The Temptation of Your Touch Read online

  The other maids bobbed dutiful curtsies; Pippa yawned and scratched at her wild, dark tangle of hair before mumbling, “Your grace.”

  “My lord will be sufficient,” Max said. “I won’t be your grace until my father dies, and the man is in such vigorous health he may very well outlive me.”

  “If we’re lucky,” the young footman muttered beneath his breath.

  “Pardon?” Max shifted his frown to the boy.

  Mrs. Spencer’s smile tightened as she reached to give the lad’s ear a fond tweak. “Our head footman, Dickon, was just saying how fortunate we are to have a new master here at Cadgwyck Manor. We’ve been quite adrift since the last one took his leave in such haste.”

  “Aye,” Dickon muttered, rubbing his ear and giving her a resentful look from beneath his tawny lashes. “I was just saying that, I was.” As far as Max could tell, the lad wasn’t just the head footman. He was the only footman.

  “Called back to London on some urgent bit of business, was he?” Max was not yet willing to let on that he knew the last master of the house had fled the premises in terror, pursued by some dread specter from his own imagination.

  “We can only assume,” Mrs. Spencer replied, calling his bluff with an unruffled stare of her own. “I’m afraid he didn’t linger long enough to give us any reason for his abrupt departure.” She turned away from Max, her voice softening. “I would be quite remiss in my introductions if I left off the captain of this fine ship we call Cadgwyck Manor—our esteemed butler, Mr. Hodges.”

  A muffled snore greeted her words. Max craned his neck to discover the man who had let him in the door had slumped into a faded Hepplewhite chair and dozed off. His chin was tucked against his chest like a plump pigeon resting its beak in the feathers of its breast.

  “Mr. Hodges,” the housekeeper repeated, much louder this time.

  The butler started violently, shaking himself awake. “Teatime, is it? I’ll just go fetch the cart.” He sprang to his feet and went bolting from the room, leaving the rest of them staring after him.

  Max arched one brow. Apparently the man wasn’t a mute as he had first feared, but simply a garden-variety lunatic.

  In the time it took for Mrs. Spencer to turn back to Max, she had recovered both her composure and her smile. Folding her hands in front of her like some sort of beatific Buddha, she said, “You must be terribly weary after such a long journey, my lord. Dickon would be delighted to show you to the master chamber.”

  Judging by his sullen scowl, the young footman would be even more delighted to shove Max over the nearest cliff. Or out the nearest open window.

  “That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Spencer,” Max said. “I’d prefer that you escort me to my chamber.”

  Although Max would have thought it impossible, Dickon’s scowl darkened.

  Mrs. Spencer’s expression remained carefully bland. “I can assure you young Dickon is perfectly capable of—”

  Max took a step toward her, using the advantage of his size and his physical presence to underscore his words. “I insist.”

  The housekeeper’s crisp smile wavered. Although Max could tell it displeased her, she had no choice but to respect his wishes or risk defying him in front of the other servants, which would set a poor example indeed.

  Her smile returned. As her lips parted, he was reminded of a cornered creature baring its teeth at him. Teeth that weren’t bad after all, but were small and white and impressively even except for the winsome gap between the two in the front.

  “Very well, my lord,” she said stiffly, retrieving from the pier table the heavy candlestick the butler had abandoned. For some reason, Max had a sudden image of it coming down on the back of his head.

  She started toward the entrance hall, tossing a look over her shoulder that could easily have been mistaken for a challenge had they met as equals instead of master and servant. “Shall we proceed?”

  MAX FOLLOWED HIS NEW housekeeper up the shadowy staircase toward the deeper gloom of the second story. He knew he ought to be ashamed of himself. He had always had his autocratic tendencies, but he had never been a bully. So why was he taking such mean-spirited pleasure in baiting a stranger—and an inferior at that?

  He could hardly fault Mrs. Spencer for trying to foist him off on Dickon. Max had been a willing slave to propriety for most of his life. He was well aware there was nothing proper about a lone woman escorting a man to his bedchamber, especially a man she had just met. Perhaps he had simply wanted to see if the composure the woman wore like a suit of armor had any chinks.

