Read Online Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) by Stephanie Laurens - Free Book Online Page A

he was planning; in her role as the children’s protector, she needed to know of anything that might pose a potential threat, that might bring the risk of exposure into their orbit. Against that, she was honest enough to admit, at least to herself, that her curiosity about Glendower was equally fed by a more unsettling, even disturbing, impulse.
    She’d never felt attracted to any gentleman before; mildly curious, perhaps, but not drawn like this.
    Drawn to venture closer, to discover whether the sensual thrill she felt at his touch was still there.
    She knew it was, would be; every time his fingers inadvertently brushed hers, she felt that addictive thrill to her marrow.
    But she didn’t know if he felt anything at all, and she couldn’t fault his behavior, not in the slightest degree; he’d made no move that even by the wildest stretch of anyone’s imagination could be construed as inappropriate, much less as any definite advance.
    He’d given her no reason to believe he wanted her, desired her, that he was any threat to her at all.
    Was it wrong of her to want to . . . test him?
    Was it perverse of her to want to learn more of him, the man, and so risk all the benefits his presence had brought them? Not just to her, but to the children, too?
    Last night, after dinner when the children had gone upstairs, he’d spoken to her about Homer and had offered to find suitable books from his library to help satisfy Homer’s burgeoning need for knowledge—a need she, herself, could not sate. Glendower had cast the act as a very little thing, something he could easily and painlessly do, but it had already made a difference to Homer and, therefore, to her. The look on Homer’s face when, after breakfast this morning, Glendower had taken him into the library, piled his arms with leather-bound tomes, then dispatched him to the dining room, there to sit and read at the big table Glendower no longer used, had been beyond revealing.
    Homer had been in alt.
    She had been beyond grateful, beyond relieved, but when she’d taken Glendower’s morning tea tray to him in the library and had tried to offer her thanks, he’d dismissed his part as insignificant, nothing worthy of further consideration.
    He’d made no attempt to capitalize on her gratitude, not in any way. . . .
    Rose shifted to keep him in sight as he moved further along the back of the house. Again he stopped, stared, then made a note in his book. She frowned. “What the devil is he doing?”
    Tossing the cloth on the bench, she smoothed her hands down her skirts, then passed her palms over her hair, confirming that her chignon was still neat. Then, grabbing her shawl from the back of her chair, she headed for the back door.
    Sunshine greeted her as she emerged onto the step, but the light breeze was still cool. Spring was only gradually stealing in and hadn’t yet properly arrived. Swinging her shawl about her shoulders, she stepped down to the narrow paved path that led to the stables, but she immediately left the path for the coarse grass and lengthened her stride in pursuit of her quarry, now nearing the far corner of the house.
    He glanced at her as she neared, but then went back to writing his latest note.
    Halting a few feet away, she faced the house and studied the façade, trying to see what had caught his attention.
    As if reading her mind, he murmured, still scribbling, “The guttering. It needs clearing. If you look closely, there’s grass growing up there.”
    Raising a hand, she shaded her eyes, looked, and saw that he was right. She glanced at him. “Is that what you’re listing?”
    He nodded. Shutting the book, he looked at the house again. “All the little things that need doing.”
    Closing his hand about the silver head of the cane he’d left resting against his thigh, he continued his slow progress around the house, examining each window, each piece of spouting, and all else of a structural nature.
    Rose trailed after him.
    When he