“Tristan?” Delilah whispered, tentatively. “Do you want to talk about our earlier conversation?”
He remained silent.
He was either sleeping... or pretending to sleep. His head was turned away from her. Usually, by morning, she’d find his face close to hers, on her pillow. Usually, instinctively, they turned to each other the moment they climbed into bed, even if they were half-asleep.
She felt a chill unrelated to the lowering fire, and turned down her lamp.
By habit Lorcan usually rose as the sun was just a narrow gleam at the horizon. The mouse-quiet maids had clearly already been in, judging by the scent of freshly brewed coffee wafting into his room from the sitting room.
He got his trousers and boots and shirt on and emerged from his room cravatless and coatless and yawning to a surprise.
Lady Worth was sitting at a little table near the window.
She’d opened the curtains to reveal sheets of falling rain.
Her dress was a shade of deep yellow, beautifully fitted, bands of dark brown braid trimming the long sleeves and wrapped below a lovely swell of bosom. Last night’s fuzzy hair had been tamed and prettily coiled up and pinned on top of her head in that clever way women seem to be born knowing how to do. It was a rather decent color. Warm gold, like a weathered doubloon. A few strands had made a break for freedom and spiraled lazily at her temples.
She looked pristine in the gray morning light.
The toes of brown slippers peeped out from beneath the hem, and one of them was tapping idly, as if she was listening to a waltz in her head.
One would never have guessed he’d found her last night in an alley.
She seemed to be reading a letter.
He rested his eyes on her the way he might any quietly lovely thing.
From somewhere beneath the armored plate of his soul, an ancient memory twinged: the shock of the first time he’d seen a fine lady stepping out of a beautiful carriage. He’d been a small boy. He hadn’t fully comprehended how very, very lowly his place was in the world until then.
In that instant, he’d decided to become anything but lowly.
He watched her toes and thought: he’d never learned how to waltz.
“Good morning, Lady Worth.”
Her head shot up. She offered a tentative smile. “Good morning, Mr. St. Leger. I trust you slept...”
Her eyes flickered. Dropped to his torso.
Then she jerked her head toward the window, and before his eyes, hot color flooded her cheeks.
Bewildered, he dropped his eyes swiftly to ascertain his cock wasn’t peeking out of his trouser fall, because surely nothing short of that warranted such a reaction.
She cleared her throat. “...well.”
She was still showing him her profile.
And then it struck him: his rolled-up shirtsleeves exposed a brazen amount of skin from fingertip to elbow. His throat was partially on view, too.
For God’ssake.
He suddenly felt like an ape in all his bronzed and hairy bareness. He thoroughly resented it.
“They’rearms, Lady Worth,” he said on a hush. “I suggest you move closer to the settee if you feel a swoon coming on. I cannot guarantee I will get to you before you topple out of your chair.”
She courageously turned her head toward him again.
“As valuable as that advice undoubtedly is, Mr. St. Leger, I’m not a swooner by nature. Please forgive me. I was just a bit startled, as I’d forgotten I was sharing quarters with a man who isn’t a gent—”