The Ice Duchess by Tracy Sumner

Chapter 4

Giving away her coat the following morning was an easy decision to make.

Georgiana pressed the length of woven wool into Jane Fletcher’s trembling hand, her own hand trembling though she tried to hide it. “Please take it. I have another at home,” she said, although she didn’t. But Georgiana had been unable to ignore the comments made at the Buxton’s party about a family in the village with a new baby, little warm clothing, and meager supplies for the season. When she’d gone to find them, it had turned out to be a family she’d known for most of her life.

“But the ride back without a coat…” Jane gestured to the window and the angry swirl, a lank of dull brown hair dancing across her cheek with the movement.

Georgiana glanced at the bread, eggs, mutton, and vegetables sitting on the Fletcher’s nicked wooden table, her bounty after a thorough raid of her manor’s provisions. Knitted socks, a scarf, books, a length of chalk, a square of slate. She’d even found two apples tucked on a low pantry shelf, a surprise delighting the Fletcher children to no end. “I have a riding blanket in the carriage. A heated brick. And less than two miles to travel.” She appealed again, presenting the coat. She was not leaving with it warming her shoulders. “I insist. My goodness, Jane, I’ve known you since we were children. Anthony was quite friendly with your brother, Edwin, if you recall. Oh, the trouble they used to get into!”

Jane cradled her newborn son against her chest, the babe swaddled in a faded slip of cotton, his cheeks mercifully plump and rosy with good health. Finally, with a sigh, she took the coat from Georgiana, pressed her nose into the lapel, and inhaled softly, then lovingly draped it over the chair at her side. “We miss you, my lady, we do. There’s never anyone from your estate who comes to the village. Since your father died, not a word from the house on the hill. Things have fallen off the edge of a cliff, they have. The church roof is leaking, the roads pitted and unsafe. A fire at the mercantile last month, necessities for the winter dwindling.”

Georgiana tied her satin bonnet strings beneath her chin. “I’m off to Markham Manor if my coachman can navigate the main road. The marquess has returned from the continent, and I’ve promised to visit. Perhaps I can speak to him. The duke is unwell, or surely he would have taken greater care in the village. His tenants have always spoken highly of him.”

Jane’s smile was beatific, a reminder of all Georgiana loved about Derbyshire and its people. She was home, even if returning felt a bit like stuffing yourself into a piece of clothing you’d long outgrown. But Sussex and London didn’t fit, either.

The knock on the door had them turning in bewilderment.

“Who could that be in this tempest?” Jane asked, crossing to the cottage’s modest foyer, her oldest child clutching her skirt and trailing behind.

When Jane opened the door and Georgiana saw Dex standing beneath the ramshackle portico, snow a feral flurry around him, his arms loaded with foodstuff and supplies, her breath jumped out like she’d taken a fierce thump to the back. The lapis stone he’d given her seemed to heat up from its spot in her concealed bodice pocket as if it recognized its true owner.

Georgiana stepped back as Dex stepped inside. His gaze snagged hers before circling the room and settling on Jane. Chauncey, Dex’s valet since he was a boy, stumbled in behind him, his arms filled with all manner of jars and tins.

Dex delivered his donations—flour, sugar, jam, cider, ale—and gestured to the carriage parked outside. “The footman is unloading more; what I was able to gather quickly. Blankets, clothing, candles, coal, wood. Please distribute to those in need.” Glancing around, he fidgeted adorably, recognizing every morsel of attention in the room was fixed on him. A flush swept his cheeks and Georgiana’s body heated in response, her reaction thankfully hidden beneath layers of cotton and wool. “My majordomo was notified about an overturned coach on the main road. The countess’s staff mentioned she was delivering much-needed supplies to the village when I arrived at her home. So I circled back and ransacked Markham’s cupboards.” He frowned and tugged a rather abused top hat from his head, his gaze drifting away as he slapped it against his thigh.

A ghost of a smile crept over Georgiana’s face. Dex had been worried. An overturned carriage his concern when she’d been set to arrive at Markham Manor. So worried he’d come after her when the plan had been for her to go to him.

“My coachman is experienced with icy roadways,” she murmured, just for him. “Quite knowledgeable. Lovely handle of the reins. A regular whip.”

