He smiled into her eyes. She wished his eyes were gray or brown.Anything but blue.Blue was mesmerizing.
"And where are Ernest and Angela?" she asked.
''Gone off walking somewhere with Clarence's infants,'' he said.' 'Playingat being aunt and uncle, the two of them. It was the countess's suggestion that Ernie trot along too by the way. I am not at all sure that her suggestion about the duet was not just a ploy to exclude me from the excursion. She has decided to bring those two together. Most romantic, don't you agree?"
"I do not believe for one moment that you were going to join a walk with babies," Diana said scornfully.
Both eyebrows rose this time. "You malign me," he said. "I have a nephew of my own, you know, and positively dote on him. Ask my sister. I plan to teach him everything I know. My sister has other ideas. Come, Diana, the music." He held out a hand.
Diana handed over the pile.
"Now let me see," he said." 'TheMiller's Flowers'? Bah! I would feel decidedly ridiculous. Look, you have all the words, while all I do is la la my way through the song. Everyone would think I hadforgotthe words. Oh, here we are, this is better.'Sweet Kate.'Do you know it?A most affecting song.What a cruel maid was Kate. Look: she 'ran away and left me paining. Abide, I cried, or I die with thy disdaining.' This man certainly did not have much pride, did he?"
Diana stood beside him and peered at the music. "She was a wise Kate," she said. "Look, she could see through all his insincerity. 'Gladly wtiuld I see any man to die with loving. Never any yet died of such a fit.'A woman after my own heart."
"Well," he said, "I am not at all sure I approve of Kate's swain, whatever Msnamewas. He allows her to have the last word in both verses. However, the song is probably as good as any. Shall we try it?"
Diana was surprised to find that he had a pleasant tenor voice and a sound knowledge of music. Although he claimed never to have heard the melody before, he was able to sing it through quite unerringly.
"Amazing," he said when they were finished. "We ended almost together, Diana. You were surely no more than one measure behind me. It's a pity the pianoforte accompaniment lagged two or three measures behind you.But no matter.We have two days in which to perfect the piece. Shall we decide definitely on this one?"
"We will probably not find a better," she said ungraciously.' She did not know at what moment during their singing he had seated himself so dose beside her on the bench. But she did not like him there. Her bare arm came into quite firm contact with his sleeve whenever she had to reach to higher notes.
"I think perhaps you were distracted by the change to two-four timing in the middle of the music,'' he said, ''and then back again immediately after. Your voice coped quite well. Your hands did not. Let me show you where you went wrong."
She leaned back in some alarm as his arm came in front of her to play the part of the music where she had lost time. Good heavens. Oh, gracious heaven.
"Hm," he said, stopping playing and looking over his arm at her, "you will topple right back off the stool in another moment, Diana. I'msorry,my enthusiasm for the music quite distracted me. Come, let me show you again, but with a greater regard for your safety this time."
With a greater regard for her safety?Diana felt a moment later as if her heart must have hopped up into her throat and was beating out a tattoo against the inside of her ears and the top of her head. He put his left arm right around her and proceeded to play the accompaniment to the song with both hands. Diana was cradled against his arm and chest, her head resting against one very broad shoulder and a very firm jawline.
Gracious heaven! She would have fought her way up for air if she had not felt that she would thereby lose a great deal of dignity.
''I think that was more accurate, was it not?" he said when he had finished. Had he even started? Had he been playing the pianoforte for the past minute or more?
"Yes," she said, dismayed to hear that she sounded as if she had just run a mile.
"Let's try singing it again," he said. "I'll play this time, if you wish. Then you can criticize me if I fail to keep time.''
"Not like this," she said. "I cannot sing like this. I need more room."
"Do you?" he said, taking his left hand from the keyboard and resting it lightly on her arm. "Do you know, Diana, I am inclined to feel the same way. I think perhaps for future practices we should stand at opposite corners of the room, don't you? I find myself decidedly breathless when I am so close to you."
Since it was perfectly obvious both that she was breathless and that he was not, Diana chose to be insulted.
"You make mock of everyone, do you not?" she said crossly. "I am not accustomed to loose living, and therefore make no apology for being uncomfortable in these present circumstances. I do not mean even to pretend to be a blasé woman of the world."
All might have been well if she had not chosen—oh, utter foolishness—to turn toward him in her anger. Her breasts took the place of her back against his chest, and her movement transferred his left arm and hand to her waist. His face, with those intensely blue eyes and those sensual, mocking lips, was perhaps even closer than it had been at the castle a few evenings before.
He kissed her.Of course.What else could she have expected? She had presented him with a very open invitation, and being the gentleman that he was, he had accepted. It would have been very surprising if he had not. Any man would have done as much. Certainly a notorious rake could not be expected to exercise any restraint.
He kissed her.
And she kissed him. It was the embarrassment of the moment that caused it, the discomfort, the dreadful physical awareness, and the very unwelcome memories of that splendid body with far fewer coverings. It was the heat she had been feeling, and the anger.And that throbbing of all her pulses that had locked her into an irrational inner world.It was not her. It was not her normal sensible self.
She kissed him, her arms reaching for his shoulders, her mouth opening beneath his.
And she discovered all over again the sizzling, aching sensations his tongue could create with its slow, almost lazy, exploration of her lips and the flesh behind. And his breath warm on her cheek. And his light fingertips on her neck and shoulder.
