Page 30 of Gambling with the Earl
“Will you sing for me again? Tomorrow?” His voice rang through the solar. Too loud. Too eager.
She turned, unable to hide the pleasure in her eyes. She too must feel this connection between them. A connection he should sever at once, or else risk obtaining as grievous a reputation as the previous Earl of Rossfarne.
“I should be pleased to,” she said simply.
At once his worries vanished. Kitty was no slattern. She wouldn’t tell false tales of impropriety down in the servants’ quarters. She would sing, and he would listen. For a short time, he would be released from the incessant weight of his burdens. What business was this of anyone else?
“Good night, Kitty.”
She inclined her head. “Good night, my lord.”
She took the life and buoyancy from the room with her. Guy sat for a moment and allowed the silence to wash over him. It had been a strange evening. Not what he had anticipated. But better. A thousand times more delightful.
Thomas had brought him a jug of fine mead some time earlier. Guy had imagined he might need it, but the mead had sat forgotten on a side table. Kitty’s presence had been intoxicating enough. Now he poured himself a goblet and drank it down quickly. The taste was surprisingly good. He poured another, then stayed his hand. He must not drown his troubles in drink. He’d seen many a good knight wander down the road to ruin that way.
Far better to listen to a maid singing than to seek solace in a bottle.
He could think up a thousand arguments in its favour, but deep down he knew his request was wrong. It was wrong because he was drawn to Kitty. Heat traversed his loins at the sight of her. When she sang, it was as if he was gripped by a fever. She was a curious mix of young and wise, slender and curvaceous, modest and knowing. In another life he might have run his fingers through her rippling mane of fiery hair. Might have pressed his lips to hers and let his hand roam free over her long limbs. Seeking to bring her pleasure. Seeking to find his own.
He slammed the goblet onto the tray and wiped his lips. Was he becoming infected by his uncle’s salacious spirit?
Kitty was a servant in his employ. Therefore, their union was an impossible dream. Guy would not become a man who preyed upon his household. It would be an abuse of power, and the very idea turned his stomach.
He would keep his distance, but her presence was vital to ensure his sanity in this claustrophobic space. Not for long, however. His wound was healing. The first stirrings of strength were returning to his left hand. He would oversee the necessaryrepairs to make the castle safe for the long winter months, then he would leave.
And the long summer nights ahead of him would be lightened by Kitty’s sweet singing voice. Nothing more.
At last, a plan. His lively mind began to run through the necessary steps. He must find a stonemason to repair the gatehouse. But before that, he needed to establish exactly how low his uncle had allowed the coin chests to become. Distrust of the household, mixed with a fear of further bad news, had made him reluctant to investigate when he first arrived in Rossfarne, but now he knew the servants better. It was unlikely the stout cook would mount a heist against him. And as for bad news, it was better to know the worst than to live in fear and uncertainty.
The coin chests were secreted inside the well in the great hall, that much he knew. He would have Thomas bring them out tomorrow, together with any jewellery that had survived the reign of the old earl. Although Guy strongly suspected the old man would have squandered any pieces of value and lost the rest on loose women and gambling.
Guy left the solar and started ascending the stone stairs to his bedchamber, holding a candle in his good right hand to illuminate the way. The castle’s silence was absolute. Most inhabitants were already asleep. But despite his intentions to go quietly, Guy cursed aloud at the thought of jewels and gambling.
He had forgotten the cloth bag of jewels taken from Owain the Drunkard. Jewels which he must return to the man’s daughters.
He should never have taken them. Only misplaced pride and a determination to prove himself physically dominant, despite his injury, had carried him to the neglected manor to retrieve his ill-gotten winnings. That and ale. Too much of it. He had been twisted up with bitterness absorbed from his past, spiked with frustration following the theft of his own coin.
He must tread a different path if he didn’t want to finish up the same way as his forefathers, despised by all who knew them.
But Shoreston Manor had seemed deserted when he rode over there the next day and he had no wish to waste another journey. Maybe one of the servants knew of Owain and his daughters?
He shouldered open the door to his bedchamber and placed the flickering candle on an oak chest. The castle servants kept themselves to themselves, rarely mingling with folk from the town of Rossfarne. But Kitty had travelled through the town recently, she may have heard something.
He would ask her tomorrow, he resolved, when she came to his solar.
Chapter Nine
The Earl ofRossfarne leaned back in his chair and regarded her steadily. His chiselled features were illuminated by the dancing flames of the fire, but it was impossible for her to decipher the expression in his dark eyes.
It was hot in the solar. So very hot. A trickle of perspiration ran down her spine, beneath her plain woollen dress. Kitty wished she was wearing something lighter, less restrictive. She had summoned depths of passion and channelled them into her song, but now that it was over, those fierce emotions rampaged through her body with nowhere to go. Heat suffused her, bringing a flush to her chest and neck. Her hand went unwittingly to the buttons of her bodice. If she could only have a little air.
Something changed in the earl’s expression as her fingers found the first button. He leaned forwards, gazing at her raptly and, as her eyes fixed upon his, Kitty’s pulse sped up. They gazed at one another, across the narrow width of the room and a new, unfamiliar tension uncoiled inside her core.
Air, all she wanted was air. She remembered the low-cut dresses concealed within the chest and suddenly they didn’t seem indecent anymore. As if her fingers had a life of their own, they undid the top button of her bodice, and it opened a fraction.
She felt some relief but not enough, not nearly enough. The heat of the room had found a home deep inside her and nowit demanded release. She opened a second button, then a third. Now her dress was open in a deep V shape and her breasts strained at the remaining fabric.
The earl spoke up softly. His voice was as rich as velvet. “Don’t stop.”
