He’d had the hot tub installed right after he’d bought this place, one of three residences he owned, including a ranch outside Wynette, Texas, and a beach house on Hilton Head, although he’d just put the beach house up for sale to help bail him out of the legal and financial mess his ex-business manager Howard “Slezoid” Slattery had left him in.
He heard the phone ring, but he ignored it because he figured it was Torie calling again. As he moved one knee closer to a water jet, he thought about the fact that Lady Emma didn’t know who he was. He supposed that should bruise his ego, but instead he was glad he hadn’t been stuck with someone who wanted to rehash the details of the scandal.
The door leading from the house swung open, and Lady Emma came out. He grinned. She was covered up from here to there with another straw hat, sunglasses, and a filmy pink robe that had white flowers splashed all over it. Lady Emma sure did like her flowers.
He took a sip of beer, then tipped the mouth of the bottle toward her. “You naked underneath that?”
Those golden brown eyes flashed thirteen different kinds of surprise. “Certainly not.”
“Can’t get in the hot tub with your clothes on. My friend has a rule about that.”
Amusement flickered in her eyes. “Your friend doesn’t have to find out, does he?” Then her fingers stalled on the sash at her waist. “Are you naked?”
He took a sip of beer and regarded her innocently. “Now, see, that’s one of those things an American lady would know without asking.”
She hesitated, then unfastened her robe and let it drop.
He about choked. Right there, in the bubbling water, his groin shot to full attention.
It wasn’t her bathing suit that did it. She had on a conservative white one-piece with a couple stems of iris running up the front. No, it was the body inside. This was one lady who sure didn’t believe in running to the bathroom after a good meal and sticking her finger down her throat like some of his former girlfriends. Lady Emma had herself a woman’s body, with nice curvy hips and real curvy breasts. When a man was in bed with her, he wouldn’t have to do a sight check to make sure he was touching the right things.
Her skin was milky white and flawless. Her legs were a little short, but nicely shaped. And smoothly shaven. He was relieved to see that, because, with foreign women, you could never be too sure. He’d had a nasty surprise three years ago with a famous French film actress.
Despite Lady Emma’s curves, he noticed that everything was trim. Although she wasn’t a hardbody, the only parts of her that wiggled were the parts that were supposed to. Must be all that bicycling.
She’d put some lipstick on, but it was a light rosy color instead of hooker red, which was a good thing, because that mouth in red lipstick would have been more than he could handle. Lady Emma was one of life’s great jokes, he decided. Putting that face and body on a woman with the personality of a four-star general had to have given the Almighty a few chuckles.
He picked up the beer he had waiting for her—not that he believed for a moment she’d drink it—and held it out. She marched toward him and his aggravation returned. She looked like she was getting ready to liberate China instead of relax in a hot tub. This woman didn’t know the first thing about taking it easy.
She settled into the water on the farthest side of the tub from him. Pretty soon, only her shoulders and a pair of thin white straps were visible above the bubbles.
“We’re in the shade here,” he pointed out. “You might consider taking off your hat—that is, if you’re not too self-conscious about your . . . you know.”
“What?”
He lowered his voice. “Your bald spot.”
“I don’t have a bald spot!”
He feigned a look of empathy. “Baldness is nothing to be ashamed of, Lady Emma, although, I’ll admit, it’s more acceptable on a man than a woman.”
“I’m not bald! Why would you think such a thing?”
“Every time I see you, there’s a hat glued to your head. It’s a natural assumption.”
“I like hats.”
“I guess they can be quite a friend to people with hair loss.”
“I don’t have—” She rolled her eyes, then tossed her hat aside. “You have a peculiar sense of humor, Mr. Traveler.”
He gazed at a fluffy corona of butterscotch curls. They were so soft and pretty that, for a moment, he forgot what a pain in the butt she was. The moment passed when she spoke.
“We need to discuss our agenda for tomorrow.”
