“Are the carpenters working on the entry today?” she asked.
Tidsdale shrugged. “I hardly know their plans.” He leered. “Do you knowmy plans?”
“God, you’re annoying.” More banging. “It’s coming from the front door, I’m sure of it.” Amelia stood, her brow furrowed.
“Sit back down. The butler will get it.”
“We have no butler, my lord. You’ve not hired the staff yet.”
“Then you get it. I’m busy.”
She peered at his desk. He was doodling a naughty picture. Not on paper. On the wood of the desk. Like some spoiled and bored schoolboy. Which was, to be fair, precisely what he turned out to be.
“Very well,” she said with a sigh. The front door of the townhouse shook as she approached it, and her skin crawled with a sense of recollection. The last time she’d opened a banging door, she’d been kissed within an inch of her life. Better days, those. Even if they had led to heartbreak.
She reached for the doorknob, but her hand was already occupied. “Oh.” She still gripped her list, Reasons Not to Love Lord Andrew. As her confused hand tried to decide what to do with it, the banging continued, and to make it stop, she released it, grasped the knob, and threw the door open. The paper fluttered to the floor, and one big, snow-covered foot swept forward and slammed on top of it. Destroyed now. All her reasons writ in black ink—soaked through with mud and melted snow.
She lifted her gaze to the boot’s owner, ready to lecture, but her heart burst into life. “Drew,” she breathed. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to retrieve you.” He took another step inside, forcing her to step back or bump against the long, hard length of his body. His eyes were calm and rational. The wildness from his sudden appearance in Scotland entirely gone. He was fully himself, entirely in control. But his eyes were coals, not ice.
A flame flickered to life in her, too. She pushed through a tremble to say, “You seem to be making a habit of entering a place as dramatically as possible.”
He continued prowling toward her, an almost leisurely pace as if he knew exactly what he was doing. No confusion in his gaze. Only warrior determination.
She stumbled backward again, trying to keep her distance.
“Do you know what else I plan to make a habit of?” He continued his slow pursuit, his long legs brushing her skirts.
Her back hit the wall, stole her breath, and she clutched her hands in her skirts. “What is that?” Breathy words. Hard to speak when she could not breathe.
“Kissing you.” He braced his forearm above her head and did as he’d promised, fitted his lips to hers and did as he pleased with her mouth. As she pleased, too. Her hands forgot the feel of her skirts and clutched at the wet wool of his greatcoat instead, pulling him closer to deepen the kiss. She’d missed him. She wanted him still.
“Amelia.”
She closed her eyes and inhaled as if the sound of her name was the softest, most fragrant breeze. “You came for me.”
“Of course. I can’t let you stay here with that nodcock.”
“I had no intention of truly staying.”
“Of course not. You’ve a brain. And I’ve the deed. Did you sign a contract with him?”
“No.”
He grinned, a sly admiring thing that sent a zing straight between her legs. “Clever woman. He has no hold over you now.”
“Damn.”
They lifted their heads to stare down the hall where Tidsdale stood, hands on hips. “Does this mean you quit, Mrs. Dart? That means, of course, I’ll have to strike up communications with Beggsly again, let him know I’m interested in Aster Square once more. What a tedious game you both insist on playing. I’ll not gift the houses to you as a wedding present, you know. You quit, my dear, and the houses are mine. And Lord Andrew will have to scurry back to Manchester, tail tucked between his legs. I’ll bet his tail is not as long as my?—”
“Oh, do shut up, Tidsdale.” Amelia shrugged out of Drew’s cocooning embrace. “I’ve listened to you prattle for over aweek now, and it is more tedious than I can fully express. I doubt Shakespeare would have possessed the vocabulary to do it justice, and he made up words when in want.”
“The deed is already in my hands,” Drew said, stepping to her side. “And I paid much more for the houses than Beggsly’s client was asking.”
“How?” She stared up at him as his hand came to rest softly on her lower back, the chill that had settled into her bones over the last week banished with the possessive touch.
“My inheritance.”
