An Affair in Winter (Seasons Book 1) (9 page)

Worse, he still wanted her just as much as he had then when her denials had sunk into his skin and made him want to believe their meeting was coincidence, the fate he had once whispered to her it was. He could have kissed her in that moment, he could have drawn her against him.

And had he done so, he would have been a fool all over again.

The best thing he could do was get rid of her. Her and her scheming sister and grandfather. So he rushed down the hallway until he reached Lucien’s office and threw the door open without even bothering to knock.

His brother sat at his desk, papers strewn around him. He lifted his gaze slowly as Gray entered without leave and slammed the door behind him. Although Lucien pressed his lips together in a deep frown, otherwise he seemed unfazed by Gray’s obvious temper.

“What is wrong with you?” Lucien asked. “And where have you been? You were meant to show Mrs. Wilde around the house, but it was obvious she got a truncated version of the home, judging from how swiftly she returned to the parlor. Felicity had to take up the duty after her seamstress departed.”

Gray waved his hand to dismiss his brother’s question. “That doesn’t matter. Mrs. Wilde does not matter.” Those words sounded false, but he continued regardless. “I want to reiterate my strenuous objections to this marriage.”

Now Lucien set his quill aside with a long, tired sigh and pushed to his feet. “This again?” he asked as he moved to the sideboard and poured himself a drink, despite the early hour.

“Yes.” Gray pursed his lips. “This again. It is important, Lucien.”

“So you say,” Stenfax replied with a glance in his direction.

“It
is
.” Gray threw up his hands. “Great God, doesn’t it bother you that Celia Fitzgilbert and her grandfather are title grabbers?”

Lucien’s brow wrinkled. “Unlike two-thirds of the
ton
, you mean?” he asked, sarcasm dripping from every word.

“Like Elise,” Gray bit out.

The color drained from Lucien’s face and he slammed his drink down before he returned to his desk. As he settled back in to his work, he said, “Do not mention that name to me.”

Gray flinched at the coldness in Lucien’s tone. It didn’t match the hot emotion he knew his brother felt about the woman he’d once loved. The one who’d thrown him over when she had been offered the chance to marry a rich duke over an almost penniless earl.

Gray had watched his brother suffer massively from that broken engagement. He’d watched him step out on the edge of a terrace wall in a drunken stupor and nearly throw himself to his death. Gray’s stomach turned at the memory that sometimes rushed back to haunt him in both his dreams and in waking moments that were like a nightmare.

“I don’t want to see you hurt,” Gray said, this time softly.

Lucien didn’t look up from his paperwork, but his jaw clenched and unclenched. “I won’t be,” he vowed. “I was hurt before because Eli—because
that woman
made me believe she cared for me. Celia and I have no such illusions between us. Our marriage will be one of mutual convenience, nothing more. Her dowry is large and allows me to refill our family coffers. My title will elevate her and her grandfather as they wish.”

“My investments are paying off,” Gray said. “I have money. Let
me
refill the family coffers.”

Lucien’s cheeks flamed, and he finally looked at Gray. “Take your charity? No thank you. You have found your way, Grayson. Allow me to find my own.”

“But there are plenty of rich women who
aren’t
only interested in a title,” Gray suggested. “You are a popular man.”

“I don’t want ridiculous romantic entanglements,” Lucien insisted with another heavy sigh. He finally looked at Gray. “You are the younger brother, Gray, not the eldest. You needn’t play nursemaid to me. I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions. This subject is closed.”

Gray opened his mouth to argue, but his brother shook his head. “It is
closed
, Grayson. I mean it. Now go find something else to do and allow me to finish my business.”

Gray let out his breath in a frustrated sigh as he turned on his heel and left him alone. He had no choice at the moment but to do as Lucien asked, for his brother was not in any mood to hear the truth. But whatever Lucien said, the subject was not closed to Gray.

Rosalinde paced the parlor, frustration growing in her every time she turned and took another lap around the room. That she could still be so angry almost two hours after her encounter with Grayson only proved what a hateful man he was. He and his accusations and his full lips could hang for all she cared.

She fisted her hands at her sides with an angry growl just before she made the next turn in her endless pacing. And as she did so, she found her grandfather standing in the doorway to the chamber, watching her through a narrowed gaze.

She stopped, forcing her hands to unfist, trying to calm her expression and her racing heart. “Gr-grandfather,” she said. “I didn’t see you there.”

He stepped into the room. “Clearly, as you were hurtling yourself around the room like an angry harridan.”

Rosalinde took a long breath and readied herself for yet another unpleasant encounter with the man who had raised her. He had aged a great deal in that time, but his attitude remained the same. He was still cold, he was still unyielding, he still held grudges for crimes committed years ago. Hell, he still despised Rosalinde and Celia’s mother, his own daughter, and she had been in the grave for over two decades.

“I am restless, that is all,” Rosalinde lied. “I suppose it comes from being trapped in a carriage for two days.”

“Lying, are you, Rosalinde? I shouldn’t be surprised. You are like your mother. Agatha was a liar, too.”

Rosalinde shut her eyes briefly, swallowing back the defense of the mother she didn’t even remember.

“I’m not lying,” she said softly.

He shook his head. “So you say. But I saw the way you reacted this morning at breakfast. You made a spectacle of yourself by not eating, by acting so strangely in front of Stenfax and his family. Have a care, Rosalinde. You will not like the consequences if you ruin this engagement.”

“I assume I would not,” Rosalinde replied. “I have already suffered your wrath in the past, Grandfather. I have not forgotten its sting. I am in no way trying to hurt Celia or her chances with Stenfax.”

