“Thank you,” she said softly, glancing to the side. She found it difficult to look at the duke for any great length of time. He was too bright. Too powerful. And the ideas that those sharp cheekbones and wicked lips put inside her head were much too impure for a virgin wallflower to entertain.
“For what?” Ambrose asked, lifting a dark brow.
“For making me feel... special.”
The hand on her chin went to her cheek, then to her hair, fingers gliding through the curls peeking out from beneath the straw bonnet she wore. “You are special,” he said, his voice husky in a way that made her knees go weak. “I won’t hear you speak otherwise.”
The butterflies dancing on the flowers and the butterflies in Mara’s belly exploded into colorful flight as he followed the curve of her ear with his thumb, lightly massaging the sensitive lobe where she wore simple pearl earrings that had once belonged to her mother. He lowered his head as if to whisper a secret, and her nipples tingled when he replaced his thumb with his teeth, delivering an impish bite that he immediately soothed with his tongue. Before meeting the duke, she’d never known how provocative an ear could be... or that there was a line of connection between her hearing and her breasts.
“Your Grace,” she protested weakly, willing her hand between them to push against his chest with nominal force. Were he a feather, she wouldn’t have knocked him over. But then, she didn’t want to. Not really. She merely wanted tolooklike she did. “We—we shouldn’t. Not in public.”
His lips grazed the length of her neck. “I don’t see the ferns complaining.”
Mara suddenly had a sneaking suspicion that Ambrose’s desire to tour Kensington Gardens had little to do with her love for plants and much more to do with being in a place that assured solitude. Aside from their chaperone, who was already snoring, and a stonemason working on a retaining wall beside one of the ponds, they were completely alone. Something they hadn’t been since after the theater when he’d kissed her in the rain.
“Do you know that they have a peach orchard here?” she asked breathlessly.
With a mild grunt of irritation, the duke raised his head. “Is that really what you want to do? Admire peaches?” His eyebrows waggled. “Because I can think of another peach I’d like to admire that doesn’t grow on a tree.”
“YourGrace,” she gasped when he reached around and pinched her bottom.
“I’m sorry,” he said gravely, linking his arms behind his back. “I’ve overstepped the bounds of propriety. Do accept my apology.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not sorry at all, are you?”
“Not even the smallest bit,” he replied with a roguish grin.
Even though she shouldn’t have, Mara liked this side of himself that the Duke of Southwick was sharing with her. She’d already discerned, during their limited outings together, that he had several.
Most often he was aloof and reserved. Other times he was quick with a barb that stung just a little too sharply. But when he relaxed and let his guard fall enough to let a genuine smile slip through the cynical set of his lips... that was the Ambrose she loved the best.
Liked, she corrected herself hastily.
That was the side of Ambrose that shelikedthe best.
And now who was hiding parts of themselves?
“The... the orchard is that way, I believe,” she said, pointing to the right.
He gestured to the path in front of them. “Then lead the way, my lady.”
Over the next four hours, Mara and Ambrose explored nearly every inch of riches that the gardens had to offer. They studied the various types of ferns. They found the climbing roses. They even shared a freshly ripened peach, and Mara blushed all over again when the duke licked the juice from her fingers.
“Delicious,” he said after releasing her pinky with an audiblepopof suction that made the muscles in her belly quiver. “I’ll make sure my gardener puts in an orchard at Southwick Castle.”
“That is your country estate?” she queried as they began a wandering journey back toward the front gates where their chaperone was, presumably, still snoring away.
“Yes, it is.” He toyed with a loose tendril at the nape of her neck. “There are apples and pears. Even a grove of orange trees in the conservatory. But to the best of my knowledge, no peaches.”
A real conservatory.
How marvelous!
The closest thing she had to an indoor greenhouse was a weed growing in the sill of her bedroom window.
“Do you travel to Southwick Castle often? It sounds beautiful.”
A shadow crossed his countenance. “No.”
