Page 29 of Must Love Dukes
She tugged at the brush. “Give that back to me, Your Grace. So that I can finish…” She took a shaky breath. “Your bloody portrait. Then we can end this pretense. I just ask—” Her voice cracked a bit. “That you allow me to end things in a way that won’t result in my being tossed at—” Her wrist jerked, splattering paint across Hugh’s coat and cheek. “Give me the brush.” She took a step back, tripping over her skirts, the palette dropping from her fingers.
Hugh immediately wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her from falling. “I did as you asked, Muriel. I dissuaded Todson.”
“I’m grateful.”
“I don’t want your gratitude,” he snapped. “Can you not see it? Or has your disdain for having a husband blinded you to all else? Including me.”
“I am intimately aware of you, Your Grace. And I’m not…notinterested in marriage.”
Muriel spun about, heel catching on the fallen paint palette. The palette flew into the air and landed on her bosom before clattering to the floor while her foot caught Hugh’s shin, causing him to lose his balance. Afraid Muriel would hurt herself, hetook a firm hold of her before both landed on the floor of the greenhouse, managing to roll over the paint palette and several brushes.
“Then stop this nonsense,” Hugh growled as he rested half on top of her, hand on her wrist to keep Muriel from stabbing him with the brush she still clasped in her fingers. “For an intelligent woman, you are oddly obtuse.”
“Obtuse?” Her eyes widened at him. “Wait,” she choked. “Youmeantthe kiss? It wasn’t to soothe your ego?”
“No.” Hugh’s brows drew together. “Well, perhaps a little. Women are rarely upset after I kiss them. You are the first.” His mouth brushed softly over hers. “I’m not sure why you’re annoyed. I thought you enjoyed being kissed.”
“I overheard you. With Lavinia. She claimed your interest in me, while chivalrous, was merely to make her jealous. Because of Albert. You did not deny it.”
“Lord Alpert,” he corrected. “And I do deny it. I could not care less about whom Lavinia bestows her charms upon. You, on the other hand, have my complete attention.”
If the situation hadn’t been so important, Hugh would have burst out laughing at the look on Muriel’s face.
“You’re joking.”
“I am not. Do you think I want to be at this bloody house party? When you found me at the inn, my dear Miss Bell, I was about to hop back into my coach and return to London. As it turns out, I followed you here, which in hindsight worked out perfectly because Savorton needed my help.” He shook his head. “That isn’t of import at the moment.”
“You came for me?”
Paint had splattered over her cheeks, like dozens of tiny, radish-colored freckles, and Hugh dabbed at one with the tip of a finger. “Yes.”
His mouth fell on hers, his lips trying to convey to this wonderfully odd creature how much he desired her. There was a desperation in his kiss, the need for Muriel to acknowledge their feeling for each other, no matter how unlikely it may have come about. The press of her mouth sent shockwaves down the length of Hugh’s body.
“Kiss me back.”
Muriel sighed and wrapped her arms around Hugh’s neck. “Buxton.”
12
Buxton was kissing her.
A sigh erupted from Muriel, and no wonder, because he was an expert at kissing, which led her to imagine all sorts of things that made her cheeks heat. Her pulse fluttered madly as she struggled to mold herself more fully to him.
“Drop the damn brush,” he whispered. “You keep stabbing me in the ear.”
A soft whimper came from her as the brush fell from her fingers, sending a streak of paint along Buxton’s neck and ruining his coat. Not that it mattered. Paint had smeared over her bosom, which was now pressed firmly against his chest.
Oh, but his mouth.
Her fingers slid through that head of magnificent auburn hair, tugging on the silken strands, probably spreading paint through them.
I don’t think he’ll mind.
A groan left Buxton, masculine and full of want…for her, which was a rather heady sensation. He moved slightly, until his weight rested atop Muriel. A firm, hard length pressed through the fabric of her skirts.
Oh.Well, I suppose he truly isn’t pretending.
Muriel tilted her hips up, pushing against him, eager to ease the sudden, insistent ache between her thighs.Thiswas passion. The sort that painting and Arcimboldo could not possibly give her. Neither compared to the Duke of Buxton.
