Courtesan's Kiss (18 page)

How nice, he thought with some surprise, that she did not harp on the point of their mutual fear. He held out his hand and she gave him the creel. It weighed more than he expected. She must have read his expression. “I threw back the smallest,” she said with some pride.

“How many did you catch?” he asked, astonished at her skill.

“About ten. I didn’t count.”

He laughed, which surprised her. “I don’t believe that, any more than you would believe I do not mind losing a boxing match.”

“Fifteen,” she whispered into his ear. She straightened quickly and went on in a rush, “But Bruce escaped for the second time.” She went ahead of him as they found the path from the river up to the house.

David moved automatically, wondering how one whispered number could undo hours of self-discipline. He watched the way the morning breeze picked at the strands of hair that had slipped from the knot she had fashioned at the back of her neck. Mia Castellano managed amazingly well without a maid, even to the point of lacing her own stays.

As he watched her climb the short, steep path to the lawn, David realized that she had an amazing suppleness. The way she had climbed up to the top of the carriage. Her ability to slip away from him.

Gabriel, the man of science, would call it double-jointed. David called it incredibly distracting, especially since it made him wonder what other ways she could bend and twist her body.

Add that to what he’d learned from observation. Despite her reputation as a chatterbox, David realized how little he knew about her. He’d learned more about her when he listened to her play the guitar than he had in conversation.

How interesting that someone so sociable kept her own counsel as thoroughly as he did. He never would have guessed that Mia Castellano could fish, for example, much less that she would like it.

“How did you learn angling?” he had to ask.

She stopped abruptly and he almost ran into her. He searched the grass for a rabbit hole or something else that might have given her pause.

“You asked me a question, Lord David.”

She seemed genuinely surprised. Or pleased. Her smile always left him feeling confused. “Yes. I want to know where you learned to fish.”

“You see? That is what you usually do. Command. You never ask.”

He closed his eyes and wished for a rabbit hole that he could step into, sprain his ankle if not break his leg, and completely forestall the approaching lecture.

“This is important, my lord. I told myself that the first time you asked me a question, the first time you truly wanted to know something about me, instead of relying on
what you have heard or what you assume, I would forgive all your past bad manners.” She beamed at him as though he had given her the greatest gift and she returned the gesture.

If he had thought Mia only interested in buying elegant clothes, right down to an embroidered chemise, of buying hats she forgot to wear, or gloves she always left behind, he was wrong. She liked to fish, of all things, and seemed to find as much happiness alone by the river as she did in a crowded ballroom.

There was more to her than he had ever imagined. Shame on him for never being interested enough to ask her a question.

Before David could think of what to say, before he could think more than
Mia Castellano is a riddle it would take a lifetime to solve
, she started back across the lawn. He followed her.
Damn times two
, he did want to know how and why she learned to fish.

“I learned angling with a fly from my father.”

“I thought he died when you were still a child.”

“He died when I was twelve. I began angling with a fly when I was eight, closer to nine.”

“But you’re so at home in the city, I would have thought you joking if I had not seen it with my own eyes.”
Dressed in a white-on-white embroidered shift and stays with roses picked out in pink
. Apparently that was another memory he would always have.

“Yes, but my father loved to fish and he took me with him when he went to the country. I do not handle boredom
well, so he taught me how to cast a line. And he insisted that if I caught a fish I needed to know what to do with it.”

“This must have been before you became an expert at the many variations of the word no.” He was sorry the minute he looked at her. Her wounded eyes and the lack of a smile told him he’d offended her without even trying, and he felt the smaller for it.

“My father listened to my opinions and welcomed my insights,” she went on, with more stiffness in her voice. “He knew how to ask questions and he listened to the answers. That is a talent few men possess.”

If he had a woman’s sensibilities he could have taken that as an affront. “Your father sounds like an interesting man.”

“He was wonderful.” She walked briskly, putting some distance between them. David suspected her eyes were wet. A minute later she slowed, so he made the effort to catch up to her.

“When I saw the river from my bedroom window I knew it would have fish in it. Yesterday I found a superbly outfitted room for anglers. But there weren’t any boots small enough for my feet, and it is too warm to wear the covering that would have protected my dress.”

As they drew closer to the house, she moved away from the most direct route and into the shade of the trees. Stopping, she turned to look back down toward the water, now mostly hidden by the trees that grew along the bank, though he could hear as it cascaded over the boulders farther upstream.

“This is the English version of Eden, my lord. When you told me about stopping here, I wondered why the duke held onto a place not quite a day’s ride from Pennford.” She raised her head, admiring the canopy the trees made. “Now I know.” Resting her fishing rod against the tree, she sat on one of the oak benches, pulled off her shoes, stood up again, and walked into the grass. “I love this, the feel of grass on my bare feet. If we are waiting to sicken and die,” she continued, “this is the perfect place, beautiful and serene, but there are a hundred things I want to do before that happens.”

“I will make a list for you and put ‘walk in the grass’ at number one.”

She turned her head, looked at him over her shoulder, and grinned. “Yes, I have lists for everything. Several of them have you at the top.”

“I will not ask what the lists are, nor do I want to know, Miss Castellano.” He could guess easily enough.

“Lord David, would you please call me by my given name? Miss Castellano is such a mouthful, and if we only have a few days to live, why waste any of the time we do have on five syllables when you can manage to have my attention with two?”

