Candlemoth: A Holy City Romance by Pauline West Read Free Book Online Page A

said, smoothly.  It was the perfect butler voice.  Were there boys who spent their lives dreaming how to become the perfect butler when they grew up?  Maybe he’d been one of them. 
    Just then, a carriage full of tourists went by in the street, the horse’s hooves clopping merrily on the cobblestones.  I smiled up at him sunnily, feeling for a moment like I’d stepped back in time.
    “I’m Geordi,” he said, “Miss Lily, follow me please.”
    I followed him into the hush of the house.  I smelled fresh laundry and furniture wax, and the dim golden light through the lead glass of the windows calmed me down in spite of myself.
    This was nice.
    Geordi led me to a kitchen that was different from the one we’d used for the reception the night before.  This one was on the second floor, not very big.  Everything was industrial-chic and tasteful.  And so clean it looked as if it had never been used.
    “Does anyone ever cook in here?” I said, placing the cookies into the fridge.  It was empty except for a magnum of champagne and an unopened jar of organic cherries.
    Geordi looked surprised.  “Of course.  Occasionally Mrs. Calhoun amuses herself.  Guest chefs come to the house.  There are events… now, follow me please.  This is the room where the guests will be served.  This is the smoking room; tonight will be just the gentlemen.  Their bourbon is here, cigars will be here, and you are to place the cookies here.  All right?”
    “Great,” I said. 
    “Very good.”  Geordi escorted me back to the little kitchen, tapped on the door twice in farewell, and then was gone.  I could tell he took pleasure in anticipating needs and being unobtrusive. 
    And, I thought, as I pre-heated the oven, the Calhouns probably paid him well enough that he could even have a butler of his own at home, if he wanted.
    It was a funny thought.  Russian nesting butlers. 
    I dawdled around the kitchen, unable to resist pretending it was mine.  I ran my hands along the beautiful counters, over the stove top.  But my mind had turned inward.  I was remembering the rooms Geordi had led me through on the way to the sitting room.  The antiques everywhere were fabulous, and just a little bit shabby, which one of my fake moms had told me was the sign of real money.  For people with real money, she said to me seriously, as if it were a mathematical rule, it is more important for things to be of the very best quality and to have a long personal history, a patina of heritage-
    Her voice in my head was like a mosquito’s whine.  I tuned it out, arranging cookies on the baking tray.  What I really wanted to think about was the huge oil painting I’d seen on the wall.
    A family portrait.  Two kids, a mom and a dad.  It had probably been painted ten years ago, and it was the very formal, old fashioned kind of painting, but you could already see how beautiful the little girl was going to grow up to be.  They looked like the pieces to a Stepford family chess set, everyone wearing sweaters and matching side parts in their smooth, wavy brown hair.  And the little boy.  Of course, the little boy…
    Apparently, even when Ry was just a kid there was something magic about his eyes, that way he had of holding himself. 
    How could anyone not fall in love with him, that was the question?  It would almost be an art… learning to resist Ryland Calhoun...
    I opened the oven and slid the cookies in, clicked on the timer.  And then I began to feel a curious awareness tickling all along my body.  As if I’d been magnetized.
    I turned, knowing instinctively who I’d see standing in the doorway.
    Ry leaned there, watching me.  He was completely still.  Then that maddening one-sided smile flicked upwards at the edge of his lips.  He wore a simple, threadworn white tee shirt that looked soft and invitingly snug against his sexy body. 
    I wanted to rip his pants off.   
    “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Ry said, in a