Page 16 of The Wolf and the Wildflower
“Your Grace, thank you for that timely assistance, I fear without it I might have fallen…”
Oh, hell, I am rambling.
It was her turn to falter as she noticed the minute shifts in his body that had only been infused with stillness. His nostrils flared slightly. Nothing else changed and she scanned him quickly, trying to ascertain the change in his demeanor and the reason for it. Anything that had the power to impact the countenance he showed to the world was most important.
This time he wasn’t looking through her…but right at her face. The duke stared at her as though no one else was in the room and those icy gray-blue eyes were no longer cold.
No…they were curious, cunning, bright, and extraordinarily beautiful. With unconcerned slowness, his eyes caressed over her curly strawberry blond hair worn in thecroup de vauntstyle. That gaze lingered on the bridge of her nose, on her moustache, her throat, shoulders, waist, knees, then her shoes. Then he lifted his eyes to her face once more. An infinitesimal smile touched the duke’s mouth, and Jules felt an uncomfortable and unfamiliar rush of physical awareness. Why did the duke suddenly appear so…intrigued? Stunned recognition nearly knocked the breath from her lungs.
The duke knows.
The shock that tore through Jules rendered her to a marble statue. Her mouth had gone dry, and her heart was already pounding. Could the duke truly have seen through her disguise? Her own wits seemed to have taken flight. What an asinine thought to have; surely he could not be aware that…
Jules’s thoughts withered. The duke canted his head, and now amusement and something far more elusive shifted in his eyes. A desperate feeling of unreality crept through her.
He really knows…
The impossibility and enormity of Jules’s supposition strangled her breath. How could he know with only a look, when the entire world had been deceived for years? The very air she breathed felt as if it were trapped inside her lungs. Jules felt faint…until finally the breath shuddered from her chest. She breathed again, and she retained her composure. That mattered greatly, especially given the cool cunning that stared back at her.
How could the duchess believe his intelligence diminished in any regard? The very idea was preposterous.
“Everyone out,” the duke said without removing his regard from Jules.
The duchess stiffened, her eyes widening.
“Your Grace—” her father began.
“Except Mr. Southby,” the duke added, then turned away and prowled to the large windows overlooking his estate.
“I do not agree,” her father said stiffly. “We must both remain in this room, Your Grace.”
“Then you may both leave. This meeting is over.”
His mother gasped. “Wulverton!”
The duke remained unmoved at his mother’s cry, and the duchess cast her father a desperate glance. This peek into his will informed Jules that nothing about this man would be easy. Her father took a deep breath, nodded to her once, and lifted a finger to indicate he would be right outside the door. The duchess hesitated for a moment, before squaring her shoulders and leaving the room. The door closed with a softsnick, that sound an echo in the space.
Jules exhaled slowly and softly, staring at the duke’s shoulders. He had not turned around at their evident departure and she did not prod him. Instead, she dipped into her satchel and removed a notepad and pencil. She went to the chair and sat.
Then she waited.
Your move, Your Grace.
Chapter Four
A hint of sea wind…the fresh scent of morning after a heavy night of rainfall, the sweetness of the forest, the musk of pinewood…the smallest discernable touch of lavender and caramel. This creature was all of that. This scent was inconceivable, yet James had never inhaled anything so lovely. The varied fragrances swirled together in some sort of alchemy until they shaped into one distinct scent that in all his life had never before wafted beneath his nose.
How could there exist such a delectable fragrance?
The essence of it was so exceptionally delicate, yet it sliced through the amalgamation of all other fragrances in the room (lavender, sandalwood, bergamot, ambergris, beeswax, jasmine, pine, and lemon) with the precision of a scalpel. Yet it was not an overpowering aroma; it was like the gentle stirring of a breeze, the hint of frost before the snow storm. It was a distinct fragrance he could give no name, yet it tugged at a place deep inside James that was wholly unfamiliar. It was a scent he could get drunk on; it was a scent that could distract him from any purpose; it was a scent that could inspire anyone to feel.
It is singularly dangerous, for it is a bewildering anomaly.
It felt like a dark, slowly moving current, this fascination wending itself through James’s heart. The power of heightened senses had become his survival tool within months of trying to live in the vast icy wilderness. He hadn’t realized the full value of his altered senses to him in this world, but he was most certain that without it, he would have allowed himself to be deceived like everyone else around this person.
The extraordinary creature in the room with him was a chameleon. A human one.
How…singularly interesting.
