A Suitable Arrangement by Martha Keyes

Author:Martha Keyes [Keyes, Martha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

SANDY

I strode quickly toward the butler’s quarters, eager to avoid Gillies’s penetrating gaze. I hadn’t meant to linger next to Juliana once Dolly and Gillies had come, but my mind had been elsewhere. On the small drop of water trailing down her neck, specifically.

The way Gillies looked at me the moment I turned to face him told me that nothing had escaped him.

“Enough of that, Gillies,” I said, unbuttoning my waistcoat.

“I said nothin’, my lord.”

“Your face said it for you.” I shrugged out of the wet garment and handed it to him with a grim look.

“I might’ve said the same thing of you, my lord.” There was the veriest quiver at one edge of his mouth, immediately controlled.

“And what does my face say to you now?” I glared at him.

He paused in the act of slipping my waistcoat onto a hanger to take stock of my expression. “That ye resent me for interruptin’ ye, my lord.”

“You are incorrigible, Gillies.”

My pretended irritation with him aside, the clothes he had brought for me—dry as summer dust—were a gift from heaven.

“That blasted cold water has penetrated to the marrow of my bones,” I complained.

“Sittin’ by the fire with a cup of soup and Miss Godfrey’s warmth ought ta see ta that, my lord,” Gillies said without even looking at me.

“And ten lashes ought to see to your unruly tongue,” I said without venom as I straightened my cravat. Yanking my tailcoat from his hands, I strode from the room, sending him a quick, amused glance before disappearing through the door.

Juliana was not in the parlor when I arrived, and I stopped on the threshold, wondering if she had thought better of eating the soup here. Perhaps she had noticed my thoughts wandering to forbidden paths and decided to take her food in her room. Watching the progress of a droplet of water down her neck was not part of the marriage contracts I had been discussing with Rutherford and Mr. Godfrey. Had I put her off?

A wave of disappointment washed through me just as the door to Mrs. Boyle’s bedchamber opened and Juliana stepped out. Her hair had been brushed out and given free rein, spilling over her shoulders and back in damp, brown waves.

“Forgive my state,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “If I have any hope of looking decent at dinner, I must allow my hair to dry first.”

I swallowed and nodded. “You needn’t apologize on my account.” Was Dolly smiling at me? She was no better than Gillies or Iain.

“I’ll fetch the soup,” she said, leaving us alone again with another brief glance at me. I kept my eyes on the doorway for a moment after she had left.

“Feeling warmer?” I put out a hand to Juliana, inviting her to take her prior seat.

She shot me a smile of gratitude as she sat. “I doubt I shall ever be truly warm again.”

“Nor I. We shall spend the rest of our days in front of this fire, trying to regain sensation in our fingers and toes.

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