Rathborne
“Still reading?”
Jumping in surprise, Claire looked up to find Jonathan before her. “I’ve just finished.”
“And?”
“I’m glad you showed them to me. Thank you.” Sighing, she leaned back in her chair. “I suppose I shall have to thank Noah, too. Eventually. After I’ve boxed his ears for keeping me in the dark.”
Jonathan’s wicked half-smile made another appearance (and Claire’s heart turned over). “His methods may have been a bit underhanded, but I daresay he had your best interests at heart.”
“Yes, yes,” she said, flapping her hands at Jonathan. “You’ve made your point. I’ll make friends with him again, never fear.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” Catching one of her hands, he drew her to her feet. “May I escort you in for dinner, madam?”
She didn’t answer right away, for she’d found herself quite close to him. Close enough for his solid, wide-shouldered form to fill her vision, for his irresistible woodland-deity scent to fill her nose. Her eyes were level with his mouth, its contours emphasized in the play of the firelight.
Gazing up into his face for a moment—or an hour—she could not but marvel at the miracle of having him here.
Was this real?
After all this time, was he truly hers?
Claire watched his eyes darken, betraying a hint of the desperate, overpowering desire he’d shown her in the sleigh. She felt suddenly shy, for she’d never seen this sort of intensity in the old Jonathan. The old Jonathan never let himself get carried away—was never an inch less than the perfect gentleman.
Which was one of the things she loved about him. But there was something to this new Jonathan… This Jonathan who growled commands and faced his (admittedly terrifying) mother without flinching; who had a rawness about him, a hunger, a deeper humanity peeping through his duke’s veneer; who seemed oftentimes (present moment included) a mere word or touch away from discarding the veneer altogether, dragging Claire into his arms, tearing the clothes from her body…
On impulse she raised a hand to his silky hair.
But he caught her wrist, just as he had last night in the kitchen. “Claire,” he growled.
“What?” She fluttered innocent lashes. “Didn’t you realize we’re standing under the mistletoe?”
Scowling up at the sprig that dangled from the chandelier, he edged them out from under it. “Let’s not do that here.”
“Why not?” She pouted, hoping he might growl at her some more.
“Because if you touch me like that…” He made a wry face. “Well, surely you recall what nearly happened in the sleigh.”
She surely did. She found herself licking her lips. “Let’s skip dinner and sneak upstairs.”
He groaned. “You think we can sneak anywhere in a house so full of servants and guests? Everyone will know what we’re doing.”
“I don’t care.”
“Your brother will. Are you trying to make me duel him?”
Scarcely listening, she reached for him with the other hand. He caught that wrist too, and she cursed his quick reflexes.
“Wait a few hours,” he bid her with laughing eyes, and obliged her to obey by tucking both her hands around his arm. He pinned them there with just one of his own (considerably larger) hands. “I’ll come to you tonight, after everyone’s gone to bed.”
“But that’s hours from now,” she grumbled.
He was already propelling her toward the library. Though she submitted to his manhandling with good grace (or rather, secret relish) she was by no means resigned to the rest of his dictates. But she kept her silence at present, busy devising a method of persuasion.
For Jonathan’s part, he looked forward to a long and languid dîner à deux, to be spent chiefly in catching one another up on the past year, and how they’d each frittered it away in pining for the other. And though Claire didn’t precisely thwart his plan, she seemed to have some parallel plan of her own.
For while she happily partook of both the fare and the conversation, her manner was anything but languid. She didn’t exactly rush. But she ate with efficiency and conversed with divided attention, as though some vital concern were occupying her mind.
