No. He didn’t think he would. He’d let her stew, guess, and fret because… because he liked to tease her, yes, and because such a tease would distract her from whatever woes had brought her to Apple Grove House to begin with. He didn’t believe she’d come only on a dare. Something in the way she’d spoken to him today, after the card game, had revealed her hidden soul. She’d seemed a bit sad, a lot lonely, and too much used to both.
He could not kiss her because he could not have her. She was London, and he was at Apple Grove. She was a lady of independent means, and he was an estate manager with a heart tied to the land, to his family. And he was too busy, anyway.
A mantra that had begun to feel hollow, false.
He hunched his shoulders as he entered the house, letting the warmth wipe all that away. He would tease her to keep things light and playful when one kiss had made him wish that he were the type of man a proper lady would wish to wed.
ChapterFive
December 24
“Christmas is for fools and children… is that redundant?” –from The Masculine Inconvenience: Memoirs of a Superior Lady
Georgiana had kissed him, and Josiah intended to kiss her back. Maybe? He wouldn’t say, devil take him. Surely he would not, but if he did… disaster loomed ahead, and Georgiana planned to evade it. By evading him. She sat between his two younger brothers, Peter and Henry, in the large drawing room where everyone gathered. At the other end of the room, a large fireplace warmed the assembled guests. In the corner where Georgiana sat, only half listening to schoolboy tales, tall windows let white winter light flood through clean glass. The sky outside was pale and clouded and looked ominously like snow. More ominous still, the few flakes that were already falling, slowly and lonely, onto the deserted, tangled garden.
Hopefully, the snow would become bored and wander away, leaving them to sunnier skies and weather that did not wet the boots. Outside was the surest way to avoid Josiah. So much room to hide there. But two strapping boys offered excellent indoor hiding. Even though they’d not yet reached manhood, they towered over her own small frame. Like their older brothers, Peter and Henry were dark-haired, handsome, and big. Like Josiah, they possessed a rough beauty.
Rough beauty? Her words for Josiah?As if she were… as if she were smitten with the man.
Ha! ‘Twas only a kiss, and a dare-fueled one at that. It was of no consequence.
A lie, and she knew it. She’d kissed him not because of a dare but because of fear. Panicked she’d hurt him, she’d put lips to lips and breathed in the steam of his breath in the cold winter air andlikedit. Wanted more from the rough and beautiful man who kissed with the softness of adoration and the patience of… what? Some hard-won transformative emotion she didn’t even believe in.
Worse and worse.
She tried to focus on something Peter was saying. “Thistle feet?” Georgiana asked. “What does that mean?”
Peter chuckled. “No, Lady Georgiana. I said mistletoe. See?” He nodded to the doorway where a bunch of greenery with white berries hung. “Sarah and Edith sent us out to gather it up this morning. We were not supposed to put it up until tomorrow, but—” He grinned.
Henry grinned, too. “It’s more fun this way. Earlier, Papa bumped through the door at the same time as Xavier, and when we told them to look up, they both turned red as a fire and ran quick as terrified mice in opposite directions.”
Peter guffawed. “I say they still owe us all a kiss.”
Kisses. Could she not escape them? They swooped in and stole her attention away. She’d thought she’d already known enough about kissing. Had made a study of it some years ago. Out of curiosity, a thirst for knowledge of all kinds.
She’d known nothing. The myriad of points along their bodies where she and Josiah had touched had been pinpricks of heat that had spiraled out into pure pleasure. He’d been hard as the ice but warm, and she’d wanted to eat him up like her favorite cake.
Foolish, that. Best to ignore it, return to how things were before the kiss.
She peeked out from behind Henry’s shoulder. Josiah had entered the room at some point, and he stood with Xavier near the fire talking heatedly about something. Josiah’s mouth was mobile, flexible, and expressive, and she could not look away. He turned slightly so his back was to her. She scowled at the loss of Josiah’s profile. Then she didn’t, prompted by an unexpected gain to replace the loss—Josiah’s backside. Broad shoulders to make a lady’s mouth water and a trim waist. A rear lovingly outlined by buckskins and thick, muscled thighs from hours of riding each day.
Men of the country had their good qualities, it seemed.
“Lady Georgiana, did you hear that?” Henry asked.
“Yes. Quite amusing.”
“It is, isn’t it,” Peter replied, unaware, despite the monotone note of her voice that she’d not been attending the conversation at all. Rather, she’d been enjoying delectable sights she had no right to notice.
Until she wasn’t anymore. A woman—Miss Darlington—moved between her and Josiah, blocking the view and tapping Josiah on the shoulder. He turned around, and though no one but Georgiana likely noticed, his eyes widened. An infinitesimal sign of panic. The huntress had him in her sights, and like a terrified doe, he wished for a direction to flee in. She sank heavily in her seat, weighed down by guilt. She’d promised to help him. And he’d helped her today. She’d never thought sailing around a frozen lake with blades on her feet would make her feel so light, so alive, so happy. But she had, and she already planned to do it again tomorrow if she could discover where Josiah had put the skates.
He'd helped her to a moment of joy when she’d felt so little joy in the past months. Months only? No. Years had sunk her down and rubbed her raw, years of being alert and vigilant to protect her heart, years of looking around every corner for a dastardly man waiting to deceive her. Years of living with a woman who spoke with her only to speak ill of everyone and everything. Years of knowing her family—mother, father, brothers, sisters—wandered about the world with no interest in her.
No wonder everything had soured. No wondershehad soured.
But Josiah was the opposite of sour. He had tasted sweet. So sweet. Unexpectedly so, like cream and chocolate.
Miss Darlington hung on Josiah’s arm. Tittering. Pulling him toward the doorway, toward the mistletoe.
