Page 6 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses
So she waded in deeper and shared her lone passion with a duke. A walking tour of her grandfather’s conservatory. Her books, drawings, soil, fertilizer, tools. Potted experiments in cross-pollination. Efforts to grow species unaccustomed to Yorkshire. She shared as she would with another botanist as they walked the rows, from one long end of the musty building to the other. She shared in a way Ridley had never asked her to. In a way no one had asked her. It was quite something to open your heart and allow the private pieces to tumble out for casual viewing.
Ignoring the frisson of delight in her belly, she focused instead on the frisson of delight in hermind.
When she finished, they stood by the side door, where she kept the shrubs ready for delivery to Longleat’s garden. Dusting her hands together, she focused on looking anywhere but at Tristan, unsure what to say to get him trotting back to the house and away from her.
“You’re too good for Ridley. Too intelligent, too accomplished, tooeverything. You must know this.”
Her head snapped up. The blasted man was fiddling with an azalea she’d had to nurse back to health without a hint of remorse for making such a bold statement. “How dare you say such a thing!”
“Why shouldn’t I dare? Someone has to. Your aunt seems mute on the subject. And Edward doesn’t appear to be involved. Did he agree to this?”
“My brother is in London, newly married himself, managing his affairs. Money is, unfortunately, scarce for him as well. I’m not letting Longleat leave this family when I can step in and save it. I wasn’t forced into this arrangement. I made my own choice. Ridley wasmychoice.”
“Somehow, Princess, that makes it worse.”
“Stop calling me that.” Camille strode past him, heading for the plumeria she needed to get back to pruning. “Hypocrite. As if you’d recognize a suitable duchess if you were hit atop the head with her. I can’t wait to see who you select for the magnanimous position, Your Grace. Let me row my boat, will you?”
After a prolonged silence, Camille looked back to find him frowning as he knocked his boot against a wooden cart currently housing straw to be spread about the estate. “Don’t tell me you’ve never considered it, Tris. You must deliver an heir someday. You’re thirty now or thereabouts. It’s time.”
He paused, and she realized she’d uttered a nickname only her brother had used. It brought them closer than they’d ever been—with both of them finally of an age to do something about it.
“Thirty-one, June first.” He took the last bite of plum with little enthusiasm. “And…I’ve thought about it. Running for my life through muddy fields in Belgium, I thought about a lot of things.”
“Well, there. That’s good. You’re ready,” she said and snipped the end of a plumeria branch off with more force than required, hating every suitable woman in England. “Excellent.”
Tristan glanced from her hands to her face with an assessing look that sent a quiver of trepidation through her. His smile started small but grew as the seconds slipped between them, the sigh of the wind against greenhouse glass the only sound besides their hushed breaths.
“Oh, no.” She shook her shears at him, a stabbing get-back motion. “I don’t care who you pick. It’s none of my affair. Nothing, nothing at all, to do with me. I’m taken, my decision made. Remember us rowing our own boats.”
With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the plum pit into the rubbish bin in the corner and advanced on her. “You know, once upon a time, Edward believed you rather fancied me.” He scrubbed his wrist across his lips, his grin disappearing behind his starched sleeve. “Of course, I was too old for you, already away at Cambridge. What is it between us? Nine years?”
Camille bumped back into the bench, rocking it into the wall. “Eight.”
He danced his fingers over a gerbera leaf, a tea rose’s stem. “Even better.”
“There is no better,” she rushed out as he closed in on her. “There’s nothing.”
He halted before her, trying mightily to contain his amusement, but his mouth kept turning up. She ground her teeth and dug her bootheel into the stone floor. What amused him, she’d love to know.
“How did you test old Ridley anyway?”
“Test? What test?”
Gingerly removing the shears from her hand, Tristan laid them aside and pressed his lips together, cutting hideously appealing groves beneath his cheeks.Who should have a face such as this and it not be carved in marble, she wondered furiously? “A kiss. Was that it? To decide if Ridley was the man for you. It must have been a good one. Surprising, because he doesn’t seem the persuasive type.” He trailed his index finger along her cheek and into her hair. “A spiderweb.” With a light tug, he pulled the silken thread out and flicked it loose—and her knees went weak with yearning.
She watched it flutter to the ground with an escalating sense of dread.
“There was no kiss,” she whispered, her voice frayed with a needful edge he was not likely to miss. She exhaled softly, defeated. “No good kiss.” Rather, there’d only been a mediocre one. No, two. A mediocretwo. But admitting this was like throwing a gauntlet of some sort at Tristan’s feet when he already had the cunning look of a man trying to solve a puzzle.
He tipped her chin high with a laugh that sent a plum-scented puff sliding across her cheek. “I notice you didn’t deny the fancying me rumor, Princess.”
She swayed, placing her hand on his chest to steady herself. His placid expression disguised his violent heartbeat.
The theory ripped through her like a harrowing winter gust.He’s affected by me, too.
Finally.
“What’s that look?” He moved to frame the nape of her neck, stepped in, knee bumping hers, his other hand going to her waist, gently pulling her in without a hint of ownership. Loss of control she’d have fought. His pupils flared, flooding his eyes black. “It almost looks like triumph.” He leaned in as his lids fluttered. “Now, why is that?”