She swallowed, glancing up at Tristan’s profile as they continued strolling toward the center of the complex. “Will he be all right?”
“As ever. I told you he was a sterling escort.”
Georgiana blew out her breath. Why couldn’t she feel this rush under her skin with Luxley, or Westbrook, or any of the other trout swimming after her? Why only Tristan, the most unsuitable of her supposed suitors?
“What do you see?” he murmured, still looking straight ahead.
“I wish I knew,” she said, belatedly looking away from him.
“Not a trout, I hope.”
“That depends. Would we still be playing this game if I were a pauper?”
Tristan stopped, tightening his arm against his side to bring her to a halt beside him. To her surprise he didn’t look angry, but very serious. “I don’t know. I would want to be. I…don’t want to see you with another man. Ever.”
“So it’s just jealousy? Preventive courting, to keep everyone else at arm’s length?”
“No.” He frowned, running a hand through his black hair. “I am in a certain situation. I won’t complain about it, but it is reality. And I won’t shirk my duty to my family. What I wish, though, is only for me to know.” He leaned closer, tilting her chin up so she had to look him in the eye. “Would you choose to be a pauper? Would you be any less suspicious of a suitor’s motives if you were poor and pretty?”
He’d never spoken with her like this before, and the honest curiosity in his voice was almost painful. “I…don’t know.”
“Then we won’t speculate on circumstances that aren’t real. Agreed?”
He was right. “Agreed.”
“Good.” With a quick glance down the path, he touched his mouth to hers.
Raw desire flooded her. Georgiana dug her fingers into his arm to keep from flinging her arms around his neck and pulling herself into him. She made herself stand rigid, frozen as a statue, but she couldn’t help molding her mouth to his, saying with her lips what she refused to say with her body.
Someone laughed, very close by. Tristan broke the kiss, moving her back to his side again, as a small party of men and ladies came into view ahead of them.
They continued down the path, passing through the other group with nods and greetings she could scarcely remember uttering. A few of them looked at her curiously, but she imagined it was only amazement at seeing her and Dare walking together without blood being spilled rather than speculation that something further might be going on.
He would have slowed again as soon as they were alone, but she refused, giving him the choice of keeping up with her brisk pace or being left behind. They were not going to end up naked in a clump of rhododendron. And if he kissed her like that again tonight that was absolutely what would happen.
“Why are we running?” he asked after a moment, laughter in his voice.
At least one of them was amused. “Because if you’re running, you can’t be putting your tongue into my mouth.”
“I probably could, if I put my mind to it.”
“It’s not your mind that concerns me.” She glanced up at him. “And quit laughing.”
“It’s funny.”
Well, he didn’t have to point it out, for heaven’s sake. “And you shouldn’t be kissing me, anyway.”
“Because you’ve taught me my lesson already?”
That stopped her in her tracks. “You needed to be taught a lesson, Dare, before you hurt someone else.”
“I’ve learned my lesson. And now I want to be inside you again.”
Good Lord. She hurried into a walk again. “If you’d learned your lesson,” she said as the vendor carts came into view, “you would have been escorting Amelia Johns here.”
“For the hundredth damned time, I don’t want Amelia Johns,” he whispered, running his cheek against her hair. “I want you. Everyone else be hanged.”
“That is not what was supposed—”
