Page 16 of The Earl Next Door
“At this time of the morning? Barely past sunrise.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, keeping her gaze solidly on his. “In another hour it will be afternoon.”
Really?
He managed a light shrug. He hadn’t realized it was that late. His thumping temples made it feel as if he’d just gone to bed when the racket had first startled him awake. “No matter the time of day, just seeing a man and hearing him call to them loud enough they could hear over their own voices shouldn’t have frightened them.”
“Perhaps it wouldn’t have if you didn’t look like a ruffian or as if you’d just—”
She looked at his tousled hair, and then let her gaze flutter down his face to the open neckline of his shirt. Lyon sucked in an unexpected breath of arousal that not even his pounding head and lack of sleep could hold at bay. She was too tempting.
“As if I just got out of bed?” His voice sounded huskier than he’d intended.
“Yes,” she admitted softly, lowering her lashes, obviously uncomfortable and as if feeling suddenly shy to admit to such an intimate thought to him.
“It’s true it could have upset the girls because I’m not properly attired. I was sleeping when the noise started.”
“Noise?” she scoffed, staring up at him again with renewed resistance to his claim and seeming to overcome her moment of gentleness along with the truce he thought they’d reached a few days ago.
He nodded. “I walked over thinking only to ask them to be a little quieter.”
Her eyes rounded instantly and her hands clenched tightly at her sides. Clearly she had no fear of doing battle with him and felt prepared to do so. Not that after their first meeting that should amaze him.
“You admit that?” she demanded.
“With no hesitation.”
She listened to him in stunned disbelief and then said, “What do you have against children?”
That took him aback, and he resented her implication he didn’t have a fondness for children. He would welcome the sound of children playing one day—in the future. He looked forward to his sons and daughters laughing and romping about the grounds of Lyonwood. “Nothing. I like children.”
She folded her arms across her chest and harrumphed defiantly.
“I don’t have a problem with them,” he insisted. “Just the noise they were making earlier.”
“You are unbelievable, my lord! You complain about delightful squeals from girls having an enjoyable time when I am sure you will enthusiastically sit in the midstof more than a hundred men shouting and yelling insults, swears, and jeers in your ears at a pugilist match, a horse race, or a cock fight. Yet, you let the sounds of little girls having a playful time disturb you. What kind of man are you?”
The fiery countess wasn’t going to budge an inch, but neither was he. “The usual kind, my lady. I expect to hear caterwauling at those events. And they don’t take place in the morn when respectable people are sleeping.”
“Are you saying the girls aren’t respectable for playing?”
He would not let the intriguing lady get away with a statement like that no matter how fetching she was with her sparkling eyes, rosy cheeks, and indignant manner. Controlling his anger, he said, “You are deliberately mistaking my words, Lady Wake.”
“How can you say that? There is no other meaning that makes sense to what you said.”
“It’s not that I don’t like children. I’ve never been around them.” Not for many years anyway. “I didn’t realize they could be so loud. Girls were running around everywhere and no one was even chasing them.”
“That’s no excuse. Children need time to enjoy a few minutes of normalcy. You are an impossible man to deal with. What is wrong with you?”
You, he almost said aloud but caught himself and only replied, “Nothing.”
“I think not, Lord Lyonwood. You charge into my house and accuse me of amoral behavior before gathering the first fact about who had moved in next doorto you. You watched me from your window, and now you storm into my garden to reprimand the students without coming to me first with your complaint. Not only all that,youhave managed to scare the girls and their teachers half out of their wits for no good reason other than you spent your night swimming around in the bottom of a grog barrel.”
Grog?
“Your nerve is so out of bounds, Lady Wake, it would take weeks to find should anyone go looking for it.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
