“I could get used to this,” Geoffrey teased.
He seemed more than suitable for it.He was a natural.
Donovan, on the other hand, was more overlooked by the day.If the knack of tying a fashionable cravat was outside his capabilities, shaving his own face proved positively impossible.As for wrinkles… All three of the coats Donovan had brought now displayed a mortifying iron-shaped singe in the rear.
While his valet looked like a prince, the duke looked like a pauper.He had become so unrecognizable that even his own brother had needed a second glance when they’d passed on the stairwell.At this rate, Donovan wouldn’t catch a bride without kidnapping one.
Not that he was looking.He’d had eyes for no one but Geoffrey since the moment the valet had waltzed into his life.The effect was thousandfold, now that they had an intimate secret.Every day brought more kisses.
And every day brought them closer to the holiday coming to an end.
Friday came quickly.Only one day remained.To his utter surprise, Donovan truly enjoyed the May Day festival.He and Geoffrey attended every event, together, developing over the course of the short week a secret language in which they could communicate thoughts and reactions with the slightest tic of an eyebrow or quirk of the lips.
Or perhaps they’d developed this rapport over the past twenty years.With most of their previous interactions taking place alone in Donovan’s private chambers, there had been no watching crowd, and therefore no particular need for subtlety.
And yet, every thought, every action, every touch had been drenched in subtlety and secrets.Two decades of unvoiced longing, hidden behind an immobile brow or the firm set of the lips, belying the vast stores of passion bubbling with the urge to break free.
Atop the pedestrian bridge curving over the duck-filled pond in the center of the labyrinth, Donovan smiled over at Geoffrey.Other merrymakers clogged the bridge and milled around the pond, sailing paper boats and tossing breadcrumbs at ducklings.
Geoffrey consulted his pocket watch.“That was our best time yet.”
“I knew we could do it.”
He and Geoffrey had forged this path every day for a week, and could now make their way to many of the artfully hidden follies without a single wrong turn.
Not that this hard-earned knowledge stopped them from taking wrong turns onpurpose, dipping into dead-ends at strategic moments to steal a quick kiss.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”Donovan asked.
Geoffrey’s eyes heated.“Make the return take twice as long?”
“Thrice.”
They threaded through the crowd and loped across the garden to the hedgerows, their shoulders brushing as they ducked back into the shadowy coolness of the tall labyrinth.
Now that the truth was out in the open between them… Now that the pining was no longer clandestine, but rather reciprocated and acted upon…Allordinary tasks required double or triple the time.
A kiss accompanied every new fold of the cravat, every button penetrating its hole, every swipe of the razor—leaving Geoffrey with bits of white froth from shaving soaps clinging to his lips and chin.
As to the festival, well.Despite attending every event without fail, Donovan still hadn’t the least notion who had been chosen as this year’s attendants.It was the company that made the holiday so fine, not their surroundings.He suspected he could attend a symposium on horse manure with Geoffrey at his side and enjoy every minute of it.
But Marrywell was not real life.A small part of Donovan was constantly aware that his holiday here was just that: a welcome but short-lived respite from the world and the realities and the duties he must soon return to.A flash of lightning, bright and fleeting.
“Will we be attending tonight’s farewell ball?”Geoffrey asked when at last they emerged from the hedgerow labyrinth.
Donovan assented.Not just because his brother and sister-in-law would be in attendance and expect to see the duke among the crush, but also because Donovan had promised himself not to miss sharing a single activity with Geoffrey.
“Will you be dancing?”Geoffrey asked.
Donovan made a face.If he could not waltz with Geoffrey, then he would not dance with anyone.
“There will be a surplus of beautiful women to choose from,” Geoffrey reminded him with a remarkably serious expression.
“If you say so,” Donovan muttered.
Although Geoffrey frequently remarked upon the presence of this beauty or that, Donovan had eyes for no one but Geoffrey.No other form, man or woman, could hold a candle.
An insidious thought occurred to him.“Willyoube dancing tonight?”
