“Of course, milady, anything you want.” Her eyes flew back to him. “Yes, you heard me, anything you want.”
Fyre took a deep breath and turned the page on her current ledger. She’d been working for close to an hour. This one had pretty much only her writing in it. A tiny smile crossed her face. She loved the entire process that revolved around keeping books such as these, even the details, which some considered mundane. She enjoyed all of it.
It didn’t matter that she did this for people who thought less of her. All she wanted to do was numbers. Pulling her thoughts from anything but what she needed to be focusing on, she sighed.
This man, however, he wasn’t easy to forget. Nor were his words.
She didn’t understand a lot about men, didn’t flirt much, if at all, and didn’t exactly need her brother to beat off suitors. Sure, there was Albie Caulfield, but in all honesty she believed he was after her because of the magic she could create with numbers and how organized she was.
The man himself was handsome enough, if she could get past the instinctive aversion she had to him, but she’d not cared about the attention a man paid to her until she’d met this new owner of Hawk’s Cove. Lord Edais had quickly made a name for himself, having come here and purchased the plantation after the scandal of a colonel who’d kidnapped a woman in his twisted effort to try to force someone’s hand while bringing back slavery to this island.
It had been a lot of ugliness.
She’d not had a part in that but had heard a lot about it from the people around. Slavery wasn’t allowed on this island anymore, and while most had accepted it, there were times that issues still cropped up.
It was a legitimate reason her brother wasn’t a fan of her doing a lot of what she did. Yet she couldn’t do field work and this way, at least, she was helping with the money for the house. Or rather, she had been.
Her lips twitched as she thought about finally being on her own. Out from under their rule. Already she had plans on how to decorate to make the small space hers.
“What are you smiling about?”
That deep voice wove around her and made her think about things she shouldn’t. She allowed herself a few breaths before she transferred her gaze from the ledger to the English lord.
“How much I enjoy numbers.”
His eyes heated and she fought the need to squirm on her seat. How one man’s look could be so powerful she wasn’t sure. But it was with this one.
He nodded and stared at her for a moment. “Have you eaten enough?”
The question was odd, and she didn’t quite follow his inquiry. What was enough? She’d partaken in some food, but she wasn’t going to eat all of it. Had he expected her to? With a small frown, she glanced at the food before her then back to him.
“Fyre?”
It wasn’t fair, the way his voice flowed over her and stroked places she wouldn’t have given a second thought to before he’d ridden into her life.
“I am fine, my lord.” She forced herself to meet his stare, regardless of how brief the glance was. “Thank you.”
He grunted and rose. She gulped back her desire, which was making her foolish and not focused. Before she could make sense of what was happening, he had shoved the food to one end of the low-slung table and dropped the books he’d had by her pile. Did it stop there? No, of course not. Then, then, he sat beside her, his strong thigh pressing hard into hers.
“Teach me.”
She wanted to say the same to him. However, she wouldn’t mean anything about work. Curving her fingers into the underside of the leather cover on the book she held, she angled her head toward him.
She wasn’t here for anything but showing him her bookkeeping. This was what she did, and this was what she excelled at.
His head, tipped toward her, made it so those gray eyes were directly upon her face. She saw mischief in them along with heat. It was the heat that scared her. So she locked her fear down and took a deep breath.
Mistake.
How this man managed to smell so delicious on a sweltering island, she couldn’t say. But he did.
A firm mental reprimand and she took a look down at the stacked books before them. “Was there something specific you were”—she paused, not willing to risk upsetting a rich English lord—“unable to translate from my writing? Or are you inquiring about everything?”
“You are very apt at making me believe you are taking the blame for this.”
She lowered her gaze.
He clucked his tongue. “Head up, Fyre, or I will think you’re not as strong as I believe you are.”