The Duke Is Mine - Eloisa James [64]
“Like Riggle?”
“I forgot you met him. Yes, she was his daughter. He’s forgiven me, Lord knows how.”
Her eyes met his, gentle and steady. “I am quite sure there was nothing to forgive. How old was your child?”
“Five.” It came out a harsh whisper, and he cleared his throat, tried again. “Alfie would be ten now.”
“Alfie?” Her whole face transformed when she smiled. “I love his name.”
“He was named after my father: Alphington Goddard Brook-Chatfield. Though I called him Alfie, to my mother’s enormous dismay. Dilys gave him the nickname; she’d been with him from birth. And—” He stopped, momentarily, then said steadily, “at the end as well. They drowned, you see. My wife, too.”
Very delicately, Olivia slipped an arm around his neck. Then she let go altogether and stepped onto his branch. Quin felt a moment of panic, but the limb was stout. And she was close against him, clouding his mind. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Right,” he said, awkward as always. He should know what to say, he thought, frustrated.
Her mouth feathered over his. “Rupert sees his father every Thursday from two to three o’clock. I have the feeling that you saw Alfie more often than once a week.”
“I couldn’t stay away,” Quin said, leaning back against the trunk again, one arm around her waist, the other holding tightly to a branch over their heads. “From the moment I saw him . . . I couldn’t stay away.”
She opened her mouth, but he silenced her with a swift kiss. “Don’t tell me he’s in a better place,” he said, knowing his voice was stony. “Or that I was lucky to have known him as long as I did. Or that he’s an angel. Or that I will meet him again when I cross the Pearly Gates.”
“Is there ever a right thing to say?”
Quin thought about it. “Take me now?”
She laughed, and her laughter smoothed the jagged edges of his grief. “Nice and short. I won’t say anything.” She cupped her hands around his face and pressed a kiss on his lips that was like all the condolences he’d ever received in his life rolled into one.
He couldn’t even speak after.
Her fingers swept up and into his hair, shaking free his ribbon. “Was your hair always white in front, or did it happen from grief?”
“Always there,” he said. “I must have been one of the strangest-looking babies ever born in Kent.”
Her fingers felt possessive of him, stroking through his hair as if she’d owned him. Though that was impossible.
He cleared his throat. “I know that you’re marrying the marquess.” He felt as if his fingers were burning merely because they were touching her back.
She went still. She didn’t move, but he felt as if she was about to step backward, so he tightened his grip. “Olivia! We’re in a tree.”
“We should climb down,” she stated.
“One moment. If you weren’t marrying that marquess,” he whispered into her ear, “I’d change places with you.”
“What?”
“I’d put you against the trunk. I’d—”
“Don’t say it!” she squeaked. “I’m not some sort of acrobat who could . . .”
“Could what?”
“Well. You know.”
“Is this the woman who almost told the entire table a limerick about a young lady who was particularly nimble with a needle?” He could feel laughter in his chest. It was unfamiliar, a bit intoxicating.
“Limericks are just extended jests. I memorize them because they make my mother so very enraged, and that allows me to maintain a small sense of self-possession. Now, could we please get down from this tree? I might as well add that my mother would explode if she could see me now.”
“So would mine,” Quin said comfortably, allowing his hand to drift down her back.
“Don’t!” she ordered.
He stopped, his hand hovering just at the top of a magnificent curve. “Please?” His voice had a husky quality that would have embarrassed him on the ground, but who felt embarrassment up in a tree? He slipped his lips across her cheek, nipped her ear. “Olivia Lytton, I think you will always be my favorite tree-climbing companion.”
“I expect I’m your only tree-climbing companion,” she