“No, we don’t. You gonna drink that beer or just hold it? And my name’s Kenny. Anything else makes me sound like a schoolteacher—no offense.”
“All right, Kenny. And please, just call me Emma. I never use my title. Technically it’s not a title, but what’s called an honorific.” She tilted the longneck to her lips, took a healthy swig, then set the bottle on the edge of the hot tub without so much as a shudder.
“Now, see, I don’t understand you not using it,” he said. “Having a title has got to be the only good thing about being British.”
She smiled. “It’s not quite so bad as that.”
“How’d you get it?”
“My father was the fifth Earl of Woodbourne.”
He thought that over for a moment. “Seems like an earl’s daughter—and stop me if I’m getting too personal here—but I’m surprised a member of royalty has to worry so much about counting her shillings.”
“I’m not royalty. And a large portion of the British aristocracy lives in genteel poverty. My parents were no exception. Both of them were anthropologists.”
“Were?”
“My father died when I was a child. And then when I was eighteen, Mum died on a dig in Nepal. She wasn’t happy unless the nearest telephone was a hundred miles away, so there was no way to summon help when her appendix ruptured.”
“You must have grown up in some pretty isolated places.”
“No. I grew up at St. Gert’s. Mum left me there so she could work.”
Lady Emma didn’t sound bitter about it, but Kenny couldn’t think too highly of a woman who’d left her kid an orphan so she could spend her time running all over the world. On the other hand, if his mother had spent more time running around and less time coddling him, his childhood would have been a lot easier.
Come give Mommy a kiss, baby doll. My beautiful baby. Mommy loves you best. Don’t ever forget that.
“Any brothers or sisters?” he asked.
“Just me.” She settled deeper into the hot tub. “I’m anxious to start in on my research tomorrow, and I’d also enjoy a little sightseeing, but before we do any of that, I need to visit a shop where I can buy some new clothes. And would you happen to know the name of a tattoo parlor?”
He choked and sent a spray of beer right up his nose. “What!”
She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and regarded him earnestly. “My first choice would be a pansy. But I’m afraid the color might make it look like a bruise, which wouldn’t do at all. There are so many flowers I love—poppies, morning glories, sunflowers—but they’re all so large. A rose would be safe, but they’re a bit of a tattoo cliché, don’t you think?” She sighed and returned her sunglasses to her nose. “Normally I make decisions easily, but this one is giving me trouble. Do you have any suggestions?”
For the first time in his life, the power of speech deserted him. The experience was so disconcerting that he slid under the water and stayed there for a while to collect his thoughts. Not long enough, though. Before he’d halfway run out of breath, she started thumping him on the top of his head. It annoyed the hell out of him, and he was scowling when he came up. “You want to get a tattoo?”
She had the nerve to smile. “I hadn’t realized there’d be this much of a language barrier in the States. And the next time you’re going to dunk your head like that, you might warn me. I presumed you were drowning.”
He could feel his blood pressure rising, which made it ri
se even more. “It doesn’t have anything to do with a language barrier! It has to do with the fact that somebody like you has no business getting a tattoo!”
For the first time since he’d met her, she grew completely still. For a moment she did nothing, then one hand emerged from the bubbles and slowly removed her sunglasses. She set them on the side of the hot tub next to her beer bottle and gazed at him with those honey-brown eyes. “What exactly do you mean? Somebody like me?”
He could see he’d riled her, but, for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why. “Somebody respectable, for one thing. And conservative.”
She rose from the water, and the expression on her face told him he’d just been sent to the principal, and she was it. “I’ll have you know, Mr. Traveler, that I am the least conservative person you’ve ever met!”
He started to laugh, then got distracted by the water trickling down those firm white thighs. “You don’t say,” he managed.
“I am—I am . . . completely disreputable! Just look at me! I’m in a hot tub with a man I didn’t even know until a few hours ago!”
