Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(9)

“It’s his age, I suppose,” Mrs. Faircloth told Salter, the butler. “Young men are all high spirits and mischief one day, all gloom and rebellion the next.”

“No matter what his temperament, McKenna had better do his work well,” Salter said dourly. “Or it’s back to the stables for good, and he’ll be a lower servant for the rest of his days.”

When Aline repeated the comment to McKenna one afternoon, he pulled a face and laughed. He was busy polishing the lacquered panels of a carriage, while Aline sat on an overturned bucket and watched him. The covered carriage room was empty and silent, save for the whickering and shifting of the horses in the stalls beyond the court.

McKenna’s exertions had caused him to sweat until his white shirt clung limply to the muscular surface of his back. His shoulders bunched and flexed as he applied a film of wax to the black lacquer, and rubbed it until it shone like glass. Aline had offered to help him, but he had adamantly refused and taken the cloth from her. “It’s my job,” he had told her brusquely. “You sit over there and watch.”

Aline had obeyed with pleasure, enjoying the masculine grace of his movements. As in everything else he did, McKenna performed the task meticulously. He had been taught since childhood that good work was its own reward—and that, coupled with a complete lack of ambition, made him a perfect servant. It was the only fault that Aline could find with him—his automatic acceptance of his lot in life, a resignation so intrinsic that it seemed nothing could ever change it. In fact, she mused guiltily, if it wasn’t for her, McKenna would have been perfectly happy with his fate. She was the only thing he had ever wanted that he couldn’t have. And she knew how selfish it was of her to keep him so firmly tied to her, but she couldn’t make herself let him go. He was as necessary to her as food and water and air.

“You don’t want to be a lower servant forever, do you?” she pressed, bringing her thoughts back to their conversation.

“I’d like it better than working in the house and wearing livery,” he retorted.

“Mrs. Faircloth thinks that you could make it to first footman someday, or even valet.” Aline neglected to mention the housekeeper’s regretful observation that although McKenna would make a wonderful valet, his chances of that were greatly diminished by his handsomeness. No master wanted to have a valet whose looks and bearing outshone his own. Far better to keep someone like McKenna in livery that clearly marked him as a servant. “And then you would be better paid.”

“I don’t care about that,” he muttered, applying more wax to the door of the extension-front carriage. “What do I need more money for?”

Aline frowned thoughtfully. “To buy a little cottage someday, and farm your own plot of land.”

McKenna paused in the midst of his polishing and glanced over his shoulder with a sudden devilish spark in his blue-green eyes. “And who would live with me, in my cottage?”

Aline met his gaze and smiled, while a fantasy took hold of her and suffused her with warmth. “Me, of course.”

Considering that, McKenna hung the waxing cloth on the hook of the carriage lamp before approaching her slowly. Aline’s stomach quivered at the look on his face. “I’d need to earn a fair coin for that,” he murmured. “Keeping you would be an expensive proposition.”

“I wouldn’t cost so much,” she protested indignantly.

He gave her a skeptical glance. “The price of your hair ribbons alone would beggar me, wife.”

The word “wife,” uttered in that low tone, made her feel as if she had swallowed a spoonful of sugar syrup. “I’ll make up for it in other ways,” she replied.

Smiling, McKenna reached down and pulled her to her feet. His hands ran lightly over her sides, lingering just beneath her arms, the heels of his hands brushing against her br**sts. The musky male scent of him and the gleam of his sweat-dampened skin made her swallow hard. She drew a little rose-embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve and blotted his forehead.

Taking the dainty cloth from her, McKenna regarded the handiwork of green and pink silk threads with a smile. “Did you do this?” His thumb stroked over the embroidered flowers. “It’s beautiful.”

She colored in pleasure at the compliment. “Yes, I worked on it in the evenings. A lady should never sit with idle hands.”

McKenna tucked the handkerchief into the waist of his trousers and glanced swiftly at their surroundings. Ascertaining that they were completely alone, he slid his arms around her. His hands skimmed over her back and h*ps to exert delicious pressure in just the right places, adjusting their closeness with sensuous precision. “Will you be there waiting for me every night, in our cottage?” he murmured.

She nodded, leaning against him.

McKenna’s bristly black lashes lowered until they cast shadows on his cheeks. “And you’ll scrub my back when I’m tired and dusty from the field?”

Aline pictured his large, powerful body lowering into a wooden tub…his pleasured sigh at the heat of the water…his bronzed back shining in the firelight. “Yes,” she breathed. “And then you can soak while I hang the stew pot over the fire, and I’ll tell you about the argument I had with the miller, who didn’t give me enough flour because his scale was weighted.”

McKenna laughed softly while his fingertip skimmed lightly along her throat. “The cheat,” he murmured, his eyes sparkling. “I’ll speak with him tomorrow—no one tries to fleece my wife and gets away with it. In the meantime, let’s go to bed. I want to hold you all night long.”