His Brother's Wife by Lily Graison Page A

do just
that.
    Regardless of how many
times he told himself women were a distraction he didn't need, that
Grace, as beautiful as she was, would rip his heart out like the
others did, he had a hard time not thinking about her. He needed to
forget how good she smelled and how seeing her in his house doing
tasks as simple as sweeping the floor, cooking, and smiling at him
so prettily, made him want her for his own, damn the
consequences.
    But the voice of reason
pushed all those superficial reasons away and sanity crept back in.
She wasn't worth the heartache. No woman was.
    Hardening his heart, he
pushed his desire for her away, forcing himself to be less than
civil with her. “Don’t presume to know me, Ms. Kingston. Just
because I didn’t speak to you doesn’t mean anything is wrong.” He
looked over his shoulder, his gaze locking with her own. “Did you
ever stop to think maybe I have nothing to say to you? This isn’t
Boston and the world doesn’t revolve around you regardless of what
you may think.”
    He felt like an ass the
moment the words were out of his mouth. The look on her face was
his undoing. It took everything in him not to apologize.
    Turning to the desk, he
ignored her.
    When she walked away
without a word, her steps heavy on the stairs behind him, he closed
his eyes and sighed. As awful as he felt he now knew an effective
way to keep her at arms length. Just insult her. She’d put the
distance between them that he needed whether he wanted it or
not.

Chapter Eight

     
     
     
    The house was quiet. The
clock on the mantel read a quarter till ten and no one had stirred
for hours now. Grace entered the kitchen and lit the lamp on the
table before crossing to the back door and opening it. The tub
she’d seen out on the porch the previous week looked plenty big
enough for bathing and with days worth of sweat and grime coating
her skin, washing from the pitcher and bowl in her room wouldn’t be
enough.
    She struggled with the
large round tub as she pulled it into the house, trying to be quiet
in the process. Jesse wouldn’t be awakened by the noise up on the
second floor but she wasn’t sure about Rafe. He slept in the little
room off the kitchen but she had no clue if he was a sound sleeper
or would any sort of noise awaken him?
    Glancing to his door, she
listened for any noise. After hearing none, she set the tub in
front of the stove and spent the next five minutes scooping hot
water from the stoves reservoir into the tub then added cold water
from the buckets under the sink to cool it a bit.
    Placing her soap, clean
nightgown, and towel on a chair, she stripped off her dress, her
chemise and bloomers before stepping into the water. It was just
big enough for her to sit down in and she sighed as the water
engulfed her body. It was pure heaven.
    She washed away the grime
and sweat, soaked her hair and lathered it, rinsing away the suds
and leaned back when she was finished.
    The past week seemed to
have sped by in a blur. She was tired and felt three times her age.
She found a new appreciation for all those servants her father had
kept in their home.
    Grace never thought about
the things they’d done to see to their comfort but she did now. The
cooking alone was a chore, cleaning the mess up afterwards,
thankfully, had been taken up by Jesse and Rafe. They were adamant
on cleaning up when she cooked and she tried harder to please them
for that reason alone.
    Cleaning the dirt and
grime from their house and seeing they were fed a hot meal seemed
like so little a thing but watching them eat as if they'd never
tasted better thrilled her to no end. It was a daunting and
grueling job taking care of them. One she wasn’t accustomed to but
she'd see it done if it killed her.
    She hadn't made the
decision to move across the country on a whim, after all. She knew
it would be different, difficult even, but being needed for once in
her life made it all worth while. And she was needed. She saw it
every time