'I have often suspected,' she said, 'that I was born in the wrong era.'
'Lady Freyja Bedwyn,' he said, 'I do not believe I insult you by observing that you must be well past the age of twenty, do I? Why are you still unmarried?'
'Why are you?' she countered.
'I asked first.'
She looked out at the view and drew in another deep breath of air.
'From birth,' she said, 'I was intended for Jerome Butler, Viscount Ravensberg, eldest son of the Earl of Redfield, my father's neighbor. We were betrothed when I was twenty-one. He died before I was twenty-two and before we married.'
'I am sorry,' he said.
'You need not be,' she told him. 'We grew up together and were fond of each other. I mourned his death. But we felt no grand passion for each other.'
'How long ago did he die?' he asked.
'Longer than three years,' she said.
'And there has been no one else in all the time since then?' he asked.
'It is your turn,' she told him. 'Why are you not married? You too are well past the age of twenty.'
'I grew up as a poor relation in the home of my uncle, the late marquess,' he said. 'He had a son, my cousin Albert. I would not have been considered a good catch until his accidental death five years ago suddenly made me the heir. My uncle had three daughters but no more sons. I suppose I became instantly eligible as soon as I became the heir, but from the time of Albert's death until the present I have scarcely been in one place long enough to form any lasting attachment.'
'Am I to commiserate with you?' she asked, gazing down at him. 'Or has the life suited you very well? Love them and leave them, is it?'
He chuckled. 'My grandmother still wants me to court you,' he said, 'even after you began to rip up at me again during her party. She thinks you are merely high-spirited. She believes you need a firm hand on the rein. Mine, in fact.'
'Setting aside the fact that you mentioned the last point-perhaps even invented it-entirely to arouse my ire,' she said, 'your grandmother is going to be disappointed, is she not? You have no wish to court me and I have no wish to be courted. At least we are in agreement over that.'
He got up onto the rock then and came to stand beside her. She was reminded of how very tall he was, how well formed.
'You are quite right,' he said. 'I do not have marriage in mind, and, fortunately, neither do you. I need not fear, then, that you will get the wrong idea if I tell you that I feel an almost overpowering urge to kiss you properly. Will I acquire two black eyes and a broken nose if I give in to that urge?' He turned his head to smile dazzlingly at her. His eyes, as she fully expected, were dancing with merriment.
She drew breath to deliver the withering set-down that such pretension deserved. But it was tempting. She was twenty-five years old and had not been kissed in four years. Jerome, strangely enough, had never kissed more than the back of her hand. Sometimes the emptiness and the aloneness of having loved and lost Kit were almost too much to bear.
And here was a man-a handsome, devastatingly attractive man-who expected nothing from her beyond a kiss and who knew that she would demand nothing in return.
'The lady hesitates,' he said. 'Interesting.'
'You would not suffer any mutilation to your face,' she said firmly. 'Not unless you were to fall from the rock on your way down.'
She felt horribly embarrassed then and horribly-and foolishly-aware of her ugliness. It was years and years since she had given up lamenting what could not be changed. Nature had given her a wild bush for hair and eyebrows that were a different color from it, and her father had handed on to her the Bedwyn nose, as he had to all his offspring except Morgan, who, like their mother, was perfection itself.
Freyja turned determinedly as he set down his hat in a sheltered hollow and then took hers from her hand and set it there too. She lifted her chin.
He flicked it lazily with the knuckle of his forefinger. His eyelids had become rather heavy, she noticed, and they had the strange effect of causing her insides to perform a flip-flop. This definitely had not been a good idea, but it was too late now to say no. He would be able to accuse her of cowardice, and with some reason.
He was certainly taking his time. She had expected him to dip his head and claim her lips without further ado. At least then she could have closed her eyes and hidden her embarrassment. Both his hands were up and touching her face, though he did that only with his fingertips. He ran his thumbs over her eyebrows, one forefinger lightly down her nose.
'Interesting,' he said. 'You have an interesting face. Unforgettable.'
At least, she thought, he had not called her beautiful. Out of sheer principle she could not have continued if he had.
His hands cupped her face.
'You may touch me too, you know,' he said, 'if you wish.'
'I do not wish. Yet,' she added, and watched laughter flicker behind his eyes.
He rubbed his nose lightly across hers and then angled his head and touched his lips softly to hers for a moment. Her hands came to rest on either side of his waist. She had to concentrate upon not snatching herself free and breaking into a run. How mortifying that would be!
Skittish, aging maiden-unchaperoned-flees clutches of practiced rake.
