Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [8]
Dominick began to nod. His eyelids drooped. Visions of mermaids danced between shafts of sunlight and his eyelashes. Mermaids with pretty hands and caustic—
The front door knocker sounded.
Dominick’s head shot up and smacked the wall. “Ah!” He rubbed the back of his head.
The knocker pounded again, going right through his skull.
Kendall’s glance bored through his eye sockets. “Go get that, Cherrett, if you’re able.”
“Yes, sir.” Dominick tripped over his toes as he exited the dining room by its second door, the one leading into the entry hall.
He reached the front door as the knocker banged for a third time. He wondered if the brass pineapple was difficult to break. Or perhaps he should apply it to the head of the early morning caller.
He hadn’t taken the time to speculate as to what sort of person would call at that hour, but if he had, he knew from his experience of the past two weeks that it wouldn’t have been the female who stood on the porch. Old ladies called on the mayor in groups. Elderly gentlemen called on him singly and in pairs. Businessmen of all ages arrived to petition him for favors, and widows brought gifts as excuses to gain entrée into his presence so perhaps they could attract him into making one of them the next Mrs. Kendall. Not once had a young female arrived on the doorstep—until now.
Dominick had read about heart-shaped faces in sentimental literature but never before believed any female possessed such a visage. The evidence stood before him wearing a plain dress and pelisse the same blue-gray as her eyes, and an unadorned straw hat perched atop auburn tresses. No fashionable curls obscured the breadth of her cheekbones. The severity of her hairstyle emphasized the wide brow bisected by a widow’s peak that looked like a nice place to plant a kiss.
He cleared his throat as though that would clear his head. “May I help you?”
“Yes, please. I need to speak with—you.” One hand flew to her lips. Her eyes widened.
Dominick thanked God for something for the first time in many years—that he hadn’t eaten breakfast. The flip his stomach gave at the sound of her accusing tone on the “you” would not have improved upon toast and a soft-boiled egg.
He gripped the door frame with one hand and the handle with the other. “Yes, the last time I looked in a mirror, I was me. Is there a difficulty with that, madam?”
“Only if Mayor Kendall approves of his manservant prowling about the beach in the middle of the night. His English manservant.”
She pronounced his nationality as though it was a felony offense. Then again, to her, it probably was.
The skin along his back crawled, feeling the bite of the lash. “Not prowling. Merely a lark.” He gazed down at her through his lashes. “Mermaid hunting.”
A hint of pink tingeing her pale skin assured him she was not immune to his wiles.
He smiled. “Surely you won’t tattle on a lad who needed some sea air.”
She set one hand on a hip. “Considering I’m here to inform him of Englishmen wandering about at night, yes, I will.”
“Please don’t.” Abandoning flirtation, he stepped onto the porch and closed the door behind him. “It could cause unnecessary trouble.”
“And I think it already has caused unnecessary trouble for me.” She tilted back her head and raised one hand to where a thin red scratch ran above the collar of her pelisse, marring the creamy perfection of her throat. “Tell me, Mr. Englishman, do you own a knife?”
3
______
Tabitha had never seen a man with such beautiful eyes. The rich, deep brown of coffee, they sparkled with pinpoints of gold light behind a fringe of lashes that would have made them feminine if not for his strong cheekbones and firm jaw. The powdered hair, ridiculous as it was in Seabourne, created a striking contrast to the dark eyes and sun-bronzed complexion.
As she looked into those extraordinary eyes, she found herself