Charlie looked up as he crossed the room. She smiled, forgetting for the moment that they were trying to keep a healthy distance between them.
He stopped before her, returning the smile. Her knees brushed lightly against his hips. He lifted a hand to wipe a stray crumb from her chin. Her skin burned his fingers.
He made no move to withdraw. She made no move to withdraw.
“We made flapjacks, Mr. Chase,” Mrs. Beard said as she pulled a tray of biscuits from the oven. A brawny, strapping woman of sixty, Mrs. Beard had been the cook for his family since he was a boy.
Adam dropped his hand and stepped back, tearing his gaze from Charlie’s. So much for firm resolve. His heart felt as if it was near to bursting from his chest. And all because she had brushed her knee against him. Pathetic. He made a mental note to send Marilyn a message that he was in town. Perhaps she had time to see him tonight.
“Miss Whitney likes flapjacks for breakfast. Not all those fancy pastries. No breakfast trays for
her
.” Marilyn always insisted on a breakfast tray.
He sent a frown Mrs. Beard’s way, through it was difficult to intimidate a woman who had seen you in short trousers. He glanced back at Charlie, but she was staring at the floor. He shifted from one foot to the other, the heat in the kitchen suddenly soaking through his crisp cotton shirt. A bead of sweat trickled down his back. “Mrs. Beard, if I could just have a moment with Miss Whitney.”
Mrs. Beard nodded, whisking her assistant into the dining room with her.
Wondering why he was going to touch her again, Adam placed his hand beneath Charlie’s chin, tilting her head up. Her face revealed a mixture of confusion and an odd little glimmer he did not care to define. “You don’t have to hide in the kitchen with my staff.”
She puckered her brow, a thoughtful expression entering her eyes. “I have more in common with the kitchen staff, Chase, whether you comprehend that or not.”
He dropped his hand and sighed, realizing all at once that she wanted to keep herself from him as much as he wanted to keep himself from her. She was even desperate enough to bring up class distinctions, for God’s sake. He supposed he should be grateful. “In regard to this seamstress...”
Charlie hopped off the chopping block, her ugly, black boots choosing that moment to peek from beneath her skirt. She walked past him to the cast iron stove where cornpone sat in a tin pan. Breaking off a piece, she popped it into her mouth. “No,” she said, chewing. “You’ve spent too much money already. Besides, I don’t need any clothes. What are you and Mrs. Peters trying to do? Turn me into Lila?” She looked over her shoulder, her gaze catching his as he looked over his shoulder.
“This is ridiculous, Charlie. I have two women in this house, two more than I
need
, and I’m trying like hell to please them both. Just order the dresses. Mrs. Peters is right. We may go to dinner in town one night.” He threw up his hands in disgusted resignation. Did he imagine the calm reflected in her expression? He pushed a little harder. “I forced this decision on you. You would still be in Edgemont if it were not for me. Think of it that way.”
She shrugged and took another bite. “I don’t know much about seamstresses.”
“You just stand there with your spine straight and your arms raised. They measure, you pick colors and fabrics and styles.”
She did a slow turn, her bright blue gaze centered on him. “How do you know?”
Ah, she was much more courageous than he. She didn’t need him. He was not even sure she
wanted
him. But she was curious. Curious about the emotions that constantly jumped between them. She was courageous enough to tread where he was not.
He walked away from her, through the dining room and across the entrance hall to the door. He heard her follow. There was no way to be quiet in those boots. He smelled flour or cinnamon—not the usual scent of roses—following him, too.
“Wait,” she whispered from behind.
He stopped and tilted his head to the ceiling, then drew a breath and half-turned, still facing the door, ready to flee at any moment.
The sight of her in his home, surrounded by possessions he neither loved nor coveted, shook him. He coveted
her
, her body, her mind, her soul. If only he could devour her, then cast her aside when he was appeased. But he liked her too much to do that. Besides, he had never been that kind of man.
