Those sinful lips curved upward, into a semblance of a grin. “No, it wasn’t.”
Her gaze flew to his. “Of course it was.”
He couldn’t diminish her accomplishment now. Virtue was proud of how bold she’d been, seizing the reins for herself. Here was how she would finally make far more trouble for him than he wished to call his own. Nothing else had done it. She would kiss him every day if she must, until he finally sent her away.
And hide under his bed, too.
“That was nothing more than a rather weak attempt at distracting me from my course,” he said firmly, assuming that same tone again.
The one that made her feel like a nuisance, just as his insistence upon calling herinfantdid.
Both nettled. He was being deliberately cruel. Mocking her. Acting as if she didn’t know what a kiss was. Of course she did. She’d just given him one. How dare he act as if her effort had somehow fallen short of the mark?
“I kissed you,” she insisted.
The lips which had molded so well to her own quirked with ill-concealed humor at her expense. “To be fair, you merely pressed your mouth to mine. Calling that tepid demonstration a kiss is rather like referring to a drop of water as a deluge.”
Embarrassment made her ears go hot. What had she expected, throwing herself into the arms of such a practiced seducer? Of course her inexperience could not compare to the other lovers he had known. But then, she hadn’t kissed him to woo him. She had kissed him to remind him how much trouble she was, and how much happier they would all be should he simply return her to her home where she belonged, instead of his stubborn insistence upon carrying out the terms of her father’s will.
“That is how I kiss,” she told him coolly, feigning a vast collection of beaus she did not possess. “No one has ever complained before.”
His lips turned down, his jaw hardening. “Just who the devil have you been kissing in Nottinghamshire?”
“A lady doesn’t share her confidences. Dozens of gentlemen, however.” She paused, realizing that for a man of Ridgely’s reputation, that number would hardly be sufficiently impressive. “On second thought, I dare say it was more likely hundreds, actually.”
His brows rose. “Hundreds, you say?”
She held his stare, unblinking. “Yes, of course.”
“Hmm,” he said, his fingers flexing on her waist.
Was it wrong of her to like the way it felt, his hands on her? Yes, it absolutely was. But it would seem she was willing to commit all manner of sins in the name of finding her way back to Greycote Abbey.
Virtue told herself it was the people she loved, the only home and family she’d ever known—Mrs. Williams, Mr. Smith, Miss Jones—that spurred her onward as she raised her chin, fiery determination taking root at the base of her spine and rendering it ramrod stiff.
“Hmm? What does that mean?” she demanded to know.
“It means that either your legions of suitors in Nottinghamshire are woefully inept at the art of kissing, or you’re lying.”
His drawl infuriated her. What was it about the Duke of Ridgely that made her long to simultaneously box his ears and wrap herself around him as if she were ivy? Did he have this same effect upon the entire female sex? Or was she alone in this vexing, peevish misery?
“I’m not lying,” she insisted.
And yes, she was indeed lying, quite naturally. But blast him for suggesting she was being dishonest. No gentleman would accuse a lady of dissembling. Then again, Ridgely was no gentleman, and he had made that abundantly clear on many occasions. Including the day before when he had removed his shirt whilst knowing she hid beneath his bed, the utter villain.
“You are, and I’ll prove it.” His hands had crept from her waist to the small of her back, splayed and open.
Solarge. Large and bold, just as he was.
Burning her through the layers that separated them—petticoats, chemise, riding habit. In that moment, she cursed the wool and linen keeping those big hands from her skin. Oh, she liked how he moved her body subtly nearer, so that their forms were perfectly aligned, all her curves fitted to his stern masculine planes.
“How?” she asked, intending to be defiant and sounding instead—much to her dismay—breathless.
“By demonstrating what a kiss truly is,” he told her, his voice smooth and deep, soft as velvet.
Laden with sin, that voice, and with promise, too.
Very well. What could be the harm?
