How to Forget a Duke by Vivienne Lorret

Author:Vivienne Lorret
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2018-05-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

“Sorrow came—a gentle sorrow—but not at all in the shape of any disagreeable consciousness.”

Jane Austen, Emma

In the early morning fog, Jacinda took the winding path down to the village. It was refreshing to stretch her legs. After kissing Rydstrom last night, she felt the need to expel a wealth of energy.

She hadn’t wanted him to stop. And he, if the way he’d returned to her lips again and again was any indication, hadn’t wanted to either. And during that moment—with her mouth against his, their bodies flush, not even a breath apart—she’d felt as if she’d belonged there and nowhere else.

It was the closest thing imaginable to what returning home might feel like.

But Rydstrom had been right all along. Amnesia or not, there wasn’t any way she could have forgotten kissing him. Now she felt rearranged like a thoroughly shuffled deck of cards. Whatever she’d begun to understand about herself was foreign to her once more. And she could not seem to think any thought that did not link directly to him.

Which was silly, of course. They’d only shared a single kiss, and she wasn’t even entirely certain she liked him. He was arrogant, glowered excessively and, honestly, what gentleman needed shoulders that broad? His wife would surely be called upon to apply a balm to his flesh whenever he bruised them in narrow doorways.

Such an endless chore , she thought, a sigh slipping past her lips as she imagined helping Rydstrom remove his shirt, rubbing salve over those hard muscles and bare flesh—Drat!

Looking down, Jacinda saw that she’d just meandered off the path and directly into a cluster of thistles covered in barbs and dew.

Irritated, she began the prickly process of removing the thistles scattered along her hem. She’d snagged a fawn-colored thread as well. Frankly, she was fortunate she hadn’t been walking near the cliff. Clearly, daydreaming about Rydstrom was far too dangerous an occupation.

At least, when one was out of doors. Though, perhaps, when she found herself sitting in the library later, amidst a pile of new assignments, she would have to remember to pick up this salacious thought where she’d left off. As a lark, she wound the thread around her finger so that she wouldn’t forget.

By the time she reached Whitcrest, it was already teeming with activity. Chalk white shop fronts crowded together in a row, decorated with empty green flower boxes beneath white-trimmed windows.

Doors were left ajar as the village women walked to and fro, carrying their baskets laden with sundries. The mouth-watering fragrance of freshly baked bread wafted from the baker’s, along with the scent of something savory that roused a needy mewl from her stomach.

She figured out what it was the instant a trio of children skipped out of a shop marked only by a wooden fish swinging over the door. In their hands, they each held a roasted fish on a skewer, their laughter rising above the chatter, the rushing din of the wind and sea, and the rhythmic clink-clink-clink coming from the blacksmith’s hut.

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