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“Sir, you are not invited!” Outrage filled the butler’s whisper. “I must insist—”
James ignored him and opened the door. He paused undetected in the entrance, staring into a room lined with dark wood paneling and shelves full of books. His eyes narrowed, adjusting to the sunlight streaming through the windows on the opposite side of the library.
Then his eyes widened at the unexpected sight before him.
Chadbourne—as starched as Englishmen came—sat semi-reclined upon a blanket on the floor. James blinked as he verified the scene.
That couldn’t be Chadbourne looking so relaxed, his jacket discarded!
Yet there he was, lounging across from a woman in a lemon-colored gown and matching bonnet.
The winter sun had burned through enough London fog to filter brightly through the massive windows behind them. Its rays illuminated a white gossamer butterfly on the woman’s shoulder. The bodice and skirt of her gown were decorated with other delicate-looking pastel butterflies and flowers of silk and tulle.
She sat facing Chadbourne with an elegant hand outstretched, offered a small pie in her ungloved palm.
Just as he reached for it, she snatched her hand back.
James tensed, waiting for Chadbourne’s terse voice to censure the woman. He wasn’t one to tolerate being denied.
“Imp!” accused Chadbourne affectionately, shaking his head. “I shall have to fight for it, I see.”
James didn’t want to witness any further interaction between the pair. He took in a breath, ready to make his presence known.
“Ah, David, why a fight?” The woman’s voice was rich, throaty; neither the pinched nor flighty tone he would expect of a high-born lady wearing an absurd garden on her gown. “So keen on efficiencies in your factories, yet so ready to resort to messy violence over a pie. Come, you know the viciousness I’d employ in fight!” They both laughed. “Offering a trade for the pie might be just the thing.”
“One delight for another, then?” Chadbourne’s tone was dry, but his face looked uncharacteristically relaxed.
The woman rose to her knees. “You know which delight I seek.”
James was caught in a web spun by her words and voice. As strong as it was invisible, it trapped him in place, imagining that she was facinghimand not that cold fish, Chadbourne.
“I know precisely what you want, Clara. And when have I been able to deny you anything?”
Clara.
Her name reverberated in James’s mind as he drank in her amusement at Chadbourne’s words. Her head leaned back with abandon; he spied a long, pale neck beneath the wide swathes of yellow ribbons tied under her chin.
She sank onto the blanket again, wiggling the tiny pie at Chadbourne.
“Very well. Rather suspicious timing, that. I’ve just finished the labor of peeling.” He held up an orange covered by downy pith.
The exchange made, the daft man sat like a simpleton, his attention on the bit of pastry he’d gained rather than the woman.
Once Clara accepted the fruit, she raised it to her nose and closed her eyes. James could all but smell the orange as her face softened with unfettered pleasure. Her quiet but discernible moan traveled across the room to James, as if the two of them were a pair—and Chadbourne was the unwanted visitor.
If this Clara were James’s companion, his hands and mouth would be on her now eliciting more earthy sounds.
Chadbourne was no fool, so why wasn’t he moved by this woman? Bloody unfeeling Englishman. Allowing himself to be outdone by fruit and pastry!
Until this moment, not a single compunction registered against slipping in uninvited. James came prepared to be called an uncouth trespasser, to receive the look of utter disdain on Chadbourne’s face. A few centuries’ worth of experience with such looks no doubt passed from earl to earl.
James stood shrouded in the dark part of the office, more uncomfortable with his feelings than his damp winter coat. Never before had Chadbourne provoked this oily sensation of envy.
Spring had arrived undeservedly early for the Earl of Anterleigh; the man sat in a patch of unusual winter sunlight, next to a warm goddess.
Clara’s elegant fingers separated a section of orange with exquisite care. Anger surged through James at how readily he imagined her hands on him.
He welcomed the anger—it made sense. It was familiar. It drove action.
