‘I’m sorry,’ she choked, feeling his angry breath warm on her face, but keeping her eyes shut because she still wasn’t ready to take on board how she had been so crass as to stare at his body like that. ‘I didn’t think. I just—’
‘Didn’t think?’ he interrupted. ‘Have you any idea how close you came to completely embarrassing both of us?’
Oh, yes, she thought, with a telling little shudder, she had a very vivid idea how close she had come. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated. ‘I’m sorry—I’m sorry!’
Small white teeth appeared, biting hard into her bottom lip, her only good hand clenching into a fierce fist while she tried very hard to dismiss the image that was still cruelly filling her head.
Another sigh rasped her face. ‘You idiot,’ he murmured, and the anger seemed to be easing out of him. ‘Next time knock and wait until you are invited before opening that door, and save both our blushes.’
‘Ditto,’ she found the presence of mind to counter.
It took him a moment, then he huffed out a laugh. ‘I suppose you do have a point,’ he conceded. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked then. ‘You have gone a really strange shade of puce. Never actually seen a man naked before, hmm?’
He was taunting her! she realised. ‘Don’t you dare laugh at me!’ she flashed, her eyes shooting open in sheer reaction.
Oh, good grief. He was very close. She hadn’t realised just how close until she found herself staring into those devilish black eyes bare inches away. But at least he’d stopped long enough to pull on a robe, she noted with relief.
‘And of course I’ve seen men naked before,’ she lied, lifting her chin to throw the words at him like a challenge. ‘Loads of them as a matter of fact,’ she added for good measure. ‘And you weren’t naked.’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he drawled. ‘I certainly felt it.’
His mocking tone sent her eyes tight shut again. This isn’t really happening, she told herself firmly. It’s all just a very bad dream.
This time it was a soft huff of laughter that brushed across her heated face. Then—thankfully—he straightened away from her. ‘Now, what did you want?’
Claire shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ In truth, she couldn’t remember now what had sent her into his room like that.
‘You mentioned your aunt, I seem to remember.’ The rotten swine knew she had forgotten.
‘Where is she?’ she demanded. ‘Why hasn’t she been in touch with me?’
‘Probably because it is more than her job is worth to try,’ he answered laconically.
Claire frowned, beginning to relax a little now he had put a bit more distance between them. ‘If you dislike her so much—’ and it was obvious that he did ‘—then why do you employ her?’
His lips compressed, his dark eyes hooding over in a way that told Claire he wasn’t going to answer that question even before he confirmed it. ‘If you never take anything else from me, Claire, then take this small piece of advice,’ he suggested very seriously. ‘Forget your aunt. Or even that she works for me. She is not worthy of a single one of your thoughts. Now,’ he added, giving her no chance to challenge all of that before he was turning back to his room, ‘I am going for my shower. You have approximately half an hour to prepare yourself for an audience with my grandmother, by the way,’ he told her blithely before shutting himself away.
His grandmother …? Couldn’t he have told her that before?
‘Oh, heck!’ she gasped, and dropped everything else right out of her mind to make room for this much more nerve-racking prospect.
CHAPTER SIX
BOTH nervous and anxious about the coming ordeal, Claire rummaged quickly through the rails of her brand-new wardrobe of clothes, and eventually decided on a misty grey silk-lined linen dress that she felt she could easily slip into. Taking it through to the bedroom, she laid it on the bed.
But it was only while she was tackling the difficult task of pulling on a pair of fine silk hold-up stockings with only one hand to do it with that she suddenly realised there was no way she was going to be able to pull up the zip running the full length of the back of her chosen dress!
Puffing and panting from her excursions, she was standing there in her bra and panties feeling very hot and very flustered, and about to go and select something less difficult to put on, when a light knock sounded on the outer door.
Peering warily around a thin crack in the door, she was so relieved that it wasn’t Andreas catching her in a state of undress yet again that she almost dragged the young maid into her room in her eagerness.
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she sighed, smiling with relief. ‘Do you speak English?’ she asked hopefully, and at the girl’s nod said, ‘Then will you please help me to do up the zip on the back of this dress?’
Scurrying over to the bed, she snatched up the dress, feeling the seconds ticking ever further onwards towards her next ordeal when what she really wanted to do was lie down and rest because her neck was aching after having to take the weight of her wrist in its sling all day.
Never mind all the stress and tension, she tagged on hectically as she shimmied into the dress. ‘What’s your name?’ she enquired curiously as the zip rasped up her backbone.
‘My name is Lissa,’ the maid replied shyly, probably wondering if Claire had any brains at all, when it had only been an hour ago that she had been introduced to her downstairs.
Which, Claire decided, was probably true because her brains seemed to have gone begging from the moment Andreas had dared to kiss her outside in the garden.
And remembering that right now was stupid! she scolded herself as her insides went haywire at the memory. Then she remembered the most recent scene that thoroughly outranked the one with the kiss. And the two together played merry havoc with just about every sensitive nerve she had in her system.
Oh, stop it! You don’t have time to fall apart at the seams right now! she told herself crossly. She was just slipping her feet into a new pair of grey low-heeled shoes whilst carefully feeding her plastered wrist back into its support when another knock sounded.
At the connecting door.
Both Claire and the maid turned to stare at it, and, as quick as that, the tension was back, singing across the room to ricochet off that closed door and back at her—and that was without so much as setting eyes on the perpetrator of it all!
At least he’s practising what he preaches, she noted wryly when the door remained resolutely shut. She moved to answer it—the little maid scurried in the opposite direction with a mumbled excuse.
Deserting the sinking ship, Claire thought. Then she was gritting her teeth and setting her chin before reaching for the door handle.
It was like opening the door on a hot oven. The power of this man’s newly recognised sexuality flooded over her in burning waves. Stifled by it, she could neither breathe nor think. So she just stood there
