“The same one who then ended the battle with a decisive annihilation of the enemy.” He laughed back at her.
She suddenly became aware that he was actually on top of her. She could feel his weight bearing her down. She could feel his breath warm on her face. She looked into his hazel eyes, only inches away, and found them smoldering back into her own. She looked down at his mouth and was aware at the same moment that his eyes dropped to hers.
Her strange adventure moved perilously close to danger—and perhaps to something rather splendid.
His lips brushed across hers and she felt as if she were lying beneath a hot August sun rather than December snow clouds.
She had never known a man so very male—a thought that did not bear either pursuing or interpreting.
“I have just remembered the bread,” she said in a voice that sounded shockingly normal to her ears. “I will be fortunate indeed if it has not risen to fill the kitchen to the ceiling. I will be fortunate if I can get through the door to rescue it.”
His eyes smoldered into hers for perhaps a second longer, and then one corner of his mouth lifted in what might have been a smile or perhaps was simple mockery. He pushed himself to his feet, brushed himself off, and reached down a hand to help her up. She banged her gloved hands together and then shook her cloak, but there was as much snow down inside the collar of it as there was on the outside, she was sure.
“Oh, this was
“It was indeed,” he agreed. “But if I ever meet fortune face-to- face, I will demand to know why I had to be stranded here with a prudish schoolteacher. Go, Miss Allard.
For the merest moment Frances thought of staying in order to protest his use of the word
She fled, though for very pride’s sake she did not run.
Part of her was feeling decidedly annoyed with herself. Why had she broken the tension of that moment? What harm would one full kiss have done? It was so long since she had been kissed, and the chance might never come again—she was all of twenty-three.
By the same token, she was
What harm would a kiss have done?
But she was no green girl. She knew very well what harm it would have done. Neither of them, she suspected, would be content with just one kiss. And there was nothing in their circumstances to inhibit them from taking more.
And more . . .
Heavens above, even just the brush of his lips had half scrambled her brains and every bone and organ in her body.
She hurried into the kitchen after removing her outer garments and threw herself busily into baking the bread and making the soup.
The conversation at luncheon was rather strained and far too bright and superficial—on her part anyway. Lucius retreated into taciturnity. But though the bread was light and among the best he had ever tasted and the soup more than worthy of a second bowl, he found himself unable to concentrate upon the enjoyment of either quite as much as he might have liked.
He was distracted by unconsummated lust.
And he cursed his luck that while circumstances were ideal for a little sexual fling, the woman with whom he was stranded was not. If only she had been an actress or a merry widow or . . . Well, anyone but a schoolteacher, who might be gorgeous but who was also prim and virtuous—except when she was building snowmen and hurling snowballs and forgot herself for a while.
While she talked brightly on a variety of inane topics, he tried to think about Portia Hunt. He tried to bring her face into focus in his mind and succeeded all too well. She had that look in her eye that told him she despised all men and their animal appetites but would tolerate them in him provided she never had to know about them.
He was probably doing her an injustice. She was a perfect lady, it was true. It was also possible, he supposed, that there was an appealing woman beneath all the perfection. He was going to discover the answer soon.
And this adventure, as Frances Allard had called it, would soon be over. Already the sun had broken through the clouds, and water was dripping off the eaves outside the taproom window. There was only the rest of today to live through.
And tonight . . .
Tonight he would sleep in the taproom. He would not set even one toe beyond it in the direction of the stairs and the chambers above. When he died, his virtue would take him straight into heaven, where he could bore himself silly by playing on a harp for all eternity.
Damnation! Why could she not have continued to be the prunish shrew he had taken her for yesterday—less than twenty-four hours ago? Or else the laughing, eager woman she had been outside until his lips had touched hers? Why did she have to be such a frustrating mix?
He ordered Wally and Thomas to do the dishes—Peters was still busy with the carriage, though that fact did not stop Thomas from muttering something about favoritism as Peters disappeared through the back door. Lucius pulled his boots and his greatcoat back on and spent most of the afternoon outside, first in the carriage house feeling useless, and then chopping wood, since the pile that was already chopped looked seriously diminished. He could have hauled Wally outside to do the job, of course, and would have done so under normal circumstances. But he was glad of the excuse to remain outside. He was doubly glad of the chance to use up more energy. He chopped far more than would be needed tonight and tomorrow morning. This wood would be warming the toes of the Parkers for the next week or more.
She had tea ready when he went back inside—fresh bread with more of the cheese and pickles, and some
