These are Daisy’s, left here from last season. Justin spoils her outrageously—he wouldn’t dream of having his duchess wear the same dress twice in one year. She’ll be only too happy to lend them to you. I believe you are much the same size, although you may be a fraction taller.
D.
P.S. I trust the nightgown met with your approval.
Livvy’s cheeks heated at the thought that he might have imagined herinsaid nightgown.
She chose a blue dress that needed no major adjustments and headed downstairs, bracing herself to meet Devlin. She found him striding out of the study dressed in buff breeches, white shirt and cravat, and a navy jacket so perfectly tailored to accentuate his broad shoulders that she sent a silent mental salute to his tailor.
His eyes rested on her as she descended the staircase, and his expression was both pleased and appraising.
“There you are! Will you come for a walk in the gardens? I was just going to check a few things.”
“Very well.”
“You’ll need a cloak. It’s cold out. Fletcher!”
Fletcher, it seemed, had perfectly anticipated the request, since he materialized from a side corridor with a velvet-lined cloak which he handed to Devlin.
Livvy turned and allowed Dev to place the cloak around her shoulders, acutely aware of him at her back. The warm fan of his breath against the side of her neck as she freed her hair from the hood made her shiver.
He stepped back, and Fletcher handed her a pair of leather gloves.
“This way.”
They stepped into a library, which Livvy would have loved to explore further, but Dev opened one of the French doors that led onto a terrace with a balustrade and steps leading down to the lower gardens, and she followed.
“Careful, it was a hard frost last night. Don’t slip.” He offered his bent arm to her. Livvy took it, mainly as an excuse to touch him, and together they descended the stairs. Their breath made matching puffs of white in the frosty morning air, and a pale sun struggled to break through the clouds.
She dropped his steadying arm with a pang of regret when they reached the bottom and looked around in interest. “What’s going on here?”
A rectangular section of the lower terrace had been sectioned off, and two workmen seemed to be constructing the edging for a flowerbed, only directly on top of the flagstones, instead of the grass.
“Is it going to be a new pond?” she asked, intrigued.
Devlin sent her a sideways smile. “In a manner of speaking. It’s a genius idea of mine, if I do say so myself. This, my sweet, is going to be an ice-skating pond.”
He gestured at the two men. “Ned and Harry, here, are going to line this whole section with lead, like we put on the roof, to make it watertight, and then we’re going to fill it with a few inches of water. Considering the freezing temperatures we’ve been having, I’m hoping the whole thing will freeze solid, and be ready for guests to skate on Twelfth Night.”
“Ingenious,” Livvy murmured.
“Have you ever been skating?”
“Just once, the last time the Thames froze over. I was fourteen, perhaps? Daisy and I went to the frost fair on the ice, and then we went skating on the Serpentine in Hyde Park.”
He gazed out, toward the river further down the gardens that fed into the large expanse of lake. “The lake’s so deep it never freezes completely. It wouldn’t be safe to let people skate. But this,” he nodded at the construction, “should be most entertaining.”
Livvy chuckled. “I’m afraid your reputation for hosting scandalous events just took a dive. Ice skating is a perfectly decorous means of enjoyment.”
“You can’t be doing it right.” His dimple flashed as he sent her a wicked grin. “Ice skating provides ample opportunities for misbehavior; it’s the perfect excuse for couples to grab one another and fall over in an exciting tangle of limbs.”
Livvy rolled her eyes. “I stand corrected. Of courseyoucould make it scandalous.”
“One does try,” he chuckled. “It just requires a little imagination.”
“And a lot of money,” she added dryly.
“You think it’s a ridiculous waste?” he sounded intrigued. “To make something purely for pleasure? It’s not. In fact, it’s mydutyas a duke to request such frivolous things.”