“You aren’t naked,” he couldn’t help but point out.
She got rosy in the face, and the next thing he knew, she sank down in the water and started to tug. Right there in front of him, with nothing but bubbles hiding that milky white body, she stripped off her bathing suit. He watched her whip it out of the water and fling it from the hot tub. It landed on the pebbled concrete with a soft plop.
“There! Don’t you ever say I’m conservative again!”
He grinned. This was like taking candy from a baby.
As Emma watched those white teeth flash in his tanned face, she knew she’d done it. She had a dreadful temper, but she’d worked hard to control it, and it hadn’t gotten the best of her for years.
She fumbled for her beer and took a deep swallow as she tried to recover, but the fact that she was stark naked made it difficult. She was accustomed to dealing with rebellious students, unreasonable parents, demanding faculty members, and an overworked maintenance staff. How had she let one man upset her so easily?
As she tried to muster her dignity, she grew conscious of the slide of water over her skin. An unbridled streak of sensuality reared its silky head. She fiercely repressed it as she set the bottle back down and spoke more sharply than necessary. “Now that we have that settled, I’d like you to have the name of a clean tattoo parlor for me by tomorrow afternoon.”
He regarded her with the bland expression of the mentally impaired. Physically, however, there was nothing wrong with him. Sunlight flickered across shoulders that were strong and powerful. Without his Stetson, she could see that his blue-black hair was thick and a bit curly, like a dark archangel’s. If a Renaissance sculptor had ever gotten the urge to chisel a Texas cowboy into the frieze of a cathedral, Kenny Traveler would have been his man.
“Search services are extra,” he said.
“What do you mean? Extra what?”
“Money. That fifty dollars a day you’re paying me doesn’t cover search services.”
“You consider finding a tattoo parlor a search service?”
“Yes, ma’am, I do.”
She’d known his fee was too good to be true. “Exactly what does the fifty dollars cover?”
“Driving, mainly. As I said, finding tattoo parlors is extra. I also don’t do hair and manicures.”
“I didn’t ask you to—”
“Massage is included in the fifty. But, ’course, you know that.”
“Mas—”
“Suitcase hauling only once a day. Any more than that’ll cost you an extra thousand bucks. Pointing out the sights is included in the base fee, but if I have to do any Spanish translation for you, I’ll need to charge you by the hour. As for sex, that’s an additional fifty dollars. Does that seem fair?”
She stared at him and wondered if she’d somehow gotten water in her ears.
He shook his head. “No, you’re right. It’s the off season, so I need to discount. Tell you what. Let’s make it thirty for sex, and that’ll cover the whole night, not just one time, you understand. A budget traveler like yourself will have to agree you won’t find a better rate than that.”
Slowly her tongue came unglued from the roof of her mouth. “Sex?”
“The whole night for thirty dollars.” He propped his elbows on the deck. “Lately I been thinkin’ about how unfair that is. A woman can charge hundreds of dollars for an entire night, but a man—Hell, it’s discrimination, is what it is. I swear, lately I been thinkin’ about filing a complaint with the EEOC.”
She couldn’t take her eyes from him. She was both repulsed and strangely fascinated. “Women pay to have sex with you?”
He regarded her as if she were the slow-witted one. “You hired an escort service.”
“I thought I hired a driver.”
“And a guide. An escort. It’s the same thing. Didn’t Francesca explain to you about drivers and escort services?”
“Apparently not,” she managed.
He shook his head. “I’m going to have to talk to her about this. She should have taken into consideration the fact that you don’t understand how things work over here. Now I’ve been put in an awkward position. I don’t like discussing money with my clients. What I mainly like to talk about is pleasure.”
The way he lingered over that last word—his Texas drawl stroking it with slow molasses—sent a shiver up her spine.
Suddenly, without any conscious direction, her mind began to race. Sex for hire? Had she just been given the answer to all her troubles? Her stomach clenched. No. It was unthinkable. Impossible.
