Wild in Winter

by Scott, Scarlett

  Wild in Winter

  The Wicked Winters Book Six

  By

  Scarlett Scott

  Gill, the Duke of Coventry, has never been the sort of gentleman who woos ladies with effortless ease. In fact, he’s never even kissed a woman, let alone courted one. But as the new duke, he’s in need of a wealthy bride to replenish his dwindling familial coffers. Preferably a sweet, calm bride who is equally reserved. A bride who is nothing at all like Miss Christabella Winter.

  Christabella is looking for passion. She longs for forbidden kisses in hidden alcoves, for a dashing rake to sweep her off her feet. Therefore, her dratted infatuation with the shy Duke of Coventry makes no sense. Particularly since he cannot be bothered to speak to her in complete sentences.

  When she inadvertently learns the duke has never been kissed, however, Christabella forms the perfect plan. She can show him how to win a lady’s heart and kiss him out of her system at the same time. But the problem with kisses is they often lead to something more, and soon, the only heart she wants him to win is hers.

  Dedication

  Dedicated to the Sassy Readers. You guys are the best!

  Very special thanks to my sister and to author Caroline Lee for early reads of this manuscript and additional insight.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  About the Book

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from Scandalous Duke

  Don’t miss Scarlett’s other romances!

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Oxfordshire, 1813

  Miss Christabella Winter was in a terrible mood.

  A terrible, dreadful, horrid mood.

  She cast a glance over her shoulder to make certain none of the guests at the country house party being hosted by her brother and sister-in-law wandered in the hall. Assured of her solitude, she crossed the threshold of the small, cozy salon where she had taken to hiding herself at Abingdon House. With its eastern-facing windows, generous hearth, and overstuffed chairs, it was the perfect place to indulge in an hour or two of uninterrupted reading.

  She sighed as she closed the door at her back. Judging from the way her day had gone thus far, she may need a good three hours of pleasant diversion to distract herself from the grimness of her disposition. First, she deplored cold. Second, she did not like snow. Third, she was tired of playing charades, especially when none of the players could correctly guess what she was attempting to enact. Fourth, she had set her heart upon finding a wicked rake of her own at this cursed house party.

  Instead, all the rakes had eyes for her sisters.

  Which left Christabella with no one, the only hope of entertainment to be had in the small, leather-bound volume she had secreted in the hidden pocket she had sewn into her gown for just such a purpose. Because the book she was about to read was not just any book. No, indeed. It was a volume in the forbidden, wicked, utterly bawdy series of books known as The Tale of Love.

  On another sigh, she threw herself into one of the chairs by the hearth, plucking the book from her pocket. At least she was assured of some rakish diversion within its pages, even if this house party had proven deadly boring thus far. She flipped to the page where she had last quit reading, toed off her shoes, tucked her feet underneath her bottom, and settled in.

  That was when she heard it.

  A noise.

  The clearing of a masculine throat, to be precise.

  She stilled, her eyes flying about the chamber.

  And that was when she saw him.

  The tall, golden-haired, infallibly handsome Duke of Coventry. The only man present at the house party who had yet to speak a word to her, not even during their introduction. He stood at the opposite end of the chamber, staring at her, his mien forbidding.

  He looked, unless she was mistaken, as if he were vexed with her.

  But how silly, for she was the one who ought to be nettled for the manner in which he was trespassing upon the salon she had claimed for herself. Why, it was all but her territory. He had no right to be here. None at all.

  “Your Grace,” she said, forgetting she ought to stand, slip her shoes back on, and curtsy. “What are you doing in my salon?”

  His brows rose, as if he questioned her daring. But he said nothing.

  What a queer man he was. Never mind that. He could stand there all stoic and silent as he liked. She could talk enough for the both of them.

  “Oh, of course,” she said, frowning at him. “It is not my salon. But I have been reading here for the past few days, and I rather fancy it mine now. You will have to go somewhere else. Just look at how comfortable I have made myself in this chair. Do you dare disturb me?”

  His nostrils flared. But still, he did not move. And still, he did not speak.

  She wondered if it was because she had yet to observe formality.

  “Must I curtsy?” she asked him. “It feels frightfully foolish to do so when we are the only two in the chamber. Just imagine us curtsying and bowing with no one to watch, when we are already committing an egregious faux pas by being here alone together.”

  His jaw seemed to harden, and the hands at his sides flexed. They were the only signs he was man and not a statue fashioned of coldest stone.

  “Very well.” On an irritated sigh, she flounced her gown and rose to her feet. “I shall curtsy. But do not expect me to put my slippers back on. They are too tight. I think they belong to my sister Grace. Her feet are a bit daintier than mine.”

  She dipped into a mocking curtsy, holding his gaze all the while. “There. Are you satisfied now, Your Grace?”

  Finally, at long last, his lips moved.

  He spoke.

  One word, curt and definitive. “No.”

  She pursed her lips, studying the aggravating man. “That was a perfectly acceptable curtsy, I will have you know. One does not need to wear slippers in order to curtsy.”

