“And conveyed with such solicitude and enthusiasm!” She laid one hand on her bosom, still smiling brightly. “Your reputation for charm is well earned, sir.”
He gave a little huff. “I should hope so. You had better keep it in mind.”
Joan made herself giggle like one of the simpering girls who always seemed to snap up husbands in their first season. “How could I forget? After our last encounter, I mean.”
“Oh?” He crossed his arms and looked interested. “What, particularly, about our last encounter struck you so deeply?”
“Let me see ...” She tapped one finger against her lips, drawing out the moment. His gaze felt like a bright light shining on her. Joan knew it was very wrong of her, but she couldn’t help but enjoy teasing him. She longed to pay him back for leaving her utterly nonplussed by a kiss. She longed to pay him back for walking away from her, instead of being stunned and breathless and caught, however wrongly, by the mad hope that he might kiss her again. If he could kiss a woman like that and then walk away without a care, he deserved to be tormented. She felt positively obliged to do so, on behalf of all females. “Perhaps it was the way you asked me to dance? No, that was rather gruffly done. Was it your apology for insulting me?” He made a sound in his throat that sounded contemptuous. “No, that also was poorly done,” Joan went on, clicking her tongue in reproach. “It might have been the way you offered to return my own property.”
“I paid for it.”
“And if you’d had any cleverness at all, you would have had a servant deliver it,” she replied.
His brilliant gaze drifted over her. “I found it much more satisfactory to return it in person.”
For the flash of one intense moment, Joan felt again his fingers at her back, pulling loose the laces of her gown. Her cheeks warmed. “It showed poor planning. Anything that requires hiding behind potted trees usually does.”
Too late she remembered what else had required hiding behind potted trees. Her face grew warmer as a faint but wicked smile crooked his mouth, proving that he, too, remembered it.
“Noteverything,” he murmured.
Joan tried to force it from her mind, truly she did, but still—the memory of his mouth on hers refused to be banished. She tried not to think how she had clung to him, how his arms had felt around her. She tried not to remember how her heart raced, how her breath grew short, and how her skin seemed to tighten at his touch—in short, how she had reacted just as Lady Constance felt with her lovers. “So,” she said to quiet the instinctive tumult inside her body just at the memory of his kiss, “does that mean you plan to kiss me again?”
“No,” he said before she even finished the question. Finally he looked away from her, releasing her from the almost-physical hold his eyes had exerted.
“Good,” she said with all the cool poise she could muster. “I didn’t much care for it.”
For a moment he didn’t move. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Slowly he turned and started toward her, one deliberate step at a time. Joan held her ground, sure she’d piqued him where it hurt. It was only fair. If he’d only kissed her to make her stop talking, and couldn’t even be gentlemanly enough to let her think he enjoyed it a little, she had no qualms in disdaining his skill at it.
But the closer he came, the more she wished she hadn’t said it. She didn’t dare retreat, but it took a great deal of will not to. Finally, barely a foot away from her, so close she could smell the faint scent of cologne he wore, he stopped.
“That sounds remarkably like a challenge,” he said, his voice low and silky. “Challenges, Miss Bennet, are mother’s milk to me. Take care how you issue them.”
“Still a boy with something to prove?” She gave him a patronizing look. “First climbing out windows to get roses; now kissing spinsters? I suppose you’d do it again quickly enough if someone laid you a wager on it.”
Now his smile grew dangerous. “I’ll take that wager. A shilling says I can kiss you and you’ll enjoy it.”
“I thought you didn’t plan to kiss me again.” She opened her eyes wide in mock innocence. “Now you want to kiss meandtake my coin?”
His shoulder shook a little, as if he was laughing at her. He leaned forward until she could see the sparks of gold in his eyes. “I said I didn’tplanto kiss you again,” he whispered. “I never said Iwouldn’tkiss you again.”
Her throat had gone dry. “That’s the same thing,” she tried to say.
This time he did laugh. “We’ll find out, won’t we?” He stepped back and gave a crisp bow, never taking his eyes off her face. “Good day, Miss Bennet.”
And he walked out the door before she could move, or breathe, again.
Tristan walked out of the drawing room with every sense tingling. Good Lord, she was dangerous. He felt an unwarranted sense of elation at conjuring that breathless look on her face. She’d wanted him to kiss her, right then and there; he knew it. Unfortunately, he’d felt the same thing, which meant he had already failed a key test. No matter how much he told himself he was supposed to attend her like a brother, his mind and body refused to recognize her in any way that might be deemed ‘sisterly.’
He really didn’t understand that. She was no beauty, although he liked her better as she was today, with her hair smooth and soft, even if she still wore a dress that hurt his eyes. She had a nice mouth, he reluctantly allowed; very lovely, soft and pink, and dangerously tempting. And the way her eyes could sparkle was rather attractive—or would be, if he didn’t know they sparkled in anticipation of spiting him. Still, he had left her wide-eyed and speechless twice now, and that was a triumph no man could overlook.
Just as he reached the hall, where a footman darted for his hat and gloves at his approach, another woman appeared. For a moment, he thought it was the Fury herself, somehow springing up for one last jab, but almost immediately he realized it was a much older woman. She had the same figure as the Fury, but wore a gown that displayed it to advantage. Her dark hair, threaded with silver, was fixed in a simple way that included not a single ringlet. And her eyes—in fact, her whole face—brightened with interest when she saw him.
This must be the aunt sent to act as chaperone, the one Bennet had said needed watching as much as his sister did. Tristan stopped and bowed. “I presume I have the honor of addressing Lady Courtenay.”
“You do,” she replied, not bothering to hide her amusement. “And you ... ?”
“Viscount Burke, madam, at your service.”
