“Perhaps not. But staying will show me you care.”
“Care?” He huffed, looked away. “I am your employer. Other than ensuring you work under fair and safe conditions, what cares need I have for you?” His jaw twitched.
“I suppose… none.” Hope could be killed so swiftly.
“How long have you been in possession of this castle?”
An abrupt change of topic but why not allow it. He’d clearly made up his mind. He would not be staying. Perhaps things were done between them after all. She pushed her plate away, no longer hungry. “It belonged to my grandfather. But was not entailed. I’ve lived here since returning to England as a child. And he willed it to me when he died seven years ago.”
“It’s been well cared for. Particularly for a house so far from civilization.”
“My grandfather believed in improvements. And he had the money to do them.”
He finally looked at her again. “And you have the money to continue them?”
She nodded. Why did she feel like wiggling, like evading his gaze? She’d never hidden her wealth from him, but she’d also never made it a topic of conversation. “The pay you give me… I put it into Manchester charities. I’ve no need of it.”
“Then why work?”
His question felt like salt in a wound. Interrogate her, would he? No. She stood, swept toward the door as a wave of loneliness swept over her. “My reasons are neither here nor there. I’m retiring to the drawing room for a scotch. You may join me if you are so disposed.”
He did, trailing behind her from one room to another and accepting the glass of amber liquid when she put it into his hand. No idle chitchat. Merely efficient relocation of their bodies.
He tapped the tumbler, fingernail clinking against glass.
“No gloves?” she asked, incapable of not commenting when his bare hand brushed against her own. She rarely saw himwithout them. Even when eating, he kept them close, tucked neatly into a pocket, always donning them sooner than anyone else.
They were lovely hands, though. She’d noticed that before. Long and capable and, oddly, expressive. When his face gave nothing away, his hands often did. If one knew how to read them. And she did. They hovered with grace over his desk when he felt perplexed by any problem. They cuffed a wrist behind his back when he’d sat too long and needed to stride the circumference of his study to expel the welled-up energy. They rarely brushed through his hair, but when they did, they started at the temples and made quick, efficient work of it. Sometimes, only a time or two she’d seen, his hands curled hard into fists before flexing flat, his face unreadable, hard, cold. What hidden hurts did that to his hands in those moments of unguarded revelation?
Guarded all other times. When shaking hands with a Manchester factory master who’d become wealthy overnight. When using them to calm a young woman, newly alone in the world, who’d come to him for a position. When holding slightly cupped fingers out to her to help her alight a carriage. If a man could be measured by his hands, she’d measure him deeper than anyone thought.
He strolled the circumference of the room, his steps slow and measured, his gaze finding every detail. “Mine were ruined. Extras are in the trunk that has not yet been delivered. And I could not abide the fit of the pair Bernard loaned me. Too big.” He flexed his hand. “I shall have to do without this evening.”
She sat, her gaze following him as he made a circle of the room. She tried to see it through his eyes. Gold-framed paintings by she knew not who (did he?), thick drapes before the windows, shelves with porcelain statues her grandfather had particularlyloved. Thick rugs and delicate furnishings—the room of a wealthy woman. Did he feel deceived?
He stopped at a window, the velvet of a curtain brushing his shoulder as he reached up and flicked a golden tassel holding the drapery back. Those hands again, long and lithe.
“Why do you always wear gloves?” The question was out before she’d finished thinking it. He turned to face her, holding his hands before him, turning them over and over, inspecting them. “Of course,” she added hastily, “everyone wears gloves in public, but… even at your desk you wear them. I come into a room where you’ve been alone and find your hands hidden behind cotton. Even when the heat is oppressive and ink splatters the material.”
He clasped his hands behind his back and took a step toward her. “I will answer that question if you answer one for me.”
“Very well.”
He sat in a chair across from her and leaned to the side to prop an elbow on the arm, then rested his chin on his gloveless fist. His other hand he stretched before him once more. “My father liked looking at hands. Said he could tell a man’s character that way.”
“You hid yours so he could not find your character out?”
“I hid them so no one could judge me by them, judge who I am by a quality given to me by my parents and God. My hands have nothing to do with me.” He scoffed and let his hand fall heavy to his thigh.
He was wrong. That hand resting on that thigh said much about him. Like him, it was long and lean and capable. Like him, it moved with precision and strength. It was an extension of him, moved by him and shaped by him.
“My turn, Mrs. Dart.” She nodded, her pulse spiking high at her wrists and neck. “Why hide your wealth from me?”
“Would it have made a difference if you knew?”
He tilted his head, his eyes like sapphires—hard and cold. “I don’t see how it would have. You proved yourself an excellent resource that first day we met. Money or no, you’re excellent to have around.”
“Then why not stay here a fortnight? Flatter me and win me to your side once more.” Or she would use her money, her inheritance, as a bribe, offer it to him so he would not take a wife, would not need to. Offer to be his bride, complete with dowry.
