She was ready. Oh, was she ever ready.
Her hair was piled atop her head with little tendrils falling artfully from each side to invite his fingers to touch. Her half-dress of translucent pearl covered a shell of shimmering turquoise beneath. He longed to slide his hands betwixt the gauze and the satin, to pull her to him and cover her mouth with his.
Instead, he offered his elbow as was polite and escorted her into the front drawing room. From the bustle and noise, it appeared half the adult villagers had gathered to eradicate Jack’s wine supply rather than to sing door-to-door.
Was it any wonder he loved this town?
When at last his neighbors were sufficiently tipsy from Jack’s wassail, they trooped out the door and into the street en masse, in search of the night’s first victims.
“Have you gone wassailing before?” he asked Désirée.
She shook her head. “I know everyone from other things.”
They certainly knew her. Although the le Ducs tended to keep to themselves, they were one of the most infamous families in Cressmouth. Those with carriages had had this or that fixed at the smithy, buteveryonehad seen them race their nimble phaeton through the woods, over streams, up and down the main hill.
Might as well paint a French flag on the bonnet,the baker had once said.Everyone knows that racer belongs to the le Ducs.
Sour grapes, Jack presumed. To his knowledge, that phaeton had never been bested.
The group linked arms at doorstep after doorstep, belting out one slurred rendition ofThe Twelve Days of Christmasafter another, in exchange for more wassail that they definitely did not need. It might only be September, but Christmas had definitely arrived in Cressmouth, and it was indeed the most wonderful time of the year.
Désirée shamelessly making up English-sounding syllables to the verses she didn’t know—which appeared to be most of them—had Jack grinning at her most of the night instead of paying attention to his surroundings.
Someone else might have opted not to join in the fun, he realized. Not Désirée. She accepted every challenge head on and played to win. Joyfully. This would go down in history as one of his friends’ favorite caroling escapades yet.
When at last the caroling came to an end, Jack doubted he and Désirée needed any more wine, but he invited her into the cellar anyway. They left the bottles on their shelves and tumbled into the pair of plush chairs by the fire.
“Admit it,” he said. “You’ll miss singing drunkenly to songs you’ve never heard of when you return to France.”
She giggled and gave aWho, me?shrug. “Sometimes my feelings about returning to France are very complicated. And my feelings on having conflicted feelings are just as complicated.”
He lifted her hand in his. “How do you feel about Cressmouth?”
“I feel in conflict,” she admitted. “It’s complicated when you don’t quite fit in anywhere.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked in surprise. “You fit ineverywhere. The jeweler was happy to see you, the dairy maid was happy to see you, the local reporter was happy to see you, the stud farmer was happy to see you, the—”
She shoved his shoulder to get him to stop. “That is because everyone in Cressmouth is friendly. And maybe a little drunk.”
“A wee bit,” Jack conceded.
Certainly that explained why he was waxing maudlin over the reminder that Désirée wouldn’t just stop being his children’s governess—she’d cease being part of their lives altogether. She wasn’t moving out of the village. She was leaving the country. For good.
“One kiss,” he said as he pulled her out of her chair and onto his lap. “One kiss, and we both go upstairs to our separate bedchambers and definitely don’t spend the rest of the night thinking about what might have happened if we hadn’t cleaved to our extremely professional demarcation lines.”
“Seems reasonable.” She bit her lip. “One kiss.”
It wasn’t one kiss. It could never be. The moment his lips touched hers, his soul was lost, surrendering to the moment and the nectar of her kiss. She tasted like wassail and mischievousness, of Christmas carols and long winter nights. Her sweet embrace heated him more thoroughly than any parlor fire. He was aflame, and she his only cure.
He would have kissed her into midnight, into dawn, into next week, had that been an option available to them. He would never leave this cellar if it meant he also need not ever leave her arms. To kiss her was to surrender tiny pieces of his armor. If they did not stop soon, she would strip every defense away and reveal him for what he was:
A man who would give his entire kingdom for one more kiss.
