What should that have to do with her havingchildren? What she left out said volumes. He waited.
“Well, potential beaus who came to ask me todance”
“Village boys asked you to dance?” Nevershould Alexandra been allowed to cavort with village boys. She wasa lady. He picked up a coconut and threw it. It banged against apalm thirty yards away, unhitching other coconuts, and crashingthem to the ground. “You never mentioned you had a beau.”
“I didn’t?”
“No, you didn’t. I would have rememberedthat conversation.” A snake of jealousy twisted around himagain.
Her turquoise eyes widened and she skippedin front of him. “I don’t know why you are so angry.”
“I’m not,” he shouted.
She let a palmetto fan snap back in hisface. “All of them were scared off by Samuel.”
Nicholas whipped the palmetto out of theway. He liked Samuel already. “What was Samuel’s response?”
Alexandra exhaled. “He wasn’t nice at all.In fact, he was rude.”
Nicholas would bet his prize stallion,Samuel took deliberate action to make sure she didn’t have anyaffections with commoners, believing that someday she’d take herrightful place as Lady Sutherland. Samuel may have not known howthat event would have occurred, regardless, he protected Alexandraand Nicholas was thankful for his safeguarding her.
“There was the Miller’s boy who wastenacious and…well, there are two things that are infinite, theuniverse and the Miller’s boy dim-wittedness. He was the size of anoak tree and wasn’t as intimidated of Samuel as the other young menin the village. The Miller boy took hold of me on our doorstep andtried to kiss me. Samuel swung wide the door, held a sword to theMiller’s boy’s throat and threatened to draw and quarter him.”
If Nicholas had been there he would havehelped Samuel hang the Miller’s boy from the nearest tree. That wasafter he pounded him into a bloody pulp. “How’d the Miller’s sontake that threat?”
“I never saw anyone walk in reverse soquickly. He fell over a stump and scuttled like a crab on hisback.” She laughed, and then sobered. “I think Samuel had a pastthat I never knew about. Perhaps his reputation during his years inthe Royal Navy.
“The bad part was the two Cornett sistershappened by our house at the exact time the Miller’s boy had triedto kiss me. They passed terrible rumors about me, saying I waswild, disreputable, and had terrible character. For the most part,my reputation in the village was in ruins. None of the boys wantedto ask me to dance at the following socials. I was miserable.”
He knew how narrow-minded and unforgivingthe villagers on his ducal estate could be. Once black-balled, onewas shunned.
“The Miller’s son never came again. What wasembarrassing, when I was in the village, he ran to the other sideof the street and made the sign of the cross.”
He liked the fact she was not attached. Shedidn’t belong with the villagers. She belonged with gentry.
He drew up beside her. Alexandra’s invitinglips beckoned him. “So, you’ve never been kissed?”
Her mouth quirked. “Plenty of times.”
Nicholas raised a brow and it teased a smilefrom her face.
“Samuel and Molly kissed me every nightbefore I went to bed. A ritual, you know.”
Alexandra stumbled and floundering, shegrabbed his hips to break her fall. His temperature shot up, spikedseveral degrees.
“I missed that palm frond.”
He righted her, took her hands from hisheated skin and their gazes locked in the morning light. He openedhis mouth to say something, but he couldn’t speakher scent entwinedhim, his nostrils flared from primal instinct, the proximity of herbody, and the sultry look in her eyes drugged his mind. That latentattraction erupted with a force that made him lean down. He yearnedto seize her mouth with hard, demanding hunger, to devour hersweetness. Her lips parted, and his body went rigid with desire. Apulse beat at the base of her throat. His tongue could explore thatarea down to the soft tips of her breasts and beyond.
The cries of gulls jerked him to reality.With Herculean effort, Nicholas pulled back.Keep your hands offher.She saved your life. She deserves better.
He was beginning to abhor her spontaneityand unaffectedness, like a sea nymph free and comfortable in herskin.
* * *
The beach swung in a long, lazy crescent,heavily fringed by massive palms, bent away from the water for itwas the windward side of the island. The sand was soft andglistening beneath her feet. Small waves raced upon the shore witha foaming curl and a hissing sound. She cooled her toes in thelapping surf.
He had almost kissed her. She couldn’t letthat happen. It wouldn’t be fair to Nicholas.
