“Why have you never kissed me?”
Her face went hot all over again. She had not meant to ask such a bold query. Truly, she had not. This, too, she blamed upon the brandy.
His expression had not changed. He lifted his own snifter to his lips, taking a hearty sip of the spirits, before responding. “I do not kiss on the lips.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“No,querida,” he said. “That is two questions.”
The glow the brandy had filled her with dissipated at the coldness of his tone. And she instantly knew the reason for his refusal to kiss had something to do with his first wife.
“What is your question for me, then?” she snapped, irritation replacing the warmth.
“I believe that is enough brandy and more than enough questions for the evening,” he said softly, plucking the snifter from her fingers and rising to his feet once more. “We should retire before the hour grows too late. Tomorrow morning, we will need to rise early to prepare for our journey.”
Ah, yes, of course.Wiltshire. Their honeymoon. The pretense they had something more than a marriage of convenience was to continue, it seemed.Blast it all.
She rose to her feet as well, but the room tilted. Or she did.
All she knew was that one moment, she was standing with perfect grace and dignity—or so she thought—and the next, she was toppling to the floor.
Chapter Eleven
Cristo.
His bride was drunk.
And on the floor of his library, shaking.
Had she injured herself? Alessandro rushed to her and dropped to his knees at her side. He had understood that, as a lady, she had likely never consumed brandy. But he had believed he had not given her too much. That he had given her just enough to soothe the edge off the nervousness which had held her in its iron grip since their vows had been spoken earlier that day.
Clearly, he had been wrong.
He supposed he ought to be thankful she did not possess the constitution of her drunkard brother, but it seemed a small mercy at the moment. She had been felled like a tree in a wind storm.
With ginger care, he rolled her over to her back.
She waslaughing.
And sotted.
“Catriona,” he said, brushing a few stray curls from her face. “Have you hurt yourself?”
She giggled.
His chest seized. Her giggle was adorable. There was no other way to describe it. Her smile was infectious. And she was lovely. So lovely, she made him ache.
Longing struck him. For the first time since Maria’s death, he did not just want another woman physically. The desire he felt for Catriona, it was something more. It was somethingdifferent. He felt…connected to her somehow. He wanted her smile. He wanted her joy.
Her lips were pink and lush and full, and the temptation to cover them with his own was as strong as it was undeniable. He yearned to claim her laughter, to swallow it, to inhale it, to take it inside himself.
“Catriona,” he said again, this time thickly.
Instead of helping her up, his fingers—cursed fingers, with minds of their own—sank into her hair. He cradled her head.
“Oh, Alessandro,” she said on a sigh. “Only my pride is injured. What must you think of me?”
He thought rather a lot of her. But his emotions were too complex, too confusing.
