“I would like to speak with you, O'Shea.”

Brendan, who had been making his leisurely way to the kitchen, paused on realising that his employer was stood in the doorway to the drawing room.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I do not believe I heard the doorbell ring, did you hear it O'Shea?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Nor did I ring to require your services.”

“So you didn’t, ma’am.”

“So, would you be so good as to tell me what you are doing wandering about in this part of the house?”

He blustered. In reality he had simply been nosing about, having mistakenly thought that his mistress was still taking the air in her garden.

“I came to see if anything needed taking away for polishing, ma’am, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“Is that so?” Caroline eyed him critically. “O’Shea, when was that collar last starched? It is drooping.”

“I’ll change it ma’am.”

“Do that, and your buttons could use a polish.”

From another woman’s lips the remark might have sounded suggestive, but Caroline was oblivious to entendres.

“If you could bring yourself to wear the uniform properly, that would be preferable,” she added and, without really thinking, she reached out and did up the top button of his jacket. Her fingers brushed against his neck and she froze. Smiling broadly, Brendan took her hands from his throat and found her utterly compliant.

“You can tidy me up any time you like,” he said, “but you probably shouldn’t. If you keep fiddling with my buttons like that, you’ll give me ideas.”

He stroked the backs of her slender hands with his thumbs. Most of the girls he had bedded had rough, work-reddened hands, but Caroline’s were as soft as the silks she wore and whiter than milk.

“O’Shea!”

It was a plaintive cry, not the angry dismissal of a woman who knows her manservant has gone too far. He moved a little closer, conscious that she was trembling like a songbird in a trap. Somewhere under that prim exterior was a passionate woman trying to escape – he could see it in her eyes and realised just how frightened she was by the effect he was having on her. He had to wonder if old Josiah had ever managed to give her a decent seeing to.

He began to stroke the palms of her hands in slow circles, watching her lower lip tremble and her eyes become bright with tears. Unless she was a darker horse than he thought she had gone two years without so much as a fondle and he found himself almost feeling sorry for her.

“O’Shea, please!”

Was she begging him to stop, or to continue? It was difficult to tell. He realised that she was powerless to resist his advances, that her body was betraying her into his hands. He stroked his way along her forearms and up to her shoulders, tracing his way along her pale, slender neck until he was cupping her face in his hands.