Page 30 of Guilty Pleasures

“Gardenias signify a confession of secret love.”

She would like that sort of flower, she thought. With an exasperated sigh, she turned away and resumed walking toward the center of the conservatory, where the Benningtons were seated, waiting for them.

“Have I said something to vex you?” he asked beside her.

“Not at all.” She forced a laugh. “It is just that sometimes I can be very, very foolish.”

“You? I do not believe it. I have never seen you make a mistake of any kind, Miss Wade. I cannot imagine you the fool.”

She is never ill. She never makes a mistake. She is a machine.

“I was in love once,” she blurted out before she even knew what she was saying. “Everyone plays the fool in love.”

“I suppose so.”

There was a strange note in his voice she did not understand, and she looked over at him as he added, “I have not experienced that myself.”

“You have never been in love?”

“Only in my dreams, Miss Wade.”

His answer was so glib and offhand that she stopped walking and gave his back a rueful stare as he continued toward the Benningtons. “That makes two of us,” she murmured under her breath as she pulled the spray of daphne flowers from her hair.

Chapter 11

Anthony had always been a disciplined man. Whether he was orating his views in the House of Lords, or discussing his estates with one of his stewards, or conducting any of the dozens of other matters inevitable to his position, he never allowed himself to be hampered by distractions of any sort, least of all a woman.

However, during the fortnight that followed Miss Wade’s escapade in the rain and his dinner with her, Anthony found it hard to concentrate. Though he avoided her, the image of her remained fixed in his mind as if carved in stone, and desire returned to taunt him at the most inopportune and inexplicable moments.

He put his preoccupation down to shock—the shock of discovering that for the last five months he’d had a woman living in his home who had the body of a goddess, and he hadn’t even noticed.

Anthony watched as half a dozen workmen lowered the huge slab of tessellated floor onto the hypocaust of the villa, but he was not paying any attention to what they were doing. Beside him, he could hear Mr. Bennington barking orders to the men, but the words were lost on him.

He had not even noticed.

Not until a rainstorm and a soaking-wet dress had awakened him to the truth. All through their dinner together that evening, he had been unable to stop staring at her, knowing the luscious curves beneath the plain, pinkish-gray thing she had worn to that meal. Now it seemed as obvious as an elephant in the drawing room, but the beauty of Daphne Wade’s body had completely escaped him for over five months. He had always been able to appreciate a sight like that. How could he have missed it?

Perhaps it was because she was in his employ. He had never allowed himself the indulgence of noticing any of the women who worked for him, especially one who made no effort to make herself noticed.

Or perhaps he had been working too hard. The pressure of fulfilling his obligation to the Antiquarian Society was wearing on him. He had not enjoyed the pleasures of a woman’s body since the London season.

Anthony shifted his weight restlessly from one foot to the other, and he wondered if her legs were as long as they had seemed beneath the drenched cotton fabric, or if that had only been his imagination.

“Your grace?”

“Hmm?” Anthony jerked himself out of his reverie to find Mr. Bennington looking at him.

The older man’s bushy eyebrows bunched together in a frown. “Are you well?” he asked. “You have been quite preoccupied of late, your grace, if I may be so bold as to say it.”

Anthony drew a deep breath and raked a hand through his hair. “I am perfectly well, Mr. Bennington,” he answered. “Carry on.”

He knew he could not allow himself to be distracted by any lusty speculations. His museum, his excavation—those were what mattered right now, and he would not let momentary desire for any woman have control of him. Even if she did have the body of a goddess.

He turned away and started to the stables, thinking to take Defiance out to the downs at the southeast section of the estate and let the gelding go at a dead run until both of them were exhausted.

He had barely taken half a dozen steps toward the stables before Anthony veered away from his destination and he found his steps carrying him to the antika instead. He had been avoiding her for two weeks and allowing his own imagination to torment him. Perhaps that was causing this annoying preoccupation with her. One more look, and he would be cured. Just one more look at her without that damnable apron to get in the way, and he would be satisfied on the subject and able to forget it.

She was in the antika, but his secret purpose in seeking her out was defeated at once. The apron had returned, effectively shielding the shape of the woman beneath it, and Anthony took some comfort in that. No other man in the world would have been able to discern the full breasts and shapely hips beneath that loose-fitting, box-shaped monstrosity of a garment. It was a perfect suit of armor, he thought, as he paused in the doorway. Or chastity belt.

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