Page 33 of The Viscount's Code
“Do what?”
“Come up with a way to describe the hideousness of this room in a way that wasn’t insulting.”
“Well, it has obviously been well used over the years, hasn’t it,” she said.
“It most certainly has,” he returned. “This is their best room.”
She turned shocked eyes on him. “Their best.”
“Yes,” he said with another laugh. “It is.”
He walked over to the bed and pulled back the blankets, taking a cursory look over the sheet beneath.
“From what I can tell, however, it is clean.”
“That is comforting, I suppose.”
A knock at the door signified the arrival of their food, and Anthony took it from the maid and set it out on the table in front of them.
“I can do that,” Hope said, stepping toward him, but he shook his head as he carried the tray, their shoulders brushing against one another in the cramped space between the door and the table. Tingles ran through his body from where she had touched him, down his spine and straight to his core.
He paused for a moment, shocked by how the innocent touch of a woman could cause such a strong reaction within him, but he tried to shake it off before she noticed.
It was, however, too late.
“Is something amiss?”
“No,” he said, more harshly than he meant to, but he was trying to deny what he was feeling. He set the tray down on the table, and she took a seat in the rickety wooden chair. He helped push her in closer, unable to take his eyes off her hands as she slowly removed her gloves – one finger at a time – before setting them down beside her.
The way she slid them off had him thinking of other ways he could undress her – ways that he had no business thinking about.
He cleared his throat as he took a seat across from her, and it was only then that he actually saw what filled his plate.
“What do you suppose this is?” he asked, watching the way her nose crinkled as she stared down at the white and brown mashed up food before them.
“Well,” she said, clearly attempting diplomacy, and when she swallowed, he noticed the bob in the long column of her throat. “I would say with certainty that there are potatoes somewhere on the plate, and some kind of meat. I suppose we won’t know what it is until we try it. Perhaps peas somewhere within? And of course, gravy overtop.”
“Shall we find out?”
“I do not suppose we have much choice, unless we would like to go hungry.”
“Which would never do.”
“Very well, then,” she said, taking a deep breath before picking up her fork and diving into her plate.
Anthony watched her take the first bite and waited to see how she would react.
Her eyes met his, and the side of her mouth quirked upward as she chewed.
“Coward,” she said when she finished, and he snorted in response.
“Excuse me?”
“You are acting a coward!” she said indignantly. “You waited to try it yourself until you saw what I thought of it.”
“And?”
“And I am not going to give you the satisfaction of any knowledge,” she said, lifting her nose in the air.
