A Kiss at Midnight
Page 25

“Whereas I smell of the dairy,” she said, resigned. “How do French ladies smell?”
“Like flowers,” he said, grinning. “Or sweat. It all depends.”
Kate wasn’t really listening. She couldn’t dry her hand on the cherry silk of her dress because it would spot. “Don’t look,” she told him, and hastily pulled up the cherry silk, and the two layers of silk underneath, until she reached the delicate linen of her chemise.
He looked.
Of course he looked.
She felt his eyes and looked up. He had the oddest little smile.
“You shouldn’t!” she said, twitching her skirts over her ankle.
He leaned forward. “I like your slippers.”
They too were cherry silk, with small heels, and quite irresistible.
“Thank you,” she said sedately. She was fairly sure that a gentleman was not supposed to see a lady’s ankles, but surely shoes were meant to be admired?
He picked up her hand, still ungloved, and raised it to his lips. His eyes glittered at her, a kind of wild invitation, a temptation. “Though not as much as your ankles. Ankles like that . . .”
“They’re just ankles,” she said.
“Yes, but you should never let a man see your ankles.”
“I know that,” she said, tugging at her hand. “I wasn’t raised in a barnyard, you know.”
His eyes were laughing now, but there was a sultry burn in them, a heat that made her stomach curl with . . . something. “You should never let a man see your ankles,” he repeated, “because if they are as finely and beautifully knit as yours, it tells him a great deal.” He turned her hand over and put her palm against his lips, for just a split second.
“About what?” she asked, unable to stop herself.
He leaned forward. “About the rest of a woman’s body. The curve of an ankle talks of the curve of a waist, the curve of a woman’s thigh, the slope of her back . . . other places as well.” His eyes lingered on her bosom.
Before she could stop herself, a giggle escaped from Kate’s mouth. She clapped a hand over her lips.
“You are laughing at my compliment?” His face was utterly unreadable.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, but she couldn’t help herself. “I suppose I am.”
“Why?”
Kate straightened her back, which made the wax that was propping up her real bosom jut forward.
He looked puzzled.
“Did you know that Algie pads his chest? Do you ?” She eyed his coat and realized that he didn’t. His chest was twice as large as Algie’s, but it was pure muscle.
“No.”
“Algie also has little pads sewn into the thighs of his breeches,” she said patiently.
“He used to have a very fat bottom; he must have lost all that flesh somehow,” the prince said. “What does that—oh!”
His eyes fastened directly on her bosom.
She grinned at him. “A word to the wary, Your Highness: I would not consider the curve of an ankle to be an altogether reliable forecast of a woman’s curves.”
He looked up from her bosom and, to her surprise, smiled with that fierce spark of desire in his eyes, the one that made her feel instantly hot.
“Don’t do that,” she snapped. “You look like an old goat.”
“You practically instructed me to look at your breasts.”
“What you are looking at only nominally fits the label,” she pointed out.
He snorted. “There may be some sort of padding underneath, Kate, but what I see is utterly desirable, luscious, creamy . . .”
Kate couldn’t help smiling. “You know, just because I’m not Victoria doesn’t mean that I’m available for seducing.”
“I know that,” he said, sitting back. “I’m not seducing you, either.”
“I’m glad to know it,” Kate said. “Otherwise I might be quite confused. Your being a prince and all, and likely expecting women to fall into your arms. You might decide I was a dairymaid, given my lovely parfum de fromage .”
He laughed. “I did consider trying to steal you from Dimsdale, but that was when you were Victoria, with all the money to lavish on her dogs.”
“Why do you need an heiress?” she asked. “Berwick—”
“Wick,” he put in.
“Wick implied the castle might be able to support itself.”
“In a nip-cheese fashion that would make my aunts unhappy. One can never have too much money.”
Kate looked at him. It was four o’clock now, and the sun’s rays were slanting golden across the lake. Gabriel’s hair was falling from its tie, and a strand or two curled against his cheek. He was arrogant, and regal, and utterly triumphant to have found out her secret.
He didn’t look greedy.
Just arrogant.
Her silence seemed to prick him and he said, “Money can buy you freedom.”
“Freedom,” she echoed. “Freedom from what? You’re not the lion—”
“Oh for God’s sake, shut up about the lion,” he snapped.
She raised an eyebrow.
“I never speak to anyone that way,” he said, with the sweet ruefulness of a boy.
“Obviously I bring out your worst side.”
“Yes, let’s blame it on you. At any rate, I would like to have so much money that I could leave my wife in charge here, with all the aunts and uncles and the lion and all, and go off.”
“Go? Go where? Back to Marburg?”
“No!”
“Then?”
“Have you ever heard of Dido and Aeneas?”
She shook her head. “Are they historical or literary? I have to admit that I’m shockingly ill-educated. I can speak some French, and I did read most of Shakespeare, but otherwise I’m an ignoramus.”
“Who happens to know the size of a pigsty,” he said, his eyes thoughtful.
“Yes, I’m full of charming knowledge of that sort,” she said. “What about Dido, then? She has a very unattractive name, I must say.”
“She was the Queen of Carthage. She fell in love with Aeneas, but he was bound by the gods to continue his journey and found the city of Rome . . . so he did. And she threw herself on a funeral pyre in grief when he left.”
He stopped.
“She burned herself for love?”
He nodded.
“Fiction,” Kate declared. “No woman would ever be so foolish. Do you think the footman would consider it improper if you buttoned up my glove? I’m afraid that I can’t do all these buttons myself.”
“It’s not the footman who’s the problem; it’s the other boaters. You’d better sit next to me so I can do it without anyone’s being able to see.” He moved to the right side of his bench.
So Kate stood up and then quickly turned and sat down next to him. He was very large, and his leg pressed directly against hers. She could feel color rising in her cheeks.
That spark was back in the prince’s eyes. “Well?” he said. “Let’s have the glove, then.”
Reluctantly Kate turned over her right hand. The tiny pearl buttons on the glove went past her elbow. The prince bent over her arm. His hair wasn’t as dark as she had thought. It was chestnut streaked with lighter strands, the color of earth that’s been turned over for tilling.