A Lady's Dream Come True - Grace Burrowes Page 0,2

light had ever flared more brightly in Oak’s imagination than did those shiny jet beads, dripping rainwater all over the foyer of Merlin Hall.

The tub was a bit cramped for a man of Oak’s proportions, but he made do, and the heat of the water was exquisite. He scrubbed off and lay back, happy to soak until the water had cooled a bit more.

Night had fallen, hastened by the miserable weather, and thus Oak’s chamber was illuminated by only candles and the fire roaring in the hearth. Mrs. Channing apparently did not skimp on fuel, nor did she believe artists should be housed in drafty garrets.

Oak’s bedroom came with a cozy sitting room, and both chambers sported lit fires. A dressing closet off the bedroom added further to the sense that Oak was a guest rather than an itinerant tradesman.

He took another nibble of a pale, blue-veined cheese and washed it down with a sip of excellent port. He’d begun the argument in his head—to doze off in the tub or climb out before the water grew cold—when a quiet snick sounded from the other side of the fire screens.

“I’ll unpack the valise myself,” he said, giving up on the nap. “You needn’t bother. I’ll see to it later.” God willing, his clothes weren’t entirely soaked. His trunks would probably not arrive for another few days, and damp shirts were a misery not to be borne.

He expected a footman’s cheery greeting, or maybe a disapproving comment from the butler, Bracken. Instead, he heard a quiet rustling.

“Halloo,” Oak said, sitting up, though the fire screens blocked his view of most of the room. “Who’s there?” Had a maid stumbled into his room by mistake? Did somebody think to rifle what few belongings he’d brought with him?

He stood reluctantly, water sluicing off him into the tub and cold air chasing the drowsiness from his mind.

“Show yourself,” he said, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his middle. “I already have an extra bucket of coal in both rooms.” More evidence that Oak was to be well treated at Merlin Hall.

Over the top of the fire screens, Oak saw the door to the corridor open. Soft footsteps pattered from the room, though in the gloom, all he could make out was a shadow slipping into the greater darkness beyond the doorway.

“Bloody hell.” A thief stealing his sketch pad would not do. Oak extricated himself from the tub and bolted for the open door. “Get back here, whoever you are. Stealing from a guest is not the done thing.” Though Oak wasn’t quite a guest. He was an employee at Merlin Hall, an artisan rather than an artist.

The air in the corridor was even colder than the air in the sitting room had been, and Oak hadn’t gone two yards from his doorway before it occurred to him that he was racing about a strange house wearing nothing but a towel.

He came to an abrupt halt just as footsteps faded around a carpeted corner. “Christ in swaddling clothes. What was I—?”

A throat cleared.

Oak turned slowly, clutching his towel about his waist with one hand.

“I see the swaddling clothes,” the lady said. “I rather doubt the son of the Almighty stands before me.”

She wore an aubergine dress so dark as to approach black in the corridor’s shadows, and she held a carrying candle that flickered in the chilly breeze. The candle flame found brilliant highlights in her auburn hair and cast high cheekbones into dramatic relief.

“Oak Dorning, no relation to the Almighty. I would bow, but a man wearing only a towel has no wish to look yet more ridiculous.”

The lady cast an appraising eye over him. “I assure you, Mr. Dorning, you do not appear ridiculous, though I can understand why you’d be a bit self-conscious. I am Verity Channing.”

Oak considered himself too slender, at least when compared to his brother Hawthorne. Compared to Valerian, his toilette and manners were unpolished. He lacked Casriel’s Town bronze. He hadn’t Ash’s head for business, Sycamore’s cunning, or Willow’s imperturbable calm.

But Verity Channing apparently saw something in Oak’s nearly naked form that held her interest. Her gaze conveyed no prurient curiosity, but rather, the same assessment Oak made when he considered sketching a subject. How did the light treat this particular complexion? Was a slightly different angle more revealing? More honest?

Candlelight was said to be flattering, but Verity Channing needed no shadows to obscure her flaws, if any she had. Her eyes tilted ever so slightly, the