Wild in Winter

by Scott, Scarlett

  “Shaving soap,” she decreed, her warm breath puffing over the sensitive slice of neck just above his cravat. “And lemon, with a hint of…” Here she paused, inhaling again. “Musk.”

  First Miss Christabella Winter had tickled him, and now she was smelling him. Worse, he was imagining those rose-pink lips of hers pressed to his skin, finding their way to his jaw, and thereafter, his mouth.

  He swallowed. Hard. “Your nose appears to be functioning quite well.”

  “Good,” she said.

  The lone word confused him. Possibly because her breasts were brushing against his chest.

  “Good?” he asked, trying to maintain his calm.

  “Yes,” she murmured. “You smell delightfully good.”

  Curse it.

  He could say the same of her.

  But what would be the use? This bold, unconventional woman was not meant to be his duchess. He required a quiet wife. The sort who would not ask him questions. Or tempt him. Or tickle him. Or invade his person like an enemy army at the portcullis. He preferred solitude. Quiet. Without question, the woman currently sniffing his neck would provide him none of the things he required in a wife.

  Except for a massive amount of wealth.

  But wealth could be found elsewhere, he reminded himself sternly.

  “This is deuced improper, Miss Winter,” he forced himself to say. “If anyone were to walk into this chamber now, they would think we had been…”

  He could not bring himself to form the words. For he feared that if he said them, he would be tempted to bring the words to life.

  “Kissing?” she finished for him, because the vixen had no shame.

  “No chance of that,” he scoffed tightly, far too aware of her face still all but buried in his neck. “I have never engaged in such recklessness before, and I would not begin now with you.”

  Her head shot back, that bright, blue-green burning into his. “Did you just say you have never kissed a lady before?”

  Bloody hell.

  His ears were hot. And his cheeks. “I said nothing of the sort. You misunderstood me.”

  “No.” She shook her head slowly, her gaze dipping to his mouth. “I did not. You said you had never kissed before. I fear it is too late to convince me otherwise, Your Grace. The words have already been spoken.”

  Yes, they had, had they not? And for a man who spoke so little, he had certainly done the devil’s own work in revealing that which he had never before admitted aloud. Oh, his brother Ash assumed, and Gill had not made an effort to change that. But he had never before told another soul he had never even kissed a lady.

  Nor a mistress.

  Nor anyone.

  He was a man fully grown, who had never kissed or made love to a woman. And while his brother’s rakish ways had more than made up for Gill’s lapses, that knowledge was cold comfort. A man was expected to have experience. Carnal knowledge. By God, a man was expected to speak to a lady. To woo her. None of which were feats he had ever been able to manage, thanks to his affliction.

  The reminders of his failures had him releasing her wrists at last and taking a step back. He had allowed himself to linger far too long in her presence. Somehow, she had made her way past all his defenses. But now, she was once more his enemy. And he could not afford to allow her to storm his battlements.

  “Believe what you will, Miss Winter,” he forced himself to say before sketching a perfunctory bow. “Good evening to you.”

  He congratulated himself on striding past her, and leaving the chamber with his head held high, despite his foolish revelation.

  But her mocking voice followed him out the door.

  “It is only afternoon, Your Grace.”

  Fuck.

  So it was.

  Chapter Two

  Christabella could not stop thinking about the Duke of Coventry. During dinner the evening before, she had not been able to keep her eyes from him as he dined. Twice, his eyes had made their way to hers. Each time, the connection of their gazes had been shocking. Rather in the way a lightning bolt across the sky was. She felt as if their connection was visceral and real, a shared understanding passing between the two of them.

  But he had only looked at her twice.

  Twice.

  And he had been rather rude in the salon the day before. True, she had been most forward and improper, but he could have handled her lapses with grace. Indeed, she had been quite the fool for him, sniffing him, telling him he smelled good, all but kissing his neck…his strong, deliciously corded, wonderfully masculine neck. The knot in his cravat had been elaborate and tied rather tightly. The prominence of his Adam’s apple just above the linen had seemed a temptation she could not resist.

