“Hmmm, yes. However, if it were anymore private, I should be tempted to do other things.”
“Oh, like what?” she asked innocently, looking up into his cornflower blue eyes.
His eyes narrowed. “Like give you the beating you so richly deserve!” he said with feeling, his grip tightening on her to prevent her leaping away.
“Deveraux! You wouldn’t!” she protested.
“Oh, wouldn’t I? Just what do you mean hurrying off at dawn without a word to me?—”
“I wrote you a note from Axminster.”
“Yes, and a more mealy-mouthed missive I have never read.”
“Mealy-mouthed?!”
“Mealy-mouthed. Rambling on about duty and understanding. I have only one question for you.”
“Yes?” she timidly asked as she played with the top button of his coat.
“Do you wish fortrue understandingbetween us?” he asked lightly, though the slight tremor in the hand that stroked a stray lock of hair out of her face told of deeper feelings.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. Her smile began slowly, lifting the corners of her mouth then spreading her lips wide and gently apart as its radiance increased, springing as it did fromthe depths of her soul. Her eyes glowed from the light of that inner luminosity, and a delicate pink color rose in her cheeks. “More than life,” she whispered, lifting her head, her eyes slowly closing as she invited his kiss.
He groaned somewhere deep in his throat, and his lips covered hers. Her body trembled, but she clung to him, edging her hand up his arm to his neck. Her lips parted, slowly, tentatively, but there was nothing slow or tentative about his response, his tongue tangling with hers, searching, demanding to know all her secrets. She opened to him like a flower to the spring sun.
He raised his head, leaning it back against the tree. “My God, woman, what do you do to me?” he asked huskily, his breathing harsh and ragged.
A cry of dismay welled in Leona’s throat, fighting with the sudden tears forming. She struggled to get off his lap, but he held her fast.
“Would you stop belittling yourself! Stop being so prickly!”
She looked at him uncertainly but stopped struggling. He ran his hand through his hair, leaving some standing on end. She smiled.
He looked at her uncertainly, his eyes narrowing. “Why are you smiling?”
“Because your hair is a mess.”
“What?”
“Whenever you are particularly frustrated, you run your hand through your hair and mess it up.”
He laughed. “Well, it is certainly true I am frustrated at the moment and in more ways than one!” he said, shifting her slightly so she could feel the evidence of his arousal.
“Oh,” she said meekly, blushing.
He grinned at her expression and relaxed. He touched the tip of her nose. ‘Tell me, my brave lioness, why did you leave?”
“You mean, you don’t know about the jewels?” she asked, sliding off his lap to kneel next to him.
“That the Nevin heirloom suite is missing? Yes, I know about that,” he said irritably, “but what has that to do with you?” He tried to pull her back onto his lap, but she resisted.
“You don’t think I stole the jewels?” Her eyes were wide, and an eager excitement gleamed in their mottled green and brown depths.
“Leona, despite our continual failure to understand each other properly, I do know one thing. You’re no thief!”
“Oh, Nigel, you do love me!” she said, throwing her arms around his neck and hugging him with all her strength.
“Of course, I do. Haven’t I said so before? Hey—easy, Leona, you’re choking me! . . . What does this have to do with the jewels? How do you even know about them?”
