Page 2 of His Wicked Little Christmas

Georgiana glanced across the crowded landing, and there he stood.

Someone bumped into her, but the view was better from the spot she stumbled into. Between an aging viscount and an inebriated baron, both short of stature and style. Dex hadn’t seen her—a temporary respite in the small space—so she seized the silent moment to record the changes. Prepare for a conversation should she have to endure one. Let the tumble her heart had taken settle in, settle down.

She palmed her quivering stomach.Oh, my, is this feeling familiar.

The woman at Dex’s side bounced up on her toes to whisper in his ear. His smile was rueful, his lone-shouldered shrug contrite. Disarming as he brushed off the suggestion, one Georgiana didn’t want to fathom. She drew an aggrieved breath through her teeth, suppressing the ridiculous, possessive burn in her chest.

However vexed she was, she couldn’t deny the beauty of the moment.

Candlelight sparked off jeweled facets and polished cuff links, off the gold and silver paper looped around the banisters. Off Dex’s eyes, a unique mix much like his composite rocks. Green one day, hazel the next, a surprise every time she’d gazed into them, a gift one hadn’t expected to receive. He tilted his head, highlighting the auburn streaks in his hair. Not ginger, not brown but an appealing combination of both. His skin was tanned when it hadn’t been before, accentuating a pale crescent scar on his temple. Slightly taller. Leaner. A hard edge shaping his face, rawness filtering into his jaw, his stubborn chin.

As it tended to, life had sculpted them both.

Surely, there were more classically handsome men, although none she’d met had the distinctive blend of intelligence and a desire for experience beyond what was easily obtained. A hunger she had as well, but she was a woman, which made all the horrendous difference in the world. A modern-day pirate minus the sword, Dex had gone through life almost incensed. And she had, from the first,understood.

He’d known who he was from day one, which was rare in their often counterfeit world.

Dex flicked his coat aside and braced his hand on his lean hip in exasperation, and Georgiana realized with a sinking heart that she was still attracted to him. She’d always liked the temperamental ones when the temperamental ones caused all the trouble. She’d often told the ladies of the Duchess Society:if you have the luxury of choice, obtuse men are easier to control.

Candlelight simply loved this clever one, she decided and polished off her champagne.

Once, so had she.

As if an ember had struck his skin, Dex glanced up and over the crowd, easily able to do so when her meager height was a hereditary disadvantage. Of course, he recognized her, his gaze sweeping low, then back. He was shocked; this was evident. His bottom lip slowly parted from the top, his eyes widening enough for her to make out the color: a dark, luscious green matching the mistletoe at his elbow. Even a hint of crimson, like the holly berries sprinkled across every table, flowed into his cheeks.

She was glad for his astonishment. Sophomorically, patentlyglad.

Because, when she turned her back and climbed the flight of stairs to the double salon,shewas the one leaving this time.

It couldn’t be, but he knew it was.

Dex tunneled his hand in his trouser pocket and caressed the chunk of lapis lazuli he’d found on a geological assignment in India last year. Lady Georgiana Collins—he shook his head, no, it was Whitcomb now—had eyes that color if memory served. Thetonhad gone wild over the girl, and those eyes, her first Season. Seizing on the success, her father had promptly auctioned her off to the highest bidder to save his estate. To save his arse, to be blunt. Then Anthony died. And Dex left Derbyshire, banished because he wouldn’t follow his father’s directive to stay and manage the duchy. Dex hadn’t considered stepping in as a friend of the family, proposing a different course of action for Viscount Thimley’s daughter, Georgiana. There were other men of means who’d sought an heir, a beautiful wife. Dexcould have produced a list of younger, kinder candidates with scant effort.

The Earl of Winterbourne had been neither young nor kind.

Nodding to a passing acquaintance, Dex followed the crowd into the salon, memories weighing his step. It was only later, with an ounce of wisdom added to his emotional balance scale, when he’d started to miss her, miss Derbyshire like his very breath, that he recognized he hadn’t been a particularly good friend. To Anthony. To her.

He’d realized a lot of things that were pointless to realize now.

Taking a standing position along the back wall with the men who expected to escape to the billiards room when the musicale began, his gaze tracked Georgiana as she smoothed her skirt and settled gracefully into one of the chairs half-circling the pianoforte. Candlelight from the chandelier washed over her as she fussed with the glass in her hand, trying to decide where to place it. Her hair was darker, honeyed wheat instead of the white blonde of their youth. Her gown was unremarkable, yet the shimmering silk clung to each gentle curve. And he’d gotten a brief look at her face. Beautiful as ever.

When everything had changed, nothing had changed.

A wave of tenderness mingled with annoyance rolled through him. Dex grabbed a tumbler from a passing footman, hardly caring what the cut crystal contained, as drinking provided pointless activity set to keep him from following the disastrous impulse to approach his deceased best friend’s little sister.

He frowned, tapping his finger on the glass. Though he’d never considered Georgie a sister. His displeasure deepened. Dex took a sip of what turned out to be excellent Irish whiskey, closing his eyes to the satisfying burn. Why was he torturing himself? He’d been halfway around the world when he heard about her marriage, no way to stop what was already in motion, although his heart gave a vicious thump as it did whenever he thought of her. About Anthony. About his dying father.

Bloody, blasted Derbyshire, he seethed and tossed back the rest of his whiskey.

“Why the glower, Markham? Christmastide celebration and all. Food, spirits, music, although that forebodes to be repellant. It looks asif Lady Marshall is going to once again insist on punishing us with her talent. The pianoforte is not her friend.”

Dex turned before he reconciled the look on his face. He wasn’t often in polite society, and his feral edges were glinting like a blade in the sun. “It’s Westfield. The duke lives.”

The man at his side, a baron he’d shared a faro table with years ago at White’s, took an instinctive step back. “Apologies. Word in the village is the situation at Markham Manor is dire. I simply assumed…”

Forcing his lips into a smile, Dex waved away the rest of the coxcomb’s justification. “A logical conclusion. No matter. I’ve recently arrived from Italy, a bit short on sleep. My terseness is uncalled for. Ignore me.”Please.

“The Ice Countess,” the coxcomb whispered with a nod in Georgiana’s direction. A brandy-scented dash of air slid from his lips. “Gorgeous but frightening. I wouldn’t go there if I were you. Men are deathly afraid of her. And her dashed society.”