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comparison. As big as Westminster Hall, his lordship’s room was, well, mayhap not
that
big, but near enough. High ceilings. Scalloped moldings. Gilt-trimmed furnishings atop a richly carpeted floor. And the smell of it. Masculine, it was, smelling of snuff and shaving soap and other man-type things.
    But what caught her attention, what had her all but gawking, was the four-foot-high bed to her right. At least it looked four feet off the ground, and five feet wide. Maybe six. Lawks, it made her bed look like a hay manger. A bedcover with a matching canopy done in peacock blue hung over it. Matching drapes framed the windows opposite where she stood, right down to the gold tassels that hung off their corners. All it needed was a carved wooden crest at the foot of the bed, and a royal red coverlet with gold trim, and you’d have a replica of King George’s room, or so she imagined.
    “Are you coming?” he asked again.
    Mary jumped. His lordship had stopped, too, and was it her imagination, or had his face reddened a bit when he noticed where her gaze lay?
    Nah. She was imagining things.
    She nodded, motioning with her hands for him to shoo. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw his eyes narrow a bit at the gesture. Mayhap even saw him glance past her to the bed again, but she couldn’t be sure because the next moment he was turning away. Mary surreptitiously kept an eye out for Abu. The little wretch. Where the devil was he hiding? And what the blazes would she say when they found him?
    “Stay back, Mrs. Callahan, for the creature could be dangerous.”
    Dangerous. Hah.
    He opened the door.
    A furry body launched itself right at the marquis’s face.
    “Oh my goodness,” Mary cried.
    His lordship stumbled back. Abu screeched. Mary tried to reach for him. Abu, not his lordship.
    “Get it off of me,” he yelled, clawing at his face. Mary tried, Abu screeching at the top of his lungs. She tugged. His lordship tilted toward her. Abu let go. Their legs tangled.
    And in that moment, Mary knew they were going to fall. Abu must have sensed it, too, for the little wretch leapt away at the last moment.
    “Demme,” she murmured. And then Mary closed her eyes, closed them because as his lordship fell toward her, she knew it would hurt.
    It didn’t. Not at all.
    She opened her eyes, first one, then the other, her brow scrunched together in an anticipatory wince that she never had to use.
    He’d landed with elbows on either side of her. Mary was impressed. And not because of how he landed, but because of the way he felt nestled against her. They were like two spoons that fit perfectly, though she supposed he’d be the silver one and she’d made of tin.
    “What the blazes was that?” he asked, craning his neck in the direction Abu had run off. He had a tiny scrape on the right side of his neck, little furrows of red that could only have come from Abu. She should know, she had a perfect view of it. Cords of muscle framed either side. Bronzed by the sun, they were, a testament to his time spent on the high seas.
    Lord help her. Were those goose pimples she’d gotten? “Was what?” she murmured distractedly, because, hell’s fires, the feel of his lordship pressed against her made her realize he might not be so stuffy after all.
    He looked down at her, likely about to call her blind, only they both froze. Really, she could feel the way his legs hardened against her own, the way his chest flexed, the way his shoulders stiffened.
    Her breath caught. His did, too, only to be released in a gush. She could feel it waft against her face, the smell of his air sweet and deliciously masculine. And, no, those eyes weren’t the color of seashells at all. They were the exact shade of a bluebird’s feather, downy and soft and focused solely on her. And then something drifted around them, something tingly and warm that enveloped Mary in a cloud of surprise and temptation. Maybe it was the look on his face: part disbelief, part