He grunted, throwing her a look both amused and discomfited. She’d never, not once in her life, seen the like with this man. Without trying, she’d knocked Dexter Munro on his muscular backside.

She wished she knew how she’d done it so she could do it again.

With a gentle nudge from Georgiana, Jane explained the dire situation in the village; Dex promised to assist, with apologies for his family’s unwitting disregard. Jane was grateful, asking with genuine concern about the duke’s condition, which Dex told her remained unchanged. Once the pleasantries were concluded, he bowed, popped his hat on his head, and tightened his scarf, a length of deep emerald knit exactly matching his eyes. “I must be off. I have an appointment.”

Catching Georgiana’s gaze, he mouthed, with you.

After wishing everyone a happy approaching Christmas, she and Dex stepped outside and were immediately sucked into a blinding snowstorm. Chauncey staggered to her carriage and, with a thump on the trap, set off down the lane, leaving her standing in ankle-deep slush beside Dex’s luxurious conveyance.

“My coachman also has a lovely handle on the reins. And a warmer brick than yours, I’m guessing,” Dex shouted over the gusts ripping between them. She shivered, unbelievably more from his penetrating regard than the storm. With a low sound of impatience, he shrugged out of his coat and slipped it on her shoulders. A multi-caped greatcoat tailored for a man of impressive size, it hung nearly to her feet.

Time suspended, heat from the worsted wool stealing through her body. Closing her eyes, she drew in his scent: leather, bergamot, man. Bringing herself back, she blinked to find his head cocked in deliberation, snowflakes sticking to his dark lashes, to the curved brim of his hat. “What’s that look for?”

He released a furtive smile and assisted her into the carriage. “Nothing much. I simply think it looks better on you.”

As they rolled away from the Fletcher’s cottage, the wheel hit an icy patch, and Georgiana gripped the ceiling strap with a whispered oath. “Is this to be my adventure, Dex? Overturning in a Derbyshire ditch?”

He glanced over from his position across from her, shifted his long legs, the heel of his boot neatly trapping the hem of her soiled skirt. “You’re the only person to call me that. I think of myself that way, too, which is odd, I suppose. And when I’m here, I feel like Dex Munro.” He looked to the window, brow creasing as he retreated to his own space. “Strange when I’m not sure I know him well.”

“Who do you feel like away from here?” she whispered, caught in the intimacy of the carriage’s shadowy interior, the landscape of barren, milky white they traversed, the wind a shrieking moan against the sides of the conveyance. Hushed breaths and the scent of buckskin and frost, smoke from the Fletcher’s hearthfire, mint, cinnamon, soap.

He didn’t answer; she didn’t press. Only huddled into the fragrant folds of his coat and let the motion of the carriage soothe her. They lumbered over the stone bridge crossing the River Derwent, closing in on Markham Manor. Even amid the fierce storm, she easily located the imposing dwelling nestled among vast woodlands, the rocky hills and heather moorland land she’d once known as well as her face in a mirror.

This quiet ease was one of the things she remembered about Dex’s friendship, their ability to simply be. They’d been able to spend time together but apart, no false effort to construct a house of words. Dex with his rocks, she with her books, Anthony with his drawings. She’d never been comfortable exposing her true self in the presence of anyone else.

She sat back against the velvet squabs with an inward, private sigh, her gaze touching on Dex as he stared out the window, love and dread and regret lingering in his eyes. Heartbreaking to realize this moment was more intimate than any she’d ever shared with her deceased husband.

* * *

Markham Manor was haunting and magnificent. A chaotic blend of Tudor and Jacobean architectural styles, the enchanting house enthralled but did not charm—much like Dex.

With a dying duke in residence, the staff hadn’t made any effort to decorate for the holiday. Servants were scarce, the hallways chilled and cheerless as if the dwelling was already in mourning. Wilkes, the butler for as long as Georgiana could remember, escorted her to the Oak Room, the oldest in the house, while Dex went to check on his father. The ever-efficient servant had tea and biscuits delivered, the fire stoked, candelabra lit, Dex’s coat taken from her and hung to dry, leaving her to roam the vast space with her mood falling between anxious and eager. She gazed at the carved oak lining the walls, remembering Dex had once told her the first duke purchased the paneling from a German monastery in the 1500s.