  Oh, how she had wanted to press her lips there. To kiss her way higher. All the way to his forbidding mouth. If she had to describe the Duke of Coventry’s lips in one word, it would be grim. But Christabella had never seen a challenge without wanting to conquer it. Or, in this instance, conquer him. His lips, specifically.

  She wanted to kiss him.

  To be his first kiss.

  Oh, dear. Her preoccupation was beginning to become a problem.

  “Christabella,” said her eldest sister Pru, cutting through her thoughts. “Where is your mind wandering to now?”

  To delicious, tempting, entirely wicked thoughts.

  As usual.

  She grinned at Pru, unashamed. “Wandering near and far, as always.”

  “To thoughts of the book,” her sister Eugie guessed.

  As was their customary habit, the five Winter sisters had descended upon a single chamber to prepare themselves for the afternoon’s drawing room festivities. In this instance, they had settled upon Pru’s for their tête-à-tête.

  “There is nothing wrong with The Tale of Love,” she told Eugie, giving her sister a forbidding frown as she sank her earbobs into place. “Reading it has proven most enlightening. For all of us, I daresay.”

  Pink cheeks and guilty silences met her words.

  Just as she had supposed.

  “I only glanced at it,” offered Bea, the youngest, by way of explanation.

  “Yes,” Christabella reminded her sister, “but you have gone and fallen in love with Mr. Hart, and as the two of you have been looking quite cozy recently, I doubt you even have need of the book.”

  Bea’s cheeks deepened to a guiltier shade of scarlet. It was no secret she and their brother’s right-hand man, Merrick Hart, were wildly in love. But her chin tipped up in a show of defiance anyway.

  “I have no notion what you are speaking about, Christabella,” her youngest sister said. “Have you been reading more of those silly books?”

  “There is nothing silly about the books I read,” she informed Bea. “There is, however, something very telling in the color of your cheeks. Your hair was quite mussed the other day when I saw you leaving one of the salons. Mr. Hart was not far behind you.”

  “It is wicked of you to suggest anything untoward occurred,” Bea said, but she was blushing even more.

  Christabella grinned. “I approve, of course. You must know that, dearest. You and Mr. Hart make a delightful couple, and the two of you are so in love, I am quite envious.”

  “You do make a beautiful couple,” Eugie agreed.

  “Disgustingly so,” added Grace, the most pragmatic of all the sisters.

  “Wonderfully so,” corrected Pru, the eldest of them all, and the de facto leader of their coterie.

  Grace grumbled something about love seeming to be a pestilence.

  “How can you think of love in such cruel terms when you are being wooed by a rake?” Christabella asked her sister.

  She was curious. Grace had the handsome rakehell, Viscount Aylesford, chasing after her. If only, sighed a voice inside Christabella. There was nothing more delicious than a beautiful man with a bad reputation, as far as she was concerned. To have one interested in her would be delightfully wicked.

  “I am not being
wooed by him,” Grace reminded her. “He has settled upon me as his feigned betrothed, and he has stolen our book to do it.”

  “That particular volume is one of my favorites,” she allowed, “but I trust you will find the means of seeing it restored to me.”

  “One way or another,” Grace said grimly.

  “Enough of that,” Eugie interjected. “I am missing an earbob. Do you see it?”

  Christabella and her other sisters exchanged knowing looks. Eugie had been distinctly disheveled upon her arrival at Pru’s chamber. And flushed. And breathless. The Winter sisters had all seemed to be getting into mischief this Christmastide—Christabella the exception, of course.

  Her lack of success at finding a rake to kiss her prodded Christabella into action.

  “I am certain you did not lose it during an assignation with Lord Hertford,” she said drily.

