Page 21 of The Lord Meets His Lady
“I’m not a vengeful woman, milord.”
“How good of you.”
She would not let his brooding soften her heart. This was a bed of his own making, and now his lordship could lie in it.
And yet, his drollHow good of youcut her.
Despite the coldness and the late hour, neither made an effort to leave the parlor. Lord Bowles continued his unhurried inspection. Nibbling her bottom lip, Genevieve drew a line across the purple. The cushion was plump underhand. Once cleaned, the settee would be a nice place to sit or stretch across from head to toe to lift her skirts and wriggle her bottom on fine velvet.
“You know all this will be mine someday. I’d just as soon sell it now,” he said, toeing an upended chair.
“Why don’t you?”
“My mother holds the title. I’ll inherit it when she dies.” He roved the room’s perimeter, stopping to touch a gouge in the wall. “Northampton Hall has more than one hundred fifty rooms, but this cottage holds a special place for her. She’s convinced it does for me too.”
“Does it?”
“Not anymore. My father made sure of that.” He stopped at the back window and rubbed a clean circle in the grime. “He hated Pallinsburn, said it was beneath us.”
She forbade herself from soothing him. Whatever plight bedeviled Lord Bowles, she was his housekeeper, nothing more. Yet, she blurted, “What you said about my hips tonight—about me being well fed—was rude.”
He winced. “You heard that.”
“I did.” The room magnified her voice. Why bother to tell him? He wasn’t required to make amends.
“I didn’t mean it.”
“Then why say it?”
He turned stiffly, a man facing his due. “You might find this hard to believe,” he intoned. “But sometimes Icanbe a horse’s ass.”
“Humph.” She drew a new line in the velvet nap.
Lord Bowles stepped over a rolled-up carpet. “If I said ‘a very large horse’s ass’…say this big”—his arms spread wide—“would that suffice?”
“No, it wouldn’t.”
He hummed in the back of his throat. “You’re making me work to get back in your good graces.”
“That would mean you were there in the first place.” She bristled at his assumption. Lord Bowles strode through life too much on his terms.
He stopped an arm’s length from her. “I’m waving the flag of surrender. Believe me, if I could go back to the dinner hour when you served me turnips, I would.”
“Served you turnips?”
Shaking his head, he chuckled. “Never mind. Please know my ill-advised comment about your person was an effort to stop Samuel from asking too many questions about you.”
“Let me see if I have this right,” she said, smoothing out the velvet line she’d made. “You were protecting my honor, such as it is, by insulting me.”
“Poor choice of words.”
“Is that your idea of an apology?”
His mouth quirked. “If it’s working…yes.”
Another draft gusted through the room, skipping leaves over the rolled-up carpet. The taper flickered, its light catching the angles of his face. Despite his bits of wry humor, the usual roguish brightness was gone.
“I don’t think that about your hips.”
