He caught her by the wrist and pulled her hand away. “Unwise.” A dark smile graced his lips. “If you give permission for that, nothing will stop me from crossing the line that I spoke of. Protect your honor, Valerie. Touch me there, and I will not be able to.”
She swallowed thickly. If that sentiment was supposed to dissuade her, or dampen her curiosity, then he should not have spoken in such a seductive voice.
“And if I should want—” she began, but Adrian kissed her silent, his lips a searing warning that she should not continue. Or,perhaps, it was his hand on her wrist that provided the warning, for his kiss stoked the opposite effect.
A moment later, he pulled back and repeated words that had taunted her since the first time he had spoken them to her: “Do not ask for too much, Valerie.”
She was about to ask what ‘too much’ entailed, considering the lines they had already crossed together, when the driver called down from the bench.
“People on the road, Your Grace!” A second later. “Looks to be the lady’s driver! Aye, they seem to be tending to the carriage!”
In an instant, Valerie’s heart ceased racing and plummeted instead. She had almost forgotten that she was waiting for news from the driver and that she would, indeed, be continuing on to Scotland soon. The carriage was always going to be fixed, one way or another.
After the party. I have until then,she reminded herself, as she glanced at Adrian to gauge his reaction. There was nothing upon his handsome face: a complete blank of emotion or response.
“Tell the man to drive the carriage to the castle when everything is remedied!” Adrian called back, as he retreated to the other side of the squabs and retied his cravat. His waistcoat came next, buttoned up, then his tailcoat and his greatcoat, until no one would know that he had ever removed them.
Reminded of her own state of undress, Valerie readjusted the neckline of her gown and let her skirts drop back down to a more appropriate length.
As she restored her clothing to its former neatness, her heart sank a little more. She only had herself to blame for that heavy feeling in her chest. This had always been a temporary delay to her journey. What had she expected—that he would suddenly implore her to stay and be his Duchess? Even she was not foolish enough to believe in Christmas miracles, for he had told her from the start, and told her again, that she should not ask for too much.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“What are you doing?” Adrian mumbled to no one in the dead silence of his study, where he had sequestered himself for the foreseeable.
He tossed his quill onto his desk, blobs of ink splattering across correspondence that had been crossed out and rewritten so many times that it was not worth sending. Leaning back in his chair, he pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.
I am not sick, so why do I feel as if I have a fever?
His mind was mush, any attempt at getting on with his duties thwarted by the inability to think of anything but Valerie: her kiss, her fingertips running through his hair, her fingernails clawing at his back; the sound of her pleasure, the eagerness with which she kept surrendering to him, and the brazen touch of her hand against the front of his trousers.
“This is bloody hopeless,” he muttered, and promptly got to his feet.
But that was about as far as he managed to get, for even though the boys had been returned to the orphanage, the castle still had not been restored to his control. Not in the way he was used to, at least.
He could not wander where he pleased, in case he bumped into Valerie and ended up doing something he might regret. He could not retire, for the hour was too early. He could not find peace in the library, where he would only think about Valerie more. Nor could he imbibe at his leisure with Richard because he had been stupid enough to send his friend away out of… what? Embarrassment? Insecurity? Worry that Richard might woo Valerie and take her to bed before Adrian could?
I should have just explained that I was helping that vexing minx.In truth, though it had been years since he had done so, Adrian could have used Richard’s advice about how to handle the fairer sex. Rather, how to push a woman away, when all he really wanted to do was have her as close as possible.
Plucking a cup of long-cold tea from the desk, Adrian wandered over to the door that led to the snowy outside and opened it wide.
He leaned in the doorway and sipped the drink, a smile forming upon his lips as he noted the bulky, strange shapes that crowded the rose gardens opposite. The last remnant of the boys who had brought such liveliness to the castle.
Surely, I do not miss it?
“I must be losing my mind,” he murmured, drowning the words with another sip of tea.
Yet, continuing to gaze out at the snow-blanketed world that glittered beneath the molten glow of late afternoon, a pang of unease caught him under the ribs. A sneaky punch of feeling that he feared might leave a deeper scar than any he wore upon his body.
Perhaps, it was not about what he missed, but what hewouldmiss when it was gone. Not the noise and mischief of the boys, but the easy, secretly pleasing, sometimes jarring presence of the woman who had somehow made herself at home in his castle.
The carriage will be fixed by Christmas Eve. She will leave… and I will be alone again.
He waited for the relief to come at the prospect of his resumed solitude, the cold winter air seeming all the colder when it did not.
“You know I adore your cooking, Mrs. Leggat, but this has to be forchildren,” Valerie urged, while Esther stifled a chuckle and Kate pretended to wash some spoons, though the older woman had been washing the same spoon for the past five minutes.
The cook mustered a haughty snort and began to untie her apron at the perceived insult. “If a child is eating it, then it’s food for children!” she retorted. “I don’t know of any child—orphans, no less—who’d turn up their nose at pheasant in aspic! They ought to be grateful for what they get.”
