Lucas looked at the way the sunlight danced off her shining curls, his fingers itching to slide into the thickness, feel their warmth. “And the world would be the less for it. Is that what you hoped I’d say?”
Her smile fled, and she bit her bottom lip for a moment before looking away from him. “No, I didn’t. I wasn’t angling for compliments, my lord. I thought we were friends now, and only being silly. I am not always, as Charlotte says, on the flirt.”
“Your sister-in-law has all the best intentions, I’m sure, but she clearly can’t see you the way I do, the way any gentleman less than eighty and not deaf and blind would see you. You flirt, my dear, simply by existing at all. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if Her Grace is truly worried about either you or the male population at large, she would be doing a service to hang a sign around your neck, warning the unwary away.”
Nicole pulled her arm free of his and danced ahead of him along the narrow path. Stopped a few paces in front of him and turned to confront him. “I didn’t think you were unkind. But that was a horrid thing to say.”
Lucas wanted to kick himself. “Of course it was,”
he said quickly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you in any way.”
That imp of the devil was back in her eyes. “Me? Oh no, my lord, I wasn’t at all insulted. You insulted yourself, and—how did you say it?—the male population at large. Surely there are gentlemen who care for more in females than appearances.”
“At the risk of further insulting my own sex, I have to say that for many of us, appearances aren’t just important, but all that’s important. We’re by and large a shallow bunch.”
“So, if I had three ears, and no dowry, you’d turn and walk away from me right now? I see.”
Lucas mentally retraced his conversational steps from the moment they’d left the inn, and wondered where he had first gone wrong. And then he realized what she was attempting to do. “Are you deliberately trying to provoke an argument between us?”
Her shoulders slumped for a moment, and then she lifted her chin and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Yes. And it’s not working, drat you for being so uncooperative. Why isn’t it working? Rafe says I can try the patience of a saint when I put my mind to it.”
“I’m not a saint,” Lucas said quietly, stepping closer to her. He could smell the sunshine in her hair. “Are you really that afraid of me? Am I that much of a threat to you, Nicole?”
She bit her bottom lip once more, and then quickly raised a hand to her mouth, as if to wipe away some betraying gesture. “I don’t even know you, not really. You don’t know me, either, when we come straight down to it. So why do you have this effect on me? Because I don’t like it, my lord, I truly don’t.”
“How do I affect you?” he asked intently, daring to touch a finger to the soft underside of her chin, hold it there, mesmerized by the way the sunlight seemed to kiss her lightly freckled skin. “Tell me.”
“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction,” she said, jerking her head away from him. “This has gone too far. Take me back to the inn or step out of my way.”
He couldn’t do that.
“Have you spent the past three days wondering what it would be like to have me kiss you, Nicole? Because I have. Sister of a duke, sister of a good friend, and all I can think about is how your mouth might taste, how you’d fit in my arms. From the moment you first crashed into my life, setting my world tipping on its axis.”
She shook her head slowly, but didn’t turn to run from him. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Really? Because I’m not certain I can believe that. I’m afraid of you. You’re everything I don’t need in my life right now, just as you’ve made it clear that you don’t want me in your life. And yet here we are, and I still want to kiss you, and I’m more than fairly certain you want me to kiss you. Truth to tell, I doubt either of us will be capable of thinking of anything else until—”
She nearly knocked him off his feet, surprising him by launching herself at him. She took his face between her hands as she stood on tiptoe and pulled his head down and fiercely pressed her mouth to his, her eyes screwed tightly shut, as if she might be in pain.
She released him just as abruptly, stepping back, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “There! Now we neither of us have to think about it anymore.”
Before he could respond, she lifted her skirts and ran past him, back to the inn. He decided to light a cheroot and stay where he was for a while, giving her time to recover from her impulsive action.
God, she was magnificent.
And as he smiled, and smoked, and replayed the moment of her impulsive kiss, an idea began to form in his mind. An insane idea, but one that seemed more reasonable the more he thought about it…
WHEN WOULD SHE LEARN not to be so impulsive? When would she finally think first, and then only act afterward?
But Nicole desperately had wanted him to stop talking. To simply shut up, say nothing else that she couldn’t deny without sounding like a complete ninny.
It had all seemed so eminently reasonable at the time. And, as it turned out, rather enjoyable.
She should have remembered that she still had to sit up beside the man all the way back to London.
She’d run all the way back to the inn, only skidding to a halt before she took a deep, steadying breath and rejoined her sister and Lord Yalding in the dining room, finding them still deep in conversation, so that neither of them even noticed that she’d returned.
Lucas had entered some minutes later, saying he’d settled their bill of fare with the innkeeper and that they should probably get back to the city soon, before the unpredictable weather took another turn for the worse.
“Don’t say a word,” she warned him as he joined her on the seat of the curricle after handing her up first. “Not a single word.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Lucas told her. “But may I at least thank you? That was a most…interesting kiss. Daresay your first? I’m flattered.”
“That’s nothing to the point.” She narrowed her eyes as she turned to glare at him. “And, may I add, that’s also not what I meant by not saying anything. You’re supposed to be a gentleman.”
“I am a gentleman. A lesser man would have grabbed you and shown you what a real kiss is, but I restrained myself. In point of fact, I’m rather proud of my self-control, if not actually amazed at my gentlemanly behavior in the teeth of temptation.”
“How gratifying for you, my lord, I’m sure. I cannot say the same for myself.” Nicole took a deep breath and turned her attention to the scenery on her side of the road. “We shouldn’t see each other again, at least not willingly. Although I do suppose we’ll inevitably run into each other from time to time, at which point we will of course be civil to each other, especially if Lydia or Rafe is watching. Will you be at Lady Cornwallis’s ball?”
“I will be now, yes,” Lucas said, infuriating her, except for the traitorous parts of her that were delighted to hear the news. “But I believe I shall be able to restrain myself from tossing you to the floor and ravishing you during the Scottish Reel, if that’s what worries you. As for your behavior, I really can’t be certain, can I? After all, I wasn’t the one who…went on the attack.”
“Yes, and I’m glad I did,” she said with as much bravado as she could muster, “for now that my perfectly reasonable curiosity has been satisfied, I find that you are not as much of a problem as I’d believed you might be.”
“The