  “Do you always talk this much?” he asked then, quite rudely.

  She blinked at him. “I think I liked you better when you were silent, Your Grace.”

  Then, the strangest thing happened, right there before her. The Duke of Coventry smiled. And her heart kicked into a gallop. Good heavens, he was the most handsome man she had ever beheld when he smiled that way.

  Until he quite ruined the effect by speaking once more.

  “The feeling is mutual, Miss Winter.”

  She could not contain her gasp of outrage. “That was impossibly boorish.”

  He stared at her some more. Was he ogling her stockinged toes? She wiggled them on the chance it would vex him. Once more, he said nothing.

  She sighed then. “Are you not going to offer me an apology, Your Grace?”

  “Why should I?” he asked. “You insulted me first.”

  Well, yes, she supposed she rather had.

  At least he had deigned to speak again, so that had to count for something. A victory of sorts, however small. He was no longer smiling, but her body was still beset by the same irritating reaction to him. Her heart pounded. Her insides felt as if they were fashioned of warm honey. Worst of all, the wicked longing she felt in her core whenever she read The Tale of Love was throbbing to life.

  She could not possibly be attracted to such a man. He was quiet and somber and socially inept. She a
dored rakes who were charming and knowing, with devilish grins and practiced kisses. Sinners and seducers.

  The Duke of Coventry belonged to neither of those, she reminded herself firmly.

  “The insult I paid you was a response to your ill-mannered question,” Christabella pointed out. “It is not done to speak of a lady’s discourse. You see? That is the way of a conversation.”

  His lips twitched. “Is it now?”

  She had the strangest impression he was laughing at her. No one laughed at Christabella Winter.

  She drew back her shoulders and pinned him with her most ferocious glare. “Yes. It is. Of course, I suppose one cannot expect a gentleman who shuns the society of others to know the proper rules of conducting a dialogue. Up until now, I confess, I wondered whether or not you were even in possession of a tongue.”

  He stiffened, and she regretted the harshness of her words.

  But it was too late to call them back. They had been dropped between them, as sure as any gauntlet.

  Miss Christabella Winter was dreadfully garrulous.

  Horridly bold.

  Insufferably rude.

  She spoke to him as if she had not a care that he was a duke. And mayhap she did not.

  Gill had come to the chamber to escape his hostess’s idea of merriment. Charades made him want to retch into the nearest chamber pot. Mostly because the thought of all the eyes in the house party trained upon him simultaneously tangled his stomach in a vicious knot. Set his heart racing. Made his palms sweat and his chest hurt.

  Also, because charades was a foolish game.

  But he was a foolish man, because here he stood, engaging in a debate of sorts with a flame-haired hoyden who had insulted him. It was true that he needed the Winter family’s coin to save his estates from certain ruin. A potential alliance with one of the Winter ladies had been his sole reason for attending this cursed country house party. But it was also true she was not the only unwed lady in England with a plump purse. He could easily find another. There was no need to waste his time by lingering here with her.

  Except, the moment she had said the word tongue, he had been beset by the wildest surge of lust he had ever experienced. And as a man who had never even kissed a woman, he experienced more than his fair share of pent-up lust. This, however, trumped everything which had come before.

  It was incapacitating.

  More incapacitating, even, than his affliction.

  For an indeterminate span of time, he could neither move, nor speak.

  “Forgive me,” she was saying, her voice bearing a tinge of contrition. “That was unpardonably rude of me to say. I cannot imagine what came over me, Your Grace.”

  She dropped the book she had been clutching to the cushion she had risen from. And then, she was moving, blast her. Coming nearer to him, her blue gown gliding softly about her. Bringing with her the scent of sweet summer blossoms and soft, delicious, tempting woman. Still, he could not move.

  Or speak. He was beset by a strange combination of his affliction and raging desire. Why for this particular, vexing creature, he could not say.

  “Oh, dear,” Miss Winter said, stopping before him. “You are pale. You are not ill, are you, Coventry?”

  He was about to tell her he was not ill—or at least to attempt to tell her that—when she touched his forehead. Her hand was ungloved, and for an instant, he knew the fleeting graze of her silken fingertips over his brow.

  “You are not feverish,” she said, frowning.

  He could have argued that he was. But his capacity for speech was once more frozen. Just as well, for if he could speak, he was afraid he would ask her to touch him again.

  “Have I wounded you so gravely with my sharp tongue that you are now refusing to speak to me?” Miss Winter asked next.

  Devil take it, she had mentioned her tongue. Again.

  He could not seem to stop thinking about that deuced troublesome tongue of hers. Or her lips. They were the pink of a wild rose. Bewitching and supple. Too full, really. Tipped upward at the corners, as if she were enjoying a sally at the rest of the world’s expense.

  And she probably was, the minx.

  “I can get you to speak again,” she announced, confidence permeating her voice. “Do not look so surprised, Your Grace. I am one of five sisters. You cannot be naïve enough to believe they have not attempted similar tactics against me, and also failed.”

