Lucas placed his broad-spanned hand over hers and lifted it off his arm as if it was speck of lint. ‘Do you really think that tactic is going to work?’
His tone was liberally laced with scorn and another wave of heat flowed to her cheeks.
Ruby glowered up at him, but all she could see was her own furious reflection in his aviator glasses. ‘Firstly, I’m not leaving until you agree to hear me out. And secondly, I can’t leave my gran struggling all by herself with a burned wrist. Why haven’t you engaged another housekeeper? This place is clearly too much for her now.’
‘She insists she doesn’t want to retire.’
‘But can’t you see how neglected this place is at the moment? There are cobwebs everywhere.’
His mouth went into a thin tight line. ‘No, Ican’tsee.’
Something about his bleak-sounding tone made Ruby frown. ‘But there’s heaps of them. Look at that one at the top of the window, and on the light there. You’d have to blind not to see them.’
The line of his mouth became embittered. ‘But that’s exactly my point—I am blind.’
CHAPTER TWO
LUCASHEARDRUBY’Ssucked-in breath and the sound of her gripping the back of one of the wing chairs as if his news had shocked her to the core. But then, when he’d been hit with his diagnosis just over a month ago he’d been knocked sideways too.
Even if he did fully regain his sight, post-surgery, how was he supposed to juggle his work commitments in the meantime? How was he going to manage day-to-day life? He was not the type of man to depend on others for anything. He was fiercely, ruthlessly independent and could not imagine any other way of living.
‘Blind?’ Ruby gasped. ‘But how? I mean, what happened?’
‘I had a pituitary tumour removed last month.’
‘A tumour? Was it...malignant?’ She whispered the word, as if it terrified her to say it out loud.
‘Thankfully, no. But the surgery resulted in considerable swelling against the optic nerve.’
He heard the sound of Ruby swallowing and the creak of a floorboard, as if she was shifting her weight from foot to foot. He could imagine her small white teeth pulling at her plump lower lip and his blood thickened and drummed softly, deep and low in his body. It was a faint pulse that strengthened into a pounding beat as his mind kept running with memories of her understated beauty.
Touching her had been a mistake. An error of judgement that had caught him off guard.She’dcaught him off guard. The smell of her—the intoxicating peony and tuberose and summer scent he always associated with her—made him want to get closer to her, to breathe her.
Why was he so aware of her all of a sudden? It made no sense. He had done his best to ignore her since she was a kid—especially since that night of the party. Her sixteen-year-old schoolgirl crush might have been flattering to some, but to him it had reinforced his conviction that infatuation masquerading as love was a disaster waiting to happen. His parents had demonstrated that three times with their rollercoaster relationship that consisted of passionately falling in and out of love.
That day he had made it clear to Ruby where the boundaries lay. Those boundaries had been in place for eleven years and he was determined they would stay that way.
‘Is it...permanent? I mean, your loss of sight?’
‘My specialist is cautiously optimistic. Usually sight does return, but in rare instances it doesn’t.’ Lucas released a breath he hadn’t been aware of holding and added, ‘I can see shapes, but there’s no definition. And light and dark. But that’s about all.’
‘I’m so sorry... And here I was, gabbling on about blinding sunshine and why can’t you see the cobwebs. Oh, God, I’msosorry.’ The anguish in her voice was palpable.
He pictured her cherry-red cheeks and in spite of everything smiled to himself. He had never met a young woman who blushed so much. Those fiery blushes made her freckles stand out like nutmeg sprinkled on a dessert. ‘Please. Stop apologising.’
There was a loaded silence.
Lucas was aware of every breath she took, every movement she made. The rustle of her clothes, the squeak of her shoes, the swish of her fragrant hair. Aware of her in a way he had never been before. Or maybe that was because he’d been alone for weeks without a visitor, apart from the occupational therapist who had taught him how to navigate his surroundings and manage basic tasks such as dressing and eating and drinking.
While the OT had been excellent at her job, he still occasionally bumped into furniture, and the last thing he wanted was anyone witnessing it. He’d given his housekeeper, Beatrice Pennington, strict instructions to keep all visitors away. But he hadn’t realised Beatrice had injured herself. But then how could he have? He couldn’t see a damn thing, and she was loyal to a fault—the type who wouldn’t dream of letting him down at his lowest point.
‘Lucas... I meant what I said about Gran. I’ll have to stay a few days to help her. And if I can talk her into retiring, then I can help you interview new applicants and—’
‘I don’t want anyone else here while I’m recuperating,’ Lucas said, barely able to keep his tone civil.
The thought of his trustworthy housekeeper retiring was out of the question for now. How could he protect his privacy with strangers traipsing about the castle? He only needed another month or two to see how his sight was progressing.
‘The whole point of me being here is to keep my condition out of the press. As far as I’m concerned, the press have had their fair share of Rockwell scandals to report. I will not allow myself to become yet another one of them.’