Better to stick with the ones who cast
you
aside.
“Thank you,” she mouthed across the few feet separating them. Her lips opened and closed, her tongue peeking for a moment between her teeth.
He felt his heart lift and drop with her simple words. He felt himself lift and harden as he watched her. Did he imagine her shallow breathing, her darkening gaze? He swallowed and shook his head. “Nothing,” he mouthed back, “it’s nothing.” His gaze swept over her once before he shook his head again and pushed through the door.
* * *
Adam ambled along the deserted passage from stable to house. The path meandered through a dense copse of pines, azaleas and the ever-present, boisterous kudzu vines, which attached themselves to every square inch of available bark. The moonlight, dim from a quarter moon, lit the path enough for him to see. He didn’t really need any light—he knew the path well—though his footing was less than sure. This was due to lack of sleep the night before and one too many glasses of whiskey this evening.
A branch lying in the middle of the path twisted beneath his foot and he stumbled, falling to his knees. Instinctively, he placed his hands in front of him, thereupon wrenching a ragged hole in the sleeve of his jacket. With a curse, he pushed himself up. His head ached, and he smelled like a trollop. One had taken every opportunity to rub against him during the course of the evening. He had accepted only her aromatic gift.
He should have known better, should have refused Pete Stewart’s offer to share a few stories. A few drinks. After his abysmal meeting with Oliver Stokes, and the hard, irrefutable truth that Charlie Whitney was sleeping—no doubt curled in a sleek little ball—in a warm bed in
his
home...it had just been too much. Anticipating her there, waiting for him, made something shift inside him, something indisputable and fervid. Something he hoped had more to do with his penis than with his heart.
He halted as his house came into view. It was dark except for a light glowing from the library window. His fists bunched.
She was still awake
. After he had avoided her tonight like the coward he was rapidly becoming, left her to her own devices, left her alone with Mrs. Peters, chaperone; after confronting enormous guilt because her first full day in Richmond had been spent cooped up in his home, all the while denying he wanted to spend the evening talking and laughing with her. After all that...
she was still awake
.
Was there no mercy for the weary?
He shoved his hand through his hair, groaning. He wished he could not remember the taste and feel of her so well. Wished the swell of her breast was not stamped upon his palm like permanent lines. Wished the softness of her lips was not drawn like a map upon his tongue. He groaned again, his heart picking up speed as his long legs propelled him forward. He stumbled up the front steps to the door. He wished, with his whole heart, that he could
not
close his eyes and breath in the distinctive scent of her. He wished he did not know her so well, like her so much. Respect and trust her.
Because it was hopeless. As of this afternoon, their lives were detached. For reasons he could neither disavow nor disregard.
He grasped the doorknob between shaky fingers and turned, expecting the door to be locked. He breathed a silent sigh of relief. Mrs. Beard, for all her inquisitiveness and motherly admonitions, ran the household quite shrewdly and appropriately for a confirmed bachelor. She would never have left him out in the cold, so to speak, upon his own brick steps.
He held the heavy wooden door next to him as he eased inside. He did not want to release it and have it slam against the wall from a sudden gust of wind. When he turned the lock, the noise reverberated along the hallway, and he put his fingers to his lips, suggesting silence.
And forgetting his promise to leave Charlie to her own devices, stepped to the door of the library. It was open an inch or two, the distance more than enough to weaken his resolve and provide just the right amount of temptation for him to act upon. Soundless, the door swung wide. Mrs. Beard was rather adamant about oiled hinges.
His gaze roved over his desk and the two leather chairs sitting before it. He scanned the shelves of books to his right. No disarray as far as he could tell. He took a step into the room, turning his head to the left, in the direction of the fireplace. A large sofa, covered in gold and black satin damask, sat in front of the fireplace, its high back facing him. He walked toward the sofa, thinking someone must have left the lamp lit for him, because there appeared to be no one in the room. Then he spotted a petite, satin-clad foot hanging over the sofa’s arm.
