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.
A drabness that suddenly irritated Adam intensely. ‘If I might be allowed to speak frankly, Mrs Leighton?’ He fell into step beside her as they neared the top of the stairs.
She glanced up at him. ‘My lord?’
‘I intend to ask Mrs Standish to arrange for a local seamstress to call upon you at her earliest convenience.’
A frown appeared between the fineness of her eyes as she came to a halt at the top of the staircase. ‘Mrs Standish, my lord?’
Adam had spent all of his adult life answering to that title—but it had never before irked him in the way it did when this woman addressed him so coolly!
Which was utterly ridiculous—what else should she call him? She was not his social equal, but a paid servant, and as such her form of address to him was perfectly correct. Should he expect her to call him Adam, as if the two of them were friends, or possibly more? Of course he should not!
He scowled his irrational annoyance. ‘She is the housekeeper here and as such in charge of all the female staff, and consequently the clothing they are required to wear within the household.’
Elena’s expression became wary. ‘Yes, my lord…?’
Adam sighed. ‘And I am tired of looking at you in these—these widow’s weeds.’ He indicated her appearance with a dismissive wave of his hand. ‘I shall instruct Mrs Standish to see to it that you are supplied with more fitting apparel.’
She raised surprised dark brows. ‘More fitting for what, my lord?’
Oh, to the devil with it! Another of those questions this particular woman seemed to ask and which took Adam into the realms of the unacceptable.
As it did now, as he instantly imagined Elena Leighton as his mistress, all of that glorious ebony hair loose about her shoulders, her naked body covered only by one of those delicate silk negligees Fanny had been so fond of parading about in. Not black as with Fanny, but rather white or the palest cream, in order to set off the almost luminous quality to this woman’s ivory skin and allowing the tips of her breasts to poke invitingly and revealingly against that silky material. What colour would her nipples be? he wondered. A fresh peach, perhaps? Or, more likely, considering the colour of her lips, a deep and blushing rose—
His mouth tightened with self-disgust as he realised that he had once again allowed himself thoughts of this woman that were wholly inappropriate to the relationship that existed between the two of them. ‘For spending so many hours a day with a six-year-girl who has already suffered the loss of her mother, without your own clothing reminding her of death on a daily basis,’ he rasped harshly.
‘Oh!’ She gasped. ‘I had not thought of that! And I should have done so. I am so sorry, my—’
‘I believe I have already made clear my feelings regarding this constant and irritating need you feel to apologise to me for one reason or another.’ Adam looked down the long length of his nose at her.
‘But I should have thought—’
‘Mrs Leighton…’ He barely controlled his impatience at her continued self-condemnation. Damn it, he had thought only to get her out of those horrible clothes—Well, not exactly out of them—Oh, damn it to hell! ‘Mrs Leighton, I am tired and I am irritable, furthermore I am in need of a decent glass of brandy, before sitting down to enjoy an even more decent dinner cooked by my excellent chef here, before then spending a night in my own bed!’
She blinked at his vehemence. ‘I—please do not let me delay you any further.’
‘If you will excuse me, then? Jeffries will see to it that you are shown the nursery and schoolroom as well as your own bedchamber.’
‘As you wish, my lord.’ Her lashes lowered with a demureness Adam viewed with suspicion.
‘It is indeed as I wish.’ He scowled, adding, as she made no further comment, ‘Goodnight, Mrs Leighton.’
‘My lord.’ She nodded without so much as glancing up.
Adam gave her one last irritated glance before entering the house, pausing only long enough to hand his hat and cloak to the patiently waiting Jeffries, before striding down the hallway to his study without so much as a second glance.
Where, Adam sincerely hoped, he would not be haunted by any further lascivious thoughts about the widowed Mrs Elena Leighton.
‘I believe there has been some sort of mistake…’ Elena viewed with consternation the brightly coloured materials the seamstress had laid out on the chaise in the bedchamber for her approval. They were predominantly green and blue, but there was also a cream silk and a lemon, all with matching lace.
Mrs Hepworth was aged perhaps thirty and prettily plump, that plumpness shown to advantage in a gown of sky blue in a highwaisted style that perfectly displayed her excellence as a seamstress. ‘Mrs Standish was quite specific in her instructions concerning which materials I should bring with me for your approval, Mrs Leighton.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Oh, yes, I am very sure of Mrs Standish’s instructions, Mrs Leighton,’ the seamstress confirmed cheerfully.