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Authors: Elizabeth Beacon
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mistake that for a compliment,’ she countered smoothly, yet he felt he’d annoyed her by lumping her with the more curious of her kind and tried to be glad of it.
‘I don’t think you in the least bit artless, I assure you, Miss La Rochelle,’ he said with a cynical almost-smile she didn’t bother to return.
‘Clearly,’ she told him, but he thought he saw a shadow of pain in her blue eyes before she gathered up their dirty crockery and bore it off to the scullery.
‘You hardly need to be with so many charms already in your armoury,’ he explained clumsily—why must he follow her into that utilitarian room when she’d given him an ideal escape route?
‘Look what you’ve made me do now,’ she chided fiercely as she jumped on finding him so close to her, splashed herself, then swatted angrily at the large wet patch plastering her dusky shirt to her torso with a glass cloth.
He did just what she asked and the cool scullery was suddenly close and stuffy as his gaze lingered on wet dark linen, clinging emphaticallyto wet woman and almost as closely plastered to her fine breasts and tightly furled nipples as he’d like to be himself. Hard and fierce and instantly emphatic, his painful erection would have informed him he wanted her any way he could get her, even if his hungry eyes weren’t busy devouring her like a lover. Want flared hot and heady between them again, but on its heels came a dark memory of his younger self, home from the sea and pitifully eager for the woman he thought was his. At least his wife’s betrayal had armoured him against mistaking lust for anything else. He assured himself that his annoying reaction to Eloise La Rochelle, or whatever she cared to call herself, was a physical thing he’d learn to ignore and nothing deeper.
‘I wish you good day and expect you to be gone by the time I get home, madam,’ he informed her stiffly and turned to pick up his coat from the chair he’d flung it on to earlier, shrugging into it as he cravenly bolted for the front door and freedom from wanting what he couldn’t have.
At least it should have been freedom, except he had to halt stock-still on Kit’s doorstep to breathe deeply and steadily as he thought hard about desolate arctic waters and relentlessstorms at sea. At last he was respectable enough to proceed through this confoundedly civilised neighbourhood without his very obvious need for Miss Eloise La Rochelle and her magnificent body instantly causing a scandal.
Not just her body either, he couldn’t help but recall as he marched rather blindly along the wide streets to his destination. She had that acute, questing mind and an unexpected sense of humour to render her almost irresistible as well. He let himself consider the unique charms of such a contrary, intriguing woman for a moment and would have been horrified to know an unguarded smile quirked his mouth as he did so. Most of the time she was as knowing as any street urchin, full of self-reliance and used to hardship almost from birth, then she’d astonish him with an eager enthusiasm for life and suddenly seem as coltish as any
ingénue
. No, he assured himself, he was long past being a fit companion for any sort of innocent, even if it was Eloise the buccaneer. Once again, he fought his over-active imagination as he pictured her in that black shirt aiming a pirate ship at his sturdy merchantman, and discovered how much he’d relish capturing and taming such an unlikely opponent when she failed to overrun him.
‘Idiot,’ he chided himself as he nearly walked into a lamppost. A little restored to his usual stern self, he strolled towards Stone & Shaw’s offices in the City, but was still too preoccupied with his eventful evening, sore head and unwanted visitor to sense that he was being followed.
*
Louisa paused when he did and wondered why she’d impulsively stuffed her cap on her head and shrugged into Coste’s overlarge jacket, then ventured out in broad daylight
‘I don’t think you in the least bit artless, I assure you, Miss La Rochelle,’ he said with a cynical almost-smile she didn’t bother to return.
‘Clearly,’ she told him, but he thought he saw a shadow of pain in her blue eyes before she gathered up their dirty crockery and bore it off to the scullery.
‘You hardly need to be with so many charms already in your armoury,’ he explained clumsily—why must he follow her into that utilitarian room when she’d given him an ideal escape route?
‘Look what you’ve made me do now,’ she chided fiercely as she jumped on finding him so close to her, splashed herself, then swatted angrily at the large wet patch plastering her dusky shirt to her torso with a glass cloth.
He did just what she asked and the cool scullery was suddenly close and stuffy as his gaze lingered on wet dark linen, clinging emphaticallyto wet woman and almost as closely plastered to her fine breasts and tightly furled nipples as he’d like to be himself. Hard and fierce and instantly emphatic, his painful erection would have informed him he wanted her any way he could get her, even if his hungry eyes weren’t busy devouring her like a lover. Want flared hot and heady between them again, but on its heels came a dark memory of his younger self, home from the sea and pitifully eager for the woman he thought was his. At least his wife’s betrayal had armoured him against mistaking lust for anything else. He assured himself that his annoying reaction to Eloise La Rochelle, or whatever she cared to call herself, was a physical thing he’d learn to ignore and nothing deeper.
‘I wish you good day and expect you to be gone by the time I get home, madam,’ he informed her stiffly and turned to pick up his coat from the chair he’d flung it on to earlier, shrugging into it as he cravenly bolted for the front door and freedom from wanting what he couldn’t have.
At least it should have been freedom, except he had to halt stock-still on Kit’s doorstep to breathe deeply and steadily as he thought hard about desolate arctic waters and relentlessstorms at sea. At last he was respectable enough to proceed through this confoundedly civilised neighbourhood without his very obvious need for Miss Eloise La Rochelle and her magnificent body instantly causing a scandal.
Not just her body either, he couldn’t help but recall as he marched rather blindly along the wide streets to his destination. She had that acute, questing mind and an unexpected sense of humour to render her almost irresistible as well. He let himself consider the unique charms of such a contrary, intriguing woman for a moment and would have been horrified to know an unguarded smile quirked his mouth as he did so. Most of the time she was as knowing as any street urchin, full of self-reliance and used to hardship almost from birth, then she’d astonish him with an eager enthusiasm for life and suddenly seem as coltish as any
ingénue
. No, he assured himself, he was long past being a fit companion for any sort of innocent, even if it was Eloise the buccaneer. Once again, he fought his over-active imagination as he pictured her in that black shirt aiming a pirate ship at his sturdy merchantman, and discovered how much he’d relish capturing and taming such an unlikely opponent when she failed to overrun him.
‘Idiot,’ he chided himself as he nearly walked into a lamppost. A little restored to his usual stern self, he strolled towards Stone & Shaw’s offices in the City, but was still too preoccupied with his eventful evening, sore head and unwanted visitor to sense that he was being followed.
*
Louisa paused when he did and wondered why she’d impulsively stuffed her cap on her head and shrugged into Coste’s overlarge jacket, then ventured out in broad daylight
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