Page 24 of The Wolf of Mayfair
Wasanythingclear any longer? Certainly not since she’d stormed his foyer.
“I said I was eating, Lord Wingrave.”
And with her succinct explanation, she continued doing just that.
Whatever magnetic pull she’d had over him, that moment of madness, shattered.
Wingrave curled his fingertips into the edge of the mahogany table and leaned forward. “My household, Miss Wallace,” he seethed. “Why are you in my household?”
Confusion filled her enormous, expressive emerald eyes. “I ... You ... allowed me to remain at least until the storm had abated and you’d confirmed for yourself my connection to your mother.”
He gawked at her.
Thatwas the conclusion she’d reached?
“I did no such thing.”
The lady’s high, freckled brow creased. “You didn’t?”
He may as well have kicked a cat for the misery contained within her question.
“No, I most certainly did not.”
“You did,” she said entreatingly. “You—”
“I did not,” he thundered.
Aghast, Wingrave reeled back on his heels.
For the first time in the entirety of his life, he, who’d forever been a master of himself and who’dpridedhimself on not possessing the weak emotions of everyone else around him had lost control.
He’d hand it to the lady. She barely flinched.
Nay, instead, with a calm to rival the sternest tutor the duke had employed to school Wingrave, she dusted her palms together and then stood.
No more than three inches past five feet, but with the regal authority with which she stood and looked down her pert, freckled nose at him, she may as well have soared past the foot in length he had on her.
“I allowed you to spend the night, Miss Wallace. Not a moment more. I wasn’t suggesting you remain indefinitely,” he said.
“And I’m not looking to stay indefinitely.” She paused. “Please, when the storm lets, allow me a carriage to seek out Her Grace.”
This again.
Her insistence on some manner of connection to his family.
It was an impossibility.
Her staying with his mother also meant the minx would, in fact, be remaining indefinitely with Wingrave.
Briefly setting aside his annoyance, he gave her another look.
Attired in a drab brown dress that did nothing favorable for her trim, slim-hipped figure, in the light of day, Miss Wallace certainly wasn’t the manner of woman to appeal to him and certainly not to earn a place in his bed.
Wingrave stared at the dauntless lady before him. “Given your insolence and brass, I trust your mother possessed a like disposition.”
A wistful smile stole across her features, momentarily transforming her from ordinary chit to fetching fairy and, in the process, transfixing Wingrave.
“Aye, she did,” she said with an affection and warmth he’d never before known where his own mother was concerned. “She also had the biggest spirit and biggest heart.”
