Ain’t She Sweet?

“You now belong to me-body and soul.”

GEORGETTE HEYER, These Old Shades

CHAPTER EIGHT

Colin’s voice slid over Sugar Beth like a trickle of cold water. “What are you doing in here?”

“I’m making your bed.”

“Well, make it somewhere else.”

“You forgot to put on your happy face again, didn’t you?” She stretched her legs, balancing her weight on the toe of one foot, cocking her other knee, and leaning far enough across the bed to make him appreciate her bottom- line assets. This was the only weapon she had left, and she’d been using it as frequently as possible in the nine days she’d been working for him. So what if her sexual shenanigans were also making her more aware of him than she wanted to be? He didn’t know that. Or did he? That was the thing about sexual games. You could never be completely sure who was getting to who.

To whom. It was a bitch living with your old English teacher, especially when your old English teacher wasn’t old at all, and he had exactly the kind of body that most appealed to her, tall and lean, broad in the shoulder, narrow at the hip. Then there was his brain. It had taken her a lot of years to find that particular part of a man appealing, but she’d finally gotten in the habit, and she couldn’t seem to give it up.

She took her time arranging the last pillow. His dinner party was scheduled for tomorrow night, and the rental company’s truck would be arriving soon. Although the dining room at Frenchman’s Bride was large, it wasn’t big enough to seat the thirty people he’d invited, and she’d rented smaller tables to set up throughout the downstairs. His agent and editor were flying in from New York, but he’d done a lot of research at Ole Miss, and most of the guests would be driving from Oxford.

But not all of them.

“How many locals did you say you’d invited?” He hadn’t shown her the official guest list, and she couldn’t relax about this party until she knew she wouldn’t be forced to wait on anyone she wanted to avoid.

“I already told you. Two of the local librarians-you don’t know them. And Aaron Leary and his wife.”

Aaron was Parrish’s current mayor. She’d gone to high school with him, but since he’d been president of the chess club and black, they’d moved in different circles. She remembered him as a sweet, studious kid, so she probably hadn’t tried to screw him over. Being forced to wait on a classmate was degrading, but since he was the mayor, she could handle it. “What about his wife?”

“Charise. A lovely woman.”

“Stop being difficult.”

“We’ve already had this conversation.”

She fussed with the corner of the duvet. “The name Charise doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I believe she’s from Jackson.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

“I’m sorry. Have I given you the impression that I want to make things easier for you?”

“It’s just weird that you don’t have more friends in Parrish. No, on second thought, it’s not weird.”

He slipped off his watch. “The party tomorrow night is business.”

“I know. To thank the people who helped you with Reflections. But aren’t there a lot more people here in town who helped with your research than in Oxford?”

“Your aunt is dead, Hank Withers is in the hospital, and Mrs. Shaible is visiting her daughter in Ohio. Are we done with this conversation yet?”

He began unbuttoning his shirt and taking his time about it. As the person responsible for his laundry, she already knew he didn’t wear undershirts, just as she knew he favored jewel-toned designer boxers. She knew way too much.

“You could at least wait until I’m finished straightening up in here to undress.” She sounded testy, but she didn’t like the way his presence had encouraged her inner slut to come out of her coma.

“Is this bothering you?” The erotic peep show continued, one button giving way to another, his eyes watching her.

“Only because I saw that book you’ve been reading.”

His shirt fell open. “Which book would that be?”

“The Erotic Life of a Victorian Gentleman. Some gentleman. All-around dog is more like it. There are entire chapters devoted to masters and servant girls.”

He slipped a thumb into the waistband of his slacks, looking arrogant and dangerous. “You think I might be getting ideas, do you?”

“I know you’re getting ideas. You were using a Hi-Liter.”

He chuckled and disappeared into the closet. She loved it in there, the extravagance of the polished cherry shelves and pewter fixtures, the tidiness of the drawers, racks, and compartments, the way it smelled of imported fabrics and stuffy attitude. “It’s research,” he said from inside. “And what were you doing poking around in my office?”

“Picking up your crap.” And looking for the manuscript of Reflections, although she didn’t intend to tell him that. She straightened a lamp shade. “The chapter on auctioning off virgins is disgusting.”

“My, my, we have been snooping, haven’t you?”

“I need intellectual stimulation. This job’s more boring than dirt.” He hadn’t closed the closet door, so she wandered over and looked in. “I don’t think you’re doing research at all. I think you’re just being pervy.”

“Such a harsh word. Where are my gym shorts?”

He still wore his trousers, but the shirt was gone. She wondered how that skinny chest she remembered from high school could have turned into something so magnificent. He set his hands on his hips, and she realized he was waiting for a response.

She licked her lips. “Beats the heck out of me.” His gym shorts were on the shelf where he’d left them, but she tried not to make his life any easier than she had to. She spotted his belt draped over the teak bench in the middle of the closet. He liked things tidy, and she had a feeling he worked hard not to pick up after himself. “I thought you exercised in the morning.”

“In the afternoon, too, when I feel like it.”

“And you’re feeling like it today because you’re stuck again, aren’t you?”

“Don’t you have something filthy to scrub?”

“You’re throwing away so many pages that I need to buy you a second wastebasket for your office.”

“Would you mind turning around so I can take my pants off?”

“This is pretty much my only job perk, so yes.”

An outsider would have had a hard time telling whether the slight curling at the corner of his mouth was an expression of amusement or contempt, but she liked to tell herself that he found her a lot more diverting than he wanted to. She leaned against the edge of the door. “So tell me why you’re blocked. Normally I’d recommend a sex scene-you might remember I have a fondness for them-but after what I read in that book this morning, I’m leery about encouraging you.”

“It’s a complicated story, and I’m trying to introduce a new character. She’s giving me a bit of trouble, that’s all.”

“Cherchez la femme.”

“Precisely.” He picked up the belt he’d abandoned for no other apparent reason than to make her nervous. “Fannie is pivotal to the book. She’s young, well bred, but strangling on the conventions of Victorian society.”

“I can identify with- Hey, that’s my name!”

For once she seemed to have caught him by surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“My real name. Frances Elizabeth Carey.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Of course you did. Nobody ever calls me Frances, but it was on all my school records.”