When she ran her finger across leather-bound spines, he felt the caress on his own skin.
Touchme. Chooseme.
She bent at the waist, holding the lamp close to view books on a lower shelf.
How could a simple white apron be so seductive? The narrow straps that crossed over her back ended in a big white bow.
The point of uniforms was to make people conform.
Miss Perkins conform to a silent, diffident role? Never.
She was still bending over, presenting him with a splendid view of her gift-wrapped arse.
His brush slipped. “Damn.”
She straightened, pursing her lips to puff a curl away from her cheek. “Is anything the matter, Your Grace?”
“Nothing’s the matter,” he muttered.
Except that he’d painted the inside of his wrist blue instead of the engine wheels, like an addlepated fool. He grabbed a rag and wiped his arm clean.
When he looked at her he heard drums beating in the distance, advancing with the warning of war. The battle for dominion over these forbidden thoughts.
A war against wanting to know her better.
Obviously he wasn’t going to accomplish anything this evening. Not with her in the room.
She lifted her small stack of books. “I’ll bid you good-night, Your Grace.”
She was halfway across the room when the top volume caught his eye. He rose from his desk. “I wouldn’t use that particular volume of poetry if I were you.”
She glanced at the book. “Why not?”
“Because it was written by the twins’ mother. The woman who hid their existence from me for nine years. The woman who abandoned them.”
Her cheeks paled. “I’m dreadfully sorry, I had no idea.”
“What fiendish, unseen hand directed you to that book, I wonder?” he asked.
“What fiendish hand forced you to keep it on your shelves, I wonder?” she rejoined.
She had a point. He was quickly learning that she usually did.
He’d thought he was in love with Sophie, with the heedless passion only a very naïve, very foolish young pup could feel. It must have been some lingering attachment to the memory of his first, ill-fated love that had kept the book on his shelves.
A passion that had torn his family apart.
A love that had nearly destroyed his life.
“I’m not sure,” he finally answered her, shaking himself out of his painful memories. “It was a mistake.”
“Perhaps the children would like to read her poetry. It may be their last remaining link to her.”
“No,” he said unhesitatingly, harshly.
“Well it was merely a suggestion,” she replied in an affronted voice.
“Sophie left them with only a hired nurse to care for them. They could have died, and I never would have known.”