  Eugie was promised to the earl, who was more familiarly known by the sobriquet the Prince of Proper. Not a rake, to be sure, but still. It seemed to Christabella that all her sisters were losing their hearts to the gentlemen around them.

  Meanwhile, Christabella could not even find a gentleman to flirt with her. The Duke of Coventry had refused to speak for much of their time alone together.

  “I did not have an assignation,” Eugie denied.

  The tone of her voice, however, gave her away.

  “Sisters,” Pru chastised. “Christabella, we must not forget we are one another’s greatest allies. Reviled though we may be, the Winter family stands together.”

  “Of course we do,” Christabella acknowledged, smoothing some stray wisps of her wayward hair into place before Pru’s looking glass. “We are Winters first.”

  Though their family was notoriously unaccepted by most of the members of the peerage—unless they required the Winter family coin, naturally—they were a proud and fierce lot. They loved each other mightily. Their loyalty was to one another. With so much change happening around her—her brother wedded, many of her sisters on the threshold of marriage—Christabella could only hope they would always remain so.

  “No matter where we go, or who we become,” Pru added, “we will always be Winters.”

  “Though our names may change, our hearts will remain forever constant,” Bea added.

  Christabella turned away from the glass, allowing her gaze to sweep over all her sisters. How she loved them. They were each so very different, and yet so much a part of the fabric of their family. Through everything they had endured, the six Winter siblings had always been the sternest supporters of one another. For so long, they had been all they had. And they had made their little family work.

  But it could not remain as it was forever.

  Change was on the horizon.

  For all of them.

  And, Christabella dared hope, herself.

  Why she thought of the stern, forbidding countenance of the Duke of Coventry then, she could not say. Kissing him would be lovely. But he was not the man she was meant to spend the rest of her life with, she reminded herself sternly. She wanted a rake, not a man who was cool and quiet and rude. Certainly not a man who had no experience kissing a lady.

  But she would enjoy teaching him how to kiss, she decided with a secretive smile.

  Oh, yes she would. And she would learn precisely what she needed to do to woo a man herself along the way.

  Gill had grown bored of every drawing room entertainment that had thus far been invented, he was sure of it. This one was no different than the rest. He stood on the periphery of the assemblage, watching them engaged in charades. Again.

  Another three slow strides to his left, and the door leading to freedom was almost within reach. As a man who could not bear much society at all, he had become adroit at removing himself from situations he found displeasing without anyone else being the wiser. There was an art, he had discovered, to fleeing a chamber. Initially, he had left every gathering to which he had been invited, struck by the loudness of the sounds, the brightness of the lights, the heat, the chatter, the eyes upon him…

  It had all been far, far too much for him to bear. But over time, Gill had settled upon a way he could flee without being overly conspicuous in his departure. It left his host and hostess more at ease, and it severely reduced the number of whispers surrounding him. All he needed to do was take incremental steps to the door. No one noticed. Eventually, he was near enough to cross the threshold into glorious freedom.

  He stopped, pretending to watch Miss Bea Winter demonstrating what appeared to be a farmer pitching hay. And then, as the company began shouting their guesses, he took three more steps. As the guesses continued, he took two more. The doorway called to him like a beacon from a lighthouse on shore.

  His cravat was too tight. His palms practically teemed with perspiration. And that dreaded tightness in his chest had returned, the one that made him feel as if he could scarcely breathe. He needed to leave.

  The company continued guessing. Miss Bea Winter made further efforts to demonstrate the unfortunate task she had selected. From this angle, it rather appeared as if she were now baking a pie. Gill did not give a damn what she was attempting to mimic. All he wanted was escape.

  Another step. Then another. Someone shouted a loud guess that she had been plucking a Michaelmas goose. The merrymakers laughed. Gill pressed his advantage. Three more steps, and he was out the door, over the threshold, his strides taking him down the hall where blissful silence reigned.

  “Your Grace?”

