? ? ?
IT WAS ALMOST eight before Anna could convince Jack’s sisters that she had to get home. Celestina extracted a half-dozen promises before Anna reached the door. As soon as they were out of sight Anna stopped and turned to him.
“Don’t yell at me,” he said. “I had no idea they were on the way back.”
She tapped her foot and waited.
“I would have handled it better with more warning,” he went on. “Just how mad are you?”
“Not so much mad,” she admitted.
“Really?” He was studying her face.
Very odd, Anna thought. He looked almost guilty.
“Maybe I should be mad. You’re up to something,” she said. “You asked Bambina to show me her linen chest to get us all out of the parlor. Admit it.”
Instead of answering, he pulled her into one of the recessed doorways and produced a very large, old-fashioned key from his pocket.
She said, “Ah, that was why you needed to distract them. You stole the key to your own greenhouse.”
“It’s mine as much as theirs,” Jack said as he unlocked the door and pushed it open. “No thievery required.”
“Then why not just say—”
He took her wrist and pulled her after him, shut the door behind them, and locked it.
Then he smiled down at her. “You told my sisters you were going to marry me.”
Anna commanded herself not to blush. “As you heard.”
“I think that’s something we need to talk about.”
“Certainly. As soon as you get back from Chicago.”
She saw now that they were standing in a workroom in a narrow corridor that ran between long wooden tables all laid out with gardening tools, trays of terra-cotta pots, neatly labeled bins and barrels, and stacks of buckets.
“I can’t wait that long,” Jack said. He stepped over a coiled canvas hose and Anna followed him, let herself be drawn along through the dim workroom, laughing at the absurdity of it all.
He looked at her over his shoulder. “Something funny?”
Anna said, “Did you realize that the minute they got me upstairs they started undressing me—”
He jerked around to look at her.
“They wanted to look at the construction of my skirts. My split skirts? You did realize—”
Jack laughed. “I realized. I have given your skirts quite a lot of thought.”
They came to a sudden stop in front of another door, this one so low that Jack had to duck to get through it.
On the other side was a small room such as a groundskeeper would have for his own use. A standing desk in one corner, two chairs and a small table in the other, a bookcase filled with ledgers and manuals and catalogs, and under a single window where a white curtain rose and fell in the evening breeze a bed, neatly made. The pillowcases were edged with lace and embroidered; more of his sisters’ work.
“Whose room is this?”
“Nobody’s, now. My cousin Umberto lived here before he married.”
Anna crossed the room. “The house is right there. And why is this window open?”
“You would make a good detective,” Jack said dryly. “It was musty, so I opened it earlier today.”
“You had this planned.”
“I didn’t plan on my sisters. This room was in case you were uncomfortable in the house.”
“Your sisters would be shocked. I should be shocked.” But she wasn’t, and couldn’t hide the fact.
“You don’t need to worry, their rooms are on the other side of the house from here.”
“Hmmm,” Anna said. “Can I trust you on that?”
“You can trust me on everything. Anything.” He paused. “Almost anything.” He backed her up against the closed door and leaned in, his hands to either side of her head.
“But—”
He interrupted her. “Do you really want to be talking about my sisters just now?”
? ? ?
A FEW MINUTES later when he let her go Anna realized she had been robbed. Her mind was blank, emptied of common sense and reason both. And they were sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Mezzanotte.”
“Hmmm?” He hummed it against her ear and sent a tidal wave of gooseflesh down her back.
“You are—” Her train of thought slipped away from her.
“What?” He sat back to look at her. “I’m what? Irresistible?”
“Single-minded,” she said. “And irresistible.”
He gave a short laugh and closed his hands around her forearms. No doubt he would feel her pulse racing, just as she felt his.
“And persistent,” she added.
“Desperate,” he agreed.
And now she had to laugh. “You are just caught up—”
He put his hand over her mouth and brought his forehead to hers. “I am in love.”
The words blossomed in the very center of her being, sparked their way up her spine and along every nerve, closing her throat so that even breath was impossible for that moment while he watched her face.
He said, “Are you struck speechless?”
“Not quite,” Anna said.
“Then I still have work to do.”