Page 15 of The Lord Meets His Lady

Three

“Having a case of lust at first sight?” Samuel asked.

“What?” Marcus dislodged himself from the parlor doorway.

Samuel frowned and checked his younger brothers. Alexander and Adam were bent over a chessboard by the hearth, firelight gleaming off their polished game pieces. They sat in simple, cushionless ashwood chairs roughly fashioned after a Chippendale piece. Samuel had likely made them in his barn.

“You’ve not heard a word I’ve said.” Samuel faced Marcus, speaking in hushed tones. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you watching Miss Abbott when she served dinner.”

“I told you. We’ve mutual acquaintances in London.”

Marcus had spent the better part of the day in the housekeeper’s company, basking in pleasant conversation. At the first sound of horses in the yard, he’d slipped off to the parlor with his coffee cup like a newly arrived guest. Samuel had apologized about his lateness, but the words had fallen on deaf ears. Marcus regretted playing his friend falsely, yet he couldn’t regret the day with Miss Turner.

At dinner she’d circled the table, a dish balanced on her hip, asking each man in her throaty alto what he wanted. When she stood beside him, herWould you like turnips, milord?sent twinges up his thighs. Turnips!

Samuel crooked his head for a view of the dining room where dishes clanked. “Ah, yes, the mantua-makers my aunt patronizes. How convenient.” His blue stare bounced back to Marcus. “Since you wear breeches, not gowns, care to enlighten me how you know these women?”

Marcus opened his mouth to answer, but Samuel waved him off.

“Never mind. I’m aware of your heathen ways.”

“Heathen? She’s too young by far.” He hesitated, glancing at the dining room. “And her hips…too well fed for my liking.”

“Whatever you say, my friend.” Samuel sauntered to a corner cabinet, his chuckle drifting across the room.

Marcus leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. At the cabinet, Samuel raised a narrow-necked bottle in silent question. He wanted a drink but declined the offer. He’d gone the entire day free of the spirits. Samuel poured the rich brown liquid in a glass for himself, the whiskey sloshing its enticement. Denial was good for a man who’d lived too long with excess.

A man like him.

He was turning over a new leaf and all that, but new leaf or not, he wanted to groan.

Miss Turner’s lush breasts jiggled, the creamy flesh pillowing from her square bodice as she leaned over to wipe the table with energetic circles. A long, honey-colored braid fell forward. Her coffee-colored gaze collided with his as she tossed the braid over her shoulder. She stared back, bold as you please, finishing those cleansing swipes. One admonishing feminine brow rose, her silent message sending a frisson low in his abdomen.

His grin spread. Duly chastised, he didn’t care. He liked that she’d caught him ogling her. She wasn’t cowed by him, nor was she falsely confident. This thing between them enlivened him. The young woman from Tavistock Street snared his fascination. He could pin his interest on lust as easily as he could genuine interest in their budding friendship.

Idling in the doorway, he leaned dangerously toward lust.

Russet skirts swaying, Miss Turner picked up a pile of plates. Her lips bowed in a close-lipped smile, the enigmatic expression warming him better than the sight of her luscious curves, though he could easily debate the merits of her features. All of them.

“Whatever your history with her, I’ll not let you run off a perfectly good housekeeper. Her cooking is decent, if you can forgive the bread she bakes. It’s like bricks.” Samuel chuckled and sipped his drink. “It’s hard to find good domestics. At least she fixes things.”

“What do you meanfixes things?”

Samuel nodded at a table clock sitting by the plain, wooden settle. Slim brass fittings shined from a recent polish. “She repaired it her first day here. Took it to the kitchen that night, and there it was the next morning, working.”

Marcus studied the clock, the kitchen device coming to mind and her awe at watching the cogs and wheels. Miss Turner had shown intricate knowledge of the blunderbuss and the brace on the coach. His backstage miss from the Golden Goose had unusual talents.

“I admit she’s becoming,” Samuel acknowledged before upending his glass. “Alexander makes every excuse to seek her out.”

Across the parlor, young Adam raised a game piece high. “My rook takes your knight.”

Alexander scowled at the board, his big hands gripping his knees. He was about Miss Turner’s age, with shoulders as broad as Samuel’s. Marcus gritted his teeth at the picture of any man dancing attendance on her, but he could find no fault in the lad. A marriage proposal from Alexander Beckworth could complete her bid for a new life…a better circumstance than his paltry friendship offer.

Friendship with Miss Genevieve Turner would never be shallow, but it’d be short-lived. One penitent winter in Cornhill and he’d be back in London.

Samuel set down his glass. “Come with me. There’s something I want to show you.”

The hearth blazed. Dishes clinked in the kitchen. Adam talked game strategy, his excited voice cracking, a sign he’d shed childhood soon. Domestic sounds, all of them. Comforting touches enclosed by simple whitewashed walls. It didn’t matter that the wooden settle was chipped and void of cushions, or that Marcus’s Northampton dressing room was twice the size of Samuel’s parlor.