Page 15 of Seductive Reprise
“No, thank you, in any case. I prefer coffee.”
“Ah, like Rickard.” Hartley set his teacup back down in its saucer with a clatter. “Though come to think of it, he’s never taken coffee here.”
“A man of taste,” Yusef quipped. He watched the butler shuffle away down the hall and changed the subject. “Surely you could afford to give that poor man a pension.” The servant was positively ancient.
“I would, but Fennell says he won’t go. He’s been with me since I left Cambridge, you know.”
And surely had an iron grip over the household. Yusef felt something akin to sympathy, but quickly dashed it. There were more important matters afoot than Marcus Hartley’s inability to control his domicile. He stared at the taller man expectantly.
“Right then.” Hartley led the way to the morning room, casually taking gulps of tea as they went, appallingly oblivious. They halted before the door, where he turned and said, in a hushed tone, “I’ll pull my mother away for a moment, if you’d like.” The look he gave Yusef was so familiar and knowing it was practically offensive.
But Yusef allowed it.
“Have you, er, written to the duke, by any chance?”
“Not now, Hartley.” He swung his walking stick swiftly, extending it in the direction of the door handle. “If you’d be so kind.”
“… so you see, I’ve found that eatingonlyasparagus hassucha beneficial effect when one is reducing,” Mrs. Hartley was saying when they entered the room. She broke off her soliloquy to turn in her armchair and see who’d interrupted. “Marcus—Mr. Palgrave! Come in, come in.”
Rose was seated in the middle of the room, her gaze following the two of them as she looked up over her drawing board. Something tempered her lively hazel eyes. Hesitation? Trepidation?
Extreme dislike?
What exactly it was, he could not mark, for the only thing that mattered was that she hadn’t stood up and fled. He watched as a slight flush bloomed on her cheeks, charmingly setting off her freckles. With a quick intake of breath, she frowned and set back to work. But even though she’d looked away, Yusef could tell she still felt his eyes on her.
The scraggly little dog sat before her on a plum-colored velvet cushion atop a table draped in swaths of bunched fabric. In an uncanny imitation of its owner, it too looked over its shoulder, panting loudly with its tongue hanging from its mouth. Yusef found his gaze torn from Rose, compelled inexplicably to instead meet the strange, bulging eyes of this… creature. Its tail began to wag.
“Oh, Mr. Palgrave, just look! Walter is fond of you!” Mrs. Hartley shared a smile with him, as if they were both party to some information the others in the room were not. “Do you fancy a lapdog?”
Yusef looked back to the little dog, whose tail-wagging accelerated at his renewed notice.
“No.”
Before Mrs. Hartley could speak again, her son interrupted.
“Um, there’s something, er, in the garden, Mama, that I’ve, uh, been meaning to ask about.” Hartley gave Rose a forced look of contrition. “If you’ll excuse us for a moment?”
Rose glared at Yusef, her eyes accusing, before returning her gaze to Hartley. “Of course,” she said with a hint of irritation, her veneer of geniality wearing thin.
With somewhat of a fuss, Mrs. Hartley got up and walked out of the room, much to Walter’s apparent dismay. Her son gave Yusef a warning look before following his mother, leaving Yusef, Rose, and the dog to themselves. A wave of hope swelled in Yusef’s chest the moment the door clicked shut.
Neither he nor Rose spoke, and the only sounds in the room were those of Walter’s panting and the scratch of Rose’s pencil against paper. Yusef ran a thumb over the gold top of his walking stick.
“May I sit?”
“If you insist,” she said curtly, not taking her eyes from the dog.
He chose the end of the couch mere feet from her, so that he was situated with his gaze naturally falling upon her. If he were to lean forward with arm outstretched, he could run a gentle knuckle down her flushed cheek. Not wishing to alarm her, though, he sat up straight, both hands atop his walking stick.
Up so close, and without an audience, he could truly see her now. And he drank his fill.
The years had thinned her out. No longer was she a village girl with a sturdy build to fill out her appreciable height. Her girlishly round cheeks were gone, having left behind sharp lines and a maturity to her countenance. Her thick, brownish-orange hair still fell haphazardly—knotted at her neck, with strands falling about her face in a pleasingly carefree manner. Behind her still full lips, he knew that bewitching little gap hid, andChristhow he wanted her to smile so he might see it again. And her light hazel eyes—no longer did they betray a naïve innocence, but rather a jaded uncertainty. Of all the changes time had wrought, that one wounded him.
For he supposed it was his fault.
Suddenly she cleared her throat noisily. “Planned it, did you?”
“What do you mean?”
