Lily Dalton - Never Desire a Duke

“I haven’t forgotten your words of warning this morning.” She turned toward him, her hair gleaming darkly in the lamplight. Her eyes narrowed, but playfully. “You aren’t to be trusted when playing this game. You likely have some knowledge of cookery from helping your mother and Mrs. Kettle.”

She wiped her hands on a linen towel.

He shrugged and shook his head. “That was ages ago.”

“Whatever you say.” She pointed at him and squinted. “I’ve got my eye on you.”

“Likewise, Duchess,” he drawled, his gaze slowly traveling down the length of her luscious body. “Though perhaps for entirely different reasons.”

“Claxton, now none of that,” she chastened, throwing the towel at him.

“You say that as if I can help it.”

Next, she placed two bowls of similar size beside each other on the large table at the center of the room. Standing face-to-face, they broke sixteen eggs into each. When that was done, Vane removed his coat, waistcoat, and cravat and rolled his sleeves high. Turning back, he caught Sophia studying him and was struck by an ache so strong the force of it stole his breath. Did he inspire admiration or dislike in her? He wished he knew what she’d done with that deuced list of names he had written out. If he knew, he would find it and burn it; then they could go on as if it had never existed.

“If you don’t mind waiting, I’m going to change,” she announced. “The dress I wore yesterday is much more serviceable than this one.”

“Go on. I’ll wait.” He could not help but add, “Unless you require assistance?”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” she said, disappearing through the door.

A smile turned his lips. Despite the fragile state of their marriage, he liked being here in the kitchen with her. Many of his most vibrant memories of his mother had taken place here. On cold winter nights, she had read books to him and his brother beside the stove. They’d played games such as hoodman-blind or Shoe the Wild Mare until their eyelids drooped, the loser always insisting on one more round. No one wanted to be the last to lose before being sent off to bed. He and Haden as boys had always taken games and winning seriously.

As for the game of lookabout, they’d refined that particular competition to a higher level. Sometimes the contest became downright ruthless but all in good fun.

Should he play in a similar manner against Sophia? No.

Claxton smiled. Or perhaps…yes. He was, indeed, a sneaky devil.

Ah, the dark arts of kitchen sabotage. He chuckled, pulling one tray of flour away from the fire’s heat, so it would not dry as thoroughly as the other. Damp flour would ensure a most disappointingly dense cake.

Now that he’d decided to take such a tack, he did not think it prudent at this juncture to tell Sophia just how much experience he had in the kitchen. After marrying, they’d enjoyed the benefit of a talented cook and kitchen staff, and somehow the subject had just never come up.

His father had granted the duchess only two servants, Mr. and Mrs. Kettle, so oftentimes meal preparation required more hands, and countless times as a boy, and especially around holidays like Christmas, he’d been drafted into service by Mrs. Kettle and his mother to turn the beef roast on the spit or to pound almonds for a cake. He’d observed and learned much.

Later in the military, he’d employed those lessons often while he traveled and lodged in rustic circumstances without benefit of staff or servants. Often he’d found himself with the barest of ingredients, with only his creativity to produce palatable results. Quite simply, he liked to eat, and eat well, and if there was no one to prepare a meal for him, he would prepare a reasonably fine one of his own.

Taking one bowl of eggs—the one he intended to be Sophia’s—he proceeded to the servants’ door, where, with the help of a wooden spoon, he disposed of one, two, three, four into the snow. With the toe of his boot, he covered the evidence of his misdeed. Returned inside, he located a whisk and set about beating the hell out of his perfectly portioned bowl of eggs.

Some quarter hour later, he heard her footsteps. Fireside, he slid the much-cooled tray of flour again toward the stove. He returned his bowl of eggs to the table.

As soon as she entered, he smiled. “Good. You are here. Let’s get started.” He picked up the same bowl and circled his whisk round the inside of the bowl. “I’ve set out a whisk for you as well.”

“A whisk? What is that?”

He lifted his. “It looks like—”

She waggled hers at him. “I know what a whisk is. It’s just very telling that you do as well. That’s all. Ages ago, indeed.”

He winked at her, and she looked away.

