Page 22 of Centerpiece

“I’ll be with you?”Agreeable whispered, warm all over.“Does your lady grace share your bed too?What of her?”

“That is a lovely scarf, Remi.”The Duchess had moved closer while Agreeable had been lost in thoughts of being the Duke’s page who everyone knew was really the Duke’s willing hole, and then that the Duchess might also be in the bed while Agreeable was taken.She might watch, or touch him.She might draw him into the snare with her because she liked it there.And why wouldn’t she, with a husband richer than most, who liked her wild, and traveling on her own, and climbing trees, and drawing whatever she found interesting?And taking lovers too?They’d both said that.

“What will the servants think of you though, Your Grace?”he wondered with a tremor going through him.“Allowing such a thing in your bed?I wouldn’t want you hurt.”

The Duchess reached out to take hold of the scarf ends and let them trail through her fingers.“Softer than I would have expected.”

“Quite soft,” Holburn murmured into Agreeable’s hair, “but strong.”

Agreeable nodded.“Finest thing I’ve ever had.”And it belonged to him now, because Holburn wanted him to keep it.

“Oh.”The Duchess’ mouth was pink and slightly chapped from her cold morning spent up a tree.Beneath the smudged streak of dirt, she was pink as well, but in the glowing color of certain apples, ripe for plucking.

“You see?”Holburn asked, although Agreeable didn’t see anything but the Duchess’ flush that spread all the way down to the tops of her breasts and looked so very tangible—touchable.He quickly looked away so as not to offend.Then remembered the lady fox in front of him would likely not be offended.

He brought his gaze back to her when she came half a step closer.

“If I may,” she murmured as she reached up to remove the long scarf the color of a robin’s egg from around her shoulders.“Your scarf is lovely, but there are colors that would better suit you.”She rose up, perhaps onto her toes, to drape the shining length of fabric over Agreeable’s head.She paused when Agreeable’s breathing stuttered, and met his eyes, and then continued to arrange the cloth around his face, tugging and tucking until finally releasing him.“There, you see?You look like spring itself, Remi.It was, Remi, wasn’t it?Not Agreeable?”

“Remi is my real name.”Agreeable prayed the lady would not look down, but then wasn’t entirely certain what she would do if she saw what she had done to him.“It’s been forgotten by most.”

“A pretty name.”The Duchess smiled, not a hint of a vixen about her now although she still had Agreeable plumped and eager.“For a pretty lass?Unless you really do prefer to bow?”

Agreeable wriggled in Holburn’s arms, there was no other word for what he did.His mouth was open but he could not catch his breath.

“I don’t know,” he admitted faintly, burning when Holburn kissed the top of his head.“I liked my skirt and my scarf.And I like this one.And I like it when I am a lass for him, but I like being a lad well enough too and always have.I’m a good lass, even if I was a lad no one wanted to keep.I’m whatever you like as long as I’m yours, and you let me...you let me stay, and you let me be good for you.Please.”

The scandalous confession out of his mouth, he bit his bottom lip hard to keep in anything else he might say.

Her eyebrows went up, then down, then up again when she looked beyond him to Holburn.“He’s truly that loyal?”

“He won’t even betray the friends who betrayed him,” Holburn answered.

“I think I see.Or I’m starting to.”She focused back on Agreeable.“Remi, the images in the churches, the painted ones, have you ever seen angels in them?”

More than a little lost, Agreeable nodded.

“But with freckles,” she said, as odd as her husband.

“As I have tried to say,” Holburn agreed.“And giving down to his very soul.He’s too dangerous a thing to be left alone in the world.”

“Yes, I can see that he will require care.I can see that only too well.”

“Me?”Agreeable tried to stand firm on one point at least.“I’m not worth that much trouble.I’m a...slut, as they say about lasses who lie with many.Which I have.It’s what I like, and that isn’t enough to make up for the fuss I’ve already caused.But you can use me now if you like.I wouldn’t mind.Holburn knows I wouldn’t—I mean Your Grace.I mean, His Grace knows I wouldn’t mind.”He tried to grab the pretty scarf she’d draped over him but the cloth was so slick and soft it slipped through even his rough fingers.“This is too much for me.”

“No, it isn’t.”The Duchess pushed out her lips in a pout.They were full lips, especially when she did that.Generous, he would have called them, until the pout.“I said so, and your job, once you are ours—our page, that is, is to say yes and agree with me.”

“Ali,” Holburn said, voice even despite Agreeable shaking apart in his arms.

“You already put him in your stockings and you’re going to scold me for a scarf?”she asked loftily, although Agreeable wasn’t actually sure that was what they were really discussing.But she looked at Agreeable.“If you don’t like it, you can refuse it of course.I’m sorry.I’ve never considered bedding a servant before and I forgot myself.Saint-angel, your friends lie if they claim they didn’t want to keep you.People often do that, don’t they?Lie.Do you believe all priests are smarter than me simply because they are men?”When Agreeable frowned in confusion, then forcefully shook his head, her smile went from warm to summer sunshine.“They say what they want to be true and not whatistrue.If these people deny you, but still bed you, it’s because they want you yet they’re afraid of you.”

She clucked her tongue when Agreeable started to protest.

“This whole area watches him.”Holburn spoke softly.“It’s why he had to hide.”

“The scarf is beautiful.”Agreeable gave in with a quiet breath and warmth all through his chest.“But you will ruin me too if you also speak this way.”

“I say the truth.”She brushed the ends of the scarf as she spoke.“Not always.But here I do.Because I’m not afraid of you.We’renot.Not enough to let you go.Unless you wish to leave?”

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