceptional looks and form were wasted upon such a wretched man.
She held the napkin behind her back and forced her brightest smile. “Good morning to you as well, Your Grace. I’m afraid you must be mistaken. I haven’t a sack of food at all.”
“A makeshift sack, then,” he corrected, enunciating his words in a way that made them sound like a caress, “composed of a napkin stuffed with kippers and a poached egg.”
Well, drat. Apparently, the duke had been somehow watching her without her notice. She had taken great care. The dining room had been empty, save herself and Aunt Pearl, whom she had left behind to finish her own breakfast.
Her chin went up, and she held his stare with a challenge of her own. “You forgot the bacon.”
“You might have better enjoyed your spoils at the table. I didn’t realize it was an American custom to drag table scraps away like a wild dog.”
Had she thought him wretched? The word seemed far too tame. The Duke of Marchingham was positively vile. But she was determined to meet his forbidding ice with the sunniest of dispositions.
Addy forced a smile. “Yes, it is indeed an American custom. We also enjoy taking leisurely strolls in thunderstorms and wearing our drawers on our heads instead of hats.”
Ruddy color flared on his high cheekbones. “Charming little eccentricities, to be sure. Tell me, do you ordinarily feed your hound from the breakfast table?”
“No, of course not. I have a special meal prepared for her.” The napkin was yet held like a guilty secret behind her back, even though Marchingham was more than aware of its presence and what she intended to do with it.
“What manner of special meal?”
Was it her imagination, or had his wintry gaze dipped for a moment to her bodice?
No, she didn’t think it was. Addy thought of how his eyes had traveled over her last evening in the library. She’d been all too aware of the thin layer of silk covering her. But surely the Duke of Marchingham wasn’t attracted to her. He had made his disdain for her abundantly clear.
She eyed him curiously, wondering if the color had deepened. “Forgive me if I find your concern for the dishes I serve Dandy somewhat odd, given your determination to see her banished to your stables.”
“If it means keeping you from thieving the napkins from the dining room, then perhaps I ought to accommodate you.”
“I’m not thieving it,” she denied, insulted. “I would have returned it when Dandy was finished.”
“I’m half persuaded the little beggar would have eaten the napkin as well,” he drawled. “You have leave to request whatever you require for the hound during your brief stay here.”
She noted his emphasis on the word brief in regard to her visit to Marchingham Hall and couldn’t quite tamp down the surge of irritation.
The snow was falling with considerably less vigor this morning, a sure indication the massive storm was at last moving on.
But that didn’t change the fact that she was likely going to be stranded here as an unwanted guest for the next few days at least, if not longer.
Which also meant she would be perilously close to enduring Christmas with Letty and Lila’s terrible brother. Surely the snow would melt sufficiently in less than two weeks, however. At least, she hoped it would.
“Do you have any notion of when the roads will be passable again?” she asked him, hoping he might have an answer.
But the duke shook his head and clasped his hands behind his back.
“Sadly, no. After the snow finally ceases falling, I may have a better idea. However, much depends upon the temperatures. If this cold persists, it’s doubtful that the snow will begin to melt in the next few days. It could take a week or longer.”
“Oh.” Despite her determination to maintain an unaffected mien of bright, ceaseless cheer, Addy couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice.
This would be her first Christmas without Mama and Papa, and she wouldn’t even have the company of her dear friends to help distract her from missing them.
Because although Letty and Lila were a day’s train ride away, if the snow on the roads didn’t sufficiently melt, there was no way she would be able to reach them in time for Christmas.
“I will be every bit as relieved when the snow begins melting as you, Miss Fox,” he said coldly. “Now, please do arrange for your mongrel to receive a proper meal and do whatever you must with the bundle you’re holding behind your back.”
Addy struggled to maintain her smile as she brought the napkin to the front of her body, dangling it in the air at her waist. The cloth was already beginning to darken from bacon grease.
And whilst Dandy adored bacon, sometimes the richness of the treat didn’t agree with her delicate constitution.
Addy had been hesitant to settle upon the bacon, but she’d been faced with few possibilities.
Now, the duke had grudgingly offered to allow her to request a proper meal for her dog.
“Is there any chance you’ve yet to break your fast?” she asked wryly, extending the napkin bundle in the duke’s direction.
He eyed it dubiously. “I have. I wake at dawn.”
Silence stretched between them for a few moments, and Addy found herself strangely at a loss for words. His icy gaze held her in its relentless thrall, captivating her. She lowered the napkin awkwardly, still uncertain of what she ought to do with it.
“Dawn,” she repeated at last. “It’s half past ten now.”
He raised a brow. “Indeed.”
“Did you sleep in your library all night?” she asked then, curious.
“Where I slept is none of your concern, madam.”
Of course it wasn’t. And when he phrased it thus, his words held an inherent intimacy.
“I’m sorry that Dandy woke you,” she said, feeling heat creep up her own throat.
“See that you maintain control of her when she has her happy bouts, won’t you? If she is set upon running about my home, causing a disturbance, it will be out to the stables with her after all.”
