Read Escapade (9781301744510) for Free Online Page A

refused to let Morrison
carry her.
    She sighed with relief when they reached the
upper landing. The butler opened one of the imposing doors that
lined the hall and bowed her inside.
    Rory stepped cautiously across the threshold,
schooling her jaw not to drop open at the sight of the mauve and
gilt bedchamber sprawled before her. An array of paintings, which
would have looked more at home in an art gallery, hung on the
walls. At the room's center stood a massive four-poster bed raised
up on a dais. It could have been the state chamber of a king.
    "Listen," Rory said. "Isn't there any place
in this house a little less overwhelming? Maybe I could go down and
sit by the fire in the kitchen."
    But she discovered she was talking to
herself. Wellington had already disappeared, discreetly closing the
door behind him. Rory could only shake her head over the behavior
of Zeke Morrison. One minute the fellow had been threatening to
throw her into the street, and the next he was having her ushered
into a chamber like this as though she were an honored guest. Well,
she had always heard that millionaires were eccentric.
    Before Rory had an opportunity to take
further stock of her surroundings, the door opened again to admit
two maids in starched aprons. Rory assumed they had come merely to
light the fire in the grate for her, but she quickly realized the
young women had other plans.
    One bobbed into a brief curtsey and then
moved to deal with the hooks on the back of Rory's gown. "Let me
help you out of your wet things, madam. Maisie will draw your
bath."
    Madam? Her bath?
    "Wait a minute," Rory ducked away from the
girl. "I didn't exactly bring a change of clothing with me."
    "We will provide madam with a robe while your
gown is dried and mended."
    "But I'm not one of the guests here-." Rory's
protest died as she caught her first glimpse of the bathroom. The
girl called Maisie was laying out thick towels while a cloud of
steam rose from the largest clawfoot tub Rory had ever seen. Two
people could have stretched out in it, side by side. And the water
poured forth from a golden tap.
    It was a far cry from her own chipped enamel
basin, where she sat with her knees practically tucked up to her
chin. Rory fretted her lower lip.
    No, she couldn't. She should only be thinking
of packing up her balloon and getting out of here. After the way
she had wreaked havoc on Morrison's lawn and then quarreled with
him, it wasn’t right to be accepting any favors from him.
    Yet what could a bath matter to him? He was
clearly as rich as Diamond Jim Brady. He probably had tubs like
this in every room. And who knew when Tony would get here? They
could not the balloon anyway until the storm passed.
    Rory inched nearer the tub, trailing her
fingers in the water. The steaming hot liquid felt as seductive as
a caress. Every one of her aching muscles seemed to cry out to her,
urging her on.
    "Oh, what the hell," she muttered.
    She permitted the maid to help her undress
without further argument. The two girls gathered up her discarded
clothing and left. But Rory hardly noticed their brisk departure as
she eased herself down into the bathtub, closing her eyes in pure
ecstasy.
    "Ahhh!" Rory leaned her head back, resting it
against the porcelain rim. She stretched out for a time, enjoying a
blissful soak. Even her ankle began to feel better. With great
reluctance, she forced her eyes open and reached for the bar of
soap.
    As she lathered her legs, she still marveled
at the size of the tub. Her toes couldn't even touch the other
side. Morrison probably had everything in the house designed to fit
his own towering proportions.
    She had no difficulty picturing him sprawled
in the depths of a tub like this one, the way the dark damp hair
would curl on the expanse of his broad chest, the water lapping
against the tautly honed muscles of his belly and lower-
    Rory checked her wayward imagination with a
hot blush. What was the matter with her? She didn't usually go
about