Page 109 of The Wolf Duke's Wife
He kissed her temple once, gently. “Then we’re both afraid.”
She leaned into him, closing her eyes. For the first time in her life, fear felt almost bearable because it was shared.
Outside, the morning sun broke clean through the last of the clouds, pouring its light over London and the quiet room where, for a few stolen moments, love had stopped pretending to be a lie.
Thirty-Two
They drifted beneath the painted arch and into Vauxhall Gardens as the sun slipped up into the sky. Music drifted toward them from the orchestra platform, flutes teasing violins, a drum pretending to be more important than it was.
Lanterns swung from the trees like small, agreeable moons; the leaves answered with a soft clatter each time a breeze passed through. The air smelled of lilac and spilled ale, hot sugar and rain-damp bark. Christine took it in with the greed of a woman making a memory.
“Where would you like to walk?” Tristan asked.
“Everywhere,” she said, “and slowly.”
“That, madam, is the secret to conquering a kingdom.”
He offered his arm. She took it. The walking stick came, too, from habit and prudence. But her step was easy now, the laneto Duxworth only a ghost in her muscles. He had suggested this outing with an almost shy practicality:
You’ve turned half of London into ribbon; permit me to show you something more attractive than string.
She had laughed and said yes before sense could protest. They wove through the promenading crowd. Two girls carried a paper balloon between them like a moon on a string, and its glow strobed their faces as they ran. An old man sold gingerbread hearts pricked with tin studs. Every other woman wore one and pretended she had not bought it herself.
“You should have a heart,” Tristan said, deadpan, as they passed, “preferably mine.”
“Overpriced,” she returned.
His mouth tugged. “Ah. Heartless as London itself, my Lady.”
They paused at the colonnade to watch a troupe of acrobats bow to applause. When the applause broke and scattered like shot on water, Tristan leaned and murmured.
“May I confess a vulgar thought?”
“Please.”
“I would like to steal something for you.”
“From Vauxhall?”
“From Vauxhall.”
He surveyed the nearest shrubbery with the seriousness usually reserved for legal documents. “A flower.”
“Well, then,” she said, eyes brightening, “you must become a criminal.”
He took two steps off the path, reached past a lantern, and plucked an extravagant spray of foxglove. He returned with the spoils and tucked them into the curve of her arm with a flourish that made two elderly ladies gasp and one painted shepherd pout.
“Sir,” said a voice at his elbow, already primed for outrage. A park attendant had materialized, hat at a corrective angle, expression a sermon.
“The flora arenotto be disturbed. It is posted.” He gestured at a sign that read, with saintly confidence, NO PICKING.
Tristan considered the sign as if it had interrupted him at cards. “Is it?”
“It is,” the man said, scandal gathering like weather, “and you, sir, have picked.”
Christine bit the inside of her cheek.
“Your Grace,” she said sotto voce, “you have been apprehended.”
