Anna Campbell - A Scoundrel By Moonlight

A bristling silence descended. “ Your library?”

“Yes.” Unerringly he approached the high windows and flung back the curtains. Moonlight flooded the room. He turned to inspect the woman, but she lurked in the shadows by the door and he discerned little, apart from her slenderness and unnaturally upright posture. Her hands twined nervously at her waist.

She piqued his curiosity. A welcome change from the bitter dissatisfaction that had dogged him this last year. Using the tinderbox, he lit the branch of candles on the table under the window.

Briefly Leath caught his reflection in the glass, outlined in gold light. Large, looming. If he’d made the girl nervous in the dark, she’d be terrified now that she saw him. He didn’t look like a welcoming, easy sort of man. Recent trials had added sternness to a face not blessed with charm at the best of times.

Slowly, he turned. And his heart slammed to stillness.

His mysterious lady was a beauty.

Ignoring the way her lips tightened with resentment, he raised the candles to inspect her. A plain gray dress with white linen collar. Silvery blond hair drawn severely away from her face. No trace of curl or ribbon to soften the austerity. Her face was austere too, as perfectly carved as an angel on a cathedral doorway. High forehead; long slender nose; slanted cheekbones; pointed chin. Assertive brows darker than her hair above widely spaced eyes that regarded him with impressive steadiness. Few men could withstand the Marquess of Leath’s intense stare, yet this girl didn’t even blink.

Her mouth provided the only hint in that pure, calm face that she was more than a beautiful marble statue. Her mouth was … marvelous.

Full. Lush. Sweetly pink.

He was so big that most women seemed tiny in comparison, but the repressed energy radiating from her made her appear taller than average. His eyes lingered on the delightfully rounded bosom beneath her demure bodice.

Her gaze turned frosty and despite the uncertain light, he saw a flush on those high cheekbones. Good God, whoever she was, she had spirit. He reduced most young ladies to blushing silence. This girl—and she was little more, mid-twenties at the most—might blush, but she was far from intimidated.

When she bloody well should be.

The childishness of that last reflection had his lips twitching. He’d feared months of boredom ahead, but his return started in a most intriguing fashion. If he’d known this odd, fascinating creature waited in Yorkshire, he might have visited more often, instead of burying his head in parliamentary business in London.

“Just what are you up to?” he asked softly, placing the candles on a table and stepping closer.

Ah, she wasn’t totally foolhardy. She retreated toward the door, eyes widening. He wished he could see their precise color. The light simply wasn’t good enough. “You’re trying to frighten me.”

“Perhaps I’m seeking a little respect,” he said smoothly.

She curtsied, but he could tell that her heart wasn’t in it. “Your lordship.”

He folded his arms and surveyed her under lowered brows. “So you know I’m Leath.”

“You said it’s your library. And her ladyship has a portrait in her room. I recognized you when you lit the candles.”

The world toadied to his wealth and influence, but the spark in this girl’s eyes looked like hostility. A challenge sizzled between them. Or perhaps the beginnings of attraction.

“At last a straight answer,” he said wryly. “Now can you bring yourself to tell me who you are?”

“Will you let me go if I do?”

Her audacity stole his breath. Nobody defied him or denied him or bargained with him. Most people tripped over themselves to do his bidding before he’d even worked out what his bidding was. “We’ll see.”

Her eyes narrowed, confirming his impression that she didn’t like him. He wondered why. “You have a reputation for keeping your hands off the housemaids, my lord.”

“What in Hades?” Her meaning smashed through his burgeoning interest. “Are you saying that you’re a … housemaid?”

A fleeting smile tilted her lips. His wayward heart jolted at the promise of other, more generous smiles. “Yes.”

“You don’t look like a blasted housemaid.” Nor did she speak like any housemaid he’d ever known. She sounded like a lady.

“You … you caught me at a disadvantage.”

“I’ll say I did.”

He waited for some retort, but her expression turned blank. For the first time, to his disappointment, she looked like a servant. Although this sudden docility meant that he might discover why she was in his library. Housemaids started work early and generally didn’t have the energy to run around after bedtime. “What’s your name?”

She dipped into another curtsy. He could have told her she overdid the meekness, but he held his peace.

“Trim, my lord.”

Trim? He couldn’t argue with that. “Trim what?”

He thought she might smile again, but she’d leashed her rebellious spirit as tightly as she tied back her hair. He wasn’t a man who experienced profound and sudden sexual urges. But he’d give this girl every sparkling diamond in the family vault if she’d take down her hair. If she let him touch it, he’d throw in the damned house as well.

“Nell Trim, sir.”

“Helen or Eleanor?”

“Eleanor.” Her voice retained its curiously flat quality and she stared somewhere over his shoulder.

Eleanor. An elegant name for an elegant woman. An elegant woman who was his housemaid.

“Very good.” Except Eleanor wasn’t a suitable name for a junior servant. Eleanor was a queen’s name. It brought dangerous, powerful women to mind. “What are you doing in my library, Trim?”

By rights, he should call a housemaid Nell, but with her slender neatness, Trim suited her so well.

“If I tell you, you’ll dismiss me.”

He kept his expression neutral. “I’ll dismiss you if you don’t.”

She leveled that direct stare upon him. “I couldn’t sleep, and I wanted something to read. I always return the books, my lord; you have my word.”

A housemaid who rifled his bookcases and offered her word? She became more extraordinary by the minute. “You can read?”

“Yes, sir.” In a show of deference that didn’t convince, she lowered her eyelids. Years in the political bear pit had taught him to read people. He was sure of two things about the trim Miss Eleanor Trim. One was that deference didn’t come naturally. The other was that somewhere in this odd conversation, she lied.

“So what did you choose?” She hadn’t carried a book when she’d run into him at the door.

“Nothing appealed. May I go, my lord? I’m on duty early.”

“Do I need to search you to see if you’ve stolen anything?” She could be a master criminal bamboozling him into complacency. Except he didn’t feel complacent. He felt alive and interested as nothing had interested him in months.

Temper lit her eyes. She didn’t like him questioning her honesty. “I’m not a thief.”

Ah, the false docility cracked. He hid his satisfaction. “How can I be sure?”

“You could check the room for anything missing, my lord.”

“I might do that.” Abruptly his sour mood descended once more. What the hell was he doing flirting with a housemaid in the middle of the night? Perhaps his political advisers were right about him needing a break.

He bent to pick up the candle the girl had dropped when he’d barged in on top of her. He lit it from the branch and passed it across, then unlocked the door. “You may go, Trim.”

She raised the candle and surveyed him as if uncertain whether this dismissal was good news or not. Her curtsy this time conveyed no ironic edge, then she backed toward the door. “Thank you, my lord.”