by Tanya Wilde
Ambrose ought to be more concerned about the sudden flush he was feeling.
And then he’d mentioned Celia, a topic he never talked about. Ever. This was all Benson’s fault for planting ideas in his head. He should not have allowed the seeds of his valet’s words, of all people, to grow in his mind. As always, he hadn’t intended to dance and as always, he did the complete opposite. Now she was in his arms, smiling up at him. And the worst part—he didn’t want to stop dancing.
She intrigued him.
She challenged him.
She made him question himself.
Had he known waltzing with her would cause such a reaction in him, he’d never have asked. He’d wanted to see her desire for him, not go mad with desire himself.
So far, she had been a model duchess, holding her head high in the wake of all the stares and whispered speculation. He knew—or at least, strongly suspected—she hadn’t read his rules. The radiant light sparkling in her eyes burned too bright. And like a fool, he found himself not wanting to do anything to diminish it.
More absurd sentiments.
His rules were in place for a reason. They were necessary. So why then, did he appear to waver in his resolve?
She disorientated him, that’s why.
“You must have been the most proper youth in the kingdom,” she murmured, drawing him from his thoughts.
“I would not venture so far as to say that.” He had been quite the rascal growing up. Carefree even. Before . . . He hardened his mask. He had to keep his mind focused. “That was a long time ago.”
“I have always wanted a brother. We’d have had a smashing time.”
Her features lit up for a moment. Indeed, he could very well imagine her getting into all sorts of trouble with a brother at her side: riding bareback on horses, chasing each other in the field, and lighting fires in the conservatory. Smashing, however, was not the word he would’ve used. Incorrigible, perhaps.
Ambrose was suddenly struck by how much his wife reminded him of Celia. She had been just as full of life as Willow.
A disconcerting thought.
Alarming, really.
His shoulders stiffened, and his back snapped straight. He did not want to see the goodness, the once vibrant light that had shown in his sister’s eyes, in his wife. It disarmed him. And that was dangerous. It would lead to a lack of rules, a lack of control, and eventually a lack of light. Just like Celia.
Though Willow was not exactly like his sister. Celia had been regal, a true lady. She would never have been labeled a heathen. Oddly, that comforted him. But perhaps heathens fared better with sickness. Perhaps the rules were now more necessary than ever.
The doubt and uncertainty ate at him.
“Ambrose?”
His gaze lowered to her eyes, saw the question there.
“Are you alright?” she prompted.
“My apologies,” he murmured. “I seem to be distracted.”
“Well, there is nothing like an eclair to bring you back to the present. Their sweetness solves all problems, you know,” she said as the dance ended. “Would you like to join me for one?”
Eclairs. Sweets. Unhealthy. But he did not point that out. Because at that moment, she smiled at him. And he was lost. He was such an idiot. A lost idiot. But in that moment, he didn’t care.
“Lead the way.”
Chapter 13
The following morning at The Royal Academy
There was something to be said about a dashing gentleman forever frozen in time and neatly captured in a canvas. Not only could the gentleman be ogled in blatant regard, but one could, at the same time, imagine the gentleman to be the most charming of characters.
Willow was by no means an expert in art. She could hardly explain what she found appealing in any given piece that caught her fancy. Neither was she a dilettante but she did find there was something peaceful about admiring good art. For the most part, she just liked to browse over portraits to marvel at how talented the artists that painted them were—she never tired of the amount of detail they managed to express in their work.
Today, howbeit, Willow just wanted to clear her mind, and nothing opens your mental faculties and carries you away like visiting an art gallery. Alas, that was proving impossible to do.
Because her husband had decided to accompany her.
Willow cast a sidelong glance at him.
Must the man look so dashing? Like the gentleman in the portrait she was inspecting, he bled confidence and male arrogance. Unlike that man, who was leaning against a giant pillar with a charming smile, the duke was as stiff as a tree trunk.
Willow’s gaze traveled over his clenched jaw before dropping to his hands. They weren’t clenched, but there was a twitch in his thumb that belied his restlessness. The picture of a grouchy male.
A sudden urge to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him assailed her. These days she was confronted with many such urges, so she’d become quite the expert in brushing them aside.
Her head swiveled back to the painting, her breathing shallow. Brushing them aside did not mean she was free of their effects.
Willow knew better than to fantasize about her husband. Unfortunately, regardless of all his faults, the man was tempting as sin. It was hard not to daydream and give in to bouts of hot fantasies when around him.
She snuck another peek and found his cool black eyes staring back at her.
“Do you not enjoy art?” Willow asked. Because really, she couldn’t just glance away now that he had caught her stealing lingering glances at him. And honestly, he ought to have remained home if he was only going to sulk about.
“It’s crowded.” His brooding eyes flicked beyond her to the painting she had been admiring. “And how long can one stare at Viscount Granville Leveson-Gower?”
Willow’s gaze traveled back to the portrait. That was Viscount Granville? She regarded the man in a new light. She would never have guessed.
“The man’s a stuffed-shirt.”
Willow shot her husband a look that said look who’s talking. “I believe this was painted while he served as an Ambassador in Russia.”
