Ten Days with a Duke (12 Dukes of Christmas #11) - Erica Ridley Page 0,20

not suit, then these ten days of togetherness would have to be enough.

“Good faith,” Papa reminded her, as though he could read minds as well as lips. “You can’t poison yourself against him on purpose.”

“He poisoned me,” she said automatically.

But it was only partly true.

Elijah would always be the boy who destroyed her dreams. Twice. But that didn’t have to be all he was.

He was also the man who had brought her a medallion she’d believed lost forever. The man who wouldn’t steal a kiss without her express permission, because he wanted her to be in charge of her own life.

Elijah hadn’t asked for this courtship either. He’d been sent by his father, thanks to the manipulative tactics of her own. If there were battle lines in this strange new predicament, she and Elijah were on the same side.

The thought was unsettling.

“Very well,” she said. “I forgive him for being a horrid pestilent canker when we were younger. He has six days to show me who he is now. But when I discover he’s still a knave hoping to play games with—”

“Oh!” came a startled male voice right behind her.

She spun around. Thank heavens they hadn’t been speaking aloud.

Elijah made a chagrined face. “I smelled biscuits, and I...” He shook his head. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your time with your father. I can go and entertain myself. I’ve neglected my research long enough.”

She blinked, then interpreted this for her father. “Research?”

“Oh.” A flush crept up his cheeks. “That’s nothing. It’s just...”

She waited.

“...botany,” he finished.

“Botany?” she repeated, unsure she’d heard him correctly.

Flowers didn’t sound like the domain of Gothic villains.

“How you feel about horses is how I feel about cinchona officinalis,” he said in a rush. “I’m a small part of the procedure, but I’m working with a chemist interested in furthering the experiments I’ve been conducting with dozens of important gardens, and I...” He took a breath. “...have been talking too much about botany. I’ll go.”

As she interpreted for her father, Elijah turned toward the door.

“Wait.”

He stopped.

With a wink, Papa handed Olive a plate of biscuits and returned to the kitchen.

She held it out toward Elijah. “Tell me about your gardens.”

“Well...” He began a head-spinning explanation of the various public and private gardens in London, what flora might be found in each, as well as their potential alternative uses.

She had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. She’d seen gardens, of course—Cressmouth wasn’t covered in snow all year round—but she didn’t know a Strichno-thingummy from a Carapi-whatsit.

In the space of a half-dozen biscuits, it became charmingly clear that Elijah was right: He knew as much about plants as Olive did about horses.

Here was another intriguing contradiction.

She had thought him a fribble who looked like a farmhand, when in fact both were costumes disguising a studious, enthusiastic botanist.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m boring you.”

“You’re not boring me.”

He was making her realize there was a lot more to him than she had believed. Facets she might like to get to know. It felt like the earth was tilting.

“I’m missing an important appointment. I was meant to present a detailed plan for next year’s research to a well-respected chemist. Now there’s little time.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “I’m not used to not working. I have all my notebooks, but without any plants to observe...”

“Well,” she said slowly. “That’s not entirely true.”

“I saw the evergreens,” he assured her. “And I’ve jotted detailed notes on the phleum pratense—that is, the Timothy grass—your horses are consuming beneath the snow. I wouldn’t call it a garden—”

“—but I know where one is.” She leapt to her feet. “Come with me.”

He jerked back, startled. “Where?”

“Outside.” She pointed at the extravagant borrowed greatcoat hanging from its hook and slipped her arms into her own fur-lined pelisse.

She had meant to walk the mile up the road to the castle, but they exited her front door just in time to catch one of the local sleighs.

“Come on.” She motioned him to join her on the rear bench of the wide, open-air sleigh.

Elijah approached with caution, his eyes not on her or the bright red sleigh, but the glossy black gelding standing proud at the front.

“He looks like one of your horses,” Elijah said suspiciously.

“He was.” She flung out her palm. “Meet Prancer.”

Rather than nicker in greeting at the sound of his name, Prancer’s eyes tracked Elijah as though sensing his reticence.

“He’s not going to fly off like Rudolph, is he?” Elijah whispered as he joined her on