by Tanya Wilde
“Were you going to meet your sister?” Black eyes scrutinized hers.
“I came to enjoy the art, Ambrose.” Willow paused. “Believe it or not, I do possess a refined appreciation for culture.”
“Of course you do.”
She huffed and moved on to the next portrait. “But the more pertinent question, I suppose, is why you are tolerating an outing you loathe when you could have sent one of your lackeys to follow me around?”
“I have those? I thought they all answered to you now?”
“If only I can bring my husband to heel, then my life would be complete.” She gave him a teasing look.
“And if only my wife would fear me.” He reached out to place his hand on the small of her back and dropped his voice. “She would read my rules and life would be so much simpler.”
“And spoil the suspense of discovering your beloved commandments from the utter vexation on your face when I break them? Surely not.”
He inhaled deeply and exhaled a rich, completely mesmerizing laugh. She stared at him, fascinated that such a melodious sound could come from him.
She moved on to the next portrait, deciding not to break the lighthearted mood that had settled over them. They gazed at the paintings in silence before Willow’s eyes landed on a portrait of two men who resembled each other. Brothers, most like.
She cast the duke another sidelong glance.
Dare she?
She might as well. It was impossible to say when he’d be in such a semi-charitable mood again. Her gaze returned to the portrait.
“You will not reconsider forcing a match between Holly and Jonathan?” she asked.
“You are finally asking me about your sister?”
His voice was soft, a mere murmur, but Willow detected nothing but amusement there. “She is your sister now, too. Just as Jonathan is my brother.”
“In-law,” he corrected. “Nevertheless, the brother you always wanted but never had, I suppose. What mischief will you and Jonathan get into, I wonder?”
“If he is anything like you, not much, I imagine.”
He raised a brow. “Will you not press me about your sister?”
Willow shrugged, her gaze locking with his. “I am easing into that conversation.”
He chuckled at that.
“Extremely unlike me, I’m aware, but given that I am bound to you,” she gave him a once over, “and your moods, till death do us part, prudence might be more fitting in this case.”
“Prudence, there is that word again.”
“I’ve grown quite fond of it since our nuptials.”
“Is that so?” he murmured, but a smile tugged at his lips as his gaze returned to the painting. “So you are not horrified at the prospect of until death do us part?”
“Horrified, no.” Oh, the look on his face. “After all, you did not respond with a pompous remark and that is what I call progress.”
When he stiffened suddenly, Willow’s senses went on high alert. She slanted him a glance. But he wasn’t looking at her or even aware of her probing gaze. She followed his line of vision to a woman standing a few yards to their right, viewing—quite arguably—the smallest portrait in the gallery. Her face was the embodiment of classic beauty: high cheekbones, plump lips, and porcelain skin. She had a wealth of sandy curls neatly pinned on her head.
Ambrose stared at her, frozen still.
“Ambrose?” Willow murmured, her voice soft with concern. “Do you know that woman?”
“I—” Ambrose shook his head. “No, she just reminded me of someone I once knew.”
Willow’s gaze fell on the girl once more and understanding dawned. Did the woman look like Ambrose’s sister, Celia? The sandy hair, her youth, and her delicate frame all matched the descriptions Willow had heard.
Willow was not sure what to do. She wanted to comfort him. Show him support. She recognized a man in pain, and despite their differences, she felt that ache right alongside him.
So she did the only thing she could think of to show him comfort: she entwined her fingers with his.
AMBROSE SWALLOWED, heart in his throat, and focussed on his wife, who was examining a painting of a woman in a pose of reversed adaption of the classical statue, the Venus de' Medici, her fingers weaved through his.
He felt unbalanced. Unsure of himself. In dire need of a diversion. Anything to take his mind off the woman standing just within reach with the uncanny resemblance to Celia. And conversation was the best diversion he could think of.
“As a boy,” he admitted, studying the lady whose hand extended to a white lily, “I dreamed of becoming a painter.”
His wife’s head angled up to him, her blue eyes glowing with surprise.
Then she smiled.
And the world seemed to stop.
Just. Like. That.
It felt as though Ambrose was staring straight into the sun. Had a woman ever smiled at him like that? Lacking any artifice? He couldn’t recall. Certainly never with such open amazement. And certainly not over something as trifling as a young boy’s dream.
“I once, briefly, wished to become a botanist.”
“You wanted to study plants?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” she murmured dryly. “Although it must seem rather dull in comparison.”
“Not at all but I still do not see the appeal of examining shrubberies.”
“It’s hardly all shrubberies. But at the time, the appeal lay in the prospect of traveling to every continent in search of various seeds and different plant life. Unfortunately, I could never tell the difference between bindweed and knotweed.”
“There is a difference?”
Her laughter reached straight into his bones. “Of course,” she said. “Alas, Sir Joseph Banks, famed botanist, beat me to it.”
Ambrose chuckled when his wife pouted, drawing the attention of the few onlookers. He told himself there was nothing wrong with enjoying his wife’s humor. Even though it felt as if he was dropping a thousand feet from the sky.
He cleared his throat. “There are more reasons than searching for seeds to travel the globe.”
