Dreamspinner Read Online Free PDF Page B

know the Latin name?”
    At his sharp tone, Juliet flushed. Would he, too, disdain her unladylike interest? Lifting her chin, she met his eyes and said, “I devote a great deal of time to studying plants, Your Grace.”
    With that disquieting alertness, he stared back. Then his gaze dipped over the billows of tulle surrounding her crouched form, and lingered an instant on her breasts. “A lady botanist?”
    “Yes. I can’t claim a university education, but I’ve learned on my own through reading books and working in the garden and greenhouses.”
    You’re better off without a degree. Experience has taught me far more than all the agriculture lectures I heard at Trinity.”
    She sat back on her heels. “Agriculture?”
    He inclined his head. “Put plainly, I’m a farmer. Even a duke must sometimes earn his living.”
    Her gaze fell to his strong and callused hands. Absently she drew the long kid glove between her fingers. Odd, that her father would consider a farmer his rival. She burned to pursue the puzzle, but a reluctance to shatter the spell held her back.
    “What was Trinity like?” she asked.
    “A lot of highbrows more involved in sculling than studying.” Scooping up a handful of soil, he let it filter through his fingers. “This is how you’ll learn best, Miss Carleton, just as you’ve been doing. With a plot of ground and a sack of seeds.”
    Thrilled that they shared an interest, she said, “It’s amazing how beautiful flowers can spring from something so mundane as dirt. Sometimes I feel like an artist plying a brush, helping nature create a lovelier palette. Have you ever felt that way?”
    “Farming isn’t quite so aesthetic.”
    His indulgent smile made her feel suddenly shy. “You probably think I’m being fanciful.” A poignant memory tugged at her, and copying Kent, she reached down to sift the cool earth through her fingers. “Whenever I made up a whimsical story as a child, my father used to call me his little Dreamspinner.”
    His hand convulsed around a handful of dirt, his knuckles going white. “What did you say?”
    The ragged quality of his voice yanked her gaze to his face. His jaw was rigid; his lips thinned. Confused and wary, Juliet studied him. The mere mention of Papa angered the duke...
    “Dreamspinner,” she repeated. “It’s just a silly name from my youth. Papa hasn’t called me that in a long time.”
    “How long?”
    “Oh, three or four years at least.” Cocking her head, she peered closely at him. “I thought you wanted to end the rivalry. You look ready to go to war, not make peace.”
    His fingers slowly unclenched, dropping the soil. He brushed off his hands. “I’m sorry. My mind strayed to another matter.”
    Despite the formal apology, shadows lingered in his eyes, shadows that suddenly alarmed her. Kent Deverell could be charming and open, yet she sensed a well of secrecy within him, a secrecy that both fascinated and frightened her. She really knew so little about him.
    “I should like to get up.” she said.
    “Of course.”
    Rising with negligent ease, he extended a hand. When his fingers closed around her gloveless ones, the shock of his warm, roughened skin struck the breath from her lungs. Her legs felt about to buckle. He kept their hands inexorably joined, and the black bitterness in his eyes made her shiver.
    Pulling free, she took a step toward the lighted gardens. “I’d better return to the ballroom or people will talk.”
    Something flickered in his eyes. “Come now, you don’t appear the sort to let a little gossip bother you.”
    Juliet busied herself with tugging the long glove up her arm and over her elbow. “Of course not,” she said firmly. “But a lady can be ruined by the slightest infraction, Your Grace.”
    She started down the path; he fell into step beside her. “And you, of course, don’t wish to be ruined. Else Breeton might beg off marrying you.”
    Annoyed, she shook her tulle skirt free of the clinging