Lovestruck in Lilac: The Brothers Duke: Book Three by Felicia Greene

Author:Felicia Greene [Greene, Felicia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-05T18:00:00+00:00

Anne had read many fairy tales where houses were lost to weather. They were swallowed up by rain, sand or storm, never to be seen again—or appeared unchanged after a thousand years of absence. Lying on the floor of the cottage, swathed in blankets and pressed tightly to John’s body, she fervently wished that the house could be obscured by snow forever.

Had she ever known such pleasure existed? No. And to think she’d been moving through the world without knowing about it.

His face was finally hers to touch. She softly stroked the tip of her finger over the broad plane of his forehead, sliding down to the cheekbone and lingering there. With a brief detour to the bridge of his nose, John’s slight flinch and burst of quiet laughter letting her know she’d tickled him, she finally let the pads of her fingers pause at the curve of his mouth.

‘I like this corner.’ She stroked his skin, enjoying the slight hitch of his breath. ‘You should paint yourself from this angle.’

‘I’d be banned from every respectable salon. Not that I’m entirely welcome in them now, come to think of it. And if I painted you like this, I think I’d be hounded out of London.’

‘There are other places to live.’ As Anne said the words she saw their meaning, a brief, bright glimpse of another future. She and John in Scotland, in Spain, in the outer wilds of wherever a ship would take them, in a cottage much like this one.

No. That was not to be. She held John closer, pressing her cheek to his chest, finding comfort in his heartbeat as he kissed the top of her head. They lay entwined, silent for a long, languid while as the fire burned low.

When she finally spoke again, it was with a tone of soft, marvelling wonder. ‘What do we even know about one another?’

‘I know everything about you.’

‘No, you don’t. You don’t know what cake I like, or–what I think about Christmas, or my politics.’ Anne shook her head, trying not to smile. ‘Not that I have any great opinions about any of those. But… but we are strangers.’

‘No, we’re not.’ John pulled her closer. The heat of his body, the sheer delicious solidity of him, sent a spear of warmth through her core that no amount of snow outside could dissipate. ‘I don’t do this with strangers. I don’t do this with anyone.’

‘No. Neither do I.’ Anne finally let the smile come. How strange it was to smile when it was a conversation of such import they were having. ‘But we are hardly the best of friends.’

‘I don’t need to know your politics, or your views on Christmas, or your favourite cake.’ John paused. ‘Unless your politics are–’

‘They’re not.’

‘Good.’ John laughed. ‘Well then. But if you want a potted history of my life, I can certainly give you one.’

‘I’d like that. I’d like that very much.’

‘Well then. I’m John Duke. I was raised in an orphanage alongside four of my brothers–more precisely, smack in the middle of them.

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