Proof by Seduction (Carhart #1)(60)

Jenny stared in blank incomprehension out her door. Outside, a cart, pulled by a drooping nag, blocked half the street. Two men were dragging heavy slabs of oak out of the conveyance.

“Wanting what?”

The laborer looked at her as if she were daft. “The delivery. What else would we be discussing?”

“What delivery?”

“We’re to be bringing in the new and carting away the old.”

“But I’m not expecting any deliveries. New or old. Especially not a delivery of—of—what is that thing?”

“It’s a bed, ma’am. And I was told the delivery was urgent by the gent.” He grimaced then, and turned away.

The man was undoubtedly realizing what sort of women received beds as unexpected gifts. And this gift could have only one possible source. Lord Blakely. Jenny colored. If he intended to pay for services rendered with unwanted bedroom furniture, she’d tell him what to do with the bed. Stupid man.

She would have been extremely angry if the gesture wasn’t so disarmingly sweet.

So much of Lord Blakely’s cold manner was awkwardness, real uncertainty about how to talk to people as if they were…well, people. Some, of course—a goodly portion—was real arrogance. She couldn’t begin to guess which predominated in this gift. Both? Neither?

Jenny let the men in, unease pricking the hairs on the backs of her arms.

The carpenter—for carpenter that sour-smelling man was—fitted the bed together, setting the precise wooden joins into place. He was careful not to look Jenny in the eyes. Not to look anywhere, for that matter, but on his work. Scarcely half a day since she’d ruined herself again, and this, apparently, was the attitude she would experience for the rest of her life: an honest man’s contempt. She’d already experienced a dishonest man’s connivance.

But the disdain the carpenter showed as he slowly hammered the final slats into place was not what curdled her stomach. It was the thought that mere days ago, she too had turned up her nose at mistresses. At those unfortunate women who had no choice but to sell their bodies, and to bow to a man’s whim in order to maintain their livelihood. A mistress was all dependence without any of the benefits of respect. She’d tasted it once, then run as far as she could from the profession.

Had she become one without intending it?

The men carted away the old, rickety frame and her tick. Which really wasn’t all that lumpy. Not if you knew where to sleep. Minutes later, another cart rumbled by—this time with a mattress, the covering so thick and fine, and the fibers so tightly woven, Jenny had never seen its equal.

Of course, it was not lumpy anywhere.

Thick swansdown blankets and fine cotton sheets followed.

The bed was substantially larger than her previous furniture. In fact, it was almost too large, intruding into the small space she had in that back room.

Much as Lord Blakely had intruded in her life. He’d marched into her rooms with his pencil and notebook and turned her life upside down. He’d looked at her with that silent sneer. There’d been no room for his judgmental morality in her life. And yet here she was—stripped of income, stripped of clients, and now stripped of access to her bank balance.

She’d be damned if she let him take her independence. She wouldn’t be turned into a pitiful creature, unable to act for fear of losing a protector.

She kicked the trunk she was unsuccessfully trying to shove into the last corner remaining after the new bed had been put in. “Idiotic Lord Blakely,” she groused.

“And how many times have I said it?” said a voice. “It’s ‘idiotic Gareth’ to you.”

Jenny whirled around. He didn’t look one bit tired, which was extremely unfair. And he looked well put together—pressed trousers and jacket, and a cravat tied with his usual careless air. His eyes flashed almost golden in the evening sun.

“Gareth!” She shook her head. “About that bed. I don’t want your gifts. It makes me think—”

He examined his fingernails. “That,” he said, “was not a gift.”

“And I surely don’t want to accept payments. If you feel—”

“It is a scientific experiment.”

Jenny sat heavily on the edge of the new bed. It didn’t so much as creak under her weight. “Pardon?”

“It occurred to me there were two possibilities. Perhaps I enjoyed last night because of your presence. Or perhaps it was the lumpy mattress. Scientifically speaking, if I am to distinguish between these two hypotheses, I must experience one without the other.”

That dismissive toss of his chin dared Jenny to disagree. Dared her to suggest an alternate explanation for his behavior.

“Oh,” said Jenny. “Now I understand. You took my old bedframe to your own home, and you’ll sleep on that mattress alone tonight.”

He was visibly taken aback.

“Scientifically speaking,” Jenny said, “it would help you distinguish between the two.” She gave him her most saccharine smile.

Wonder of wonders, he returned the expression. That ridiculously stuffed posture left him. No more Lord Blakely, freezing lesser mortals with his rationality. Instead, he was just Gareth.

“Five,” said Jenny automatically.

He shook his head. “You’ve earned at least nine or ten points by now. I’ve been smiling all day. At odd intervals. My staff finds it exceedingly disruptive. I shall have to explain that I am engaged in a…a scientific exercise.”