Chase saw his narrow window of advantage, and he took it. He shook his arms free of his topcoat and draped it over her shoulders, turning her to face the phaeton. To the groom, he said, “Lady Chawton will return home at once.”
What with the added weight of water, and her unwillingness or inability to assist, it took Chase and the groom several failed attempts and a final one-two-three-heave! to boost poor Winifred into the phaeton. Chase fought back clouds of purple satin and netting, stuffing them into the coach and slamming the door.
The groom took the driver’s seat, and Chase gave the lady’s address. “Lovely spending time with you,” he called out, raising a hand in farewell.
Then he turned on his heel and jerked open the door.
Four flights of stairs. Chase stomped on each riser with deliberate, ominous slowness, giving those hellions time to hear him coming and quake with mounting dread. “Rosamund and Daisy Fairfax!” he bellowed. “Pack your things for Malta!”
However, he never made it as far as the nursery. Just as he reached the third-floor landing, he found his march of doom intercepted.
By Miss Alexandra Mountbatten.
He looked like a wet cat, Alex thought. A wet, angry, ferocious, wild, and very, very large cat. Such as a tiger or a lion or a jaguar or—
“Miss Mountbatten,” he snarled. “Kindly step aside.”
“Wait.” She stretched her arms from the banister to the wall, obstructing his progress. “It wasn’t their fault.”
“Not their fault?” He flung a gesture at the ceiling, spraying her with water. “Are you telling me this is a mystery? That some unknown culprits are at large? Well, let me call in the Bow Street runners.”
Alex retracted her arm barrier and wiped the anger-propelled droplets from her face.
“Rosamund and Daisy were hanging out the window,” he went on. “Holding pails. It was, most assuredly, their fault.”
“Yes, but only partly. I was there, and I didn’t stop them.”
“You didn’t stop them.” He pronounced each word as a separate count in a list of felony charges.
“No, I didn’t. Because I—” Her courage faltered.
Because I was jealous. Irrationally, unspeakably envious in a way that made my toes catch fire.
“Because I believed you deserved it,” she said, lifting her chin. “How dare you conduct your amorous liaisons right under their noses.”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“The children are my concern. Don’t think they don’t know you bring women into that . . . libertine lair.”
“Libertine lair? Oh, that’s a new one.” He brushed past her, stalking down the corridor and disappearing into what she supposed must be his own bedchamber.
After a moment’s hesitation, Alex followed him, charging through the door and shutting it behind her. They were a full two floors below the nursery and at the opposite end of the house—but she lowered her voice anyway. “We’re not finished discussing this.”
“There’s nothing to be discussed. I know I’m a terrible guardian. I know this house is a masonry monument to scandal. That’s why I employed you. You’re meant to teach them proper behavior. Not plague me.”
“Plague you? When have I plagued you?”
“Aside from right now?” He tussled with his waistcoat buttons. “Only every hour of the day and night since you walked through my door.”
“I can’t imagine what you mean.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “Really. So all that rolling around on the schoolroom floor and groping in the Tower of London didn’t give you the slightest hint.”
Alex was coming to recognize his strategy—revealing his naked desire in an attempt to hide his heart and soul. She wouldn’t be fooled this time. “You said . . .”
“I know what I said.” Swaggering strides brought him close. “I said the thought of seducing you would never cross my mind.” He swept aside her plaited hair and bent to whisper darkly in her ear. “I lied.”
He retreated. She was rooted to the floor.
“The thought had crossed my mind before I even made you that promise. And since then, so many thoughts have crossed my mind, my brain is the Charing Cross of filth. A riot of lewd fantasies. You’re naked in nearly all of them, and ever since a certain incident in the schoolroom, a fair number feature ropes.”
Well, then.
Alex needed a moment to recover from that.
Perhaps two moments.
Or a year.
But he didn’t allow her another second.
“Why do you think I brought Winifred home? I thought I could purge a certain governess from my mind.” He cursed under his breath. “And see how well that worked. I can’t even muster the decency to drive you from this room.”
Alex’s mind reeled. He’d been thinking about her that much, and in that way? She didn’t dare plumb the meaning behind it. Instead, she said, “This plan of yours doesn’t sound very fair to Winifred.”
“Yes, I realized that.” He flung aside his unbuttoned waistcoat and pulled his damp shirt over his head, tossing it on the heap. “I was on the verge of sending her home when the girls doused me with”—he swept his hands down his muscled, glistening torso—“whatever this is.”
“Leftover bathwater.”
“Whose bathwater?”
She bit her bottom lip at the corner. “Mine.”
He laughed bitterly. “Of course. Of course it would be yours. I knew I smelled orange-flower water.”
Orange-flower water. He knew her scent?
Don’t make anything of it, she told herself. Naturally, he knew her scent. He likely recalled the scent of every woman he encountered, in the same way a wine merchant could taste cherries or lavender in a bordeaux. One of those talents gleaned from vast and varied experience.
“I suppose I now understand how you can be so callous about your wards,” she said. “Given the way you carry on with women, you doubtless have a dozen illegitimate children you’re ignoring, too.”
“You’re wrong. I do not.”
He snagged a towel from the washstand and gave his hair a good rubbing. Alex gawked, transfixed by the way his arm muscles bunched and flexed.
“How could you be certain you have no offspring?”
“Because I am excessively careful not to create any.”
“No sponge or French letter is that effective.”
“Which is why I don’t rely on them. I simply don’t put myself in that position.”
“What position?”
“Any position that requires insertion of my . . .” He waved vaguely toward his loins. “. . . male member.”
“Male member. Are we discussing a Masonic society, or are you referring to the penis?”
He stared at her.
“We are