“Is that so?” he asked with a suspiciously straight face. “If you don’t mind my saying, Miss Flora, you’re a haughty wee lassie for one so low in the domestic pecking order.”
Although she thought herself too frozen and wet to blush, blush she did. But then she wasn’t used to telling lies, whereas this man lied as readily as Bill had flopped down before the roaring fire.
“I beg your pardon, Mr. Smith. It was the pressure of the moment,” she said in the same intransigent tone. “With everyone away, I’m in charge of the house.”
He had the most extraordinary eyes. Even when his expression was serious, a smile lurked in their depths. If her insane parent wasn’t so set on promoting the match with Lord Lyle, Charlotte might even find that twinkle appealing. Most women would.
Which begged the question why the earl connived with her father to marry a woman he’d never met. Viewing him dispassionately—or at least trying to—she imagined such a spectacular man must have to beat admiring females off with a stick every time he stepped out his front door.
He put on the guileless expression he’d tried on the front doorstep. It was no more convincing now than it had been then. “I promise I’m no burglar, Miss Flora.”
Her lips tightened. “That’s just what a burglar would say.”
He ran his hand across his head, leaving his black hair delightfully disarrayed—not that she noticed, she told herself—and responded with a hint of asperity. She could tell he didn’t like having his credentials questioned. Too bad. “Well, if I am a burglar, today I can only steal what I can swim away with.”
“When the rain stops, the water will go down,” she said steadily, slipping her icy feet into an old pair of leather slippers.
He regarded her with a concentration that had an odd effect on her pulse. Perhaps after all that running through the rain, she was coming down with a cold. “You don’t really believe I intend harm, do you?”
If he intended to marry her, she considered that great harm indeed. But Flora the housemaid couldn’t say that. Bill rose and gave himself a good shake before he trotted forward to investigate the stranger’s boots.
Bite him, Bill.
Lord Lyle clicked his elegant fingers. And Bill, the rotten traitor, yipped in delight and rolled over to offer his pink belly for a scratch.
“Nice dog.” He bent to rub the terrier’s damp white fur.
Silly dog, she thought, but remained silent. Something about the way that elegant hand caressed her pet into bliss made her lightheaded. She raised a hand to her cheeks. She was unhealthily warm. A cold must be coming on.
Lyle hunkered down to do a better job of turning Bill into his devoted slave. He looked up at her from under the black wing of hair that flopped over his brow. “If you really are worried about my intentions, I can try and get across the river. I’m a strong swimmer when unencumbered with stolen booty.”
Charlotte stifled the urge to return his smile and wondered why she wasn’t scared. After all, they were alone, and she was at his mercy, should he decide to turn nasty. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Then I can sleep in the stables.”
Watching Bill squirm with pleasure, she summoned the words that would exile this unwelcome intruder from her personal Eden. It wasn’t as if Lord Lyle couldn’t manage out there. Her father housed his horses better than his tenants—and his tenants had no complaints. In the stables, however beneath his dignity, the earl would be warm and dry. And safely out of her hair.
But her essential generosity prompted a completely different offer. “We have about a hundred bedrooms.” Only a small exaggeration. “And you look like a gentleman.”
“Thank you, Miss Flora,” he said gravely. Odd how she was convinced he continued to laugh at her.
He shouldn’t call a mere housemaid miss, but if she protested, he’d only find her more amusing. Strange the insight she already had into his character. “I’ll…I’ll show you to a room.”
“Thank you.” He collected his steaming coat and stepped toward her.
She retreated into the table, before remembering that she didn’t want him to know he made her nervous. Still, she gulped before she spoke. It was just that he was so tall, and he watched her with such attention. And that wet shirt stuck so lovingly to every line of his impressive torso.
When she read her father’s letter, she’d pictured Lord Lyle as a weedy creampuff. The sort of milksop who let other people arrange his life. The man standing near enough for her to catch the delicious scents of rain and male was more roast beef dinner than fussy French patisserie.
“Miss Flora?”
Realizing how her eyes clung to his broad chest, she blushed to fire. She licked her lips, hoping without great optimism that the dimness concealed the color in her cheeks. “I’ll take you upstairs.” She paused, recalling that she was a mai
d. “Sir.”
Charlotte hadn’t had this trouble staying in character when she’d played Cinderella. Perhaps because the play’s Prince Charming was Paul Carter, the vicar’s son. A perfectly nice boy, but a nonentity compared to Ewan Macrae. All her life, she’d pushed Paul around. She already knew she didn’t have a prayer of pushing Lord Lyle.
Another reason to reject his suit. Since her beloved mother’s death ten years ago, she’d run the Bassington estate, and she’d discovered that she liked the world to march to her drumbeat. She’d bridle against any attempt to tame her, yet she couldn’t respect a man who let her walk all over him.