Free 'Twas the Night After Christmas by Sabrina Jeffries Page A

feelings she’d thought long dead.
    She had a hard time not noticing the impressive chest well-displayed by his thin lawn shirt. And the broad shoulders. Not to mention the muscular forearms laid bare, since his shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows.
    Oh, how could she pay attention to such things? Why did she care that his shirt was open at the throat? Why couldn’t she tear her gaze from the patch of skin so tantalizingly revealed?
    Because it had been a long time since she’d spent time with a man so informally dressed. That’s all.
    With some effort, she forced her gaze up to his face. He held a glass of brandy, which he sipped from before stepping back just enough to let her enter. “I began to wonder if you forgot our bargain,” he groused.
    She slid past him, acutely aware of how his eyes followed her and how his body loomed over hers. He smelled of spirits and smoke. She wasn’t used to that, for Kenneth had neither smoked nor drank strong liquor. It should have repulsed her.
    But it was so . . . indescribably male. And for a woman who’d spent most of her time in the last few months with an older woman, a young maid, and a small child, it was a rather refreshing change. A little too refreshing for her sanity.
    She moved to put some distance between them. “Perhaps you forgot I have other duties in the evening. Surely you didn’t want me to tell your mother that I had to leave her in order to come to your bedchamber.”
    “Of course not.” He strode over to stoke the fire. “She keeps you up this late every night?”
    “It’s barely ten o’clock. We often stay up later than this. And I enjoy keeping your mother company, no matter how late.” She cast him an arch glance, determined to provoke him into revealing more about his estrangement from the countess. “Just because you find your mother irksome doesn’t mean that I do.”
    “It’s not that I find Mother irksome,” he snapped. “It’s—” He caught himself. “Never mind. It’s of no matter.”
    Stifling a sigh, she tried another tack. “At dinner, I couldn’t help but notice that she confounded your expectations about her need for money.”
    “No doubt you warned her of my suspicions.”
    “As a matter of fact, I did not,” she said stiffly. “Though I do think you ought to give her the chance to—”
    “Let us be clear on one thing.” He bore down on her with a fierce scowl. “Talking about my mother is not entertaining. So if you intend to spend the evening trying to soften me toward her, you’d better readjust your plans. I will not discuss her with you.”
    “But—”
    “Not one word. Not if you want to keep working here. Understood?”
    She huffed out a frustrated breath. The man was maddening! How was she supposed to find out anything when he and his mother were so bent on being stubborn? Clearly, she would have to be more subtle.
    When she didn’t answer, he glowered at her. “Do we understand each other, Mrs. Stuart?”
    “I’m not hard of hearing,” she grumbled. “Nor am I lacking in comprehension.”
    His glower faded, and he cast her a thin smile. “We’ll see about that.”
    “I’m sure we will, my lord.”
    “No need to be so formal when we’re alone,” he drawled, dropping into one of two well-upholstered chairs by the fire and taking another sip of his brandy. “You could call me Devonmont, as my friends do. Or ‘darling.’ ”
    She rolled her eyes. “We’ve already settled that we’re not to have that sort of . . . friendship, sir.”
    “Yes.” He let his gaze trail down her with an exaggerated heat clearly meant to provoke. “What a pity.”
    “Tell me, do women generally respond to your transparent attempts to get beneath their skirts?”
    “Probably about as often as gentlemen flee your transparent attempts to reform them.”
    A smile tugged at her lips. She’d never tried reforming an employer before. Something in him must bring out the devil in her. “ You don’t