She felt it rather than heard it, a low rumble that shook through his body and then through hers, the motion pulling a little groan of pleasure from her throat. Even she wasn’t certain whether herenjoyment came more from the way the laugh made him rub against her, just a little, or from the knowledge that she could make him laugh.
Because that laughter was hope. Hope that maybe this whole thing would be fine. Not the kind of marriage that people dreamed of—it might be an arrangement with kissing, but itwasstill just an arrangement—but enough. Maybe it could be enough.
He stole one more long, probing kiss, then lowered her slowly enough that she managed to keep her balance, despite her shaking knees. They stared at one another in a moment that could have lasted for mere seconds or for eons while regimes rose and fell. Their breath fogged in the air between them.
“Right,” he said, his voice trembling just enough to gratify Phoebe down to her bones. “I will make the arrangements. We will be married in two days.”
“Two days.”
It wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t quitenota question, either. It was perhaps an expression of shock. It was really hard to tell, what with all the warmth that was swimming through her body, offering a strange, delightful contrast to the chill in the air. It all felt good—everything. He might have told her that they were to be married in twelve minutes on the moon, and she didn’t think she would have protested, at least not just then.
“Two days,” he repeated. “I will see you then.”
He took a step back, then another. A third step had his hands falling from her waist. He took a fourth before he turned away.
Phoebe watched him go. Every step of it.
Only when the Duke had retreated out of sight did she let her head drop back against the post of the gazebo. She let the hard line of wood support her as she gazed up at the star-shaped slats of the ceiling.
And then she saw it.
A sprig of mistletoe, tied up with a ribbon.
Well,thathad Hannah’s name written all over it.
Phoebe wanted to be annoyed, but instead she laughed and laughed and laughed until she had to sit down, the faint dusting of snow be damned.
She didn’t know how this marriage was going to go. She didn’t know what would happen next. She didn’t know how her life had shifted so quickly from what she had always planned and expected to this.
But she had liked that kiss. She’dmorethan liked it.
And that was more than she’d ever expected to have. So maybe—maybe—maybe just this once, she wouldn’t end up disappointed.
CHAPTER 11
“You look so pretty, Phoebe,” Hannah gushed.
Phoebe grimaced in the looking glass.
“Oh, all right, not when you dothat,” Hannah allowed. “But otherwise, you look very nice.”
Phoebe did look nice, she supposed. But the problem was that she didn’t feel that she looked at all like herself.
Don’t pretend.Her mother’s parting words rang through her ears as they so often did. There were so many details about her mother that she could no longer recall properly. She couldn’t remember the sound of her laugh. Her smile, which appeared so rarely, appeared in Phoebe’s mind with the brushstrokes of the portrait that hung in line with all the other portraits of the Turners over the years.
But those words never faded. Not even when she wanted them to.
This ornate coiffure, which had taken her maid a full hour and a half, was too ornate. Phoebe had never followed fashion too closely, and this new gown felt as though it had too many flounces, as though it pulled and tucked in all the wrong places.
She looked like a fashion plate.
It felt as itchy as new wool.
“This is the part where you say, ‘Thank you, Hannah. I’m so pleased that you think I look fine for my wedding,’” Hannah prompted.
Phoebe struggled to put a smile on her face.
She understood why Hannah needed Phoebe to be happy. She didn’t want to feel guilty that Phoebe had taken this blow for her. And Phoebe didn’t want to increase that guilt.
