Chapter 3
Her fingers clenched at her sides. “Get. Out.”
Amusement slid through Blaise, but he was not in the habit of being ordered from his own property, least of all by a woman who plagued his dreams the night before.
“Alas, no.” He turned away from her and instantly wanted to go back.
Blaise surveyed the drawing room and settled onto the chaise. Taking his time as he looked around.
“I find I rather like this place. So, I think I shall stay.”
She stared at him, speechless.
“You are beautiful when you do not backbite.” He knew his words would press her.
“If you stay, I will call the constables!” she spoke authoritatively.
“Do as you like. But I do not believe that the late viscount would be very happy about that decision.”
The corners of her mouth tightened when he mentioned the viscount.
So, this is cousin Hentley’s mysterious widow.
He had imagined her thin and peevish, with pinched lips and a mind full of accounts. Certainly not the attractive woman who crept into pleasure rooms and turned the pages of indecent sketchbooks with shaking fingers.
“How did you know the viscount?” she asked him with a lifted chin.
Blaise realized that she truly did not know who he was to her husband.
Although he paid no mind to Hentley and laughed when he heard that his cousin had died in the most inconvenient fashion imaginable, he would, at the very least, expect the man to tell his wife about his estranged family, who was also the heir to his property.
“That does not matter,” he said plainly.
It was true. Hentley had owed half of London, and his death had been his only efficient act. This house could have landed in the wrong hands if Blaise had not stepped up.
The viscountess opened her mouth, no doubt to unleash another righteous tirade, when Mrs. Henkings appeared at the door with an expression like a rabbit that had stumbled into a dogfight.
“Leave us,” the viscountess said sharply.
“Mrs. Henkings,” Blaise said at the same moment.
A heavy silence fell between them, and he thought about how fun it would be to mess around with the stubborn, yet infuriatingly stunning, viscountess.
Blaise smiled at the housekeeper. “Thank you for the tea. I will have whatever else your kitchen can produce in haste. I am not particular.”
Mrs. Henkings looked at the viscountess, who shook her head, lips pressed thinly together.
“You will do no such thing,” she said. “You will not encourage this man.”
“Encourage me?” Blaise repeated. “You wound me, Little Blossom. You make it sound as though I am here to be trained to fetch.”
“I will not have you eating at my table,” she shot back.
“That would be my table,” he corrected softly.
Her nostrils flared.
Mrs. Henking’s eyes were moving helplessly between them.
“Mrs. Henkings,” the viscountess said, gentler now but with an edge of command, “this gentleman has broken into my house and is attempting to dislodge me. You will not obey him.”
Blaise laughed brazenly and held up a key. “I cannot break into my own house, Mrs. Henkings.”
“That is not possible!” the viscountess gasped, and he locked the sound of her breathlessness away in the back of his mind. “A bachelor duke looking for a duchess could not possibly have any connection to the title.”
“Mrs. Henkings,” Blaise said over the woman’s faint protest. “Take me to my chambers.”
Disbelief, then a flash of panic, moved across Viscountess Hentley’s face, and Mrs. Henkings flushed.
“I... I do not know where that would be, Your Grace,” the housekeeper stammered.
“Of course, you do not, because he has no chamber here!” the viscountess said with a rage that pleased Blaise. “This is a misunderstanding; I am sure of it. I will speak to Mr. Earnest. Until then, Mrs. Henkings, you will continue to attend me.”
Blaise pushed off the chaise and walked toward the corridor as if the discussion were concluded.
“Where do you think you are going?” She darted after him.
“To find my chambers,” he said, without slowing. “I shall require a place to sleep. Presumably, Hentley did not bed down in the scullery.”
“I forbid you—”
“You may forbid until you are hoarse.” He turned just enough to let his gaze drift over her flushed face. “I know that until some acrid little clerk places the truth before you, you will not believe me. That is all very well. But I am a man, and a man’s rest will not wait on your enlightenment.”
Her jaw clenched. He took a slow breath, almost tasting her fury. How long had it been since a woman had challenged him?
“Mrs. Henkings,” he called over the viscountess’s shoulder, “kindly show me to a chamber.” When the housekeeper hesitated, he arched a brow.
“Or I shall find it myself, and I warn you, if I feel like the parlor should be my chamber, then I shall change that room myself. Your viscountess knows all about my taste in décor.”
He winked at Viscountess Hentley, who blushed either from anger or memory.
The forbidden library flickered through his mind, and Blaise felt his manhood stir traitorously as he pictured the scowling viscountess naked and tied up in it.
Perhaps I will build a similar room at Hentley’s.