The weight of time and age and experience hung heavy in the room. She tucked her finger in a sculpted nook, wondering what it must feel like to shoulder responsibility for this home and everyone serving it, every tenant living off the land, the village inhabitants. Quite a burden, she imagined while studying the four-hundred-year-old panels.

She poured tea, then sipped as she walked, noting how Dex had re-engineered the space for his use. Sculptures once scattered about had been relegated to a dark corner. A sketch that looked to be created by a master lay perched against the imposing mahogany desk, in its place on the wall an unframed map was tacked. Crates of varying sizes sat before the east gallery’s shelves, floor to ceiling, obscuring the rows of books though the scent of leather covers and moldy pages lingered. She’d spent much time here as a child, borrowing from the library of her dreams. Running her finger over a cracked spine, she wondered what Dex had planned. The ghastly weather meant their adventure had to be conducted inside the house.

An adventure of the mind. Her favorite kind.

She’d only tagged along on the others, racing over boggy moors and exploring damp, often dreary caves, digging up fossil and stone, because Dex had asked it of her. Anthony, too. And she’d have been damned before she let them leave her behind.

She placed her teacup on the desk and traced a brand burned into one of the crates. Munro Geological. Fierce and unexpected pride swept her. Despite her secretly wishing Dex wouldn’t roam so far from home to fulfill his dreams, he’d fulfilled them and then some.

He moved behind her before she realized he’d entered the room, and she went from relaxed to aware in one second.

Reaching around her, he glided his hand over a label glued to the crate. Unexpectedly and with absolute clarity, she imagined his fingers tracing words written on her skin. “We packed this one at the Messel Pit just outside Frankfurt. A bituminous shale mine abundant in fossils. Geologists are called in to safely remove the artifacts, identify and record them, then ship them back to the requested museums. So these are only mine on loan.” He laughed softly, his breath streaking past her cheek, dancing inside her ear. “I try not to pilfer though I’m often tempted.”

“There’s much work to complete,” she murmured, moving away from Dex and the teasing scent stealing into her nostrils with each breath, his heat branding her as surely as he’d branded the crates housing his artifacts. Moving away from the compulsion to turn and walk into his arms, a heedless action undermining her effort to compile a list of suitables, two names written on a folded sheet and tucked beside the lapis in her bodice pocket.

Her foolish wager, her promise to help a family friend find his duchess.

The woman who would warm Dex’s bed, share his laughter and his wisdom, his stubbornness and his joy, have his children, things Georgiana had once wanted. Impossible dreams now. Her shameful marriage had ruined the chance for her to enter into an agreement like that ever again.

The Ice Countess had settled into a state of numb comfort. She couldn’t wake herself. Wouldn’t wake herself. Not when it had taken this long to find a glimmer of happiness. When Dexter Munro, heir to the Duke of Markham, by fate and pledge and duty, had no choice in the matter. Marry, he must. Be awake he must, while she would go on sleeping.

With a grunt, he hefted a crate atop his shoulder, the muscles in his arms, covered in nothing but a layer of fine cotton, flexing. “We’ll start the adventure in Germany before moving to Denmark. For lunch, a winter picnic is called for, I think. Remember when we used to hold those in this very room? Spread out on a blanket before the fire, eating until our bellies ached. Anthony always liked those.”

A picnic. With Dex. In her favorite room in the house. With her favorite person on the planet. “I’m to help you categorize your pieces then?” she asked breathlessly, turning the conversation to a topic she could manage, her heart plummeting to her knees.

He paused halfway across the room, tipped a grin at her. “If you wouldn’t mind. I need to note the scientific names for each, but my spelling is appalling. As I recall, you were exceptionally talented in Latin when it was bollocks to me. I’m happy to provide amusing, even embarrassing, tales of how I acquired each piece.”

She shrugged, dusting her damp boot through the dust on the floor. Markman Manor needed a woman’s touch and better supervision of the servants, she concluded, reminding her of the blasted list in her pocket. Someone experienced in household management mentally added to the future-duchess wish list. “Father was generous in allowing me to sit with Anthony’s language tutor. I can make notes for you. Be your assistant today, should you need one.”

He wrestled the crate to the floor and dropped to his haunches beside it. “Exactly what I need,” he murmured so quietly she almost missed it. Reaching beneath the desk, he slid a crowbar out. “This spot is the keyhole to the kingdom,” he said and jammed the thin metal edge between a gap in the wood, and with a violent twist, sent the crate’s lid tumbling.

