Nicholas didn’t say a word.
She tilted her head toward his and blinked to discover his hooded gaze on her, rather than the heavens.Her heart pounded.
They were standing too close.Their mouths were now inches apart.If he lowered his head or she rose on her toes, their lips could touch.
Her entire body tingled with proximity and awareness.She forgot about the stars, the castle, the cold.Her body had never felt warmer.Every molecule felt feverishly alive.
She needed to regain perspective posthaste.
Her rapid heartbeat was the cause of her elevated core temperature, she reminded herself.Her body’s reaction to the signs ofDuchess’s success.Not to Nicholas.
But it was no use.Of course it was him.Frozen, just like her.Not from cold, but from heat.The look in his eyes said he’d very much like to kiss her.That he was considering it even still.That he was as surprised as she was, but the shock had not extinguished the desire.She held her breath and waited.
Had his head lowered a tiny fraction?Were their mouths a little closer than they were before?
There was nothing Penelope wanted more than to rise up on her toes in order to give him easier access.To give him a sign.Give him—
“Do you see Cassiopeia?”Christopher called out from somewhere up ahead.“She is still a goddess of beauty.”
The moment shattered.Penelope and Nicholas jerked their faces away from each other and up toward the sky as if nothing had happened.
Something had definitely happened.
Penelope’s heart would not stop racing.It was her first almost-kiss.Duchesswas working!Her breath caught.If his brother hadn’t been a few yards ahead, if they hadn’t been standing within sight of the castle, Nicholas might have lowered his mouth to hers and kissed her.
That was the next step, then.An almost-kiss wasn’t the same as a kiss.She would adjust the formula and try again.If Nicholas kissed her—for no reason at all, other than wanting to kiss her—Duchesswould be a success.She was almost there.
Her entire body thrilled at being so close to winning.Or maybe it thrilled at still being flush against the warm side of the handsome rake who had almost kissed her.
Her fingers still trembled where they curved about his arm.Her chest tightened.Devil take it, she was having a physical reaction!Duchesswas designed to work on men, not women, which meant her body was responding this way because of… Nicholas.
Drat.She gritted her teeth.His biology must be a match for hers.Or perhaps his unique chemistry made him a universal attractor to women.She sighed.No wonder he was such a successful rake.
No matter.She could not allow emotion to get in the way of science.She would have to stay strong.Stoic.Tonight’s marginal success would be an incremental tally in her notebook, and nothing more.
Chapter 7
Nicholas’s fingers were still on the knocker when the door swung open.
Miss Mitchell smiled at him approvingly.“You’re early.”
He raised his brows.“Did we agree on a time?”
“I’ll be in the kitchen.”Her eyes twinkled at him before she disappeared from view.
He stepped inside the house and shut the door behind him.For the first time since arriving in Christmas, he had no need to stomp the snow from his feet before entering.Today was almost warm, and much of the snow had melted from the streets and walkways.
He hung his hat and coat on the rack near the door and crossed over to the mantel.No biscuits awaited, but from the rich, cinnamon-sugar smell of the cottage, they would be arriving at any moment.
Nicholas grinned.Miss Mitchell was right.He was early.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a delicate glass disc in the shape of a flower petal.He had made it just that morning.He turned it over in his hand.
On its own, it didn’t look like much.Certainly nothing like the flower he’d modeled it after.The smooth slip of glass could be a curl of anything.A scrap of nothing.Or a single glass petal.He placed it on the mantel where a saucer of biscuits had stood once before.
The glass disc was scarcely visible from a distance.A nearly invisible echo of the rose he’d brought and tossed aside because its intended recipient held no interest in meaningless gifts.Nicholas agreed.She deserved something genuine.
Glass was better than a rose.It didn’t need water, wouldn’t wilt, wasn’t slowly dying after being cut off from its roots so that its beauty might be appreciated from the comfort of one’s home.
