Page 101 of Courting Scandal With The Duke
The lightest touch. Fingertips only, but he felt it as if it was of momentous weight.
He fastened the buckle and guided her foot to the ground holding her ankle. Such a slender ankle. He had the urge to run his hand upward. They learned the curve of her calf. He glanced up.
She was watching him, her thoughts as mysterious as the small smile on her lips.
Kneeling before her this way, he could propose now.
He grimaced at the thought. There was nothing romantic about a marriage of convenience. It would be a matter of business. Terms. Conditions. Somehow, he had to make this right.
And there must be conditions.
He buckled the other shoe and stood up.
Barbara released Xavier’s shoulder as he rose to his feet.
Such a tall man. And so handsome. She was tempted to kiss him.
Instead, she picked up the blanket and shook it out.
He took the other end and together they folded it in half lengthwise. Like a couple of laundry maids.
She chuckled.
He frowned. ‘What do you find humorous?’
‘Us. A duke folding the blanket like a domestic servant.’
He looked at her blankly.
It had sounded funnier in her mind than it did when spoken. ‘Never mind.’
They came together and he took it from her and finished the job. She picked up the cushions and they walked up the path to the cottage.
‘Where did you find this?’ he asked, holding up the blanket.
She gestured to the bedroom.
While he put the blanket away, she tidied her hair and tied on her hat.
Could anyone tell from lookingat her how she had spent the afternoon? He came up behind her, looking at her in the glass. They smiled, the kind of smile only lovers could smile.
He picked a blade of dried grass from her hair, frowning at it, whether in annoyance or surprise, she wasn’t sure, but then she really wasn’t sure about anything with this man.
He took her hand and led her to sit on the sofa and sat down beside her. An expression of nervousness flickered across his face.
She removed her hand from his grip. ‘What is it?’
‘About what happened out there. My failure to… There could be a child.’ He finished his words in a rush.
‘Oh,’ she said. Neither of her husbands had managed to give her a child. Of course, there hadn’t been much of a chance with the first, and the second had been so busy spreading his seed around, begetting a child with her would have been luck indeed. His. Not hers. God, she would have been stuck there.
‘While you are not the woman I envisaged as my duchess, I will marry you, of course.’
Anger stirred in her belly. She kept her expression and her voice carefully neutral. ‘What sort of woman did you envisage?’
He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking off into the distance as if recalling a memory. ‘A more modest sort of woman, who would bring honour to the family name and take the duties of duchess seriously. Not the sort of woman who wears red to Almack’s and has affairs.’
Hurt and insulted, even knowing that he was notwrong, she lifted her chin and smiled sweetly. ‘Well, you do not need to worry. I doubt there will be a child.’
