Bittersweet Love - Cathy Williams [29]
‘I can’t cope with all this to-ing and fro-ing at my age,’ he told Natalie in an undertone, as he bustled around them in the hall, shutting the door with a huge clang. ‘No sooner do we settle in the city than I get dragged up here to entertain the master’s friends.’
Natalie stifled the grin at the thought of O’Leary entertaining.
‘Has Mr Marshall arrived as yet?’ she asked, noticing out of the corner of her eye Eric’s reverential observation of the hallway with its original paintings and magnificent tapestry dominating the staircase wall.
‘He has.’ Kane’s voice from behind her made her swing round to see him walking towards her, casually dressed in a pair of beige trousers with an olive-green shirt carelessly tucked into the waistband. He glanced across to Eric who had also turned at the sound of his voice, and Natalie wondered for a fleeting moment what was going through his head.
‘I’ll get back to the kitchen, then, shall I?’ O’Leary muttered, shuffling off into the left-hand wing of the house.
Eric began to praise the house effusively, and Kane listened to him in polite silence, which irritated Natalie because she knew that it was deliberate, verging just slightly on the brink of rudeness, but when Eric flushed and paused in his eulogy Kane threw him that taste of urbane charm guaranteed to make you wonder whether you had misread his earlier coolness.
He caught Natalie’s eye and she raised her eyebrow slightly, leaving him in no doubt that this little game was one that she could see through with no difficulty at all. She had seen it often enough in action and it usually succeeded in elevating Kane into a superior position.
He grinned at her and said, in a ultra-courteous voice, ‘Shall I show you where you will be sleeping?’
They followed him up the vast staircase which curved around on to the first landing, and along the wide corridor to one of the doors on the right which he pushed open with a flourish.
‘Here you go,’ he said, then he turned to Natalie. ‘O’Leary hasn’t as yet made up the spare room for you. If you like, I can get him to do that now.’ He lounged against the door-frame, his hands in his pockets, and surveyed her thoroughly, then his eyes flitted across to Eric, who was gazing around the room with evident admiration. ‘Of course,’ he murmured, teasingly, mock seriousness on his face, ‘if you want to share this room…?’
He expected her to refuse. Vigorously. The horrified virgin who wouldn’t dream of any such thing. She could hear the intonation in his voice, feel the expectancy hovering at the edge of his question, and she heard herself saying. ‘Yes, I rather think I do.’ There was a swift change of expression on his face and he stood upright, a sudden stillness about him which made her want to laugh out triumphantly. Except, she thought, appalled by her rashness, there was nothing to laugh about, was there?
‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ he asked in a low voice, as Eric moved across to the window to gaze outside, oblivious to what was going on. His green eyes devoured her, demanded a response, and she forced herself to answer lightly.
‘I mean that there’s no need for you to get O’Leary to clean the other spare room.’ She turned to Eric and said in a louder voice, ‘We’ll both be fine in here.’
CHAPTER FIVE
KANE left the room without saying a word. As soon as the door clicked behind him, Natalie looked across to Eric with an expression of nervousness. It was one thing being defiant with Kane Marshall, but now she would have to suffer the consequences of this particular rebellion, and some instinct, which she could only assume was the prurient streak in her, balked at the prospect.
She had never, ever shared a room with a man before. Not in any circumstances. The thought of doing so now made her go hot with embarrassed anxiety. Not that she