Unlacing the Innocent Miss by Margaret McPhee Page A

bare floorboards with a thud. He looked at Rosalind. ‘I’ll wait outside the door for you while you attend to your toilette.’
    She nodded, knowing this was the best offer she was going to get, and watched the three men leave. As Wolf shut the door behind him, his eyes met hers in steely warning, and then he was gone.
     
    Rosalind just stood there and stared at the closed door, hearing the other door open and close across the passage way, hearing the murmur of their voices. Her eyes shifted to the travelling bag on the floor just before her where Wolf had dropped it and she shifted it to lie across the door, as if she could block Wolf out with the bag. Hurriedly, she attended to her needs, washed her face and hands and tidied her hair.
    He was leaning against the wall in the corridor when she opened the door, waiting as if patiently but it was not patience that she saw in his eyes when she looked at him. Not a word passed between them. A single movement of his head gestured towards the staircase. She began to walk along the dimly lit passage. There was the sound of a keyturning in a lock before she heard his footsteps follow and sensed he was close. At the end of the landing she hesitated, and he passed her, taking the lead as they trod down the uneven staircase.
    They were halfway down when he turned suddenly to her, surprising Rosalind so that she was too close to him. Standing on the stair above his, she found her eyes level with his for the first time. The light of the nearby flickering candles softened the angles of his face and made his eyes appear a smoky grey. He was so close that she could see the individual lashes, so close that it was all she could do to stifle a gasp.
    She made to step back but her foot caught against the high-angled stair and only the sudden curve of his arm around her waist saved her from falling. He did not remove his hand, just left it where it was resting lightly against the small of her back. He stared at her, and she saw surprise in his eyes—and something else too, something that she could not name but that sent a quiver snaking throughout her body. He stared at her, and the moment stretched long so that she could feel the hard rapid thump of her heart and feel her blood coursing too fast.
    The look of harsh cynicism had gone, leaving his expression unreadable. His breath was warm against her cheek, stirring the fine tendrils of hair that hung in spirals before her ears. The scent of soap and leather and masculinity filled her nose, and her heart tripped even faster so that she could hear the slight raggedness of her breath between them. His hold was so light that she could have easily broken free from it, yet she just stood there, as if entranced by the look in his eyes. It seemed to Rosalind that some strange force had come over her, enslaving her thinking, her body, so that she could do nothing other than stare at him. And thesmoky eyes stared right back, and where his palm touched light against her back, her skin seemed to burn and pulse.
    And as suddenly as it had arrived, it disappeared. She saw the moment that his eyes changed, reverting to a cool silver. He dropped his hand from her as if scalded, and she saw the flash of anger and loathing in his gaze. His expression was once more harsh and determined.
    ‘Behave yourself down here, Miss Meadowfield,’ he growled.
    She was still reeling from the shock, not of his anger, but of what had gone before. ‘I will not deign to reply to that, sir,’ she managed.
    She saw the slight curl of his lip. ‘You do not deign to do much do you? Besides help yourself to other people’s valuables.’
    And then he turned and walked on, as if nothing at all had happened.
    Rosalind stood stock still, trembling and shocked. What on earth had just happened? Why had she not moved away? Why had she let him stare at her in that…that inappropriate manner? Her heart was still beating too fast and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
    He had