Her Man Friday(20)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

The dining room, when Lily entered it, shone like an African landscape at sunset. Its sweeping paneled walls of bird’s-eye maple glowed like warm honey beneath the gentle light of a spectacular chandelier reigning over the room—a massive, ornate oval of pale gold glass that spanned the length of a banquet-sized table. The three dozen chairs lining the table were upholstered in faux leopard, the expansive rug beneath it patterned in a surprisingly realistic-looking zebra stripe. On the walls where men of lesser conscience would have mounted dead animals, Schuyler had opted for tribal decorations instead—masks, carvings, textiles, and seemingly primitive, but very elegant, weaponry.

Although Schuyler himself had never hunted in his life—the sight of blood and the mere suggestion of violence generally made him throw up—it didn’t prevent him from being caught up in the whole Ernest Hemingway/Teddy Roosevelt manly man sort of thing that seemed so popular with testosterone-driven units these days. And he had been to Africa on a number of occasions, though he usually viewed the vistas from a climate-controlled Land Rover driven by someone named Omar, while he and someone of the feminine persuasion sat in the back sipping martinis and listening to the soundtrack from The Lion King.

All of that, however, was immaterial, because mystique, to Schuyler, was everything. Well, mystique and mood were everything. Mystique and mood and money. And image, too. Okay, so maybe mystique wasn’t quite everything. But it did count for quite a lot where Schuyler Kimball was concerned. And Ashling reflected mystique—and mood and money and image—in every room.

The table, Lily noted as she approached it, was set with very fine china for eight instead of the customary six—a population of less than one quarter its capacity—and she wasn’t much surprised to realize that someone else, in addition to Mr. Freiberger, would be joining them tonight. A woman, no doubt. With big hair, big bosoms, big assets… and a very tiny brain. Schuyler never came home from a trip alone. And he never brought with him women who indulged in activities as unnecessary and mundane as thinking.

"Miss Rigby."

Lily’s own thoughts were interrupted by the quiet summons, and she spun quickly around to find Mr. Freiberger standing framed by the entrance to the dining room. He’d donned his icky gray tweed jacket again, and had straightened his ugly blue necktie, but he still looked adorably rumpled.

Well, maybe not adorably rumpled, she amended. It was, after all, rather difficult for a man who evoked notions of a construction crew on a hot day to appear adorable. And not exactly rumpled, either. No, what Mr. Freiberger appeared to be, she decided upon further inspection, was rather sexily mussed, as if he’d just tumbled out of bed after a raucous and very satisfying experience.

"Good evening, Mr. Freiberger," she hastened to greet him, before the image in her head could proceed any further and become more graphic.

Oops. Too late.

Just like that, a very graphic image exploded in her brain, so graphic that she saw quite clearly what Mr. Freiberger wasn’t wearing, and who he had tumbled before leaving his imaginary bed. And Lily was absolutely certain she’d never seen herself smiling quite like that before.

"I’m so glad you could stay for, um… dinner," she said, stumbling over the last word.

Even across the expanse of the dining room, she saw his smile turn sexy, and she wondered if he’d guessed what she’d been thinking about. "I wouldn’t miss um-dinner for the world," he told her, his voice laced with an unmistakable intent.

Oh, dear. Evidently he had guessed what she’d been thinking about. Well, some of it, anyway. She doubted he could have figured out that part where the two of them had been coiled around each other, doing something she’d always wanted to try, but had never had the nerve to even—

"The others should be along shortly," she hurried on, battling with questionable success the heat that was fast creeping up from her belly to her br**sts and all points beyond. "Whenever Mr. Kimball is in residence, we always dine at precisely seven o’clock."

Mr. Freiberger took a few idle steps forward, the soft scuffing of his shoes on the hardwood floor the only sound in the otherwise silent room. "And when Mr. Kimball isn’t in residence?" he asked. "Whatever do you do then, Miss Rigby?"

Just how the man made the question sound sexually charged, Lily couldn’t have said, but somehow, it came across as exactly that. Mr. Freiberger seemed to be suggesting that Schuyler performed a service for her that gave the designation of social secretary a whole new meaning. It was that spark of something speculative in his eyes, she finally decided, a speculation that overflowed into the even timbre of his voice.

Ever since he had shown up on Ashling’s doorstep, Mr. Freiberger had played fast and loose with Lily’s libido, and she couldn’t for the life of her figure out why. Oh, certainly, beneath all that Goodbye, Mr. Chips bookishness, there was an odd kind of sexual heat burning and churning, but still. The man was a bookkeeper, a very small cog in the very large machine that was Kimball Technologies. No one of Leonard Freiberger’s capacity should exude such an air of authority and command. Nor should he be able to rev up her motor with a simple look. But her motor had most definitely been revved. And she couldn’t help but wonder just what Mr. Freiberger planned to do once he got under her hood.

"I beg your pardon?" she said, cursing herself for the faintness and uncertainty she heard in her voice. "What did you mean by that?"

He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, then lifted his shoulders and let them fall in a shrug that was nowhere near casual. Because his gaze remained firmly fixed on Lily’s face—or, more specifically, on Lily’s mouth—and his eyes were lit with a dark and intriguing fire. "What do you mean, what did I mean?" he asked, a naughty—and very knowing—little smile dancing about his lips.

She opened her mouth to respond with something flirty and fun that she would doubtless later wish she hadn’t said—mainly because she didn’t have time for flirty and fun these days, no matter what her treacherous libido seemed to think. And even if she did have time, she was in no position, thank you very much, to take on someone of Mr. Freiberger’s evident… um… prowess. But she was spared the response because Janey Kimball chose that moment to flutter in with her mother in tow—something that prevented her from saying much of anything at all. Because Janey, God help them all, was clearly in a snit.

Lily supposed that if she tried very, very hard, and was very, very patient, she might someday be able to convince Schuyler’s sister that the earth and moon and stars in fact did not revolve around Janey Kimball. But really, what was the point? To dissuade the woman of such notions would only make her that much more irritable—and, therefore, more irritating—and why unleash such a creature on an unsuspecting public?