Pictures from Aretino’s book poured into Kate’s mind, but—what could he mean?
Cold wine slid down her throat. She couldn’t let herself be overthrown by desire. For that’s what it was, this sharp heat between her legs, the wish to throw herself on top of him, the easy way in which the morality of a lifetime was being replaced by an ache instructing her to—
“No,” she stated.
He opened his eyes. “Had I asked you something?”
“ Why have you lost your mind?” she asked. “Is it because I’ve allowed you such liberties?”
“Perhaps.”
She scowled at him. “Offer me a post as your mistress and I’ll stab you with a fork, just as Effie stabbed Beckham. Except the fork won’t go in your hand. I am not to be trifled with.”
“I like my mistresses fat and juicy,” he said, slanting her another of his wicked looks.
“If I ever became a man’s mistress, not that I would ever do so, he would have hair the color of sunlight, and eyes as blue as—as blue as sapphires.”
“A Jack-a-dandy of that sort will care more for his own beauty than yours.” He reached out and picked up an apple.
“Absolutely not,” Kate said, warming to her imaginary gentleman friend. “He wouldn’t be vain about his looks. He would be a perfect gentleman: humble, thoughtful, and utterly honorable. He would be so in love with me that if I threatened to leave him, he would—”
“Build a funeral pyre and hop onto it,” Gabriel interrupted.
“Never. He would throw himself at my feet and beg my forgiveness.”
“There’s the problem, Kate. He should have been there in the beginning, rather than paying for the pleasure of your company.”
“You’re right; I shan’t be his mistress. I’ll marry him instead.” She picked up a lemon tart and contemplated eating it. She was not in the least hungry, but it looked delicious. And it would keep her from looking at Gabriel, who looked even more delicious.
“So you’re planning to marry a man with golden hair, blue eyes, and the personality of a pudding? Sounds like Hathaway to me.”
“I’m considering him,” Kate said. “May I have some more of that wine, please?”
Gabriel reached behind him and picked up the bottle, then propped himself on one elbow so he could pour wine first into her glass and then into his. “He’s not bad.”
“I know,” Kate said, feeling a bit hollow. “The only problem is that Effie would quite like to marry him as well.”
“Effie is that girl who was in the boat with you last night.”
“Yes.”
“And she’s the one you’re offering to imitate, who nailed someone with a fork when he asked her to be his light-o’-love?”
“It was worse than that. Beckham kissed her in an improperly intimate fashion.”
“Do tell,” Gabriel said. “Were they kissing the way we do?”
He had pulled off his cravat, and his shirt revealed a triangle of chest. It was vastly improper. Kate pulled her gaze away. “ We don’t kiss in any particular way,” she corrected him. “We may have exchanged a few kisses in the past, but—”
“We kiss as if the bloody room had burst on fire,” he interrupted. “We kiss as if making love didn’t exist and kissing was all there was.”
“Stop that!” She swallowed. “Beckham rubbed himself against her.”
“I do that,” Gabriel said, satisfaction ripe in his voice. “I’d like to do it again too. Have you lifted the ban on kissing? I can’t remember.”
“No, I haven’t,” Kate said, a fugitive shred of self-control emerging. “So Effie told Beckham he was a toad, or something along those lines.”
“ Not part of our kissing,” Gabriel said. “You succumb. All I’ve heard are little murmurs, the encouraging kind.”
She decided to ignore him. “That made Beckham angry, so he reached out and simply grabbed her.”
“Grabbed her? Hadn’t he already done that?”
“With his hand,” Kate said, scowling. “Between her legs. Poor Effie was so overset by it that she could barely explain it to me now, a whole year later.”
“I want to do that too,” Gabriel said, sighing.
Kate picked up a fork.
“But I haven’t,” he said hastily. “So that’s when she forked him?”
“Yes, except he told everyone that she had groped him under the table and that’s how the forking happened.”
Gabriel looked up at her from under thick eyelashes. “Will you please grope me under the table, Kate mine?”
“I’m not your Kate,” she said, feeling her lips curve. Her treacherous heart was no match for a flirtatious prince on a summer’s day.
“That’s the odd thing,” he said, lying on his back again and shading his eyes with an arm. “You are, you are, you are.”
Kate put her glass to her mouth because if she didn’t, she would reach over and put her lips on his.
“So she forked him,” Gabriel said, after a second.
“And he deliberately destroyed her reputation in retaliation. Hathaway is a decent man. He has obviously seen through the rumors and realized that Effie would never grope anyone.”
“It wouldn’t be kind of you to take Hathaway from poor Effie under the circumstances,” Gabriel said. “Unless you are fond of the man, in which case you might keep in mind that matrimonial life with Hathaway promises to be boring. Those overly decent men don’t approve of groping.”
“Wives do not grope their husbands under the table,” Kate said, giggling.
“I shall make it part of the marriage settlement,” Gabriel said. “I need a grope once a week or I’ll wilt like a lily.”
“You wouldn’t wilt, you’d—” She broke off.
“What would I do?” Gabriel asked.
Her eyes fell, but after all, she had nothing to lose. “You’ll be off to another woman.”
Something flashed across his face so quickly that she couldn’t read it. “Ah, my title rears its ugly head again,” he said, a bit of chill in his voice.
“It’s nothing to do with your title. Husbands stray. They have mistresses, and they take friends .”
“Not everyone is as friendly as your godmother.” His voice was still cool.
She fiddled with her fork. “My father was—friendly.”
Gabriel nodded. “So was mine, as evidenced by Wick.” He got to his feet in one easy movement. “Shall we see if there are other statues hidden in the garden?”
She took his hand as he helped her up, feeling a pulse of relief. This conversation was uncomfortably intimate. More intimate even than kissing, which was odd.
“I see a couple of mounds of ivy that might hide statues,” Gabriel said, hands on his hips. “There, and over against the back wall.”
One of the mounds of ivy turned out to cover a pile of fallen bricks. “I wonder what it was originally,” Kate said.
“There’s no way to tell since it’s all to pieces. I think I’ll get some men to build a very small folly here. It would be a delightful place for a dinner à deux .”