She got lost watching him unpack his treasures, separating each parcel from straw with reverent handling and mumbled observations she had no idea how to interpret. Beautiful hands, sleek wrists, a dusting of dark hair climbing into his rolled sleeve. Broad shoulders, wide chest, lean hips, long legs, he was built like a man who used his body. He should’ve looked disheveled, snow-moist and mussed, covered in grime and bits of straw, when instead he looked utterly appealing. The lit taper on the desk highlighting the auburn streaks in his hair, flooding his eyes with sparks of light. Eyes full of captivation and delight over his possessions.

She went to her knee beside him, fascinated because he was. He’d laid the fossils in a neat line on a length of tarp. “This one,” she pointed, fearing to touch, “has color.”

Dex smiled, tapping the fossil she’d pointed to. “A jewel beetle. The pigment is the exoskeleton showing. Quite unique, that. Buprestidae, which I can say but not spell. Which is where you come in.” He made a motion as if to write, his smile growing.

“Oh!” She scampered to her feet, having forgotten about playing assistant geologist.

“My folio is on the desk. A sharpened quill. Fresh ink. Notecards we can attach to each specimen. Twine and scissors.”

“You’re prepared,” she said, gathering the materials.

“I’m a man of science. I like details. I like strategizing.” He unpacked the last specimen and shoved the crate aside. “You should also know this about me. Once I get an idea in my mind, it rarely leaves. And more than anything, I like to win.”

Georgiana paused, dabbing at a smear of ink on her palm. “So, you’re stubborn and competitive. You didn’t have to tell me, those traits I recall,” she said dryly and dropped to a squat, placing the materials in a row as neat as his line of fossils. “Are we fighting? With talk of winning and such.”

“Sometimes winning has nothing to do with fighting, Georgie girl,” he returned with an enigmatic expression. Then he shook his head as if amused by them both, sending his hair in a wild tumble about his face.

She moved before she thought to stop herself, brushing the overlong strands from his eyes. They were the color of burnt honey against her skin. Lingering, she let her fingers graze his temple, his cheek, the underside of his jaw. “No need to hide that face,” she said as they stared, knees touching, breath mingling. His skin smelled like winter. Charred wood and damp frost and cool sunlight. Stunned, she laughed and dropped her hand, making light of the action when her awareness had constricted to a pinpoint of sensation sitting right beneath her heart.

Silent but vigilant, Dex blinked, reached for the scissors, snipped a length of twine, and turned, presenting his back and the cord. “Tie it. It’s what I do when it’s gotten too long, and I’m without a barber. I’ll have Chauncey trim it later. He has a steady hand when the situation calls for one, which in the remote places we’ve traveled, it often has.”

“I’m guessing you’re the only geologist who travels with a valet.”

“Quite right.” He dipped his head, patient, controlled, persistent. His request felt like a dare, an intimate and personal one. A task a wife completed for her husband, a woman for her lover. Georgiana lifted her hand, watched it tremble. Pulled her fingers into a tight fist, released, then sank them into his hair. Thick, silken, as she’d imagined. Breathing in his scent, she placed the twine between her teeth, using her other hand to gather the strands into a neat bind.

His hand went to the rug, fingers spread as he braced himself. A raw gasp snaked through his teeth, she heard it, and he made no effort to keep her from hearing it. His shoulders lifted, his biceps hardening with the effort. Parts of her body that had lain dormant for years aroused with his choked breath. He was affected; she was overwhelmed. If Dex turned, pushed her to the floor, and climbed atop her, she’d let him. Welcome him, despite her fragile heart, despite her fears, despite her suspicion that their chance at love had passed.

This level of desire was a creature she’d never experienced nor soothed.

Soothing desire wasn’t what she was here for.

Swallowing, she rocked back on her heels. Tucked her finger in her bodice pocket and worked the suitables list free. It was a hammer blow of a response, nothing subtle about it, panic driving the undertaking. The lapis stone he’d given her escaped with the list and tumbled to the floor, landing right by the toe of his dirty boot. Her cheeks lit, her palms going damp. Just bloody perfect.

Slowly, carefully, Dex covered the stone with his hand.

