Miss Christabella Winter was tickling him.Tickling him, by God.
He caught her wrists, removing her hands from his person, and found his voice at last. “Are you mad, woman?”
“Areyoumad, Your Grace?” she returned, casting a glance toward his hands, still gripping her wrists.
Strangely, he could not let her go. Her inner wrists were a thing of wonder. Smooth and soft, delicately lined with a tracery of veins, pulsing with the beat of her heart. All of the telltale signs of his affliction were absent. For some reason, Miss Christabella Winter had set him at ease and at sixes and sevens, all at once.
He thought about his response. Some thought him mad. He was well aware of the laughter behind his back, of the stares and whispers, the gossip surrounding him. He was accustomed to scorn and confusion. Gill had never been blessed with his brother’s easy charm or his effortless mannerisms.
He was still the boy his father had kept locked in a windowless chamber for twenty hours at a time. Ash did not know about those days. No one did. And Gill had every intention of keeping it that way.
“I am not mad,” he told Miss Winter, his voice emerging once more at his bidding. “One might argue otherwise for you, however. You were just tickling me, madam.”
But still, he did not release his hold on her. In truth, he liked keeping her where she was. He liked touching her, too. Even if he knew he ought not touch herorlike it.
“Oh, stuff and nonsense.” She rolled her eyes heavenward. “Do not tell me you have never before been tickled.”
He gave her his most vexing frown. “I have never before been tickled.”
That gave her pause. Her brow furrowed and her nose scrunched up in adorable fashion.Strike that.Nothing about this woman was adorable. She was irritating, he reminded himself. Intolerably forward.
“You have never been tickled,” she repeated, her voice dubious, as if she did not believe him.
“Of course not,” he clipped, irritated with her. Irritated with himself as well.
He had already decided this woman was not for him. Why did he linger? Why did he engage in conversation? Why could he not let go of her wrists?
“Not even once?” she persisted.
“Not once, Miss Winter,” he pronounced, keeping his voice grim. “Ever.”
“Well,” she said with a sniff and a little huff, as ifshewere aggrieved withhim, “tickling is the best means of making a sister speak when she is treating you to silence. It works every time. Much like pepper on the pillow of someone you wish to make sneeze.”
“I am not your sister, madam,” he said, which he was certain could not be more obvious.
For one, he was a man,blast her. For another, he was a duke.
“Of course you are not my sister,” she agreed. “You are too tall to be any of them. And you do not smell like them, either.”
He made a strangled sound. “WhatdoI smell like, Miss Winter?”
Posing the question was a mistake. He realized it the moment the last word left his lips. He knew it when she leaned into him, so close, he could bury his face in the fragrant upsweep of her hair if he wished.Good God, there were tiny rosebuds woven into the intertwined locks. They were pink, and they matched her lips. And her nose was nearly touching his neck as she inhaled deeply.
“Shaving soap,” she decreed, her warm breath puffing over the sensitive slice of neck just above his cravat. “And lemon, with a hint of…” Here she paused, inhaling again. “Musk.”
First Miss Christabella Winter had tickled him, and now she was smelling him. Worse, he was imagining those rose-pink lips of hers pressed to his skin, finding their way to his jaw, and thereafter, his mouth.
He swallowed. Hard. “Your nose appears to be functioning quite well.”
“Good,” she said.
The lone word confused him. Possibly because her breasts were brushing against his chest.
“Good?” he asked, trying to maintain his calm.
“Yes,” she murmured. “You smell delightfully good.”
Curse it.
