Page 35 of Fortune Favors the Viscount
Thank goodness,she thought. Less chance of crossing paths with the owner. “But handsome,” she replied, determined not to let her dark thoughts and worries frighten Lucy. “When is Miss Charlotte expected?” she asked the butler. The arrival of another girl would divert Lucy.
“In the morning, ma’am.”
“Very good. Thank you, Mr. Pearce.” That gave her one night to pin him down, once and for all, about what he intended to do—with Lucy, with the viscounty, with her.
Nick sensedthe change in the house almost from the moment he woke.
Normally it was quiet and calm. As much as possible his staff had inverted the daily schedule—he rose at four in the afternoon, giving himself time for a ride or a visit to the boxing saloon for exercise, then a hearty meal before washing and dressing. By six every evening he was at the Vega Club. In the morning he would return to a house with closed draperies, a light meal ready, and his bed, obscenely comfortable after being on his feet most of the night.
Today, however, servants were coming and going on the stairs. As he started down the stairs, tugging on his gloves, the tinkling sound of the new pianoforte, delivered just two days ago, greeted him. He had planned to slip out for a ride, avoiding contact with his new governess. Practically the first sentence out of Pearce’s mouth today had been that Miss Greene wanted a word, and that it didn’t promise to be a soft, grateful word. But somehow he found himself at the drawing room door anyway.
Miss Greene sat next to Lucinda, their heads together above the keys. It could have been a mother teaching her daughter, gently guiding her hands on the keys, an encouraging word on her lips despite the stumbling notes. It was a scene of utter domesticity, and entirely alien to Nick. He’d never thought to see the like in his house.
“Like this,” said Miss Greene, and played a scale.
Lucinda began to play. The notes came haltingly and badly, a nervous banging on the keys compared to Miss Greene’s smooth playing.
But oh, Miss Greene. Her dark hair was pinned up, and one tendril had escaped the pins to lie in a sensual S on her bare nape, an almost palpable lure. Her dress was yellow, like fresh lemon curd. She swayed very slightly as she played another scale, almost as if she were moving in the arms of a lover. A flush went through Nick’s body like a spring fever, scalding and fast.
“Good afternoon,” he said to banish that thought.
She looked up. Lucinda twisted in her seat to face him as well, but Nick’s gaze was on the governess. Who looked good enough to eat in slow, savored, lemony bites. Who was his employee now, and therefore would not be licked, tasted, or even touched by him, no matter what her hair tempted him to imagine.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Dashwood.” She murmured something to Lucinda as she rose. The girl’s expression drooped, and she turned back to the keys and began hammering out the scale again, each note loud with pique.
Miss Greene crossed the room to him. “I wished to speak to you,” she said quietly, beautifully pink in the face. “About my bedchamber.”
Again that flush ran through him, hotter than the fires in the sugaring houses of Antigua. “What about it?” asked Nick, ignoring the flush.
“I would prefer to be lodged in the nursery with Lucy,” she whispered. “Give the finer room to Charlotte.”
He smiled briefly. Pearce had hinted she was displeased about that, so he was ready to refute it. “It’s more appropriate for you to have that room and Charlotte to be upstairs.”
Her eyes widened. “It is next to your bedroom!”
“Through a door that no longer opens,” he said. “If it comforts you, Pearce will see that you have the only keys to your room. Charlotte isn’t the lady of the house,” he added, guessing her next argument and having the pleasure of seeing her blush deepen.
“Nor am I!”
“No,” he agreed. “But you requested a private apartment in close proximity to Lucinda’s. That room fits the bill, and no one else is using it. I’ve only tried to give you what you asked for.” He nodded at her and continued on his way instead of watching her breast swell with indignation again.
“Wait!” She followed him, biting her pretty lower lip. “Mr. Dashwood, you can’t do things like this—I am a governess, not the lady of the house, and it is wrong to put me in that room.”
He stopped on the stairs and looked up at her. “Miss Greene,” he said lightly, “I do things the way I think they ought to be done, not according to some rule thought up by mysterious and nebulous ‘people’ whose opinions mean nothing to me. That room is the most convenient for your situation, therefore it is yours.”
“Mr. Dashwood—”
“If we are arguing about which room you shall sleep in, it doesn’t bode well for the future, when we must agree on other more challenging points concerning Charlotte and Lucinda.” He couldn’t completely check his temper. Not only was he missing his one chance to get some fresh air and exercise in the daylight, it was a stupid argument to have. What did it matter where she slept? He wouldn’t be here while she was sleeping anyway, which he supposed to be the root of her resistance. He didn’t think he could stand that, lying alone in his own bed thinking of her doing the same, less than twenty feet away.
But her expression—frustrated and embarrassed—made him relent. “You’re welcome to dine with me when I return in an hour. I won’t change my mind, but I’m willing to explain my reasoning at greater length.”
She stared at him a moment, then looked down. Her fingers whitened where she gripped the balustrade. “Thank you, sir,” she murmured.
Damn it.For all that he kept reminding himself she was now his employee, he found he didn’t like it whensheremembered it as well. He much preferred her brash and unafraid, challenging him to a wager, demanding a contract for her services, insisting she was right and he was wrong about who could become a viscount.
“No need to thank me,” he said bracingly. “It’s what we agreed, isn’t it?” She glanced sideways at him, wary. Nick leaned closer, training his gaze on her face and not on her bosom, which was right at eye level. “Partners,” he whispered, and strode off.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
