Page 13 of Good Duke Gone Hard

She whirled around and he was never more thankful for loose breeches.

Held in her hand where flowers with sporadic periwinkle petals joined to fuzzy yellow centers. “Do these mean anything to you?” She coyly asked.

“Should they?”

She laughed softly, “Not really. They’re asters. They mean love and daintiness.”

“Why would I know–”

Ignoring his question, she had already twirled back around and was bending over again. He groaned.

“What’s that?” She turned her head over her shoulder and glanced at him under fluttering eyelashes.

“I was just asking–”

“Nevermind.” She untwisted then unfolded her body and flung a handful of new flowers toward him, so lovely that artists ached to capture them. They were blood red, almost honeycomb-shaped petals, in a low dome shape. “These?”

“Nothing.”

“They’re dahlias. They represent good taste.”

“I’m pretty sure you win the game. I wouldn’t know a rose from a tulip. Or what either of them mean. What’s the significance of this? Did we all used to send each other secret messages with flowers?” He chuckled. Surely, the inane plays were the extent of his ridiculousness with this woman.

“Yes! You remember!”

Shocked, he shrugged his shoulders. “Next you’ll be telling me that Gregory and I taught you fencing and expletives.”

Margaret’s eyes widened.

Jonathan’s eyes widened.

“Please tell me that’s not true.”

Margaret slowly nodded. She paused and cocked her head. Her eyes narrowed, and she whispered. “You must remember. Somewhere inside of you.”

He hadn’t realized that he stood within a hand’s reach of her now as he listened to her eyes again. They were saying something so quietly that he couldn’t hear the words. But whatever they were saying was pulling him closer to her. So close he almost reached out to put his hand on her trim waist. The waist that his hands remembered from his past life and wanted to explore more in this new life that he had been given.

He hadn’t asked for this. This draw. This connection. He hadn’t asked for any of this. Losing all his memories. Vaguely recalling others. His subconscious filling in gaps that made no rational sense. Who had he been before?

It didn’t matter. This was now. Unfortunately right now, right here, he couldn’t kiss her.

MARGARET COULD HARDLY BREATHE. She wanted Jonathan to kiss her. She wanted to lean in. She wanted his restless hand on her waist, migrating to the small of her back, drawing her in to him. She wanted to press her hands into his chest and confirm the strength she envisioned there.

When she had twirled around earlier with the asters in hand, she had noticed the tightness in his pants and the bulge that had been waiting for her. Waiting for her to back onto and sate. And, oh she would have sated it. Sated it with all she had.

But this was the garden. Where anyone could walk by at any moment.

And beyond that, memories from three years past banged on the gates of her heart. She hated how he left her the first time when she was eighteen. Before he went missing.

She had planned to show him a few innocent places around the estates that didn’t hold any passionate significance for them, but it was impossible to look at Jonathan and be devoid of feelings. He stirred her.

Since she had emptied herself of all the emotions that had filled her soul because of him, they couldn’t possibly return, she was sure of it, they were locked away. But today proved the fallaciousness of that line of logic.

Next time she would be more cautious. So she told herself.

Chapter 6

MARGARETLAYINBEDsipping her chocolate. She stared past the floral canopy with its bed curtains tugged open at each of the four mahogany bed posts and scrutinized the wainscoted slate blue walls. Despite not being an individual prone to melancholic thoughts, she envied the straight lines and their perfect joints. If only life could be so neat. Alas, life, and all those in it, are uncontainable. Indefinable. Unpredictable.

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