“Come for me.”His sultry command echoed in her mind, the memory flooding her face with sudden heat… while dormant embers of desire began to smolder afresh. An ache throbbing between her thighs.
There was no possible way that he had missed the blush in her cheeks, but he showed no acknowledgement on her face. A slight glint in his eyes, perhaps, but nothing more. Nor did he invite himself into the warmth of the carriage, where he would have been welcome, despite Valerie now knowing the tantalizing risk of being alone with him in such a small, intimate space.
There is still plenty of time before we reach Blackwall.
“If itdoessnow, at least we shall be able to journey back on my horse,” he said flatly. “That is why I must accompany you, though I am exceptionally busy.”
She snorted, more to hide her blush than anything else. “Do not let me inconvenience you.”
“You are not,” he replied, and promptly pulled the sash window back up. Putting an end to the conversation before Valerie could give into the temptation to invite him inside.
He could not, however, put an end to her wayward thoughts so easily. Indeed, even the jab of the crate against her rib would not be enough to holdthoseback now.
“Anyone would think you had never made a wreath before,” Valerie remarked, standing over Adrian like a schoolmaster as he did his best to weave thin twigs, fronds of evergreen, sprigs of rosemary, and the sharp-leafed holly into something resembling a decoration.
He bristled. “That is because I have not.”
If he had asked his father if he might weave a wreath for Christmas when he was a boy, the wretched man would have clipped him over the head and sent him out for a ten-mile march. His mother, in her solitude, had woven so many. Although, he was grateful that he did not see any of hers among the decorations that Valerie had brought. His mother had always put a red bow with a painted star on it at the top of her wreaths.
“What?” Valerie gasped, immediately pulling a chair up to the table where he worked to sit beside him. “Well, why did you not say?”
Because I did not think it would be so bloody difficult.
“You were otherwise occupied,” he said instead. “And I am managing perfectly well.”
An awkward laugh escaped Valerie. “Yes, if I wanted the town hall to resemble the gardener’s lumber scraps, destined for a bonfire.”
Adrian wanted to protest that his first creation was notthatbad, but that would have made a liar out of him. The wreath was a sad, lopsided thing; he lacked the imagination to make it anything more than a bare brown circle with a few bits of green sticking out.
“Like this,” she said, beginning a wreath of her own.
Mesmerized, Adrian watched the deft movement of her hands as she manipulated the fir fronds and laurels and long sprigs of rosemary to her will, weaving them around flexible stripped branches of willow for support. He wondered if this was howthe apprentices of the great masters felt, observing their teacher create pure majesty as if it were nothing at all.
“I see that your wrist is better,” he remarked, as she started to tuck sprigs of holly into the weaving.
She paused, and he could see her peeking at him out of the corner of her eye. “It is… mostly better,” she said carefully. “A little sore still but I can endure that for the sake of pretty decorations.”
“We can visit the physician while we are in town, if you would like a proper opinion?” he offered.
“I have too much to do to be visiting doctors,” she argued, her cheeks pinkening in a way that made him lean closer. He could not help it; when she blushed like that, she had the glow of a woman who had just been in the grip of an intense conclusion.
His arm curved around the back of her chair, resisting the urge to brush the peak of her shoulder with his fingertips. Yet, the scent of her gnawed away at his restraint: lavender and something sweet, something lemony, something that drove his senses to distraction.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, her fingertips fumbling to intertwine a whip of willow with a fragrant sprig of rosemary.
“Observing,” he replied, bending his head to inhale that mysterious scent. “How can I learn if I do not pay attention?”
Her bosom, almost indecent thanks to a borrowed day dress that did not quite fit her shapely, divine breasts, heaved with shallow breaths. Had he had his ear to her heart, resting on that soft bosom, he knew it would have been pounding.
“You do not need to be so close, surely?” she said in a husky voice.
He moved even closer, his thigh flush against hers. “No, I do not, but I should hate to miss anything.” He dipped his head to whisper in her ear, “I might not be able to weave a wreath, Valerie, but my hands are not without their talents.”
“Oh goodness…” she murmured, borrowing a branch of laurel to fan herself. “Your Grace, if you are to remain here, helping with the preparations, then?—”
“Adrian,” he purred his correction.
Her throat bobbed, her manner flustered. “Adrian, you cannot be a distraction. There is so much to do and there are mere days until it must be finished.” She turned to him, her green eyes widening as if she could feel the heat of desire that radiated from him. “I… I… forgot what I was saying.”
