“You say that with such certainty given how short our acquaintance. I cannot help but think you champion me simply because you think it’s required as a gentleman.”
He coughed softly. “Yes, well…ahem. I will grant my surety of your gracefulness comes not from a wish to curry favor, nor do I choose to continue defending myself against your unfounded accusation and attempt to convince you of the truth of my observation, for indeed I have something of greater interest to share with you.”
“I am upon thorns and needles awaiting whatever it might be.”
“Woman, you mock me thoroughly.” He sounded so exaggeratedly aggrieved she could do naught but unsuccessfully muffle a laugh. “You’ll be happy to note the flakes are growing larger and what’s more, they aren’t that beautiful color of soot one tends to find in London.”
“So…big white fluffy ones are coming down now?”
“Aye, I ordered them to. How else could I shield our excursion from any curious onlookers? You must agree, traipsing the grounds isn’t recommended for one with so egregiously a wounded ankle.”
“Even the heavens obey your orders? Then they are much better behaved than I!” She curved her elbow around his forearm so she could tug the glove free from her opposite hand. The gloves had been on her nightstand when she retired last evening though Isabella was certain she’d searched there initially. Discounting the perplexing mystery, she held up a bare palm, having removed the bandages that morning, and laughed when the cold chill met her flesh. “Guide me, oh He Who Rules the Weather,” she intoned. “I’ll catch some of these prodigious flakes you commanded into existence.”
She expected him to direct her with words. Instead, he cupped his large hand beneath hers and tilted and swayed her arm—and their aligned bodies—bringing her flesh into contact with wispy bits of icy nothing. Again and again.
Isabella laughed when several delicate flakes hit her palm, eager to savor each moment of this spectacular morning. The flakes soon melted into a freezing drop that slid toward her wrist. Her entire arm came alive as never before—or perhaps that was his nearness, enlivening her very existence. “This is truly lovely! I haven’t been outside in years.”
“Not outside?” He sounded astonished.
“Not like this!” She relinquished her hold on his forearm and spun in a slow circle, confident he wouldn’t have allowed the move had the way not been clear. “Glorious! Glorious!”
Isabella raised her face to the sky, squinted then blinked when gossamer shards of ice hit her eyes, and laughed some more. Free, she realized. She hadn’t felt this free since The Accident and resulting…imprisonment imposed by her father.
But this? Racing outside to enjoy an early morning snowfall with Lord Frostwood? Pure Christmas magic with a magical lord, one she’d give anything to see…
Blinking incipient tears now as well as snow, she drew the bracing air into her lungs and spun faster, allowing her feet to cross in front of each other, whipping her body round and round. It was the closest she could come to running full-out. Her chest strained with the effort, her head reeled from the motion.
One foot slid on the icy ground.
But Frost was there in an instant, sweeping her against his chest and brandishing his lips across hers.
Mouths pressed intimately together, her feet dangling in the air, his arms secure about her waist and hers wound over his shoulders, Isabella surrendered to the man before her, gave everything she had to matching his kiss, unwilling to think of all the reasons why she shouldn’t.
Her lips tasted of a fresh spring morning. Of new life and pure innocence. And that’s what stopped him—the innocence.
She hadn’t a clue how much deeper he wanted to take their kiss, how he’d envisioned taking her to bed with him last night, baring her body before his hungry gaze and showing her all the passion he’d kept locked inside until chancing across an unassuming, utterly beguiling miss…
Passion that now threatened to rise to the surface, heating him to boiling on a cold winter’s day with nothing more than the taste of innocent frosty lips beneath his own.
With a groan, he tore his mouth from hers and lowered her feet to the ground. Breathing hard and attempting to mask it, Frost said lightly, “There now, we can’t go ruining the perfect morning by having you take a tumble.”
“A tumble, my lord?” She licked her lips, tasting him one last time if he wasn’t mistaken. It was while watching those glistening, now-swollen lips, while watching snowflakes land upon them and leaning in to kiss her again—his conscience be damned—that her words registered, as did his own.