“Remarkable.”
“He worked himself up from a second son to a titled peer,” she pointed out, bemused. “That is something.”
“And here I thought the man could not become any staler.”
Willow bit back a smile, and then felt him tense when a trio of giggling ladies passed them. She turned to him and asked, “Why did you accompany me if you knew you’d be miserable?”
“I’m not miserable. I just don’t find pleasure in gawking at paintings of men.”
“Your posture is stiff, you are clenching your jaw, and you have a twitch in your fingers—all signs of being utterly miserable.”
“Perhaps I did not wish to deprive myself of the company of my bewitching wife?”
“But what you mean to say is that you did not wish to take the chance of me slipping away to meet my sister.”
“Were you going to meet your sister?” Black eyes scrutinized hers.
“I came to enjoy the art, Ambrose.” Willow paused. “Believe it or not, I do possess a refined appreciation for culture.”
“Of course you do.”
She huffed and moved on to the next portrait. “But the more pertinent question, I suppose, is why you are tolerating an outing you loathe when you could have sent one of your lackeys to follow me around?”
“I have those? I thought they all answered to you now?”
“If only I can bring my husband to heel, then my life would be complete.” She gave him a teasing look.
“And if only my wife would fear me.” He reached out to place his hand on the small of her back and dropped his voice. “She would read my rules and life would be so much simpler.”
“And spoil the suspense of discovering your beloved commandments from the utter vexation on your face when I break them? Surely not.”
He inhaled deeply and exhaled a rich, complete
ly mesmerizing laugh. She stared at him, fascinated that such a melodious sound could come from him.
She moved on to the next portrait, deciding not to break the lighthearted mood that had settled over them. They gazed at the paintings in silence before Willow’s eyes landed on a portrait of two men who resembled each other. Brothers, most like.
She cast the duke another sidelong glance.
Dare she?
She might as well. It was impossible to say when he’d be in such a semi-charitable mood again. Her gaze returned to the portrait.
“You will not reconsider forcing a match between Holly and Jonathan?” she asked.
“You are finally asking me about your sister?”
His voice was soft, a mere murmur, but Willow detected nothing but amusement there. “She is your sister now, too. Just as Jonathan is my brother.”
“In-law,” he corrected. “Nevertheless, the brother you always wanted but never had, I suppose. What mischief will you and Jonathan get into, I wonder?”
“If he is anything like you, not much, I imagine.”
He raised a brow. “Will you not press me about your sister?”
Willow shrugged, her gaze locking with his. “I am easing into that conversation.”
He chuckled at that.
“Extremely unlike me, I’m aware, but given that I am bound to you,” she gave him a once over, “and your moods, till death do us part, prudence might be more fitting in this case.”
“Prudence, there is that word again.”
“I’ve grown quite fond of it since our nuptials.”
“Is that so?” he murmured, but a smile tugged at his lips as his gaze returned to the painting. “So you are not horrified at the prospect of until death do us part?”
“Horrified, no.” Oh, the look on his face. “After all, you did not respond with a pompous remark and that is what I call progress.”
When he stiffened suddenly, Willow’s senses went on high alert. She slanted him a glance. But he wasn’t looking at her or even aware of her probing gaze. She followed his line of vision to a woman standing a few yards to their right, viewing—quite arguably—the smallest portrait in the gallery. Her face was the embodiment of classic beauty: high cheekbones, plump lips, and porcelain skin. She had a wealth of sandy curls neatly pinned on her head.
Ambrose stared at her, frozen still.
“Ambrose?” Willow murmured, her voice soft with concern. “Do you know that woman?”
“I—” Ambrose shook his head. “No, she just reminded me of someone I once knew.”
Willow’s gaze fell on the girl once more and understanding dawned. Did the woman look like Ambrose’s sister, Celia? The sandy hair, her youth, and her delicate frame all matched the descriptions Willow had heard.
Willow was not sure what to do. She wanted to comfort him. Show him support. She recognized a man in pain, and despite their differences, she felt that ache right alongside him.
So she did the only thing she could think of to show him comfort: she entwined her fingers with his.
Ambrose swallowed, heart in his throat, and focussed on his wife, who was examining a painting of a woman in a pose of reversed adaption of the classical statue, the Venus de' Medici, her fingers weaved through his.
He felt unbalanced. Unsure of himself. In dire need of a diversion. Anything to take his mind off the woman standing just within reach with the uncanny resemblance to Celia. And conversation was the best diversion he could think of.
“As a boy,” he admitted, studying the lady whose hand extended to a white lily, “I dreamed of becoming a painter.”
His wife’s head angled up to him, her blue eyes glowing with surprise.
Then she smiled.
And the world seemed to stop.
Just. Like. That.
It felt as though Ambrose was staring straight into the sun. Had a woman ever smiled at him like that? Lacking any artifice? He couldn’t recall. Certainly never with such open amazement. And certainly not over something as trifling as a young boy’s dream.
“I once, briefly, wished to become a botanist.”
“You wanted to study plants?”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” she murmured dryly. “Although it must seem rather dull in comparison.”
