“I have a little flat near Green Park. Didn’t have the heart to keep the house after Nancy went.” He sighed, swirled brandy. “Let me offer some unsolicited advice, Mr. Thane. Make your days count. Don’t invest all your efforts in the future. You miss too much of the now.”

“That’s advice I live on.”

Hours later it was thoughts of leftover trifle that pulled Gray away from his warm bed and a good book. The house moaned a bit around him as he dug up a pair of sweats, pulled them on. He padded downstairs in his bare feet with greedy dreams of gorging.

It certainly wasn’t his first middle-of-the-night trip to the kitchen since he’d settled into Blackthorn. None of the shadows or creaking boards disturbed him as he slipped down the hall and into the dark kitchen. He turned on the stove light, not wanting to awaken Brianna.

Then he wished he hadn’t thought of her, or of the fact that she was sleeping just a wall beyond. In that long, flannel nightgown, he imagined, with the little buttons at the collar. So prim it made her look exotic—certainly it made a man, a red-blooded one, wonder about the body all that material concealed.

And if he kept thinking along those lines, all the trifle in the country wouldn’t sate his appetite.

One vice at a time, pal, he told himself. And got out a bowl. A sound from the outside made him pause, listen. Just as he was about to dismiss it as old house groans, he heard the scratching.

With the bowl in one hand, he went to the kitchen door, looked out, and saw nothing but night. Suddenly the glass was filled with fur and fangs. Gray managed to stifle a yelp and keep himself from overbalancing onto his butt. On something between a curse and a laugh, he opened the door for Con.

“Ten years off my life, thanks very much.” He scratched the dog’s ears, and since Brianna wasn’t around to see, decided to share the trifle with his canine companion.

“What do you think you’re up to?”

Gray straightened, rapped his head against the cupboard door he’d failed to close. A spoonful of trifle plopped into the dog’s bowl and was gobbled up.

“Nothing.” Gray rubbed his throbbing head. “Jesus Christ, between you and your wolf I’ll be lucky if I live to see my next birthday.”

“He’s not to be eating that.” Brianna snatched the bowl away from Gray. “It isn’t good for him.”

“I was going to eat it. Now I’ll settle for a bottle of aspirin.”

“Sit down and I’ll have a look at the knot on your head, or the hole in it, whatever the case may be.”

“Very cute. Why don’t you just go back to bed and—”

He never finished the thought. From his stance between them, Con abruptly tensed, snarled, and with a growl bursting from his throat leaped toward the hallway door. It was Gray’s bad luck that he happened to be in the way.

The force of a hundred and seventy pounds of muscle had him reeling back and smashing into the counter. He saw stars as his elbow cracked against the wood, and dimly heard Brianna’s sharp command.

“Are you hurt?” Her tone was all soothing maternal concern now. “Here now, Grayson, you’ve gone pale. Sit down. Con, heel!”

Ears ringing, stars circling in front of his eyes, the best Gray could do was slide into the chair Brianna held out for him. “All this for a f**king bowl of cream.”

“There now, you just need to get your breath back. Let me see your arm.”

“Shit!” Gray’s eyes popped wide as she flexed his elbow and pain radiated out. “Are you trying to kill me just because I want to get you naked?”

“Stop that.” The rebuke was mild as she tut-tutted over the bruise.

“I’ve got some witch hazel.”

“I’d rather have morphine.” He blew out a breath and stared narrow-eyed at the dog. Con continued to stand, quivering and ready at the doorway. “What the hell is with him?”

“I don’t know. Con, stop being a bloody fool and sit.” She dampened a cloth with witch hazel. “It’s probably Mr. Smythe-White. Con was out roaming when he got in. They haven’t been introduced. It’s likely he caught a scent.”

“It’s lucky the old man didn’t get a yen for trifle then.”

She only smiled and straightened up to look at the top of Gray’s head. He had lovely hair, she thought, all gilded and silky. “Oh, Con wouldn’t hurt him. He’d just corner him. There, you’ll have a fine bump, you will.”

“You don’t have to sound so pleased about it.”

“It’ll teach you not to give the dog sweets. I’ll just make you an ice pack and—” She squealed as Gray yanked her into his lap. The dog’s ears pricked up, but he merely wandered over and sniffed at Gray’s hands.

“He likes me.”

“He’s easily charmed. Let me up or I’ll tell him to bite you.”

“He wouldn’t. I just gave him trifle. Let’s just sit here a minute, Brie.

I’m too weak to bother you.”

“I don’t believe that for a minute,” she said under her breath, but relented.

Gray cradled her head on his shoulder and smiled when Con rested his on her lap. “This is nice.”

“It is.”

She felt a little crack around her heart as he held her quietly in the dim light from the stove while the house settled in sleep around them.

CHAPTER SIX

Brianna needed a taste of spring. It was chancy, she knew, to begin too early, but the mood wouldn’t pass. She gathered the seeds she’d been hoarding and her small portable radio and carted them out to the little shed she’d rigged as a temporary greenhouse.

It wasn’t much, and she’d have been the first to admit it. No more than eight feet square with a floor of hard-packed dirt, the shed was better used for storage than planting. But she’d imposed on Murphy to put in glass and a heater. The benches she’d built herself with little skill and a great deal of pride.

There wasn’t room, nor was there equipment for the kind of experimentation she dreamed of. Still, she could give her seeds an early start in the peat pots she’d ordered from a gardening supply catalog.

The afternoon was hers, after all, she told herself. Gray was closeted with his work, and Mr. Smythe-White was taking a motor tour of the Ring of Kerry. All the baking and mending were done for the day, so it was time for pleasure.