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Kathryn's shoulders stiffened. "It's old, but—"
"Have you called in an exterminator?"
"An exterminator?"
"To kill the rats." He put his arm around her shoulders. "The last thing you want to do is share a house with vermin."
"I couldn't have put it better myself," Kathryn said, giving Matthew a cool look. "Come on, let me show you to your room."
Jason kissed her forehead. "Our room, you mean."
That wasn't what she'd meant at all, but she changed her mind when she caught the look of thunderous disapproval that had replaced Matthew's smirking grin.
"Of course, darling," she purred. "Where else would you sleep but in our room?"
Smiling sweetly, she led Jason up the stairs.
* * *
Darling?
Had Kathryn really called that man with the professional smile and the effeminate shudder, darling?
Was she really going to take him to her bedroom?
And was she going to walk straight through him to do it?
"Hey," Matthew said, jumping back just in time to keep the pallid popinjay from marching over his feet. "Dammit, Kathryn, what do you think you're doing?"
She looked back over her shoulder and gave him a smile that dripped acid. Then she looked up at the man beside her, her eyes as filled with adoration as a spaniel's as they climbed the rest of the steps and turned down the hall.
Matthew sat down on the bottom step, his expression grim.
Would she really let that man make love to her? It was clear that she'd felt nothing in his embrace. Any fool would know that. Any fool but the estimable Jason, apparently. Either he hadn't noticed that the woman in his arms had responded with all the ardor of a statue or he just hadn't cared.
Not that Matthew cared, either. Why should he? Kathryn could take whom she wished to her bed, she could make love to a hundred men if that was her desire...
Matthew shot to his feet.
"Bloody hell," he muttered, and strode up the stairs and into Kathryn's bedroom.
She must have expected him, for she didn't even blink when he came through the wall and straddled a chair with an air of nonchalance he only wished he felt.
"You can have the bottom drawer of the armoire," she said to Jason. "If you need to hang things up, just shove my—"
"I can't believe it!"
Jason was still standing in the doorway, staring around the room.
Kathryn smiled. She'd put in some time here in the last few days. The windows, most of them still the originals, sparkled. The drapes had been taken down, brushed and re-hung. The armoire, polished to within an inch of its life, shone, and she'd hung some small paintings on the walls.
"I know," she said proudly. "Incredible, isn't it?"
"Is this really where you've been sleeping?"
"Well, except for a couple of nights at the begin—"
"This room is dilapidated!"
