Not that he was fooled into thinking she was harmless—even kittens had claws, after all. And he’d had enough experience with this one to know hers were sharper than most.
He wondered how long she’d been there. She looked uncomfortable with her neck tipped to the side at such an awkward angle. Her dress was a shade of blue that reminded him of the spring sky, but the hem was marred with the grime of the winter streets. He cringed at the sight of her damp boots up on the clean chintz upholstery. They would leave a mark if she stayed that way.
With a sigh, he went over to the sofa. “Esta,” he whispered. “Come on. Wake up.” She didn’t seem to hear him, so he reached down to shake her arm gently. “I said wake—”
The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back on the carpet, staring up at the ceiling. He had no idea how she’d managed to move so quickly out of a dead sleep, but it had taken less than a second for her to sweep his legs out from under him with her ankle and twist his arms around to pin him to the floor. Her eyes were wide and furious, but they weren’t really lucid until she blinked away the sleepiness in them and saw him beneath her.
“Oh,” she said, confusion flashing across her otherwise intense expression.
“Off??” he choked, barely able to breathe.
“Sorry,” she murmured, her voice still rough and drowsy as she shifted off him. “But you shouldn’t grab me like that,” she said sourly, as though her nearly breaking his neck had somehow been his fault.
“You shouldn’t break into people’s homes if you don’t want to be grabbed.” He lifted himself to his feet and went to turn on another light. “And I didn’t grab you. I was trying to wake you. Your boots are ruining the furniture.”
She blinked, her face wrinkling in confusion as she looked at her feet. “They’re clean,” she argued, but she reached down and began unbuttoning them anyway. When she’d pulled off both boots, she left them in a heap on the floor and didn’t bother to cover her slender ankles.
“How did you even get in here?” he demanded, trying to gather his wits. There was something he was supposed to be telling her right now, something he was supposed to say. “I was expecting you at the theater yesterday not in my very locked, very secure apartment. Not in the middle of the night.”
“No so very secure,” she argued. “And it’s barely past midnight. I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” she said, fighting off a soft yawn.
Her hair was a mess, half tumbled down from sleep, but Harte focused on what was important . . . if he could just remember what that was.
She gave in to the yawn. All the action did was call attention to her mouth, which made him remember other things that weren’t exactly helpful at that moment.
He’d made a mistake. A tactical error. This was never going to work if he couldn’t focus long enough to take control.
“So, am I going to be taking the couch, or are you going to be a gentleman and give me your bed?” she asked, batting her eyes innocently.
“The only way you’re getting into my bed is if I’m in there with you,” he told her.
“Not likely,” she drawled.
“Then I guess you’re taking the couch,” he told her. “Best you learn now, I’m no gentleman.”
“Figured as much,” she said, pulling herself up and tossing him a pillow as she walked toward the back of the apartment.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I need to use the facilities,” she told him. But she walked right past the open bathroom and into his bedroom, and before what she was doing completely registered, she’d shut his bedroom door and clicked the latch in place, leaving him holding the pillow.
It took a second for him to process what had just happened, but once he did, he stormed across the apartment and pounded on the door. “Open this door, Esta.”
“No, thanks,” she called from within. “I’m good here.”
“I mean it. I’ll bust it down if I have to.”
There was a rustling sound from within that he refused to think about too closely. It couldn’t be the sound of petticoats falling to the floor or her gown being unlaced. He would not allow himself to imagine her disrobing on the other side of the door. And even if she were, he would not let himself care.
“Feel free. It’s your apartment,” she said, and he could practically hear the shrug in her voice.
He ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. “What are you doing in there?”
“What do you think I’m doing?” she called.
He had a sudden vision of what she would look like in his bed, her dark hair spilled out across his pillow, but he locked that image down and threw away the key. “I think you’re trying to take my bed,” he said, inwardly groaning at his bad luck.
“I don’t think I’m trying at this point.” Her voice came from closer to the door now.
His bed was going to smell like her if she slept there, and then he’d never be able to sleep soundly again. He pounded again and then eyed the door. He could probably break it down. “I want my bed, Esta.”
The door cracked open and her face appeared. Her shoulders were bare except for the lacy straps of her chemise, and she’d taken her hair down so it fell around her shoulders in loose waves. “Think of this as me helping you better yourself,” she said, as she tossed a small object at him.
He grabbed for it out of instinct, giving her the time she needed to slam the door in his face and click the lock in place once more.
“Better myself??” He looked down at the object he was holding—the pocket watch he’d lost at the Metropolitan exhibition. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just what I said, Darrigan,” she called through the closed door. “By the time I’m through with you, you’ll be a real live gentleman.”
? ? ?
The next morning when he woke, his neck was stiff from sleeping on the couch. He pulled himself up and ran a hand over his face, trying to rub away his grogginess and to will away the dreams of dark, silken hair and lacy chemises that left him feeling restless and unhinged. He was still in his clothes, since Esta had locked him out of his own room, but now, across the apartment, the door to his bedroom stood open.
Approaching the door warily, he saw that his bed was rumpled and unmade. The blankets were thrown back, and in the center of the bed, the mattress sagged where someone had slept, but the girl wasn’t there. She wasn’t in his tiny closet of a kitchen, either. As he pulled on a fresh shirt, he had the brief, impossible hope that maybe the night before had all been part of the same awful dream. Then he heard the off-key singing coming from his bathroom.
He knocked on the bathroom door. “Esta?”
The singing went suddenly silent. “You didn’t tell me you had a bathtub,” she called.