For better. For worse.Until death.
She stared at him for a moment before sitting on the settee. As she moved to spread out her skirts, he took a place by her side, a place close enough to feel the subtle jerk of her body as she tensed.
“Isn’t”—her voice cracked—“sitting across from one another customary?”
“We have yet to establish what’s customary for us.”
Her lip-biting gesture both revealed her fluster, and, inadvertently, increased his carnal frustration. Pretending he had not noticed, he set out preparing the tea.
He didn’t have to ask how she took hers. He remembered. Rich and dark with only a dollop of cream, just enough to increase the pleasure without spoiling the full-bodied taste.
She lifted the cup, her long, slender fingers wrapped around the delicate handle. When she sipped, her brief expression of closed-eyes bliss told him he’d done well.
If he weren’t careful, he could lose himself in the search for other ways to inspire such a satisfied expression.
She opened her eyes only to narrow them suspiciously. “You remembered how I take my tea.”
“My duty is to see to your comfort.” He took a sip from his own cup before returning both cup and saucer to the tray. “My duty and my delight.”
Her brows disappeared beneath the edging of her cap.
Perhapsdelighthad been layering on too strong.
Wishing he had a greater talent for conversation, he busied himself with rearranging the pot. Then, he sent her a sidelong glance before adding just a touch of cream to his own brew.
“Lessens the tartness, no?” he asked.
“To my taste, yes,” she replied still staring at him as if he were an indecipherable riddle.
“Please don’t take what I am about to say as criticism of your efforts,” he changed the subject, “but did you consider consulting with our librarian before you took on the library reorganization?”
“I understand you—or rather,we—no longer have a librarian.”
“We don’t?” News to him.
“He left four months ago and has yet to be replaced.”
“Left?” Harbury may have been in London for much of the year, but he was certain he’d seen the man’s salary on Anderson’s last quarterly statement.
“Yes.” She hesitated. “Not to unduly criticize your staff, but—”
“Our,” he interrupted.
“In this case, not ‘our.’ Because your librarian decamped before we married, leaving the books in no order I could discern.”
“No order?”
“Mrs. Pratt suggested they might have been accidentally rearranged when the library was thoroughly dusted during the wedding preparations.” She lifted one shoulder in a partial shrug. “My intention is to shelve them first by subject and then by author.”
His eyes met hers over the rim of his cup. Again, the martial look.
“Are you angry?” she asked.
Were you trying to make me angry? “Whyever for? If you wish tocatalog the books, by all means, catalog the books.”
She exhaled, he thought, just a little deeper. One point to him.
Finally.