“Too bad for you, though,” she continued. “I do believe women have an innate talent for baking and sweets, regardless of experience. It’s all about following instructions precisely.”

“Instructions, yes.” Claxton took up the recipe book. “This recipe says to take care not to overbeat the eggs.” He read the words aloud. Or pretended to.

She halted, examining the contents of her bowl. “Well, then, I think they are beaten well enough.”

“Mine as well,” he said.

Any good cook knew eggs needed to be beaten relentlessly so the batter would rise properly. It was right there in the recipe, if she cared to look. Really, it was astounding the mischief one could do right in front of another person when that person was not in possession of a suspicious nature. He almost felt guilty. Almost.

“Baking is a messy business,” she muttered, dabbing a cloth at the front of her dress.

In the cabinet he found a length of linen, the sort Mrs. Kettle had always used as an apron, and came behind her to drape the fabric about her waist. She stiffened in the circle of his arms, and for a moment, he considered pressing a kiss to the side of her neck…

But instead he quickly tied the ends into a knot and proceeded to cover his own clothing in a like fashion.

Sophia exhaled, as if relieved, and lifted her arms to adjust one of the pins in her hair, the movement stretching her bodice over her breasts, revealing all their glorious rounded splendor.

She caught him staring and froze. Yet she said nothing as the blush suffused her cheeks. She only turned back to her bowl, which in his mind gave him permission to stare some more.

Claxton suffered both a love and a hatred of women’s fashion. While the simple dresses displayed a woman’s breasts most attractively—his lovely wife’s a perfect example—they concealed the remainder of her shape within the classical column of her high-waisted skirt. One could only guess as to the true slenderness of a woman’s waist or the lushness of her bottom. However, the makeshift apron, tightly cinched, confirmed what he already knew. Sophia was a goddess.

Two hours later, his goddess stared woefully into her bowl. White powder mottled her cheeks, and her hair had half fallen from its pins.

“I have a renewed appreciation for Cook and her staff,” she said wearily. “Really, Claxton, this is a ridiculous amount of effort for twelve little cakes. I have had quite enough of creaming, beating, combining, and pounding. Not to mention all that miserable mincing. Will this task ever end?” Her shoulders slumped.

Even exhausted, she had watched him like a hawk, and he’d not been able to sabotage her cakes further. But he thought his luck might be about to change.

He leaned forward. “You’ve a piece of citron in your hair.” He plucked the sliver free. She looked more delicious than any cake and he wanted very badly to eat her up.

“How many more ingredients are there?” She groaned.

“Just one.” He smiled, having waited patiently for this very moment. He lifted a bottle from the table and pried the cork free. Pop. “The brandy.”

I found four in the basement from which to choose,” the duke announced, lining the bottles up beside one another. “Each very old, but I think this one may best suit our purposes. May I have your opinion?”

Sophia approached, standing on the other side of the table. She felt safer doing that, placing some piece of furniture or fixture between them. Not that he would reach out and grab her, but she had started against all good sense to wish that he would. They were having altogether too much fun together.

Accepting the bottle he offered, she held the opening below her nose and sniffed. The strong scent of spirits momentarily dizzied her.

“Oh, come now,” he chided with a grin that made her heart jump in her chest. “You’ve got to taste it.”

She stole another glance at him. The light from the stove painted his features in contrasting strokes of gold and shadow, defining his imperfect warrior’s nose and broad cheeks framed by three days’ worth of unshaved whiskers. For the hundredth time in the past hour, she noted how handsome he was.

“You know that I don’t make a habit of drinking brandy,” she answered playfully.

Yes, of course, he would know from before. They’d known each other so well. But then in the end—they hadn’t. She tried to remind herself of that.

“But is it because you don’t like spirits?” He smiled at her, a flash of white teeth. She’d become quite obsessed with his lips, the one on the top being rather thin, but the bottom one, full and sensual in contrast, a rather perfect pair. She’d always found him attractive, but somehow now that they were estranged, he had become even more so.

The more fascinated she felt by him, the more irritated she became.

“As a mannered lady, I’ve little exposure to spirits,” she retorted. “No doubt the ladies with whom you are familiar make a regular practice of—”