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The entire enterprise was so ridiculous, she wanted to laugh. A giggle escaped and was greeted with a crash of eyebrows in her direction and a—well, it was a growl. A growl like a, a lion might make.
Llewellyn appeared as shocked as she; he turned abruptly and made his way up the slope that bordered the cottage on the eastern side.
It was only the beginning: they crept through underbrush, up and down a surprising number of hills, as well as a series of boulders. They forded a brook more than once as it wound its way around yet another hill, this one more like a small mountain. Her breath became labored and earned a look over the ducal shoulder. She grabbed up more skirt and overcoat and forged ahead. She would not be left behind; she was well able for physical exertion. However, this was nothing like climbing up and down Sorrento’s streets the livelong day, steep as they were. She refused to be outfaced until they came upon a fresh crop of boulders running up the side of yet another hill.
Tabitha supposed that the duke and his cohort had placed these obstacles for the entertainment of the climbingversipelles. For example: felines. She watched Llewellyn glide up the sheer face of rock like it was little more challenging than a staircase. He paused at the top, and she swore he almost smiled when he looked down at her. Slinking back was the work of a moment, and he held out a hand. It hung there between them, and both froze. He snatched it back, and she set a foot upon the nearest stone, took a deep breath—and he extended his hand once more. She gave him hers, and a shiver ran down her spine.
“One step at a time,” he whispered. She nodded and carefully began her ascent.
He led her up a way she could not see for herself, his palm warm and dry, the strength in his arm apparent. Her feet found purchase, one rock after the next, and in her exuberance at reaching the top, she was almost undone. Tabitha released his hand too soon, and it was as if the air at her back pulled at her, as though her body longed for the ground beneath, and she slipped on the final rock. In the instant she sensed her balance falter, an arm lashed around her waist, and she was lifted to safety, held hard against a lean, muscular side. Those muscles moved in an evocative manner as he placed her on the summit with the same ease as she would put a teacup in a saucer.
They leaned against each other until their eyes met, and once again the duke retreated…but not without a lingering brush of fingers to her side.
“Well,” she said and was roundly hushed. “Well,” she whispered, “here we are.” The vista was astonishing. This was an entire tranche of the park she had not come upon in her wanderings. “Where are we?”
“The eastern edge.” He pointed to a path leading off to the south. “That leads directly to your section of the park.”
“Why did we not come that way?”
“For your protection. In case Lowell had mounted a lookout.” That seemed unlikely, but Tabitha deferred to his greater experience as one who was more often the watcher than the watched.
The vantage was perfect, even with its wild outgrowth of tall grasses and undisciplined shrubbery; a ledge projected slightly from a prodigious tangle of growth that would provide cover…if they lay on their bellies like children playing on a rug before a hearth. The duke started to speak and then looked ashamed. Tabitha unwrapped one of her shawls and lay it on the ground.
“Is this what you had in mind?” she asked, and he nodded, those lashes hiding his eyes, a fan against his high cheekbones. “I can sacrifice one of my coats as well.”
“I did not prepare for this as best as I could have,” he admitted.
“Come, come. This is not a picnic.”
“And not on the scale of a royal banquet. Perhaps it is more akin to what you experienced in Greece.”
What now? Oh, Timothy’s monologue from the Sunday Meal. “I assure you, this climate is in no way Grecian.” She unbuttoned her overcoat, and the duke took it to lay over the shawl. He looked at her, his eyes glimmering in the light of the moon.
She ran her hands self-consciously down her sides. “I am thin, beneath all of that.”
“You are a nymph, like to tempt Zeus himself.” He extended a hand, and whether or not she needed his help to lower onto their impromptu blanket, she took it. To help acclimate him to touch as much as possible. Obviously.
He followed, and yes, they both needed to lie down to see into the meadow.
The sensation of that male body next to hers—no, neither of them had thought this through.
Tabitha rallied, as ever. “So. We are as far from the village as we can be.”
“And at the farthest point from the London Road,” he said. “Not that there was likely to be traffic on it at this hour. But there is no chance of intrusion.”
“For the safety of the pack.” The Alpha of Lowell Hall had thought this through; at least someone had.
“For the protection of their secret.”
And by extension the whole ofversipelliansociety. And yet… “I understand Lowell Close is to be opened up to the wider world.”
“It is a risk.” Llewellyn rocked up on his elbows. “Lowell has his reasons.”
“I doubt it is on Her Grace’s account.” If Felicity never strolled the perimeter of atonballroom again, Tabitha was certain she would be the happier for it; she also doubted anyone in thebeau mondewould be extended an invitation to her friend’s pastoral idyll. “I believe His Grace wishes his people’s talents to be shared with all.”
“As long as that’s all that is shared. He also plans for his people to—” He stopped himself and fell silent.
The stars shone in the night sky, and the surroundings were still; the blasted spring air stirred, and Tabitha felt the lack of her two top layers. She shivered; the duke hesitated and then incrementally edged over until his shoulder brushed hers. The heat coming off him was like a bonfire.
