Alone in the salon, she’d been sure she was right to accost him. Confronted with his lean strength, she was no longer so confident. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does.”
She sucked in a deep breath then spoke in a rush. “I know you don’t want me here. I don’t want to be here either. Can’t we call a truce?”
He arched his eyebrows in perfect aristocratic hauteur. “I wasn’t aware there was a war.”
She felt her cursed color rising. With her fine, clear skin, she’d always been quick to blush. She thought she’d outgrown the habit. Apparently not, or at least not when she cornered supercilious noblemen.
Having come so far, she couldn’t back out now. She twined her hands together and plowed on. “You’d have to spend time in my company for us to engage in hostilities, my lord.”
Swift comprehension swept his striking features. “You pine for attention.”
She felt like stamping her foot. “No, I pine for something to do. I pine for normal interaction.”
“You’re imprisoned with a lunatic, Mrs. Paget. Normal interaction isn’t on offer.”
Yet again, he used his affliction to keep her at bay. The words lost more of their edge every time he used them. “There are two people in this cage. Doesn’t it make sense to try and be friends?”
His eyes closed. She supposed the prospect of friendship with a humble creature such as herself offended his sensibilities. After all, he was the great marquess and she was a poverty-stricken widow of no particular distinction, whatever grand setting she’d been born into.
“Friends?” he repeated faintly.
She resisted the urge to hit him with one of his flowerpots. “I realize the barriers of rank, my lord, but here we suffer a kind of equality, don’t you think?”
His brows contracted as if he were in pain. “As equal as a madman and a sane woman can be.”
She made a dismissive sound. “I give you leave to doubt my sanity, sir.” She looked around helplessly, searching for inspiration in the neat beds of leafless rose bushes. “I’m used to being busy. On the farm, I did most of the labor as well as nursed my husband. If you don’t want a friend, what about an assistant for your experiments?”
He looked surprised that she’d guessed his occupation. He looked unhappy that she insisted on his company. He looked resigned as if he recognized it was easier to relent. What he didn’t look was pleased to accept her help.
She told herself she didn’t mind. He was obviously inured to solitude. But another prickle of hurt jabbed at her.
As if to confirm his reluctance, he said, “The work’s unexciting. And uncomfortable and dirty for a lady.”
Good Lord, what did he think? That she was made of sugar?
“I assure you running a sheep farm was both unexciting and dirty.” She met his eyes with a challenge. “If I find my delicate temperament overset, I promise I’ll trot back to the house and never bother you again.”
He didn’t exactly smile but some of the tension drained from his expression. He’d looked brittle to the point of shattering when she’d come through the archway. “You’re an obstinate scrap of a female, aren’t you?”
Startling that the tragic marquess had it in him to tease her. But this was the first genuine amity he’d shown, so she let a smile touch her lips. “Not exactly a scrap.”
“No, perhaps not.”
Did she imagine that burnished gaze skimmed where her dress strained across her breasts? Her nipples tightened as if he’d touched them. Pray God, he didn’t notice.
Now, when it was too late, she wondered if demanding his company was wise.
Dear Jesus, she wanted to be friends. Friends. And she looked at him so sweetly, he couldn’t deny her, whatever his common sense screamed.
For three days, her nearness had driven Matthew mad, so mad that he’d feared a relapse. He’d struggled to stay away but nothing banished her from thoughts and dreams. Or stopped her presence permeating his haunts on the estate, places where he’d only known unbearable loneliness. Those lonely vigils seemed like lost paradise now Grace Paget had crashed into his stagnant existence like a boulder into a pond.
He spent as little time with her as he could, blocked her from all intimacy. Yet she was with him as he trudged unhappily around the woods. A single visit from her had shattered the hard-won peace he’d always found among his roses. Worst of all, she’d made the cottage hers in a way eleven years had never made it his.
How had she done it? She kept signs of her occupancy to a minimum. But the moment he crossed the threshold, the heady essence of Grace overwhelmed him.
The essence of Grace kindled desires he could never satisfy.