Page 2 of The Duke of Kisses
“Are you all right?” he demanded, his gaze darkening to the color of iron.
Fanny moved her fingers and toes. “I think so.” Her backside stung most of all, and she was acutely aware of the frigid temperature of the ground beneath her. “It’s quite cold down here.”
He knelt beside her, but quickly clasped her waist and pulled her to stand, rising to his feet in front of her. “Better?”
And now she was acutely aware of his hands on her and the delicious, almost entirely foreign sensation of being held.
She quite liked it.
“Yes,” she said rather breathlessly, realizing she sounded like a ninnyhammer and not caring in the slightest.
“I insist on seeing you home.” He looked up at the sky as the snow seemed to be falling in larger flakes than it had just five minutes before. “Stour’s Edge, you say?”
She was cold and now wet, and for some reason, she felt safe with him. “Yes.”
He gave a firm nod, then wrapped her arm over his. “We’ll walk briskly. If you can.”
She nodded, then wiped at the dirt and grass that seemed to cover her cloak. He helped her, his hand moving over her hip and then her backside. The moment he made that contact, their gazes connected.
“Sorry,” he murmured before averting his gaze.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, a hundred questions tumbling through her head and an equal amount of sensations coursing through her body.
He glanced over at her, a snowflake landing on his dark lashes and melting almost immediately. “I know we haven’t been properly introduced, but it seems we should take care of that.”
“It’s a bit scandalous, isn’t it?”
“No more so than my caressing your backside.”
Caressing.Oh dear. Those hundred sensations doubled.
“I’m Frances.” She decided it was best to just keep things simple. He didn’t need to know she was Fanny Snowden, sister-in-law to the Duke of Clare.
“I’m David.”
“Pleased to meet you, David.” For all she knew, he was a footman at a neighboring estate. She doubted that, however. While her experience with anyone outside her tiny town of Pickering in Yorkshire and its environs was limited, she could tell he was Quality. Or at least good at mimicking it.
“What brought you so far from home?” David asked.
“Providence, thankfully.” She realized belatedly he didn’t meanthathome. She blamed the fact that she’d just been thinking of Pickering. Though she’d been at Stour’s Edge for nigh on six months, apparently she could still think of her lifelong home as home.
He gave a soft laugh. “Because you met me?”
Now she realized how that may have sounded. “No, I didn’t mean that. I meant… Oh, never mind. I am abysmal at polite conversation. I’ve almost no experience with it.”
“Are you in service?” he asked, voicing about her what she’d just been thinking of him.
She seized on the opportunity to mask her true identity and have a way to explain why he couldn’t escort her to the house. “Yes, I’m a housemaid.” She looked at him askance. “What about you?”
“In service?” He started to shake his head but then stopped. “Not precisely. I’m serving as apprentice to a steward.”
“That sounds exciting.”
He turned his head toward her. “Indeed?”
“Oh yes. To be responsible for so many things… You must be quite intelligent.”
He shrugged. “My father always told me so.”
