LITMIR.BIZ

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‘Not a female cook as so often is the case in England, I understand.’

      They followed him upstairs, leaving the porters and Hodge in energetic dispute over how much extra it would cost to have the luggage carried up.

      ‘Voilà!’ Le Brun flung open a door with a flourish.

      They were on the principal floor of the house, in a chamber that had once been an elegant reception room. It was whitewashed now and worn rugs were scattered over a floor of soft red brick, but the fireplace was magnificent and marble. The walls were hung with huge mirrors, damp spotted, their ornate frames bearing faint traces of their original gilding, and the assortment of furniture had once seen far better days.

      ‘Monsieur le comte, your chamber is here.’ Le Brun opened a door on the far side. ‘Madame, they prepare yours there.’

      On the far side, thank goodness. ‘I trust the beds are aired.’ Thea had practised the sentence in French in her head all the way up the stairs.

      Le Brun shot her a look of deep reproach. ‘But of course!’

      ‘We will need hot baths immediately, and then breakfast.’ She threw back her veil and produced a smile. ‘If you please.’

      The effect on the Frenchman was curious. He smiled back at her with more genuine warmth than he had shown before, then he glanced at Rhys with a faint smirk. ‘I see to it at once, madame.’

      Thea snorted as he closed the door behind himself. ‘He has realised that I am not, after all, your mistress. He will treat me with slightly more respect and he feels rather less for you now.’

      ‘How did you work that out?’ Rhys turned from the window and his contemplation of the street outside.

      ‘He saw me unveiled. I told you, I am not mistress material. So he decides I am respectable and you are to be pitied for having the chore of escorting me.’

      ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! As if the suitability of a woman for that role has anything to do with looks.’ Rhys’s brain appeared to catch up with his mouth and he shut it with a snap.

      ‘What does it have to do with?’ Thea asked, overcome with curiosity.

      ‘Never mind! Will you please stop talking about mistresses?’

      ‘Certainly! Perhaps, while you are lecturing me, you can tell me what it is we have to discuss in private?’

      ‘Lecturing?’ Rhys narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Please sit down, Thea.’ This was not the just-awakened man who had made her smile with his precipitous exit from the chaise. It was certainly not the inebriated old friend, sprawled in a chair and harassed by the kitchen cat. This was every inch the adult half stranger she had caught unsettling glimpses of on their journey.

      ‘Very well.’ She swept cloak and skirts around her with a flourish and sat in a chair that had probably once graced the town house of some now-executed aristocrat. The idea made her shiver.

      ‘You are cold.’ From his frown, that appeared to be a fault on her part.

      ‘No, I am…unsettled. Please say what it is you wish to say and then I will go and change.’

      ‘You should never have come to me and I should never have brought you with me,’ Rhys stated without preamble.

      ‘I was obviously mistaken in thinking I could rely on an old friend to help me.’

      ‘You should have been able to rely on an old friend to do the right thing. If I had been halfway sober, I would never have brought you. But it is done now and there is no going back from it. I will get you to Godmama safely.’

      ‘Thank—’

      ‘I have not finished. Your position is open to misinterpretation from everyone we meet, servants or otherwise. I will not have a lady under my protection insulted or embarrassed, and I would therefore be grateful if you would do nothing to draw attention to yourself, or our journey is likely to be a turbulent one.’

      ‘Indeed?’ Thea got to her feet with a swirl of skirts that would have been considerably more effective if they had not been overwashed old wool. ‘Other than being female, I do not believe I have done anything that might be said to draw attention to my person. I regret that I am not able to rectify that grievous fault—unless you wish me to dress as a boy? I still have the clothes.’

      ‘You make an appalling boy—you do not have the figure for it.’ Rhys appeared to find the carved overmantel fascinating.

      ‘I could bind my—’

      ‘It is not your… Not the parts that need binding that are the problem. No youth has hips like that, and those can’t be bound.’

      ‘Hips? Are you saying that I have a fat posterior?’

      ‘No! Thea, this is a highly improper conversation.’ Rhys glared at her. ‘You have curves, that is all I am saying.’

      ‘So I should hope.’

      ‘You never had them before.’ Rhys’s lips twitched into a reluctant smile. ‘You used to be all skin and bone and angles. You still have the elbows. I have the bruises from last night.’

      ‘I was sixteen the last time we met face-to-face, for goodness’ sake! I was a late developer,’ she added mutinously.

      ‘Well, you’ve developed now, and that’s a problem.’

      ‘Not according to Stepmama. She considers that I finally have an adequate figure.’ Rhys appeared to be grinding his teeth. ‘Anyway, I have no intention of flaunting anything, or of flirting with passing rakes, leaning over the balcony en negligée or otherwise drawing attention to myself. Does that reassure you?’

      ‘It does. Thank you, Thea.’ They watched each other in wary silence for a minute, then Rhys said, ‘I am not used to having to look after an unmarried girl.’

      ‘I am not a girl.’ His words might have been intended as a small flag of truce, but her precarious hold on her temper was slipping again. ‘If I am old enough to be married, and to inherit my own money, I think that makes me a woman, don’t you?’ Even to her own ears she sounded remarkably tart. What was the matter with her? She never lost her temper—she was known for cheerful common sense, everyone said so.

      ‘No doubt it does. And that is the problem. At least we understand each other now.’

      We do? She opened her mouth to ask that very question as Polly bustled in.

      ‘The room’s all ready for you, my lady, and the bath’s being filled, although I had a bit of a problem with the servants here to start with. Cobwebs like you wouldn’t believe and no proper pillows, just nasty, hard bolster things.’ She picked up Thea’s discarded bonnet. ‘Amazing how they understand if you speak nice and loud and slow, isn’t it?’

      ‘French servants or Englishmen?’ Thea murmured as she followed the maid out. From the corner of her eye she saw Rhys’s mouth quirk up at the corner. So he had heard her. Ah well, so long as that half smile meant they were back on their old footing and he stopped that nonsense about drawing attention to herself. And wanting to fight anyone who insulted her.

      It was rather charming, she decided as she rolled down her stockings. Gallant. Up to now gentlemen had not seemed to consider that she might need helping down gangplanks or rescuing from embarrassment. Even when Anthony was making his pretence of courting her so ardently he had never tried the ‘fragile flower’ treatment.

      Not that she did need assistance, of course. She would hate to be a helpless female, but it was pleasant to be looked after once in a while. The memory of just how safe Rhys’s body had made her feel sent a shiver shimmering across her skin. Odd, she must be tired, or perhaps she was coming down with a chill.

      And perhaps safe was not the right word, not when she remembered the shocking pressure of his arousal against her buttocks, or the heat of his body. But that was just a male reflex, nothing to be worried

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