  He had watched all five Winter sisters closely during the course of this country house party. They were all handfuls, he had no doubt. But the Winter before him was the biggest handful of all. He had seen it clearly from the moment he had first arrived and settled his gaze upon her. Of course his gaze had found her—she was the brightest and the most beautiful of her sisters, with her flaming hair and bold, jewel-toned dresses. The way she swayed her hips, the way she cast her eye upon the company, the way she laughed, the way she danced… It was nothing short of captivating.

  She was nothing short of captivating.

  And wrong for him as a future duchess.

  All wrong.

  He needed wealth, not trouble.

  She pursed her lips, tilting her head to one side as she considered him. “You have until the count of ten, Your Grace. At that point, I will have no choice but to use my only means of defense.”

  Gill moved his mouth without impediment. Cleared his throat. The speechlessness affecting him now was different than his affliction, he realized. He could speak if he wished. But it was Miss Winter and the nearly incapacitating desire he felt for her—misplaced and wrong, but nonetheless present—that was keeping him from speech.

  A new phenomenon.

  He would have to write this down in his journal later tonight, all the better to examine the pattern. When his head was cleared of the fog currently inhabiting it.

  Belatedly, he realized Miss Winter was counting, just as she had warned.

  “…seven, eight, nine,” she paused for dramatic effect, eying him with raised brows, as if she expected him to flee at any moment.

  He did not flee. Instead, he held her stare and his ground both, two feats which were not easy for him when he was in the presence of unfamiliar people.

  “Ten!” she announced. “I warned you, Your Grace.”

  Then, she stepped forward. Nearer still. Her gown billowed around his legs. The feminine scent of her was richer. Notes of jasmine and lily hit him. Her proximity was such that he could see the rich flecks of gold and gray in her blue-green eyes, count the number of freckles upon the dainty bridge of her nose if he wished.

  He did not wish.

  For in the next breath, she was touching him. Not just touching him. The mad chit had thrust her fingers into his sides and wiggled them about. The action was so unexpected, so shocking, a bark of laughter poured from him. Grinning at him in triumph, she moved her fingers higher, her touch growing firmer.

  Belatedly, it occurred to him why he was laughing.

  Miss Christabella Winter was tickling him. Tickling him, by God.

  He caught her wrists, removing her hands from his person, and found his voice at last. “Are you mad, woman?”

  “Are you mad, Your Grace?” she returned, casting a glance toward his hands, still gripping her wrists.

  Strangely, he could not let her go. Her inner wrists were a thing of wonder. Smooth and soft, delicately lined with a tracery of veins, pulsing with the beat of her heart. All of the telltale signs of his affliction were absent. For some reason, Miss Christabella Winter had set him at ease and at sixes and sevens, all at once.

  He thought about his response. Some thought him mad. He was well aware of the laughter behind his back, of the stares and whispers, the gossip surrounding him. He was accustomed to scorn and confusion. Gill had never been blessed with his brother’s easy charm or his effortless mannerisms.

  He was still the boy his father had kept locked in a windowless chamber for twenty hours at a time. Ash did not know about those days. No one did. And Gill ha
d every intention of keeping it that way.

  “I am not mad,” he told Miss Winter, his voice emerging once more at his bidding. “One might argue otherwise for you, however. You were just tickling me, madam.”

  But still, he did not release his hold on her. In truth, he liked keeping her where she was. He liked touching her, too. Even if he knew he ought not touch her or like it.

  “Oh, stuff and nonsense.” She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Do not tell me you have never before been tickled.”

  He gave her his most vexing frown. “I have never before been tickled.”

  That gave her pause. Her brow furrowed and her nose scrunched up in adorable fashion. Strike that. Nothing about this woman was adorable. She was irritating, he reminded himself. Intolerably forward.

  “You have never been tickled,” she repeated, her voice dubious, as if she did not believe him.

  “Of course not,” he clipped, irritated with her. Irritated with himself as well.

  He had already decided this woman was not for him. Why did he linger? Why did he engage in conversation? Why could he not let go of her wrists?

  “Not even once?” she persisted.

  “Not once, Miss Winter,” he pronounced, keeping his voice grim. “Ever.”

  “Well,” she said with a sniff and a little huff, as if she were aggrieved with him, “tickling is the best means of making a sister speak when she is treating you to silence. It works every time. Much like pepper on the pillow of someone you wish to make sneeze.”

  “I am not your sister, madam,” he said, which he was certain could not be more obvious.

  For one, he was a man, blast her. For another, he was a duke.

  “Of course you are not my sister,” she agreed. “You are too tall to be any of them. And you do not smell like them, either.”

  He made a strangled sound. “What do I smell like, Miss Winter?”

  Posing the question was a mistake. He realized it the moment the last word left his lips. He knew it when she leaned into him, so close, he could bury his face in the fragrant upsweep of her hair if he wished. Good God, there were tiny rosebuds woven into the intertwined locks. They were pink, and they matched her lips. And her nose was nearly touching his neck as she inhaled deeply.