The kiss… It was here.
The knowledge of it.
The remembered feel of it.
A feel that hadn’t left her lips…
Or her hands from touching his body…
From touching…
Him.
A feel that had her squeezing her thighs together beneath her skirts.
For the place that corresponded withhimwas still begging for a touch ofherown.
“You look…” he began, clearly searching for words.
Juliet plucked at her skirts. “Like your grandmother?”
He snorted. “Hardly.”
“Like your grandmother’s ghost?”
He cocked his head.
“The dress, my lord,” she said, answering his unspoken question. “It was in fashion when Marie Antoinette yet remained in possession of her head.”
“Ah,” he said, resuming his seat when she took hers. “I don’t go in for lady’s fashions.”
“I should hope not,” she said. “The empire waist wouldn’t suit you.”
He gave a dry laugh. “And here it is.”
“Herewhatis?”
“The renowned wit of Miss Windermere.”
The remark wasn’t in the least caustic, but spoken with that too-appealing lopsided smile of his. He wasn’t the least intimidated by her wit, that smile said.
She liked that about him.
His solid, quiet confidence.
Oh, she more than liked it. She found it…ravishing.
“We shall have to shout our conversation all night if we keep these places at the table,” she said.
He nodded. “Perhaps we meet halfway?”
In unison, they rose, and she went to her left, and he to his, so they now faced each other across the crosswise span of the table.
“Better?” he asked, sitting back as servants movedtheir table settings before them.
“Much.”
His scent reached her here. Kilmuir always managed to smell like man, but somehow like good man. A man who had hiked three hours in a pine forest and perhaps rubbed a bit of sap on himself for good measure. She was never been able to smell pine without thinking of him.
