Hands placed the elaborate flower crown on her head.At her side, Hal bent to let Bess’s young cousin, Flora, set a circlet twined with green ivy and sprouting a pair of antlers on his thick chestnut hair.The crowd cheered wildly, drums and pipes and sticks clacking along with the claps and stomps, and Gemma felt as trapped as if she’d been tied in place.
In fact, Florawastying her in place.The girl placed Gemma’s limp hand in Hal’s open, outstretched palm and began swiftly winding a red ribbon around their wrists.By the time Gemma recovered enough to resist, they were bound together.
“I’m sorry,” Hal muttered, low enough for only Gemma to hear.“I don’t know why they’re doing this, but I swear I didn’t ask them to.”
“You’re their duke,” she said tonelessly, aware of his subtle flinch at the word.“Of course they want to honor you today.”
“Well, I’m sorry you were dragooned into it.”
Gemma pasted on the best smile she could come up with and said, “Let’s get this over with.What do we have to do?”
She was intensely aware of the solid, muscular presence of him beside her, their arms pressed together, her white silk voile skirts fluttering against his dark brown trousers in the breeze.Every breath she took smelled of his sharp, piney, woodsy, smoky scent.She tried to breathe shallowly through her mouth.
“We’re supposed to lead the maypole dance,” he told her grimly.“But we can stop this at any time.You can just walk away.”
The temptation was strong, but Gemma looked out over the benevolent, encouraging faces of the crowd and couldn’t do it.These people had taken the Lively family in, accepted them and lived alongside them as if they’d been born and raised in Little Kissington.Gemma knew how hard they worked, day to day.She wouldn’t be the cause of ruining any pleasure of theirs.
“It’s fine,” she said, tugging at their joined wrists to tow him after her, off the dais and through the crowd to the waiting maypole.With awkward determination, she grasped one of the trailing ribbons while the unmarried village girls, including Lucy, scampered to grab hold of the rest.
The musicians took up their instruments once more with a merry tune that started the Maypole dancers whirling and skipping, in and out, plaiting their ribbons around the pole in a dance Gemma would have found difficult to follow even if she hadn’t been shackled to a lying, no good scoundrel of a duke.
She stumbled for the third time, and Hal cursed.Moving behind her and crossing their joined arms over her breast, Hal used his strength to gracefully lead them through the steps of the dance.
Gemma set herself to endure the torture of it.
Hal’s chest was hard and warm against her back, his strong thighs moving against hers.Their hips were pressed together.
Her breath came fast and faster, her head feeling floaty, and she would have stumbled again but Hal caught her close and passed their ribbon to a waiting dancer.
Spinning them free of the maypole chaos, he gently twirled her out to arm’s length and began to work on untying the ribbon that yoked them together.
The crowd had closed around the maypole, everyone’s attention on the exuberant dancing.No one was watching her and Hal anymore.Gemma felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Sorry,” he muttered, his fingers picking ineffectually at the knot.“Flora trussed us up like a pair of prize piglets.I’ll have it in a moment.”
Frustration and panic set in.Was she to remain trapped in this ridiculous position for the rest of eternity?Twisting her wrist, she pulled and tugged until the skin reddened and chafed.
“Stop that,” Hal commanded, ripping at the ribbon until he got it loose enough to slip off over their hands.Before she could get away, Hal turned his hand and captured her fingers in his warm, secure grip so he could inspect the marks on her wrist.“You hurt yourself.”
A lump too big to swallow around formed in Gemma’s throat.“It’s not my wrist that hurts,” she whispered, the words broken and altogether too revealing.
She closed her eyes, her humiliation complete.
They stilled for a long, heavy moment, standing close with their hands clasped in a parody of a lovers’ embrace.The tension stretched to the breaking point.
When Gemma forced her eyes open, intending to extricate herself at once—she stopped with her mouth open, utterly shocked by the look on Hal’s face as he stared down at her.
It was the same look from the painting, she realized on an indrawn breath.His green eyes glittered, hot and hungry, longing and captivated.
And full of pain, she could see now.The darkness that was as much a part of him as his easy laugh and his care for his people—it was on full display now.
“My mother hated my father,” Hal rasped, his eyes never leaving hers.“I don’t remember a time before I was aware of that.Not that she ever complained to me.But I knew.He made no secret of the fact that he’d only married her for her money, and then he proceeded to squander it on horses and cards and mistresses and lavish parties.It turned her bitter, soured her life so much that when she was thrown from her horse and broke her leg, she… simply refused to recover.Wouldn’t let a doctor see her.Wouldn’t let anyone help her.She just lay in her bed and allowed the wound to poison her blood.It must have been agonizing, but she never uttered a word.”
“Hal.”Horror gripped her, along with grief for the young boy he’d been.“How old were you when she died?”
He shrugged tightly.“I was six.”
“Oh,” she said, her throat feeling thick and her chest cramped.His poor mother—and yet, how could she choose to leave her son at the mercy of such a father?“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
