Page 34 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses

She placed her teacup on the desk and traced a brand burned into one of the crates. Munro Geological. Fierce and unexpected pride swept her. Despite her secretly wishing Dex wouldn’t roam so far from home to fulfill his dreams, he’d fulfilled them and then some.

He moved behind her before she realized he’d entered the room, and she went from relaxed to aware in one second.

Reaching around her, he glided his hand over a label glued to the crate. Unexpectedly and with absolute clarity, she imagined his fingers tracing words written on her skin. “We packed this one at the Messel Pit just outside Frankfurt. A bituminous shale mine abundant in fossils. Geologists are called in to safely remove the artifacts, identify and record them, then ship them back to the requested museums. So these are only mine on loan.” He laughed softly, his breath streaking past her cheek, dancing inside her ear. “I try not to pilfer though I’m often tempted.”

“There’s much work to complete,” she murmured, moving away from Dex and the teasing scent stealing into her nostrils with each breath, his heat branding her as surely as he’d branded the crates housing his artifacts. Moving away from the compulsion to turn and walk into his arms, a heedless action undermining her effort to compile a list of suitables, two names written on a folded sheet and tucked beside the lapis in her bodice pocket.

Her foolish wager, her promise to help a family friend find his duchess.

The woman who would warm Dex’s bed, share his laughter and his wisdom, his stubbornness and his joy, have his children, things Georgiana had once wanted. Impossible dreams now. Her shameful marriage had ruined the chance for her to enter into an agreement like that ever again.

The Ice Countess had settled into a state of numb comfort. She couldn’t wake herself. Wouldn’t wake herself. Not when it had taken this long to find a glimmer of happiness. When Dexter Munro, heir to the Duke of Markham, by fate and pledge and duty, had no choice in the matter. Marry, he must. Be awake he must, while she would go on sleeping.

With a grunt, he hefted a crate atop his shoulder, the muscles in his arms, covered in nothing but a layer of fine cotton, flexing. “We’ll start the adventure in Germany before moving to Denmark. For lunch, a winter picnic is called for, I think. Remember when we used to hold those in this very room? Spread out on a blanket before the fire, eating until our bellies ached. Anthony always liked those.”

A picnic. With Dex. In her favorite room in the house. With her favoritepersonon the planet. “I’m to help you categorize your pieces then?” she asked breathlessly, turning the conversation to a topic she could manage, her heart plummeting to her knees.

He paused halfway across the room, tipped a grin at her. “If you wouldn’t mind. I need to note the scientific names for each, but my spelling is appalling. As I recall, you were exceptionally talented in Latin when it was bollocks to me. I’m happy to provide amusing, even embarrassing, tales of how I acquired each piece.”

She shrugged, dusting her damp boot through the dust on the floor. Markham Manor needed a woman’s touch and better supervision of the servants, she concluded, reminding her of the blasted list in her pocket. Someone experienced in household management mentally added to the future-duchess wish list. “Father was generous in allowing me to sit with Anthony’s language tutor. I can make notes for you. Be your assistant today, should you need one.”

He wrestled the crate to the floor and dropped to his haunches beside it. “Exactly what I need,” he murmured so quietly she almost missed it. Reaching beneath the desk, he slid a crowbar out. “This spot is the keyhole to the kingdom,” he said and jammed the thin metal edge between a gap in the wood, and with a violent twist, sent the crate’s lid tumbling.

She got lost watching him unpack his treasures, separating each parcel from straw with reverent handling and mumbled observations she had no idea how to interpret. Beautiful hands, sleek wrists, a dusting of dark hair climbing into his rolled sleeve. Broad shoulders, wide chest, lean hips, long legs, he was built like a man who used his body. He should’ve looked disheveled, snow-moist and mussed, covered in grime and bits of straw, when instead he looked utterly appealing. The lit taper on the desk highlighting the auburn streaks in his hair, flooding his eyes with sparks of light. Eyes full of captivation and delight over his possessions.

She went to her knee beside him, fascinated because he was. He’d laid the fossils in a neat line on a length of tarp. “This one,” she pointed, fearing to touch, “has color.”

Dex smiled, tapping the fossil she’d pointed to. “A jewel beetle. The pigment is the exoskeleton showing. Quite unique, that. Buprestidae, which I can say but not spell. Which is where you come in.” He made a motion as if to write, his smile growing.

“Oh!” She scampered to her feet, having forgotten about playing assistant geologist.

“My folio is on the desk. A sharpened quill. Fresh ink. Notecards we can attach to each specimen. Twine and scissors.”

“You’re prepared,” she said, gathering the materials.

“I’m a man of science. I like details. I like strategizing.” He unpacked the last specimen and shoved the crate aside. “You should also know this about me. Once I get an idea in my mind, it rarely leaves. And more than anything, I like to win.”

Georgiana paused, dabbing at a smear of ink on her palm. “So, you’re stubborn and competitive. You didn’t have to tell me, those traits I recall,” she said dryly and dropped to a squat, placing the materials in a row as neat as his line of fossils. “Are we fighting? With talk of winning and such.”

“Sometimes winning has nothing to do with fighting, Georgie girl,” he returned with an enigmatic expression. Then he shook his head as if amused by them both, sending his hair in a wild tumble about his face.

She moved before she thought to stop herself, brushing the overlong strands from his eyes. They were the color of burnt honey against her skin. Lingering, she let her fingers graze his temple, his cheek, the underside of his jaw. “No need to hide that face,” she said as they stared, knees touching, breath mingling. His skin smelled like winter. Charred wood and damp frost and cool sunlight. Stunned, she laughed and dropped her hand, making light of the action when her awareness had constricted to a pinpoint of sensation sitting right beneath her heart.

Silent but vigilant, Dex blinked, reached for the scissors, snipped a length of twine, and turned, presenting his back and the cord. “Tie it. It’s what I do when it’s gotten too long, and I’m without a barber. I’ll have Chauncey trim it later. He has a steady hand when the situation calls for one, which in the remote places we’ve traveled, it often has.”

“I’m guessing you’re the only geologist who travels with a valet.”

“Quite right.” He dipped his head, patient, controlled,persistent. His request felt like a dare, an intimate and personal one. A task a wife completed for her husband, a woman for her lover. Georgiana lifted her hand, watched it tremble. Pulled her fingers into a tight fist, released, then sank them into his hair. Thick, silken, as she’d imagined. Breathing in his scent, she placed the twine between her teeth, using her other hand to gather the strands into a neat bind.

His hand went to the rug, fingers spread as he braced himself. A raw gasp snaked through his teeth, she heard it, and he made no effort to keep her from hearing it. His shoulders lifted, his biceps hardening with the effort. Parts of her body that had lain dormant for years aroused with his choked breath. He was affected; she was overwhelmed. If Dex turned, pushed her to the floor, and climbed atop her, she’d let him. Welcome him, despite her fragile heart, despite her fears, despite her suspicion that their chance at love had passed.

This level of desire was a creature she’d never experienced nor soothed.

Soothing desire wasn’t what she was here for.

Swallowing, she rocked back on her heels. Tucked her finger in her bodice pocket and worked the suitables list free. It was a hammer blow of a response, nothing subtle about it, panic driving the undertaking. The lapis stone he’d given her escaped with the list and tumbled to the floor, landing right by the toe of his dirty boot. Her cheeks lit, her palms going damp.Just bloody perfect.

Slowly, carefully, Dex covered the stone with his hand.