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Warm breath feathering her lips. The scent of him, remembered from that cold ride: citrus, leather and now rather more of the exciting, disturbing muskiness of warm man. ‘Decima.’ The word was spoken so close to her lips that she felt, rather than heard, it.
‘Mmm?’
The sound of a door banging upstairs. A faint voice. ‘Miss Dessy?’ Decima blinked, staggered backwards and caught a chair back in both groping hands.
‘Pru. She must have woken up. I will just—I’ll just go and see…’ She fled.
Pru was standing unsteadily in the open doorway, blinking in the candlelight of the torchère that Adam had left on a table at the head of the stairs. Decima snatched it up and urged the maid back into the bedchamber. ‘Get back into bed, Pru, you’ll get chilled out here.’
‘I need the privy, Miss Decima, and I can’t find a chamberpot.’
That at least was one eminently practical problem to which she had an answer. ‘There is a real indoor water closet, just along here at the end of this side corridor.’
The pair of them, both unsteady on their feet for very different reasons, gazed at this modern luxury, then Pru tottered inside and closed the door, leaving Decima with no excuse to think of anything but her behaviour in the kitchen. The exhilaration of the dance still fizzed in her veins but under it was a deep ache of unsatisfied longing. Adam had almost kissed her. She had wanted him to kiss her and her body was punishing her now for being left unsatisfied.
No one had ever kissed Decima other than family members. How does my body know what it is missing? she thought distractedly, passing her hands up and down her arms to try and rub away that strange shivery feeling. Her breasts felt heavier, too, her stays tighter, and lower down there was a hot, molten sensation that was very disturbing indeed.
How on earth am I going to face him again? He must think me some love-starved old maid desperate for caresses. A nagging little voice, the voice that she had thought she had left behind with Charlton and would form no part of her new, resolute self, hissed, And so you are. A desperate virgin, throwing yourself at a handsome man.
The rattle of the metal mechanism and the gush of water provided a fitting counterpoint to this unpleasant truth. Decima forced herself to concentrate on the matter at hand; at least Pru could not be feeling too poorly if she could work out how to flush the unfamiliar closet.
The maid emerged and blinked confusedly up at Decima. ‘Where are we, Miss Dessy? This isn’t the Sun, is it?’
Oh, Lord! Decima made her voice as matter of fact as possible. ‘No, Pru. This is Lord Weston’s house. Don’t you recall he rescued us from the snow?’ She urged the unsteady figure back to her room.
‘Snow? I don’t remember any snow, Miss Dessy. Or any lord. Oh, my head…’
Decima smoothed the rumpled sheets, plumped up the pillows and tucked the maid back into bed. ‘We are snowbound, Pru, and you are not at all well, but we’re quite safe here.’ She flinched inwardly at the lie. Pru might be safe, but her mistress was within an ame’s ace of serious danger, mostly from herself. ‘Now try and drink some water.’ She really needed one of the drinks Decima could remember Cook producing during childhood illnesses. Barley water? Could that be one? ‘Are you hungry?’ That produced a grimace of rejection. ‘How about a hot drink?’
‘No, Miss Decima, I just want to sleep.’
The bed seemed warm enough now and the room was snug with the fire flickering behind its screen. There was probably something she should be doing, but goodness knew what. Biting her lip, Decima left the door ajar and went to look at Bates. He was sleeping soundly, snoring his head off, no doubt happily unconscious on laudanum and brandy. She made up his fire, then checked the fires in her room and Adam’s before accepting that she was putting off the evil moment when she must go back downstairs.
Outside the kitchen door Decima stood breathing deeply, fighting to compose her face. She realised that her shoulders were hunching into the all-too-familiar defensive slouch that she used to use in a vain attempt to hide her height. It seemed that living life to the full meant taking responsibility for your own mistakes as well. Come on, Decima. She pulled back her shoulders and swept into the kitchen.
There was no sign of Adam but then she heard sounds from the scullery and peeped round the door, her embarrassment disappearing in a gurgle of laughter. His lordship was swathed in a vast white apron and had his hands in a bowl of hot water in which he was vigorously scrubbing a plate. ‘What are you doing?’
‘The washing up. The range had heated the water up very efficiently so I thought I would get it out of the way.’
‘I am most impressed,’ Decima admitted.
Adam regarded her seriously. ‘This soda is vicious stuff. The maids’ hands must get raw.’
‘There should be some lanolin somewhere. That’s what our cook uses.’ Decima began to hunt. ‘Look, here by the jar of soda crystals. Rinse your hands in clean water, dry them and rub some in.’
Adam fished out the last plate and did as she suggested, wrinkling his nose at the lanolin. ‘It smells of sheep.’
‘Now why haven’t the apothecaries thought of that?’ Decima mused, finding a cloth and beginning to dry the plates. ‘Scented hand cream for the gentleman who does his own dishes. They could sell it with your crest on the jars—“Lord Weston’s Special Washing-Up Hand Balm: By appointme
nt. Every kitchen maid can have hands as soft as a viscount’s.”’
‘Minx,’ he observed appreciatively. She could feel his gaze on her as she stacked away the plates, then began to hunt along the shelves, but there was nothing of that sensual heat in his gaze now and she felt quite comfortable. She must have imagined that they had stood so close, imagined that his lips had almost been on hers. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Something to feed Pru when she wakes up again. I must tempt her appetite, she is feeling very poorly. And we’ll need to feed Bates up; I am sure that helps knit bones. And then we will need breakfast, and meals tomorrow. Oh, yes, and I need barley water for Pru as well.’
‘Try the stillroom,’ he suggested. ‘That’s where I found the laudanum.’
Half an hour later there was a pile of notebooks at one end of the kitchen table and a row of small bottles at the other. Decima regarded them gratefully. ‘Thank goodness for Mrs Chitty. There is cough syrup there, and a headache powder and lavender water and that red notebook is full of cures and recipes for medicines.’
