Page 44 of A Duke for Adela
She smiled. “Really?”
He nodded and took another step toward her, his own smile delightfully rakish. “It has been on my mind all evening,” he said with a deliciously soft growl.
“Well, I suppose it is all right since we are betrothed and everyone will assume I have already succumbed to your will. Um…what are you going to do?”
“This.” He drew her up in his arms and crushed his lips to hers with passionate urgency, while his hands now roamed along her body.
Dear heaven.
“Adela, stop me if you are not ready for something beyond kisses.”
“Not ready? Dear heaven, you have no idea how long I’ve hoped for such a moment. It shall be a starred page in my diary.”
“You keep a diary?” He laughed. “Of course, you do. You are one for keeping notes, aren’t you? Do not write any of this down or Phoebe and Eloise will flay me alive.”
One big hand delved beneath her loosened bodice and closed around her breast.
He stroked his thumb lightly across the bud of her breast.
Stars flashed before her eyes.
The world spun in circles around her.
“Adela, blessed saints. You are so soft and sweet, you leave me in agony. I ache to touch you.” He kissed the swell of her breast and then put his lips where his thumb had stroked not a moment earlier.
“Ambrose…” She needed to marry this man tomorrow!
But tonight, the magical way he touched her and kissed her was all going down in her diary with double stars to note the page.
CHAPTER 9
AMBROSE ARRIVED ATthe Huntsford Academy early on Monday morning, more frustrated than ever over his Bow Street runner’s inability to find that lost book. He would not care so much if it were simply an ordinary book, but it was the only written account ever discovered to be attributed to the renowned archeologist of ancient Roman times, Jovian of Tarantino.
Adela had discovered something noteworthy in Jovian’s manuscript, and every day that passed without its return was oversetting her even more than it overset him. “He studied cave drawings and inscriptions throughout the Roman empire and had his theories on what those dots and other markings represented,” Adela had told him just last night, her voice delightfully impassioned as she lectured him.
“Adela, that book will be found,” he had assured her.
“And if it is not? I agree with his theories and know how to prove they are not merely decorative designs, but mark specific information on the animals they hunt. Perhaps their migratory patterns and mating cycles. Who will listen to me if I cannot cite his research to support my own? As important as Jovian’s work is considered, the archeologists working today seem to have forgotten everything he wrote about those cave markings.”
This book and all it represented to Adela was very much on Ambrose’s mind as he sent his driver around with the ducal carriage to pick her up this morning for Dr. Nordberg’s lecture. A chaperone was not necessary now that they were betrothed.
He smiled when she burst into his office shortly before the noon hour. She seemed more excited about the professor’s talk than their own wedding plans which Eloise and Phoebe appeared to have well in hand. “Good morning, Ambrose! Is he here yet?”
Ambrose chuckled as he rose and came around his desk to greet her. “I think you are more eager to see him than to see your own betrothed.”
“Never.” She cast him an impish grin as she reached up on tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek. “You have the finest bone structure of any man I have ever seen and I look forward to exploring it in intimate detail once we are married. Can you believe it? The wedding is less than a week away. When do your brothers arrive? I cannot wait to meet them. My parents are due to arrive on Thursday. Oh, and I’ve brought Marigold with me. She’ll come up right after she finishes touring the Hall of Planets. I think she is a bluestocking at heart, isn’t it wonderful?”
He laughed. “I’m not certain. As for Octavian and Julius, they arrived late last night. I’ve left word they should come straight here to meet you. In fact, they ought to show up at any moment, no doubt eager to plague me because they were sure I would never marry.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Oh, dear. I hope they’ll like me. Or do you think they’ll find me crushingly dull?”
“You are not dull, Adela. You sparkle.”
She dismissed the comment with a gentle blush. “I have also invited two of my friends to the lecture. We formed our own society of bluestocking wallflowers last Season when we realized we shared the same interests. Those endless rounds of balls and musical soirees were made tolerable whenever they were with me.”
“Let me guess, you all went off to a quiet corner and spent the night talking about dead things. What a romantic thought, skulls and bones,” he teased. “This must be why I never noticed you last Season. You were hiding from me.”
“All you had to do was look in that corner,” she said, her voice holding no reprimand. “But I cannot fault you. It must have been hard to see us with all those diamonds flinging their brilliance at you.”