Mrs. Henkings broke his train of thought. “I apologize, Your Grace, but I do not know what to do.”
The woman looked helplessly at her mistress, who smiled smugly at Blaise.
“That is quite all right.” Blaise feigned resignation, then turned on his heels and walked through the corridor.
“I said no!” the viscountess called after him.
He could hear her hurried footsteps.
“And I said yes,” Blaise said over his shoulder. “We cannot have both a master and a mistress, can we?”
“Then perhaps you might consider leaving it to me,” Viscountess Hentley suggested sweetly.
Blaise turned and caught her toppling body just in time. Her breath hitched as his hands lingered before she shook them off.
“You have been here… what, seven years?”
Her gaze flicked away. “Six and a half.”
“As a wife—”
“As a widow,” she corrected him.
Widow.
He still could not believe that she carried such a title.
“No widow I have ever met would have stepped into my red room,” he said darkly.
“How many times must I confess that I was lost?” she insisted.
“I believe you.” He winked and continued walking.
“You cannot stay,” she said, trying to keep pace with him.
He swallowed before replying. “I can. The law allows it. I am merely undecided whether I will.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, Little Blossom, that I am not in the habit of turning women into the street without cause. If you are what you appear, which is a penniless widow who has kept the floorboards from rotting through, then I may yet decide to leave you a corner of it. On condition.”
Suspicion sharpened her features. “What condition?”
He smiled slowly. “That remains to be seen.”
In truth, he did not yet know. He only knew that the idea of expelling her sat uneasily in his gut, while the idea of keeping her under his roof sent a decidedly different tightness through his body.
“This is madness! There is nothing here for you.” The viscountess let out a humorless laugh.
“Oh, I have already brought my own belongings,” Blaise said idly. “Henley House is just… an annex to my discomfort.” He stopped in front of two carved doors. “Now, let us see where Hentley slept. I hope it proves more comfortable than his company.”
The viscountess made a frustrated sound. “You are impossible.”
“So I have been told.”
He opened the door, and her breath hitched. Blaise stopped with his hand on the handle and glanced over his shoulder. Her cheeks were flushed, eyes wide and glossy as they had been in his red room, and her hands fisted in her skirts.
“This is my room,” she said tightly. “You have no right—”
“On the contrary.” He walked in. “If this were Hentley’s room, it should be mine.”
The room smelled like her. Lavender and starch. The bed was neatly made, the dressing table lined with brushes, combs, and little bottles. A shawl lay abandoned over the back of a chair, as if she had risen in haste that morning.
His cock reacted again with irritating enthusiasm to the thought of her sleeping in that bed. Sprawled across the linen. Perhaps wearing nothing. The memory of her in that blue gown, the way it had clung to her waist, slid over his mind.
Blaise stepped over the threshold.
“Do not dare,” she hissed, darting in front of him.
For a moment, they were so close he could taste her.
She had placed her body between him and the room, one hand planted on the doorframe as though she might bar him by will alone.
Her breath feathered against his chest. He could see the faint, darker line of her lashes and the tiny pulse at the base of her throat.
“Move,” he commanded softly.
“No.”
“You are pushing your luck, Viscountess Hentley.”
“I have no luck,” she snapped.
He leaned closer, inhaling her scent. “If you do not move another inch, you will find yourself lifted and placed out of my way.”
Her amber eyes flared as blush surged over her cheekbones, down her neck, and disappeared into the modest line of her bodice, where her plump breasts heaved before him.
“You will not touch me,” she said, though the words were faint.
“Do not be so certain.”
For a second, silence hung between them. He could tilt his head, and his mouth would touch her temple. Or slide his hands down and feel the curve of the hip that the dress so poorly concealed. Desire pressed against his restraint with a slow force.
Instead, he stepped back an inch. Enough to show he would give her that, at least.
For now.
“You really have no notion of who I am,” he said quietly, studying her. “Or why I am here.”
Her chin lifted. “I know precisely who you are.”
“Do you?” He let a sliver of irritation thread his curiosity. “Enlighten me.”
“You are a murderer.”
The word landed between them with the weight of a stone.
Slowly, he said, “What did you say?”
Regret flickered over her face, and she bit her lower lip hard, as if she might catch the words and pull them back by force. His gaze followed the movement, utterly against his will. He was mesmerized by the soft give of flesh under teeth, and the way the color deepened as she released it.
That innocent, infuriating mouth.
“You cannot throw accusations like that at a man, Little Blossom…” He let his eyes drop deliberately to her mouth and watched her breath stop. “…and then bite your lip like that.”