Page 9 of A Rogues & Gentlemen Christmas

“Did I? How silly of me,” she replied. “One more, please.”

He did not need asking again and returned his mouth to hers, this time daring to put his hands to her waist. She swayed towards him and Chance traced his tongue over her bottom lip.

She pulled back with a gasp.

“Oh,” she said, eyes wide.

“Sorry,” Chance replied at once, cursing himself. Bloody fool. He’d had to push his luck.

“Do it again,” she demanded.

His mouth fell open. “All right,” he managed. He leaned back in and kissed her, captivated by the warm, soft lips beneath his. His tongue traced the seam of her mouth this time and she opened a little for him, her own tongue daring to touch his. The sweetness of the moment was like nothing he had ever known, and he pulled back again, not wishing to spoil it by taking too much, too soon.

“Oh,” she said on a breath of surprise, blinking at him through thick, sooty lashes.

“Oh, indeed,” Chance replied, enchanted.

She sat back but did not move away from him.

“Is there anything but potatoes to eat, Charlie? Though the potato was very good,” she added quickly, as if afraid she might offend him.

Chance laughed. “Carrots, or turnips.”

“Oh, not turnips,” she said, and he grinned at her.

“No, we shall be in dire straits indeed before we are reduced to eating turnips.”

She laughed, and the sound made him happy, made him search for something else to amuse her, just to hear that musical laughter again.

For a moment, he imagined never going home but hiding away, staying here with her. A foolish dream filled his mind of running the farm as Mr Burrough had taught him, and coming home to Odette, and… and he was losing his damn mind. He knew nothing about her beyond her name and that she had an uncle from whom she’d run away. By her own admission, she was reckless and impulsive. He was Viscount Debdon, his father was an earl, and he ought to be home by now meeting his intended bride for the first time. Chance was going to be in the basket when he got back as it was, without arriving with some ruined French girl in tow. Not that he had any option. There was no way on earth he was leaving her to fend for herself. He would see her safely to his home and find out more about her uncle. Then he might judge whether her uncle was fit to take her, for he did not like the sound of a man who would keep his niece so confined. The young lady his father had selected had likely gone off in a fury days since, after he’d been so rag-mannered as to leave her hanging. He felt rotten about it, now it was done. It was a shabby way to have treated anyone, even if he resented being manoeuvred about like a blasted chess piece.

They feasted on carrots and potatoes that night, and somehow it did feel like a feast. They ate before the fire and Chance entertained her with stories of his wartime adventures, or at least the ones that were fit for a lady’s ear and would make her laugh. In turn, she told tales of her cousin André, who had obviously been a dear friend, and whose death had been devastating to her.

“I had accepted that I must marry him,” she said, pushing away her empty plate. “My uncle had told me since I was old enough to understand and so I knew it was how things would be. It made me sad that I would never fall in love, but there was a kind of security in it too. André was my friend, my brother, and I knew he would be kind, but like any girl I had hoped for a romance. You know… to go to balls and parties and fall in love. You think me foolish?”

She glanced up, a tinge of colour staining her cheeks.

Chance shook his head. “No. Not at all. Why wouldn’t you want that? It’s what we all want, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” she asked, curious now. “Men wish for this too? I thought you avoided the parson’s mousetrap like the plague?”

He laughed at that, though he could hardly deny it. “Yes. I think we take longer to come around to the idea, but… I should like to marry, to fall in love.”

The words hung in the air between them and Chance could not look away from her, from those dark eyes that seemed to sparkle like a night sky in the dim firelight.

“Have you never?” she asked.

Chance shook his head.

“No. I thought I had, once, a long time ago. I thought I was mad in love, and that she loved me, but then she went and married a duke. He was fat and old, but he was a duke, and so she turned her back on me. I thought I’d die of misery,” he said with a soft laugh, wondering why on earth he’d told her that. He’d never spoken of it to anyone.

His friends had known of course, which only made him feel a blasted fool.

“I am so sorry.” Odette reached out and took his hand, and Chance’s breath hitched, though whether it was from the soft sincerity of her words or the touch of her hand he did not know. “She was a fool.”

He laughed again at her tart remark, touched and surprised at her anger on his behalf.

“How can you say so? You don’t know me at all, and he was a duke.”