“Ready?”asked Geoffrey.
Donovan pretended to lift a glass of champagne.“To a holiday to remember.”
Geoffrey touched his raised knuckles to Donovan’s, then stepped inside the labyrinth.
Donovan ran past him as fast as he could, as if he had any idea which way he was going.He took a left at random, then a right, then another left—then burst out laughing when he found himself at a dead end, in a hedgerow-lined dead end no larger than a water closet.
“Gorgeous,” said Geoffrey, stroking the faint stubble on his strong chin.He glanced about narrow confines like a man admiring a fine painting in a museum.“I particularly like the use of green in this space.It seems more than an artistic flair, as though the designer was trying to convey a message.A message like, ‘You two bumble-brains have been in this labyrinth for two minutes, and you’re already lost.’”
Donovan grinned and backed out of the opening.“Race you to the next wrong turn.”
He took off running without giving Geoffrey an opportunity to reply.Five lefts and four rights later, they burst shoulder-to-shoulder into another dead-end stub of the labyrinth.
“We’re still lost,” Donovan admitted.“But significantly further than before.”
Geoffrey smiled back at him.“There’s no one else I’d rather be lost with.In fact, I think it is fair to say…”
But the valet trailed off rather than explain his thought, choosing instead to gaze down at Donovan with a shadowed face.
Gazed down!At Donovan!Who measured six feet in his bare feet.An unheard-of height.He was the giant of Parliament, towering over all the other peers like a lamp post amongst candlesticks.
Donovan had long suspected that Geoffrey’s height was the reason Donovan’s father had hired him as valet to his gangly son.All of the rest of the required characteristics of a valet would pale next to the simple question of being able toreachthe future duke’s cravat.
Whatever his father’s reasons for selecting Geoffrey, Donovan had been grateful from the very first.As Sorcha had noted, the valet was indeed singularly pleasant to look at.But Geoffrey was more than handsome.He was kind, and caring, and funny.Easygoing more often than not, yet stern when Donovan needed it.Strong as an ox and gentler than a lamb.Up for anything, from badly played chess to well-studied musical instruments.Implacable, when it came to the quality of a good shave or the inadvisability of a particularly disastrous haircut.
As Donovan’s constant companion for twenty years, they’d spent more time together than most husbands and wives.And yet… they were rarely alone together outside of Donovan’s private apartments.And never as equals.
Donovan had stood in front of Geoffrey, as close as this, thousands of times before.In arm’s reach of temptation.And yet it had never felt so ripe and succulent.Like a plump grape just bursting with sweet juices, waiting to be tasted.The moment was electric with possibility and promise.
He lifted his hand and reached out to smooth an invisible wrinkle from Geoffrey’s immaculate lapel.
But Donovan’s fingertips halted a hair’s-breadth away from making contact.
It was always Geoffrey who touched him, never the other way around.It was the only way contact was allowed at all.Condoned.Overlooked.Forgotten.Meaningless, save to the boy who had yearned to touch in return.Who had grown into a man that had never lost that longing.A man who wanted nothing more than to close this gap between them.
“Why do you hesitate?”Geoffrey asked, his voice husky.
Donovan stared at his trembling hand, poised just above Geoffrey’s barrel chest.
“How can I press forward?”he managed, neither removing his hand nor giving in to desire.
“How can you not?”Geoffrey asked softly.
Donovan wrenched his hand back to his side.“I am a duke.”
“And I am a valet.For thirteen more days.”Geoffrey shrugged his big shoulders.
“I am a duke always and forever.”
“I am amanalways and forever.”
“As am I,” Donovan burst out.“That is the problem.”
“Not to me.”Geoffrey’s gaze was frank.“Who cares?”
“Everyone cares!”
“I don’t.I’ve no interest in kissing everyone.”
