“Well, you’re no Prince Charming.” She wriggled free and faced him. To his regret, her dress once more covered her to the collarbones.
“Tch, tch, no need to take your bad temper out on me.” And received a killing glance for his trouble.
“It’s a cursed ill wind that landed you on my doorstep,” she muttered, just loudly enough for him to hear.
His lips twitched. She wasn’t much good at deception — an appealing quality in a wife. She kept forgetting that she was meant to be a humble housemaid. Humility, like deceit, wasn’t easy for this imperious creature.
Any man who took her on would never have the docile wife touted as ideal. But then, Lyle had never settled for the general run of things. If he married Charlotte Warren—and every moment inclined him more toward the outlandish idea—there would be fireworks.
Luckily he loved fireworks.
“On a night like this, you can’t sit around in your shirtsleeves,” she said, returning to playing the efficient chatelaine.
“I can take it off again.”
Alarm flashed in her eyes, but the way her gaze clung to his chest was deeply gratifying. When a man fell into instant lust with a pretty lassie, he liked to see his interest reciprocated.
“You’ll get cold.”
“I know the perfect way to warm up.”
That blush was charming. She was such an enchanting mixture of strength and uncertainty. Aye, she’d make a grand wife, would Miss Charlotte Warren.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked in a suspicious tone, stepping forward.
He made no attempt to control his salacious smile. “Do you really want to know?”
For once, she chose discretion. Quickly she shook her head. “No. No, I don’t.” She glanced down at her dog, who lay in front of the fire, bored with his human companions. “Come on, Bill.”
The terrier reluctantly rose on his short legs. When Lyle patted the square white head, the black eyes turned adoring. Whatever his hostess thought, Bill liked him.
“Traitor,” Miss Warren muttered and headed for the open door behind her.
“He’s an excellent judge of character,” Lyle said drily.
“Don’t imagine everyone at Bassington is such an easy conquest.”
The challenge was irresistible. Two quick strides and h
e caught her arm. When he whirled her to face him, he read the shock and anger in her face. But he also saw wild excitement.
His lips captured hers in another blazing kiss. Through the brilliant light that flooded his head, he felt her mold herself to him. This kiss crackled with quick fire. It threatened to rage out of control, until a sharp pain at the back of his head seized his attention.
Even so, it took him too long to register that while she might kiss him back as if she starved, those capable hands wrenched at his hair. Hard.
Dazed and utterly bewildered at his overwhelming reaction to her, he raised his head. Only because if she pulled any harder, she’d tear out handfuls of hair.
Her face came back into focus, her expression an alluring combination of surrender and self-castigation. “How the devil do you do that?”
Lyle smiled down at her. What a braw lassie she was to own the attraction raging between them.
“Magic,” he said, and again, he wasn’t entirely joking.
“I don’t want to kiss you,” she growled. “Then you touch me, and—”
“The world disappears.”
“You feel it, too?” she asked, sounding as displeased as if she’d caught him eating peas off his knife at a state dinner.