Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The following afternoon, contorted amongst boxes and boxes of decorations, and greenery that the gardener had cut that morning for her grand plans, Valerie wished she had accepted the driver’s invitation to travel on the bench.
Her knees were bent diagonal, the corner of a crate jabbing her in the side with every sway of the carriage. But the bruising pain stopped her mind from wandering, at least, jolting her back into the discomfort of the present instead of the pleasures of yesterday.
I wonder if Adrian means to remain in his study until the day of the party, she mused with no small amount of disappointment.
She had not seen him since he helped her down from this very carriage the day before. He had departed her side swiftly, with the excuse that he meant to meet her driver at the coach house to see what he could do to help with the carriage repairs.
A startled shriek escaped her throat as a sharp tap-tap hit the window.
Her head whipped toward it, her stomach lurching at the thought that a bird might have struck the small pane. Instead, a much larger shape had appeared through the glass, the steady tap coming from the knuckles of a gloved hand.
Puzzled, she leaned across the boxes and yanked down the small sash window to peer out at the rider.
“Did you not see the clouds when you departed?” Adrian’s stern voice asked, with no preamble of pleasantries. No ‘good afternoon,’ no ‘how do you do?’ or ‘may I join you?’
Valerie flashed a saccharine smile. “I am afraid not. Why, have they formed some unusual shape? A snow angel, perhaps?”
“What? No.” He shook his head as if dispelling a bee that had buzzed too close. “It looks like it may snow again.”
“I hope it does,” she replied with a sigh. “It shall feel so very festive if it snows while I am arranging the first wave of decorations.”
Adrian peered into the carriage, his eyebrow rising. “This is only the first wave?”
“It is a town hall, Your Grace,” she said. “I cannot have it looking sparse. Truly, I doubt there is a single decoration left at Blackwall Castle; I have commandeered them all.”
A funny look passed over Adrian’s face like shadows being chased by the sun over summertime hills. “I was not aware there were any left.” He cleared his throat. “I will accompany you. This is not a task that you can undertake alone.”
“The footman will help,” she countered, secretly pleased when his eyes flared.
“This is not a task for two, either,” he remarked.
His gaze moved past the clutter of crates and boxes and came to rest upon the squabs where she had cried out his name the day before. The place where she had surrendered entirely to his touch, his kiss. The spot where she had clung to him in the throes of passion and wished he would not stop.
“Come for me.” His sultry command echoed in her mind, the memory flooding her face with sudden heat… while dormant embers of desire began to smolder afresh. An ache throbbing between her thighs.
There was no possible way that he had missed the blush in her cheeks, but he showed no acknowledgement on her face.
A slight glint in his eyes, perhaps, but nothing more.
Nor did he invite himself into the warmth of the carriage, where he would have been welcome, despite Valerie now knowing the tantalizing risk of being alone with him in such a small, intimate space.
There is still plenty of time before we reach Blackwall.
“If it does snow, at least we shall be able to journey back on my horse,” he said flatly. “That is why I must accompany you, though I am exceptionally busy.”
She snorted, more to hide her blush than anything else. “Do not let me inconvenience you.”
“You are not,” he replied, and promptly pulled the sash window back up. Putting an end to the conversation before Valerie could give into the temptation to invite him inside.
He could not, however, put an end to her wayward thoughts so easily. Indeed, even the jab of the crate against her rib would not be enough to hold those back now.
“Anyone would think you had never made a wreath before,” Valerie remarked, standing over Adrian like a schoolmaster as he did his best to weave thin twigs, fronds of evergreen, sprigs of rosemary, and the sharp-leafed holly into something resembling a decoration.
He bristled. “That is because I have not.”
If he had asked his father if he might weave a wreath for Christmas when he was a boy, the wretched man would have clipped him over the head and sent him out for a ten-mile march.
His mother, in her solitude, had woven so many.
Although, he was grateful that he did not see any of hers among the decorations that Valerie had brought.
His mother had always put a red bow with a painted star on it at the top of her wreaths.
“What?” Valerie gasped, immediately pulling a chair up to the table where he worked to sit beside him. “Well, why did you not say?”
Because I did not think it would be so bloody difficult.
“You were otherwise occupied,” he said instead. “And I am managing perfectly well.”
An awkward laugh escaped Valerie. “Yes, if I wanted the town hall to resemble the gardener’s lumber scraps, destined for a bonfire.”
Adrian wanted to protest that his first creation was not that bad, but that would have made a liar out of him. The wreath was a sad, lopsided thing; he lacked the imagination to make it anything more than a bare brown circle with a few bits of green sticking out.
“Like this,” she said, beginning a wreath of her own.
Mesmerized, Adrian watched the deft movement of her hands as she manipulated the fir fronds and laurels and long sprigs of rosemary to her will, weaving them around flexible stripped branches of willow for support.
He wondered if this was how the apprentices of the great masters felt, observing their teacher create pure majesty as if it were nothing at all.
“I see that your wrist is better,” he remarked, as she started to tuck sprigs of holly into the weaving.