  What the devil? He stopped, mid-stride, and pivoted on his heel, certain he would not find anyone there. Certain he had imagined the voice. Certain no one would have taken note of his stealthy flight from charades.

  But there stood the woman who had been haunting his thoughts ever since the day before. Her hair was as brazen as she was, and every bit as delectable. Stray tendrils of brilliant, red curls had broken free of her coiffure, no doubt in her earlier depiction of an irate heifer. Somehow, she had managed to make even the bovine seem seductive. He had watched her in a combination of consternation and lust, overwhelmed by his reaction to her.

  In truth, she was part of the reason why he was retreating from charades.

  He stared at her, resenting her.

  Wanting her.

  “Your Grace, is something amiss?” she elaborated, striding forward with an expression of pure concern. “I noticed you leaving while the game is still carrying on, and you did an excellent job of guessing when it was my turn…”

  That was because he could not take his eyes from her. Because she was all he saw, like it or not. Because he longed for her. Desperately. And he damned well knew he ought not. Longed for her so bloody much that his voice had emerged from him earlier.

  Rusty, it was true. More of a croak than a bark. But he had spoken, in the midst of a silly drawing room game, surrounded by others. And he had not felt the choking burn of bile. Perhaps that was because she had met and held his gaze, seemingly cheering him on with her bright eyes and grin of unadulterated delight. He had fallen headlong into her, forgetting the others. A mistake, of course.

  Just thinking about the crush of revelers within Abingdon House’s tremendous drawing room was enough to make his chest tight. He cleared his throat. But no words would emerge now. Damnation, this was a fine time for his affliction to strike. Strangely, although his throat had seized, his cock was not similarly afflicted. It was raging and hard. Instantly. Pressed to the fall of his breeches.

  “Coventry?” She moved nearer to him in the hall.

  There was not much chance of them being caught, with the door to the drawing room closed once more and no one else having yet emerged. But at any moment, a servant could come upon them. They were risking a great deal by lingering here, unchaperoned.

  He could smell her sweet scent. Summer blossoms and divine, seductive woman. Wicked, altogether wrong, Christabella Winter.

  He found his voice at last.

  “Why are you following me?” h
e demanded. Not precisely what he had meant to say.

  She stopped, then pinned him with a ferocious frown. “I was concerned about you, Your Grace. You appeared pale when you left the chamber. Almost as if you were about to retch, in fact…”

  “You have gall, madam,” he bit out. Defensively, yes. Because it was bad enough he could not conduct himself in the company of others. When anyone had the temerity to remind him of his weakness, it made him livid.

  “I have honesty,” she dared to correct him. “And a wayward tongue, it is true. One of my weaknesses, I suppose. I have never known when to keep quiet and when I ought to speak. As a result, I simply speak whenever I wish.”

  Of course she did, the vexing creature.

  She also had to cease saying the word tongue in his presence.

  Every instinct within him screamed to close the distance between them and haul her into his arms. What he would do with her after that, he had no notion. Because he was a virgin. A stupid, terrified virgin.

  His brother had bedded half the ladies of London, and he, the duke, had not even managed to press his lips to the mouth of one. Not for lack of Ash’s attempts on his behalf.

  “Your Grace.” Suddenly, there was a hand on his arm, gentle and yet strong. He was being led to a door as the scent of summer blooms filled his senses.

  He allowed it. His legs were moving. His heart was pounding. The affliction threatened to overwhelm him, but he forced himself to combat it as he had learned. Long, slow breaths. Closing his mind as if it were a door.

  When his mind opened, he was closeted within a chamber, alone with Miss Christabella Winter. With her hands upon him. Her head was tilted back, her countenance concerned, her lips parted. She stroked his biceps, the place where he had built muscle through rigid labor at his country estate. He had worked alongside his tenants for the last summer, attempting to find his way.

  Laboring suited him. He was not meant to be a duke, he had always feared, and yet, the title, the vast lands and all its inhabitants, and his father’s colossal debts remained his burdens to bear.