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‘They do indeed, sir.’ Hattie smiled sweetly. ‘Exponentially.’
An hour later they hurried out of the shop laughing, after having purchased enough small and pretty furniture to see Izzy right for several years. Jasper hadn’t baulked at the price of any of it. If anything, he had added to the cost by requesting special finishes and expensive lilac upholstery because purple was apparently his daughter’s favourite colour.
Their convoluted backstory to explain the sale had become more complicated as the minutes ticked by, especially after Mr Gladstone had only been too willing to deliver everything to wherever in the countryside their unfortunate cousin happened to live. By the end, the pair of them had been tripping over themselves conjuring plausible excuses but had left him believing that Jasper wanted to deliver it all himself as a surprise for the imaginary woman’s birthday in a few weeks.
That went no way to explaining why Jasper had also insisted that the finished articles be delivered to his house in dribs and drabs as soon as they were ready, but once the cabinet maker had totted up the eye-watering bill and heard the purchaser assure him that he would have a man sent over with all the funds on the morrow, he ceased caring.
‘I think you just made his year.’ His arm felt solid beneath Hattie’s, the temptation to explore the muscles beneath his sleeves almost too much to bear. ‘The man couldn’t believe his luck to get such a large commission.’
‘I am just glad that we were able to do such a good thing for dear Cousin Celia today.’ He smiled as he searched the narrow street for any sign of his carriage, then paused to cross the road when he saw it poking out of another street several yards further along. ‘The poor thing has suffered enough. Almost as much as my poor, addled wife.’
‘We bored spinsters have little else to do than spread idle gossip and I thought some of Mr Gladstone’s remedies would do your unfortunate spouse some good.’ Gracious, it felt lovely talking nonsense and spending time with such a charming man. Yet another daft thing to ponder where he was concerned, and one which she would no doubt ponder to death in her quiet moments because she had taken to doing that a great deal in the last few days.
Worryingly, and undeniably futilely, the majority of those musings had more to do with him as a man rather than him as a friend in need. A much too attractive and compelling man than a true altruistic good Samaritan here to help should be contemplating. ‘And perhaps he is right about the sea air.’ She slanted him a glance which felt uncharacteristically coquettish. ‘You should take her to Brighton for a week or two as a treat for putting up with you.’
He chuckled. ‘I should—oh, hell!’ Before Hattie could whip her head around to see what had caused his eyes to widen, she found herself being pulled into an alleyway and hurried along it. ‘It’s the Duchess of Warminster and her pious daughter Felicity!’ He hissed this as he hauled her into a doorway because they had hit a dead end. ‘What the blazes are they doing in Cheapside?’
Hattie couldn’t think of a reason, and not because she thought the Duchess wouldn’t usually be caught dead in an area filled with ‘the trade’, which was little better than ‘the great unwashed’ in her mind. But because the doorway was small, and with Hattie’s back to the wood, his big body had to press against hers to effectively hide himself.
‘Are they still there?’ Her voice came out in a high-pitched panicked shriek, caused not by the impending prospect of potential ruination, but because one of Jasper’s arms was still wrapped around her waist and her bosoms were flattened against his broad chest and getting all manner of inappropriate ideas.
He leaned back slightly to check, giving her bosoms some respite while his hand still played havoc with her senses because it continued to rest on the curve of her hip, then slammed back against them again with his finger to his lips nodding. ‘They are literally at the other end of this alleyway. Felicity is frantically rummaging in her reticule. As if she has lost something.’
‘Then let us pray she hasn’t lost it down here.’ Her voice came out croaky this time because her throat had dried, her breathing suddenly too erratic to get enough in her lungs, again caused by her close proximity to him.
Gracious he smelled divine up close.
He had always smelled lovely. The sort of lovely that had a lady’s nostrils twitching as he breezed past, but the way that familiar masculine cologne reacted with his skin was a seductive thing of beauty.
She hadn’t realised quite how tall he was until now either, because her eyes were level with his lips, giving hers wayward ideas. She blamed her bosoms for that. Who knew that bosoms alone could tempt a lady to sin?
He leant back again, but only his head moved away this time, and Hattie had no idea how she felt about that. The sensible, respectable part couldn’t wait for this necessary inappropriateness to end so that her nerve endings could return to normal. The wanton part which he had just awakened wanted to learn so much more.
‘The Duchess appears to be telling her off.’ His warm breath caressed her cheek, sending a sensitised trail of goose pimples to erupt from the nape of her neck to the base of her spine. ‘Felicity has stopped hunting in her reticule. She’s wearing an expression of defeat and her mother is wagging her finger.’
Who knew a man’s neck could be so attractive and alluring? Alluring enough that she wanted to loop her arms around it. With his head tilted back, she could make out every single follicle of dark stubble growing on his chin and throat, making her fingers itch to trace his face to learn how it made his golden skin feel different from hers. So close she could see the tiny pulse beating rapidly beneath his jaw. She sympathised as Hattie’s heart was also beating nineteen to the dozen but for quite different reasons to his, she suspected. Hammering so hard behind her scandalously wanton bosoms it would take a miracle for it not to be knocking against his ribs.
‘They’re going.’ He turned to beam at her triumphantly and she lost herself in his eyes. She watched his smile slip a split second before he realised where his hand was, causing him to instantly snatch it away and put a few polite inches of distance between them. Instead of the relief she had been hoping for, her body immediately mourned the loss.
Jasper turned again so that his eyes remained rooted on the street and at least she was glad of that, because she could already feel the heat of a ferocious blush oozing up her cheeks and branding her a shameless hussy.
‘They’re gone!’ He blurted this out like a hallelujah and practically jumped away. ‘That was close.’
Hattie nodded, mortified at the strength of her own fledgling desire, but not trusting herself to speak again in case she gave herself away. By his uncharacteristic stiff yet jerky posture, Jasper clearly wanted to just get away. Fast. ‘Why don’t I go and fetch the carriage in case they are still lurking close by and I’ll signal you from the window if the coast is clear as I dare say the last thing either of us want is to be caught in a compromising position.’ She nodded again, trying not to feel disappointed that all her inappropriate, carnal feelings were obviously one-sided. ‘It’s probably long past time I delivered you to the infirmary anyway.’
And with that, he marched off to get that job done with all haste, his dark brows more furrowed than she had ever seen them.
