Heart hammering, he wrenched his thoughts back to the present. Mrs. Martin stood a handspan away, gaze lowered, cheeks pinking, her breathing as erratic as his own. She felt it, too, this primal beat pulsing between them in the deserted hallway. And as surely as he knew his own name he knew eventually she must succumb to it. To him. Already he could sense in her the fluttering anxiety between acceptance and flight.
“N-no, really, I…To be frank, my lord, I should be most uncomfortable to receive such marked attention from one so far above my station.”
She was trembling. He could feel the delicious vibrations thrum through him. How long and hard would she fight their attraction?
He did not wish to push her—too much—but he’d eagerly meet her, could she but persuade herself to advance a part of the way.
Would she? Caution said ’twas too early to rush his fences, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“Your service to my brother makes us equals, Mrs. Martin. But given your obvious reluctance to bear me company, I fear I must have alarmed or offended you in some way. If so, I most sincerely apologize. I stand already so deeply in your debt, surely you know I would never do anything to injure you.”
She looked up then, as he’d hoped. For a fraught moment she studied him, her puzzled, questing gaze meeting his while he stayed silent, scarcely able to breathe, knowing the whole matter might be decided here and now.
Slowly she nodded. “Yes, I do know it.”
Elation filled him, urged him to press the advantage. “What time shall I bring the gig ’round, then?”
Energy seemed to drain from her and she sighed, as if too weary to withstand his persistence any longer. “Four of the clock?”
“I shall be there.” He reached toward her cheek. She stood her ground, permitting the slight glancing touch of his fingers. “Sleep, Mrs. Martin. Until four, then.”
She nodded again and, holding the volume to her chest like a shield, turned and walked swiftly to the stairs.
Beau stood staring after her, waiting for his heartbeat to slow. He’d been attracted to her from the first, but this…compulsion—he couldn’t think what in truth to call it—to claim the fair Mrs. Martin far exceeded anything he’d anticipated or previously experienced.
He shook his head, still amazed by it. Until a few days ago he’d believed that his current mistress, a lovely dancer as skilled as she was avaricious, had been more than meeting his physical needs.
Mrs. Martin roused in him a similarly intense response that was at the same time entirely different. Oh, he wanted her as he’d seen her in the garden—warm, eager, ardent—but he wanted just as fiercely to discover the story behind those skilled hands, the quiet voice that soothed his delirious brother’s agitation, to penetrate within the lowered head and engage the questing mind that read Homer.
He laughed out loud. Greek, no less! How could he have thought her intellect dull, even for a moment?
Maybe it was the shock of Kit’s close brush with death that heightened all his senses to so keen an edge. Normally he was the most analytical of men—the successful performance of his job depended upon it—but the power of whatever arced between them this morning defied analysis. This was alchemy, elemental substances bonding through some force buried deep within their respective natures, a force not to analyze, but to experience.
He intended to do so. Once Kit was out of danger, he wanted to experience every thrilling facet the unprecedented power of this mutual attraction promised.
That decided, he switched directions and headed for the breakfast room. The more he knew of Mrs. Martin, the more tools he’d possess to lure her to him—and turn his molten imaginings into reality.
Time to prime the voluble squire’s conversational pump.
He was pleased to find Squire Everett already at breakfast. “Come in, come in, my lord. Fine morning for a ride, eh?”
“A wonderful morning indeed.”
“M’sister won’t be down this morning—female palpitations or some such, so don’t stand on ceremony. Please, fill your plate. Marsden will pour your tea.”
“Have you had a dish sent up to Mrs. Martin yet?” he asked casually.
“Cook will take care of that. Must see that she gets her nourishment. Thin as a wraith anyway—can’t have her going into a decline.”
“Indeed not. What an invaluable member of the community! Has she resided here all her life?”
“No, the last few years only. Her late aunt, Mrs. Hastings—a most genteel lady, God rest her soul—owned the cottage first. Mrs. Hastings helped her husband, a botanist he was, in his studies of herbal plants, and became something of an expert herself.” The squire paused to take a bite of kidney pie and waved a finger at Beau. “So you see, my lord, ’tis no crone of a medicine woman who had the teaching of Mrs. Martin, but the wife of an Oxford don! Anyways, once the folk hereabouts learned of Mrs. Hastings’s skill, they took to consulting her. And when Mrs. Martin contracted a puerile fever, her family sent her to her aunt. Nearly died, Mrs. Martin did, and took the better part of a year to recover.”
“I’m sure her neighbors are most grateful she did.”
“God’s truth, that!” The squire motioned the footman to pour him another cup. “Given the, ah, weakness of the local sawbones, there’s a number of folk who’d be in bad frame indeed, were it not for Mrs. Martin.”
“My own brother included.”
The squire nodded. “Glad to know you realize that!”
“Her husband was a military man, you said. In what regiment?”
The squire stopped buttering his toast and looked up. “Can’t say as I know. Does it matter?”
Back off, Beau. “Not really. I’m trying to ascertain how I might best reimburse her for the time and skill she’s expended for my family. She would not accept payment in coin, I expect, but I should like to offer some gesture of appreciation. Is she perchance a reader?”
The squire chuckled. “My, yes! Quite a little bluestocking. Why, when she was laid up recuperating from her illness, I swear she must have read every musty tome in my library twice through. Not that I grudged her the loan of them, of course. Nay, I was glad to see them off the shelf for better reason than to make way for Hattie’s feather duster.” The squire put down his fork, suddenly serious. “Mustn’t think she’s one of them annoying, opinionated females who are always trying to tell a body what to do. Not a bit of it! Our Mrs. Martin’s quiet and deferential, a real lady.”
“So she has shown herself, under the most trying circumstances,” Beau agreed, noting the squire’s slight stress on the possessive “our.” “The rest of her family is not from this county?”
“No. Now that I think on it, I’m not sure where her parents live—nor her husband’s people.” The squire shrugged. “Never seemed important. She’s quality, as one can tell by looking at her, and that’s all that matters.”
“Of course.”