“Agreed. But at the time I was obsessed with exotic plants. Did you ever paint?”
Ambrose turned back to study the artwork on the wall. After a moment, he said “Yes, but before you get enraptured, it turned out I do not possess the patience to sit hours on end with a paintbrush clutched between my fingers.”
“No,” she murmured, teasing him with an impish smile. “I don’t suppose you do.”
Ambrose trailed after her as she moved from one painting to the next, balling his hands into tight fists to avoid taking her into his arms, which he found he suddenly desperately wanted to do.
That would be a much better distraction.
Something much like alarm lit up in his chest. A revelation hovered there. Something that twisted his stomach into knots. He hadn’t realized that, by revealing a part of himself, she may do the same, and that he might see her in a new light.
Benson’s words came back to him in a flash.
Damn valet.
An image of his sister, so pale and weak, raided his mind. A reminder of why he hadn’t opened his heart to love.
This time, it didn’t stop him.
Ambrose grabbed Willow by the hand and pulled her behind a sculpture of a young faun wearing a pine wreath and a goatskin.
And kissed her.
Chapter 14
Ambrose was kissing her.
This kiss wasn’t an enticement or whisper. It was a demand, a bellow. His mouth was hot and exploring, his tongue boldly dancing between her lips.
A blast of sensation swept through her blood, thrilling her to the bone, and she lifted her arms to circle around his waist in response. She was pressed up so tightly against him, Willow swore she could feel his pulse quicken against her breast when she returned his kiss with equal heat, greedily devouring all he offered.
If there was ever a time to wonder at her sanity, it
would be at that very moment, as they consumed one another in the National Art Gallery.
It alarmed her. It thrilled her.
When had the grounds of war altered to include touching, seducing, and an abundance of kissing?
Not that it mattered at that moment. Nothing quite mattered then. Not when his hand was slipping down her arching back, drawing her nearer still.
She quivered at his touch, tendrils of warmth wrapping around her. She knotted her fingers in his hair, holding onto him for support when it felt like her knees would give out.
He backed her against the pillar then, tilting her head up to deepen the kiss.
Only the movement wasn’t all that smooth. Her back hit the pillar with a rather startling thump. Shards of reality stabbed at her brain. Even before Willow felt the bust rocking back and forth, even before she heard the terrible sound of marble scraping against marble, she knew what was about to happen.
Ambrose must have felt something too, because his tongue stopped dancing, and his lips tore away from hers. Their eyes met for a heartbeat, then turned towards the catastrophe. Willow glanced over her shoulder in time—so regrettably in time—to see the bust of the faun that had been perched so peacefully upon the pillar, tilt, and tilt, and tilt, and then plummet to the ground.
Her heartbeat slowed.
Their gazes swung back to each other just as the grim sound of an ancient sculpture smashing into a thousand pieces, of marble exploding against marble, filled the gallery.
There was a moment, half of a second, where complicity passed between them, and then he breathed, “Run.”
Willow did not look back once as they dashed off, hand in hand. She did not look back at the grim event or the horrified people in the gallery. No, she did something far worse. She laughed. She did not know why it happened—lord knows it was not a laughable event. Perhaps it was the look Ambrose shot her right before he said run. But whatever caused it, the fit appeared from nowhere and once she began, she could not stop.
They burst through the doors of the Gallery and onto the slippery path of the sidewalk with scarcely contained relief. Willow skidded to a stop at once, doubling over from laughter, prompting Ambrose to skid to a halt, as well.
Heavy rain bounced off the cobblestone, the drops beating against her skin while she gasped for breath.
Within seconds, they were soaked.
Ambrose hunched down before her. “Willow?”
The sky rumbled.
“Willow,” he urged. “We must seek shelter from the rain before we freeze to death.”
She held up her hand, gasping for breath. “I know,” more giggles. “Just give—,” some laughter. “Just give,” a bit of gasping, “me a moment.”
“Willow.”
“Stop!” She attempted to draw breath through her convulsions. “Please do not sound indignant at a time like this. We just destroyed a hundred-year-old sculpture and you said run!”
She was answered by a foul curse before her laughter was captured by his lips, his mouth attempting the impossible feat of kissing away her fit of hilarity.
Oddly, it worked. Seconds later, lips glued to his, she was lifted up against his chest and carried to the shelter of their carriage. She did not protest.
Knight in moody armor, indeed.
“SO,” JONATHAN SAID, dropping down in a chair opposite to where Ambrose nursed his brandy. “Have you come to your senses or am I still to be married off?”
“I am in possession of all my senses.”
Jonathan signaled a waiter for a brandy, pulling a pack of cards from his pockets. “The entire town is gossiping about your wedding kiss. I didn’t think such a lack of decorum was in you, brother. I still cannot believe I missed your wedding. Rumor has it that the priest had to clear his throat to get your tongue out of your bride’s mouth.”
“I was thrown off balance,” Ambrose muttered into his glass. “I reacted strangely.”
