Free Not Quite a Lady by Loretta Chase Page B

backed away, and since Darius stood with his hip against the table, this brought her rump against his breeding organs. They instantly took notice of her.
    As did she of them, with a sharp intake of breath.
    Though his own breathing wasn’t steady, Darius casually reached for another picture. “Ah, the dairy,” he said. “One thing—one of many—I miss in London is fresh country cream and butter. City cream doesn’t taste the same at all.”
    “You will need cows, then,” said Lady Charlotte. She set her heel down on his toe.
    She put some weight on it, and though he was wearing thin evening shoes rather than boots, it was not enough to make him yield. “I’m a countryman,” he said. “I know where milk and cream come from.”
    She shifted her weight onto the one foot. Hers was no great weight, but his toes, unlike his upper body, were not constructed to bear it. He swallowed a gasp…and withdrew.
    “I thought you were a London man,” Colonel Morrell said as he perused a plan. “You lecture there often, I believe.”
    Careful to keep his toes out of danger, Darius picked up another document. A crayon sketch, which must have been stuck to the bottom of it, fell to the table.
    Lady Charlotte reached for the sketch, but Darius got it first.
    “I lecture in London,” Darius said. “I learn in the country. In Derbyshire—not very far from here, in fact. My brother Alistair lives in the Peak, near Mat-lock Bath. Who is this sweet creature, Lady Charlotte? I cannot read the inscription.”
    In the picture, a woman sat on the doorstep of a cottage, dandling her infant.
    Lady Charlotte snatched the picture from him. “It must have fallen on the floor,” she said. “One of the maids must have picked it up when she was cleaning and put it with the others. It doesn’t belong to this lot. It’s one of the villagers with her child. Merely the sort of rustic scene ladies are expected to draw. Well, I will leave you gentlemen to debate the finer points of dairy farming.”
    She hurried out of the library.
     
    That was odd, Darius thought.
    Morrell must have thought so, too, because his brow knit as he turned and watched Lady Charlotte go. But neither man remarked on it. With stiff courtesy they exchanged opinions about dairies, brew-houses, and bakehouses. They agreed that Lithby Hall’s kitchen court was conveniently situated and arranged. Then Mrs. Badgely came in and woke her husband, after which they all returned to the drawing room.
    Darius kept away from Lady Charlotte. He could not believe he’d taken such risks in the library. He was not a boy of fifteen. He knew better. Now of all times he needed to keep a clear head. He was going to prove his father wrong. He was going to revive Beechwood. He was not going to get into trouble with a nobleman’s unwed daughter.
    He was already in trouble, and he’d no one to blame but himself. How in blazes was he to finance Lady Lithby’s refurbishing of his house?
    He wasn’t. He couldn’t. He had to get out of it somehow.
    He was still trying to determine the “somehow” as the party began breaking up. Then, as he was taking his leave of his hosts—and looking forward to a long night of kicking himself—rescue came, all unexpected.
    “My lady tells me she means to take charge of your house,” Lord Lithby said. “I advise you to have a care, sir. She looks dainty, but she will run roughshod over you if you let her.”
    “I hope I am not as bad as all that!” said Lady Lithby with a laugh. “I only want to make a refuge for Mr. Carsington, as Charlotte said: a comfortable place to come to after his labors.”
    “Your and his notions of what is comfortable are not likely to be the same,” said Lord Lithby. “Mr. Carsington is a man of science. I have not received the impression that he wishes, as we do, to entertain multitudes. Certainly he is not interested in following the latest fads and fashions.”
    His genial grey gaze returned to Darius. “You