Page 38 of The Lord Meets His Lady

Sweat trickled down his temple, owing nothing to the hot room. Miss Turner had to know he’d be putty in her hands if she crooked her finger at him.

“I’m not skilled with household matters.” He cleared his throat, forcing himself to look higher.

Dark lashes fringed her patient, knowing eyes.

He grinned, aware he had been caught staring at her cleavage. “And you got the best of me, going on attack at the crack of dawn, no less. Very unsporting of you.”

“It was well past dawn, milord. But do go on. This is quite interesting.”

Her chin rested in her hand. She was close enough that he could count the freckles on her nose. Miss Turner was pretty but not in the conventional sense. Her jaw was too square, her eyes too dark, and her stature tall for most men, but her body housed a soul older than her years and he wanted to lose himself in her.

Fighting for clarity, Marcus tapped the folded papers. “I have here something to even things out. A negotiation piece.”

“In our game of fox and geese.” Her voice dipped with humor. “And here I thought we were all about cleaning up your cottage.”

“A minor detail. Life is about the dance between men and women.”

Feminine lips bowed in a sensual smile. “A vicar’s wisdom, I’m sure.”

Firelight illuminated her honey-colored hair. Desire shocked his system again, the jolt reaching between his legs. A medieval device could be slowly crushing him, for all the sweet torture. He was ten times a fool for conversing with her while in his bath. His vision glazed over, all because messy hair and freckles entranced him…and sweet heaven, her breasts. They were big. The current circumstances defined purgatory: him naked with a desirable woman he could never, should never touch.

“About that negotiation piece,” she prompted, nodding at the broadsheet.

“I have a prime item, but it will come at a price.” His voice tight, he willed the intense wave of need between his legs to subside.

Miss Turner’s eyes narrowed. “Go on.”

“What’s folded inside these broadsheets is worth having my chamber pot cleaned all winter.”

“What?” She balked. “You wantchamber potscleaned. Not a service of another kind?”

At least his housekeeper didn’t mince words. His erection pulsed, and he fought the urge to discuss a trade of intimate favors. Temptation smothered him, her skin smelling of warmth and clean air, her unruly hair, and impertinent chin.

He gripped the tub’s rim. “I am trying to be a gentleman.”

“Despite asking me to talk with you in your bath.”

“A minor detail. No one needs to know.”

She sat up taller, her arms resting in her lap. The quirk of her mouth told him she’d made a concerted effortnotto peek at his nether regions. She had to know his cock was at full, painful,please touch mesalute.

“And I thought you might want a harmless kiss.”

Her smoky alto sent a perfect tingle across his nape. He eyed her supple pink mouth. “Kissing you would never be harmless.”

Her chin dipped at the compliment, and messy tresses slipped forward. One of these days, he’d ask why she didn’t pin her hair, but for the moment, he needed her out of the scullery. Otherwise, he’d do something foolish—such as press his mouth to hers, take her hand, and guide it into the water to stroke him.

“Well,” she began. “Since you’d prefer clean chamber pots over kisses—”

His molars clamped. “I didn’t say that.” It’d be useless to argue what he really wanted. Feeding his wants wouldn’t help her.

“Do I get to see what you have?”

“No,” he said testily. If they were playing a game of fox and geese, the geese would be outflanking him again, worse than this morning. “It’s worth cleaning the chamber pots. All winter. Trust me.”

“Not if I don’t get to see it, milord.”

“Do you trust no one?”