Suddenly You(4)

That earned her another arrested stare. “But you are,” he said softly.

Amanda gave a decisive shake of her head. “Evidently you think I’m a fool who will easily succumb to flattery, or else your standards are quite low. Either way, sir, you are wrong.”

A smile tugged at one side of his mouth. “You don’t leave much open for discussion, do you? Are you this decided in all your opinions?”

She answered his smile with a wry one of her own. “Unfortunately, yes.”

“Why is it unfortunate to be opinionated?”

“In a man, it’s an admirable quality. In a woman, it is considered a defect.”

“Not by me.” He took a sip of wine and relaxed in his chair, studying her as he stretched out his long legs. Amanda didn’t like the way he seemed to be settling in for a lengthy conversation. “I won’t allow you to avoid my question, Amanda. Explain why you hired a man for the evening.” His lively gaze dared her to be forthcoming.

Finding that she was gripping the stem of her wineglass too tightly, Amanda forced her fingers to unclench. “It’s my birthday.”

“Tonight?” Jack laughed softly. “Happy birthday.”

“I thank you. Will you leave now, please?”

“Oh, no. Not if I’m your birthday present. I’m going to keep you company. You’re not going to stay alone on such an important evening. Let me guess—today began your thirtieth year of life.”

“How did you know my age?”

“Because women always react strangely to the thirtieth. I once knew a woman who draped all the mirrors in black cloth on that birthday, for all the world as if a death had occurred.”

“She was mourning her lost youth,” Amanda said shortly, and downed a large swallow of wine until it sent a flush of heat through her chest. “She was reacting to the fact that she had become middle-aged.”

“You’re not middle-aged. You’re ripe. Like a hothouse peach.”

“Nonsense,” she muttered, annoyed by the fact that his flattery, empty as it was, had caused a faint stirring of pleasure in her. Perhaps it was the wine, or the knowledge that he was a stranger whom she would never see again after this evening, but she suddenly felt free enough to say anything she wanted to him. “I was ripe ten years ago. Now I’m merely preserved, and before long I’ll be buried back in the orchard with the other pits.”

Jack laughed and set aside his wine, then stood to remove his coat. “Pardon,” he said, “but it’s like a furnace in here. Do you always keep the house so hot?”

Amanda watched him warily. “It’s damp outside, and I’m always cold. Most days I wear a cap and a shawl indoors.”

“I could suggest other methods to keep yourself warm.” Without asking for permission, he sat right beside her. Amanda huddled back against her side of the settee, clinging to the remnants of her composure.

Inwardly she was alarmed by the solid male body so easily within reach, the unfamiliar experience of sitting next to a man in his shirtsleeves. His fragrance teased her nostrils, and she drew in the alluring smell…male skin, linen, a light pungent note of expensive cologne. She had never realized how nice a man could smell. Neither of her sisters’ husbands possessed this pleasing aroma. Unlike this fellow, they were both stodgy and respectable, one a professor at an exclusive school, the other a wealthy town merchant who had been raised to knighthood.

“How many years have you?” Amanda asked impulsively, her brows drawing together.

Jack hesitated a fraction of a second before replying. “Thirty-one. You’re rather preoccupied with numbers, aren’t you?”

He was a young-looking thirty-one, Amanda reflected. However, it was an unfair fact of life that men seldom showed their age as women did. “Tonight I am,” she admitted. “However, tomorrow my birthday will be over, and I shan’t give it another thought. I shall sail on into my remaining years, and try to enjoy them as I may.”

Her pragmatic tone seemed to amuse him. “Good Lord, woman, you talk as if you’re teetering on the edge of the grave! You’re attractive, you’re a celebrated novelist, and you’re in your prime.”

“I am not attractive,” she said with a sigh.

Jack laid his forearm along the back of the settee, not seeming to care that he was occupying most of it and crowding her into the corner. His gaze swept over her with disconcerting thoroughness. “You have a beautiful complexion, a perfectly shaped mouth—”

“It’s too large,” she informed him.

He stared at her mouth for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was a bit gruffer than before. “Your mouth is well suited for what I have in mind.”

“And I’m plump,” Amanda said, now determined to explain all her defects.

“Perfectly so.” His gaze dropped to her br**sts in the most ungentlemanly inspection she had ever been subjected to.

“And my hair is wretchedly curly.”

“Is it? Take it down and let me see.”

“What?” His outrageous command caused her to laugh suddenly. She had never met such a presumptuous scoundrel in her life.

He glanced around the cozy room, and then his devilish blue gaze returned to hers. “No one’s here to see,” he said softly. “Haven’t you ever taken your hair down for a man before?”