interlude in the kitchen.
“You shouldn’t be. We are married. They want us to be happy.” He pulled her into the circle of his arms and lowered his head—
Sophia paled, and she averted her face. “Not in front of the children.”
He glanced over his shoulder to find they had an audience of at least seven, all gaping at them with wide eyes and open mouths. Reluctantly, he released her and drew back but retained possession of one of her hands.
“What can I say?” he murmured intimately. “You make me forget myself.”
“Claxton—” Still, she refused to meet his gaze.
And he knew with a sudden intensity, he did not want to hear what she had to say.
“Sophia, I’m going to go get on that sled and go over the edge.” His thumb rubbed the underside of her wrist. “Even though I’m not certain what’s on the other side. Perhaps the ride will be bumpy and rough at times, but for the most part it will be exhilarating. I promise.”
“You know what’s on the other side,” she said in a low voice. “You sledded down the hill not even an hour ago.”
He blinked. “I was speaking metaphorically.”
Beneath the brim of her hat, her lashes lowered, hiding her reaction.
“I know that,” she answered softly.
Turning sideways, he coaxed her toward the sleds. “Come on. We’ll go down together. There will be no tumbling and no skirts flying. I won’t allow it.”
At last, Sophia nodded in assent.
Claxton signaled to the same boy as before. Eager to earn another coin, the child pulled his sled to the ledge. Closer now, she saw something she hadn’t from a distance. The boy’s trousers and coat had holes in them, and he wore tattered boots.
“Thank you, young man,” said Claxton, pressing a coin into his hand—one Sophia recognized on the boy’s open palm to be a half crown.
Her throat constricted with a sudden onrush of emotion. Just that morning, Claxton had seemed so oblivious to the idea of charity, of giving to those less fortunate. But he had just given the boy enough to warmly clothe an entire family.
Claxton removed his hat and handed it off to the boy. He then sat on the small wooden platform, planting his boots at the forward end. Looking toward her, he beckoned with his hand. “Sit here, between my legs.”
In that moment, Sophia’s heart opened another small bit. Perched on the edge of this hillside, Claxton extended an invitation to her, one that had nothing to do with seduction or producing heirs or winning a game, and everything to do with creating a memory. Claxton might not realize it, but she did.
How could she explain to him that she wasn’t perturbed about the cakes or even those appalling handprints? Rather, her mood stemmed from the certain fear that she was falling in love with him, head over heels, all over again. And that the only reasonable response was for her to pull away, to protect herself from the pain that loving him would most assuredly bring.
When she loved, she loved completely, yet given all she’d learned of Claxton over the past three days, she now understood why his heart might never be capable of returning that love to the same degree. It wasn’t his fault. His father had done everything to destroy the gentler side of him.
But while to her, love and lovemaking were entwined into one experience, the same wasn’t true for her husband. He hadn’t loved any of those other women any more than he loved her. She feared more than anything the most he would ever be able to offer her would be fondness—however sincere—and the carnal offerings of his body. The same thing he’d offered those other women before their marriage. It wasn’t enough, but if she wanted a baby within the legal bonds of marriage, she had to find a way to come to terms.
She took his hand, climbed onto the sled, and sat.
A flush rose into her cheeks at the easy familiarity of settling so intimately against him, of the sensation of his muscular legs bracketing her safely in place and his warm chest against her back. She tucked her skirts underneath her legs.
“Wrap your arms around my legs and hold on tight.” Sophia did as Claxton instructed, his roughened voice in her ear. His arm came across her abdomen, a solid band of wool-covered muscle.
“Are you ready?” he asked quietly. “You know that once we go over the edge, there’s no turning back.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“Don’t be.”
At his encouragement, the boy gave them a running push. The blades
Cold air streamed against her face, blowing Sophia’s hair free of her hat.
Sophia regretted when all too quickly they arrived at the bottom. The sled bumped and skidded to an eventual stop. The euphoria in her chest calmed, and when the boy bounded down behind them to return the duke’s hat and to reclaim his sled, she almost begged them both for another turn at the hill. Instead she remained quiet. Dragging his sled, the boy returned to the top, where his friends cheered.
Sophia straightened her redingote and laughed. “I feared that rickety thing would fall to pieces beneath us. It shook and rattled so!”
“You enjoyed it then.” Eyes bright, with his hair blown straight back from his face, he looked very much in his element, like a Russian prince, alive and glorious, against the backdrop of winter.
“Yes. Oh yes,” she exclaimed. “Thank you for taking me down.”
With his hand at the small of her back, he led her toward the sledge, their boots crunching over the snow. Fat, fluffy snowflakes fell all around them, and the cold worked its way through the soles of her boots and through her clothing. She shivered.
“You’re cold.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and with a twist of his other, he removed the scarf from his own neck and draped it round hers. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have pressed you to—”
“No,” she interrupted. “The best sort of cold. What fun! And I saw what you did up there.”
She glanced at his profile.
“What is that?” he asked, his cheeks ruddy and handsome against the stark white background of the hillside. The wind ruffled his hair. She avoided looking at his lips in a failed effort to forget their passionate embraces in the kitchen.
“That boy,” she said. “Quite different from the others, with threadbare clothes and his boots in pieces. You made sure to use his sled, the most dubious of the lot, and gave him a half crown.”
“A half crown?” He glanced down at her from beneath dark lashes. “Surely not. Only a shilling.”
She pinched his sleeve. “A half crown, Claxton.”
“Purely by mistake.” He returned his hat to his head. “He was merely the closest and most eager.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His eyes burned into hers with a sudden flare of intensity. “Is it so difficult to believe there is something good inside me?”
“No, Claxton,” she answered softly. “Not at all.”
A slight pause followed.
“It is almost Christmas,” he said, jerking his chin aside and peering out over the village. “Perhaps he will purchase new shoes or a coat. But more likely, I expect, he will feed his family.”
He extended his arm, and she grasped it, climbing into the sledge.
After a short ride, they arrived to a darkened Camellia House. A half hour later, a blazing fire and the careful placement of screens vanquished the chill from the great room. There, in the same place where they had partaken of Mrs. Kettle’s wonderful meal, they ate the guinea fowls given to them by the innkeeper the previous day with bread, cheese, and some Christmas beer they’d purchased in the village.
“You play chess, don’t you?” he asked when they were done, setting up a board with the proper pieces.
