I Thee Wed by Celeste Bradley Page B

Francesca muttered, or at least, that was what Orion thought she said, but he must have been mistaken. Look at the luxurious life Judith led as thedaughter of a prominent man. There was no reason to think any such thing!
    But his own fault could not be denied. “I will repair the damage.”
    She blinked. “You will?” The doubt in her voice resolved him.
    He went to work at once, patiently pulling every crumb of blackened wood from the tallow and scrubbing off all the stained, scorched glass stems. He left the purified tallow out in the sun for a while until it liquefied. Then he brought the bowls back in and reinserted the glass stems while the bowls cooled in the shade. Then he set about scrubbing all the sooty marks from the white marble tabletop.
    Francesca, who pretended to work on her charts, watched him carefully. It seemed Mr. Worthington was not averse to a bit of restitution labor. She bent her head over the paper, trying not to let him see the pleased and impressed smile that insisted on taking over her lips.
    She tried to think of any other man in her acquaintance who would go to such lengths to make matters right. She could not think of one who would not leave the mess to someone else, usually a woman, to clean up. At best, she might imagine a few kindly fellows like Asher Langford, who would apologize sincerely and then bring chocolates or something to “make it up” to a woman.
    Her eyes would not stay away from Mr. Worthington. His efforts made her heart melt—and the ensuing warmth pooled in a location significantly lower in her body. She fought the urge to wriggle in her chair. Her gaze slid his way again. He was bent over, scrubbing at the spilled tallow on the marble. His muscled bottom flexed in time with his efforts.
    Heavens! If the male population of the earth had any idea how attractive the sight of a man cleaning was to womankind, the world would be a spotless place, indeed!
    Orion scrubbed at the table he’d spilled the tallow on with a little more force than he might normally have done, but hishands were on automatic while his thoughts were occupied by the beauty across the room.
    God, she was enticing. When she had laughed at him, he’d wanted to laugh with her even as he’d wanted to wipe the smile off her full, pink lips with a hot, deep kiss.
    As he had again and again for the last quarter hour, he watched her from beneath lowered lids as his hands went about the business of clearing up.
    When she wrote in her notes, she would begin sitting up straight and scribing in a measured ladylike fashion. Then her pen would begin to fly, ink would spatter, and the sound of her rapid scribbling would be drowned out only by the murmured encouragements she bestowed upon herself. “In ancient Rome, the rabbit was revered as a symbol of lust and fertility.” She paused. “Oh yes,” she whispered. “Oh, that’s terribly good!” Now she sat hunched over her desk, with her tongue stuck firmly in her cheek and her brows lifted in science-induced delight as her hand flew over the stack of paper, the feather of the quill twitching like a live thing in her fingers.
    She was adorable. Orion wanted to watch her, observe her like a hunter in a blind observed a doe, so that he could delve deeper into the mysteries contained behind her sparkling dark eyes and laughing mouth.
    He could not stop himself from wanting to know more.
    He could not stop himself from
wanting
.
    Why Francesca? Why this girl? Why not the other, perfectly attractive and so much more appropriate Judith?
    What, in her own unique cast of the heredity die, gave Francesca Penrose this power over him?
    And why must she mutter about lust in a laboratory?
    Finally, he realized that he was merely scrubbing the same perfectly clean spot over and over. No more excuses. He had work to do.
    Orion forced himself to focus as he began to select several types of solvent from the shelves. He lined