An Irresistible Bachelor (An Unforgettable Lady #2)(18)

“Let me take something for you,” he said as she banged her way down the narrow staircase.

“I’ve got it.”

“At least let me take the suitcase.”

“If I can get this load from Penn Station to your house, I can move it to another bedroom.”

Penn Station? Jack frowned, picturing her with the heavy burden, transferring trains and walking through Back Bay Station. He had a feeling she’d probably skipped the taxi and taken the commuter train out to Wellesley, too. Which meant she’d also dragged the weight all the way up from the base of Cliff Road.

Damn it all, he thought, as he led her through the kitchen and up the main stairs. He assumed she would have flown in and taken a limo out from Logan Airport.

He felt like a heel.

“You should have told me if you needed transportation,” he said. “I would have sent my plane for you.”

He heard her stop moving and looked over his shoulder.

“I don’t need any handouts,” she told him. “I got here just fine on my own.”

“But that’s not the point. I could have made it easier on you.”

“I’m not interested in easy.”

He thought that was obvious, going by the luggage dangling from her hands. As she stared back in silence, her determination not to rely on him in any way irked the hell out of him.

“Struggling needlessly isn’t the only way to become a martyr,” he said drily. “You could strap on a hair shirt and live on top of a pillar for a month or two.”

She shored up the load, reminding him of how much she was carrying. “Tell you what. When I need to be rescued, I’ll let you know.”

He scowled and kept going, knowing it would be a cold day in the devil’s living room before she would ask him for anything. And why that defiance bothered him so much, he couldn’t fathom. Maybe it was just a tremendous change from what women usually expected of him.

Hell, even Blair, who was hardly a lightweight when it came to taking care of herself, relied on his jet, his contacts with Fortune 500 companies, and his connections in the art world. And he didn’t mind that at all. In fact, he liked it.

When he got to the top of the landing, he took a right and led her down to the best guest room in the house. As he opened the door and flipped on the light, he heard her gasp.

The Red Room was a real showstopper, he thought, which was precisely why he gave it to her. If she wouldn’t let him help her overtly, he was determined to take care of her through back channels.

Callie stepped inside and slowly dropped her load. The delight on her face made his chest swell with pleasure because he’d finally done something that made her happy.

The room was decorated in deep red and burnished gold. In the center, there was a mammoth canopy bed in the Jacobean style, a little something that his great-great-grandmother had imported from an English castle. A fireplace, made of rich russet marble, was set with logs and above its mantel was a painting of the Madonna and Child dating to the sixteenth century. The best detail, though, was the stained-glass window that faced the front lawn. Framed in swaths of thick red silk, the built-in seat under it had pillows of every size and shape to lounge on.

“Goodness,” Callie breathed, going over to the fireplace and then the window. Her next stop was the bed. She ran her fingers up the teak supports and over the acres of tasseled velvet that hung from the top. “This is magnificent.”

As her hands stroked the rich cloth, Jack found himself wanting to remember exactly how she looked in his favorite room in the house.

“Red suits you,” he murmured.

She went back to the fireplace and her eyes widened as they took in the painting. “Is this a Caravaggio?”

He nodded. “What do you think of it?”

She was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, her voice was commanding and he smiled, thinking it was how he sounded when he talked about mezzanine debt and interest rates.

“It’s magnificent, clearly from the height of his prominence. But I’m shocked at its location. Is this fireplace ever used?”

“No. I’ve had it sealed.”

“Good. Repeated, radical changes in temperature are death to an oil painting.” She flashed her eyes over at him. “You should have this conserved. When was the last time it was cleaned?”

“My great-grandmother bought it in Italy in the nineteen twenties. I don’t know that anything’s been done to it since.”

She made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat as she studied the work more. Her absorption was total, her breathing shallow. He figured a stink bomb could go off in the room and she probably wouldn’t notice.

This woman was pretty close to fantastic, he thought.

“So, Callie, maybe we should go through the whole house together and you can tell me what else needs attention.”

“Be happy to.” She went over to the window seat and looked through the small clear windows on either side of the stained-glass panels. Arthur went with her as if to supervise, putting two paws on the cushions and arching forward, almost as tall as she was on his hind legs. Callie’s arm stole around his scruffy neck and she patted his shoulder absently.

As Jack stared at the two of them, he knew he should go. There was something altogether too appealing in the picture they made.

“The painting’s arrival was delayed,” he said. “It’s supposed to come tomorrow. But I can show you the space over the garage first thing in the morning.”