He did not know. One did not know with Diana Ingram. And therein lay fascination. She was a fascinating woman.
He still did not know the answer when his mouth was one inch from hers and when his eyes drifted upward from her lips to look into hers. And he still did not know if he would move that inch closer and discover his answer or retreat and say something quite commonplace.
He usually knew unerringly the surest path to seduction. He did not know with Diana Ingram.
And—oh, yes—therein lay endless fascination.
She was going to hit him. It did not matter that she would be unable to hurt him, that he could overpower her in a moment, do unspeakable things to her if he wished. She was going to smack him with all the power of her anger and her shame at feeling attracted to a rake, and her humiliation over the memories they shared.
She was going to hit him.But only when he kissed her.He hovered at the edge of a kiss, just as a few nights before he had hovered . . . But no matter. She would not hit him before he kissed her or he would make her feel foolish again by claiming that he had had no such intention.
Her heart was thumping right up into her throat. She could feel his body heat. She could smell him. And it was a teasing, familiar smell. Awareness tightened her breasts and sent a weakness spiraling down inside her.
Lord Kenwood smiled into Diana's eyes, closed his own, and traveled the inch.
"Yoohoo!Hey there.Yoohoo!"
Buglers in the fourteenth century must have sounded far more romantic.And far more in keeping with the moonlit splendor of the present appearance of the fortress.
"Ernie!" the Marquess of Kenwood said, opening his eyes and retreating a few inches. "Devil take it, where is he?"
But the words were merely something to say. One could not have missed him once one looked. He was up on the battlements in perfect dark silhouette against the moon. Ernie had never looked more romantic in his life.Or sounded more like an ass.
"Yoohoo!" he called again, his hands cupped around his mouth. "Diana! Jack!"
Diana felt as if she had been reprieved from execution with the noose already about her neck. "Ernest," she called, "whatever are you doing up there? It is dangerous to climb."
"I couldn't find you," he yelled. "I was worried about you. Mama and the others have started back."
"Well, do be careful," she called back. "We are quite safe, Ernest. We are on our way back around to the front now. We will meet you there."
"Get down from mere now, Ernie, my boy," the marquess said, his voiceraisedto a pitch scarcely above the ordinary. "You make a quite impressive knight in shining armor, but you would quite ruin the effect if you fell and broke your head."
"Oh, Lord," Lord Crensford said in a normal voice, which the two listeners nevertheless heard quite clearly. He had looked away behind him.
The next moment Angela Wickenham's head appeared over the battlements, and she waved down across the moat.
"Oh, Lord," Lord Crensford said again. "You shouldn't be up here, Miss Wickenham. It's not safe. I told you to go with Claudia."
"But what a splendid view," she said, leaning her arms on the top of the battlements and sending a shower of small stones down into the moat.
Lord Crensford yelled and grabbed for her arm. "Come down from here," he said. "Come down right now, you foolish, mad female. Good Lord."
''Perhaps I should fall into the moat,'' Angela said, peering downward. "I am sure you would dive in to save me, my lord."
"No, I certainly would not," Lord Crensford said before he disappeared from sight and sound behind the massive stone walls, one of Angela's arms in a firm clasp. "I can't swim."
8
"Take a firm grip of my hand," Lord Crensford ordered. "And don't let go of it."
"I came up here quite safely," Angela said. "I followed in your footsteps. And though there are loose stones all over the stairs and on the battlements here, I have good grip with these slippers." She raised her skirt a fraction to reveal a pair of dainty slippers and trim ankles.
"My hand," Lord Crensford said imperiously, blocking her way back to the staircase by which they had ascended. "Or you do not move another step."
"I was not going to refuse," she said, wrinkling her nose at him and placing one dainty little hand in his."I was merely trying to show you that you did not need to get so worried."
"I was not worried," he said bluntly. "I was angry.Am angry.I told you to go home with Claudia. You have no business being alone here with me."