“Do you harbor a strident dislike for dogs, or are you always this autocratic?” she asked before she could think better of her words. “Letty and Lila warned me, but it seems I didn’t take sufficient heed.”
His shoulders stiffened. “What did they say about me?”
It occurred to her that she could be miring her friends in trouble with their disapproving brother. And as far as the Duke of Marchingham was concerned, Addy had already done that once in the past, to disastrous consequences.
“Only that you are very firm in your edicts,” she hastened to say. “And proper.”
A muscle in his jaw clenched. “One must be firm, particularly when it concerns wayward young ladies who are easily led astray.”
It was a veiled reference to their days at the Académie Clairemont.
“Letty and Lila are not easily led astray,” she defended her friends. “It was hardly our fault that finishing school was so deadly dull.”
“And you had nothing better to do than lead my innocent sisters on an expedition to ruination?” he asked sharply.
So sharply that Addy cast a glance in the direction of the dining room door, wondering if Aunt Pearl could hear their squabbles.
“It was hardly an expedition to ruination,” she countered, her smile at last faltering.
One would have to possess the patience of a saint to contend with the Duke of Marchingham and maintain good cheer. The man was an ominous thundercloud on an otherwise faultless summer day.
He closed the polite distance that had existed between them, towering over her.
His shoulders were even broader than she had recalled from last night in the shadows when he had been in nothing more than his shirt sleeves.
How annoyingly handsome he had looked then, his hair ruffled and his customary icy mask less severe from slumber.
“Tell me, Miss Fox,” he said, his voice low and deceptively pleasant, floating over her like steam from a hot bath. “How many village lads did you kiss that day before Madame Mallette found you?”
None, but she wasn’t about to admit that to him. The three of them hadn’t even found any obliging lads. They had managed to obtain some wine at a tavern before Madame had stormed in, furious to find the three of them giggling at a scarred old table.
Their adventures had been promptly at an end.
“Half a dozen or so,” she lied. “Some of them were more proficient than others. If only Madame hadn’t found us so soon. Perhaps I could have kissed even more.”
The red returned to the duke’s cheekbones, and his nostrils flared.
“Your father ought to have taken a reed to your backside when you returned to America,” he said.
“Your Graceship,” she mocked lightly. “I am astonished that you are thinking about my backside.”
The color deepened.
His gaze dipped to her mouth, just for a fleeting moment, and she wondered what he was thinking. Was he imagining her kissing those nonexistent Swiss men? Was he repulsed by her, or was he thinking about what it would be like to kiss her himself?
His head bent toward hers. Her heart beat faster, warmth pooling deep within her. She swayed toward him ever so slightly, tempted to feel those forbidding lips on hers.
“Do take the napkin of scraps to the kitchens, Miss Fox,” he snapped, straightening to his full, impressive height again. “Cook will attend to it, and I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to provide you with whatever you require for the hound.”
With a formal bow, he stalked past her, leaving Addy to watch his purposeful strides take him down the hall, where he disappeared into a room and closed the door with more purpose than required. He slammed it, in fact.
Well.
Perhaps Addy had managed to get beneath the Duke of Arse-ingham’s impeccable skin.
It was only then that she realized she hadn’t an inkling of where the kitchens to the sprawling manor house were. She sighed. Time to find Mrs. Burton or one of the chambermaids and inquire after its placement.
Aunt Pearl ventured from the dining room in a swish of skirts, looking far more regal in her navy day gown now that their trunks had been restored to them and they had each been granted the aid of a maid for dressing. She cast a meaningful look in Addy’s direction.
“Do you think it wise to continue to prod the duke, my dear girl?” she asked shrewdly.
Addy wondered just how much her aunt had overheard. Renewed warmth stung her cheeks, but she refused to acknowledge it.
She wasn’t ashamed of her boldness.
“Wise? Of course not.” She paused and sent her aunt a cheeky wink. “But it certainly is amusing.”
Aunt Pearl sighed, shaking her head. “Adelia Louise, I have no notion of what goes through that wild mind of yours.”
“Neither do I sometimes,” Addy admitted quietly, casting another look in the direction of Marchingham’s closed door.
She had never met a gentleman she wanted to simultaneously punch and kiss before. It was certainly a novel discovery. Pity she could do neither in this instance. He was their host and Letty and Lila’s elder brother. Neither kissing him nor blackening his eye would be wise.
“Let’s find someone to help steer us to the kitchens, then,” Aunt Pearl said with a resigned tone, patting her arm. “You’ll be wanting to rid yourself of that napkin of food before it begins to drip all over the carpets or—worse—your lovely gown.”
The carpets at Marchingham Hall were in need of replacement. Addy’s gown, however, was in the finest fashion, a Worth creation fresh from Paris. The snow had somehow failed to damage the silk, thanks to the tight fit of Addy’s trunks.
“Excellent plan,” she agreed, starting off with her aunt in the opposite direction of the duke. “I’m so glad you agreed to accompany me here instead of Mama. She wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun.”
Aunt Pearl grinned. “I know, my dear girl. I know.”