A knock came at the breakfast room door. “My lord, your carriage is ready.”
“Thank you, James.” Pierce finished his toast, then came around the table. “Will you see me out?”
“Of course.”
She took his arm as they headed for the entrance hall. “I’m going to miss you, you know.”
“I should hope so. I’m practically your fiancé.”
“Oh, fie. Would you stop that nonsense?”
He laughed. “I will when it stops annoying you.”
They went out onto the drive to find Gabriel coming back from the pasture where he’d apparently led a couple of horses, probably emptying the stalls in preparation for mucking them out.
Gabriel halted. “So you’re leaving, eh, Devonmont?” He sounded rather pleased.
“Duty calls.” Pierce turned to her. “That reminds me, I forgot to mention to Uncle Isaac that I went over all the books and they appear to be in order. But he does have a few bills of lading that are incorrectly entered, and he should press that farmer next door for payment. Neighbor or no, the man needs to pay the stud fee.”
“I’ll tell him, but he won’t do anything about it. You know Poppy—he feels sorry for the fellow.”
Pierce shook his head. “There’s no point in helping him with his accounts if he ignores my advice.”
“I know, but he does appreciate it. Truly.” She leaned up to kiss his cheek. “As do I.”
Pierce cast a sidelong glance to where Gabriel stood listening, and drawled, “Surely you can give your future fiancé a better thank-you than that.”
And without warning, he grasped her head in his hands and kissed her hard on the lips. It wasn’t restrained
or
brief. He
lingered
, for pity’s sake.
“Now see here,” Gabriel growled, “you can’t do that to her.”
Drawing back, Pierce winked at her. “I don’t see why not. Cousins are allowed to kiss.”
Gabriel came nearer. “That wasn’t a cousinly kiss,” he bit out.
“Virginia didn’t mind.” Pierce’s eyes gleamed mischief at her. “Did you, dearest?”
She hardly knew how to respond. Pierce had never kissed her on the lips before. She’d have expected more of an impact. After all, Pierce was famous for his talent with women. But it had just been strange and uncomfortable, like kissing a brother on the lips.
“Well?” Gabriel snapped. “Did you mind?”
“I-I . . . no. Of course not.” She didn’t want Gabriel thrashing her cousin for some perceived insult to her honor.
“I see.” Gabriel stalked off toward the stables.
As soon as he was out of earshot, she gave Pierce a shove. “What was
that
for?”
Pierce grinned. “Just having a little fun.”
She let out a frustrated huff. “Now he’s going to think you and I have been . . . doing things that we haven’t. And then there’s the servants—”
“Who know perfectly well there’s nothing going on between us, you little widgeon. It never hurts to make a man stew a bit. Can’t have him thinking you’re easy pickings, when you’re throwing lemon tarts at him and dressing in your best gowns and watching for him out the window.”
“Lower your voice,” she hissed. “He doesn’t know I’m doing those things.”
“Then he’s blind.” He chucked her under the chin. “He already wants to marry you. You don’t have to work so hard at convincing him it’s a good idea.”
“I’m not! And he only wants to marry me so he can gain his inheritance.”
“Perhaps.” He glanced toward the barn. “Perhaps not.” Pierce suddenly turned very serious. “See here, cuz, if anything happens while I’m gone, send a note to Hertfordshire and I’ll come back at once.”
“I know. You’re a dear.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “A very wicked dear, but I suppose that’s to be expected with the way you live when you’re in London.”
He fixed a disturbingly intent gaze on her. “That kiss didn’t affect you at all, did it?”
She blinked. “It was . . . perfectly pleasant.”
A rueful laugh escaped him. “Pleasant, eh? You really know how to cut a man off at the knees. Take care, will you?”
“I’ll be fine.”
But as he drove away, her smile faltered. She couldn’t stop thinking of the look on Gabriel’s face when he’d said, “I see,” as if somehow she’d betrayed him. She hadn’t; there was no understanding between them. Nonetheless . . .
Glancing about, she realized that all the servants had disappeared. Poppy was off with Ghost Rider in the back pasture, and their two grooms were probably with him. Which left Gabriel alone in the stable.