“You’ve been thrown off balance for ten years, old chap, and you never reacted like that.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means,” Jonathan said, shuffling the deck. “Celia died, Ambrose. Sometimes people just die, and you don’t get to carry that on your shoulders for the rest of your life.”
“I have made my peace with her death,” Ambrose bit out.
“Have you? It seems to me you erected walls—thick ones—around you. And the weight of her death is burying you into the ground. How is that peace?”
“And what would you know about that?”
“Like you, I carried her death on my shoulders. I thought I could have done more to help her, to protect her. I thought I could’ve done anything other than to allow her to live her life as she wished. It took me two years to realize Celia wanted her life exactly as she had it and that she would not have wanted that guilt for us. She’d have wanted us to live our lives to the fullest, like she did.”
“I sat beside her bed for hours, waiting, watching, as she passed on to the next life, Jonathan. It tore my heart to shreds. Don’t talk to me about what you think she wanted. All that matters is that I could have saved her. That I should have saved her.”
“No, you couldn’t have saved her, Ambrose. At best, you might have prolonged her life but not saved it. Neither of us could have done that.”
Ambrose said nothing.
“And as a result of that weight of guilt, you decided that caring for anyone beyond mere acquaintanceship was not a risk you were willing to take. You erected your walls and isolated yourself behind them.”
Ambrose did not want his brother to be right. But it was hard to deny the truth of his words. For the past ten years, things that had once brought him pleasure slowly lost all flavor and taste. Each year, with the weight of her death on him, he engaged less and less with the world as it was and instead, worked hard to shape it into what it should be. Worked on it until he had become a cold, controlling bastard with little else but his sense of control.
At least, some might say that.
“So I’m still to be married off?” Jonathan asked offhandedly, shuffling the cards.
Ambrose threw back his brandy. “Holly Middleton betrayed me.”
“Only because you made her believe you fancied her.”
Ambrose lifted his eyes to glare at his brother. Jonathan knew him better than anyone. He had always possessed the uncanny ability to see straight through him. “She wanted that fairytale. I gave it to her. At least, I did until I needed to explain what her new life required. And look at where catering to her fantasy got me! She ran off. What an impractical creature.”
Willow isn’t so impractical.
But Ambrose didn’t want to admit that there was no need to pretend to be infatuated with his wife when he was quickly becoming obsessed with kissing her.
Jonathan chuckled, dealing them a hand, and pulling Ambrose from his thoughts. “Holly Middleton ran off because she had thought the fantasy was the reality. Your rules overwhelmed her.” Jonathan glanced up at him, a contemplative look entering his eyes. “It is a curious position you find yourself in. One that suits you, I think.”
“How do you figure that?”
“You are too tightly contained, brother. You need to unwind.”
“I’m contained just right,” Ambrose snapped, signaling for a refill. “And besides, how exactly does unwinding suit me?”
Jonathan arched a brow in response. “Well, for one, I can only imagine your lovely wife does not follow all your little house rules. I imagine some unwinding would help ease what must be constant frustration for you otherwise.”
Ambrose cut him a glance. “My wife will follow the rules. Eventually.”
If she ever bloody reads them.
Unlikely, that.
Jonathan smiled at him. “Does she know she is the only one subjected to them, that not even mother follows your rules?”
Ambrose glared at him.
Jonathan’s eyes widened.
“Is that why you sent mother to Bath?” He laughed. “It is, isn’t it?”
“Sod off.”
“Must be an annoying thing, for your wife to flaunt your rules,” Jonathan taunted with a grin.
Ambrose grimaced. What was worse was that he was letting her. Christ knew why. But it wasn’t like he could force her to comply—she was too damn obstinate. A trait he was growing too damn fond of. But then, his wife was anything but subservient. And he was blinded by the urge to kiss her most of the time he was near her. The rules weren’t much on his mind when he was staring at her lips.
“I’ll just go ahead and say it,” Jonathan leaned forward in his chair. “Just let go.”
“Let go of what, exactly?”
“Everything.”
“If you are going to spout nonsense, at least make bloody sense.”
“Give me a minute, and I will,” Jonathan said, eyeing him over the rim of his glass. “Or not. You are bone stubborn. Of course, your wife seems to be just as—”
“Don’t say it,” Ambrose warned.
“Stubborn.”
“You’re bloody annoying tonight, Jonathan.”
“Just want you to be happy, old chap. And you’ve got to let go of your control if you want to be happy.”
Happy.
Willow’s face flashed through his mind for the hundredth time. Could it be that simple? Just let go and be happy. He wasn’t unhappy. At least, he didn’t think he was. But he wasn’t happy, either.
What did he want, really? Did he want to be happy?
Suddenly, he realized he did know one thing he wanted; he wanted more of his wife. More kisses. More touches. More laughter. More mischief. More of everything. He did not just lust after her body; he wanted her. All of her.
Would letting go give him Willow?
Forgiving her sister might. Is that what Jonathan’s twisted logic was getting at?
“What, then, do you propose I do?” Ambrose asked his brother. “Let Holly Middleton get away with humiliating me? Let go of her broken promise?”
“Why not? You got what you wanted—a wife.”
“But not the one I chose.”
