Leath said curtly.
“Immediately, my lord.” He glanced nervously at his employer, swallowing until his Adam’s apple bobbed, then disappeared into the office.
“Not so fast.” Leath caught Miss Trim’s arm as she edged toward the door. The contact slammed through him, demanded that he kiss the impertinence out of her. Pride alone steadied his grip. “I’ll thank you to stay away from my secretary.”
Brown eyes could be warm as honey. They could also flash with disdain. After a blistering moment of communication that had nothing to do with lord and housemaid and everything to do with male and female, she glanced away. “Yes, my lord.”
He stared at her, willing her to look at him properly. Even, heaven save him, smile the way she’d smiled at that stupid boy Paul Crane. “See that you follow my instructions.”
“Yes, sir.”
His hand tightened. Through her woolen sleeve, he felt her strength. He was used to society ladies. Miss Trim felt real and earthy in a way no woman of his own class ever did.
The silence lengthened. Became awkward. Reminded him of those charged moments the night they’d met. He still woke from dreams with her citrus scent filling his senses and his arms curling around a fantasy Eleanor Trim. In his most forbidden fantasies, he did a lot more than hold her in his arms.
He hadn’t panted after the maids since he was an adolescent. Even then, he’d recognized the essential unfairness of pursuing women who worked for him. How could a woman freely give consent to the man who paid her wages?
Despite Miss Trim’s outward docility, he knew that she’d have no trouble denying him. Blast her.
“May I go, sir?”
He caught a faint edge of mockery. He hated to think that she recognized his lust. He didn’t trust her, he didn’t much like her, but dear Lord above, she set him afire as no woman ever had.
“No.”
This time when her eyes flashed up to his, he was delighted to see trepidation in the coppery depths. So far, they’d played a game where she knew the rules and he didn’t. That disadvantage ended today.
He’d tried ignoring her. Much good that had done. Now he’d try a direct challenge. “Sit down. I want to talk to you.”
A frown crossed her face. “Her ladyship will wonder where I am.”
“I won’t keep you long,” he said coolly, releasing her with a reluctance he hated to acknowledge and gesturing toward a chair.
He moved behind the desk, hoping that the authoritative position might lend him some desperately needed gravitas. How ludicrous that he’d faced down the greatest men in the land without a qualm, yet this one humble girl, who worked for him, goddamn it, made him as unsure as a boy with his first sweetheart.
Not that he was naïve enough to imagine anything romantic happened here. He had a bad case of blue balls for an unsuitable woman. Given that satisfying his craving was out of the question—not least because if word got out about him tupping his mother’s companion, he’d rusticate in Yorkshire forever—he needed to control himself.
Easier said than done.
Miss Trim had a subtle, enticing beauty. Every time he saw her, he thought her lovelier. Right now, with her chin set and a flush on her slanted cheekbones—perhaps embarrassment, more likely vexation—she was delicious. Like a cranky goddess.
The silence extended. And extended.
“We weren’t doing any harm,” she said eventually, without looking at him.
“Crane has work to do. Too much to waste time flirting with pretty girls.”
Hell, he’d better watch his tongue. At the compliment, the pink in her cheeks deepened delightfully. She had lovely skin, smooth and creamy. It looked as soft as velvet and his fingers curled against the blotter as he beat back the urge to touch her.
“It was only a few minutes, and he was being kind.”
Leath hid a wince at the unspoken criticism that he, in contrast, wasn’t kind. She had a point. Crane hadn’t deserved the reprimand. “My mother doesn’t like novels.”
“She does now. I suggested something more entertaining than those dry-as-dust treatises you send her.”
She was definitely criticizing him, the baggage. “She’s satisfied with my choices.”
At last Miss Trim raised her eyes and looked at him properly. As he expected, there was no fear in her expression. Instead more watchfulness. “That’s what she’d tell you, I’m sure.”
“She likes to keep up with my political career.”
That lush mouth quirked with a faint derision that made him feel like a gauche schoolboy. “Yes.”
An ocean of implication in one short syllable. Because Miss Trim must be aware that just now he had no political career. And if he didn’t keep his nose clean until they invited him back, he’d never have a political career again. Good enough reason, even if he forgot that he was a gentleman, to keep his hands off her, however beguiling she was. And now she’d stopped pretending to be a dutiful domestic with no will beyond her master’s, he found her very beguiling indeed, bugger it.
She was a puzzle. He didn’t like puzzles. But however closely he’d observed her over the last week, he couldn’t work out her scheme. Perhaps she was what she claimed to be, a woman down on her luck.
Perhaps.
“You’re a very unusual housemaid, Miss Trim,” he said and was intrigued that his remark made her uncomfortable. Every instinct shrieked that she hid something.
“Because I suggested that your mother might enjoy a novel?”
“I doubt many of my housemaids could recommend a lady’s reading,” he said neutrally, steepling his fingers and regarding her.
She raised her chin with un-housemaid-like hauteur. She tried to play the self-effacing servant, but she wasn’t much good at it. Something else that made him question her background. Girls went into service young and were trained to become obedient ciphers. There was nothing of the cipher about Miss Trim, and while she wasn’t exactly disobedient, there was an edge to her that indicated she cooperated only so far as she was willing.
“Have you asked them?” she said sweetly, regarding him as unwaveringly as he watched her.
His lips twitched. “No, I haven’t. But I’d still like to know where you developed this extensive knowledge.”
More discomfort. For a woman who lied so often, she was dashed bad at it. “The lady who was my last employer encouraged me to better myself.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So she read you the latest books while you polished the silver?” He didn’t bother to mask his skepticism.
To do her credit, she hardly flinched, although in her lap she gripped the Austen like a lifeline. “Yes, sir.”
“I’m surprised you left this paragon.” He could come right out and accuse her of lying, but where would be the fun in that?
Her lips tightened. “Needs must, sir. Why don’t you believe me?”
He leaned his chin on his joined fingers and regarded her. “Should I?”
“Yes.” She sucked in an annoyed breath and he felt a strange little tug in the vicinity of his heart. The housemaid shell became thinner by the moment. He still didn’t trust her, but he’d lay money that she was closer to her real self now than she’d been since their encounter on his first night home. “My lord, do you find my work unsatisfactory?”
“My mother likes you.” Both of them knew that was no answer.