Free The Temptation of Your Touch by Teresa Medeiros Page B

nearly collided with his stalwart housekeeper, who was hovering over a potted ficus tree just outside the door, watering can in hand. She might have been more convincing in her task if the tree had sported a single living leaf. Or if her watering can had so much as a drop of water in it.
    Had she been lurking outside the door all along listening to every word of his conversation with young Dickon? Perhaps Max should have paid more heed to her warning about the cat and the bell. As long as she was relatively still, her ring of keys would not betray her.
    Determined not to be drawn into yet another inappropriate exchange, he offered her a curt nod and continued on his way.
    She fell into step behind him, her dogged pursuit shredding what was left of his frayed temper. “I wasn’t sure what you had planned for your first morning at Cadgwyck, my lord. If you’d like, I could take some time out of my duties to go over the household schedule and accounts with you.”
    “That won’t be necessary,” he said without slowing his strides. “You’ve managed this long without me. Just continue doing whatever it is you’re doing.”
    If she was taken aback by his words or the dismissive wave he aimed in her direction, the cheery jingle of her keys did not betray her. “I trust you found breakfast to your satisfaction, my lord. Will you be requiring—”
    He wheeled around to face her, forcing her to bring herself up short or risk colliding with the immovable expanse of his chest. “What I require, Mrs. Spencer, is some decent coffee with my breakfast and a newspaper published in the current decade. Beyond that, all that I require is to be left to my own devices. If I’d have wanted to have my every need anticipated by some well-intentioned, yet interfering, female, I would have remained in London.”
    With that, he turned on his heel and went stalking toward the nearest set of French windows,determined to escape both the house and his meddling housekeeper.
    Behind him, he heard nothing but silence.
    I T TOOK M AX ONLY a brief turn about the grounds of Cadgwyck Manor to discover they were as neglected and unkempt as the interior of the house. Clumps of weeds had sprung up between the cracked flagstones of the terraces, while scraggly, untrimmed shrubs and dangling vines transformed every walkway into a shadowy maze. The lawn had long ago surrendered to the same rambling ivy that had clawed its way up the walls of the crumbling tower. An ornate bronze birdbath crowned by a mossy statue of Botticelli’s Venus sat in the center of what must once have been a handsome garden, its basin choked with stagnant water. An air of deserted melancholy hung over it all.
    Although he stalked from one end of the grounds surrounding the house to the other, Max encountered no gamekeeper, no gardeners, no stable boys. Of course, why would stable boys be required to tend a stable populated only by rustling mice and the swallows that had darted in through the gaping holes in the roof to build their nests in its sagging rafters? For the first time, it occurred to him he was practically a prisoner in this place.
    His restless ramblings finally led him to the edge of the cliffs. Savage gusts of wind tore open his coat and whipped his hair away from his face. Propping one booted foot on a rock, he leaned into its battering force, grateful to finally find a worthy opponent with whom he could do battle. Someone besides himself.
    At the foot of the cliffs far below, the wind churned the peaks of the waves into foaming whitecaps before driving them to their death against the jagged rocks. The ceaseless roar of the sea was much louder here. A towering wall of clouds brooded on the horizon, their ever-present threat sharpening the very air with the scent of danger.
    Despite his growing misgivings about coming to Cornwall, Max had to admit the landscape had a raw, seductive beauty, a wildness that was as stirring to the blood as a swallow of fine whiskey or a