Page 56 of The Duke's Rules Of Engagement
“Why?” she asked him, though his innate joy about all that he was showing her sparked through her.
“It is best to see everything during a rainfall.”
Outside, there were more of the instruments they’d seen upstairs, a brass wind vane, and several ingenious devices that measured rain and evaporation. Matthew showed her how to check the rainfall level.
“My goodness!” She glanced up at him. “It’s already rained a quarter of an inch!”
It was only just then, as he helped her back to her feet, that she realized she was soaking wet. So was he. The umbrella leaned uselessly against the wind vane, forgotten.
A drop of rain had formed on his nose, and she gently brushed it away, realizing they were grinning at each other like giddy children.
At that moment, there were no walls between them. No constraints. No rules. They were just two like-minded people taking pleasure in the magnificent world around them on a rainy afternoon.
If only it could always be this way.
Slowly, their grins slipped away as the awareness between them grew. Their hands tightened in each other’s. Jo didn’t want to let him go. Ever.
But she would have to. As always, the real world encroached. Inside the house, dishes clattered. A door creaked as it opened.
Matthew dropped her hands, and they both turned toward the sound.
“Why, you are both soaked to the bone!” Mrs. Howard exclaimed from beneath the awning. “Come inside. I’ve made a nice pot of tea.”
“Thank you,” Jo murmured.
They went inside, wrapped themselves up in the toweling Mrs. Howard offered, and sat down for tea, Jo gushing about all that she’d learned and Mr. Howard and Matthew delving into the intricacies of the new, more accurate rain gauge Matthew was building. A half hour later, they were back in the carriage and headed south, both of them tucked under a warm blanket.
“That was fascinating,” Jo said. “Thank you so much for taking me there.”
Matthew smiled. She’d lost count of how many times he’d smiled today, but she treasured each one. “We English do enjoy discussing the weather. But I know no one who has analyzed it with more dedication than Mr. Howard.”
The afternoon had been… Well, it was wonderful, if Jo was to be blunt about it. Talking to the Duke of Crestmont had become easy—easier than even speaking to Lilly or Bess.
When she looked at him, the tiniest things set off sparks of heat deep inside her: the brush of his dark lashes as he blinked, his clean, blunt-cut fingernails, the flex of a muscle under his sleeve when he raised his arm. She doggedly ignored those sparks but still caught herself no fewer than four times staring at his lips. She had dragged her gaze away instantly each time.
And while she struggled to keep her insides from melting, a constant thrum of awareness twisted around them in the carriage, a low-grade current of electricity that Mr. Howard could probably detect on one of his fancy instruments. Jo thought Matthew felt it, too, in the way their gazes would snag together, or the way they’d inadvertently touch in the close confines of the carriage cabin, then forcibly pull away as if against the draw of a strong magnet.
When they stopped at the door to her office, Matthew helped her out, walked her to her door under cover of his umbrella, then politely said goodbye.
Jo beat back the urge to ask him to stay a while longer. Instead, she walked into her quiet, lonely office. She was still damp from their outdoor adventure, but she didn’t care. She was warm to her core.
But as soon as her door closed, she sank back against it and pressed her palms over her eyes. “Stop this,” she whispered. “Stop it right now, you wicked thing.”
She was talking to her heart, ordering it to cease and desist. Because, despite all her best efforts, it was heading in the one direction she couldn’t let it go.
It was falling in love.
Chapter Seventeen
The following afternoon, Jo sat at her desk, scrawling on a rather dear sheet of stationery she really shouldn’t be wasting. She was a dreadful artist, and her drawings confirmed it. There was a series of rather misshapen hearts scrawled across the page, overlapping and inconsistent, some fat, some thin, some tall and some squat, some large and others tiny. Jo laid her pen down and capped her inkpot. This page would make for some expensive fuel for the fire later on.
Harriet was a good artist, though. Actually, she might be bordering on excellent. One of the many attributes that Matthew—goodness, she’d truly sunk into the habit of calling him that, but shemuststop doing it, even in her mind—one of the many attributes that theDuke of Crestmontwas looking for in a duchess.
She finally rose, then went to tell Lilly that she was going to call on Harriet.
“May I join you?” Lilly exclaimed, her book falling unheeded to the floor as she jumped up from her spot on the sofa. Jo bent down to retrieve it, closed it carefully, and laid it on the side table. To destroy a sheet of paper was one thing, but the abuse of an innocent book was quite another. “You may come, but if we see Charles there—”
“I know,” Lilly interrupted. “I won’t say a word to him.”
