Chapter Three
On the Third Day of Christmas
My True Love Gave to Me
Kisses Most Exciting
A thrill of excitement raced through her as she followed the duke out under the portico into the night. The wool of her gown was bare protection from the penetrating night but still, she felt warm standing beside him.
Silently, his gaze fixed ahead as he strode forward out onto the drive.
Snow fell softly about them. A whispering sort of magic, as though some god above had torn open a giant mattress, its delicate feathers falling to wash the land’s untouched beauty.
The duke continued, changing direction and heading off of the drive toward a grove of oak trees as ancient as his family name.
Her boots crunched lightly and as they walked farther, each of her steps grew more laborious, the snow thickening.
But she didn’t mind, not even as the hem of her skirt frosted and beat against her ankles. There was such promise in the silence that she had no wish to break it with any thought or word.
He stopped in the center of the grove, the trees towering above them offering a sort of shelter with their long, bared arms fingering out, tracing through the night sky.
The silence was so thick Adriana felt its heaviness. Its purity. She stood beside him, wondering if he would speak. When he did not, she finally asked, “Why have you brought me here?”
He turned his muscled body toward her and gazed down. “Because in that house, I am master and you are servant. But here? Perhaps here we can speak as equals.”
She let out a slow breath at his astonishing words and the air bloomed white before her.
Before she could reply, steps crunched behind her. She whipped toward the noise, her heart thundering in her chest. Who?
Frowning, she spied the tall footman laden down with blankets and a basket. Is that what the duke had whispered to his butler? A command for service?
She shouldn’t have been surprised and yet she was. Of course, someone of his class would think nothing of driving a young man out into the evening, shuffling through the snow to bring his master comforts.
“Put them there,” the duke said evenly, pointing to the base of one of the thick oaken trunks.
The footman nodded, his white wigged head bobbing. His gloved hands shook as he placed the items down where ordered. The boy’s shoulders hunched, fighting off the cold.
As soon as he’d finished arranging the items, he straightened. “Is that everything, Your Grace?”
The duke gave a terse nod, and the footman darted back toward the castle.
“That wasn’t particularly kind,” she said, then snapped her mouth shut. Had she truly just spoken such a thing?
He glanced down at her, his dark brows drawing together. “I beg your pardon?”
She hesitated. A more calculating woman would keep silent. Would praise him for thinking of pleasing her. But she couldn’t. Not now. Now, she had to speak her thoughts and not censor them as she had done for so long. “It was thoughtless to bring him out here for our comfort.”
“It’s his position,” the duke scoffed.
“Yes, it is. But that doesn’t mean that someone of your station need give no thought to someone who must seek their bread through service.”
“I have never demeaned those in my employ.”
“No,” she agreed. “But have you ever truly considered them?”
He opened his mouth, clearly ready to contradict her supposition, but then he stopped. “No. I have not.”
“Had you even truly considered me?”
After a long moment, he went to the heavy burgundy wool blankets and picked one up. As he unfolded it, he said, “No. Not truly. I observed you. I made note of your beauty, and I was intrigued. I desired you, but I never truly allowed myself to think on you.”
She shivered, the cold at last penetrating down to her bones. “And now?”
He strode forward, then stepped behind her. Oh so slowly, he draped the blanket over her shoulders. “Now, I think you have much to teach me.”
Those words were more touching than any others he might have spoken. An ode to her beauty would have rung false. Protestations of admiration would have felt manufactured. But this? This suggestion that she might have lessons for him was far headier than anything she had ever known.
She wet her lips and grasped the blankets, hugging them to her, even as the heat of his body warmed her back. “Is that truly what you think?”
He bent his head, his lips brushing ever so slightly against her hair. “Yes.”
It was so tempting, the urge to lean back into him. To give herself over to his strength, but that wasn’t the game she was playing. After all, it was she who must convince him that he needed her. Not the other way around. She would never lean upon him. She’d learned long ago that when one leaned, one fell. And she would never fall.
His strong hands adjusted the wool about her shoulders, lingering along her collarbone. Touching with the barest of touches. “Would you care for a cup of hot wine I so rudely asked for?”
A laugh rang from her throat, the snow absorbing the sound, mixing with the icicles dangling from the trees branches. “I would.”
Easily, he slipped away and knelt by the basket. He uncorked the wine and poured the steaming liquid out into two pewter mugs. The sweet, spicy aroma wafted through the bitter cold, and she felt a shiver of anticipation.
The duke rose, his long limbs unfolding until he stood as strong and powerful as the ancient trees around them. He extended the mug to her, waiting.
She eyed the steam drifting up from the mulled wine, wondering if she had made the wise choice. Perhaps she should have disappeared into the night, making herself a new life as she had done before.
But no. She loved Georgiana far too much to do that. She loved the life she had made. And she would never forgive herself for not allowing herself to know this enigmatic man standing, waiting for her to come to him. There was no way to go back to the simplicity of being a governess now. The road she walked was far more complicated. Many men kept their mistresses ensconced in their homes. Somehow, she’d make that happen. She had to.
