Captain Durant's Countess(24)

So she daren’t risk being seen. She poked her head out the captain’s door like a faithless wife at a naughty house party and listened. The hallway was empty . . . as it should be. No one but Reynold Durant was occupying that wing of the house.

Kelby Hall’s nighttime silence was almost a noise of its own, and Maris’s rapid heartbeat added to it. She flew down the stairs and breathed a deep sigh of relief when she reached her suite and shut herself in.

Her own sitting room and bedroom beyond were in darkness. She was meant to seem retired for the evening and had sent Betsy off to bed hours ago. Maris sat in front of her fitful fire and brushed out her hair again, unsnarling the knots Reyn’s busy fingers had woven. The other tangles in her life would not be so easily dealt with.

Reynold Durant. Reyn. He wasn’t a complicated man, yet he was going to complicate everything.

She couldn’t let the flutter he caused inside her consume her. They had other things to do besides fornicate.

What a harsh word. What they had just done did not warrant such biblical opprobrium. While she might have sinned, she’d never felt better in her life.

How absurd. She was thirty-four years old, a very grown woman, allowing a few minutes of physical release to overtake her good sense. Her lack of experience was a true handicap. Perhaps when one was bedded regularly, one got used to feeling such euphoria. It didn’t last very long, did it?

She’d tasted a bite of the apple. She wanted more.

She hit herself on her muddled head with the hairbrush. “Enough, Maris,” she muttered. “He was right. I think too much.”

She would have to set some ground rules while they worked together, for their other project needed attention, too. Was it best to couple quickly at first, then uncrate antiquities, or work and then play? However was she going to concentrate with the captain at her elbow, radiating masculinity and mischief?

She was much too tired to think straight, never mind think too much. The morning ahead would unfold as it was meant to . . . by decree of the pagan gods or Reynold Durant’s tantalizing kisses. Maris tossed the hairbrush aside and crawled into her feather bed and prayed for sleep and forgiveness, not necessarily in that order.





Chapter 12


It was Reyn’s birthday, not that he celebrated such things anymore. He was nine and twenty on that frosty December day, an age he never thought he’d live to.

He’d already gotten his gift in its early hours. He expected to get at least another one, so he’d taken care shaving and dressing before he made his way upstairs to his new “office.” It was just past nine, yet Lady Kelby was not present to order him about. A fire had already been laid and started by unseen hands, taking the chill from the room. Maris had promised they would be undisturbed up there and he hoped Kelby Hall’s staff could restrain themselves from seeing to his every need.

He’d never encountered more solicitous servants in his life, from his dismissed volunteer valet—Reyn could dress himself, thank you very much—to the footman and housemaid who’d brought him so enormous a breakfast it took two of them to deliver it.

He would rather have slept longer than deal with people and porridge. He wondered if Maris had been able to fall asleep. He’d lain in bed for hours after she left, replaying their encounter in his mind until he’d been forced to take himself in hand again and spend against the sheets.

The night had gone better than he’d dared to hope. Once Maris had talked herself into the thing, she had been beyond responsive. Beyond compare in Reyn’s checkered experience. Yet there had been an innocence, which made Reyn wonder about her history.

At some point she and her husband must have had a real marriage. She had not been a virgin, thank God. Reyn was sure he’d know such a thing. Maris had been tight, but not untried. She’d gloved him with a surprising intensity that almost blew his head off. As a member of the Reining Monarchs, he’d not gone so long without a woman that the usual carnal act should affect him so.

But it had.

He shook his head over the neatly sharpened quills lined up on the penholder. If he was not careful, he’d wind up under the spell of a happily married woman, and then where would he be? He was here for a job, not to have a case of calf-love for Maris Kelby.

Where on earth was the word love coming from, modified by calf or not? They did not really know each other, and he couldn’t imagine a woman more ill-suited to him. She was far too proper, too contained, too shy when she wasn’t being bossy. Especially when her heels dug into his back to guide him to her will.

