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At one point he cut a wedge of cheese from a wheel of Stilton in the larder and fished some of Mrs Chitty’s pickles out of the jar to go with it, but by seven o’clock Adam was thinking that he was going to have to forage for food or starve.
Then the kitchen door creaked and Decima was standing on the threshold, her face flushed with sleep, a shawl round her shoulders and her hair in tousled disarray. It just made him want to tousle it some more. Adam got hastily to his feet, then came to the conclusion that staying sitting with his legs carefully crossed would have been a better decision.
‘I’ve been asleep,’ she said accusingly. ‘In your bed. Charlton would be outraged.’
‘I imagine Charlton would be even more outraged if I had carried you off and put you in your bed. Do you think he will call me out?’
That provoked a deep chuckle as she came in, pulling her shawl snugly around her shoulders. ‘What a wonderful image that conjures up. Charlton does not have the figure for duelling, let alone the temperament. Bates and Pru are still asleep and I am starving.’
‘So am I. Now, you said you could cook, more or less.’
‘I exaggerated…no, I lied.’ Decima flushed and regarded her toes. ‘I might as well be truthful about it. I haven’t the first clue. Shall we look in the larder and see what there is?’
The meal they spread on the kitchen table—Decima having put her head around the dining-room door and pronounced it fit only to act as an icehouse—owed nothing to any culinary skill whatsoever.
Cold mutton, cheese, the heel of a loaf, butter and plum cake were washed down with ale, or, in Decima’s case, with water. Adam could not recall enjoying a meal more.
For a start it was a pleasure to eat with a woman who showed a hearty appetite and didn’t starve herself and pick at her food in an effort to appear ladylike. Then, Decima did not stand on ceremony either: she forgot to take her elbows off the table when they were in the middle of an argument about the Prince Regent’s taste in architecture, she waved her knife in the air to make her point when she lectured him on horse breeding, and she completely forgot herself and doubled up laughing when he recounted a particularly wicked story about two of the Patronesses of Almack’s and the Duke of Wellington.
‘No! They didn’t? Not both of them,’ she gasped, emerging from her fit of the giggles, pink and glowing.
‘I should not have told you that,’ Adam confessed ruefully. The trouble was, she seemed so at ease with him, and had such an individual character, that it was like talking to one of the dashing young matrons he was used to in London society. Only Decima had a delicious innocence that none of those sophisticated ladies had shown for many a year.
‘No, I don’t expect you should,’ she agreed with a twinkle. ‘But I am glad you did. They were so beastly to me when I came out, it is wonderful to be able to imagine them in such an embarrassing fix.’
‘Why were they beastly?’ It was hard to imagine anyone being unkind to Decima. ‘Did you break one of those tedious rules and waltz before you’d been approved or something equally heinous?’
‘Waltz?’ She stared at him as if he was mad. ‘Who on earth would ask a girl five foot ten inches tall to waltz with them?’
‘I would,’ he replied simply. ‘Do you mean you cannot waltz?’
‘I can, I just never have for real. Charlton insisted I learn. Poor Signor Mazzetti. He did his best, but he came up to…’ she coloured and waved a hand vaguely in the direction of her bosom ‘…up to there and I don’t think he knew quite where to look. And I trod on his feet a lot because I was embarrassed. So it was a good thing I was never asked.’
‘Well, I come to considerably higher up, I know exactly where to look and my feet are large enough for you to tread all over with impunity.’ Adam found himself pushing back his plate and getting to his feet. I must be mad. ‘Shall we?’
‘What? Here?’ She thought he was mad, too. ‘There is no music and, besides, who’s going to do the washing up?’
‘Yes, here. I’ll hum and I expect we will both do the washing up, eventually. Now then, this side of the table, I think, we don’t want your skirts flying into the fire.’
Those wonderful grey eyes were wide and she was staring at him with a mixture of horror and mischief. Adam liked the mischief. ‘Flying?’
‘I am a very vigorous waltzer, Miss Ross. May I have this dance?’
There was that rich chuckle again. Decima got to her feet and made a neat curtsy. ‘Thank you, my lord, although I fear I have not been approved by the Patronesses.’
Adam took her in his arms. Oh, yes. ‘To hell with the Patronesses. Now. One, two, three…’
He was right: it was nothing like dancing with Signor Mazzetti at all And she could waltz, despite her sensible winter shoes and her heavy skirts, whirling between kitchen table and butter churn, dresser and flour bin, laughing, lending her voice to Adam’s tuneful, humming dance rhythm, breathless, exhilarated, round and round in the circle of his arms until she stumbled and found herself caught and held safely, close against his chest.
‘Oh, dear.’ Her breath was coming in pants; part effort, part laughter, part a strange, fizzing excitement. ‘That brandy—I must be tipsy.’
‘You are dizzy. Rest a little.’ Adam’s eyes were on her, their colour that strange, unsettling silver grey that became green as they caught the candle flare. ‘Just stand a moment.’ He did not release her, one hand quite still at her waist, the other one lowering her own hand until it was at waist height.
Adam’s breath was coming short, too—they must have been dancing more vigorously than she had thought. Decima felt herself leaning into him, towards that intent gaze, towards that sensuous mouth that so fascinated her.
Her lips parted instinctively. Why…what was she feeling? So breathless, so hot, so sensitised as though someone was drawing velvet over her bare skin. She should never have drunk that brandy; it was no wonder unmarried girls were forbidden spirits. ‘I think…’
‘Don’t think.’ His mouth was so close now, all she had to do was stand on tiptoe, just a little, lean just a little, raise her face. Her eyes closed. This was going to happen. Decima could not think any further forward than the next ten seconds. There was nothing beyond that. Nothing.