  Judging by the stiff angle of her neck, the rigid set of her shoulders, and the almost-military cadence of her half boots on each tread of the stairs, it did not. Her determination was so unyielding she might have been marching along behind Hannibal and his elephants as they crossed the Alps during the Second Punic War.

  Max’s gaze strayed lower, finding a vulnerability he had not anticipated in the subtle sway and roll of her hips. Something unsettling lay in imagining any hint of womanly softness beneath those crisp layers of starched linen. She stole a glance over her shoulder at him; he jerked his gaze back to her face. He was also not in the habit of ogling women’s derrieres, especially women in his employ.

  “Am I to assume that was the entire staff on display down there?” he asked, hoping to remind them both of his new role as lord of the manor.

  “I should say not!” Mrs. Spencer exclaimed, as if the very notion was nonsense. But her next words quenched Max’s swell of relief. “There’s also Nana the cook. I saw no need to disturb her since she has to rise so early to prepare breakfast. And on the second Tuesday of every month, Mrs. Beedle comes up from the village to assist with the laundering of the linens. I believe you’ll discover we run a very efficient household here at Cadgwyck, my lord. One that is quite beyond reproach.”

  Max trailed his fingertips through the thick layer of dust furring the banister, wondering if she might not be as mad as his new butler.

  During that awkward silence he noticed a most peculiar trait—his housekeeper jingled when she walked. It took his weary brain a minute to trace the musical sound to the formidable ring of keys she wore at her waist.

  “That’s quite a collection of keys you have there,” he commented as they approached the second-story landing.

  Without missing a beat, she replied, “Someone has to mind the dungeons as well as the pantry.”

  “Must be a challenge for you to sneak up on people. Rather like a cat wearing a collar with a bell on it.”

  “Au contraire, my lord,” she purred, surprising Max anew with the graceful way the Gallic syllables rolled off her tongue. “When one expects a cat to wear a bell, removing the bell only makes the cat that much more dangerous.”

  This time the smile she cast over her shoulder at him was sweetly feline. When she returned her attention to the stairs, Max narrowed his eyes at her slender back, imagining her slinking through the halls of the manor in the dead of night, up to any manner of mischief. He would be wise not to underestimate her. This kitty might yet have claws.

  The swish of her hips beneath her staid skirts seemed even more pronounced now, as if she were deliberately baiting him. As they reached the second-story gallery, the wavering shadows fled before the gentle glow of her candle. A halo of light climbed the wall, illuminating the portrait hanging directly across from the top of the stairs.

  Max’s gaze followed it, as irresistibly drawn as a hapless moth might be to a deadly flame.

  His breath caught in his throat. Mrs. Spencer was forgotten. His desperate desire to collapse onto a warm, dry mattress was forgotten.

  Everything was forgotten except for the vision floating before his eyes.

  Chapter Six

  “MY GOD,” MAX WHISPERED, taking the candlestick from Mrs. Spencer’s hand and holding it aloft.

  The housekeeper did not protest. Her sigh was resigned, almost as if she had been anticipating such a reaction.

  Max ha
d been entertained in some of the finest homes in England, had toured countless museums in Florence and Venice during his grand tour, and seen hundreds of such portraits in his day, including many painted by masters such as Gainsborough, Fragonard, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Dryden Hall, the house in which he had grown up, was home to an entire gallery of his own stern-faced ancestors. But he’d never before been tempted to forget they were anything but flecks of dried paint on canvas.

  The artist of this portrait, however, had captured not just a likeness, but a soul. To even the most insensitive eye, he had obviously been madly in love with his subject, and his intention was to make every man who laid eyes on her fall in love with her, too.

  He somehow conveyed the illusion that he had caught her in the wink of time just before a smile. One corner of her lips was quirked upward, leaving one to wait in breathless anticipation for the dimple that would surely follow. Those ripe, coral lips might tease with the promise of a smile, but her sherry-colored eyes were openly laughing as they gazed boldly down at Max beneath the graceful wings of her brows. They were the eyes of a young woman tasting her power over men for the first time and savoring every morsel of it.

