“Would you like to sit?” she asked, gesturing to one of the worn but comfortable leather reading chairs.
“I’d rather stand if you don’t mind,” he told her. “I was in my coach for a number of hours today. Please, sit if you wish.”
“I will stand,” she agreed. Then she waited. When he said nothing more, but stared at her with interest, she began to feel prickly all over.
“Your Grace?” Maybe he just needed prompting.
The duke sighed. “I am simply happy to see you, Miss Rare-Foure. I’ve missed you.”
She managed to refrain from taking a step backward out of sheer surprise. But barely. That was an entirely improper way to start their conversation. Be that as it may, she could be truthful, as well.
“I enjoyed our meetings over chocolate tastings, too,” she confessed, carefully choosing her words.
The duke smiled, and her insides flipped. Such a lovely smile on such a handsome man. Stop it! she scolded herself.
“The chocolates!” he suddenly exclaimed. “I haven’t had a chance to thank you for the ones you made specially for me.”
The ones that had caused all the trouble.
Despite that, she had to ask him. “Did you like them?”
“No,” he said quickly. “I loved them! Absolutely adored them. The coffee flavor was brilliant. It was exactly as delicious as anything I could have imagined. How did you do it? I kept expecting to find coffee grounds in the fondant center, but it was smooth and creamy. I thought I was imagining the touch of orange, so subtle. Who would think it would go well with chocolate and coffee? Yet it did. I ate all twelve that night and made myself feel a little ill, but it was worth it. I didn’t share a single one. Except for the one Lady Madeleine bit into by mistake.”
Amity smiled, unable to contain her joy at making the duke so happy he’d indulged his way to queasiness. After eating chocolates and coffee with him, she’d decided to try incorporating the two flavors into one. First, she’d made regular coffee and stirred it in by the teaspoonful, but the flavor was too bland. It had taken many attempts until she’d figured out the coffee would work best as a liqueur.
“I tried boiling off the coffee to make it thicker, but the flavor was scalded and not pleasant. I knew you wouldn’t approve. Next, I brewed very strong coffee, added a sugar syrup and the mildest brandy. It worked perfectly.”
“You are brilliant. Will you sell them in the store?”
“I might.” She suddenly considered her change in status after she married. She had all but agreed to temporarily giving up chocolate-making, maybe only for a few weeks, while she settled into her new life and set up house with her husband.
The duke frowned. “You don’t think it will be popular?”
“I do. Probably more so than a lavender chocolate. Did Lady Madeleine really like it, by the way?”
“She did. I would not lie to you. Everyone did although I could see the men didn’t take to it as well as the women.”
She nodded. “That might be the case with the Pelham, too, with more men than women enjoying the strong coffee flavor. We certainly know Lady Madeleine didn’t care for it one whit, especially not with orange, too.”
“The Pelham?” The duke looked delighted, and she felt her cheeks warm.
Amity shrugged slightly. “In my head, that’s what I named your chocolate.”
He laughed at that. “I am honored.”
“They are a little more difficult to make. I suppose I could teach one of my sisters.”
Cocking his head, he asked, “Why wouldn’t you make them yourself?”
“I shall be married in a few months,” she reminded him.
He made a face, which looked like displeasure. Why would it matter to him whether she married?
“So, what of it?” he asked brusquely.
That didn’t concern him and was not his business. However, after the long talks they’d had in her workroom and their incredible kiss, it seemed petty not to discuss something slightly personal with him.
“I may take some time off,” she confessed, “particularly around my wedding date.”
“Naturally,” he said gruffly. “No one would expect you in the shop on that particular day.”
“And Mr. Cole thinks I might want to do something else with my life,” she added with a tilt of her chin, not liking His Grace’s assumption she would have exactly a single day off to get married before returning to work, like any good servant.
“What?” the duke exclaimed so loudly Amity feared her family would hear him down the hallway. “That’s preposterous!”
She blinked at him. “I don’t live in the back room of Rare Confectionery, you know. Soon, I will have the new duties of being a wife, and someday, perhaps, a mother.”
Again, he wore an expression of disapproval.
“Do not worry, my ... Your Grace. I will find time to whip up a batch of Pelhams, even if my sisters cannot get the blend right.”
He stared at her, with his nostrils flaring and an intensity flickering in his green gaze.
“I don’t give a damn about the Pelhams!” Again, his voice was a little too loud for their country home.
“I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
Stepping closer until she could smell his familiar spicy fragrance, he took her hand. “What I care about, Miss Rare-Foure, is you!”
Amity stared at her hand held firmly in his, then raised her glance to his face, sucking in an awed breath at what she saw. Genuine affection shone from his verdant eyes, plain to see. She shook her head. This could not be happening. It must not!
“I am engaged,” she said, wishing her voice had held more conviction.
“Pish,” the duke said, as if that meant nothing. “I am asking you to marry me instead.”
The sensitive matter had finally become apparent. She tugged her hand free from his. And with thoughts running wildly in her head, she went to the study door and closed it, leaning against it for support.
“Amity,” he began. “Please, may I call you Amity? It is how I think of you in my head.”
“You should not be thinking of me at all,” she protested, despite the fact that practically all she’d thought about was him since the first time he’d invited her into his coach.
“I stood in front of friends and family,” he continued, beginning to pace in the ridiculous slippers, an old pair belonging to her father. “And I could not ask her.”
She realized he was talking about his party.
“I simply could not imagine a life without you. When you dashed out of the ballroom, all my happiness went, too. Except for the coffee chocolates, of course. And that joy was also due to you and your thoughtfulness. As soon as I tasted one, knowing you’d crafted something like that solely for me, it gave me hope you felt the way I do.”
The duke approached her again, and Amity flattened herself against the door. Her heart was racing, and she desperately wanted to feel his arms around her, hold his face in her hands, and kiss him.
What was wrong with her? It was like a madness, and she fisted her fingers in her skirts to keep from reaching for him. She cared for Jeremy, yet for some reason, she didn’t feel this same urgent desire when around him.