“No, no, no!” she cried, stopping just short of stamping her well-bred foot at not being obeyed. “I meant that your English speech is that of a gentleman, but that no true gentleman would behave towards me in this barbarous fashion. Refusing to tell me your name! It’s not fair, sir, not fair in the least.”
“What’s not fair, cara, is seeing you squander yourself on a man like Warwick.” Anthony made sure to keep his judgment no more than a stingingly idle observation. “My lady of the moon deserves far better than that pompous yellow-haired sciocco.”
“Sciocco?”
“A fool,” he explained, happy to do so. “A dolt. A popinjay. A fellow not worth your notice.”
“A popinjay!” she exclaimed. “How can you call Lord Edward a popinjay? He’s worth ten of you—no, a hundred! He treats me with respect and regard as does no other man. Why, do you know where he is this very moment? He has gone to fetch me orange-water, just because he was thoughtful enough to anticipate my thirst!”
“Admirable qualities in a lackey or footman, true,” Anthony said with a shrug of indifference, “but not in a lover, not for such a passionate woman who—”
“How dare you!” she cried furiously, and jerked up her hand to slap him.
But Anthony was larger, stronger and all too accustomed to such female outbursts. He easily caught her wrist before she could strike him, holding her hand away from his face.
“A passionate woman, yes,” he said, his voice low as she struggled to break free. “You prove it yourself. Not a lady, but a woman first, eh, cara?”
“And you’re—you’re no gentleman, but a vile, low, ill-behaved beast!” she cried, practically spitting the words. “Let me free at once!”
“If that is what you truly wish,” he said easily, “then I will.”
“What I wish!” she sputtered. “What I wish!”
“What you wish as a woman.” He liked how her temper had shattered that aristocratic shell of propriety. In his experience, temper and passion were the closest of cousins, and it never took much to introduce one after the other. “If you wish me to release you so you can flee to Warwick, then all you must do is ask.”
Instantly she stopped struggling, her wrist still in his fingers.
“Why wouldn’t I wish to go back to Lord Edward?” she asked suspiciously. She was watching him closely, the moonlight casting long curving shadows from her lashes over her cheeks. “He is a gentleman, and you are not. What other reason could I possibly have for fleeing from you back to his safekeeping?”
“You know that better than I,” Anthony said. It was clear that she already had her own doubts about Warwick; it wouldn’t take much to tip her to his own side. “If you’re the lady you claim to be, and he is the gentleman, that is.”
“I am a lady,” she said quickly, and he noted how this time she didn’t defend Warwick. Poor bastard, his days basking in her favor must be numbered.
“I never said you weren’t.” He lowered his face nearer to hers. He liked her scent, lilacs with a hint of spice. “But while you’re here in Rome, you should let yourself be a woman first.”
“I’ll ignore that.” She raised her chin, just a fraction, but enough to challenge him. Lady or not, she must have felt the tension swirling between them. “And you’re still a beast.”
“I never said I wasn’t.” He retained his hold on her wrist, but the fight had gone from her hand and her fisted fingers had begun to unfurl. Yet he could also feel how her pulse raced, her heartbeat quick there beneath his fingers. “Perhaps I feel an affinity for all the poor beasts killed within these walls.”
From the look in her eyes, he knew he’d caught her interest now. That was good. He knew he couldn’t have much more time before Warwick would come bumbling back with whatever it was she’d sent him to fetch.
“The ones killed by the gladiators?” she asked. “The wild beasts from the jungles and forests?”
“The same,” he said quietly. Slowly he lowered her captured wrist, his grip on it so light now that they might be dancing partners instead of adversaries. “But I like to think the wild beasts killed a few of those butchering gladiators in return, too.”
For the first time she smiled. “You sound as if you sympathize with the lions and tigers.”
“I do.” He drew her a fraction closer, and she leaned into him another fraction more. He liked how her body was fuller, more rounded, than he’d realized from the balcony, and he liked how near that body was to touching his. “How could I not? Their spirit, their savagery, their magnificence. Most of all, their refusal to be tamed into submission.”
“Indeed.” She tipped her head to one side, her glance slanting up at him from under her lashes: hardly the sort of glance most young English ladies had in their arsenal, and he liked that, too. “Then you consider yourself untamed as well?”
“Oh, completely.” He rested his free hand on the back of her waist, lightly, as if by accident. “I’m as wild as any lion.”
She eased herself away from his hand. She didn’t fuss or squawk in a maidenly scene. She simply moved, silently establishing her boundaries, and his estimation of her rose another notch.
“Not so vastly wild,” she said, still smiling. “I’d wager that would change if only you’d meet the proper lion-tamer.”
“I wouldn’t offer that wager, cara,” he said, spreading his fingers along her back with just enough pressure to feel the bones of her stays and her body beneath. “I devour lion-tamers for breakfast.”
She chuckled, a throaty sound that delighted him. “Do you eat them with jam and butter?”
“This is Rome, not barbarous London,” he said. “I prefer a splash of olive oil and sweet basil to taste.”
She chuckled again. “Pity the poor lion-tamers, to meet such an end!”
“Pity me, for having to make such a dish of the wretched beings.” He sighed dramatically, even as he reached out to touch her cheek. “I suspect the real problem is that I’ve yet to meet the right golden lioness.”
“Ahh.” She went still, but didn’t pull away from him. “You must recall that I’m here with Lord Edward.”
“I remember,” he said, lowering his face to hers, “though I’m determined to make you forget he was ever born.”
He kissed her then, exactly as he’d planned from the moment he’d followed her here. He swept her from her feet before she could stop him, leaned her back into the crook of his arm, and kissed her as she deserved to be kissed, with skill and passion, admiration and desire, and as the first, inevitable step to seduction.
He kissed her, and Diana stiffened with surprise. It wasn’t that she was surprised that he’d kissed her. She knew when men were contemplating her with that in mind, and she’d been expecting this man to kiss her ever since he’d grabbed her by the wrist.
But she’d never anticipated how he’d kiss her. It wasn’t like any other kiss she’d ever experienced. He didn’t slobber, or grunt, or press too hard, or bump his teeth against hers. He didn’t taste like his pipe, or the onions he’d eaten earlier. What she’d always liked best about kissing came afterwards, when the man was so grateful and devoted because he wished to do it again. That was the only reason she ever permitted it.
But the way that this man kissed stunned her with its intimacy. She couldn’t begin to fathom