Refilling the goblet with pretended indifference, Colin struggled to contain his mirth. “Is something wrong?” he asked, knitting his brows in feigned concern.
“It—it tasted a bit different. Do you suppose it might be a bad jar?”
Colin was enjoying himself immensely. “No, they all came from the same batch. Perhaps you simply don’t care for pickled snails.”
“No, no, I like them,” Amy insisted. “But this one tasted different. Try one, you’ll see.”
“I already had one,” he reminded her. “It was fine. Try another.”
She put a hand on her stomach. “Please, I’d feel better if you have another one first.”
There was nothing for it. He had to eat another snail or give up the game—and he was having too much fun to admit his trickery just yet.
He took a deep breath before popping one in his mouth, then swallowed it without chewing.
“It’s fine,” he declared. “Delicious, in fact. Perhaps there was one bad snail in the batch.” He fished out a snail and handed Amy the spoon. “Here, try another.”
While Amy moved at the speed of a snail herself, inching the spoon toward her lips, he took a long sip of wine and swished it around his mouth to remove the foul taste.
Relieved, he turned to her expectantly.
Her face was slowly turning red. When she gagged, he burst out laughing.
THIRTY-SIX
AMY GASPED as she finally realized what was happening. She spit the snail into her napkin. “Colin Chase,” she demanded. “What have you done to these?”
Wiping tears from his eyes, Colin sputtered, “S-salt. And sugar.”
A smile dawned as she reflected that she’d been well and truly duped. She deserved it, she decided, starting to giggle. “What else? What else was in there?”
“Nothing, I swear. You didn’t care for them to begin with, remember?” His eyes glittered again, diabolically. “Oh, I forgot. You’d never admit to that.”
“I admit it; I admit it,” she choked out, laughing. “I hate pickled snails! I’ll never eat another of those vile creatures so long as I live—with or without your special recipe.”
She laughed again, partially because his joke was funny, and partially in relief, because she felt as though he’d just given her a test which she’d passed with flying colors.
One wasn’t allowed to be close to Colin Chase if he or she couldn’t take a joke.
And yet…he wasn’t really trying to get closer to her, was he? She’d be leaving the country tomorrow, after all. His pleasure at her reaction, and the motive she’d credited him with, had to be figments of her imagination.
“Having coerced that admission from you,” he declared now, “I proclaim my practical joke an unqualified success.”
“Wait a minute, Lord Greystone. You were forced to eat two of those putrid snails, the same as I was. Surely a superior practical joke would not require its perpetrator to suffer the same consequences.”
“You would dare to criticize the quality of my joke?” Though Colin’s eyes went wide with pretended outrage, in truth he couldn’t have been more pleased with Amy than he was at the moment.
He was pleased with her good-humored response to his joke. Pleased with her rediscovered ease in his presence. Pleased with her quick wit, pleased with her high color and those incredible sparkling amethyst eyes…all in all, he was very pleased.
“Mrs. Goldsmith, what qualifications do you have to recommend you as a joke judge?”
“My qualifications are beside the point entirely. The fact is, I saw the joke you played on Kendra a few days ago, and she told me about Benchley’s fake murder and other tricks you’ve played over the years.” She raised her chin. “The fact is, this joke was just not up to your usual standards.”
Raising a brow, he brought his nose to within an inch of hers. “Is that so?”
Amy’s heart beat a little faster at his nearness. “Absolutely. Without a doubt—” She broke off as his lips came down on hers, cutting off any further aspersions on his joke, not to mention her air supply.
Their good-natured argument was forgotten. This kiss was unhurried, his lips exploring her as though he were trying to commit her to memory. Time slowed until there was nothing else but the taste of him, the scent of him, the feel of him. She felt and heard his breathing become uneven, matching hers.
Colin heard a little sound escape her throat, driving him to distraction. He knew he was acting irrationally; he’d been irrational since the day he’d walked into her shop. But she would be gone tomorrow, and he could be rational for the rest of his life. He’d be faithful to Priscilla for the rest of his life—just as soon as these incredible feelings faded away.
But he didn’t want the feelings to fade away just yet, and so he kept kissing Amy. He eased her back onto the couch, still kissing her, then pulled away an inch to look at her. “Oh, my love,” he found himself whispering.
Love? My love? What was he saying? And why? For heaven’s sake, why?
He didn’t know. All he knew was she was beautiful and sweet and intelligent and…
You’re a fool, Colin Chase, said a little voice in his head, a fool if you let her get away.
But a louder voice was speaking, too, the voice that Colin considered his honor and his logic. It drowned out the other one, telling him he was committed to a lovely, aristocratic girl who fit his every need. Unbreakably committed.
He should be committed to Bedlam, he thought briefly. Then he silenced the voices by going back to kissing Amy.
But he couldn’t keep kissing her forever.
When he finally lifted his head, her arms tightened around him.
“Are you all right?” he asked softly.
She nodded her head and squirmed closer still—and nearly made him fall off the couch.
He caught himself just in time. “We don’t really fit here, you know,” he teased.
