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She thrust her shoulders back and drew her short stature up as high as it would go, stepping close. “Mr Hawkins, although I may lead a working life now, I still do not consider it proper for a lone woman to oversee a dinner full of solely male…pugilists.” She glared. Honestly. Men. They had no idea! “If it should ever become known that I did so, my reputation as a custodian of innocent girls would be forever ruined, my future career in tatters. Employers would consider me a lightskirt, a blowsabella they could call upon at any time to–”
“Miss Griffin.” Her fluttering fingers were captured within his hands, coarse and strong. Then they tensed and were swiftly drawn away. “Even pugilists manage to marry, you realise. Often quite successfully as well. Most of the fellows will bring their wives, except for a scant few who remain bachelors, or like me are widowers, and Nobbler Nick always brings his sister to these events. We are quite…civilised.”
Matilda bit her lip and closed her eyes.
What a nitterwit.
“I can only apologise for my presumption, Sir.”
“A not unnatural one.” He grinned, displaying those white teeth. “I should have worded my request better, and I am sure this will hold no trepidation for a lady such as you. After all, you must have attended many a society event.”
“Yes, but I… I tended to keep to the edges.”
Seth gaped.“Never say you are a wallflower, Miss Griffin. I shall not believe it.”
“More like a cauliflower, Mr Hawkins. Rather bland – only the head is of interest and liable to stunted growth.” She sighed. “My parents did not attend a plethora of society events and so only when I acquired my guardian was I obliged to. But Astwood’s acquaintances were all whiskerless cubs in silly coats or aged libertines with gout, and my talk…bored them. I apologise for this coarseness but believe my prospective betrothed solely wished to marry me for my plenteous bosom.”
A strangled grunt left Seth’s lips, but employing all restraint, he did not lower his gaze.
“I’m sure other attributes appealed,” he bit out. Many came to mind but he desperately needed to change the subject. “Do I have a deal – new dresses in return for a hostess?”
She held out a hand as though a wagering lord. “You do, Mr Hawkins. I believe men handshake their accord before a fight. Shall we do the same?”
Her skin was ice-cold but soft as silk within his own; not the same in the slightest. “They do indeed. And now for one last room.”
Ushering her from the salon, he then strode for the ornate door with stout ironware at the end of the passageway. Miss Griffin trailed behind – the brush of skirt and scent of flower.
“This was once the music room but it’s been converted.” Seth twisted the worn handle and swished an arm for her to enter.
He followed, closed the door and collided into the back of her as she’d halted not two steps inside.
A gasp… “A library! But…what a library. Oh!”
Seth strode to the circular reading table with its leather baize and tray of liquors to shut the book he’d been reading last night after dinner, shoving it to the shelf beneath.
“How do you like it?”
“I thought…” Eyes that rivalled the brimming decanters glimmered. “It’s beautiful, Mr Hawkins.”
“Most of the books just came with the house.” He downplayed it, yet ’twas one of the reasons he’d bought the place, in truth. Noblemen had libraries as old as their lineage, collected over decades, so such a treasure for a man like Seth was not to be missed. “But they were scattered willy-nilly amongst the rooms, stacked beneath table legs and holding doors open. I decided to collate them.”
He himself was not able to invent stanzas of metred perfection, spin tales or write of jungle adventures, but Seth appreciated and savoured every written word, and indeed, he’d dreamed of a library when young.
Miss Griffin moistened her lips, and his jaw twitched, an involuntary tremor coursing within.
“May I?” she asked.
At his nod, she took a run for the nearest shelf and brushed a finger reverently over the book spines.
Seth shuddered and watched as her lips unconsciously curved in utter delight.
Those gold-rimmed spectacles highlighted her sherry eyes, and her skin shone pure against hair so intense a black, it drew you in like a cloudless night. Her retroussé nose wrinkled as she removed a volume of poetry from the shelf, flicked through the pages and paused…
“‘I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,’”
Miss Griffin grinned, and he could not resist continuing…
