Page 92 of The Texan Duke
“You smell of bacon,” he said.
“I was in the kitchen,” she said. “It’s not bacon. It’s pork roast.”
“Were you cooking? Do you do everything, Elsbeth?”
She shook her head. He took another step toward her.
He reached out his hands and, before she could stop him, placed them on either side of her waist. There, he was touching her. Finally.
“Is that where you went for dinner, the kitchen? I should issue an edict as the new duke that you are no longer allowed to eat in the kitchen with the rest of the staff or to hide in whatever room you choose.”
He pulled her gently toward him and she didn’t say a word. Not one protest. Nothing. But her eyes widened and it was enough for him to stop and step away.
“Why have you been avoiding me?” There, the question he needed answered. “You’re not at dinner. You’re not at the stables when I go. You’re never in the kitchen. I think you’re one of Bealadair’s ghosts. The Elusive Housekeeper. No one ever catches her, but you know she’s always there.”
“I didn’t want to see you,” she said.
It was the first time in his life that words ever had the power of a blow.
He took another step back. “Very well,” he said. “Then I won’t bother you.”
He was turning to leave her when she spoke again.
“Oh, Connor, I was embarrassed. I’d managed to humiliate myself so completely.”
He turned back. “How?”
“How? You know how.”
He reached her, placed his hand on her shoulder, and trailed his fingers down to her elbow, pulling her gently toward him. This time her eyes didn’t widen, but her cheeks did deepen in color.
“My aunt’s idea might have worked, you know,” he said. “God knows I’ve thought of nothing else but.”
“You have?”
Her voice was tremulous, her smile fading in and out as if she cautioned herself not to show any emotion but couldn’t help it.
“I’ve been lusting after you, Elsbeth Carew. Is that an insulting thing to say?” he asked. He honestly didn’t know. Would a woman be horrified to know that she’d featured prominently in his dreams or that she was perpetually in his thoughts? Who the hell did he ask other than the woman in question?
“I can’t think that anyone would be insulted by such a thing,” she said.
That was too careful an answer for his peace of mind.
“Are you insulted? Does it make you want to hide even further?”
She startled him by reaching out and grabbing the lapels of his jacket. He hadn’t expected that.
“Would you be insulted to know that I feel the same? I can barely get any work done, Connor McCraight, for thinking of you. The cattle inspection took longer than it needed to because I kept seeing you standing on the other side of the pasture, grinning at me. You with your fancy saddle and your hat.”
The word wasflummoxed. His sister, Dorothy, had used it once, and he’d demanded to know what it meant, and then accused her of making the word up when she couldn’t give him an instantaneous definition. He’d discovered the meaning later and the word was perfect for this moment. Flummoxed: to be startled, to have one’s world turned upside down.
He didn’t have a thing to say. Not one coherent statement occurred to him. So he did the only thing he could think of doing. He kissed her.
There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he was making a big mistake kissing Elsbeth again. But that part of his brain was instantaneously silenced by the feel of her lips.
He half expected her to pull away, act indignant, and lecture him on the impropriety of his actions. What he didn’t anticipate was Elsbeth linking her arms around his neck. She stood on tiptoe, tilted her head a little, and silenced every gentlemanly instinct that might have led to his restraint.
She moaned and that was his undoing. He wouldn’t have released her if someone tried to come between them with a branding iron.
