With Lord Frostwood partnering her at most of the holiday amusements.
With Lord Frostwood exchanging berries for kisses…
Oh, Isabella knew not to take his attentions to heart—she was simply convenient and he was simply bored. That had to be why he showered such consideration upon her.
But oh—his kisses!
As if he’d recognized the desperation she’d shown ardently responding to him in the ballroom, his kisses changed, became lighter and more playful. Definitely safer. But Isabella felt them no less intensely.
Whether the proper application of his lips upon her wrist above her glove or the wholly improper slide of his mouth upon the back of her neck just before he escorted her into the dining room—and she gasped loud enough to be heard in Scotland—or the soft press of his lips upon hers before he bid her good night…
Each of his kisses left her breathless and yearning for more. And clutching the latest berry he’d snuck into her hand.
At the rate they were proceeding, the kissing bough ought to be almost bare.
What would he do then?
What would she?
Especially since the days marched on toward Twelfth Night…
With her falling harder and harder for a man she’d never see.
Because she captured his interest as nothing else, the Earl of Frostwood observed the enticing Miss Isabella most thoroughly. He noticed she tended to play least-in-sight when others were milling about and not yet settled. Saw how she maintained a high degree of dignity and an impressive semblance of independence.
But was she really? Independent?
He knew she’d been denied a dowry but beyond that she remained mute, insisting she’d rather not dredge up unpleasant reminders of life outside Redford Manor.
Questions poked at him like pointy leaves from a sprig of holly. She was too alluring not to have a harping mother or overprotective aunt nearby. Too young not to have a chaperone plastered to her side.
Too old to still be in the schoolroom.
Too ideal for his peace of mind.
It seemed to him that the days flew by with the wretched speed of a swarm of locusts. Though he strove to hold tight to every magical moment, imprint every memory he could, they came at him so hard and so fast he could barely remain standing. And this, from the man who previously loathed Christmastime above every other season to be endured? It was unfathomable—how easily she made him see everything differently with naught but her presence.
Thank God for Ed. Ed and Lady Redford. Without them and their pestering invitation, where would he be now? Four bottles castaway with the headache and sour stomach and gut full of regret that came with it. Certainly no closer to the feeling of euphoria that drifted just within reach.
Because he found the more time he spent with Issybelle, the more he realized how very closed off he’d become from everything and everyone save a few choice friends, how very much he’d driven himself beyond perfection and into exhaustion. Recognized how she melted chinks in his crusty exterior, exposed the man beneath—a man who no longer thought of himself as cold, his heart a block of ice. As Frost.
With every hour he spent in her company, he recalled more of the boy he’d been…Nicky. Christmas memories and blissful recollections of childhood besieged his mind for the first time in decades. And he allowed it. Allowed the reminders to bring comfort instead of pain.
Allowed himself to become Nicholas. And how he wanted the thawing to continue.
But time was running out.
His nose no longer resembled an elephant’s; her palms had healed nicely.
Nicholas knew because he’d licked the left one just yesterday before opening the door to her bedchamber where Isabella persisted in retiring for her afternoon “restorative”.
He also knew she always slipped back out of her room after hearing his footsteps retreat—something he’d determined one day when she didn’t leave immediately as he loitered directly across the hall—and sped toward the ballroom using the most circuitous route imaginable. In order to avoid crossing paths with himself or anyone else, he surmised.
However efficiently she did so, she escaped as regularly as the tick of a clock, retreating to the empty ballroom to move in ways too magical to be termed “dance”. She lifted his spirits with her fluid, elegant motions. With her lithe, alluring grace.
And that wasn’t all she lifted either.
At some point Nicholas had come to realize he wanted her with a fervent desire that went beyond any he’d experienced with prior liaisons.
He wanted her body.
He wanted her spirit.
He wanted her love.
Blast it! He wanted her to be his countess and he had absolutely no idea how to go about securing such a thing.
Not when she was so deuced elusive about her last name, her parentage, her past. Certainly a single word in Ed’s ear would’ve resolved the mystery to his satisfaction. But he’d been reluctant to do so, only wanting to hear about Isabella from Isabella.