She couldn’t explain the primal feeling deep in her heart that demanded she remain here at Highburn with this man and his daughter. But it hummed inside her, steeling her will.
Tilting her head to the side, she crossed to him and clasped the pewter. Her fingers brushed his and heat that had nothing to do with the warmth of the wine raced up her arm, down through her spine, and settled in her belly.
She had known the touch of a man before, but never like this. Never like him.
He held onto the mug for a moment longer than necessary, then let go. Cradling the cup in her hand, she savored the sensation of his touch. Even now, she could feel his fingertips against hers, and if such a simple gesture could make her feel so entirely alive, what would it feel like to have his hands upon her back, her breasts, her thighs?
Her breath caught in her throat. “You brought me here to converse with me?”
Lifting his cup of wine to his lips, he paused, closed his eyes, and seemed to breathe in the scent of the spiced wine. Pure pleasure softened his face, and it amazed her that something so simple could please him. A duke.
“Well?” she asked.
He opened his eyes, dark, polished stones in the blue night. “Away from my guests, away from all the rules of our society, perhaps I might learn one true thing about you.”
She took a sip of wine; the heat of it burst in her mouth, slipping over her tongue, caressing it with cloves; nutmeg; and the sweet, tart hint of oranges. She needed that sweetness, for it was not easy to speak of her life. “You know many true things about me.”
“I have read many true things about you. That’s certain. But that doesn’t allow me to know you.”
Another sip burned down her throat, filling her with its pleasant comfort. “Was knowing me part of our arrangement?”
“Adriana Flint, do you take me for a lecher?”
She kept her face straight. “Yes.”
He snorted. “Then you don’t know me.”
“I have heard the gossip.”
“I’m sure you have, but I do not bed women I don’t know. I do not…fuck.”
The word shocked her, quaking her down to her toes. She could scarcely believe he dared say such a thing, considering his upbringing. She’d thought only hard street men used such language. “What do you do, then?” She lifted her mug in mock salute. “Do not tell me you make love.”
“Love? I have. Once. But no. Love is not something I give easily or often. But I give pleasure, enjoyment, and experience. Mindlessness is not something I seek, and if you do… Then we should go no further in this.”
Pain lanced her heart. Sudden and sharp. Wincing, she closed her eyes. “Mindless?” she whispered. “No, that is not what I wish.”
She bit her lip to the point of pain, willing the memories away.
There was a long silence, then he spoke. “I’ve caused you suffering.”
“Your Grace, I know all about mindlessness and at one time, I was envious of it.”
“Tell me, then,” he said gently. “Tell me who was mindless and why you suffer from it now.”
She opened her eyes only to roll them. “You ask a great deal.”
“I ask very little,” he countered. “I ask only for you to speak a few words. To let me in.”
“That is little?” She tutted. “Isn’t that everything?”
Those dark eyes of his gazed at her, unyielding yet open. “Perhaps I don’t know how to ask for anything less.”
If he’d looked at her with judgment, she would have clamped her mouth shut, but everything about him suggested a wish to truly hear what she had to say. “My parents.” The words nearly strangled in her throat.
“Your parents?” he prompted, lifting a hand to caress her jaw.
“My parents were mindless.” She looked away, unable to meet his eyes as the past threatened to bubble up. “They escaped in any way they knew how.”
His thumb stroked her cheek. “That must have been very difficult. Your mother never tried to go back? To her father?”
Adriana gasped. But of course he knew. He likely had a thick file noting her life now. She shook her head. “Too proud. She refused to beg for his help, and he never offered as far as I know. It nearly broke her, the pain of it, and my father never quite forgave her for being so disappointed in him. They… They didn’t know how to accept their lives except by losing themselves in drink and loud company.” She forced a quick smile to her lips. “But many children—”
“No,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
He tilted her face to the side, his gaze wandering over her countenance as if he could see deep within her. “Don’t hide behind a painful smile. I am strong enough to bear whatever you might have to say. So are you.”
Her throat tightened. No one had ever spoken to her thusly. “I don’t like to think about it.”
“So you write about it instead?”
Damn the man. If it had been hard to summon words, it was now impossible. She swallowed, focusing on the feel of his palm cupping her face. “This is a strange sort of seduction.”
“What was it that you had in mind?”
That gave her pause. “I don’t know.”
“Do I strike you as a flowers and chocolates sort of man?”
At that, she laughed, then allowed herself to press into his soft touch, suddenly wishing he would draw him to her. “No, Your Grace.”
“Alexander,” he said, his voice a rough purr.
Her breath hitched before she whispered, “Alexander.”
The passage of his name over her lips felt forbidden—a caress almost more intimate than any physical one. She’d never heard his first name aloud. Never dared dream that she might call him by it.
“Adriana, I have but one chance to know you, to know all of you, and that is a chance I will not miss.”
And with that, her heart did a most dangerous thing—it cracked. Just a small hint of a crack in the tall wall she’d built up around it, but a crack nonetheless.
She would not be able to play this game as she’d intended. For she was no longer the jaded girl she’d once been. Here at Highburn, in the duke’s home, she’d begun to feel the most fatal of all feelings. Hope.