Page 78 of Not Quite a Lady
‘Stud stallion!’ Lily had a tongue like an adder. And she made him feel ashamed of himself, of what he felt naturally because he was a man, because he desired her. Loved her.
Stallion.Damn it, he could certainly fulfilthatrole for her. Just now he felt he could service every single doxy at Nell’s, Newcastle’s most notorious and largest brothel, and still be unsatisfied. When had he last had a woman? God knows, and all he was doing was working himself up into an unsatisfied lather over an acid-tongued vixen.
Impoverished aristocrats indeed.What had possessed him tokiss her like that, to demand they become lovers? She excited him almost beyond reason and this was the result. Now, even if he tried to tell her the truth, that he loved her, he doubted she would believe him.
‘My lord? Did you say something?’ Denton was ordering his dressing table, polishing the silver-backed brushes with a soft cloth.
‘My working clothes, if you please. I am going to the mine.’
‘But it is pouring with rain, my lord.’
‘Not underground it isn’t, Denton.’ And there it was safe from interfering sisters, reproachful mothers and Lily.
‘You will need to take care for that arm, my lord.’ Denton, radiating disapproval, opened the chest where he meticulously segregated Jack’s working clothes.
Jack was well aware that his valet considered it a disgrace that a earl should so much as set foot in a mine. If he did, it should be to view the operation only, at a safe distance and taking the advice of his manager.
The fact that Jack was frequently found wielding a pick, or puzzling over a problem with the ventilation shutters, shocked Denton to the core and he rebelled in the only way he knew how, by insisting that Jack’s filthy, torn, clothes were always immaculately laundered, mended and pressed after every wearing.
Jack pulled off his coat, threw his fine linen shirt on to a chair and accepted a much-patched woollen smock in return. He sat on the edge of the bed and drew on thick stockings, a pair of loose canvas trousers and thrust his feet into the stout studded boots that Denton produced at arm’s length.
‘I do wish you would stop trying to get a shine on these.’
The valet sniffed, not deigning to enter into a long-running wrangle, extracted a crisply ironed red spotted kerchief from a drawer and placed it on the bed next to a leather waistcoat and abattered tricorne hat.
‘You will wear the oiled coat, my lord?’
Jack regarded his transformed figure in the long mirror and grinned, suddenly relaxed, anticipating a long afternoon of down-to-earth, uncomplicated, male company.
‘Yes please, Denton. Thank you. I will be returning for dinner, should Lady Allerton ask.’
‘Yes, my lord. I will ensure that there is plentiful hot water. It would not do to present a begrimed appearance with a houseguest present.’
Fully aware that Denton was attempting to make him feel like a grubby schoolboy skipping lessons, Jack ran downstairs, whistling between his teeth, to the further scandal of his butler and a footman.
‘Jack! For goodness sake, you are not going to the mine now?’ It was Caroline, her arms full of fabric, crossing the landing into the room known to the staff as The Young Ladies’ Sitting Room.
‘I haven’t been below ground since I got back from London. There are things to be done, to be looked at.’
‘But where is Lily?’
‘In the Long Gallery.’
Something in his face must have betrayed him. Caroline dumped the muslin unceremoniously into the sitting room and came back to glare at him. ‘What have you done now?’
It was on the tip of his tongue to say‘I had a damn good try at seducing her,’and see what Caroline would do, but he swallowed the words. ‘We argued. I will be back for dinner.’
The rain had stopped sometime during her journey back to her bedchamber. Lily found she could begin to navigate about the castle, more by looking out for distinctive suits of armour, than by anything else. ‘Battle axe, sword, pointy thing on top…’ she muttered to herself.
She located the stairs leading up to her room and hesitated, wondering if she should seek out Caroline. But she rather suspected she was betrayingly flushed and damp-eyed and the thought of curling up in the window seat and having a long brood over the rain-soaked landscape felt safer.
Now what to do? What had possessed Jack just now? On the face of it, that was a foolish question. He had done it out of sheer lust and frustration.
The uncomfortable idea that he had done it because of her money obtruded, but she dismissed it. If Jack was cynical enough to decide, after all, that he wanted her wealth, then he would hardly have proposed they become lovers.
What would she have done if that scene had played out differently, if they had not been angry? What would have happened if he had tried to seduce her with soft words and gentle love-making?
What would it be like to be wooed by Jack? The hot pulse still beat distractingly inside her, the aftermath of their violent, angry passion.
