“It wasn’t intentional,” he said. “I had no time to shave during the last two weeks of haymaking. It took every man on the estate to help thatch the hayricks fast enough to keep pace with the harvest.”

“All this after only a fortnight,” she commented, still admiring the luxuriant beard. Poor Edward would have been incensed at the sight of it.

West shrugged modestly. “We each have a special talent. Some people can sing opera or learn foreign languages. I grow hair.”

“It makes you look dashing,” Phoebe said, “but a bit villainous.”

The lines at the outer corners of his eyes deepened with amusement. “If the hero hasn’t turned up, you may have to settle for the villain.”

“If the villain’s the one who turns up, he is the hero.”

West laughed huskily, his teeth white against the inky darkness of the beard. “Whatever you choose to call me, I’m at your disposal.”

He looked tremendously fit, but she noticed he was leaner than before, his well-tailored clothes draping a bit too loosely over the hard lines of his body.

“There’s still breakfast on the sideboard,” Phoebe said softly. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m always hungry.”

“I should warn you in advance that Justin has licked the icing from all the breakfast buns, and there was a recent accident involving Stephen and a dish of applesauce.”

“I’ll take my chances,” West said, picking up the Gladstone bag.

Phoebe led him toward the breakfast room, still finding it difficult to believe he was there with her. “Is everyone at Eversby Priory cross with me for stealing you away?” she asked.

“They’re collectively weeping with gratitude. They could hardly wait to be rid of me.” At her questioning glance, West added, “I’ve been short-tempered of late. No, that’s not true—I’ve been a surly ass.”

“Why?”

“Too much time in Hampshire, and no women. The lack of temptation has been demoralizing.”

Phoebe tried to conceal how much that gratified her. Trying to sound offhand, she remarked, “I thought Lady Helen was going to introduce you to the lady doctor who treated Pandora’s shoulder.”

“Dr. Gibson? Yes, she’s a marvelous woman. As a matter of fact, she came to visit Eversby Priory this summer.”

All Phoebe’s pleasant feelings abruptly turned disagreeable. “Surely not without a chaperone.”

“Garrett Gibson doesn’t bother with chaperones,” West replied, his lips twitching as if at some private memory. “The usual rules don’t apply to her. She brought a patient, Mr. Ethan Ransom, who was injured and needed to recuperate in peace and quiet.”

Poisonous jealousy flooded Phoebe. The female doctor was an accomplished and unconventional woman—exactly the kind who would attract his interest. “You must have found her fascinating.”

“Anyone would.”

Averting her face to hide a scowl, Phoebe tried to sound nonchalant. “I suppose you became well acquainted during her visit?”

“More or less. Most of the time she was busy caring for Ransom. I stopped in London last night to see him. He’s asked me to be his best man at their wedding.”

“Their—oh. They’re going to marry?” To her chagrin, Phoebe couldn’t hide her relief.

She heard West’s low laugh as he caught her elbow and stopped her. The contents of the leather bag rattled as he dropped it to the floor.

“Jealous?” he asked softly, drawing her to an alcove at the side of the corridor.

“A little,” she admitted.

“What about Edward Larson? Aren’t you betrothed?”

“No.”

“No?” he echoed sardonically. “I assumed you’d have him hooked, booked, and cooked by now.”

Phoebe frowned at the vulgar expression for courtship and marriage. “I’m not going to marry Edward. He’ll always be a dear friend, but I . . . don’t want him that way.”

West’s face was unreadable. “Have you told him?”

“Not yet. He’s traveling in Italy for at least a fortnight.”

To her dismay, West didn’t seem especially pleased by the revelation. “Phoebe . . . I’m not here to take advantage of you. All I want is to help with the estate, in any way I can.”

The words sent a little cold stab through her chest. Did he mean it? Was that all he wanted? Perhaps the feelings were all one-sided, just as she had feared. She forced herself to ask with difficulty, “The things you said to me that morning . . . is any of it still true?”

“Is any of it . . .” West repeated slowly, with a dumbfounded shake of his head. The question appeared to have set off a flare of impatience. Muttering beneath his breath, he paced away from her, swung around, and returned to her with heightened color and a scowl. “I’m haunted by you,” he said brusquely. “I can’t seem to stop looking for you everywhere I go. When I went to London, I tried to find a woman who could help me forget about you, even for one night. But no one has your eyes. No one interests me the way you do. I’ve cursed you a thousand times for what you’ve done to me. I’d rather be alone with a fantasy of you than have a flesh-and-blood woman in my arms.”

