His coat was terribly large, her frame fairly swimming in it and making him realize just how tremendous the size difference between them was. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He was dashed cold without it, but the sight of her wearing his coat pleased him beyond words. It was intimate, his garment on her. Shockingly so. And it had him wondering what she might look like draped in nothing more than his shirt, her legs bare beneath its hem.
Like a goddess, he thought. That was what she would look like. And then he instantly castigated himself for such sinful fancies. What was he doing, lusting after his housekeeper yet again?
With a sunny smile, she turned back to her wreath, thankfully oblivious to his reaction to her, which he was incapable of controlling. Clenching his jaw against a stinging rush of shame, he watched as her nimble fingers made short work of tying the ribbon into a bow. He never should have been so familiar in her room, inquiring after whether there was a Mr. Yorke. The moment she had revealed there wasn’t one, he had experienced a searing sense of possession he had no right to feel.
Gentlemen did not dally with servants.
Dukes did not lust after their housekeepers.
Quint knew better. And even if he didn’t, there was the matter of his hideously scarred hide, which he didn’t doubt would frighten away any lover. He had grieved twice when he had lost Amelia. For the lives of her and their child, cut so devastatingly short, and for the man he’d once been, his skin untouched by flame, his heart unblemished by loss.
When he had been healing, he hadn’t understood the extent of his injuries. A fiery beam had fallen upon his chest, pinning him in place. He had heaved it away using his hands and all the strength he had, but the damage had been done. His chest, stomach, arms, and hands were ruined.
A gust of wind blew over the park, making the flurries dance around them. Quint shivered, glad he had given Mrs. Yorke his coat. She must have been frozen.
“There we are.” Taking up her wreath, Mrs. York spun toward him, her dark skirts swirling around her ankles as she held up her handiwork for his inspection. “What do you think of this, Your Grace?”
He spared a moment for the wreath, taking in the clever way she had mixed fir boughs with holly and sprigs of ivy, pinecones tucked into the lush greenery, her neatly tied ribbon thepièce de résistance. But then his gaze settled over her lovely face, noting the way her eyes were even more vibrant than the greens on the wreath and how fine tendrils of black hair had slipped from her coiffure to cling to her cheeks.
“Beautiful,” he praised softly.
And he wasn’t talking about the wreath. He was talking about her.
Her lips parted, and he feared she had understood the hidden meaning in what he’d just said.
“You’ll not object to one of the footmen hanging it on the front door, then?” she asked, dispelling the notion. “For Her Grace’s arrival, of course.”
Belatedly, it occurred to him that the wreath must be heavy, and he ought to play the gentleman even if his wayward thoughts suggested he was far from one. He stepped forward.
“Allow me to carry it for you, madam.”
“It isn’t terribly heavy,” she denied. “I can manage, though I do thank you, Your Grace. It wouldn’t be well done of me to expect the master to carry his own wreath about, now, would it? You’ll get sap on your fine clothing and gloves.”
It was the first time she had referenced his gloves since the clash they’d had. A flush stole over her cheeks when he didn’t immediately respond, telling him she was thinking of that conversation too.
He had been dangerously close to taking her in his arms that day, to testing whether her mouth would fit as perfectly against his as he supposed. To kissing her until they were both breathless and nothing mattered but the two of them, not the past, not the present, and certainly not the future.
“I can manage,” she repeated firmly.
“You are always doing everything for the household, Mrs. Yorke,” he protested, her determination spurring him into action. “Allow me to do something for you.”
Her finely arched brows rose. “It would be wrong of me to allow Your Grace to wait upon me. If you insist, I’ll fetch Joseph, and he can take the wreath to the great hall for me.”
Quint very adamantly did not want Joseph Poole to intrude upon his time with Mrs. Yorke. “Nonsense. I am perfectly capable of carrying my own wreath to my own front door. Fetching a footman won’t be necessary.”
Having her to himself was rare. He savored each occasion the way some men did an excellent wine.
Without bothering to await her response, he relieved her of the wreath, the holly garland poking him even through the barrier of his leather gloves, landing its barb in a particularly sensitive spot.
“Yow!”
The exclamation fled him before he could stop it, and he nearly lost the wreath but saved it at the last moment.
“What is the matter, Your Grace?”
