Page 5 of The Duke's Christmas Scandal
“What? No. Of course not. I would never be so rude as to hang my wet stockings before a fire in a home I’d barged into without permission.”
Her lips twitched. So did Ian’s. “I see.”
“You should feel free to hang your wet clothes to dry, of course. It is your…um…”
“Crumbling castle?” he supplied.
“One can’t exactly call it intact.”
“No.” Ian chuckled bleakly. “It’s best described as a ruin.”
“I suppose it is.” She tugged her shawl around her shoulders. “I must further impose upon your hospitality and inquire whether you might be willing to share some of your supper with me. I found foodstuffs in a basket on the sill over there, and I haven’t eaten since this morning when I left home.”
Ian was full of questions, but he, too, was starving. They would have to wait for fuller bellies.
He finished divesting himself of his sodden outerwear and turned to find his guest lighting a new candle from the one in his lantern. His breath caught. Her lush figure cast a shadow on the opposite wall. Ian was suddenly warmer than he’d been all day.
She looked up sharply. He averted his gaze so as not to alarm her with the lurid direction of his thoughts.
This would make tonight’s sleeping arrangements awkward, indeed.
“I’ll see about making supper,” he said, stomping into the makeshift kitchen.
CHAPTER3
OCTAVIA
The caretaker assembled meat and cheese between thick slices of bread, which they toasted over the fire. Warmth slowly crept into her limbs, although her bottom remained cold from sitting on the stone floor, despite three layers of woolen petticoats.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have destroyed the only two seats. Even if one was an accident.
“You never told me your name,” she said after a comfortable silence.
“Ian Harkness, at your service, Mrs. Dawson.”
She didn’t regret the lie. Not yet. She was wary of being snowed in with a stranger, even though he’d been perfectly kind to her, in spite of her threatening him with a fire iron.
Tavi sensed regret on the horizon, however—the same way she’d sensed snow today before setting out, and stubbornly continued believing she could defy nature itself.
She hadn’t thought it through before she blurted out that she was married. A wife would naturally worry about her husband’s safety in such weather. She kept forgetting to display concern, since he was a figment of her imagination.
She gasped.
Her host tilted his head, watching while Tavi scrambled to her feet.
“The gift!” she exclaimed, wrapping her shawl and cloak around her shoulders, and shoving her feet into her boots.
“What gift?”
“For my sister, Grace. It’s vitally important it not be damaged. I spent months making it, and—oh!”
The hinges on the great oaken door creaked as it opened. Icy wind blasted her cheeks.
Mr. Harkness’ palm flattened against the wood, to the left of her head. He pressed it closed.
Tavi’s pulse raced. Tipping her face up, she studied the harsh angularity of his features. A wide forehead adorned with two arching brows framed piercing blue eyes. Beneath them, a sharp slash of a nose above sensuous lips.
“Where did you leave it?”