Perhaps she should talk to Gabriel about Pierce. She could only imagine what Gabriel must think after Pierce’s mischief, and she wanted to set him straight.
You just want to see if Gabriel really works in there bare-chested,
her conscience said.
Stupid conscience. And it was wrong, too.
Still, she swallowed as she headed for the kitchen garden, which just happened to be next to the back entrance to the stable. And she was careful to make no sound as she slipped inside.
She halted next to the ladder that led up to the hay loft. Perhaps before she spoke to him, she should watch him at work. After all, Poppy didn’t know for sure that he was doing a decent job—for all they knew, he was paying off one of the laborers to do the work.
You don’t really believe that,
her conscience said.
You just want to spy on him.
With a scowl for her conscience, she hurried up the ladder, then crept through the hay until she could see him below.
She sucked in a breath. Sweet Lord in heaven, he
was
bare-chested. He had nothing on from the waist up. And he was attacking the straw with a pitchfork as if it were an enemy soldier he’d met in battle.
A half-naked Gabriel in black buckskin breeches and boots was a sight to behold. The well-defined muscles in his arms flexed with each scoop of the pitchfork, and his back showed every ferocious stab, the sinews tightening in a marvelous dance. She’d never seen a man’s naked back before, but she doubted that they all looked as spectacular as Gabriel’s.
Then he bent over to pick up some tack that had fallen in the straw. His loose breeches tightened over his bottom, and she gasped. As he froze, she clapped her hand over her mouth. If he caught her watching him . . .
But then he straightened, and she let out an inward sigh of relief. He hadn’t heard her after all. He bent again, and this time she took the chance to stare at his amazing bottom. Was it
supposed
to look that . . . well . . . firm?
When he finally returned to shoveling, she couldn’t decide which she liked better—watching him bend over or watching him shovel. She wasn’t surprised to discover that he had a most attractive form, but she hadn’t known that seeing so much of it revealed would have this astonishing effect on her. With the sheen of perspiration making his back glisten, she could think of nothing but how she would like to touch his muscles. Which was absolutely ludicrous.
After a few moments lying enraptured in the straw, she began to crave more.
Turn around, turn around, turn around
, she chanted in her head, almost desperate to see the front of him.
And when he did, picking up the wheelbarrow handles and angling it toward the back door, she bit her fist to keep from sighing aloud. Lord have mercy on her soul. How had he come to be so exquisitely fashioned?
He had a little brushing of hair in the middle of his chest and circling his navel, but otherwise his entire upper body looked carved from oak. His flesh looked taut and unyielding, with ripples of muscles running down his belly. She could scarcely breathe at the sight of so much male . . . endowment.
She was almost glad when he disappeared out the back of the stable. At last she could catch her breath. She ought to climb down the ladder and wait for him at the bottom so he wouldn’t know she’d been watching him, but what if he caught her?
No, she’d just wait until he was busy shoveling again. Then she would creep down and approach as if she’d come in from outside. That would work. And if he happened to—
“Enjoying yourself, are you?”
With a squeal, she scrambled to her feet and swung around. To her utter mortification, there stood Gabriel, a few feet away.
And judging from the black scowl on his brow and the fierce glitter in his eyes, he was furious.
Chapter Twelve
G
abe couldn’t believe it. After all he’d endured this week, she had the audacity to spy on him! Wasn’t it enough that she’d happily kissed her cousin while he stood there watching and seething?
And now she was probably in here making sure that he did exactly what her blasted grandfather wanted.
At least she had the good grace to be embarrassed; hot color crawled up her neck to her face. “I . . . I . . .”
“You were spying on me. Again.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you worried that your grandfather won’t get enough work out of me? Or did he ask you to report on my progress? I guess it’s not enough for him that he’s got me working like some damned groom—”
“I wanted to talk to you, that’s all,” she blurted out.
His eyes narrowed. “About what?”
She bit her lower lip. “About Pierce.”
That put the finishing touch on his anger. Now she was going to explain how she and her bloody cousin were perfect for each other, and Gabe could just go to hell. “What about him?”
