Page 52 of The Defiant One
"What?"
"You may be ill, my lord, but I know for certain that your hearing is quite unimpaired."
Andrew was staring at her. "I'm not sure whether I should be grateful, amused, offended, or amazed by such . . . treatment . . ."
"You can be all of them except offended," she said, giving him a fleeting smile that brought out the sparkle in her eye. "After all, I'm treating you no differently than I would a dog."
"Coming from anyone else, that would be an insult. Coming from you, I suppose I should consider it the highest of compliments."
She grinned. "Yes, well, just so that you don't get too high an opinion of yourself, you've got a long way to go before I choose you over Freckles." She turned and headed for the door, but Andrew was still sitting up, watching the sway of her bottom and her mile-long legs in the shockingly snug breeches.
He was still looking when she, reaching the door, turned and gave him a glare of mock severity.
He understood. Sliding down beneath the covers, he pulled them up to his chin and gave a long-suffering sigh.
It was then, and only then, that she left him.
Chapter 16
When Celsie tiptoed back upstairs with a tray in her hands twenty minutes later, she half-expected to find Andrew sound asleep in bed. Instead, he was sitting up, his back against the headboard and his notebook balanced against one blanket-clad knee. His pencil scratched rapidly across the page.
She stood in the doorway for a moment, just watching him. He was so focused on what he was doing that he hadn't seen her. The light from a bedside candle flickered over his intent face, gilding a complexion that still looked more wan than it should. He had untied his queue, and rich waves of dark chestnut hair gleamed in the light and hung in his eyes and about his shoulders. He kept pushing the hair back off his brow. It kept flopping forward. He looked incredibly boyish, unconsciously distracted. Handsome. She stilled, just watching him. There was something eminently fascinating about observing a genius at work, creating wondrous new inventions that would someday change the world. Celsie couldn't prevent the swell of admiration, and for a moment — a brief, insane moment — she had an urge to go to him, to slide beneath the covers with him, and kiss the mouth that looked so grim and unhappy until it was smiling once again.
What are you thinking?!
It must be a lingering aftereffect of the aphrodisiac. It had to be. Just like her absurd hope, when she had been about to leave, that he would ask her to stay —
And her crushing disappointment when he had not.
She cleared her throat to announce her return. His head jerked up in startled surprise.
"Hello," he said. To her amazement, he immediately stopped writing, shut the notebook, and putting it dutifully on a bedside table, gave her his complete attention. Celsie raised her brows. Well now, this was a change. Had her little sermon in the coach got through to him, after all?
"Feeling better?" she asked, smiling in acknowledgement of his improved manners as he took the tray from her hands.
"Much."
"Good. Here's a fresh pot of tea, and I found some leftover pork pie in the kitchen, peas, and potatoes boiled in their jackets."
She'd made up two plates. He took one for himself, along with flatware, and handed the tray back to her so that she would have something on which to eat her own food.
"No, you take it," she said, trying to wave away his kind gesture. "You're the one who's in bed. You'll have nothing to balance your plate on."
"I've got my lap."
"You'll spill something. Here, wait." Holding the tray in one hand, she pulled up the night table and put her own plate on it, as well as the teapot and cups. She handed the empty tray back to Andrew.
He eyed her wryly, but finally relented and accepted it.
"I trust you're a very good dog trainer," he mused, setting his plate back down on the tray, straightening up a bit in bed, and tucking in to the pork pie.
"Why do you say that?"
"You don't take no for an answer. Dogs will walk all over you if you let them. I bet no one walks all over you — dogs and people included."
"Is that a compliment?"
"Do you want it to be?"
