Equally astonished and appalled by the force of her personality, Hal gave a helpless laugh.
Sensing her advantage, Gemma immediately pressed her case.“Only temporarily, of course!We’ll return everything to its proper place the instant I’ve secured an appropriate match.”
The laughter died in Hal’s throat, which suddenly felt constricted.“So.You still mean to go through with that brainless scheme.”
A swift expression crossed her face, too mercurial for him to read before she blinked it away.“Of course.Nothing has changed.This ‘brainless scheme’ as you call it is the only path I see back to the life I want, the only life my family has ever known.If you have another path to offer, I am ready to hear it.”
The words hung suspended in the silence between them like dust motes swirling in a shaft of sunlight.For a reckless moment, everything within Hal clamored to take her in his arms, proclaim his true identity, and offer to make her a duchess.
But duchess of what, exactly?A crumbling house and grounds gone to seed?The remains of a diminished fortune that was entirely committed to rebuilding and restoring the lives of the estate’s dependents?
An estate in the middle of nowhere, far from the lights and parties and decadence of her beloved London—the life she wanted, which sounded like hell on earth to Hal.
No.He shook himself free of the painful reverie.
It was naught but a wild fantasy, brought on by the searing intensity of their physical attraction.And no doubt exacerbated by the fact that Hal hadn’t had the time or energy at the end of his long days of working on the estate to do more at night than fall into bed, exhausted.And alone.
If he were wise, he’d make a journey to the neighboring market town and find a wench to tumble in one of the big, bustling pubs.
He studied the woman gazing up at him, and knew that he wouldn’t be making the trip to Newbury anytime soon.
“Your path is your own, your ladyship,” he said, and tried not to notice the way the lines of her extraordinary face settled into resigned acceptance.“I wouldn’t presume to try to sway you.”
“Quite right.”She tossed her head, making her artfully tumbled curls dance.“Nothing can sway me.Certainly not a bit of harmless flirtation.”
Harmless.Nothing about this situation was harmless.Hal could feel trouble looming with the pressure of black storm clouds rolling in over the fields.
He stood looking down at her, every breath carrying her heady fragrance of rain-washed lilacs mixed with the freshly-turned earth clinging to her hem and the morning breeze trapped in her tumbling curls.She smelled like springtime, like the chaotic renewal of life and abundance as the land roused from its winter slumber.
A part of Hal seemed to come awake as he breathed her in.Something deep inside, a greed and possessiveness he’d never experienced and wouldn’t have believed himself capable of before lady Gemma Lively streaked into his life like a comet.
This woman was not for him.They were wrong for each other in every conceivable way.
But she was his.He knew it, the way he knew that this estate and the people of Little Kissington were his.
I know I won’t get to keep her, Hal mused as he watched her lift the corner of a drop cloth to peer at the ornately carved end table beneath it.
But I will have her.
ChapterEight
When the old wagon piled with damask-cushioned chairs and ornate bedframes rolled into the courtyard of Five Mile House, Lucy knew she shouldn’t have been surprised to see her older sister beaming from her perch beside the driver.
Who was, of course, none other than the exceedingly handsome barman who’d thrown Gemma into such a tizzy on their arrival.
Of course.Ofcourse, Gemma had managed to bring him round to her side and somehow dragoon him into fetching and carrying for her.
Lucy considered herself something of an expert on her older sister’s wiles and ways, after careful study of her exploits in the scandal sheets.Returning from a morning call with a load of furnishings driven by a grumpy barkeep was quite in the normal run of things one might expect from the lady who’d once been called “entirely toolivelyfor Polite Society.”
That was the sort of thing that passed for wit in most of the scandal sheets.Lucy sniffed.She could do better, and one day, she would.
“Lucy,” Gemma trilled, waving a gloved hand toward the wagon.“Come see, we’ve the most beautiful things here to make over the inn!”
In the ensuing chaos of unloading the cart and hearing all about the absent Duke of Havilocke and his unknowing generosity in lending out his belongings to a family of total strangers, Lucy noticed that Mr.Deveril had lost the cheeky grin he’d met them with the day before.It had been replaced by a distinctly brooding air that, she had to admit, suited him.
He kept casting those dark, smoldering glances at Gemma, who was pretending not to notice but in fact was keenly aware, if the feverish color in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eyes was anything to go by.
Lucy’s internal gossip hound pricked up its ears and scented the air.She frowned as she moved to grab the bridle of the enormous brown draft horse while Mr.Deveril handed Gemma down and circled to the back of the wagon to begin unloading.
