“I’ll have cakeanda pastry,” Miss Polly said. “Where are the serving tongs?”
“Aduchesseis meant to be eaten with one’s fingers. That’s why Chef has wrapped them in paper for us,” Mrs. Kent explained.
With a shrug, Miss Polly reached out and selected one of the baked confections. It was about six inches long, and positively—there was no better way to describe it—phallic. With morbid fascination, Sinjin watched as she brought the icing-glazed length to her mouth. The tip of the pastry lingered on her bottom lip for the briefest moment—as he’d suspected, that luscious ledge made for the perfect resting place—before she slid it inside.
Goddamn.Sweat gathered beneath his collar.
She bit down, and before his disbelieving eyes, whipped cream squirted out the end. It splattered in thick, milky gobs on the tablecloth. When her tongue swiped out to catch a spot of filling clinging to her upper lip, he barely stifled a groan.
His trousers were suddenly, excruciatingly tight.
“Is it good?” the Duchess of Strathaven asked.
When Miss Polly gave an enthusiastic nod, the duchess and marchioness both reached for a pastry. As they nibbled away, their respective husbands watched on with transfixed gazes. Strathaven adjusted his collar repeatedly, his color high, whilst Tremont’s eyes had glazed over.
Thankfully, the delicious torture of dessert ended before anyone unmanned himself, and Miss Primrose said merrily, “Time for presents!”
Brightly wrapped packages were duly brought in and placed in front of Miss Polly. As she carefully unwrapped each one to the smiles and exclamations of her kin, Sinjin felt his earlier awkwardness return. Not only was he intruding upon a family celebration, he had no prior experience with such affairs. His father and stepmama had never marked the occasion of his birth; in fact, that day was less than a month away, and he doubted that they would even remember.
Hell, sometimes he even forgot.
Now, watching Miss Polly’s genuine joy as she thanked the Tremonts for a pretty music box, Sinjin felt a strange longing to… participate. To not be the uninvited outsider watching on.
“Let me guess who that is from.”
Miss Primrose’s dry comment made him look at the last of the gifts that Miss Polly had unwrapped. A door-stopper of a volume on… fossils? Egad. He might be a novice at birthdays, but even he… wait. Hecoulddo better than that.
“Miss Kent,” he said impulsively, “I have a little something for you as well.”
She blinked at him. “You, um, do?”
He reached into his pocket, dug out the locket. Slid it eagerly across the table.
“This is for me?” She picked up the necklace, the simple filigreed pendant gleaming in the light of the candelabra. Her brow furrowed. “But how did you know to get me anything?”
Heat crept up his jaw.You didn’t think this through, you idiot.
In the past, women had never questioned his gifts, but they’d been light-skirts and lovers, and Miss Kent was neither of those things. She fell in a category of female that he’d steered clear of—and obviously for good reason. Chits like her were naught but trouble. Faced with her question, he couldn’t very well admit the truth: he’d given her a trinket that he’d happened to have in his pocket, a memento sent by some woman he’d tupped, whose identity he couldn’t even recall.
“It was my mother’s,” he heard himself lie.
“Then I couldn’t possibly—”
“It’s a trifle,” he said brusquely.
“But if it belonged to—”
“Just take it.” The words emerged filtered through his teeth.
Her eyes narrowed upon him… as if they could seethroughhim. His face heated like that of a schoolboy caught cheating on a test. After a tense moment, during which he wished with every part of his benighted soul that he’d never given her the stupid thing, she slid his offering beneath her other gifts. As if she couldn’t stand the sight of it.
The tinkling of crystal diverted everyone’s attention to Miss Primrose, and not a bloody moment too soon. She set the fork down beside her glass and announced, “I’d like to propose a toast. To Lord Revelstoke, the hero who rescued me from the jaws of death.”
His embarrassment heightened. God knew he was the furthest thing from a hero.
“Quite unnecessary, Miss Kent,” he muttered. “I was glad to be of service.”
“You are far too modest, my lord. I owe you mylife,” she gushed. “If it weren’t for you, I might not even be sitting here.”
