Page 8 of Mistletoe and Christmas Kisses
Goosebumps danced along her skin at his velvet tone and the lurid images flooding her mind. She dropped her head to her hand. “Go away, Tristan, go away and leave me in peace.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to say this, I can’t believe I feel it…” He blew a breath between his teeth. “But I don’t want to. I think I want to talk. About, well,us.”
“There is no us. I’m marrying Ridley, or have you forgotten? The creditors have left me no choice, or virtually none, regarding the timing.”
He twisted a barberry leaf from the bush at his side and traced his finger along the vein. “I have another question. Just one, and I’ll leave you to your plants. Was his kissanythinglike mine?”
She curled her arm around her belly and leaned into her amusement. “You must be joking. That’s not a fair assessment. The man has kissed one woman to your one hundred! An amateur compared to a master.”
“You’re exaggerating the state of affairs. And you don’t need to make excuses for him. Or me. Although in a roundabout way, I suppose your response answers my question.”
Turning to face him, she dropped to rest her bottom on the wide window ledge. The glass was warm from the sun when she leaned against it. A golden ray pocketed the opportunity to trip across Tristan, turning the tips of his hair amber, shooting unneeded brilliance into his startling emerald eyes. It was a crime to be so handsome, it honestly was. “I don’t need kisses that kill, Your Grace. In fact…” She picked at her gown’s ratty hem and shrugged. “I don’t even want them.”
He glanced away, chewing on the inside of his cheek, his jaw ticking in anger. “Is this punishment because I didn’t know about your infatuation? You were too young. I’m glad I didn’t heed Edward’s chatter. God knows what I might have done the first time I got a true look at the grown-up you.”
“I made a promise when you left that I wasn’t going to chase you anymore. In my mind, in my heart. I’m sorry you’re only now finding out about it. Perhaps the timing is inconvenient.”
His gaze came back to hers, the leaf dropping from his hand. “So you’ll marry Ridley with this between us? Without even questioning what nearly happened here? I can’t explain it, either, but I think it mightmeansomething. Maybe we take a step back to reflect?”
She tilted her head in question, truly curious. “Are you offering another option?”
Yanking his fingers through his hair and leaving it in charming spikes, he snapped, “I don’t know what the bloody hell I’m offering. When you so neatly bit my jaw with your lovely little teeth, thought raced from my mind like a runaway stallion. I’m stunned, dumbfounded,brainless, Lady Bellington, because this was supposed to be a tranquil Yorkshire Christmas!”
The sound of a hinge squealing had Tristan taking a fast step back with a muttered ‘brilliant’sliding in beneath his breaths. Countess Milburn and Viscount Ridley stood in the conservatory’s entrance, similar banal expressions on their faces.
Camille retrieved her shears and snipped a length of plumeria. “Certainly, Your Grace. After the holiday, I’ll schedule a consultation to look at Tierney Hall’s gardens. I’m sure, even if it’s only providing replacement shrubs and trees, I can work with your gardener to get the estate in better shape.” She flicked her fingers at him as she would an errand boy as his fist clenched at his side. “Thank you for considering me. You’re right, I do good work.”
“Verygood,” he whispered, gave her a tight bow that said,this isn’t over, and strode through the greenhouse’s back door without speaking to her intended or the countess.
“Uncivilized beast, isn’t he?” Ridley strolled down the center aisle. He didn’t stop to look at anything, passing the plum tree Tristan had taken such delight in without a glance. Camille understood there was meaning in this comparison, but her heart wasn’t up to the tally. “War ruined him, ruined them all. Not fit for society. It’s better if he inhabits his crumbling ducal estate in the next village and never leaves. Plenty of work for two lifetimes getting that place in shape from what I’ve heard, although he has the blunt, lucky man. Town certainly doesn’t need such boorish behavior. We have too much as it is.” He grasped Camille’s hand when he reached her, a proprietary touch bringing none of the fever Tristan’s had. “Darling, we need to talk about this botany business.”
Camille looked him in the eye, refusing to cower. Although her family needed funds, she would provide an heir, so they were negotiating critical elements on both sides. “I’m happy you finally agree it’s a business.”
“What’s this about Mercer hiding out for the rest of his life in the country?” Countess Milburn saddled up next to Ridley with a knowing simper. “Stunning, wealthy dukes are welcome anywhere and everywhere, Ridley dear, and they always will be.” She winked and laid her finger atop the bow of her lip. “Isn’t that right, Lady Camille?”
Camille looked into eyes the exact color of an English oak’s bark and wondered what the countess had seen on her face as the Duke of Mercer stalked from her conservatory?
Heartache? Regret?
Because she’d wanted nothing more than to beg him to stay.
CHAPTER3
WHERE A TREE IS SLAIN AND AN ATTRACTION SUPPRESSED
Camille didn’t want a kiss that killed.
Tristan tugged his gloves on and flexed his fingers inside the supple, black kidskin. Well,hedid. And as of this morning, ten minutes after rising and guzzling his first cup of tea, he’d decided he wasn’t leaving Yorkshire as soon as he’d planned after receiving one.
Not with that honest, raw, beautiful moment they’d shared jabbing him in the gut and shouting,good God, man, go get her.
He’d never been more shocked by his reaction or a woman’s response. A most delicious and unexpected surprise. The two of them, he and Camille, why, they’d been like that preposterous chemistry experiment that had blown up in his face at Eton. Except this had been a successful endeavor, an explosion of the best kind. A sizzle beneath his skin and in his blood he’d been unable to tamp down. The compulsion totouch, without plan, without purpose, had been overwhelming and instantaneous. One moment, he’d been diving into eyes the color of the North Sea, the next, he’d found himself with an armful of delectable, orange-blossom-scented woman.
His dreams the previous night had demonstrated he was on the right track with this kissing business. They’d featured Camille and Camille only, alabaster skin flushed, head thrown back as she cried out his name, legs, long ones he’d noticed while sucking on a plum in her conservatory, wrapped firmly about his waist.Tris, she’d called out. A name a lover had never spoken. He wouldn’t have allowed it.
For the first time in months, dreams of war hadn’t been part of his slumber.
Consequently, here he was, standing in the foyer of Lady Fontaine’s country manor, waiting on a group of people to go on a hunt for a Christmas tree, whateverthatwas, his mind full of a kiss and those dreams—his cock hard as stone beneath buckskin, a circumstance, if it did not soon diminish, he’d be forced to hide.