Page 21 of To Dare the Devil

Max’s lips twitched. “Actually, I was swimming. I’m usually up by six at the latest.”

“Swimming?” he asked, her surprise melting the stern expression she’d adopted upon seeing him enter the room. “But where?”

“There’s a small lake upon the estate,” he informed her, enjoying overturning her preconceptions about the kind of man he was now. Of course, not so long ago, she would have been entirely right. He’d likely not have surfaced until late in the afternoon to ready himself for another night of wickedness.

“Isn’t it cold?” she asked, glancing out the window at a spring day which was sunny but far from warm.

“Freezing, actually, but it gets the blood moving.”

“I’m surprised it doesn’t give you pneumonia.”

“I’m assured by my physician that it is good for the constitution. You ought to try it. I should be happy to give you the use of the lake whenever you desire,” he added, unable to resist. “It’s wonderfully invigorating.”

“I can’t swim,” she said, staring at with open curiosity.

“I’d be happy to teach you.” He ought not to have said such a scandalous thing, he knew, but she was irresistible.

“N-no, thank you.”

Max found himself delighted by the breathless quality of her reply, more so as she blushed, her fair skin tinting a delicious shade of pink. He wondered what other parts of her were pink too, before scolding himself and getting the conversation back on track.

“You wanted to see me?”

“I did,” she said, and her stern façade slid firmly back into place. “I had an interesting conversation with the site manager, Mr Rogers, onsite yesterday morning. He assures me four cart loads of brick arrived yesterday morning as usual, the same the day before, but that they are running short of supply.”

“Oh. Well, can we get more? I don’t want any delay to the build. I thought they had arranged a delivery schedule that suited Rogers. At least, he approved it, as I remember.”

“There was, and he did, which would suggest an error of some description.”

“Did you check with the supplier?”

“I did. Four deliveries were ordered and supplied. In fact, I saw the carriages as they passed our house on their way to the site.”

“Well, if Rogers arranged the quantity delivered, and that quantity arrived, why is there a shortfall, unless he miscalculated?”

“Exactly,” she said, her lush mouth setting into a stern line and her eyebrows slanting down.

She was so dreadfully fierce. Max wished he might kiss her, might soften all those hard edges until she was pliant and sighing in his arms, but as he liked his private parts where they were and in one piece, he kept to the matter in hand.

“You don’t think he miscalculated.”

“No,” she replied.

Max sighed. “You suspect someone is stealing,” he guessed, realising this was what was making her so anxious.

She threw up her hands in agitation and started pacing. “Yes! Which is awful. I’ve spoken to most of the men on site and, though they hardly like a woman sticking her nose in, they’ve all been polite enough and seem to work hard. I do not want to be the one to discover that someone is robbing you, but I can find no other explanation.”

Max watched, entranced by the way her skirts whooshed and swished as she paced, and the mesmerising sway of her hips. Yet she was upset, and with good reason. He tore his gaze away from the delicious picture she made and cudgelled his brain into making an appropriate response.

“Well, if you think something is amiss, I had better investigate.”

“You can’t!” she said, irritated. “Not if you want to keep your involvement a secret. No, I shall have to deal with this. It’s my job to do so, only I did not like to act without informing you first.”

“You most certainly will not deal with it,” Max objected.

Her grey eyes flashed, lightning behind stormy skies. “Whyever not? It is a part of my job to ensure your money is being spent wisely, not wasted. Missing materials must then fall within my purview. Is that not so? I take it if I were a man, you’d consider my interference welcome?”

Max hesitated a moment too long as he tried to find a tactful answer, and she carried on.