The Louise Allen Collection: The Viscount's Betrothal / The Society Catch. Louise Allen
respectable and staid as it had been, had done nothing to put his unruly feelings back on track.
At first it had seemed to work just as he had hoped: formality, social chitchat and unexceptional subject matter had reduced Decima to a shadow of her vibrant self.
She had agreed politely with everything he’d said, followed all his conversational leads, never ventured a single opinion of her own and had sat, hands folded, feet together by the hearth. If it were possible for a tall, attractive woman to become invisible, she had almost managed it. It should have made him feel safe. Instead, he hated it. It was as though someone had snuffed a candle, leaving him alone in the darkness.
He pushed away the enormity of what that implied. ‘What is so amusing?’
Decima twinkled at him as she went towards Fox’s stall. ‘I’ll show you when we go outside. Hello, handsome!’
Fox put his head over the half-door, pushing expectantly at her caressing hand. ‘Yes, I have sugar. This is outrageous cupboard love, you wretch.’ She turned to Adam, still rubbing the one spot on the big stallion’s nose that seemed to reduce him to a blissful trance. He found himself watching her hands. ‘I have been thinking of breeding from my mare, Spindrift. You wouldn’t consider putting Fox to her?’
She said it so practically, without the trace of a blush. Adam swallowed. ‘He is a big horse—seventeen hands.’ Now how, exactly, did one put this without becoming coarse?
‘You think the foal would be too large for her?’ Decima regarded Fox, head on one side. ‘She is sixteen hands, I am sure that would not be a problem. Of course, we would have to draw up a proper agreement and I would naturally pay the correct fee for a successful foal.’
‘She’s a large mare.’ It was all he could think of saying.
‘She needs to be,’ Decima countered with a grimace. ‘What do you think? Obviously you want to be careful about bloodlines, but I can let you see Spindrift’s. She’s one-quarter Arab.’
‘Yes. I don’t see why not. We’ll discuss it.’ It was a feeble answer, but Adam turned back abruptly to his task. The thought of putting his stallion to her mare produced such a flood of primitive emotions in him that he didn’t think he could face her. Decima appeared to have not the slightest idea of her own effect on him, of the earthy sensuality she exuded when she was not being the prim and proper spinster miss. Even when she was being prim and proper, come to that. Surely men had made overtures to her before, surely she was aware of the effect she had?
They finished in the stables and went outside. ‘Now, tell me, what made you laugh?’ Anything to stop thinking about her, tall, slender, lithe and naked in his arms.
‘This.’ Decima took a few running steps, then slid elegantly across the ice slick, arms out for seemingly effortless balance. He froze, terrified that she would fall. She turned and slid back, laughing at his expression. ‘Can’t you skate?’
‘No, I’ve never tried. Stop it, you’ll fall and break something.’
Decima came to a controlled halt a few feet away. ‘I will not! I am an excellent skater, watch.’ And to his horror she took a gliding step and spun round, full circle. ‘See?’
‘Come off the ice. Now.’ Adam felt his voice catch in his throat. He did not know what it was: the sudden vision of her lying injured on the treacherous surface or the reality of her, her hair flying out behind her, her cheeks pink, her bosom rising and falling with her breathing.
Something must have shown in his face because she stopped and slid carefully towards him. ‘Very well, if you insist.’ Her voice was meek, but rebellion flared in her eyes and Adam realised he didn’t trust her an inch not to pirouette away at the last moment. As she came within reach he seized her arm and spun her off the ice onto the trodden snow. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he stated harshly.
Decima gasped as she was jerked against Adam, her arm held in a grip that left her in no doubt that it could close like a vice around her wrist if he so chose. ‘Let me go.’ There was heat in those grey-green eyes, a spark as though flint had struck iron. ‘Don’t be so dictatorial, Adam—you are as bad as Charlton.’
But that was not true; being reproved by her half-brother felt nothing like this. That provoked resentment and embarrassment, but not a flare of temper to match his, not a pounding of her heart as though she had been running. And she would not be racked with the shameful desire that he would drag her closer, fix those hard arms round her until she could not struggle and could only yield to him.
Adam’s anger—if that was what it was—flickered and was gone, replaced by rueful amusement. ‘To be compared to Charlton is an insult indeed. Just promise me you will not slide on the ice again. I don’t want to have to set your broken leg.’
‘I promise.’ She looked up at him, struck yet again by the novelty of a man she could look in the face without having to stoop. ‘I am a very good skater, though.’
‘I am sure you are, and if you had proper skates and a doctor within five miles I would not turn a hair. And don’t pout at me.’ He let her go abruptly and walked away towards a wide stretch of virgin snow.
‘I wasn’t,’ Decima protested, stamping after him through the crunching whiteness. ‘And if I was, why shouldn’t I?’
Adam turned, his eyes on her mouth. ‘Because it makes me want to nibble your lower lip, if you must know.’ He carried on walking.
‘Oh!’ Decima stared at his retreating back. Nibble? He did not sound very pleased at the prospect, more like someone warning a child that if they did not stop doing something naughty they would have to be spanked. There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that, or anything to do, other than to retreat inside, all injured dignity, or pretend she had not heard him. Nibble? Would that be pleasant? Was it even normal? Now what was he doing? Adam had stopped and, crouching, began to roll a snowball in the snow. It got bigger and bigger, leaving a clear track of muddy green where it had passed. At last, apparently satisfied, he stopped and began the whole process over again.
‘What are you doing?’ Decima approached cautiously.
‘Building a snowman. You do a smaller ball for his head.’
‘But I haven’t built a snowman since I was—’ She broke off, racking her brains. ‘Eight. I must have been eight.’
‘I don’t think I have, either.’ Adam lifted the snowman’s torso up with a grunt and settled it on the base. ‘But as we do not have any eight-year-olds to hand, and all this good snow is going to waste, it seems a pity not to take advantage.’
Decima looked from the half-built snow figure to Adam and then hastily back again. The sudden dark mood by the ice patch had vanished; he was quite obviously intending to play. His eyes sparkled, his grin was infectious—but there was nothing in the least childlike about the breadth of his shoulders or the length of leg where the muscles rippled as he bent and lifted.
Decima had always considered that she and Augusta had enjoyed themselves quite light-heartedly whenever the mood took them. Skating in the winter, picnics in the summer, riding and shopping and socialising with neighbours all the year round. But it had never occurred to her to do something so spontaneous, so undignified, so unladylike, as to play in the snow.
She bent and gathered up a handful of snow, shaped it into a ball and began to push it along, patting and shaping as it grew. When it seemed big enough she lifted it and set it in place, only to find Adam had vanished. The snowman appeared well built, but somewhat lacking in features. Decima went and picked up broken branches from under a tree and set them in as arms, then had another idea and ran to the coal shed, returning with enough small pieces for eyes, buttons and a row of black teeth.
She was just standing back to view the effect when Adam reappeared from the stables, his arms full.
‘There.’ He set a battered tricorne on the figure’s head, fashioned a scarf out of sacking and added one of the bruised carrots