I tucked my feet closer and crossed my arms around my middle. I ought to be scandalized by his loose tongue, and yet, being around Peter and his friends I’d heard one too many slips over the years to care. Besides, with the duke, I needn’t pretend to be all sweetness and innocence.
“It was my first,” I admitted miserably. “And it was terrible.”
He laughed harder, slowly returning to his seat and settling back in. “Gads, I actually feel sorry for you.”
I started to smile despite myself, surprised at how much lighter I felt admitting the truth. Marlow did not seem to care. Did not seem to look at me any differently. I felt relief. Like life could carry on. Like I could have friends to jest with. Like, perhaps, one day, all my sorrow and mistakes would be but a distant memory.
“I wish I could make everyone forget. Myself included.”
The duke reached for a sandwich. “I shall see about getting a bill passed in Parliament.”
I rather liked this side of him. Rough, still, but playful. “What a good friend you are.”
He took a bite, then said, “A shame, though. To never be decently kissed.”
Warmth spread up my neck. Ihadwondered since the attempt if I’d done it wrong. Despite Ronald’s reaction, kissing hadn’t felt as earth-shattering as others made it sound. Marlow’s eyes flicked to mine, and the force of his gaze was too much. I felt exposed, my every thought laid bare.
“Did you kiss Miss Newbury?” I regretted the words as soon as they’d tumbled out of me, seeking something,anything, to redirect his attention. Perhaps a challenge to prove that I was not the only one who felt this way about kissing.
“No.” He sat up again, stretched out his legs to get more comfortable, like he wanted to stay a while. Perhaps it was the hour. Or the drink. “But I did have this one unforgettable kiss. Nothing else has quite measured up.”
The drink to be sure. I shouldn’t ask him to elaborate, but he seemed so confident. It was maddening. I wanted to be proven wrong. It couldn’t have beenthatthrilling.
“And what made that kiss somemorable?”
He rolled his eyes but humored me between bites. “If you must know, we were in the sitting room. Alone.” He caught my gaze, seeming pleased by my surprise and by the way I surveyed the empty room. “And she was teaching me French.”
“She was yourtutor?” I leaned over my armrest toward him, book folding into my lap. This was the best story I’d heard in an age.
He reached over and grabbed a sweet bun. “Brilliant Frenchwoman. Not much older than my seventeen years, which was a mistake on my mother’s part. She treated me like I was normal, talked to me like I was just any other pupil. That afternoon, she made me read this passage about forbidden love, and something in me just ... snapped.” He bit into the bun and smiled. “I took her hand first; it was very romantic. Poor thing was stunned silent, but I drew her in, and she was ... enthusiastic, to say the least.”
I gasped and covered my mouth. Something fluttered wildly in my stomach, burning up into my chest.
My eyes dropped to his lips.
He took another bite of his sweet bun. That dimple reappeared. “Haven’t felt anything like it since. And not for want of trying.”
Good heavens, how my face burned with embarrassment. “You, sir, are a cad.”
“Heartsick, to hear my mother tell it.” His eyes had changed. They were lighter, brighter. “Don’t act all blushing and proper, Georgiana. Not after the storyyoujust told. You are no better than I am.”
Perhaps not. Though I’d like to think I had better moral standards since defaming myself. “I may have kissed afriendwithout permission, but I have learned my lesson. Have you?”
He eyed me sideways. Again, with that haughtiness that seemed to say he was above mere mortals’ rules. “What are you reading?”
I turned my book over in my hand. I’d almost forgotten it. “The Mysteries of Udolpho.”
He nodded once, then said, simply, “Tell me.”
“If you ask nicely,” I said, reaching for a cheesecake and taking a bite.
He watched the motion. “I am the Duke of Marlow. I do not have to ask nicely.”
Who had taught him such a falsehood? I scrunched my face. “For me, you do.”
He drew a long pull from his glass. We stared each other down our respective noses.
Then he clinked his empty glass down on the side table. “Please, Georgiana.”