“You don’t have to settle for a fantasy,” Phoebe said impulsively. “Just because you don’t want forever with me doesn’t mean we can’t—”

“No.” West’s breathing roughened despite his effort to moderate it. He held up a staying hand as she parted her lips, and the slight tremor in his fingers electrified her. “If you have any misguided thoughts about taking me into your bed, you would find it a vastly mediocre experience. I’d be on you like a crazed rabbit, and half a minute later the whole thing would be over. I used to be a proficient lover, but now I’m a burnt-out libertine whose only remaining pleasure is breakfast food. Speaking of which—”

Phoebe reached for him, brought herself up hard against him, and interrupted him with her mouth. West flinched as if scalded and held very still in the manner of a man trying to withstand torture. Undeterred, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him as passionately as she could, touching her tongue to his stiff lips. The feel and taste of him was exhilarating. Suddenly he responded with a primitive grunt and his mouth clamped on hers, wringing sensation from her with demanding pressure. Forcing her lips apart, he searched her with his tongue the way she remembered, and it felt so good, she thought she might faint. A whimper rose from her throat, and he licked and bit gently at the sound, and sealed their mouths together in a deep, insatiable kiss that involved his lips, breath, hands, body, soul.

Whatever it might be like to go to bed with this man . . . it would be anything but mediocre.

Phoebe was so lost in the explosive sensuality of the moment, only one sound could have snatched her back to full alertness . . . her son’s small voice.

“Mama?”

Jerking her head back with a gasp, Phoebe looked toward the sound, blinking in confusion.

Justin stood in the corridor, near the breakfast room, wide-eyed and uneasy at the sight of his mother in a stranger’s arms.

“It’s all right, darling,” Phoebe said with an effort at composure, disentangling herself from West. She teetered on ramshackle legs, but West grabbed her reflexively and adjusted her balance. “It’s Mr. Ravenel,” she told Justin. “He looks a bit different because of his beard.”

It surprised her to see the way her son’s face lit up.

Justin charged forward, and West bent reflexively to catch and lift him in the air.

“Look at this big fellow,” West exclaimed, holding the child against his chest. “My God, you’re as heavy as a clamp of bricks.”

“Guess how old I am now,” Justin boasted, and held up a spread-fingered hand.

“Five? When did that happen?”

“Last week!”

“It was last month,” Phoebe said.

“I had plum cake with icing,” Justin continued eagerly, “and Mama let me eat some for breakfast the next morning.”

“I’m sorry I missed it. Fortunately, I’ve brought presents for you and Stephen.”

Justin squealed happily.

“I arrived in London late last night,” West continued, “after Winterborne’s department store was already closed for the evening. So Mr. Winterborne opened it for me, and I had the entire toy department all to myself. After I found what I wanted, Winterborne wrapped your toys personally.”

Justin’s eyes turned round with awe. In his mind, a man who could have a department store opened just for him must possess magical powers. “Where is my present?”

“It’s in that bag on the floor. We’ll open it later, when there’s time to play.”

Justin studied West intently, rubbing his palms over his hair-roughened jaw. “I don’t like your beard,” he announced. “It makes you look like an angry bear.”

“Justin—” Phoebe reproved, but West was laughing.

“I was an angry bear, all summer.”

“You have to shave it,” Justin commanded, framing the man’s smiling mouth with his hands.

“Justin,” Phoebe exclaimed.

The boy corrected himself with a grin. “Shave it please.”

“I will,” West promised, “if your mother will provide a razor.”

“Mama, will you?” Justin asked.

“First,” Phoebe told her son, “we’re going to let Mr. Ravenel settle comfortably in the guest cottage. He can decide later if he wants to keep his beard or not. I for one rather like it.”

“But it’s tickly and scratchy,” Justin complained.

West grinned and dove his face against the boy’s neck, causing him to yelp and squirm. “Let’s go see your brother.”

Before they went to the breakfast room, however, his gaze met Phoebe’s for a searing moment. His expression left no doubt that their impulsive kiss was a mistake that would not be repeated.

Phoebe responded with a demure glance, giving no hint of her true thoughts.

If you won’t promise me forever, West Ravenel . . . I’ll take what I can have of you.

Chapter 23

Raw-nerved and unsettled, West went with Phoebe on a tour of the manor after breakfast. The majesty of the house, with its portico and classic white columns, and banks of windows on all sides, couldn’t have provided a greater contrast to the Jacobean clutter of Eversby Priory. It was as elegant as a Grecian temple, occupying a ridge overlooking landscaped parkland and gardens. Far too often a house seemed to have placed carelessly upon a site as if by a giant hand, but Clare Manor inhabited the scenery as if it had grown there.

The interior was open and lofty, with high vaulted ceilings of cool white plasterwork and sweeping staircases. A vast collection of fine-grained marble statuary gave the house a museumlike air, but many of the rooms had been softened with thick fringed rugs, cozy groupings of upholstered furniture, and palms in glazed earthenware pots.