He halted, looking down on Charlie Whitney.
She was fast asleep, not curled in the tight ball he’d imagined, but rather stretched out on her side. His gaze floated with languid ease from the top of her dark head to the tips of her feet. It was the first time he had been able to look his fill. The first time he had seen her sleeping. Sable hair loose and spread like a pillow beneath her. Lashes lying softly, darkly against tanned cheeks. He smiled and leaned. She had spectacles on—round wire frames perched jauntily on her nose. He’d never seen those before.
A slight smile curved her mouth, puckering her lips just so. Her right hand curled under her chin, her fingers clutching a charcoal pencil. A pad of paper lay on the floor. He tried, unsuccessfully, to keep his gaze from resting on her chest, which rose and fell with her even breaths.
She was dressed inappropriately as usual, in a dressing gown of pale green silk she should have worn only in the privacy of her bedroom. He could see the lace edging of a nightdress, made of the same green material, peeking between the valley of her breasts. The silk hugged the curve of her hip as snugly as a wet leather glove and, for his viewing pleasure, had gotten twisted at her knees, exposing the rest of her legs to his hungry gaze. His eyes widened as he noticed how very dark her calves were. Evidently, she sat in the sun with her dress pulled up. Or those damn trousers rolled up.
Against his better judgment, he walked around the sofa and knelt to pick up the pad of paper. Resting on one knee, he flipped it open. One page contained a list of editorial ideas. Another the comforts and grievances of train travel. He turned another and stopped cold. It was a sketch.
Of him.
She had caught him unaware. He was smiling, a soft, gentle smile, one he certainly didn’t recognize but feared she had seen much too often. It was a smile reserved for his mother and Eaton. A smile that displayed the buried, forgotten side of him. Goddammit, she had drawn
Jared Chase
. Adam was absent from the sketch he held in his hands.
He flipped pages, finding more: asleep at his desk, gazing across rolling fields, leaning over the press with Gerald, stacks of newspapers at their backs.
What could this mean? Could she possibly think about him as much as he thought about her? Did she lie awake at night asking God why he had thrown them together when it was far too late? Did his gaze burn into her skin like hot coals? Did she lick her lips and taste him, lift her hands to her face and smell him? Did she know the instant he walked into a room? Or walked out of one?
He dropped the pad of paper and covered his face with his hands. He wanted to make this yearning disappear. He wanted to destroy what he felt for her, before it destroyed him.
He wanted emotions that had been dead for years to suddenly possess nourishment and grow.
No
. He shook his head. He could not love anyone ever again. He
would
not.
“Chase?”
The sleepy whisper jarred him as effectively as a swift kick to his stomach. He jerked his head up, his heavy, stinging eyes meeting her drowsy, muddled one.
“Chase...what are you doing?” She glanced at the pad of paper. A rosy flush crept up her neck and settled on her cheeks. “Oh, my sketches. I needed someone to sketch. I didn’t think you would mind—”
“I don’t mind. Only...” He pulled his gaze from her face, training it on the pad of paper as if his life depended upon it. “They frighten me.”
She lifted herself to her elbow. “Frighten you?”
He swallowed past a dry throat. “I’m frightened to the depths of my soul, Charlie. Frightened of losing control of myself, my thoughts, my actions.” He clenched his jaw tight and began to rub the scar on his wrist. “I dream about you...
about us
...and wake up gasping for breath, my hands reaching for someone who is not there, my goddamn heart pounding hard enough to burst from my chest.”
He continued, lifting his gaze, focusing on a point just beyond her shoulder. “I can close my eyes and see you, smell roses and...I tell myself I’ll forget. I will get past this. Just loneliness, thinking about Eaton and my mother. Wishing for what is not possible.” He lowered his head.
She stood with swift anger. “You’re drunk.”
“That changes nothing I’ve said.”