Free When She Said I Do by Celeste Bradley Page B

enough description. “I have a hundred rooms. I shall scarcely run out in my brief remaining time.”
    She went silent at that, as she always did when he brought up his imminent demise. Now she was likely ashamed for baiting a dying man. He turned, regretting his bluntness.
    She didn’t look ashamed. She looked perplexed, annoyed, frustrated, and most of all, delicious. He could still feel her breasts heavy in his palms. He fisted them to keep the sensation safe within.
    Mostly annoyed. He felt a pang of wariness. There was a gleam in her eye that reminded him of a certain industrious and exacting governess he’d had as a boy.
    Impulsively, he offered her appeasement. “Human parents, but not for long. They passed away when I was but eighteen, within a year of each other. She died of influenza. He simply couldn’t live without her, I suspect.”
    Ren didn’t like to think about the way his father had slipped away from him, his gaze always heavenward as if his own son weren’t enough to keep him tethered to the earth. Don’t you want to stay around to see how I turn out, Papa?
    Now he might as well take comfort in the fact that no one in the family had been put to the burden of that—at least no one but a distant cousin like Henry.
    Callie refused to give in to sympathy. What happened to one as a child deferred blame from the child, but not from the adult. “Perhaps you like living in a dusty, dank tomb, but I’m rather fond of the scent of lemon polish and a roast in the oven.”
    “You’ll be back to that life soon enough.”
    It was as if he simply didn’t care. How could someone not care if walking through a room threw up a cloud of decades-old best-not-dwell-on-it?
    He doesn’t see it. He doesn’t see anything past his own private horrors, whatever they are.
    He doesn’t see me.
    Oh, look. Now her arms were folded over her chest and her toe was tapping. Even Cas and Poll knew enough to flee before her tapping toe. Lysander, back before the war when he’d been the sort to make jests, had dubbed it the Toe of Doom.
    However, poor ignorant Mr. Porter ignored the evil toe and went on being insufferable. Callie almost pitied the man. Almost.
    “Are you quite sure you won’t reconsider? Just a cook … and a few housemaids, of course. A laundress. Perhaps a stable boy. A housekeeper to run matters. And it wouldn’t hurt to do something with the grounds…”
    He turned to gaze at her from the depths of his hood. She couldn’t see his eyes but she glared at him anyway. His eyes were in there somewhere. How far off could she be?
    “No.”
    The toe-tapping increased in speed. “I’m afraid I can’t hear you. It must be the muffling effect of all that wool. Say again?”
    He stepped forward slowly until he loomed over her and she could feel the warmth of him on her skin. Despite her suddenly hammering pulse, she managed to keep her gaze fixed on his “eyes.”
    Worthingtons had great fortitude.
    Said fortitude took a blow when he leaned close into her and bent his hooded head next to hers.
    “No.” It was only a murmur, husky and deep. It rang through her like a bell. Her heart skipped, her knees weakened, and there was something wrong with her vision …
    She managed to draw a breath. “Go? Is that what you said? Go hire a full staff, this very day? Well, I did have a relaxing day of lying about planned, but if you insist—”
    “Calliope.”
    Her name became something molten and mind-bending when he murmured it into her ear like that.
    She fought the breathlessness. “Calliope was a muse, you know. The muse of epic poetry—as if the world needs any more of that!” Blathering again. Better than fainting into his arms … well, better for her pride, anyway. She tried not to think about being in his arms. Lust played bloody hell with pride. “I’d much rather have been named after the muse of music, or even the muse of dance—although Terpsichore would be a burdensome sort of name, wouldn’t