“Not at all but I still do not see the appeal of examining shrubberies.”
“It’s hardly all shrubberies. But at the time, the appeal lay in the prospect of traveling to every continent in search of various seeds and different plant life. Unfortunately, I could never tell the difference between bindweed and knotweed.”
“There is a difference?”
Her laughter reached straight into his bones. “Of course,” she said. “Alas, Sir Joseph Banks, famed botanist, beat me to it.”
Ambrose chuckled when his wife pouted, drawing the attention of the few onlookers. He told himself there was nothing wrong with enjoying his wife’s humor. Even though it felt as if he was dropping a thousand feet from the sky.
He cleared his throat. “There are more reasons than searching for seeds to travel the globe.”
“Agreed. But at the time I was obsessed with exotic plants. Did you ever paint?”
Ambrose turned back to study the artwork on the wall. After a moment, he said “Yes, but before you get enraptured, it turned out I do not possess the patience to sit hours on end with a paintbrush clutched between my fingers.”
“No,” she murmured, teasing him with an impish smile. “I don’t suppose you do.”
Ambrose trailed after her as she moved from one painting to the next, balling his hands into tight fists to avoid taking her into his arms, which he found he suddenly desperately wanted to do.
That would be a much better distraction.
Something much like alarm lit up in his chest. A revelation hovered there. Something that twisted his stomach into knots. He hadn’t realized that, by revealing a part of himself, she may do the same, and that he might see her in a new light.
Benson’s words came back to him in a flash.
Damn valet.
An image of his sister, so pale and weak, raided his mind. A reminder of why he hadn’t opened his heart to love.
This time, it didn’t stop him.
Ambrose grabbed Willow by the hand and pulled her behind a sculpture of a young faun wearing a pine wreath and a goatskin.
And kissed her.
Chapter 14
Ambrose was kissing her.
This kiss wasn’t an enticement or whisper. It was a demand, a bellow. His mouth was hot and exploring, his tongue boldly dancing between her lips.
A blast of sensation swept through her blood, thrilling her to the bone, and she lifted her arms to circle around his waist in response. She was pressed up so tightly against him, Willow swore she could feel his pulse quicken against her breast when she returned his kiss with equal heat, greedily devouring all he offered.
If there was ever a time to wonder at her sanity, it would be at that very moment, as they consumed one another in the National Art Gallery.
It alarmed her. It thrilled her.
When had the grounds of war altered to include touching, seducing, and an abundance of kissing?
Not that it mattered at that moment. Nothing quite mattered then. Not when his hand was slipping down her arching back, drawing her nearer still.
She quivered at his touch, tendrils of warmth wrapping around her. She knotted her fingers in his hair, holding onto him for support when it felt like her knees would give out.
He backed her against the pillar then, tilting her head up to deepen the kiss.
Only the movement wasn’t all that smooth. Her back hit the pillar with a rather startling thump. Shards of reality stabbed at her brain. Even before Willow felt the bust rocking back and forth, even before she heard the terrible sound of marble scraping against marble, she knew what was about to happen.
Ambrose must have felt something too, because his tongue stopped dancing, and his li
ps tore away from hers. Their eyes met for a heartbeat, then turned towards the catastrophe. Willow glanced over her shoulder in time—so regrettably in time—to see the bust of the faun that had been perched so peacefully upon the pillar, tilt, and tilt, and tilt, and then plummet to the ground.
Her heartbeat slowed.
Their gazes swung back to each other just as the grim sound of an ancient sculpture smashing into a thousand pieces, of marble exploding against marble, filled the gallery.
There was a moment, half of a second, where complicity passed between them, and then he breathed, “Run.”
Willow did not look back once as they dashed off, hand in hand. She did not look back at the grim event or the horrified people in the gallery. No, she did something far worse. She laughed. She did not know why it happened—lord knows it was not a laughable event. Perhaps it was the look Ambrose shot her right before he said run. But whatever caused it, the fit appeared from nowhere and once she began, she could not stop.
They burst through the doors of the Gallery and onto the slippery path of the sidewalk with scarcely contained relief. Willow skidded to a stop at once, doubling over from laughter, prompting Ambrose to skid to a halt, as well.
Heavy rain bounced off the cobblestone, the drops beating against her skin while she gasped for breath.
Within seconds, they were soaked.
Ambrose hunched down before her. “Willow?”
The sky rumbled.
“Willow,” he urged. “We must seek shelter from the rain before we freeze to death.”
She held up her hand, gasping for breath. “I know,” more giggles. “Just give—,” some laughter. “Just give,” a bit of gasping, “me a moment.”
“Willow.”
“Stop!” She attempted to draw breath through her convulsions. “Please do not sound indignant at a time like this. We just destroyed a hundred-year-old sculpture and you said run!”
She was answered by a foul curse before her laughter was captured by his lips, his mouth attempting the impossible feat of kissing away her fit of hilarity.
Oddly, it worked. Seconds later, lips glued to his, she was lifted up against his chest and carried to the shelter of their carriage. She did not protest.