Page 17 of Seduced By a Scoundrel

Derrek had never been one to play at housekeeping. Not even with Joseph. Even though Joseph had been meticulously neat in everything he’d done, the two of them had never set up a traditional house nor attempted to wedge themselves into the roles of husband and wife.

Jeremy was a different sort of man entirely. He wasn’t anywhere close to being a wife, but as the morning hours ticked by with the two of them giving the Maidstone Close gamekeeper’s cottage a thorough airing and washing, he began to see that Jeremy had a domestic inclination that was as sweet as it was amusing.

“I do not suppose you thought to bring washing soap with you,” he sighed after they paused for a luncheon of bread, cheese, and summer sausage. “It is only that the curtains and other linens could use a thorough scrubbing to make this cottage truly habitable.”

“They seem fine as they are,” Derrek observed, glancing over his shoulder at the curtains Jeremy had tied back on the window beside them.

“They are dingy with dust,” Jeremy lectured him with a stern expression. “And even though the bed linens have been folded and kept in a chest all these years, they could stand to be laundered as well.”

“Why bother laundering them when we’ll only muss them again tonight,” Derrek replied, fighting to keep a straight face.

Sure enough, Jeremy blushed up a storm, nearly choking on the piece of bread he’d just taken a bite of. “I…I did not mean to imply, that is to say, I am quite certain that the only activity either of us will be engaged in as regards the bed is sleeping.”

Lord bless him, but the man was adorable. Derrek laughed, his heart feeling decidedly too big within his chest.

“Once again, you are teasing me,” Jeremy said with an impatient sigh, standing and taking the bit of cloth with the uneaten remains of his luncheon to the high, narrow table near the stove that served as a counter.

“I am,” Derrek admitted jovially. “But only because you are such a delight to tease.”

Jeremy sent him what Derrek supposed was intended to be a withering look over his shoulder.

“Come now,” Derrek said, getting up and taking the teacups the two of them had used over to the counter. “What is a bit of teasing between friends?”

“Are we friends?” Jeremy asked, one eyebrow raised. Derrek was certain he was attempting to look scolding, but he merely looked vulnerable.

“We are,” Derrek said, resting a hand on his shoulder. He grinned, then added, “We should be, seeing as there’s only one bed in this cottage and we’ll have to share it.”

Jeremy’s eyes went wide, but instead of stammering out some excuse why they couldn’t share the same bed, he turned his attention to cleaning up their meal instead.

The question of them sharing the same bed hung in the air for the rest of the day, though neither of them had the time to discuss it. After climbing up onto the cottage’s roof to determine why the chimney was smoking, not only did Derrek discover that several nests needed to be removed for that bit of the house to work right, he noticed a few patches on the roof that were certain to leak when it rained if he did not do something about them.

So the rest of the daylight hours were spent with Derrek on the roof, fixing the chimney and tiles, and Jeremy in the house, scrubbing floors and walls and making a pile of washing to be done as soon as soap could be procured.

They enjoyed another light repast that evening after which the two of them were too exhausted to do more than chat about inconsequential things for a time, then, when they realized that candles and lamp oil were another thing they would need to procure on a trip to the nearest market, they decided the day was done and went to bed.

“It really won’t be a problem sharing a bed,” Derrek assured Jeremy as the two of them went through their nightly ablutions, albeit in separate rooms with the door mostly closed between them. “It might not be a large bed, but neither is it particularly small.”

“It will be a problem,” Jeremy said with a sigh, walking timidly into the bedroom dressed in a thick, woolen nightshirt.

Derrek smiled at him. All that the nightshirt was missing were a few frills around the cuffs and neckline to be the perfect nightgown.

“Is something amiss?” Jeremy asked, glancing down at himself.

“Not at all,” Derrek said, trying not to laugh as he finished scrubbing a damp cloth across his chest and arms. “Only, I do not generally wear a nightshirt to bed.”

Jeremy seemed taken aback by that answer. Or perhaps the way he stared at Derrek with such tension in his body was because all Derrek wore were his drawers. Sure enough, Jeremy’s eyes raked over Derrek’s form with enough heat to make the cold room cozy, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed in appreciation of the sight before him.

“Come on, man,” Derrek said with more than a hint of teasing. “You’ve seen an undressed male form before. You’re a tailor, for God’s sake. You see and touch bodies all the time.”

“Yes, but not—” Jeremy stopped abruptly, then snapped his gaze up, keeping his eyes firmly on Derrek’s. “It will be a problem, though. Us sharing a bed.”

“It will not be from my end,” Derrek said with a shrug, pretending he didn’t know what Jeremy was talking about.

In fact, he did not know what Jeremy was talking about. Not really.

“I am a restless sleeper,” Jeremy said, edging around Derrek and scrambling into the turned-down bed. “You have been forewarned.”

Derrek chuckled and finished with his washing. “I am certain all will be well,” he said.

---