Page 19 of The Duke's Christmas Scandal
“Everything is cold,” she said, wincing when he gently stroked her back to clean her up.
“I could have heated water first.”
“I’d rather not lay here with…you know. You dripping off me.”
The rims of his ears turned red. “There is quite a lot of it.”
They took turns washing in the makeshift privy. Ian went downstairs while Tavi dressed. When she came down, she found breakfast ready for her.
* * *
“What’s this?”he asked while she was fussing with a small branch of pine that still had needles.
“I’m making a tree.”
“That’s not a tree; it’s a yew branch.”
Tavi glared. “I can see that, Harkness. Would you have me send you out into the snow to cut down a fresh one?”
He snagged her around the waist and kissed her.
“I’d do it if you asked me to.”
Tavi giggled. Flutters in her stomach. How was she supposed to leave him?
She must, though. Grace was all alone with a newborn and no one to help her. Tavi hoped to convince her to come stay at the cottage, but in her letters, Grace insisted she wanted to remain in Newcastle upon Tyne to wait for Solomon’s return.
Last night had been a wonderful interlude that she would treasure forever, but making a clean break was the best path forward for both of them.
“I can imagine this room with a roaring fire and an enormous tree, decorated with glass ornaments and candles,” she said wistfully. In the daylight, the castle’s rough-hewn charm shone through the time-wrought destruction.
“You have a better imagination than I do, Tavi.”
She tipped her head, pondering the edge in his voice.
“Shall we go and ready your horse?” he asked, shrugging into his coat.
Tavi hastened to put on her boots and collect her belongings.
CHAPTER9
IAN
Ian watched Tavi and Nutmeg ride off into the bleakly beautiful landscape with a pang of regret.
He shouldn’t have let her go.
Yet he had no rational reason to detain her—and several important reasons to want her gone. He’d lied to her, if only by omission.
Her sister needed her more than he did.
Ian wanted her to stay, but he didn’t need her the way Grace did, and he certainly wasn’t in a position to begin a romantic entanglement. He had nobles to impress. Even if Tavi had professed a love of this ruin and spoke longingly about seeing it restored, that didn’t mean she wanted to be its mistress.
He could hardly ask a woman he barely knew to navigate the pressures of a dukedom with him, when he didn’t know the first thing about how to be a duke, himself.
Whether or not she would make a good duchess, he knew with certainty to the marrow of his bones she would make an excellent wife and mother. He was utterly baffled why any man would choose to marry for money when he could wake up to Octavia Dawson in his bed every morning.
Men were, as a general category, fools.
