‘Do not apologise to me a second time in as many minutes, Mrs Leighton!’ Adam pushed his chair back noisily as he stood up.
Elena looked up at him warily as he stood glowering down at her. ‘I did not mean to displease you…’
‘No…?’ His expression softened. ‘Then what did you mean to do to me, Mrs Leighton?’
Elena’s pulse leapt at the sound of that huskiness, the lacing of sensuality she heard underlying his tone, his piercing grey gaze now appearing to be transfixed upon her mouth. Disturbing her with sensations she was unfamiliar with.
Elena ran the moistness of her tongue nervously across her lips before speaking. ‘I do not believe I had any intent other than to apologise for speaking to you so frankly about what is a private matter.’
‘No…?’ He was far too overpowering in the smallness of the room. Too large. Too intense. Too overwhelmingly male!
She found herself unable to look away from him, her heart seeming to sputter and falter, before commencing to beat a wild tattoo in her chest. A fact he was well aware of, if the shifting of his gaze to the pulse in her throat was any indication. A gaze that slowly moved steadily downwards before then lingering on the ivory swell of her breasts as she continued to breathe shallowly.
As Miss Magdelena Matthews, she had of course attended assemblies and dinner parties in Yorkshire, as she had many other local social occasions. But her mother had unfortunately died shortly before her coming-out Season two years ago, and her grandfather had not been a man who particularly cared for town or London society, and his visits there had been few and far between, usually only on business or with the intention of attending the House of Lords.
As a consequence, even following her year of mourning for her mother, her grandfather’s preference for the country meant that Magdelena had spent no time at all in London, and so had not learnt how to recognise or to deal with a gentleman’s attentions. Indeed, Elena’s only experience with a gentleman of the ton was of such a traumatic nature that she had feared ever becoming the focus of a male ever again.
Except Adam Hawthorne did not incite that same fear within her…
Rather the opposite.
The warmth she detected in the grey softness of his gaze, as he continued to watch the rise and fall of her bosom, filled her with unaccustomed heat. Her heart once again fluttered wildly and caused her pulse to do likewise, and her breasts—those same breasts he continued to regard so intently—seemed to swell and grow, the rose-coloured tips tingling with the same unaccustomed heat, making the fitted bodice of her gown feel uncomfortably tight.
It was an unexpected, and yet exhilarating, sensation, every inch of her skin hot and almost painfully sensitive, and she felt almost light-headed as she continued to shyly meet his gaze through the sweep of her dark lashes.
Adam had no idea what he was about!
The fact that he had anticipated enjoying Elena Leighton’s stimulating presence for a few hours, her obvious intelligence and sensitivity, did not mean he had to take their relationship any further than that. Indeed, he would be foolish to ever think of doing so.
Not only was she a splendid addition to his household, in that she appeared to have already developed a very caring relationship with his young daughter, but she was in his employ. And whilst some of the male members of the ton might feel few qualms in regard to taking advantage of their pretty and young female household staff, Adam had certainly never done so. Not even at the worst moments of his marriage to Fanny had he stooped to seeking comfort or solace from one of the young women working in any of his own households. Nor was it his intention to start now with this one.
He straightened abruptly. ‘I suggest that we eat the rest of our meal before making an early night of it.’ Adam gave a pained wince as her face became a flushed and fiery red. ‘By that, I meant, of course, that we should then retire to our respective bedchambers.’
‘I did not for a moment suppose you meant anything other, my lord,’ she answered sharply.
Adam pulled his chair out noisily and resumed his seat. ‘Good,’ he growled, more than a little unsettled himself, both by their conversation, and the things which had not been said…
Thankfully Amanda seemed to have recovered fully the following day as they resumed the last part of their journey, the weather warm enough that Elena had been able to lower the windows and so allow some air into the carriage, and also making it possible for Amanda to poke her head out of the window when she saw something that interested her.
Lord Hawthorne had been noticeably absent when Elena and Amanda ate their breakfast earlier in the private parlour of the inn and he had again ridden on ahead once they resumed their journey, no doubt anxious to arrive at his estate so that he might begin to deal with whatever business had brought him to Cambridgeshire in the first place.
Elena sincerely hoped that it had nothing to do with his wishing to avoid her own outspoken company.
She had woken early this morning to the sounds of certain other inhabitants of the inn already being awake: the grooms chatting outside in the cobbled yard as they fed the horses prior to travel and the sounds of food being prepared for the guests in the kitchen below.
A quick glance at the neighbouring bed had shown that Amanda was still asleep, thus allowing Elena the luxury of remaining cosily beneath her own bedcovers for a few minutes longer, as she thought of the time she had spent alone with Adam Hawthorne yesterday evening.
It had taken only those few minutes’ contemplation for Elena to convince herself she had imagined the intimate intensity of his gaze, both on her lips and breasts; her employer was not a man known for displaying desire for women of the ton, let alone the woman who was engaged to care for his daughter.
‘Is it your intention to spend the evening, as well as all of the day, seated inside the carriage, Mrs Leighton?’
Elena’s cheeks were flushed as she came back to an awareness of her present surroundings, looking out of the open carriage door to see Lord Hawthorne standing outside on the gravel looking in at her mockingly. While she’d been lost in contemplation, the carriage had come to a halt in the courtyard in front of two curved-stone staircases leading up from either side to the entrance of Hawthorne Hall. Amanda had already stepped down from the carriage and was even now skipping her way up the staircase on the left to where the huge oak door already stood open in readiness to welcome the master of the house and his entourage.
Elena stepped slowly down from the carriage to look up at the four-storeyed house; it was a grand greystone building, with a tall, pillared portico at the top of the two staircases, with two curved wings abutting the main house, dozens of windows gleaming in the late evening sunshine.
It was, Elena noted with some dismay, a house very like the one at her grandfather’s estate in Yorkshire, where she and her mother had moved to live following the death of Elena’s father, and where the late Duke of Sheffield had met his end so unexpectedly two months ago.
‘Mrs Leighton…?’
She smiled politely as she turned to look at Hawthorne. ‘You have a beautiful home, my lord.’
For some inexplicable reason Adam did not believe her praise of Hawthorne Hall to be wholly sincere. Indeed, the strained look to her mouth and those expressive blue-green eyes convinced him of such.
He turned to look at the house with critical eyes, looking for flaws and finding none. All was completely in order. As it should be, considering the wages he paid his estate manager.
He turned back to Elena Leighton. ‘Then do you suppose we might both be allowed to go inside it now?’ he prompted drily.
‘Of course.’ She nodded distractedly, her smile still strained as she preceded him up the stairs, her dark curls hidden beneath another of those unbecoming black bonnets, her black gown reflective of that drabness.