The Worthington Wife. Sharon Page

she almost never showed it. How had he seen that inside her?

      “You see something quite different to the person I am, Worthington.”

      “I don’t think so.” He mixed colors on his palette, looking at her from under his mussed blond hair. “I think I see the real Lady Julia behind the restrained exterior.”

      His gaze moved over her in the most shocking way. She should be outraged. Yet it wasn’t a bold look. It was a raw, appreciative look, given to her by a stunningly handsome man—

      She had better put a stop to it at once.

      “I am a lady through and through, Worthington. You won’t see anything beyond that.”

      He grinned. “It’s too late, doll. I already do. And it’s Cal, remember?”

      His soft, deep voice sent a shiver through her. Then she thought of the countess sobbing with shock and terror. Julia crossed her arms over her chest. “Was losing the cook part of your plan to tear Worthington Park to pieces? As well as firing servants who are now out of work, with no place to stay?”

      To her shock, he did not respond. He went back to his painting.

      “It’s rude to not answer,” she said.

      As he worked he said, “It’s true that I would have waited to get rid of the cook. I like to eat. But it made me mad to see so much food thrown away. I know what it’s like to be hungry. Have you ever lived a day on some broth and one piece of bread?”

      That startled her. “Was that all you had?”

      He slashed paint on the canvas and a stone balustrade began to appear. It looked real, as if she could feel the roughness of stone.

      “No, I went without food by choice, Lady Julia, what do you think? My mother would feed my brother and me first and if there was nothing left, she didn’t eat at all.”

      “I’m sorry.” Of course, she didn’t know what it was to be truly starving. Even when they had been in financial dire straits at Brideswell, there was always food. Instead, she had been trained to not eat, to do little more than nibble at all the dinner courses to keep her figure. “But I am familiar with hardship. There are many people in the village who are suffering after the War. And surely the food that is not eaten at meals is used.”

      “Not much of it.” His voice was a low growl. “Why shouldn’t it go to people who are needy? The dogs get more of the leftover food than people do. The cook didn’t see anything wrong with that so I fired her.”

      For all he growled like a tiger, Julia felt hope. He cared about people who did not have enough. Once he understood the importance of Worthington Park to the tenants, he would never tear it apart.

      Surely.

      “Well, I have soothed Mrs. Feathers’s wounded feelings,” she said. “Cooks are accustomed to being the lords of their kitchens. She could be convinced to stay—if you apologize and tell her she may run her kitchen as she has always done—”

      “Apologize? Isn’t the idea of being the earl that I get to make the rules?”

      “Large houses don’t run quite that way,” she explained patiently. “Servants work for a house for years—often decades. They outlast the peers. The houses run smoothly because servants know their duties and they take charge of them. Zoe—my sister-in-law—says they run like large American offices.”

      “I could hire another cook.”

      “A good cook can be difficult to find. All you have to do is tell Mrs. Feathers she can carry on as usual. Charm her. Then a plan must be made to change her to your way of thinking, but cleverly.”

      “Uh-huh,” he said. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Have you ever cooked anything, Lady Julia?”

      She felt a blush touch her cheeks. “My presence would not have been appreciated in Brideswell’s kitchens. Our cook and kitchen maids would have been thoroughly shocked.”

      “So shock them,” he said. “Or would you just starve to death if you were on your own?”

      She would not give him the satisfaction of admitting she would be without a clue if she had to make her own meal. “I am sure I would survive. Can you cook?”

      “I can. When my mother was sick, I cooked for all of us. When I paint landscapes, I travel out into the wilderness in a canoe. I camp and paint and cook over a campfire.”

      “You do?” That sounded so primitive.

      He walked over to her. He held out the brush. “Would you like to try your hand at painting?”

      “I have painted before in watercolors. And we really should speak to Mrs. Feathers.”

      “What if I’m not willing to grovel? After all, with all the food in the larders here, I’m capable of feeding myself.”

      He watched her as he spoke. Obviously, he was looking to get a rise out of her. “The servants must eat, as well as the family.”

      “I’d be willing to let them look after themselves. Or are you trying to tell me that the countess and her daughters would starve out of pride before they’d condescend to make their own meals?”

      “I don’t know about them but the servants would.”

      “The servants would what?”

      “Starve before they would cook for themselves.”

      His brows lifted. “The servants think they’re too good to make their own meals?”

      “Exactly.”

      He laughed. “Is snobbery bred into all of you?”

      “Everyone is aware of their own position. It’s the way we are.”

      “So I’d have a mutiny on my hands if the cook leaves and I don’t replace her.” His lazy, sensual grin unfurled. “That could be fun. But I have a better idea. I’ll go and make nice with the cook, if you come here and paint.”

      “What about the footman and the boot boy? And your valet?”

      “I’ll help the young men find better work. And the valet was glad to leave. He said it was like dressing a performing bear. I told him a bear would be less dangerous, then he ran.” Cal crooked his finger at her. “Come and paint with me, Julia. You’ll like working with oil paint more than watercolors. It’s more sensual.”

      That word made another shiver rush down her back.

      “It’s thick and tactile and you can build with it, play with it. I bet you were taught to paint timid little pictures. See what you can do with this.” With a palette knife instead of a brush, he scooped up indigo and yellow and layered it thickly on the canvas as if to show her how very much unlike watercolors it was.

      “I’m not dressed for painting and you do not have a smock or a coat,” she said.

      With infinite slowness, his smile lifted the right side of his mouth. That lopsided smile made her tingle deep inside.

      He set down his palette, the knife, the brush. He undid the buttons of his shirt and shrugged it off.

      Leaving his chest, his torso, completely bare.

      Her jaw dropped.

      He came toward her and she simply couldn’t move. A lady shouldn’t look, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from his beautiful, well-muscled form.

      “Slide this on.”

      “Your shirt? I can’t possibly.”

      He draped it around her. Staring at the shirt, she realized it was finely made. An expensive shirt. But he was supposed to be a poor, bohemian artist. It was like the beautiful dinner clothes he wore last night. Where had they come from?

      She breathed in the scent of him on his warm,