“When it comes to you? Entirely.”
She drew back just enough to see him clearly, their breath mingling in the winter air. “What are we doing?”
‘I believe we are engaging in the art of kissing passionately.”
“I meant in a larger, more consequential fashion.”
“Living, Clara," he declared simply. "For one month, we shall truly live.”
“And thereafter, when our time is up?”
“Thereafter holds no claim upon us. There is only this moment.”
But he was smiling…a true, unguarded smile that softened everything hard about him. Clara reached up, fingertips grazing his lips as if she scarcely believed it.
“I’ve missed that,” she whispered.
“What?”
“Your smile.
“This is your doing.”
“My doing?”
“You make me forget to be properly miserable.”
“How terribly inconsiderate of me.”
“Dreadfully so. I have an image to maintain.”
“As a brooding recluse?”
“As a terrifying duke who does not, under any circumstances, smile at his housekeeper.”
“Certainly doesn’t kiss her in the garden.”
“Absolutely not. That would be scandalous.”
“Shocking, even.”
“A great mercy it is not to be so,” he concurred.
“Indeed, a most fortunate circumstance,” she agreed, and then bestowed a tender and deliberate kiss upon him, until all other thoughts and concerns were utterly banished from their minds.
By the time they found themselves back inside, enveloped by the warmth of the closed doors, Clara’s lips were swollen and her hair had fallen loose and swirled down over her shoulders.
Gabriel felt both a sense of triumph and defeat as he looked into her eyes.
Clara broke the silence suddenly.
“Dinner? Shall I commence preparations?”
‘I have no appetite.”
“This is no surprise as you never do…”
“Ah! But I do have an appetite…But it is not food that I desire.”
