She nodded.“I know.”
“A fortnight,” he clarified.He wished he could stay longer, but he had given his word to his brother.Chris deserved the chance to bride-hunt without Nicholas’s presence getting in his way.He let out his breath.“My holiday will be over in two days.”
She nodded again.“And then you return home.”
“Yes.”He gazed into her eyes, willing her to understand.“At present, I have no plans to come back to Christmas.”
She tilted her head in confusion.“I know all that.What does it have to do with tonight?”
“I…” His mouth dried.
Blast it, his logical chemist understood perfectly.Hewas the dreamer.
“It has nothing to do with tonight,” he admitted.He lifted her chin with his knuckle and brushed his lips over hers.“Tonight is about us.”
“You smell different.”She nuzzled closer, as though to breathe in his aroma.“I like it.”
He couldn’t help but laugh.“It’s not a perfume.I smell like…”
His laughter cut off with a start.Had he really been about to say, “a blacksmith?”Was hemad?
He was heir presumptive to a dukedom.Society’s most celebrated scoundrel.The only thing a man like him was expected to do with his hands was to—
“You smell like what?”she prompted, her wide brown eyes gazing up at him.
His heart stuttered.He’d come here to make love to her, not to lie to her.If puncturing the bubble of his “dashing rake” persona made him no longer of interest because it spoiled the fantasy…
At least she would know who he truly was.
“The smithy.”He cleared his throat.“I smell like a smithy.I’ve been renting it to use as a workshop.”
She seemed to think this over.“Your hobby is… blacksmithing?”
“Art,” he said hesitantly.“I know it’s foolish mummery, but—”
“The petal,” she breathed.“You made the petal?”
The back of his neck heated.He hadn’t expected her to guess what it was, much less that he’d made it by hand.He gave a short nod.
“It’s not mummery, you daft man.”She put her hands to his chest and pushed him aside.“It’s beautiful.Even prettier than the rock you gave me.You’re very talented.”
He watched, immobile, as she crossed to the mantel.First, to inspect the stone that had reminded him of her eyes, and then the glass petal.
“This rose petal is perfection.Delicate and strong.”She turned it over in her hand.“I can’t believe the papers don’t give as much ink to your art as they do to your bedsport.”
Nicholas was glad of it.He had gone to great lengths to keep the secret.
She glanced up when he didn’t answer.Her eyes widened in shock.“They don’t know?”
“Nobody knows.”He rubbed the back of his neck.“Except Chris.And now you.”
“Nobody knows?”she repeated in disbelief.“Why doesn’t anybody know?”
Because Father’s lack of patience for unmanly behaviors had resulted in some of the worst moments of Nicholas’s childhood.The harsh punishments for each infraction had caused art to intertwine with self-recrimination until he could no longer separate the two.
“Just a lad trying to make his father proud,” he muttered.
Her brow furrowed.“With art?”
