Page 17 of Crying Wolfe
There was a fortune in archeological finds in there he was itching to catalogue just as soon as the professor and the appraiser could get their collective asses by to tell him if it was even worth the trouble.
Had someone heard about the find? Someone who’d known he wouldn’t be home tonight?
Creeping toward the room, he pressed his ear against the wood paneling, hoping to ascertain just how many people he needed to expel from his house.
And possibly from this world.
A soft, melodic hum vibrated through the door, husky, lyrical, and…female.
Eli pulled back, glaring at the heavy wood as if he could burn through it to see the little vixen on the other side.
She wouldn’t.
Eli threw the door open with every bit the amount of force he’d used when this senseless woman had invaded his house—his fucking life—not twenty-four hours ago.
What he found was entirely different scenery than before, that was for damned sure. She was dressed, for one. And the lights were blazing as if she wasn’t even trying to hide her presence this time.
Producing a littleeepof surprise, Rosaline Goode whirled around, bumping the business end of the telescope with her elbow.
“Drat,” she muttered, dramatic brows lowering over a look of mild accusation. “I’d only just calibrated the new coordinates to the—”
“Tell me I’m not engaged to a lunatic,” he gritted out, unable to tear away his death grip on the door latch. “Tell meyou didn’tbreak into my houseafter last night’s calamitous fiasco and—”
“I didn’t!” She picked up the big leather logbook on the writing table next to the contraption and hugged it to her chest as if it’d block any incoming bullets. “I called upon you this afternoon to ask permission, but as you weren’t here, I obtained it from Mrs. Clarkwell. You can ask her, if you like. I wish I’d known she wasn’t the crotchety old witch she was reputed to be. Would have saved the both of us a great deal of troub— Why are you looking at me like that?”
He couldn’t imagine what a fool he seemed. His jaw gone slack. His eyes fixed and unblinking. Arms hanging like two wet noodles at his sides as he gawked at the woman for what felt like the first time.
Had she been this fucking beautiful last night?
He’d not allowed himself to notice.
Her hair was piled high on her head in some intricate style held together by a feminine magic that frankly amazed him. It wasn’t a vibrant color, or even an identifiable one. Somewhere in between dark honey and light oak, if he had to take a stab at it. An almost unnatural sheen rippled in the light as she moved, turning the few loose locks down her back into a waterfall of satin.
Her eyes were so dark a blue, he had to take several steps closer to properly appreciate the color. He’d had a verbose boss once, that might have called her eyes mercurial.
A simple white blouse was tucked into an elegant skirt of fetching blue and green plaid, which matched the cravat knotted below the high-necked lace of her collar. Little pearls bobbed from her ears, obviously paired with the broach that fastened her cravat to the blouse.
She looked like a schoolteacher.
Like a woman.
In proper lighting, he conceded that her features appeared more elfin than immature, though she was still painfully young.
Fifteen yearsyounger. Holy fuck.
It wasn’t unheard of, he supposed. Rich old men took young wives all the time. And yet, it’d always seemed so ridiculous to him. Did they fool themselves into thinking such a pretty young thing was actually attracted to them? Or did they just not care, enjoying the fact that they’d bought a lovely toy to legally bed as they pleased?
Either thought had always turned his stomach. He’d considered the practice pathetic.
And yet here he was. A man with silver threads in his hair about to take on a wife who’d not been a woman for very long.
What a mess. What a goddamn—
“Please don’t make me go.” Her fervent plea reminded him she’d been waiting for an answer as he stood there drooling like the town idiot with a fresh head wound.
Apparently discerning he was unarmed, she abandoned the book to the table and crossed the dais upon which the telescope was mounted to entreat him further. “I figured, the damage has already been done, does it hurt anything if I watch the Andromedids?”
Remembering to inflate lungs starved for air he replied, “It don’t hurt nothin’. I mean—anything.” Damn it, he’d spent more than ten years fixing his Western diction. Using the correct words instead of the plunky patois he’d learned in the mines.
