“I do not think you are a hoyden.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke, but at the cigar.
“Now you have twice said what you don’t think, but not what you do.”
What Wyn thought was that he could quite easily lay this girl down in the grass and make love to her for a week. Her eyes sparkled the truest blue beneath the autumn sky and her cheeks glowed from the walk and he wanted to touch her. He would begin where her slender ankles peeked out from beneath the too-short gown, peeling her stockings away and slipping his hands along the shapeliness of her legs, upward.
“Have I?”
Her brow knit. “You are evasive.”
“And you are far too curious, minx.”
She curtsied. “Hoyden.” Her dimples flashed, and rather predictably his groin tightened.
He proffered the cigar. Perhaps if she were smoking she would not smile so and he would not descend again into the drooling fool who’d discovered her by the attic door with her beautiful bosom spilling from her undergarments. Within moments his imagination had seen her breasts fallen fully from the shift, corset, and petticoat, and their perfect tips in his mouth.
“This is yours.” She refused the cigar. “Don’t you have another?”
“This is my last.” Only decades of practice at deception schooled his voice to its regular cadence. “Learn on this, or learn not at all. As you wish.”
“I probably shan’t have this opportunity again.” She chewed the edge of her berry lips, and quite abruptly Wyn’s years of practice went to the devil.
“Probably not.” His voice sounded rough even to his own ears. Her gaze shot up, but he could not look away from her lips. Beautiful lips, dark pink and slightly parted and God, he wanted to taste her again. He wanted to feel her tongue against his and make her moan.
She closed her lips and they were no less sweet sealed. He imagined what it would take to urge them apart again. If he kissed her now, what she would do . . .
He made himself speak. “The cigar, Miss Lucas?”
“Thank you, Mr. Yale.” She took it. “What must I do?”
Press her beautiful body to his and submit to him. “Inhale, but very lightly, and try not to actually breathe.”
“How does one inhale without— Ach! Eh!” She wheezed, coughed, and grabbed her mouth, a rush of smoke escaping between her fingers. “I cannot have done that right.”
“Had enough?”
“No! If making another attempt means you will smile at me again as you have just done, I shall do it.”
Dear God, he’d lost every ounce of discipline over himself with this woman. “How did I smile at you?”
“As though you like me.” She stated it without any coquetry. So he replied as honestly.
“There is no ‘as though’ about it, Diantha.”
She smiled and poked the cigar back into her mouth. Her lips puckered and the smoke rose between them, and he nearly snatched the thing away and used her lips himself.
Torture. Possibly worse than the fevered nights he’d just survived. At least then he’d had the comfort of imagining he might die.
She coughed again. “I shan’t be sick,” she said upon a gasp, “if you are worried about that.”
“No worries. Not on my account.”
“Why on earth do you smoke these things?”
“Because it is what gentlemen do. And at this time in particular, it eases the desire for brandy.”
“Oh.” She seemed to accept that without trouble, as she had accepted everything about this adventure, with many questions but without distress. Except at one moment, the moment in his bedchamber that stilled his heart to recall.
“I’d like to get it right,” she said.
“You are tenacious.”
Her mouth tilted into an uncertain smile, the dimples reluctant.
“But I think both of us already knew that,” he added, and handed her the cigar once more. She made another attempt. Eventually she conquered it, as she conquered all she wished to conquer, including him. He gazed upon her face gently marked with the mementos of her youth, a naturally lovely face made lovelier by the spirit that shone from within. He had traveled thousands of miles, trekked through jungles and drawing rooms, monsoons and secret chambers, since the age of fifteen rarely pausing for a moment in any one place, and through all of this the road had never troubled him. Yet now within sight of his own house, looking into a pair of blue eyes, he was, quite possibly, lost.
“Congratulations, Miss Lucas.” His voice was unsteady. “You may now apply for membership at any one of the gentlemen’s clubs of London.”
“Splendid.” She returned the cigar to him, brushing her fingers against his, and moved away. “At times I have wished fervently to be a gentleman, you know. They have all sorts of adventures—obviously.” She gestured to him as she set her foot on the lowest branch of a tree and reached up. “And some gentlemen can even be counted upon to rescue a damsel in distress.”
He followed to the base of the tree, the unsteadiness becoming complete, like the tremors that had seized him days ago. But this was new. This was not suffering. “Yet, despite all they have seen of such damsels, some gentlemen are nevertheless somewhat astounded when said damsels take to the sudden climbing of trees.”
“Oh, an ordinary gentleman might be. But a hero is never surprised by unexpected turns.” She pulled herself onto a thick branch and climbed to the next, providing him a delectable view of the calves he wished to caress. “Especially when the damsel is merely seeking a treasure in said tree.” She pointed toward a bird’s nest tucked in the crook of a branch, stretching to peer over its edge. “See?”
“I do. Now that you have found your treasure, will you come down before I am obliged to watch you fall and break your neck?”
“I don’t suppose you would like it if I died such an undramatic death, after all the trouble I have put you through.”
“Especially not given that, it’s true.”
“Do you think the parents are far?”
“Why? Do you hope to steal the eggs and fetch them up to Mrs. Polley to cook for dinner?”
“No!” Her head cocked to the side. “I think you are speaking from experience.”
“You are probably right about that.”
She twisted her lips. “How old were you?”
“Young enough to be considered blameless for the misdeed.” Blameless for his misdeed. His breaths came short. “Now will you come down before I climb up there and retrieve you?”
She dimpled. “You wouldn’t.”
He moved toward the trunk.
She scrambled down. As she came to the last branch he offered his hand, then his other. Any young lady who could climb a tree with such alacrity could get herself down from it. But he wanted to hold her. He grasped her waist and she allowed him to draw her to the ground.
He knew why he had done this. A sennight ago she would have taken this opportunity to invite him to touch her further. But now her lashes only flickered, her breasts rising on a quick breath, and with a small smile she slipped out of his grasp. He let her go. She knew now of what he was capable, and she would not make the mistake of putting herself in his hands again. Her swift departure from the corridor that morning proved it.
She glanced back up at the nest. “Then, I am to understand you have been a thief since your boyhood, like Owen?”
“No.”
She lifted a skeptical brow.
He smiled. “Not continuously, that is. Now, come. Mrs. Polley will have dinner waiting, and there is a cow to be milked.”
“Eggs and bread again. And apples. I will be very glad for a change in menu soon. Will we truly leave tomorrow?”
“Truly.” Or he would go mad. Kitty and Leam would have arrived already if they were in London. He may have to take her there himself. But he knew now that she was too clever to deceive. When they reached England he would tell her their destination. She might balk, but he didn’t believe she would. She had learned the true nature of men, and she was wary now.