Chapter Ten

Nick’s body clock was still messed up. It was close to midnight and he was wide-eyed and about to go out of his mind. Now, some people might think this was because of jet lag and the woman sleeping on the other side of that connecting door. They’d be 100 percent right. Brooke Chapman-Powell was a woman who made him wonder.

Scooting over to the edge of his bed, he craned his neck to get his ears as close to the connecting door as possible. No whistle snore. He didn’t need a mirror to see the smile that had curled his lips at that fact.

“Are you awake?” he asked, knowing full well she was.

“Dead to the world,” came her answer.

Yep. That was the tartness that had snagged his attention from the first letter she’d sent on behalf of his grandfather.

“Liar,” he said with a chuckle. “You weren’t snoring.”

“You know, it’s not very polite to keep bringing that up.”

If she had sounded even the least little bit annoyed, he would have apologized, but she didn’t. “I like your snore.”

She let out a squawk of protest. “No one likes listening to other people snore.”

“It’s like white noise. It helps me fall asleep.” He half thought about the options for a snore machine but tossed it into the dust heap of bad ideas that lived somewhere in the back of his mind.

“So are you saying that I’m keeping you up?” she asked.

He relaxed back against his overstuffed pillows and closed his eyes, picturing her cuddled up in her bed on the other side of that damn door he was really beginning to hate. “In a way.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m trying to untangle your riddle.” She was sweet and sour like that candy that always made his mouth pucker but he couldn’t stop eating.

“I am far from a mystery.”

Now that was a bald-faced lie. He had so many questions, so he started with the one that he’d wondered about the longest. “You just like working for an uptight jerk?”

There was a pause. “It’s not the only thing I want to do.”

The fact that she hadn’t disputed his description of the earl was telling. “What else is on your list?”

“Village council.”

She’d mentioned that before, but it still didn’t make sense in his head. She didn’t seem like a power-hungry politician. “You want to go into politics?”

“No. I want to make a difference in Bowhaven,” she said. “However, it’s such a small place that the people who run usually aren’t opposed.”

There was nothing quite like small-town politics. He could understand that. Back home, there was an informal agreement that was much the same. “So you’re waiting for an invite to run.”

“That’s about the sum of it.”

“Why haven’t you gotten an invitation? Is it because you work for the earl?” He could see that. It wasn’t like the old man went out of his way to make things easy for other people.

“No. It’s because I…” Brooke’s voice faltered. “It’s because people think I’m pushy.”

That wasn’t what she’d been about to say, but he wouldn’t press her on it, not tonight. “You are pushy,” he said, teasing her. “That’s the only reason I’m here.”

“You simply needed some extra convincing and so do they.”

“How are you going to manage that?”

“Keep coming up with revitalization ideas.”

“You never give up, do you, Lady Lemons?”

“I can’t claim that.”

The catch in her voice had him sitting up straighter in bed, leaning over so he was closer to the door. He was about to open his mouth to ask if she was all right when he thought better of it. What had she taught him the other day? Personal inquiries should be kept to a minimum. Asking why she was getting choked up definitely counted as that kind of question—but he couldn’t let the conversation end there.

“What’s your favorite color?” he asked.

“I’m not telling you,” she shot back, sounding like her usual tart self—or maybe it was just her accent.

“Why?”

“You’ll just make fun of me.”

“I’d never do that.” He would so totally do that. He couldn’t help it. He loved seeing that cool veneer of hers warm up. She was a woman who needed to be ruffled every once in a while. “Okay, I do do that, but only because I like you.”

For a few moments, the only sound was of him breathing, and he was just about to call out to her when she answered.

“Yellow.”

“How fitting for you, Lady Lemons.” Bright. Hopeful. Bold. Determined. That color totally fit her. “Sweet dreams.”

“Good night, Mr. Vane.”

He settled back in bed and finally closed his eyes. Of course, all he could see was a certain snarky Englishwoman in yellow. It was going to be another long night.

…

Sleep had become something of a tease for Brooke. She’d close her eyes and somehow she’d always end up picturing a certain heir to an earldom in only his pants. It was most unsettling. And inappropriate. And ill-advised. And utterly unavoidable.

