Page 31 of Stolen By the Duke of Stone

And she was slowly but surely bringing Andrew into that world.

He hadn’t avoided her when he’d seen her in the library. He’d even held William, though she hadn’t missed his uncertainty, or the way he had very clearly not believed that this was best for William.

None of that mattered now.

They reached his nursery, and Andrew carefully laid William down in his cradle. Andrew went to ring for Lucy, and Jessamine stayed a few more moments, staring at William’s tiny, sleeping face and wondering how she could love him so very much when she had only known him for a handful of weeks.

“Rebecca would be so proud of him,” she whispered so Andrew wouldn’t hear, then followed him out of the room.

Andrew closed the door behind her, leaning over, and she caught the scent of soap and cotton and something else—a scent that she had smelled once before, when he had massaged her and drawn her in for a kiss.

The memory turned her face to fire, and a tingling went through her body.

He glanced down at her, seeming to realize their proximity for the first time, and stepped back. Jessamine opened her mouth to ask about the kiss, then hesitated.

What ought she to say? What was there to say?

He looked down at her seriously, and she found her attention drawn to his mouth once more. She’d never had occasion to look at a man’s mouth before now, and she didn’t know quite what to do with the sensation.

“Andrew,” she started, not knowing where she was going next. Even this corridor made him feel too close; so large was he, and yet the distance he maintained between them felt too far. “We ought to…”

His eyes flicked to hers, so dark they made her stomach flutter. “We ought to what?”

What? What did she have in mind to say? “Well done with William.”

His gaze searched her face as though he knew she had intended to say something else, but eventually, all he said was, “If you have anyone to thank, you should thank yourself.”

“We are both learning what we can as we go,” Jessamine said.

She stepped forward, a moth to a flame.

Keeping her distance from Andrew was impossible. She had seen something else lurking behind that stern exterior, and she wanted desperately to uncover it and learn a little more about him. All the things she had assumed at their first meeting were false, and she could no longer say she disliked him. If anything, she thought she might like him very much if only he gave her occasion to.

“Good day, Your Graces,” Lucy said breezily as she approached, patting down the nursemaid’s cap on her head. “Is William sleeping?”

Andrew tore his gaze from Jessamine, and she felt bereft from under it, her chest tightening and releasing. “He is,” he said curtly. “Thank you for coming and sitting with him.”

“Oh, that’s my pleasure, Your Grace.” She bobbed a quick curtsy and disappeared inside the nursery.

Jessamine looked at Andrew, half reaching out, but he had already turned for the stairs. Running, yet again.

“If that is all,” he said, pausing several feet from her, “then I will take my leave, Jessamine. Let me know if William needs anything else from me.”

“Just to be held,” Jessamine said, although part of her wondered how much of that requirement was for William, and how much was for her. “That’s all.”

“I think you have that admirably under control.” He nodded at her, his stern mask fully in place, not a glimmer of emotion showing underneath.

Jessamine said nothing as he disappeared down the stairs away from her.

This time, it felt a little as though he had taken a very small piece of her with him. She was not sure how to get it back.

Chapter Eleven

“Does he have a fever?” Andrew asked when he visited last thing at night before going to bed.

Days passed. Andrew did his best to keep himself to himself, while still checking in on William every time he thought Jessamine might be elsewhere.

As time went on, however, it seemed whenever he entered the nursery, Jessamine was there, cradling William and singing to him.