Page 10 of His Wicked Little Christmas

Which left one day to either change her mind or change his.

Propping his arm beneath his head, he took a measured sip as the candlelight shifted and washed over her. Even with the lure of a dukedom, a pleasing face, a fast wit, and a sly charm, he wasn’t especially adept with women. With relationships. He was skilled in bed; he appreciated the mechanics of the act. He was a man of detail, after all. And concern with detail was what it took to be competent, a technique he assumed most men ignored. From the comments from his former lovers, was sure they ignored.

Sex was one thing.

Talking and laughing and remembering like he’d done with Georgie today, as she made notes in his folio, dripping ink on the rug and asking probing, wide-eyed questions, her gaze lighting him up and then dancing off, was nothing he’d ever experienced. He was used to conversation with an end goal. A game being played, a transaction being enacted.

This had been conversation held simply to enhance their understanding of each other.

It had made him feel vulnerable, naked, panicked.

Helikedher. He’d always liked her. She was intelligent. Beautiful.Spirited. She quarreled with him without worrying about her disagreement hurting his feelings or her chances. He believed her. She was sincere. She told him when he was daft or arrogant or obnoxious, which he often was.

But he’d boxed himself in with this suitables agreement, a dare made in haste and one he wished to retract. Impulsivity had brought him low before. This wouldn’t be the first time. He couldn’t very well say,I love you and I always have. And not in the courteous way you’ve outlined for us.Friends. With a sneer, he threw back the rest of his whiskey.

The admission sounded crass, too sudden. Reckless. She wouldn’t believe it—and who could blame her? He’d have to go through with this farce to find a duchess to make the woman he wanted tobehis duchess realize she had feelings for him, too. That she wanted him more than her damned freedom, which he had no urge, no intention, of taking from her. His only chance to secure her love was to make her jealous of the plan she’d put in motion.

In essence, having her sabotage her own creation.

If he followed through on his impulse to touch her, it might go badly. Cause her to push him away. Forever away. Opposite of future-duchess away.

He could always be honest and court her. Tenderly, for months if necessary. Tell his father by Twelfth Night that he’d proposed, and they would marry when Georgie wasreadyto marry. But instinct, a gift that rarely failed him, told Dex her issues were more profound than merely losing her independence. His fingers clenched around the glass as he released a tense breath. The notion sent a flood of rage through him, but he suspected Georgie’s marriage had broken her. Leaving Dex to tame a hesitant filly when horses didn’t particularly fancy him.

When patience wasn’t his strong suit.

Placing his tumbler aside, he rolled to his feet and quietly approached the settee. Went down on one knee next to Georgie, close enough to catch the scent of lavender and nutmeg on her skin. Close enough to see the line of freckles scattered like stars across the bridge of her nose, the smudge of ink on her jaw. Suddenly, he wondered what she thought of him. Because her feelings weren’t obvious. He’d always known before, but the Ice Countess had become adept at concealment.

He wondered if her heart raced when he touched her. If her mind emptied when he smiled. If she wanted him in the core of her being, an inexplicableache.

But most of all, he wondered if she remembered their kiss.

He scrubbed his hand over his jaw, stubble pricking his fingertips. Drawing a breath filled with her, he closed his eyes to the memory. It was years ago, seven or eight now that he tried to place it. He’d been in his father’s study packing papers for his first geological assignment after finishing Cambridge, an archaeological dig in Italy. He was coming off a violent confrontation with the duke about, well, everything when Georgie had stumbled in.

Dex had been a churn of emotion. Tangled up. Exposed. Infuriated and eager and bloody scared. Then she’d been standing before him, her face flushed, her eyes shimmering. He hadn’t told her he was leaving, but Anthony must have. The next moments were hazy. He couldn’t recall what they’d said to each other. What she’d done to make him reach for her, drag her up on her toes and against his body.

But the kiss, oh, how he remembered the kiss.

Nothing transactional about it. Pure, sweet, flawless. Innocent for all the heat it had sent through him. An awakening, even if he still walked away from her, from Derbyshire, the next morning.

An honest mistake. Young and foolish, he hadn’t known.

He’d let the only woman he’d ever want, everlove, marry someone else.

“Dex.”

He opened his eyes to find Georgie blinking sleepily. She yawned behind her hand, giving him a pointed look. “You mustn’t mix discussions of igneous rock and wine. It’s a disastrous combination.”

Dipping his head as he laughed, he braced his hands on his knees to keep from touching her.Measured steps, Dex, my boy, measured steps.“Duly noted.”

She elbowed to a sit, smoothing her bodice and her skirt while he glanced away to give her privacy. “Did you do this on purpose? Provide spirits and deadly conversation.” She nodded to the window and the snowdrift climbing past the bottom panes. “I’m stuck here, aren’t I?”

The delicate hollow of her throat was within reach should he followthrough on the desire to press his lips to it. Which, as he was unsure of himselfandher, he wouldn’t. “My father’s sleeping and the doctor doesn’t expect him to wake,” he shocked the hell out of himself by admitting. “I suppose…I suppose I didn’t want to spend the day alone.”

“The unfair play continues,” she whispered and worked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear, “as I can say nothing to that.”

“You have a chaperone,” he reminded her with a nod to Gertrude, who’d been equally felled by the stratification discussion and slept as soundly as a babe. “A houseful of servants. Wilkes has popped his head in every half-hour since you arrived. I don’t know what he thinks I’m doing to you in here. Each time, he seems surprised to find out,nothing.”

A devilish spark lit her eyes, reminding him of the indigo of the Indian Ocean. There were leagues of mysteries in her gaze. Couldn’t he be the one allowed to explore them? “What trouble can two old friends get into surrounded by a slumbering chaperone, an aging butler, and twenty crates of rocks?” She clicked her tongue against her teeth and glanced about the room. “A note for the future wooing of your duchess: fossils aren’t romantic. Fascinating but not romantic.”