He scoffed.
“Or are you a selfish pig-widgeon and you think pleasing me will get you what you want?”
“I’m a selfish pig-widgeon.”
She waited.
“But I don’t want to be.” She saw his Adam’s apple go up and down. “With you.”
Oh. Oh. If things were different, she could smother this darling bufflehead of a man with affection.
Please, God, please. Let some kind, lovely blue blood have the sense to see in him what I see.
She pried off her boots and threw them on the carpet. The thump startled him and he looked at her.
“What are you doing?”
She winked. “I’m taking off my things. I don’t wear clothes to couple with a handsome man.” She stretched out her legs and wiggled her stockinged toes against the side of his thigh.
“You’re still going to let me— I mean, we’re still going to have amorous congress?”
“I still want to. Do you still want to?”
“Yes,” he said in that decisive way he had. But then he shook his head. “No. I’ll make a shambles of it.”
“It would be wonderful if we made a shambles of it together. A shambles of the bedclothes. A shambles of—oh, I don’t know—the front drawing room, if you’d prefer?”
He groaned and collapsed backward onto the bed. “I’m hopeless.”
“No, you’re not.” She lay down and slid over so she was curled at his side. “I won’t let you be.”
He sighed.
She whispered, “Did you hear what I said before?”
“Utter disaster.”
She playfully hit his chest. “No.” She let her hand stay where it was, over his thudding heart. “The part where I let it slip you were handsome.”
His far arm came up, and he put his hand on top of hers.
“You did hear it,” she crowed and laughed. “I knew you did.”
“Franny.” He turned on his side, still holding her hand, and fixed his eyes on her. “Will you tell me what to do?”
“Of course, I will. You sweet hubble-bubble.”
He stiffened and pulled back a few inches, frowning, indignant. “You’re the hubble-bubble.”
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
Franny couldn’t help laughing. And the Christmas miracle was that the Duke of Kittredge laughed right along with her.
One
THREE DAYS EARLIER. December 20, 1817. Kent.
Kittredge was in a hurry to escape Little Fricking-Green or wherever the hell he was and hadn’t taken particular notice of the girl when they had both climbed aboard the stage coach.
