“My oldest cousin, Donald Slater, will be our guide.My older brother, Randolph—he’s the heir to the Gisborn earldom—and then...”Here he paused and cleared his throat.“My aunt and uncle are traveling with us as well.”
Helen had to place a hand over her mouth lest she laugh at hearing his last comment.“So you will be on your very best behavior,” she replied.
“I try to be all the time,” he countered defensively.
She aimed a look of disbelief in his direction.“’Tis a pity,” she replied.“I might have been compelled to allow you a kiss,” she teased.She heard his inhalation of breath and immediately wished she could take back her last words.“I am teasing,” she stated.
“Oh,” he said, the sound of disappointment evident in his voice.
They walked along in silence until they reached the row of rose bushes that lined one side of the property.Backed against a hedgerow and edged on the front with tiny white flowers, only the lighter colored blooms showed in the light from a quarter moon.
“Do you have a favorite?”he asked.
Helen glanced down the row and pointed to some light pink roses, their darker centers almost black in the darkness.“Those are especially lovely,” she remarked.
He led them to stand before the pink blooms, reaching out to pull one of the largest closer.“The color of a blush on a maiden’s cheeks,” he whispered, remembering how his mother described the roses she had planted in her garden outside the orangery behind Gisborn Hall.
“An embarrassed maiden,” Helen said.
“Something tells me you are not easily embarrassed.”
She inhaled sharply, the sound almost a scoff.“Perhaps I am merely cynical.”
He turned to face her.“You are not old enough to be cynical,” he argued.
Helen didn’t meet his gaze, her attention still on the roses.That is, until two of his fingers touched her cheek to gently turn her face to his.
His lips were on hers before she quite knew what was happening.Firm pillows pressed to her lips, her mouth open from the momentary shock at his bold move.
For a moment, she didn’t quite know what to do.She had imagined at least a hundred times what a kiss was supposed to be like—imagined what she would do in return—but the reality added texture and warmth she had not considered, a suckling sensation that was both pleasant and erotic, and a wash of warm breath over her cheek that held hints of champagne and amber and something spicy.
Despite wishing the kiss would continue, his lips left hers.His forehead touched her forehead, though, and remained there as he seemed to contemplate what to do next.
“I should apologize?—”
“Oh, please don’t,” she whispered.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment I met you,” he murmured.
She pulled away enough to stare at him in surprise.“You have?”
He nodded.“All I could think was that I would most assuredly step on your toes if we danced, and so I tried to think of what I might do that would save your slippers and keep me from displaying embarrassment undoubtedly redder than those roses.”He motioned to the pink roses.“Even so, I fear my face is quite red.Did I do it right?”
“Do it right?”she repeated.
“The kiss?”
Helen blinked.“How would I know?”she asked in a hoarse whisper.“It’s not as if I’ve ever...”Here she clamped her mouth shut and took a half-step back.The momentary spell that had been cast over them seemed to dissipate as quickly as it had formed.
“It was so pleasant,” he stated.“I didn’t really know what I was...”It was his turn to stop speaking.
“You’re claimingyou’venever kissed before?”she asked in disbelief.
He shrugged, his broad shoulders emphasizing the simple response.For a moment, she imagined him capable of lifting her over one of them and carrying her to who-knew-where so he could do who-knew-what with her.
Mayhap behind the hedgerow.
The thought had her heart rate increasing so she could practically hear her pulse in her ears.