This meant she had not been getting her usual six and a half hours a night and, therefore, the next morning had gotten talked into taking a walk with Nick into the village using the shortcut path between the estate and Bowhaven. The innocuous conversation they’d been having about the who’s who of the British peerage had unexpectedly turned to dancing.

“You do not need dance lessons,” she said with a shake of her head as they walked along the narrow path near the old church.

“Really?” Nick stopped in the middle of the path and looked at her as if she was the one asking inane questions. “What if there’s a dance emergency that can only be fixed by an earl dancing?”

That was Shaun of the Dead–level ridiculous—and just as funny. She didn’t bother to try to stop the laughter from bubbling out. “That’s highly improbable.”

“But not impossible.” He grinned at her. “Come on, loosen up a little and show me your moves.”

She looked around. The only living creature within sight was a trio of sheep. Her gaze landed back on Nick. Her heart fluttered. This was bad. This was unsettling. This was enough to make a tingling buzz vibrate through her. Oh, she was in so much trouble.

Nick stood there with his arms out in classic dance position, giving her an expectant look. “Don’t be a stick-in-the-mud.”

There was no way she could ever say yes. “Fine.”

Before she could take it back, he was holding her in his arms. His hand was on the small of her back, gently leading her as they swayed and twirled to the sound of absolutely nothing—not that she would have heard music anyway, considering how loud her pulse was thundering in her ears. And yet even with that, she couldn’t help but take in everything about him at that moment. The way her head fit tucked under his chin. The feel of his cotton T-shirt against her cheek. The way every nerve ending in her body seemed to stretch toward him. It was nearly overwhelming. Then she opened her eyes and looked up to find him staring down at her. Her breath caught. His gaze went to her mouth. The urge to raise herself up on her tiptoes and kiss him ran through her like a runaway train. It was bone-deep and so very needy. And that’s what jerked her back to reality.

He was the earl’s heir. She was the earl’s secretary. This couldn’t be. Ever.

Nerves jangly, she stepped back, breaking the connection and feeling as if she’d just gotten done running a marathon without ever doing more than dancing without music. Hands tingly, she smoothed her palms down her sensible skirt and dug deep for her usual icy restraint.

She cleared her throat and looked at a spot a few centimeters to the left of Nick’s face. “I do believe Bowhaven will be safe if there is a dance emergency.”

“That’s almost a compliment,” he said, his own voice a little rougher than normal.

Good Lord. Someone had to keep their head straight here and it looked to be her. “I like to keep you on your toes.” There, that sounded almost normal.

“That you do.” He fell into step beside her as they continued on the path toward Bowhaven. “So tell me again about this pigeon race you want to have here.”

“It would bring in tourism dollars to Bowhaven and the surrounding area—at least for a few days as a temporary economic boost.”

“And no one is going for it?”

She let out a sigh as they turned the corner around the old stone church. “It’s a case of being too pushy—the same reason why Brian Kemp wants me to be a member of the flower committee not the village council.” Well, one of them.

“The flower committee?” Nick asked, picking a yellow wildflower from among those dotting the side of the path and handing it to her.

Their fingers brushed as she accepted it, setting off her pulse again. At this rate, she was starting to get all her cardio just by being near him. Ridiculous. “The flower committee puts up the baskets of flowers on the lampposts on the high street, when what I want is to be on the village council.”

Too bad she could never really shake the stink of scandal in the small village. Everyone in Bowhaven may have closed ranks when the reporters had shown up, but no one had forgotten. That it wasn’t her fault didn’t matter. She was tainted and pushy and that meant she wasn’t the right kind of person for the council. Her shoulders sank with the reminder that unless she could prove herself with something big, she’d never win them over.

Nick stopped, reaching out and tugging her to a halt beside him. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her so they were face-to-face. “They’re fools.”

The fierceness with which he said those two words was enough to put the steel back in her spine. “You think so, do you?”

“As would anyone with half a brain.” He squeezed her shoulders, intensity burning in his eyes. “If you got me to fly across the ocean, I believe you can do just about anything you set your mind to.”