She paused, and he could see her peeking at him out of the corner of her eye. “It is… mostly better,” she said carefully. “A little sore still but I can endure that for the sake of pretty decorations.”
“We can visit the physician while we are in town, if you would like a proper opinion?” he offered.
“I have too much to do to be visiting doctors,” she argued, her cheeks pinkening in a way that made him lean closer. He could not help it; when she blushed like that, she had the glow of a woman who had just been in the grip of an intense conclusion.
His arm curved around the back of her chair, resisting the urge to brush the peak of her shoulder with his fingertips. Yet, the scent of her gnawed away at his restraint: lavender and something sweet, something lemony, something that drove his senses to distraction.
“What are you doing?” she whispered, her fingertips fumbling to intertwine a whip of willow with a fragrant sprig of rosemary.
“Observing,” he replied, bending his head to inhale that mysterious scent. “How can I learn if I do not pay attention?”
Her bosom, almost indecent thanks to a borrowed day dress that did not quite fit her shapely, divine breasts, heaved with shallow breaths. Had he had his ear to her heart, resting on that soft bosom, he knew it would have been pounding.
“You do not need to be so close, surely?” she said in a husky voice.
He moved even closer, his thigh flush against hers. “No, I do not, but I should hate to miss anything.” He dipped his head to whisper in her ear, “I might not be able to weave a wreath, Valerie, but my hands are not without their talents.”
“Oh goodness…” she murmured, borrowing a branch of laurel to fan herself. “Your Grace, if you are to remain here, helping with the preparations, then—”
“Adrian,” he purred his correction.
Her throat bobbed, her manner flustered. “Adrian, you cannot be a distraction. There is so much to do and there are mere days until it must be finished.” She turned to him, her green eyes widening as if she could feel the heat of desire that radiated from him. “I… I… forgot what I was saying.”
“I believe you were trying to scold me, when all I mean to do is learn about wreaths,” he replied, a faint smirk upon his lips. “I should, however, warn you that I do not take kindly to a scolding. It would warrant punishment if you were to be so bold.”
Valerie stood sharply, half-formed wreath in hand. Flustered and flushed, she muttered something about, “No, this will not do. This will not do at all,” and hurried off before Adrian could tempt her into something he was good at.
Indeed, as he returned to his own hopeless wreath, he wished he had insisted on traveling with her in the carriage, instead of catching up to her on horseback.
Half an hour later, with two reasonable wreaths placed proudly on the table before him, Valerie finally returned. And she had returned with reinforcements: a whole orphanage of children running in, loud and chaotic, to ensure that Adrian did not get that close again.
“Now, children, I need at least fifty wreaths and plenty of garlands,” Valerie announced like a governess, refusing to glance in Adrian’s direction.
“If you need help, summon me and I will show you what to do, or ask someone who already knows how to make them. But enjoy yourselves and make them exactly as you wish to! The prettier and more unique, the better.”
The children cheered as they descended on the long table where Adrian perched, little hands grabbing for the greenery and the bows and ribbons. The girls were in their element, but the boys seemed eager too, until the room was filled with shouts of advice and requests for assistance.
Only Isaac seemed to notice that Adrian was there, the boy coming to sit in the chair that Valerie had vacated. “They’re nice, Your Grace,” the boy said, nodding to the wreaths. “Will you show me how? I’ve never made a wreath before.”
A funny feeling prickled between Adrian’s ribs, his frozen heart beating weirdly as if he were… nervous.
“You ought to ask someone else,” he replied gruffly. “I am not an expert.”
Isaac just smiled up at him, undeterred. “But I like yours the most. Reminds me of brambles, and I love blackberries.” He held up laurels and a whip of willow, optimism in his wide eyes. “Show me how to make one just like yours. Please.”
“Well… it is… nothing really,” Adrian muttered, clearing an odd lump from his throat. “You weave it together, however you please.”
He began to twist some willow with some fir fronds, surprised to find the boy watching intently, then copying him exactly.
In his chest, Adrian’s heart clenched again, as if something were thawing in there, warming up in a way he had never thought possible.
All because of a wild woman who had turned up at his door in the middle of a snowstorm and the orphan urchins that she had welcomed into his home, as if it were her own.
“Ours are going to be better than anyone’s,” Isaac said happily, his small hands far more dexterous than the scarred bear paws of Adrian’s. “Not that it’s a competition.”
The ghost of a smile tugged up the corners of Adrian’s lips. “No, it is not a competition.” He paused. “But yours is rather good.”
A short while later, and secretly enjoying himself rather a lot thanks to the steady chatter about everything and nothing that rattled from Isaac’s lively being, Adrian became aware of eyes on him as he studded some holly and mistletoe into the wreath he was making.
Lifting his head, he found the source of that prickling burn of being watched, and locked eyes with Valerie.
She wore a curious smile, her green eyes bright with merriment, her hand pressed to her heart as if she, too, could feel the thaw. A moment later, with a shy air to the movement, she looked away again.
Adrian puffed out a breath. A vexing woman indeed…