Page 19 of A Naughty Proposal for His Winter Countess
I’ve lived it for two years, but instead of a subject of horror, I’m a laughing stock.
Harriet leaned in, “Nothing to say?”
“I didn’t think there was anythingtosay,” Daniel replied. “A person is who a person is. Should it matter to me that you’re not the flighty, fainting maiden people want from you?”
“So, my tomboy ways are not an issue for you?” Harriet asked.
“If we go riding and you’re better than I am, then we might have a problem,” Daniel said lightly, though his emotions were not that joyful. His spirit might have taken a blow, but he didn’t want Harriet to feel sorry for him.
“I think you owe me a dance,” Harriet nudged him.
His brows darted up, “Here?”
“Why not?” she shrugged, “Dancing under the moonlight. Isn’t that an earmark of a romance story?”
“It’sridiculouslyromantic,” he said.
She peered at him, “Haven’t you done anything ridiculously romantic before?”
Memories, as thick and ghostly as London’s fog, lifted, in his mind—recollections about Temperance. How, he’d thought himself somewhat of a cross between romantic Romeo, mischievous Puck with a dash of Othello’s daring.
Sadly, Temperance’s betrayal had drained away any inking to be spontaneous and use moments of chance when they came by. It was time to change that.
Reaching out, Daniel grasped her gloved hand, pulled her in, and after the shocked look dissipated from her eyes, started a tuneless waltz. Harriet followed the steps wordlessly, but delight was in her eyes.
With nothing but the whistle of the wind and their footsteps as sounds, Daniel took her the length of the balcony and back again, spinning her and finding a strange love with her unbridled laugher.
Snow began to flutter down when Daniel slipped his hand to the small of her back and dipped her. A few flakes landed on her cheeks and lashes and melted on her skin.
Slowly pulling her up, Daniel wiped his finger under her eyes, to remove the drops of water. Harriet shivered under his touch, and he wondered if it was from the cold or the touch of his finger.
With her pressed on his chest, Daniel curled a finger under her chin. Against his chest, her breast heaved, and anticipation bloomed in her cheeks as he tilted her head up.
He pressed a thumb under her plump lips, which parted a little with his touch, “Have you ever been kissed before?”
Chapter Six
With her heart expanding with expectation like a hot-air balloon, Harriet shook her head, “You’d be the first.”
Daniel’s head dipped, slowly, close enough that his dark irises nearly swallowed her.
This is it, she vowed,my first kiss.
His head dipped, and both of them heard her quick gasp, but instead of laying his lips on hers, he rested them on her cheek. “I’ll have to add kissing to your lessons.”
Pulling her up from the dip, Daniel smiled, “I think you should rejoin your family. Someone must have missed you by now.”
It took Harriet a while to respond as the place where he had pressed his lips burned like fire. It took all she had not to press her fingertips to her cheek. “Y…Yes, of course.”
“I’ll see you…” Daniel glimpsed at the high moon and knew that they had long ago crossed over into the next day, “later today, I promise.”
Moving from the balcony, Harriet slipped into the warm house, shivering for another reason as the drastic change in temperature rolled through her body—but neither held as much as the sensation she had felt in Daniel’s arms.
She felt a sadness in him, a deep-rooted despair that had stemmed from the woman who had hurt him. His outlook that people had his name on their lips, and that they would turn her away from him, worried Harriet. What had happened that was so bad, that he had lost all hope for the goodness of people?
The question did not leave her for that night, long after the ball had ended. Before she had gone off to search for Daniel, she had marked him absent at dinner, and after spinning a fib about feeling ill, she had gone out to look for him.
Skillfully, she slipped back into her room, removed her clothes, and then donned a thick cotton night rail and a warmer housecoat. She then stocked the fire and taking Anon Ashworth’s book, she propped her feet on an ottoman and turned the page to where she had left off—when Lord Lucifer, a recurring character from previous books, was laying claim to his newest conquest, Lady Angelica.
