Page 103 of Nothing Compares to the Duke
Bella clenched her hands into fists and held her breath as she watched him take a step forward, sliding his foot along a stone rail that couldn’t be much wider than his boot. With his arms stretched out to his sides, his shirtsleeves billowed in the breeze and his body swayed to maintain balance.
Years ago, she’d watched him do the same on a tree limb that stretched out over a pond on his family’s property. She also watched him fall from that limb and break his arm.
Clearly the years hadn’t made him any less reckless.
If he was walking the perimeter, there were only a few more steps.
But rather than get them over with and end the journey, he stopped and turned his head as if he sensed her watching him.
“Bella?”
In the warm glow from the Wainwrights’ windows, she could make out all the familiar angles of his face: sharp jaw, square chin, high cheekbones. And those lips of his, always half tilted in a smile. His hair looked darker in the shadows of evening, but the moonlight lit up a few golden highlights. It wasunfashionably long, a wild tumble with strands falling across his forehead, a few waves nearly reaching his shoulders. He was wearing only his shirtsleeves, dark trousers, and a bloodred waistcoat.
As she assessed him, she sensed him doing the same. Rhys’s gaze always held a unique kind of power, an intensity that made whomever he looked at seem as if they were the only person in the world who mattered.
“Is it really you?” he shouted down at her.
“Yes, of course. I’m glad you recognize me from that height.” The desire to quarrel with him was just there under the surface, yearning to break free.
For weeks she’d imagined going to him, pondering everything from offering a heartfelt apology to asking if he still felt the same and receiving his mask of bravado. Then she’d be tempted to shout until she broke down the walls he was as skilled at building up around himself as she was.
“Miss Prescott.” He drew out her name, lisping both words as if his tongue wouldn’t quite obey. He was intoxicated. Wonderful. Drunk and inches away from a fall.
“Will you be coming down anytime soon, Your Grace? We have a matter to discuss.”
He offered her nothing but a smile in reply.
A smile. After how they’d parted. After weeks of silence. Maybe this was a mistake.
“What sort of matters, my lady?”
“I’ll tell you when we’re both on terra firma.”
“Tell me now.”
Good grief, the man hadn’t gotten any less bossy either.
Bella bit her lip and debated the folly of this decision.
“Marriage.”
He tipped his head as if he didn’t quite understand what she’d said.
She tried again, loudly. “I believe you mentioned marriage the last time we spoke to each other.”
“Marriage to me?” He gestured in a big arcing movement only to finally turn a finger back toward his chest and point at himself. Bella’s heart dropped when he seemed to momentarily lose his balance.
“Yes, of course you,” she said, her voice suddenly shaky.
“Very well.” He nodded once and then shocked her by turning his back to her. Then he crouched on the balustrade, lowered his hands to the stone railing, and heaved his body over the side.
“What are you doing?” Bella rushed toward him, but there was a cast-iron rail that kept her from getting closer and there was little she could do but stare up at the heels of his boots and the curve of his backside.
“I’m coming down to you,” he mumbled.
“Not like that,” Bella shouted, though he was closer now and could probably hear her if she’d whispered. “Your town house is equipped with stairs, surely.”
He was tall and not far from the ground. Unfortunately, there was a servants’ stairwell on one side of where he would drop and a clipped hedge on the other. Either seemed likely to cause damage.
