Page 47 of One Dangerous Desire
“Don’t believe in the stuff anyway, Jack. You know that.” Just as Rex reached the office door, someone rapped on the other side and then pushed in. The long absent Mrs. Hark faced him, gaping as if encountering a late-night marauder.
Rex glanced down. He could do with a few sips of coffee before he departed, but the women’s wrinkled hands were disappointingly empty. The scent in the air around her wasn’t the rich, smoky aroma of coffee, but the verdant scent of roses.
Heaven help him. In his eagerness to see her, he’d begun imagining May’s perfume on the air.
“No coffee, Mrs. Hark?”
The older woman bristled at the question, lifted her chin, and announced, “You have a visitor, Mr. Leighton.”
“Well, where is he?” There was nothing in the hallway behind his housekeeper but fresh air.
“Sheis waiting in the drawing room.”
“Mrs. Hark,” Rex spoke as gently as he could, despite his impatience. Perhaps the whole gunshot business had addled the woman. “We don’t have a drawing room.”
“Oh you have one. You simply refuse to use it. Couldn’t bring a lady into a shooting range, now could I?” The housekeeper peered around him at the blackened hole in the wall.
A room across the hall had served as a drawing room for the previous owner, but Rex refused to furnish any room he didn’t use. He rarely entertained, and this rented house was temporary.
“Lady?” Glancing over his shoulder, Rex shot Sullivan an amused look. Apparently the man who’d once pursued others for a living was now being pursued himself. And by a duke’s daughter, no less.
“Miss May Sedgwick. An American, by the sound of it. Just like you, sir.” Mrs. Hark looked him up and down, far more impudently than he imagined most housekeepers assessing their employers. “If a bit more genteel.”
May was here. Across the hall. In his temporary home that wasn’t fit for visitors. Rex moved past Mrs. Hark, reaching up to straighten his tie one last time. An uneven clicking sound indicated Charlie followed close behind.
“May.”
She stood in the center of the nearly empty room, taking in the elaborately carved cornices at the top of the wall. When she finally turned her head to look at him, there was none of the pleasure in her expression that he felt exploding in his own chest like a firecracker.
“It’s empty. You haven’t decorated this house at all.” Her indignant tone reminded him a bit of Mrs. Hark.
“No. I don’t intend to live here long. Seemed a waste of effort and funds.”
“Doesn’t anyone ever visit?” May didn’t wait for his answer before stepping toward the wall to examine a plaster frieze of nymphs or fairies or witches. Rex couldn’t care less for the decorative style of the previous owner.
“I don’t encourage visitors.”
That drew her bright blue gaze to his. “Am I not welcome, then?”
“Youare always welcome.” He wanted to tell her that he wished to make any place he laid his head her home too. If he could arrange for a wedding soon, they’d have to endure only a few months in this Berkeley Square house before their suite of rooms at the Pinnacle were ready.
Turning on her heel, she swept toward him, wearing a fiercely determined scowl. “That’s very good to hear, considering that you kissed me.” She came close enough for him to feel the shuffle of her skirts against his legs, for her scent to sweeten the air between them, her breath to warm his face. Then she poked him hard in the center of his chest with her forefinger. “Considering that you touched me intimately on my parlor sofa.”
He opened his mouth, but she stopped him.
“I’m not finished yet,” she said with that damnably pointy finger of hers wagging in his face. “You said you loved me once.”
“May—”
She pressed her finger against his lips, not tenderly, but with enough force to abrade his gums against his teeth. “You’ve given every indication that you still love me, want me, desire me. As long as I ignore the fact that you attempted to woo the sister of the man who asked me to marry him.”
Rex pulled back to free himself from her bruising finger, but he reached a hand out to touch her. It seemed months since he’d last touched her.
She moved with all the skill of a fleet-footed boxer, sidestepping out of his grasp. Her quick movements drew a nervous yip from Charlie.
“Well, hello.” May instantly dipped down into a crouch, her green day dress pooling around her like a lily pad. “It’s very nice to meet you, pup.” She looked up at Rex. “You bought a dog.” For the first time since arriving, there was a bit of the usual lightness in her tone, a sparkle in her eye.
“He came for free. Charlie followed me home from a walk, and I couldn’t shake him after that.”