“There is a certain wisdom in being formal.” David knew he sounded pompous, but alienating her was just what he should be doing, given the way his mind went to other things they could do if they “only had a few days to live.”

“Nonsense. We might die.” The drama in her voice
was more exasperation than fear. She flopped down onto the grass and spread her arms out, still looking more like a creature of nature than an untried girl, both begging for ravishment. “Wisdom is the least important virtue right now.”

“Not if we survive, as I have no doubt we will.” He went to her and held out his hand. “Now stop trying to tempt me. Let us go back to the house. Do you know Walton’s
The Compleat Angler?”

Though she accepted his hand she barely used it as she rose to her feet, winding up next to him. She put her arms around his neck, leaning back a little. Her mouth was not very close but her body was pressed against his.

“Yes, I have my father’s copy.” She looked him in the eye and dared him to keep talking.

“My father insists that his father hosted Walton here.” He raised his hands to pull hers from around his neck. She took them and held tight as she leaned fully away from him and then closer again as in a dance. “The story is that he slept in the room that is your dressing room.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. I will look for a copy on the bookshelves and read it aloud.”

“Or use it as lyrics to ‘God Save the King.’”

“Have you heard me?”

“Twice. Your words to the tune of ‘Greensleeves’ and ‘Barbara Allen.’ Why do you do that?”

“Another question, Lord David. That now makes three in one encounter. I do believe you deserve a reward.” She pressed her lips to his without warning. That is if he
did not consider her antics the last three minutes a warning.

The touch lasted the barest second. She would have let him go and resumed walking if he had not pulled her back into his arms. “Miss Castellano, if that was a kiss, you definitely need a tutor.”

Her kiss on the corner of his mouth was chaste. His kiss was not. It would show her from the first that kissing was about more than reward. At the beginning it was like a testing of the waters before a deeper plunge into the surf. If that first touch felt right, and this did, he would plunge in, risking everything for the thrill of riding the wave of want and pleasure, taking her with him. His mouth wed hers, taking every bit of feeling she offered and gave, both at the same time.

This kiss opened them to a place where nothing existed but the other, what they were and what they could be. Complete. Complete in a way that words only hinted at, in a way touch proved inadequate. David Pennistan lost himself in that kiss, forgot everything and everyone else.

Her soft lips pulled him into this most intimate of worlds where everything was a jumble of clarity and confusion, heaven and hell, magic and mayhem, pleasure and anguish. His body longed for this union, so perfect, so much a completion that it was worth the risk of disaster. To forget the future, the past, all the fears and even all the hopes was the greatest gift he had ever been given. And just beyond that was the urging to give up control completely and take what the moment offered.

When he fell back into the world they’d left behind,
he was speechless. So was she, but her eyes sparkled and her lush lips showed an “O” of amazement that he understood completely.

If he had hoped to overwhelm her, he had made a grave error. He was the one overwhelmed. What was William Bendasbrook thinking to give this woman up?

S
TAY CALM
,
M
IA ORDERED HERSELF.
Sit down on the bench, gracefully, so that he does not see your legs shaking. Smile, just a little. Or at least try to look as though you’ve been kissed like that before
.

Lord David cleared his throat. “Why do you wind the clocks at midnight?”

He’d asked her another question. He must be as nonplussed as she was. Now she
could
smile. “A fourth question, my lord? They are in danger of becoming commonplace, hardly worthy of a reward.”

Mia stood up, pleased with her clever reply. Her legs were no longer unsteady, her heart had settled to a comfortable rhythm, proving to herself, at least, that she was in control of the situation.

Testing herself further, Mia tried walking. When her
feet obeyed her still-stupefied brain, she left the path and went back onto the lawn, a far less private spot.

Lord David followed her and then went back to pick up the fishing rod and bag she had left on the bench. He handed them to her, his expression guarded, which made her feel even better.

It was the best sort of kiss, she thought, filled with invitation and promise and very possibly more than Lord David intended to give. A thrill ran through her. “I wind the clocks at midnight because my bedchamber clock stopped ticking late the first night we were here, since Mrs. Cantwell had not had the time to wind it and I never thought of it. When I went to check the time on the great case clock in the front hall, I realized that none of the clocks were being wound.”

Mia drew a breath and slowed the rush of words to a more conversational pace. “So I decided that winding the clocks was something I could do to help.” She brushed at a bee that came too close and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Mrs. Cantwell told me that I must wind the clocks at the same hour lest they become over-wound. Mr. Cantwell is a stickler for the correct time.”

They went up the last rise and the back of the house came into view.

“So I do that small task close to midnight, just before I climb into my bed.”
In case you want to know where to find me
.

The scent of roses greeted her as they moved through the small gardens. They were close to the terrace that ran the length of the rear of the house.

Full-blown roses were her favorite flower in the world. They were so generous with their scent and color. She did not know which she liked better, the spicy sweet aroma or the deep burgundy color. What would one be without the other? she wondered.

Despite the distraction of the roses, Mia knew the silence between them was strained. Lord David was not going to say anything unless she prompted him. Well, she excelled at making conversation in difficult circumstances.

“And you, Lord David, how have you been spending your hours?” This was more than difficult, Mia thought. Would she ever ask or hear another question without thinking of that kiss?