Page 47 of All I Want for Christmas… Is You
It took Lucien a befuddled instant to realize he hadn’t asked. Nor did he so willingly release her. Following her lead, he stepped away at last, once again clearing his throat, though still he could not avert his eyes from her décolletage. “I-I’m pleased to hear it,” he said, his voice sounding strained even to his own ears.
It was only now that she seemed to note the direction of his gaze, for she let out a startled gasp, and as he watched, the blush from her face stole to her breasts, and all he could think, insanely, was that he longed to place his lips there and kiss the warmth.
“Must you always lurk in corridors?” she accused him.
God’s teeth, it took Lucien another full instant to govern himself and to tear his gaze away from the delicious morsel she was tempting him with so sorely. Though even with his eyes averted, his body didn’t forget.
Bloody hell, he was hard as stone. Why had he supposed she couldn’t rouse him?
Clenching his fist and then releasing it, he couldn’t help but wonder if she would have embraced him as a lover as passionately as she had craved to be his wife. A shudder coursed through him at the merest thought, and he glanced down again to find his answer; even through her layers of clothing, her breasts were peaked against the cloth, perfect little pebbles that he would have joyfully suckled within his mouth.
His body hardened more fully.
He stifled a groan.
“It seems so, Miss Peters,” he confessed without regret. He met her soft brown eyes with hungry blue ones. In fact, eavesdropping was a far lesser sin than the one he would like to commit right now. “As you have already discovered...” His eyes slivered, burning with blue heat. “... it seems as though someone has robbed me of my means to go home. What better way to discover just who that might be than to eavesdrop?”
Her chin lifted at his insinuation. “Well, then, Your Grace,” she said, “please do carry on. I, for one, have nothing to hide—nor have I any wish to keep you here. Now good day to you, sirrah!”
He halted her flight by seizing her hand. It was softer than he remembered and he found himself hoping that she lied—that she did want him to stay. “Haven’t you?”
She looked at him quite appalled, the blush in her cheeks deepening, and her ripe, full mouth pinched in outrage. She shook her hand free of his. “Of course not!” Once again, he had the sudden urge to bend and kiss those delectable lips. “I can assure you that we willallbe better off once you are gone—most especially me!”
Lucien nodded, though why her response should disappoint him, he didn’t know. He could have expected nothing less.
“Now have a bloody good day,Your Grace!” she said, cursing. His brow rose at the epithet.
This time she didn’t wait for him to give her leave, but pressed her way past him in the doorway, her dress whispering by, her sweet scent accosting him.
Hunger slithered through Lucien’s veins like a snake.
He stood a moment, watching her go, feeling more than a little confounded... until her lemon yellow skirts disappeared completely around the corridor, and then he turned to face the wan-faced children who were all three staring wide-eyed at him as though he would devour them one by one like the villain of their worst nightmares. He’d completely forgotten they were there, but they had a right to fear him, for he had heard enough of their discourse with their aunt to confirm his suspicions.
Glancing behind them, he caught sight of the crèche, quaintly adorned with satin ribbon and lace and partially filled with straw. Remembering how much of an intruder he’d felt the previous evening, he scowled, and all three children retreated a step.
Lucien fully intended to interrogate them without mercy. He had that about him, he knew, the ability to unnerve grown men; the children before him stood nary a chance.
“Perhaps one of you knows where I might find four carriage wheels?” he asked, lifting a brow in his most discerning fashion.
For a moment, none of them spoke, only peered at each other questioningly, and he found himself strangely regretting their answer to come.
But he regretted for naught, because to his incredulity all three merely turned and said as guilelessly as though they were truly innocent, “No, sir, Your Grace.”
The middle child actually lifted her chin and smiled at him—smiled, for Chrissakes—and for an instant, Lucien merely stood, dumfounded, scarcely believing the little heathens had managed to lie to his face so effortlessly. Nor did he relish the immediate and unreasonable sense of relief that washed over him in the same instant. And then, despite that he knew the children were lying, he further astonished himself by giving them an out, “I didn’t think so,” he said. And then he turned and walked away, which was perhaps his most shocking response of all.
As the duke departed, all three children rushed to peek around the doorway.
“Now what do we do?” Lettie asked as they watched him go. When he had at last vanished from the corridor, all three children retreated from the doorway, their expressions disheartened as they seated themselves about the crèche to discuss the next course of action. They stared down at the half-filled crèche in dismay.
“Do you think he believed us?” Jon asked.
Both Lettie and Samantha shrugged, looking downhearted despite that it seemed he had.
Samantha sighed. “I fear it won’t work if Aunt Em plans to stay in her room all day long,” she lamented.
“How terribly sad,” Lettie offered, her eyes misting.
“I do believe he loves her,” Samantha contended. “Did you see the way he looked at her?”
