CHAPTER NINETEEN
BETWEENTHEWORKfor Mrs. O’Malley, Flora’s increasingly hectic engagement calendar, and her work for Lord Abbott, every day was ending in something of a blur for Hattie.
Her days that week with Lord Abbott were a bit longer than normal. They were talking more—the stoic, reticent man she’d first encountered in this study was slowly coming around to it.
One afternoon, after he’d given her the work he had for her, she’d started for her desk. “Miss Woodchurch.”
She paused and turned back. “Yes, my lord?”
“Your book. It was quite...” He paused, frowning a little.
“Romantic?”
He looked at her aghast.“Horrifying.”
“Horrifying?”
“The man imprisoned his wife in an attic.”
Hattie smiled wryly. “Well, yes...but in his defense, she was mad.”
“You don’t honestly believe—”
“No!” she exclaimed with a laugh. “But wouldn’t you agree that in a work of fiction, certain liberties are allowed?”
“That’s quite the liberty,” he said.
They spent the afternoon debating on and off if the tale of Jane Eyre was one of an immoral affair or a passionate love story.
And then when a letter came from Harrington Hall, they laughed with bafflement to discover that the sheep had at long last been delivered...along with fourteen head of cattle.
He told her the next dreary afternoon that he missed seeing the stars, that the sky was too dense over London. He said he was an amateur astronomer. “When I was a child, my uncle gave me a telescope. Have you ever looked at the stars through a telescope?”
She shook her head. “The lights and smoke obscure the night sky in London.”
“In Santiava, you can see them clearly. But the telescope...it opened a new world for me. I became very interested in stars. Unfortunately, my tutors knew very little, and my father thought it a waste of my time. When I became duke, I was successful in bringing a famous astronomer to teach at our university in Valdonia.”
She imagined him as a boy, looking through a telescope to a world far away from this one.
One thing Lord Abbott did not talk about was the young women he was supposed to be considering. Hattie had penned replies to invitations and knew he’d been to dine at some very elegant homes. Lady Aleksander came only once more that week, and when Lord Abbott refused to say much, she’d left with a huff of exasperation. When she’d gone, he looked at Hattie and smiled. “I don’t think the lady cares for me.”
“Oh, I think she hates you,” Hattie said, and he had chuckled.
Every day that passed, she felt his presence pressing against her, wrapping around her like a blanket. She thought she’d never been as happy as she was those afternoons in his study. But in the end, he always sent her for tea, and when she returned with the pastry of the day, he was already gone.
But on this particular afternoon, he was waiting for her when she returned from tea with two petit fours. He asked her if she would retrieve some papers from Mr. Callum’s office. “If you will allow me to impose on you,” he said. “I generally send Señor Pacheco, but he is indisposed.”
Mr. Pacheco had been eating rose hips all week. “I warned him about those rose hips,” she murmured.
“Pardon?”
“I’d be happy to retrieve them, my lord.” She set the petit fours on the corner of his desk.
The viscount didn’t seem to notice them; he dragged his fingers through his hair and looked at her in such a way she knew he wanted to say more. Anticipation was rising in her—she couldn’t imagine what he would say, but she sensed it was something personal. His gaze floated over her, settling on her lips, sparking a slow burn in her groin. It was that look he’d given her more than once in the past few days, a gaze with a bit of heat behind it. And maybe a question mark. Whatever it was, it made her heart pick up steam, made her feel a little dizzy.
But he pressed his lips together and looked down. “That will be all for today.”
Disappointment settled on her. She wanted more. It felt as if they’d become friends in a way, but it wasn’t enough. Hattie wanted to find all the reasons to stay and talk to him. She wanted to ask him what his greatest fear was, what his greatest love was. She wanted to know everything about him, no matter how inappropriate.
