Page 9 of His Wicked Little Christmas

“Friendship. Belonging. Derbyshire.” She blew out a breath, unableto articulate what she meant, what she wanted, what she dreaded, what shefeared. Funny, when she’d asked him to tell her these things about himself. “I don’t know. All of this. I’ve been alone for so long I’m used to it. Coming back here has been like the first sweep of sunlight after winter. Addictive and startling. And in a way, uncomfortable. I’m having trouble seeing through the glare.”

Didn’t he know?

She was made of ice and wasn’t sure she wanted to melt.

Shaking his head, Dex pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, seeming to realize a task he’d assumed would be easy wasn’t going to be easy at all. “You’ve always had my friendship.” Turning to face her, he unwrapped her clenched fist, dropped the lapis into her palm, and sealed her fingers around it. “It’s entirely my fault you felt you lost it. And we must start somewhere.”

“Start what?” she whispered, a tendril of unease threading through her voice.

He rose, looking down at her for a charged moment. “I’ll go over your list of suitables, Georgie. Share my vision for the perfect duchess.”

“I never promised per?—”

“But first, we’re going to have an adventure. The best I could construct in the middle of a snowstorm. As I mentioned, we’ll start with travel to Germany and Austria,” he said, crossing the room to the map tacked on the wall. He tapped India with his knuckle. “Maybe, before luncheon, we’ll even dip our toe into Asia. Then, over whatever delicacies my kitchen staff is inspired to provide for us, I’ll tell you about the fever in Delhi that nearly killed me, the viscount’s daughter in Shanghai who brandished a knife and thought to force my hand, my plans to survey parts of Scotland and Wales for a government initiative, which would keep me closer to home for the next year or two. My hopes for Munro Geological and how I pray my plans align with my duty to the dukedom. I’ll tell you why I left Derbyshire, why I felt I had to. You want to know me, know me. But I get the same in return. Discussions, like we had as children.”

“Dex, when we were children, when we were friends, we talked about everything.”

He shrugged and tapped the map again, closer to home this time. “Okay.”

She squeezed the lapis, pressing a rough edge into her skin. “You don’t fight fairly,” she said, soundly defeated and utterly euphoric, proving she was, indeed, losing her mind.

He laughed, shaking the neat snatch of hair tied with twine. “When you used to fight dirty. I took more than one fist to the face as I recall. A boot kick to the shins. Where is that courageous hellion, I wonder?”

She’s right here, Georgiana wanted to say, hiding beneath the Ice Countess.

Instead, she slipped the lapis in her pocket, settled Dex’s folio on her knees, dipped the quill, and wroteBuprestidaein neat script on the page. She swept the feathered end over the glowing beetle fossil. “Let’s start with this one, shall we?”

His only reply was a brilliant smile and a teasing wink as he settled in beside her.

And she realized she was in deep trouble.

Chapter Five

Friend.

Dex rolled on to his back before the hearth, the glass of whiskey he’d devoured during his late luncheon with Georgie—and the second he was diligently consuming—giving him a lovely internal glow. He steadied the tumbler on his belly and turned his head toward the brocade settee where she lay sleeping.

Her flaxen hair had come loose from its mooring and was scattered about her face. Her hand was curled in a tight fist, her cheek resting atop it. Lips, very tempting ones he’d spent much of the morning staring at, parted with the lightest, most delicate breaths slipping free. Her breasts had done a suggestive gravitational shift against her rounded bodice, bringing a new level of discomfort to the afternoon, evidence of which he’d struggled to hide from the serving maid, Gertrude, who sat snoring in an armchair in the corner. A nod to decorum his majordomo, Wilkes, on staff since Dex was a boy, had insisted upon with an impermeable scowl.

When Wilkes looked at Georgie, he saw the girl with a ragged hem and skinned elbows who’d requested he not tell her father she’d been climbing the elm out back or wading through water in a limestone cave or riding a horse astride.

Dex saw her in that way, too. In part. At times.

But mostly this day, he’d seen a woman looking back at him with the girl’s eyes. The worst possible mix. The girl he’d loved and the woman he wanted.

The worst possible mix was going to be furious.

Because hedidn’tplay fair.

He’d plied her with wine while explaining the stratification of igneous rock, sending her into a dispassionate, foxed trance. Because he’d known if he waited another hour, maybe two, they couldn’t safely travel the roads. The snowstorm beyond the library window was positively ferocious.

She was here to stay at least until tomorrow.

His time was running out, therefore he’d had to make a move, and Dexter Munro didn’t fear making moves.

Georgie wanted to host a dinner party to help him find a duchess.

Tomorrow.