Altogether she was formidable. A countess who helped her husband write books had nothing in common with an ex-soldier who couldn’t even read them.

He left the worktable and walked to the window. The formal garden was far below, its regimented hedges separating each garden room. Two smocked men were digging up a plant past its prime, which marred the estate’s unnatural perfection, their breaths little puffs of white air. Reyn found the obelisk where he’d kissed the countess and realized they’d need to be careful if they were outside in daylight. Any servant quartered in the attics had a perfect view of the garden and the glistening lake beyond. The little rowboat bobbed against the shore as a brisk wind skimmed the surface of the lake. It looked to be a clear day, and he was sorry he would not be going out in it.

He tensed as he heard a squeak on the stairs, and turned toward the doorway. Maris’s footsteps were inaudible as she walked through the first attic room and pushed the door open. Her instant blush told him she had not expected to see him there so early.

“Good morning, Lady Kelby.” His voice sounded measured, belying the sudden constriction of his throat.

“Good morning, Captain Durant. I didn’t think you’d be up here quite yet.”

They were back to Lady Kelby and Captain Durant. Perhaps that was better. They wouldn’t slip into intimacy in front of anyone.

“Early bird, worm, and all that. I haven’t started on anything. I wasn’t sure what you’d want to do first.”

From the looks of her, it would be business. She wore a dark brown dress covered over with a pinafore, just the sort of attire one would wear to muck around in dusty attics. Her hair was hidden beneath a plain linen cap. If Reyn didn’t know she was a countess, he’d take her for a superior housemaid. She certainly was not a silk-clad seductress come to deliver another birthday present.

“I trust you’ve had breakfast,” she said, moving to the fireplace. Her shadowed brown eyes focused on a space just to the right of his left ear, not the rug at her feet where they’d begun their affair.

So she hadn’t slept much either. “Indeed. I couldn’t do it justice. I’m used to simpler fare, you know.”

“Tell them what you like, and you shall have it. The staff has been instructed to cater to your wishes.”

“You’re too generous, Lady Kelby.”

“You are our guest, Captain.”

“I am your employee. I don’t want to forget my place.” Bought and paid for, fed like a pig destined for slaughter. A full stomach wouldn’t make death any sweeter. No matter how much he was indulged, he’d never be at ease.

Maris twisted her fingers nervously.

Is she recalling where they had been and what they had done just hours ago? Reyn shook his head. Best to stop thinking of that. He grabbed a box from a stack and thumped it on the table. “Shall we begin with this? It’s number twelve.”

“Shouldn’t we begin with one?”

“That box was too heavy for me to bring here by myself. It will have to be opened in the room it sits in, or transported on that cart you mentioned. How will we go about this, Lady Kelby?”

She frowned. “I suppose the best way is to unpack each crate, number, and describe the contents, then put everything back except for what might interest Henry.”

The whole thing sounded ridiculous to him. If they were only going to put all the things back in their dark little boxes, what really was the point? A generation from now, someone might decide to throw the lot away as a fire hazard, though perhaps their inventory might dissuade them.

Maris moved over to a chair at the long table and handed Reyn a pair of large gardeners’ gloves. “Please wear these.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about. Some of the artifacts might be too delicate to hold up against human touch.” She pulled a pair of white cotton gloves from her apron pocket and put them on.

Reyn followed suit, then picked up the crowbar and pried box number twelve open. His first thought was there was indeed a mummy inside, for strips of fraying linen were wrapped around a giant misshapen lump. The box didn’t smell as if it contained a desiccated body, however, so he gingerly removed the lump from the box and set it before the countess. “You do the honors.”

Her expertise was evident. Each piece of fabric was painstakingly removed with tweezers that also came out of her pocket. He wondered how she opened her birthday presents. Was she as careful or did she rip into things with abandon like a greedy child? He’d bet the former.