Page 10 of Nice Earls Do

“That was...” His warm breath stirred the hair on the crown of her head and made her scalp tingle.

“Yes,” she said, though whatever word he had intended to choose would surely have been inadequate to the purpose. His kiss had very nearly turned her inside out.

“I should go,” she said, and he let her, as if he, too, recognized that to linger longer in this embrace would be unwise. But before she slipped entirely free from the circle of his arms, he tipped forward and pressed one last kiss to her forehead. Her eyelids fluttered down. Would it be so very wrong to stay?

Of course it would.

As the last half an hour had proven all too well, every private moment between her and Kit had the potential to turn dangerous. She’d been charged with keeping a secret, and she would do it.

But now she also understood she’d been keeping a secret from herself.

Chapter 4

Kit had never before known his valet to hum while he worked. But there they were, the steady but muted notes of a melody, punctuated by the rhythmic stropping of a razor. Curious, Kit stepped to the door of his dressing room during a break in the tune and found the man testing the blade against his thumb, a smile curling his lips.

“Should I be nervous, Winston?” Kit joked, nodding toward the lethal-looking implement.

“Forgive me, sir. I did not hear you come in.” He laid the sharpened razor aside. “Will you dress for dinner now?”

As Kit removed his clothes, Winston shook them out and laid them aside, then poured steaming water from a cannister into the washbasin and began to work the shaving soap into a lather, humming all the while. Perhaps what Kit had thought of as sparing his manservant unnecessary labor had in fact been depriving him of pride and pleasure in a job well done.

Then again, the ordinarily unflappable Mrs. Rushworth had been visibly daunted by the prospect of preparing rooms and meals to impress their famous houseguest.

The Tabetha he’d known wouldn’t have cared one iota for such details. And he was beginning to suspect she still didn’t—if that look of near panic on her face when he’d asked about refurbishing the family parlor had been any indication.

He hadn’t the faintest idea what had inspired her to dub herself “Mrs. Goode” and pretend enough interest in home décor and entertainment to write a book about it. Frankly, he didn’t much care. She might call herself whatever she liked and decorate Ferncliffe’s nursery as she pleased.

His mind was focused on one detail: there had been no pretense in Beth’s kiss.

No young man’s fantasy, nothing to do with friendship, but real and passionate and stronger than the barriers that had kept them apart for so long. After twenty years, she was free, and no one could say he wasn’t worthy of her.

Winston’s tune must have been contagious. Kit left his chambers whistling it under his breath—and why not? He had every reason to hope. In a matter of moments, their gazes would meet across the dining room table, and he might glimpse in her eyes what he had felt in her lips, in her body, and he would know that he had not waited in vain.

But why wait a moment longer to see what was in her eyes—even, perhaps, her heart? He would knock on her chamber door, offer to escort her down. He turned toward the corridor where he’d directed Mrs. Rushworth to place their guests.

As he rounded the corner, the song on his lips died. Mr. Oliver was there before him.

Of course. Mrs. Goode’s secretary was a gentlemanlike sort of fellow. Of course he would be joining them for dinner. Even at this distance, Kit could see the young man was elegantly, impeccably dressed. Kit’s best waistcoat suddenly felt dull and just a bit too snug.

Mr. Oliver held out his elbow. Beth laughed up at him, at something witty he had said. And then her slender hand rose, not to rest on his arm but to brush a stray curl from his brow.

At that lover-like gesture, Kit retreated silently into the shadows.

Perhaps the intimacy of which he had caught glimpses was not merely a result of her close working relationship with Mr. Oliver. Kit would not be so petty as to begrudge Beth’s need for, er, companionship of the sort a handsome young man might provide. Above all things, he wanted her to be happy, and he doubted she had known much happiness in her marriage.

But earlier, in the parlor, he’d begun to hope that he might be the one to make her happy.

What a fool he’d been, to read so much into a single kiss.

For once, he could not make himself do the expected, responsible thing and join the pair for dinner, pretending all was well. Instead of torturing himself further, he disappeared to his study.

Tucked away in a corner of the ground floor, the small, plainly furnished room had probably once been the steward’s office; perhaps that was why he found it comfortable. Ferncliffe had rooms aplenty for gentlemanly occupation: a library, a billiard room, a gun room. But his study was the only place he never felt himself in the shadow of the late earl, a man with whom he had nothing in common—except the title.

For the second time that day, he unstoppered the decanter of brandy on his desk and poured himself a drink. With a groan, he threw himself into a chair before the cold hearth and lifted the glass to his lips, then set it aside untasted. Good God. Was he truly no wiser than he’d been at twenty?

When he’d returned from university, he’d found Beth grown from a girl into a woman, and his own feelings not one whit changed by the time apart. Inevitably, they’d argued over...something. Probably Edmund. He no longer remembered what they’d said, only the flash in her eyes and the color on her cheeks. He’d very nearly persuaded himself then that she at last thought of him as something more than a friend.

But at least on that occasion, he’d only almost overstepped.