Page 255 of Dukes for Dessert

“Does it matter?”

He removed his hand. “I’m not going to ruin you.”

“You can’t ruin me. I’m having my way with you.” She dug her fingers into a satin pillow in frustration. “I willingly relinquish my virginity. It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to marry anyway.”

“You matter.” He brushed the pad of his thumb against her cheek. “I like you too much to want our bodies to make promises they’re not going to keep.”

“I don’t mind,” she tried again, but he was already ending their embrace and pulling her to her feet.

He kissed her long and hard, as though for the final time. Perhaps it was. When he stepped back out of reach, her chest already felt empty inside. It did not help that his eyes looked just as miserable.

“I’ll think of you tonight and every night.” His voice was gruff. He did not reach for her again. “It will have to be enough.”

It wouldn’t be, of course. But they could pretend.

14

It was an unmitigated crush. Adam could barely shift his weight without brushing shoulders with three different people. For a village with approximately a thousand inhabitants, it felt like most of the population was stuffed inside his summer cottage.

Despite this, Adam had not expected Carole to make an appearance. The previous encounter had ended abruptly, with both of them at odds with the other. She seemed to think sharing one night together would somehow be sufficient. He was already going to have enough trouble forgetting her, without adding making love on the sofa to the list of things forever marked with her presence.

A cluster of locals sat at the table that he and Carole had used to plan the renovation. A group of ladies sipped from the china he and Carole had used to take tea. A handful of neighbors crowded the enclave where Carole had created his reading nook. A dozen others surrounded the billiard room where he and Carole had spent the past fortnight, practically inseparable.

Now she was introducing him to so many people, he could barely keep his own name straight.

“Olive, may I present the Duke of Azureford? Your Grace, this is Miss Harper. She’s phenomenal with horses.”

“Nick and Penelope, may I present the Duke of Azureford? Your Grace, this is Mr. and Mrs. Pringle. She’s the best perfumer in England, and he’s an incorrigible rogue.”

“Angelica, may I present the Duke of Azureford? Your Grace, this is Miss Parker, an extremely talented jeweler.”

“Désirée, may I present the Duke of Azureford? Your Grace, this is Mademoiselle le Duc. She taught me how to curse in French.”

“Chris and Gloria, may I present the Duke of Azureford? Your Grace, this is Mr. and Mrs. Pringle.”

Wait—hadn’t there already been a Mr. and Mrs. Pringle? Adam’s head started to pound. Nonetheless, he smiled and nodded and bowed and murmured what he hoped would pass as charming manners, given the roar of surrounding conversation drowned out his words.

Carole was taking extra care not only to provide him with helpful tidbits to remember each person by, but also ensure every local unwed young lady had her turn to be presented to Adam. Regardless of how the previous evening had deteriorated, Carole was doing an admirable job of upholding her side of what was becoming an increasingly unwanted bargain. The more she nudged nubile young ladies into his path, the more he only wanted to spend all his time with her.

He wasn’t alone in his feelings. The greatest obstacle to Carole introducing him to every woman in sight was that everyone in the village elbowed and jostled in order to spend as much time as possible with Carole.

Apparently, she’d saved a theatre director from something or other, was on a first-name basis with the castle solicitor and all of her neighbors, had helped the Duke of Nottingvale prepare for his annual Christmastide house party…

Carole wasn’t just from this village. She was its heartbeat.

“Miss Shelling is a journalist,” she was saying now. “Eve, tell His Grace about your work with the Cressmouth Gazette.”

Adam tried to listen, truly he did, but it was difficult to pay attention to anyone else when Carole was standing right in front of him. He adored how friendly she was, how happy she made others feel, how effortless she made it look. How at home she was, right here atop a tiny mountain in the northernmost corner of England.

Despite his title and wealth, Carole seemed on an even higher rung. Unobtainable. Unreachable. Perhaps because she didn’t give a damn about his money and his title. The fact that Adam was a duke was actually a strike against him. He was needed elsewhere and she was needed here. That’s why he was supposed to be practicing his conversational parries and flirtation methods for his prodigal return as New Adam.

Yet it was getting harder and harder to work up enthusiasm to “graduate” from Cressmouth to London. Now that he knew what it was like to spend five weeks of relaxed, enjoyable, passionate, silly, delightful days with someone, he didn’t want to go back to… not.

When Carole was pulled away by yet another admirer, Swinton somehow managed to sidle up to Adam. “Enjoying your farewell party, Your Grace?”

Swinton already knew the answer. He’d been part of the household since before Adam was born. Life with his parents had always been complicated, but his relationship with Swinton had always been straightforward. He’d known everything about Adam from his first newborn cry to last night’s extra glasses of wine, which Adam had deeply regretted this morning. As Swinton had said he would. He was butler, he was father figure, he was a thorn in Adam’s side. And positively irreplaceable.

Adam sent him a sour look. “Shouldn’t you be minding the door?”

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