  Her curls were piled loosely atop her head, held in place by a single ribbon of Prussian blue. A few tendrils had escaped to frame full cheeks tinted with a beguiling blush no amount of expensive rouge could duplicate. Her hair was no ordinary brown but a rich, glossy mink. She wore a dress the sumptuous yellow of buttercups in the spring—a marked contrast to the gloom of the gallery. The pale globes of her generous breasts swelled over the square-cut bodice of her high-waisted gown.

  Something about both her beauty and her manner of dress was timeless. She might have been imprisoned in the faded gilt frame for a decade or a century. It was impossible to tell.

  “And just who would you be?” he murmured. A brief glance down the gallery confirmed that the rest of the portraits had been removed, leaving darkened squares on the wallpaper where they had once resided.

  The housekeeper sniffed, reminding Max of her presence. “The rest of the artwork was sold, but she comes with the house. It’s a stipulation of the sale agreement. No matter how many hands the property passes through, the portrait must remain.”

  Max could easily understand why the house’s past masters might not have grumbled about such an eccentric entailment. Most men would be happy to pass the portrait every day and pretend such an enchanting creature were his wife.

  Or his mistress.

  “Who is she?” he asked, oddly reluctant to relegate the woman in the portrait to the past, where she undoubtedly belonged.

  “Another time perhaps, my lord. It’s late and I know you’re exhausted. I wouldn’t wish to bore you.”

  As Mrs. Spencer started to turn away, Max’s hand shot out to close around her forearm. “Bore me.”

  She froze in her tracks at his imperious command, her startled gaze flying to his face. Only seconds before he had nearly forgotten her existence. Now he was keenly aware of how near she was to him in the flickering candlelight. Of each shuddering breath that passed through her parted lips. Of the uneven rise and fall of her breasts beneath the starched linen of her bodice. Of the faint, clean scent of laundry soap and freshly baked bread that clung to her the way expensive perfumes clung to other women.

  Her bones felt almost delicate beneath the tensile strength of his hand. He had wrongly assumed she would be forged from something cold and unbreakable, like granite or steel. His gaze lingered on her lips. When not curved into a closemouthed smile that was no smile at all, they looked surprisingly soft and moist and inviting. . . .

  The candlestick in his other hand had listed, and the steady drip of the melted candle wax against the toe of his poor beleaguered boot finally broke the peculiar spell that had fallen over them.

  Removing his hand from her person as if it belonged to someone else, he said gruffly, “It wasn’t a request, Mrs. Spencer. It was an order.”

  Mrs. Spencer smoothed her wrinkled sleeve; the look she gave him from beneath her fawn-colored fringe of lashes made it clear exactly what she thought of his order. “Her name is . . . was Angelica Cadgwyck.”

  Angelica.

  Max’s gaze strayed back to the woman in the portrait. The name suited her. Despite her impish charms, she certainly had the face of an angel. “I gather her family was the namesake for both the manor and the village?”

  “Up until little more than a decade ago, they were the closest thing the county had to royalty. And from what I understand, Angelica was their crown princess. Her mother died when she was born, and her father, Lord Cadgwyck, doted upon her.”

  “Who could blame him?” Max muttered beneath his breath, bewitched anew by the sensual promise in those sparkling brown eyes. “What happened to her?”

  Mrs. Spencer’s elbow brushed the sleeve of his coat as she joined him in front of the portrait, gazing up at it with a distaste equal to his fascination. “The same thing that always happens when a young woman is raised to believe her every whim should be satisfied without giving any thought whatsoever to the consequences. Scandal. Disaster. Ruin.”

  Intrigued by the note of scorn in her voice, Max stole a sidelong glance at the housekeeper’s disapproving profile. He should have known such a woman would have no sympathy for those who fell prey to temptations of the flesh. She had probably never experienced even the most harmless of them.

  “What manner of scandal?” he asked, although he could probably guess.

