she was and where she had come from.
She was keeping it.
Two hours later, Larenz and Amelie had finally retired upstairs. Ellery scraped the remains of their meal—Larenz had finished both his main course and a generous slice of chocolate gâteau, while Amelie had barely touched any of it—into the bin and tried to ease the persistent ache in her lower back. What she really wanted was a long soak in a very hot bath, but the repair man had already told her that such a venture would push the boiler past its limited endurance. She’d have to settle for a hot-water bottle instead, which had been her companion most nights anyway. Now that it was late October, the cold stole into the Manor and crouched in corners, especially in the draughty, unheated room where Ellery slept.
Sighing, she stacked the rinsed plates in the dishwasher and mentally ran through her to-do list for breakfast. Part of the weekend package was a full English fry-up, yet she was quite sure Amelie Weyton ran only to black coffee in the mornings.
Larenz, on the other hand, probably required a hearty breakfast that he’d tuck into with relish while never putting on an ounce. Quite suddenly, Ellery found her mind wandering upstairs, to the best bedroom with its antique four-poster—the new silk hangings had eaten up most of her budget for the room’s redecoration—and the birch logs she’d laid in the hearth that morning. Would Larenz light a fire so he and Amelie could be cosy in bed together, the flames casting dancing shadows over the bed and their entangled bodies?
Or perhaps they would have another source of heat—she imagined them there, among the pillows and blankets, Amelie’s limbs twined around Larenz, and felt a sudden dart of completely unreasonable jealousy.
She could not possibly be jealous. What was there to be jealous of? She despised the pair of them. Yet even as she asked herself this, Ellery already knew the answer. She was jealous of Amelie having someone—anyone—but especially someone as attractive and, face it, as sexy as Larenz de Luca. She was jealous of them both, and the fact that neither of them would be alone tonight. Like she would.
Ellery sighed. She’d been living at Maddock Manor, attempting to make ends if not meet, at least glimpse each other, for six long, lonely months. She’d made a few friends in the village, but nothing like the life she’d once had. Nothing like the life she wanted.
Her university friends were all in London, living the young urban lifestyle that she’d once, ridiculously, enjoyed. Even after only half a year it seemed as faded and foggy as a dream, the kind where you could only remember hazy fragments and surreal snatches. Her best friend, Lil, was constantly urging her to come back to London, even if just for a visit, and Ellery had managed it once.
Yet one weekend in the city didn’t completely combat the loneliness of living alone in an abandoned manor house, day after day after day. Ellery shook her head in an attempt to rid herself of such useless thoughts. She was acting maudlin and pathetic and it annoyed her. She couldn’t visit London right now, but she could at least ring her friend. She imagined telling Lil all about the horrible Amelie and Larenz and knew her friend would relish the gossip.
Smiling at the thought, Ellery resumed stacking the dishwasher and wiping the worktops. She had just finished and was about to switch off the lights when a voice made her jump nearly a foot in the air.
‘Excuse me—’
Ellery whirled around, one hand to her chest. Larenz de Luca stood in the kitchen doorway, leaning against the door. How had she not heard him come in again? He must, she thought resentfully, be as quiet as a cat. He smiled sleepily, and Ellery noticed how deliciously rumpled he looked. His hair, glinting darkly in the light, curled over his forehead and was just a little ruffled. He’d shed his suit jacket and tie from earlier and had unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt; Ellery could glimpse a stretch of golden skin there, at the base of his throat, that made her suddenly swallow rather dryly.
‘Did I frighten you?’ he asked, and she thought his accent sounded more pronounced. It was probably intentional, Ellery thought with a twinge of cynical amusement. He did the sexy Italian thing rather well, and he knew it.
‘You startled me,’ she corrected, sounding as crisp and buttoned-up as the spinster schoolteacher she was for the children in the village. She gave him her best teacher’s glare and was satisfied to see him inadvertently straighten. ‘Is there something you need, Mr de Luca?’
Larenz cocked his head, his heavy-lidded gaze sweeping over her as it had earlier that night. ‘Yes, there is,’ he finally said, still in that sleepy yet speculative voice. ‘I wondered if I could have a glass of water.’
‘There are glasses and a pitcher in your room,’ Ellery replied, and heard the implied rebuke in her voice. Larenz heard it too, for he arched his eyebrows, his mouth quirking—Ellery couldn’t tear her gaze away from those amazing lips—and said, ‘Perhaps, but I prefer ice.’
Somehow she managed to drag her gaze upwards, to those blue, blue eyes that were so clearly laughing at her. She managed a stiff nod. ‘Of course. Just a moment.’
She felt Larenz’s eyes on her as she went to the chest freezer and rifled through the economy-sized bags of peas and chicken cutlets.
‘Do you live here alone?’ he asked, his tone now one of scrupulous politeness.
Ellery finally located a bag of ice and pulled it out, slamming the lid of the freezer down with a bit more force than necessary. ‘Yes.’
She saw his glance move around the huge empty kitchen. ‘You don’t have any help?’
Surely that was obvious, considering how she’d cooked and waited on them tonight. ‘A boy from the village mows the lawns every now and then.’ She didn’t want to admit just how alone she really was, how sometimes the house seemed to stretch in endless emptiness all around her so she felt as tiny and insignificant as one of the many dust motes filtering through the stale air. She really needed to ring Lil and get some perspective.
Larenz raised his brows again and Ellery knew what he was thinking. The lawns were bedraggled and rather overgrown; she hadn’t had the money to pay Darren to mow recently. So what? she wanted to demand. It was nearly winter anyway. No one mowed their lawns in winter, did they?
She dumped the ice into two glasses and thrust them at Larenz, her chin lifted. ‘Will that be all?’
His mouth quirked again as he glanced at the glasses—Ellery realized she’d assumed Amelie wanted ice too—and then he took the glasses, his fingers sliding across hers. The simple touch of skin on skin made Ellery jerk back as if she’d been scalded. She felt as if she had; she could still feel the warmth of his hand even though he was no longer touching her.
She hated that she reacted so obviously to his little touches—his intentional little touches, for there could be no doubting that he did it on purpose, just to see her jump. To enjoy how he affected her, for wasn’t that the basic source of power of a man over a woman? And here she was, hating Larenz de Luca yet still in his thrall. The thought made Ellery’s face flame with humiliated aggravation.
Larenz’s mouth curled into a fully fledged smile, lighting his eyes, turning them to a gleaming sapphire. ‘Goodnight, Lady Maddock.’
Ellery stiffened. She didn’t use her title—worthless as it was—and it sounded faintly mocking on Larenz’s lips. Her father had been a baron and the title had died out with him. Her own was no more than a courtesy, an affectation.
Still, she had no desire to continue the
