“Shackled?” He stubbed out the glowing end of his cigar in the snow lining a nearby statue of Apollo. “A strong choice of words, love.”
“Helplessly tied,” she suggested. “Chained. Inextricably bound. Which would you prefer, my lord?”
“I would prefer for you to call me Rand,” he said, leaving the cigar abandoned at the god’s feet.
She did not retreat, but held her ground. A cold wind blew, and she shivered again. He placed his hands on her upper arms. Her wrap was not nearly thick enough to weather the cold.
“Bloody hell, Grace, what are you doing out here without a proper pelisse?” He shrugged out of his coat and placed it over her shoulders.
Another gust of wind bit through his shirtsleeves, but he did not give a damn.
“I did not think to be out here long,” she said. “I was overheated after the ball, and I could not sleep. I thought to get some restoring air, but then I saw you out here, standing alone beneath the moon.”
“And you came to me,” he concluded, warmth hitting him somewhere in the vicinity of his heart.
“I saw something glowing,” she said. “I thought you were the devil himself. Do take your coat back, Aylesford. You’ll catch your death if you do not take care.”
The minx.
“You knew it was I when you came to me,” he pressed, needing, for reasons he had no wish to examine, to hear her make the admission. “And as a gentleman, I insist you keep the coat on. I cannot have my betrothed contracting a lung infection.”
“I knew it was you,” she admitted softly. “You must be cold, my lord. Please, do take back the coat at once.”
He had on gloves, a hat. But the wind was indeed beginning to cut through the wine-soaked warmth permeating his body. Then again, perhaps not all the warmth was down to the negus he had swilled at the ball. Likely, it had far more to do with the alluring woman before him.
He was still stroking her arms, he realized. She wore no hat, and with the next burst of wind came a torrent of snow flurries. Some of them caught in her auburn curls, glistening like tiny stars fallen from the heavens.
“Let us go inside,” he said. “The weather is worsening.”
“In a moment,” she said, her voice hushed, her face upturned. “It is beautiful, is it not?”
“It is,” he agreed, swallowing. But he was speaking about far more than the snow.
Flakes swirled around them in the darkness, gently falling. Kissing his cheeks, his nose. One landed on his lip. Gentle stings.
“Almost magical,” she whispered.
Any good intentions he might have had fled in that moment.
If he did not take her mouth with his, then and there, he would surely die.
“Grace.” Her name was torn from him. A warning.
“My lord?” Her gloved hands had come to rest on his shoulders.
She was in his arms. Where she belonged.
He struck that last thought away.
“I am going to kiss you,” he told her.
Miss Grace Winter did not say a thing. Instead, she wound her arms around his neck and tugged his head down to hers.
Lord Aylesford’s mouthwas on hers, his smooth, warm lips claiming. Sensation burst open. There was the cold of the night, the snowflakes falling all around them. The heat of his kiss. Fire licking through her.
He tasted of spiced negus and tobacco. Of sin and the forbidden. Dangerous and delicious.
All her good sense warned her to stop. Reminded her that kissing a rake like Aylesford could only lead to ruination. That she should not have sought him out in the moonlight. That they could be caught, and being caught was a risk far too ruinous to take.