He wasn’t wrong. She had done that. Maybe Bowhaven just hadn’t been ready for her pigeon racing idea. Maybe she needed to find a new idea, something they wouldn’t be able to miss out on. Pint-half-full optimism returned to normal, she smiled up at Nick. It was a weird feeling, this sense that she wasn’t the only one who had out-of-the-box ideas that seemed a little bit odd at first but would eventually work out. They definitely had that in common, if nothing other than an attraction that buzzed in the background of every conversation and encounter. There it was right now, an almost tactile vibration in the air that danced between them.

Oh, that was not going to do. Pull it together, Brooke.

Jittery all of the sudden, she pulled away from his touch and started at a fast clip back on the path that was now in the old church’s shadow. “So this church has been here longer than Dallinger Park and some say longer than Bowhaven itself, but that’s in dispute.”

Thanks to those muscular legs of his, Nick didn’t have any trouble catching up with her. “Are you changing the subject on me?”

“Absolutely.” She nodded, keeping her attention focused on the gray stone church—at least as much as that was possible with him beside her. “And it’s not polite to remark upon it.”

“You’re determined to turn me into an earl, aren’t you?”

“Without a doubt.”

It was the best thing for Bowhaven, even if that meant these little jaunts would come to an end sooner rather than later—something she hadn’t realized until that moment that she’d miss.

…

Dancing with Brooke yesterday was supposed to have been a joke, a way to lighten the mood. Too bad the joke was on him, because here he was again lying in his bed alone, staring at the canopy as the sun came up and thinking about a certain tempting blonde who had fit perfectly in his arms. Resisting the urge to call out to Lady Lemons was the last thing he wanted, but he’d be a total asshole to wake her up this early in the morning. But if she was awake already… He held his breath and strained his ears, trying to listen through the walls and the shut connecting door.

At first, he couldn’t hear anything, and then he picked up on something—a quiet buzzing. What in the hell? He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to figure out what the noise was. The pitch of the buzzing changed, almost as if whatever it was was being moved around like she was—

His eyes snapped open. Was Lady Lemons using a vibrator? He let out a slow breath from his burning lungs and then held it again, willing the thoughts in his head to shut the fuck up so he could listen. There it was.

Fuck. He was a total perv to listen, but he couldn’t stop. He was a bad human being. At the moment, he could live with that.

Closing his eyes, he pictured the scene on the other side of that closed door. She’d be in that tank top and shorts set she’d worn the other night. Her nipples would be hard and pressing against the material as she lay back on her bed, her legs spread. First she’d just lightly tease her fingers across the damp spot at the center of her shorts. Then she’d slip her fingers in the elastic waistband and slide them down her smooth legs. That’s when she’d take her vibrator out and move it down her soft, hot core, getting it nice and wet so she could slip it inside her slit.

Damn, the idea of it all had him harder than stone.

He shucked off his own boxers and gripped his hard cock, running his hand up and down the shaft, tight and fast. Going easy to make it a fantasy about her getting him off was the last thing he wanted right now. All he could think about was how hot it would be to watch Brooke make herself come undone. As his balls tightened, he tried to stay quiet, but her name slipped out anyway as he came on his stomach.

“Yes, I’m here,” Brooke said, the words sounding odd but not in a breathy, sexy way. “Hold on, I was just brushing my teeth. Let me run to the toilet to spit real quick.”

His hand stilled on his cock. Brushing her teeth? He was a moron. She wasn’t getting off; she was using an electric toothbrush. He wasn’t just an eavesdropping perv; he was an assuming eavesdropping perv.

A few seconds later, Brooke asked through the door, “What can I do for you?”

Now, that was a loaded question, considering all the things he could say to answer that—not that he’d tell her any of it. Lady Lemons was off-limits for obvious reasons that his mutinous body didn’t give a shit about. Still, he had to tell her something other than “I was just jerking off to you brushing your teeth.”

“I need to find some dog owners I can talk to about this dog collar invention I’m working on,” he said, the words coming out in a rush. “Any recommendations?”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure I can set up some introductions,” she said. “I’ll see you down at breakfast and will give you a list.”

“Great,” he managed to get out. “Thanks.”

He was officially an idiot. One who now was going to have to meet with God knew how many people about their pooches to cover up the fact that he couldn’t stop jerking off to the last woman in the world who should be turning him on. That was it. England had it out for him and the sooner he left, the better it would be for his sanity.