Free Loving Rose: The Redemption of Malcolm Sinclair (Casebook of Barnaby Adair) by Stephanie Laurens

ruthlessly quashed the instinctive urge to pursue that attraction. To pursue her.
    No good could come of that.
    From the rigidity that had gripped her, from the fact that she’d stopped breathing, he knew she was engaged in a similar battle, that she, too, felt the power of that flaring connection.
    Then, surreptitiously, she drew in a shallow, somewhat shaky breath, and shifted so that her shoulder no longer touched his. “Well, then.” Her voice was slightly breathless; she raised her chin a notch higher and with greater determination stated, “I’ll leave you to it.”
    Inclining her head, without meeting his eyes, she turned and walked slowly back around the house.
    He watched her go and had to wonder if, despite both their best efforts, this was one battle that might prove a lost cause.
    After several moments of thinking further along those lines, he returned his gaze to the house.
    If she could deny what was growing between them, could continue to suppress her reaction to him, then, clearly, he could, and should, and would do the same.
    A t the end of the first week after the return of Mr. Thomas Glendower to Breage Manor, Rose slipped into her chair at the dinner table and listened to the conversation already raging between Glendower—Thomas, as both the children had taken to calling him—and Homer regarding the correct way to interpret someone’s theory about the moon orbiting the earth.
    Pippin was busy eating, but between mouthfuls she was also listening, although Rose would have wagered it was the animation displayed by both Homer and Thomas—Glendower—that was holding Pippin’s interest.
    Rose looked down at her soup plate, took her first mouthful, then looked again down the table.
    There he sat, large as life—her employer, a male who, regardless of his injuries, his obvious infirmities, regardless of his disfiguring scars, still managed to seize and hold her attention and interest like some emotional lodestone—and yet she felt . . . settled. Calm, assured, even serene, her instincts convinced beyond question that the situation was . . . good.
    His presence in their household felt . . . simply right.
    He’d proved to be a creature of habit and had settled into a daily routine. After breakfasting with them—and he’d yet to be late down, and most often beat the children downstairs—he would shut himself in his library and work through the morning. She usually found him still there, analyzing figures and reading news sheets, when she took him his morning tea. Eventually emerging, he’d taken in recent days to spending half an hour or so with Homer in the dining room, from which both would appear when she rang the bell for luncheon.
    After helping her clear the table, he would go outside, either to ride or to work on whichever of the small projects about the house was next on his list. While such actions demonstrated a certain arrogance in that he clearly did not care what others thought of him, for her part she considered his stance commendable, and one she supported without reservation.
    Homer had, of course, noticed; since Glendower’s arrival, Homer had revised his view of doing chores, like mucking out the stable, previously a matter of argument, and apparently now deemed all such activities to be perfectly acceptable, acceptably manly, occupations.
    Initially, Pippin, as was her wont, had simply listened or, with her doll in her arms, had silently trailed after Glendower to watch him work around the house. Rose had expected him to ignore the little girl, not in any dismissive way but simply because she was a girl, but no. Over the last days, Pippin had come in full of tales of how Thomas had let her hold his nails, or pass him his hammer, of how she had helped him complete whatever task he’d been working on.
    Rose had to own to surprise on that score . . . and also at the fact that, despite the attraction that, like lightning, seemed to streak down her nerves whenever she and