Free Winter Garden by Adele Ashworth Page A

she returned, studying the sparkling water droplets in his hair, his slightly furrowed brows as he lowered his eyes to concentrate on unfastening large, black buttons, his damp, glistening skin shining a dark bronze in dim firelight.
    â€œAny luck today?” he inquired, hanging his coat onthe rack, then running his fingers once through his hair.
    Quickly, before he caught her staring, she shifted her attention to the rug where she’d placed her shoes. “Actually, yes,” she said, squeezing her feet into soft brown leather. “It was a typical social gathering, so much of the conversation was little more than gossip. But I did learn some things worth noting, one or two of them interesting.” She heard him stride toward her, his gait slow and uneven, and she repositioned herself on the sofa to face forward, folding her hands in her lap. “How was your afternoon?”
    â€œCold,” he replied. “Generally uncomfortable. Surveillance is the part of this work I like the least.”
    â€œSo you didn’t learn much of anything,” she acknowledged aloud.
    He lifted the iron poker and stirred the embers in the grate. “I didn’t expect to after only three days, although it’s clear that Rothebury doesn’t get many visitors. He keeps to himself and rarely leaves the house.” He sighed and lightly shook his head. “Still, without much surrounding property to manage, it does make me wonder what he does each day.”
    â€œHe probably does what the nobility usually do, I imagine,” she submitted with a hint of humor, noticing, even through his white, linen shirt, how the muscles in his back smoothly flexed. “He no doubt relaxes as he should, orders servants to draw his bath and cook his food and polish his shoes, while he basks in his accumulated wealth and the luxuries of his social class.”
    She couldn’t see his features clearly but she knew that amused him.
    â€œIs that what you think the nobility do each day,Madeleine?” he questioned in light amazement, replacing the poker and turning to face her, his backside absorbing the heat.
    She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “That, or they carefully manage lucrative smuggling operations.” With an understanding smile into his eyes, she added, “It will probably take some time, Thomas. We might be here working together for several months.”
    He smiled in return, vaguely. “I’m aware of that.”
    â€œWould that bother you?” she pressed. Before he could answer, and because she didn’t want the question to seem too personal, she clarified, “I mean, are you anxious to return to Eastleigh? To your home, family?” To your lover? It dawned on her suddenly that she hadn’t considered that before. If he had a lover at home, someone he cared for deeply, it would explain his reluctance to respond to their obvious physical attraction to each other. Then again, during their first conversation about chess he’d implied that he hadn’t been with anyone for some time. Neither had she. She squirmed on the sofa.
    He stood very still for a moment, his dark eyes fixed with hers. “I’m not anxious to go home when there is work to be done here, Madeleine. I’m an extremely thorough man, and I intend to stay in Winter Garden until my objectives are at least tried. I take them very seriously.”
    Objectives are tried? She had no idea what that meant, and she would have brushed the phrase off had he not seemed to plan with care exactly what to say in reply. If there was one thing she knew about Thomas already, it was that he did not ever mince words.
    â€œWell, then,” she expressed through a loud exhale,“I suppose it’s just you and me alone indefinitely.” She looked over his left shoulder to the clock, rubbing her fingers along her skirt at the waist, feeling the prickling of lace on her skin. “I assume no one in