Page 21 of Scandalous Heiress
She lifted her gaze and considered the heavy crystal chandelier.He was deliciously easy to play with.“Flora.”
“Not fauna?”
“Only birds.”
He got this maddeningly searing look to his large turquoise eyes.“Very well.Birds and flowers.”
“Tell me how you import ‘crysamums’.”
He chuckled.“Deirdre simply cannot pronounce it.”
“Not ‘camellas’, either.”
“I shall be happy to tell you about both.”
“Marvelous.Now, if you don’t mind?”She pointed to her breakfast plate.
He pressed his lips together.His marvelous firm lips.Blinking, she nodded.Happy as a clam, she tucked into her bacon.
He sipped his coffee…and watched her.
She paused, her fork and knife in the air.
He gave her a wide-eyed grin.
Impertinent cuss.She sighed, surrendering her peace as another thought struck her.
“We’ll need a maid,” she told him.Comtesse de Chaumont, the widowed Frenchwoman who was the Hanniford family’s friend and ladies’ companion, would not arise until eleven.Ada would not wake her to walk with them.The woman would like Victor.But then, Chaumont liked any eligible man.“As chaperone.”
“Ah.Of course.Forgot, rules of society.Fawkes can find one who is finished with her morning chores.When you’re finished eating.”
“Good.But for now?”
“Yes?”He brightened, eager and ready to do her bidding.
She wanted to giggle at his ebullience, his turnaround from self-declared ass to dashing young man.“Do be quiet and let me dine and drink and read.”
“At your service, Miss Hanniford.”He pressed two fingers to his lips to seal them.
She rolled her eyes at him, then ate her breakfast and read her paper in utter silence.
She folded her paper, drained her coffee cup and got to her feet.
“Finished?”he asked, eager to go, ready to smile with her and tell her about flowers, birds, bees, or anything at all.
“I am.”She made her way to the foyer and the grand staircase.
He followed.
Ada Hanniford had spunk and he’d been such a fool to waste last evening shutting her out of his consciousness.He couldn’t.Even though he’d wanted to brood about his past and ponder his new opportunity to stay at home, she’d cut through all his thoughts.Last night, as yesterday when he’d met her, she didn’t merely breathe, she blazed with life.To close her out was to ignore the sun.
Cursing his silliness, he’d walked the floor of his bedroom last night for more than an hour.Few women—very few women—had ever done that to him.Much to his dismay, testing his loyalty to his brother, he’d admitted to himself that he needed to sit closer to the fire she ignited.And if he could kill his jealousy, he’d assured himself there’d be no harm of it.Surely, if she was to be Richard’s wife, they should have a friendship.And he had to make amends.
Truth be told, he was more himself now that he had apologized and been the proper gentleman.
Of course, what he longed to do with her was far from proper and not gentlemanly at all.But he could control those urges.The ones that came in waves to cup her cheek, brush his thumb over her lips, or sweep her up into his embrace and press her lush body to his own.
But no.She was Richard’s already.He could accept it, even though he’d envy his brother the joy of her.Best to make good family relations in any case.
