Page 85 of More or Less a Countess
Despite this denial, Nick’s voice was thoughtful. Oh, he’d been surly enough for the first hour or so, but as they’d strolled around the conservatory he’d forgotten himself enough to relax, and a slight smile had been hovering at the corner of his lips ever since. It had been days since she’d seen even a ghost of a smile on his face, and Violet’s heart leapt with hope.
“My father wanted to build my mother a great monstrosity of a conservatory,” he went on, “but she never wanted anything sprawling or extravagant—just something simple and beautiful to grow her flowers.”
“What kind of flowers did she prefer?”
“Gardenias, jasmine, myrtle—the usual sort of thing. She wanted to add arching trellises following the roof line so she could grow climbing vines.” He pointed up at the curved ceiling. “But she died before it could be done.”
Violet hesitated, but he’d never spoken of his mother to her before, and she couldn’t let this opportunity escape her. “How old were you when she died?”
He was quiet for a moment, and she thought he might not reply, but then he sighed. “Nine. Graham was eleven. After she died, my father refused to ever set foot in this room again, and you see what happened. Shattered glass and withered plants.”
Shattered hearts, withered dreams…
Violet glanced up at the broken panes of glass, at their jagged edges glittering in the sun. The glass wasn’t the only thing that had been shattered when the previous Lady Dare died.
She went over to the table where she’d left her sketchbook and pencil, sat down, and drew a few hasty lines. “Trellises like this, you mean?”
Nick crossed the room and peered over her shoulder. “Something like that, yes.” He sounded surprised.
She sketched in another dozen or so lines, murmuring to him as she drew. “The vines could be planted in containers below. It would take no time at all for them to climb the trellis. Once they grew in, it would be like having a separate little garden above your head. As for the rest of it…” Violet waved a hand around the room. “Broken glass is easily repaired, and we can plant new flowers. We could have gardenia, if you like, and jasmine, just as your mother did.”
Nick didn’t reply. He wandered to one end of the room and stood there for a long time, his arms crossed over his chest, staring out into the garden. Violet could only see his profile, but he didn’t look angry. He looked…wistful.
Her breath caught as she gazed at him. The light pouring down from the roof set fire to the strands of auburn hidden in his dark hair and emphasized his strong jaw and the sensuous curve of his lower lip.
Quietly, Violet turned to a blank page in her book and began to sketch him, taking care to make certain every line and every curve of his face was true, so when she showed the sketch to him, he could see himself as she saw him. Not as a selfish rake, but as the man he was—a man of strength and compassion, yet always with that hint of sadness about him, of wounds not quite healed.
Those wounds, that trace of grief in his eyes he’d likely carry with him always…
Did he understand they only made him more beautiful?
“Everything seems different when I see it as you see it.”
Violet’s pencil stilled on the page, and she slowly raised her gaze to him.
He wasn’t looking at her—he was still staring out the window, as if he were watching something she couldn’t see. “It was that way in London, too.” The perfect curve of his lips softened with a faint smile. “Burial grounds, gibbets, ghosts…” He shook his head. “I never would have believed there was more than one way to see those things, but I was wrong.”
Violet hesitated, unsure what to do. They were the first kind words he’d spoken to her since their disastrous wedding night, and she was afraid to disturb the quiet tenderness of the moment, but at the same time she’d waited weeks for him to offer her even the smallest opening, and she couldn’t let her fear stand in the way of taking it.
She closed her sketchbook, laid it aside, and went and stood before him, close enough so her body brushed against his. She didn’t speak, but lay her hands on his chest, gazed into his extraordinary gray eyes, and hoped with all her heart he’d see the truth in hers.
He stared down at her, searching her face. “Seeing things as you see them, looking at every moment as a possibility, as another chance to be delighted…it feels like waking up from a drugged sleep. It feels like breathing again.”
Violet didn’t move, and she didn’t breathe. She only looked into his eyes, a silent prayer hidden on her lips.
Please let him see, let him understand…
He trailed a finger down her cheek and rested it under her chin. Violet didn’t make a sound until his lips brushed over hers, then a long, deep sigh escaped her.
His mouth was soft at first, gentle, but when he stroked his tongue over her bottom lip and she opened for him without hesitation, he sank his hands in her hair to hold her still to take her mouth over and over again, his kiss desperate.
Violet whimpered in dismay when he drew away, but before she could bring his mouth back to hers he trailed his lips over her neck to kiss her throat. His chest heaved with his panting breaths as he slid his hands from her hair to tear at the buttons on the back of her dress. He loosened them with shaking fingers, then tugged her bodice down to kiss and nip her collarbones and the smooth skin of her chest.
He nipped and licked at her until her knees went so weak she had to grip his hair to keep herself from collapsing. “Please…”
He was kissing the tops of her breasts, his mouth ravenous against her damp flesh. “Do you want me, Violet?” He eased the muslin lower, groaning when the pink of her nipples appeared. “Tell me.”
“I want you.” Kissing him, touching him…it felt like drowning and surfacing at the same time, and Violet wrapped her arms around his neck to keep from being swept away.
