The lady’s hair, which she was drying in the sun, swirled over the back of the bench and cascaded down beside her in a thick fall of burnished auburn curls.
Just then she reached up to comb her fingers through one long section, fluffing it as she progressed. The movement stretched the threadbare apron taut against her body, its thin white cloth silhouetting her breast against the dark bench, full rounded side to sun-kissed tip.
Beau’s mouth grew dry, then dryer still as one curl tumbled from her shoulder, caught on the apron’s edge and came to rest cupped, like a lover’s hand, around the outline of that perfect breast.
She sighed, a slight exhale that parted her lips and made her look like a woman rousing to passion’s whisper. His body tensed in automatic response, his mouth tingling to trace the outline of that arched throat, taste the honey promised by those lips, his fingers itching to tangle themselves in that cloud of copper silk and pull this arresting vision closer.
A vision that was, he realized with a shock that rippled all the way to his toes, the woman he’d hitherto identified as the mousy, nondescript Mrs. Martin.
He tingled in other places, as well. And had not yet regathered wits enough to decide what to do about it when the dog, whose presence he had totally forgotten, had the deplorable ill timing to seek out his mistress.
At a lick to her hand, Mrs. Martin sat up and opened eyes as piercingly blue as the clear autumn sky. Eyes that went in an instant from sleepy to shocked. With a small shriek, she leaped up and backed away.
Conscious of a sharp sense of loss, he nonetheless endeavored to set her at ease. “Please, don’t be alarmed, Mrs. Martin. It’s Hugh Bradsleigh—Kit’s brother. I’m sorry to have startled you.”
As big a plumper as he’d ever told, he knew, realizing he’d never have been treated to this glimpse of heaven had the reclusive Mrs. Martin sensed his presence earlier. He still couldn’t quite believe the silent woman who had toiled at his side all night and this enchanting siren were indeed one and the same.
“L-lord Beaulieu! You—you startled me. Misfit,” she scolded the dog, who hung his head, tail drooping, “why did you not warn me we had visitors?”
Misfit. Beau grinned. Now there was an apt name. If he’d had the foresight to bring a bone, the wretched animal probably would have given him the run of the cottage.
Nonetheless, the pooch had led him to The Vision and thus Beau felt compelled to defend him. “He did inspect me rather thoroughly before he let me in.”
He watched regretfully as with one hand Mrs. Martin fumbled to fasten the buttons at her collar and with the other gathered her glorious, sun-burnished hair into a knot. Though he was somewhat guilty at having startled her, he wasn’t so conscience-stricken that he felt compelled to point out the dowager’s cap for which, with sidelong glances as if she expected he might at any moment attack, she was quite obviously searching.
Instead he picked it up. “Your cap, Mrs. Martin.” With a slow smile, he held it out, just far enough to be polite but not so close that she could reach it without approaching him.
And, ah, how he wanted her to approach. After a moment, skittish as a startled doe, she did. “Thank you, my lord. I’ll take it now, if you please.”
Come get it, he almost said. Biting back the words lest he frighten her off, he simply stood, waiting.
She took the few steps that separated them, then snatched at the cap. Her hand grazed his palm as she grabbed, and for a moment, their fingers caught.
He felt the flame of contact in every nerve. And so, he realized exultantly as he watched her, did she.
Her blue eyes widened in shock, her lips once again parting slightly in surprise—an unconscious invitation. She even forgot, for a moment, to take the bonnet.
All too soon she remembered. Murmuring a disjointed thanks, she jerked it away and jammed it down on her head.
“I’ll…just gather a few supplies.” With that, she swiftly retreated into the interior of the cottage.
Leaving Beau gazing after her, amazed.
He sat down on the bench she’d just vacated to pull together his disordered thoughts. The young Mrs. Martin—she could not be more than five-and-twenty—possessed not just a pretty face, but an alluring figure. Indeed, the rush of attraction to that lush body still thrummed in his blood. An attraction that, based on her reaction to their unexpected touch, experience told him was mutual.
With his typical methodical precision, he pondered the implications of these new discoveries.
The first question posed by his now-fully-piqued curiosity was why so lovely a lady would choose to mask her beauty beneath dowager caps and ill-fitting gowns.
His second thought was of Kit—reviving a burden of worry heavy enough to extinguish the lingering embers of lust. For the immediate future all he had need of was a skillful nurse. Attraction or no, until Kit was out of danger there’d be no time to pursue other matters.
Still, that the intriguing Mrs. Martin had twice managed to distract him from his pressing anxiety was mute testament to the power of that attraction.
As he stirred restlessly, wondering how much longer it would take for her to “gather supplies,” it suddenly occurred to him that having the most capable nurse in the neighborhood take up residence at the squire’s manor would be much more convenient. Having that nurse be a lovely and discreet young widow with whom a mutual attraction had flared might, once his brother’s condition improved, afford enticing possibilities.
Despite his worry, a ghost of desire stirred at the thought and he grinned, more cheered than he’d been since he received the dire message of his brother’s injury. Kit would survive—he was in Beau’s care and he must survive—but after this present crisis he would doubtless require a long convalescence. Beau had detailed his men to wrap up the investigation in the north, and must shortly return to London to assemble his report. The imperative to resolve his present case would not permit him to linger here, but he would certainly visit frequently to check on Kit.
Beau took another deep breath of herb-scented air. Now this was a charming bower to which he’d happily return.
But first, he’d have to win over the shy Mrs. Martin, which would probably also require penetrating the puzzle of why she seemed to take such pains to remain invisible.
How fortuitous, he thought, his grin widening. He did so love solving puzzles.
He reconsidered the alarm that had crossed her face when she’d seen him watching her in the squire’s entry. Since his name and title were rather well known, she’d likely recognized who he was from the first, but in the sickroom she’d displayed no awe of his position or inclination to toady; indeed, rather the opposite. He smiled again at the memory of her stubbornness regarding Kit’s treatment and her total lack of deference as she ordered him about.
So why the mistrustful look? Perhaps she’d been raised on warnings about the subtle seducing ways of the high nobility, and saw him as such. Though he was by no means a saint, he could recall no escapades scurrilous enough to have penetrated this deep into the hinterlands. Not in recent years, at any rate, he amended.
He must demonstrate that though the wealthy Earl of Beaulieu might sit at the councils of government and move in a society many country folk deemed immoral, he was also Hugh Bradsleigh, a man like any other, who would never lead farther than a lady would willingly follow. Somewhat to his surprise, he found the notion that the lovely Mrs. Martin might be that rare individual who could appreciate him for himself alone immensely appealing.
Disarming her wariness would be quite a challenge—the one thing, he thought, spirits rising in anticipation, he loved almost as much as solving puzzles.
Chapter Three
A few moments later Mrs. Martin