Page 13 of Miss Ellis Unleashed

He snatched up a plate to fill and studied an array of dishes that made his mouth water.

Abelton found him a few minutes later, when his plate was piled high, and his first words were to complain. “How can you eat at such a time? Look at the lovelies you’re ignoring.”

“You promised me food,” Max complained back, as he finished filling his plate and headed for an out-of-the-way table to sit down. “I prefer a full stomach before debauchery.” He took a bite of beef stew and savored the taste. “Almost as good as home,” he noted in pleased surprise.

Abelton looked at him oddly. “Did you finally hire a decent cook and not tell me about it? Because I know for a fact your servants burn water and claim it is soup.”

Max’s face heated as he realized he’d misspoken. “Her home, I should have said.”

Abelton laughed merrily at his mention of Miss Ellis, something Max kept doing despite giving himself a stern talking to several times a day. She was not his, and that had not been his home. Daisy wanted nothing to do with him. But knowing he would never eat such wonderful fare again was almost an equal loss. Her cook’s braised beef had melted in his mouth and must now be relegated to a mere memory. Something to dream about…as he often did Daisy, since kissing her.

On the nights he was cold sober, he cursed himself roundly for doing so.

“Ignore my nostalgia. I haven’t eaten so well since then.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it, since I wasn’t deemed refined enough to dine with you and your girl. Always afraid I’d sweep her off her feet, eh?”

Max sighed. “You had more than enough chances to impress her and never tried.”

“I could never live with myself if I came between you pair,” Abelton promised, hand on his heart.

Max rolled his eyes and refrained from comment. For a rake, Abelton was ridiculously romantic. But he’d not been invited to dinner simply because Max did not want the stories of his previous misdeeds filling Daisy’s ears. Abelton was sure to have told her everything. “I told you. It was not my home to invite you to.”

“Well, you took charge, moved in as if it was. If you miss the cooking so much, you should have taken her kitchen staff with you when she kicked you out,” Abelton suggested. “You did hire them and gave up your own servant, Gibbs, to serve as her butler, too, didn’t you?”

“Gibbs would never have left her by the end, so I did not bother to ask,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, she treats them far too well for them to be dissatisfied with their employment and consider leaving.”

“You mean you paid them too well when you first employed them for her,” Abelton noted.

“She considers them family now. One does not break up a family,” he advised. “They are all she has.”

“That tender heart of yours is showing again,” he murmured, looking highly amused. “It’s how I knew you liked her so much.”

Max put down his knife and fork. “Abelton, I had a job to do, and I do all things well. I could not leave her unprotected and alone.”

Abelton raised a brow. “The way you were left alone after your father died?”

“Father never chose a guardian for me because I could take care of myself, and I did it well,” Max insisted. “It is different for young women.”

“Yes, it is. She is old enough to look after herself now, I suppose. She made her desire to do so very clear, but I’m not sure she doesn’t regret it now,” Abelton murmured. “She glances over her shoulder to where you always used to stand at balls.”

Max shoveled food into his mouth, ignoring the ridiculous observation. Daisy would never miss him.

Abelton eyed the ladies watching them from the doorway, and then grinned. “Which one of them do you want?”

“None,” Max said immediately, pointing to his plate. “I’m eating.”

“But after. Blonde, or does the brunette take your fancy?”

A vision of Daisy as he’d last seen her flashed before his eyes. Defiant, impassioned first, and then after the kiss, flushed and lovely, brunette locks falling across her soft left shoulder, flowers from her hair scattered about her feet, and lips well kissed.

By him.

He shouldn’t have done it. That kiss had revealed what he’d never suspected before. But it also explained why he’d behaved the way he had around her all season. Strict, unhappy, and downright possessive.

He knew who he’d prefer to be with tonight but did not dare say so out loud to anyone. Abelton would only encourage him to visit Daisy before dawn.

“I don’t know. It will be a surprise to both of us.”