  “At a fete given in her honor on her eighteenth birthday, she was caught in a compromising position with a young man. The artist of this very portrait, I believe.” The housekeeper shrugged. “I don’t hail from Cadgwyck so I wasn’t privy to all the sordid details. All I know is that her brother was rumored to have shot and killed the young man without even the benefit of a duel. Her father suffered an apoplexy and went mad with grief. The brother was carted off to prison—”

  “Prison?” Max interrupted, engaged against his will by the lurid tale. “I thought murder was a hanging offense.”

  “The Cadgwyck name was still a powerful influence in these parts, so the young man managed to escape the gallows and was deported to Australia. Apparently, her father had made some ill-advised investments prior to all this. Scenting blood in the water, the creditors descended and the family lost everything—their fortune, their good name . . . even this house, which had been in Cadgwyck hands since the original castle was built five centuries ago.”

  Max returned his gaze to the portrait. “What became of her?”

  Mrs. Spencer shrugged, as if the fate of one foolish girl was of little to no import to her. “What was there left for her to do after bringing ruin upon everyone she loved? On the night before they were to vacate the premises, she flung herself over the cliff and into the sea.”

  Since losing Clarinda to Ash, Max had grown accustomed to the dull, heavy ache in his heart. The piercing pang he felt in that moment caught him off guard. He had no reason to grieve for a girl he had never met. Perhaps it was simply impossible for him to imagine that such a vivacious young creature would surrender her life without a fight.

  “Was there an investigation? Any suspicion of foul play?”

  “None whatsoever,” Mrs. Spencer said flatly. “The girl left behind a note that made her intentions quite clear.”

  “Notes can be forged.”

  The housekeeper slanted him a wry look. “In overwrought theatricals and gothic novels perhaps. But we are not so clever or diabolical here in Cornwall. I suspect her suicide was simply the impulsive action of a rash young girl steeped in a morass of guilt and self-pity.”

  Max gazed up at the portrait, in danger of forgetting the housekeeper’s presence once again. “I should have liked to have made her acquaintance.”

  “Don’t despair, my lord. You may yet get your chance.”

  Mrs. Spencer retrieved her candlestick from his hand and went sweeping away toward the staircase on
the opposite end of the gallery, leaving Max with no choice but to follow or be left behind in the darkness.

  As the full import of her words sank in, he could not resist stealing one last look over his shoulder to watch the portrait of the irrepressible Miss Cadgwyck melt back into the shadows.

  AT THE FAR END of the third-floor corridor of the east wing, Mrs. Spencer used one of the keys from her expansive collection to unlock the master suite. As she pushed open the door, Max felt his spirits sink. The spacious chamber still bore traces of its former splendor, but the marble hearth was just as dark and dusty as the one in the drawing room. Nor was any supper laid before it.

  A single lamp burned on the side table next to the canopied four-poster, casting more shadows than it dispelled.

  Had Max known he was going to receive such an inhospitable welcome, he might have at least lingered at the inn for a bowl of stew. Apparently, he was expected to content himself with the maddening aroma of bread wafting from Mrs. Spencer’s hair. As savagely hungry as he suddenly was, it was all he could do not to lean down and gobble her right up.

  She had stepped aside to let him pass, making it clear she had no intention of placing so much as the pointy little toe of her half boot across the threshold of his bedchamber. Did she truly believe herself in danger of being ravished? Did he appear so desperate for female companionship that he would toss the first female domestic who crossed his path down on the musty mattress and force himself upon her?

  Max could feel his temper rising. He had spent so much of his life holding it in rigid control he almost didn’t recognize the danger signs until it was too late.

  When he finally spoke, his jaw was clenched so tightly his lips barely moved. “Would a fire in the hearth be too much to ask? And perhaps a bite of supper as well?”

  His housekeeper’s smile lost none of its infuriating serenity. “Of course not. I’ll send Dickon up right away with a tray and your portmanteau.” She started to turn away, then looked back at him. “Have no fear, my lord. We’ll be here to see to your every need.”