After a tense silence, she moved. Unfortunately not away, but closer. Closer so the faint breeze carried drifts of her scent to torment him.
She still smelled like sunshine. But today her soap hinted at the heavier perfume of jasmine. He wished he didn’t like it. He closed his eyes as he enumerated his reasons to despise and mistrust this woman.
“My lord,” she began. She sounded nervous, an impression fortified when he opened his eyes to see her fingers laced together in an unsuccessful attempt to hide their trembling.
The gesture was
disarming. He steadfastly refused to be disarmed.
“Mmm?” He wished she’d disappear. He wished she’d take one short step and press all that flower-scented loveliness against him.
“My lord,” she said more firmly, staying exactly where she was, confound her. She hitched at the dress’s neckline but it slipped down immediately. “We need to talk.”
Matthew’s mature experience of women was sketchy to the point of nonexistence. But he was acute enough to know those words from a female promised trouble.
“I’m busy.” He studied his new rose as if it held the secrets of the ages on its barren stalk.
She sighed with impatience. “This won’t take long.”
Startled, he lifted his head and looked into her eyes for the first time. “You’re not frightened anymore.”
A steady blue gaze met his. “Of course I’m still frightened,” she snapped. “But cowering away at the mere sight of you won’t do any good. And I’ve worked out that if you meant to hurt me, you’d have done so already.”
She raised her chin in a brave gesture that stirred his heart. My God, where had his uncle found her? She was a miracle.
“I might be lulling you into a false sense of security,” he said dryly. He had to remember her candor and courage were weapons she used against him.
“Believe me, secure is a long way from how I’m feeling.” Her eyes didn’t waver. “I want your help to escape.”
He threw his head back and laughed. She was so earnest, yet she must know her request was ridiculous.
Her fine dark brows had lowered with annoyance when he finally regained his breath. She’d even forgotten to fiddle with her dress. “I am overjoyed I provide your lordship with such amusement,” she said with heavy sarcasm.
He sobered immediately. “That is your purpose, is it not?” he responded in a silky tone.
He turned his back to go to the greenhouse for more binding to finish the graft. Perhaps his deliberate rudeness would chase her off. But of course, it didn’t. Instead, she came after him, close enough for damned jasmine to mingle with the other scents that surrounded him, of spring flowers and freshly turned soil.
“Lord Sheene, I suspect our…intimacy is as unwelcome to you as to me.”
That made him pull up so suddenly that she crashed into his back, every luscious inch of her.
He turned on her, fighting the urge to sweep her up in his arms, and barked, “What makes you say that?”
She stepped away, thank God, before he could grab her and consign his war with his uncle to Hades. Her color was even higher and she breathed in gusty little mouthfuls. A perfect portrayal of an innocent woman who found a man’s proximity disturbing. He’d have applauded her performance if he hadn’t been so disturbed himself.
She went on in an unsteady voice. “Your manner, for one thing. You clearly resent my presence. Also last night, you didn’t…”
“Force my disagreeable person upon you?” he finished for her and saw her flinch.
“If you were in a fever of lust, you’d have already had me. I told you I’m a widow and not unacquainted with men and their…needs.”
He nearly laughed again. She sounded prim as any spinster schoolmistress. All the time, she stood there arrayed like an expensive tart and driving him out of his mind with her nearness.
As if he weren’t out of his mind already.
He folded his arms and surveyed her down the length of his nose. “Madam, if I could get you out of here, I would. But your only hope of leaving is my uncle. And having brought you here, he’ll be less than eager to let you go.”
She made a curiously defeated gesture. “I know what you think. But I truly am a victim in this. I lost my way in Bristol and wandered into a rough quarter of town. Monks and Filey caught me and drugged me. Surely you cannot doubt I was dosed with laudanum to ensure I didn’t struggle.”