She scooped up her hat and stood. This riding habit was the most beautiful dress she’d ever worn, but it was borrowed. It was made for a lady, and she was a pretender.
She needed to remember that she was a temporary visitor to this world. All this fraternizing with the aristocracy turned her a little insane. Nell Trim belonged at the shabby schoolhouse in Mearsall.
The dose of reality should bolster her will. But these days, her will was sadly weak. Perhaps she’d feel stronger once she no longer
looked at this magnificent man and imagined him her lover.
She raised her chin. “Thank you for asking. Thank you for being so frank.” She saw that he already knew what she’d say. “Despite the appeal—and the offer is appealing—I can’t accept.”
She waited for him to argue. Or worse, because she knew she couldn’t resist, convince her through kisses. He might claim that he spent his time buried in political work, but when he touched her, she recognized a man who knew what he was doing. He must guess how powerfully he drew her and what little he needed to do to persuade her into his bed.
“Very well.” He turned and caught the horses. “We should return to the house. I want to check the geologist’s report for the Derbyshire property.”
Amazed, Nell waited as he led her horse across. “That’s all?”
His smile was bleak. “I offered. You declined. We’ll say no more.”
Hardly believing that he’d taken his rejection so calmly, she let him toss her up into the saddle. No lingering at her waist now. He was all business.
When she sat on Adela, his smile became more natural. He gathered her reins and curled her fingers around them. “I won’t make life difficult because you refused, Miss Trim.”
Miss Trim, she noticed, not Eleanor. Her heart ached at the change, although Miss Trim was much more likely to hold out against his attractions.
“That’s very… forbearing,” she said unsteadily.
He mounted his black stallion and turned back the way they’d come. The chestnut followed purely through her own devices. Nell wasn’t capable of putting two thoughts together.
“I’ll survive my disappointment.”
Nell wasn’t sure she could. Wicked, wicked girl she was. But as she trailed behind the handsome lord on his devil horse, she couldn’t help wondering if perhaps, despite every prudent reason for denying him, she’d made a terrible mistake.
Chapter Fourteen
It turned out that Leath was a man of his word—of course he was; Nell already knew that. He became all business and made no further reference to houses in Scarborough or banishing her gray dresses. The only change in her routine was an end to their morning rides.
Nell told herself that only a wanton creature would mind that he so coolly accepted her refusal.
Clearly she was a wanton creature.
While her denial left Leath unaffected, she couldn’t stop thinking about becoming his mistress. She had a hundred good reasons for saying no. Good reasons wilted to nothing compared to her attraction to the marquess.
She’d relinquished her suspicions about Leath and he’d stopped watching her as if expecting her to steal the silver. Thank goodness he never mentioned her supposed infatuation. Although with every day, that desperate confession shifted from self-serving lie to discomfiting reality.
Never before had she been obsessed with a man. Nell had always been too busy mothering Dorothy and caring for her stepfather to indulge in romantic nonsense. Now romantic nonsense gained an unbreakable hold. Leath’s company produced a queasy mixture of exhilaration and embarrassment. Instead of a responsible woman of twenty-five, Nell felt like a silly, overemotional adolescent.
She should be grateful that Leath didn’t sulk, but the giddy girl inside her resented his distance. Distance that made her cry into her pillow each night and struggle against the urge to rail at him each day. And every hour brought Mr. Crane’s return closer. Soon Nell would only see the marquess when he visited his mother.
Far safer for her wayward heart if she returned to Kent. She hadn’t come to Yorkshire to pursue a lifelong career as a domestic servant. She’d arrived on a quest that had taken so many turns since that she hardly remembered where she’d started.
She stayed.
Because she couldn’t bear to leave.
Nell was adding some figures three weeks after Leath’s curiously prosaic invitation to ruin when he strode in from his morning gallop. Despite a return to inhospitable weather, he’d taken to long rides each dawn on the devil horse. Today the wind howled against the windows, and the fire blazing in the hearth did little to dispel the chill.
Or perhaps Nell’s coldness came from within.
She supposed for a punishing rider like his lordship, dawdling along with a beginner must count as the height of boredom. It said much for his good manners that she’d never felt his impatience.