Leam grabbed her up. Her hands clutched his coat sleeves. Her breath hiccupped, sending a cloud of frosty air between them. He scanned her face, a swift perusal of fine features—pert nose, wide mouth, eyes shrouded with thick lashes. She wore neither bonnet nor cap. Her satiny hair, dark like crushed walnut shells and carefully plaited with bejeweled combs, enhanced the perfect cream of her skin.
“Weel, nou, maleddy,” he said slowly. “Mind the ice.”
“I beg your pardon, my lord.” She did not lift her gaze. To his surprise.
Leam did not care for surprises.
Her breaths came rapidly against his chest. Her grip on him slackened and her arms dropped.
“I lost my balance when the door opened. The step is slick, yet I came out only in slippers. I wished to see the depth of the snow.”
“Did ye?”
“I shall be quite careful not be so careless again.” Her voice grew cooler with each utterance. Here was the sort of female with whom Leam had little commerce. Ladies like Katherine Savege held their own counsel and had done him little good in his former labors. But he was no longer an agent of the crown constantly seeking information. He could now do as he pleased, and he held a beautiful woman in his arms.
And despite her unwed state, Lady Katherine was no innocent. Of this he was certain.
“But yer a pretty bundle, lass.”
She stiffened, the effect of which was to flatten her thighs quite nicely to his.
“I am not a bundle. You should have already released me. You do know that, don’t you? Or is what they generally say of you actually true?”
“Aye, yer a bundle, an than some, wi’ that tongue.”
“My tongue is none of your concern. And I am not a lass. I am six-and-twenty. Rather, nearly so, on February twelfth.”
“Nearly? Who woud hae thought it?”
Her lips were a stony line Leam might soften; laughter would sit well upon them. Her remarkably large gray eyes, the color of wistful fall thunderclouds, slowly drew upward beneath a veil of sooty lashes.
“Will I truly be obliged to order you to unhand me, or were you planning on doing so shortly?”
By God, she felt good in his arms, her full breasts pressed against his chest, hips nestled comfortably along his thigh. Remarkably good. Would that the rumors spread about him were true.
Alas, it was largely smoke and mirrors to start the ladies talking. Informing. After that first job in the East Indies, three quarters of the work had been encouraging gossip.
“Eventually,” he said.
“Ah. Finally a word I recognize. Unfortunately, the wrong word.”
Leam couldn’t help chuckling. Her lashes flickered.
“My lord, you are a renowned flirt. But perhaps you are not aware that I am not likewise. Unhand me now.”
He should. He had no desire to. Warm feminine beauty pressing to his body, a cool clever tongue soothing his ear, and a lovely face shaped with intelligence could not be abandoned so abruptly.
“Whit threats will ye level if I dinna, I wonder?”
She tilted up her nose, releasing upon him the full force of her glorious eyes.
“I would not demean myself by leveling threats at a gentleman. But are you one?” Her voice was frosty. But those eyes … they questioned, far beyond her words. And within the thunderclouds, Leam fancied, a song wept.
His chest hollowed.
He released her.
She smoothed her palms over her skirt. Without again looking at him, and without a word, she went into the building.
Leam stood on the porch, boots sunk in snow, heartbeat quick and uneven. His stomach sickened at that sensation in his chest, for so long so alien to him. Clearly, that bit of flirtation had been a mistake.
He would not repeat it.
Kitty willed her racing pulse to slow. She’d never imagined that the removal of facial hair could transform a merely handsome man into…
She pressed cold palms to hot cheeks as she hurried from the rear corridor. He was not following.
She had insulted him. She’d had to. At the moment she would have said anything to encourage him to unwrap those strong arms from around her waist. Inside, she had been melting. It lingered now, liquid heat mingled with twining nerves.
She had not been so close to a man in years. Three years. She had, in point of fact, largely convinced herself that that state had come about because of this very man.
Could such coincidences occur? She must be mad to think it.
She hurried into the taproom. Emily perched on a bench at a table, wrestling butter onto a slice of bread.
“The bread is not fresh,” she announced. “Mrs. Milch says the village baker has taken to her bed today due to the snow, and her serving girl will not come to help in the kitchen as she lives in Shrewsbury three miles distant. I told her we might assist in baking if we are to be here long, which it seems we shall. Have you seen the snow? It is extraordinarily deep.”
“Yes. Deep,” Kitty finally managed, dragging herself from reverie. “For how long is Mr.
Worthmore to remain at your parents’ home?”
“At least until Twelfth Night. You do not think it will hold off melting until after then, do you? I might avoid meeting him altogether.” The glimmer in Emily’s eyes suggested she was banking on wishes.
Kitty shook her head. “I haven’t the foggiest idea how to bake bread.”
“Neither do I. But I shall learn.” Emily bared her teeth and bit into the stale slice.
Heavy steps sounded on the floorboards behind Kitty. She was to have no reprieve of even minutes in which to compose herself. But the man must want breakfast too, the man with a jaw carved of stone that a woman could wish to run her fingertips over, then her lips and tongue, as though he were a salt lick and she a deer.
She was very foolish.
He halted behind her and the lapping heat deep inside her resumed with astounding vigor. She pressed it away even as something heedless inside her enjoyed it.
“There is bacon, my lord,” Emily said. “The stable boy, Ned, found some in the shed. One would imagine salted fish could be had as well, but apparently not.”
Lord Blackwood moved around Kitty and took up the coffeepot.
“’Twas a lean season for the herring.”
Emily studied him curiously. “How do you come to know that?”
“’Twas in the papers, lass.” He smiled.
Kitty could not prevent it: a breath of pleasure stole from her lips. He glanced at her, but briefly.
“Will ye be regretting the lack o fish too, maleddy?” He passed her a cup of coffee as though he were a footman, this man of great wealth who stood to inherit a dukedom. He dressed with careless ease, not slovenly although without the slightest hint of fashion. He had large hands, strong and ridiculously underused by the delicate cup he proffered. Hands more suited to chopping wood. Or shearing sheep. Or holding a woman indecently close upon an icy stoop.
Her cheeks warmed.
She accepted the cup. “Not at all, my lord.” She tempered her tone with great care. “I prefer caviar.”
His gaze met hers, lazily hooded on the surface yet perfectly aware, as though he of all persons knew she donned her hauteur like a cloak.
Kitty held her breath.
His mouth lifted at the edge.
A breeze of cold air came with the sound of a door opening and the thunking patter of large paws in the front foyer. Then the dogs themselves appeared, a gentleman of about Kitty’s age following.
Drawing off his greatcoat and hat, he surveyed the chamber with a quick, light glance. He bowed to Kitty with youthful elegance, all correctness, and entirely unlike the large man standing on the other side of the chamber whose enormous dogs jostled his legs.