Seven Secrets of Seduction by Anne Mallory Page A

you?”
    She let out her breath, eyes jerking open to blindly stare at the books littering the floor. Had she just accepted a challenge to be seduced by one of the most notorious men in the land? And then almost literally caved within the prologue of the contest?
    â€œI believe I might need to reorganize first,” she said as well as she could manage. Reorganize, in both body and mind.
    â€œAh, I must make up for my carelessness with the stacks. I’ve caused you extra work.” The deliberate misinterpretation of her words struck her again, eventhrough the haze. Signaling the games he might play to win.
    Though there was something off in the tones of his voice. As if he hadn’t been entirely unaffected by what had just occurred. “I’ll return at two.”
    â€œWhat? No,” she said quickly, looking up.
    â€œI insist.” He dragged a finger across the back of the chair as he walked backward toward the door. “I am responsible for the chaos after all.” His lips curved as if there were multiple meanings to his statement. “Until we meet again, Miss Chase.”
    He turned and sauntered out, and she was left to stare in his wake, feeling more like she had been sucked down and pummeled by Charybdis rather than dashed against a rock.
    Had she truly accepted his mad challenge? And what on earth would she do with it?
    She took in the greater mess on the floor that he had created. Swirling in the vortex. And she, floundering without a paddle.
    She pulled over a chair, stepped on it, reached up, and shakily pulled the first book off a towering stack. Work. She could work. She’d think about what she had done—and what she would do—later. Later, when the essence of the man wasn’t still clinging to the air around her.
    Thankfully, the stack stayed soundly in place, even with the jumbled spines jutting this way and that and her suddenly clumsy fingers fumbling the leather. She grabbed the next three volumes as well and stepped down, thanking her long practice with library ladders for not making her already shaky limbs pitch her to the floor in a tangle of skirts.
    A French tutorial, a domestic household guide, a Greek classic, and a religious tome stared back at her. How in the world had these books been arranged? She looked around the room. She could almost believe that someone had shuffled them up on purpose.
    But that would be silly.
    She looked back at her unsteady hands.
    Silly.
    She shook her head, and her eyes unwillingly sought the clock. It was not yet ten. There were at least three hours to go before she needed to recheck.
    She lasted three more trips up the chair before she looked again. Ten fifteen. She’d likely expire before the two o’clock hands wound around for the sheer way her heart was beating. She didn’t think it was supposed to be pounding so erratically.
    She deliberately turned away from the clock and set the book in her hands down with a thump.
    It was a tortuous first thirty minutes, but then the rest of the morning picked up pace as she concentrated on her task. Mrs. Humphries, the housekeeper, brought her a tray of food and politely inquired as to whether Miranda needed assistance. She gratefully accepted, and a few men and women rotated in and out, in shifts, doing as she directed. Watching her when they thought she wasn’t looking.
    The food was perfect. The spread of fruit, cheese, and bread allowed her to graze while she worked. She heard the empty tray being moved near the door. She looked up to see that the two servants who had been standing near, helping her, had slipped away.
    She projected around the stack of books in front of her, “Thank you.”
    â€œAlready thanking me, and I just arrived.” The husky voice, once more steady and confident, wrapped around the stack like the fine stockings that clung to the illumination hidden in her armoire. “I could become used to your lips draped around those