In fact, she was trying to
help
her sister, but she wasn’t going to tell Mr. Fitzgilbert that. If he knew the engagement was being threatened by anyone, his temperament would only become less and less pleasant. He might ruin things, himself, by flying into a temper, though he would blame Rosalinde and Celia quickly enough.

“You’d best not be,” he grunted with a quick nod. “You know I hold all the cards. If you two want to know your father’s identity, Celia must get her title first.”

“Yes,” Rosalinde said, setting her jaw in anger and disgust. “We are both well-aware of the terms of your devil’s bargain. You needn’t repeat them.”

“A devil’s bargain?” her grandfather repeated. “Only if the devil you refer to is my daughter.”

“My mother has nothing to do with you taking us from our father and making us believe he died,” Rosalinde said through clenched teeth. “She has
nothing
to do with your blackmailing Celia into marrying a title to satisfy you in exchange for the information you’ve kept from us all these years. She has nothing to do with your cruelty.”

Fitzgilbert waved his hand to dismiss her claim. “If your mother hadn’t seen fit to spread her legs for someone so beneath her and if
you
hadn’t done the same just to thwart me, none of us would be in this position.”

Rosalinde turned away tears stinging her eyes. Leave it to Mr. Fitzgilbert to be so cruel as to throw her desperately unhappy marriage in her face.

“Why do you hate us so much?” she whispered.

“Because you represent such a failure. A failure to produce sons and proper heirs. A failure to produce good women who wouldn’t destroy my name.”

“You could have loved us,” she said without looking at him. “We would have loved you in return if you had tried even a little to care.”

“
Love
?” he repeated on a laugh. “My dear,
love
is weakness and it does nothing to carry on a name or a legacy. And if you feel you have been wronged by my attitude toward you, recall that it is only by
my
good graces that you have a place here at all. You would do well to be grateful.”

He said nothing else, but turned on his heel and left her alone in the chamber. Rosalinde moved to the settee, where she sank down, covering her face with her hands. Her entire life she had been trapped by her grandfather’s hate. She’d had Celia to love, of course, to share her pains and triumphs with.

But she’d failed Celia and put her in her current situation. And once Celia was gone? Well, she had no idea if Fitzgilbert would put her on the street. Or even if he would share the information he claimed to have.

“That sounded heated.”

Rosalinde sucked in a gasp and jumped to her feet to face Gray as he came into the room. “Are you in the habit of listening in on private conversations, Mr. Danford?”

He shrugged, and her heart stuttered. God, what had he heard exactly? Certainly he would turn much of that conversation against her if he could. He would use it to condemn Celia and damage her in front of Stenfax.

“I am not,” he said. “But your grandfather’s angry tone was hard to disguise, even if his words were unclear.”

Rosalinde sagged in relief. So he hadn’t heard the specifics of the exchange. The anger he’d been privy to was humiliating, of course, but Gray couldn’t hurt Celia with it.

He moved closer, tilting his head as he examined her face. “There are tears in your eyes,” he murmured. “What is it, Rosalinde?”

She gasped. That was the first time he’d ever addressed her by her given name, and the way it rolled off his tongue, the way it reverberated in his voice, touched her deep inside. Added to the tenderness in his tone, it was very confusing, indeed.

She shook her head. “You have already accused me of being a liar,” she whispered, reminding herself as much as reproaching him. “And insinuated I would trade my body for the purposes of…God, I don’t even know what you think I tried to gain from our night together. Is it blackmail of some kind? So please don’t pretend to care about my wellbeing now.”

He moved on her so suddenly that she didn’t have time to recoil. One moment he was three feet away, the next he was right in front of her and his hand was reaching out, his fingers stroking over her cheek so gently.

“I’m not pretending,” he murmured.

She stared up into his face, trying desperately to keep herself from doing something foolish like lift her lips to his. Like beg him to hold her. He was her enemy. He’d made that clear just two hours before. She couldn’t forget all that just because he touched her.

That would mean surrender in this war they were secretly fighting.

“Rosalinde,” he groaned, and lowered his lips toward her.

Her rational mind briefly screamed at her to back away, but it was overridden at once by her desire to taste this man once more. Just once more. Then never again.

His mouth covered hers and she let out a low moan of pleasure and relief. She lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck, she opened her mouth and he drove inside with his tongue, claiming her and tasting her and teasing her just as he had done two nights before. She sank into the swirling, heated sensations, setting aside all her tangled emotions when it came to this man and their opposing goals.

She was just a woman in that moment, he was just a man, and this was just pleasure that gently pulsed through her body, awakening every nerve and settling between her legs. He grunted out a needful sound and his arms came tighter around her, molding her fully against him, letting her feel how much he wanted her. Her body responded to the hardness that now pressed against her belly. She felt soft and wet and womanly and ready for him.

But she couldn’t have him. Rationality returned with that thought. She couldn’t have him because he could use that surrender against her. Because this desire he inspired was now a tool for him, to be wielded against her.

She pulled back and he released her immediately. He only watched her as she staggered away. She kept her back to him for a moment, touching her hot lips, trying to regain some control over herself. But she couldn’t find that. Only confusion and aching need were to be found inside of her. She wasn’t strong enough for anything else.

And so she staggered away from him and the desire he inspired. But in the hallway, away from his touch, from his overwhelming presence, she felt no more grounded. Only more confused and driven to touch him, to have him, to surrender to him, even though she knew that could only bring her pain.