“I drafted a list,” she said, her words tripping one over the other. “Two women I feel are appropriate. And immediately available. The families are in Derbyshire for the holiday, and both are in dire need of funds, meaning they will happily forego the Season, which is convenient given your promise to provide a name to your father by Twelfth Night. I’m happy to hold an intimate dinner party at my home since your father is ill. I’m a family friend, a widow of means. Therefore this is entirely proper. If you have more flexibility with regard to time, I’ll confer with my partner in the Duchess Society upon my return to London and—”

“Enough,” he whispered, a thousand sentiments wrapped in the plea. Anger, when she had no idea why he was angry. Disappointment, frustration.

Georgiana’s temper flared, relieving a little of the yearning pulsing beneath her skin. How dare he, when she’d done nothing but what he’d asked of her. “Why do you sound vexed when I’m simply doing what you requested I do? What I’ve been doing quite successfully for going on two years within every level of society. We’ll need to go over my suggestions if you’re able to hold a civil discussion about your quest because I don’t understand what you want, what you need in a wife. I usually conduct a thorough interview with both parties; consequently, these were guesses. Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I don’t know you anymore.”

He ran the lapis along his lower lip, then sent her an inscrutable look over his shoulder. “Would you like to, Georgie?” He tossed the stone from hand to hand. “Know me again?”

A stunned sigh left her, and she spoke without thinking, “I’ve given up on that.”

He frowned, sending a neat fold between his brows, the stone falling still in his hand. “Given up on what?”

“Friendship. Belonging. Derbyshire.” She blew out a breath, unable to articulate what she meant, what she wanted, what she dreaded, what she feared. Funny, when she’d asked him to tell her these things about himself. “I don’t know. All of this. I’ve been alone for so long I’m used to it. Coming back here has been like the first sweep of sunlight after winter. Addictive and startling. And in a way, uncomfortable. I’m having trouble seeing through the glare.”

Didn’t he know?

She was made of ice and wasn’t sure she wanted to melt.

Shaking his head, Dex pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, seeming to realize a task he’d assumed would be easy wasn’t going to be easy at all. “You’ve always had my friendship.” Turning to face her, he unwrapped her clenched fist, dropped the lapis into her palm, and sealed her fingers around it. “It’s entirely my fault you felt you lost it. And we must start somewhere.”

“Start what?” she whispered, a tendril of unease threading through her voice.

He rose, looking down at her for a charged moment. “I’ll go over your list of suitables, Georgie. Share my vision for the perfect duchess.”

“I never promised per—”

“But first, we’re going to have an adventure. The best I could construct in the middle of a snowstorm. As I mentioned, we’ll start with travel to Germany and Austria,” he said, crossing the room to the map tacked on the wall. He tapped India with his knuckle. “Maybe, before luncheon, we’ll even dip our toe into Asia. Then, over whatever delicacies my kitchen staff is inspired to provide for us, I’ll tell you about the fever in Delhi that nearly killed me, the viscount’s daughter in Shanghai who brandished a knife and thought to force my hand, my plans to survey parts of Scotland and Wales for a government initiative, which would keep me closer to home for the next year or two. My hopes for Munro Geological and how I pray my plans align with my duty to the dukedom. I’ll tell you why I left Derbyshire, why I felt I had to. You want to know me, know me. But I get the same in return. Discussions, like we had as children.”

“Dex, when we were children, when we were friends, we talked about everything.”

He shrugged and tapped the map again, closer to home this time. “Okay.”

She squeezed the lapis, pressing a rough edge into her skin. “You don’t fight fairly,” she said, soundly defeated and utterly euphoric, proving she was, indeed, losing her mind.

He laughed, shaking the neat snatch of hair tied with twine. “When you used to fight dirty. I took more than one fist to the face as I recall. A boot kick to the shins. Where is that courageous hellion, I wonder?”

She’s right here, Georgiana wanted to say, hiding beneath the Ice Countess.

Instead, she slipped the lapis in her pocket, settled Dex’s folio on her knees, dipped the quill, and wrote Buprestidae in neat script on the page. She swept the feathered end over the glowing beetle fossil. “Let’s start with this one, shall we?”

His only reply was a brilliant smile and a teasing wink as he settled in beside her.

And she realized she was in deep trouble.