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“What wouldn’t be ladylike?” he asked, pulling her slowly closer, his blue eyes darkening and his smile warming her from nose tip to her toes.
She came closer to him, tilting her chin upward. Her gaze dropped from his to the curve of his lips. It had been years since anyone had kissed her. Was she too out of practice to attempt it? Did Simon want to kiss her? The draw she felt toward him—he must feel it, too.
Had he asked her a question? “I cannot recall, at present,” she murmured, starting to rise on her toes.
“Mm.” He didn’t seem to mind, as he bent slowly toward her, his eyes lowering from hers to her lips.
He was going to kiss her. And she was going to let him. Let him? She was going to kiss him back!
Then his eyes flickered, as though drawn by movement. Simon stiffened and stepped away from Isleen with the quickness of a startled deer. She blinked up at him, then turned, and her whole body warmed with mortification.
The duke himself stood behind her, several paces away, eyes averted as though the tree he stared up into was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. He had his hands tucked behind his back, and he said nothing, nor appeared disapproving.
That was a mercy.
Simon cleared his throat before speaking in a clear, too-loud voice. “May I see you back to your sleigh, Miss Frost?”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. Surely he didn’t mean to pretend the duke had witnessednothing? That nothing had happened between them? Well. She supposed nothinghadhappened. But rather, that it had almost happened. Oh dear. What exactly was the duke thinking?
“Yes, thank you.” She took his arm, keeping as much distance between the rest of them as possible. As they strolled past the duke, as calm as though they took a turn about a garden, he lowered his gaze from the tree to smile at them both. A knowing, kind sort of smile.
“I hope you enjoyed the races, Miss Frost.”
“I did, Your Grace.” She bobbed a curtsy to him, reminding herself that the Duke of Montfort was one of the most powerful men in England. And he had nearly caught her, a lowly baron’s daughter, allowing his son to kiss her.
“Excellent. Farleigh? When we return to the stables, I hope you will grant me a few moments of your time.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Simon answered at once, bowing. Then they left the wooded area, her cheeks still burning. Simon looked down at her, his eyes wide. “Isleen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken liberties—”
“You didn’t,” she assured him, keeping her voice low as they approached the line of sleighs. The children were still throwing snowballs at each other in the field, though the adults and drivers milled around the vehicles. “And I will certainly tell your father the truth of the matter, if you need me to. I don’t wish to cause you any trouble.”
“My father.” Simon released a heavy sigh and looked over his shoulder. “He will take me at my word. You needn’t worry, Isleen. Your reputation is safe; it will be me he thinks poorly of, not you.”
She squeezed his arm gently. “I hope not, Simon.”
“I am sorry things were spoiled. Not by my father, but by me.” He gave her a most repentant look. “I ought to have known better than to steal away with you, out in the open, where anyone could happen upon us. Forgive me for my indiscretion, Isleen.”
How could she not? He had a look about him rather like a kicked puppy. “There is nothing to forgive, Simon.” Though she regretted that she might never know the feel of his lips pressed against hers.
What if his father forbade him from spending any more time with her? What if the duke disapproved of young couples exchanging a kiss? The mortification of it all came back, and Isleen had to swallow a groan of embarrassment.
They were only steps away from the sleigh when Simon bent closer to Isleen and whispered in her ear. “I am sorry, most of all, to have lost the chance to kiss you.”
A whirling wind spun about in Isleen’s stomach while her blood sang in her ears.
Her lips parted, and she turned to him with a quiet gasp of surprise. He only smiled, then handed her up into her sleigh, onto the seat next to her brother, who was distracted calling for Fiona and Lord James to stop their play and return.
Simon withdrew, and when Teague turned to look at her, amused and exasperated, she had composed herself somewhat. “Can you believe those children? It’s as though they’d rather play in the woods forever than come back where it’s warm.”
“I cannot say I blame them,” she whispered. Because she, too, rather wished she had just a little more time in the woods.
* * *
Simon had learned,long ago, to mimic the way his father raised a single eyebrow when the duke wished to make a point. It was a trait all the children had worked to learn, and that James had nearly mastered. Sometimes, the single raised brow indicated humor. Other times, disbelief.
Today, when the duke folded his arms, leaned against the base of the tree, and raised that eyebrow at his son, Simon read neither of those things. His father’s green eyes were dark, his mouth a flat line betraying neither joy nor sorrow, and his posture was relaxed.
The duke had lingered at the stables while everyone else went up the hill, and Simon remained with him. When they were the last two remaining, His Grace had led Simon out of the cobbled stable-yard and to a tall evergreen, where he had taken up his relaxed position.