But why? She only had two weeks to escape the net the despicable Hugh Holroyd had woven so tightly around both her and St. Gert’s, and this would be far more scandalous than a tattoo.
She considered the possibility that Francesca had chosen Kenny Traveler as her guide for just this reason. Francesca didn’t know about Holroyd’s plans, but she did know something else—how much Emma regretted her limited experience with men.
One afternoon several months ago, they’d shared tea at Emma’s cottage on the grounds at St. Gert’s, and Francesca’s openness regarding her own painful passage into maturity had allowed Emma to reveal something of her own past. Francesa already knew how much Emma loved St. Gert’s, which was the only home she’d ever known. At the same time, being raised in a girl’s school had restricted her contacts with men.
Even when she’d gone to the university, things hadn’t improved much. Her mother’s death had left her virtually penniless, so she’d been forced to work hard. Between her job and her studies, there’d been little time left over for a social life, and most of the men she found attractive were intimidated by her. They seemed to prefer a softer sort of female, one who was milder-mannered and less inclined to take charge.
She knew it would have been more sensible for her to have accepted a teaching position in London after she’d graduated, but St. Gert’s was her home, and the old place drew her back. Unfortunately, the pool of eligible men in the small town of Lower Tilbey was limited, and she seemed to inspire their respect rather than their passion.
She had just begun to resign herself to a single, childless existence when she’d hired Jeremy Fox to fill the vacancy her appointment as headmistress had left in the history department. Within a few months, she’d fallen in love with him. Jeremy was kind, good-humored, and attractive in the scholarly, rumpled fashion that had always appealed to her. Unfortunately, he was also her subordinate, but they had so many interests in common that a friendship had formed anyway.
She’d let herself be satisfied with their comfortable companionship until a drizzly day last November when she’d spent several hours with a homesick six-year-old curled in her lap. The gloomy weather combined with her upcoming thirtieth birthday and the feel of the little girl’s head tucked under her chin had overcome both her common sense and her professionalism. She’d gone to Jeremy’
s rooms that evening and, as subtly as possible, indicated that her feelings for him went beyond friendship.
One look at his appalled expression told her she’d made a terrible mistake. He’d been suffocatingly kind as he let her know that he wasn’t attracted to her in any way other than as a friend. “You’re so strong, Emma. Such a leader.”
She’d known it wasn’t a compliment, and a short time later, she’d been forced to smile through his wedding to a pretty, twenty-one year-old shop girl who didn’t know the Magna Carta from the Maginot Line.
Emma remembered Francesca’s sympathetic expression when she’d told her about Jeremy. “So, you’re still a virgin,” Francesca had said succinctly.
Emma had been embarrassed. “Well, I’ve dated certainly. And there were several times when I . . .” She gave it up. “Yes. Quite right. Embarrassing, isn’t it?”
“Not at all. You’re just discriminating.”
But despite Francesca’s kind words, Emma felt like a freak. Still, hiring a man for sex would never have occurred to her if it weren’t for Hugh Holroyd, Duke of Beddington. After weeks of agonizing over how to save her school, could the solution be so simple? And so difficult?
She needed to know more. “Your sexual services . . .” She cleared her throat. “What exactly do they involve?”
His beer bottle stalled halfway to his lips, and the smile that had been hanging there faded. He stared at her for a long moment, then opened his mouth to speak. Shut it. Opened it again. Took a swig of beer.
She watched the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed. He was obviously surprised, and she could almost read his thoughts. He’d believed she was too conservative to hire him for sex, and he regretted having reduced his price so quickly.
He set his beer on the deck. “Uh . . . anything the customer wants.”
Her mind whirled with possibilities, and she had to force her thoughts into line. She couldn’t consider this emotionally; she had to approach it logically, and there were practicalities to consider.
“What about diseases?” Making eye contact with him was impossible, so she pretended to study the bubbles.