She smoothed her skirts, refusing to look him in the eye, which confirmed his suspicions. “My cousin and I are not . . . that is . . . we . . . the two of us . . . have never . . .” Taking a deep breath, she started again. “That was the first and only time he has ever kissed me . . . like that. I didn’t want you to get the impression that we had been—”
“Intimate?” he said caustically.
Though her blush deepened, her gaze shot to his. “Yes. Intimate. I thought you should know that no matter what he implied, we don’t have that sort of . . . friendship.”
He stared at her a long moment, trying to take in what she was saying. So she wasn’t dismissing his courtship? She was embarrassed to be accused of being “intimate” with her cousin?
“Are you sure
he
knows that?” he asked, all at sea.
“Of course!” She released a frustrated breath. “He did it just to annoy you. And it took me so by surprise that I didn’t know what to say when you asked if I truly didn’t mind it.”
As it dawned on him what that meant, his anger ebbed.
“That is Pierce’s biggest fault, you see,” she went on. “He doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone. He seems to delight in—”
“He’d make you a lousy husband,” Gabe broke in.
She didn’t leap to deny it. “What makes you say that?”
He pressed his advantage. “Devonmont takes you for granted.”
She blinked. “That’s absurd.”
“Come now, sweetheart. I see how you take care of things around here. You hold this house together. You’re the one who makes sure they’re all well fed. Without you, that lazy cook of your grandfather’s would give them stale bread and mutton, and they’d take it because he can’t afford a decent cook.”
Her eyes went wide. “I can’t believe you noticed.”
“I’m not blind,” he snapped. “I see how things are. When you go off to town to shop, the two maids spend their time flirting with your absentminded footman and your grooms, and your housekeeper tipples whiskey until your return.” As she gazed at him in apparent shock, he added, “But when you’re here, they do their jobs, and damned near happily, too.”
“Because they’re afraid I’ll dismiss them.”
He snorted. “They know you can’t afford that. That’s not why.” He groped for words to explain it to her. It suddenly seemed very important for her to understand her own worth. “It’s because you’re so blasted cheerful.”
That had come as a complete surprise to him. He’d seen her only as the woman who found his very existence an outrage. But that was before he’d watched her in her element. Here at Waverly Farm she was a blur of happy female, bustling in and out, up and down, smoothing frayed nerves and stoking enthusiasm wherever she went.
“Who
wouldn’t
want to make you happy?” he choked out. “You . . . well, you make them all somehow . . . find the strength to be better than they are.” She did that to him as well, but he’d swallow gunpowder before he’d admit it. “You make do with the staff you have, and you do it brilliantly. Devonmont doesn’t see that or care. He’s used to having everything work as it should, so he doesn’t notice that what goes on in this house is
your
doing.”
Now she watched him with an openly vulnerable expression that made him angry. How could she not know these things about herself? How could none of them
make
her know it?
“Devonmont doesn’t notice that when you’re not around, your grandfather lapses into a darker mood. The earl’s a selfish, condescending arse, and he doesn’t deserve you.” At her obvious shock, he muttered, “Forgive my language, but it’s true.”
Her intent stare made him uncomfortable. He uncrossed his arms, then tucked his thumbs beneath the waistband of his breeches in a gesture of defiance meant to show her that he was not quite the blithering idiot he seemed.
Then her gaze slid slowly down his chest to his belly . . . halted at his breeches . . . before jerking back up to his face. The new blush that suffused her pretty cheeks took him by surprise.
And suddenly he saw her spying on him in a whole new light.
Well, I’ll be damned.
Could she have been watching him for another reason entirely? The very thought of the curious and virginal Virginia watching him in his half-dressed state made his blood run hot.
She tipped up her chin. “You only say these things about Pierce because you want me for yourself.”
Damned right, he did. Even more, he now suspected that she felt the same. “I say it because it’s true. You deserve better.”
“I deserve
you,
I suppose.”
“You deserve a man who sees you for what you are.” She eyed him warily. “And what is that?” “A woman in bad need of someone to look after
her
for a change. To consider her dreams and wants and needs.” He dragged his gaze slowly down her body, his blood leaping to see how it agitated her. “Someone who can give you what you crave most.”