Loved by a Duke (The Heart of a Duke #4)(79)

Except, how could she forgive him, when he could never forgive himself? “I had matters of business to see to,” he said instead. Which wasn’t altogether untrue. There were any number of estate matters and responsibilities he had to attend to. Those matters, however, came nowhere near the import of taking precedence over her.

“Oh,” she said. She motioned to the sofa. “May I join you?”

“Join me?” he echoed back, following her gesticulating hand. “Of course,” he said.

With a smile, Daisy sailed over to the seat, embroidery frame in her hand. She promptly sat and proceeded to pull the tip of her needle through the white fabric. He studied her a long moment, head bent over her work, and something tugged at him. In her blue skirts and companionable silence, she presented a bucolic tableau he’d not allowed himself to believe for himself. He’d envisioned a life in which he wed a proper, English miss who’d make him a sufficient duchess, but where no true emotional bond connected them.

And all along, Daisy had been there.

Peace. This was the peace he’d not allowed himself to believe possible. Not for him. Only, the moment she knew everything, all of this would fade.

She peeked up from her work and looked at him questioningly, effectively jerking him from his reverie. He returned to his desk, the journal containing all his sins glared up at him. Auric reached for a pen and dipped it into the crystal inkwell, and proceeded to see to his accounts.

Except now, with her here, the neat rows of columns held even less appeal than they had since the moment he’d entered his office earlier that morning. How was he to think with Daisy so close, the lavender scent drifting over to him, permeating his senses and consuming his thoughts? He glanced up at her. She sat with her knees drawn close to her chest, her trim ankles exposed while she worked intently on that embroidery frame.

Feeling his gaze upon her person, Daisy picked her head up. She smiled at catching his stare, but then her smile dipped. “What is it?”

Auric forced a smile. “I merely wonder what you’ve set your efforts to now?” He tightened his grip upon the pen in his hand, abhorring how effortlessly the lie slipped out. The pen snapped in his fingers and he released it swiftly.

Daisy swung her legs over the side of her seat in a noisy rustle of muslin. She held up the wooden frame for his inspection.

Auric tossed his pen down and leaned back in his seat. “Hmm.” He made a show of studying the red and gold stiches. “A flower?” he ventured. There was not a thing he did not love about her. Even her horrid ability to stitch and the joy she seemed to find in it.

She pointed her eyes to the ceiling. “Does this appear to be a flower, Auric?” she asked, her tone filled with exasperation. She hopped to her feet and proceeded over to his desk.

Well, in fairness, the misshapen…shape, didn’t appear to be much of anything. He rolled his shoulders, his attention fixed not upon that damned embroidery but upon her. The modest, muslin gown clung to every curve of her voluptuous frame, the fabric kissing her skin as she moved. He would never have enough of her.

Daisy stopped at the edge of his desk and propped her hip against the edge. She held the frame under his nose.

Auric captured her wrist and raised it to his lips. He placed a lingering kiss upon the wildly beating pulse. “Beautiful,” he murmured against her satiny soft skin.

The muscles of her throat worked up and down with the force of her swallow. “W-well,” she whispered breathlessly. “Have a look.” All attempts of hers to command was lost on a breathless, little whisper, that roused images of how they’d spent the evening, entwined in one another’s arms.

Auric swallowed a groan and released her, shifting his attention to those familiar threads. He captured the delicate wood frame in his hand, careful to avoid the dangling needle. Then, he sat back in his seat and proceeded to study her efforts.

“I’m rather horrid at it, I know,” she confessed. He’d always admired her forthrightness which set her apart from any other lady he’d ever known. When most women prevaricated, particularly around him as a duke, Daisy had been unrepentantly honest. From the corner of his eye, he detected her distracted little movements as she wrung her hands together. “I do enjoy it, though.”

He recalled a seven-year-old Daisy behind the blue drapes in the Marquess of Roxbury’s office as she hid from a nursemaid intending to drill proper lessons into the then girl, on embroidering and singing and all manner of things young Daisy had detested. “You detested it as a child.” What had changed?

She ran her palm over the surface of his desk in a back and forth movement, her gaze fixed on her own distracted motion. “When…my brother died I found myself unable to sleep.”

He stilled. How many nights had he lain awake himself, riddled with nightmares made all the more horrific by their truth. Even then, when sleep had come to him, he’d been tortured by his own cries that merged with the memories of that night.

Her hand paused. “I would stitch,” she admitted. “Sometimes I’d jab my finger with the needle.” A wistful smile played about her lips. “Or rather, most times I’d inadvertently jab my finger with the needle. But, as much as I’ve abhorred needlework through the years, it gave me something to focus on. Even if it was something as inane and senseless as stitching.” Silence met her admission. She glanced up at him. “Silly, isn’t it.”