Thank goodness it was only Kit here to see her.
Still shaky, she splashed water on her face before she looked up and blinked. “Good heavens, you were the pirate.”
His expression slowly transformed from concern to something darker. “You didn’t know? And yet you asked me to kiss you…and pressed against me in the dark…” He looked thoroughly disillusioned. “Perhaps your reputation is well-earned after all!“
“It is not!” Her trembling was swept away by indignation—and maybe a touch of guilt for her actions here at court. “I’m not like that!”
“You could have fooled me,” he spat.
“What were you doing in the great hall?” she demanded. “You’re not a member of the court!”
“And that’s why you won’t have me, isn’t it?”
“No! To the dickens with the court. I never want to come back here again. Everything here got completely out of hand.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it. The fountain trickled in the background while he silently repeated her words.
I never want to come back here again.
Perhaps there was hope for him, after all.
Quite suddenly he felt bone-tired. “I don’t want to fight.”
She sighed. “I don’t want to fight, either.”
“Rose, you must be more careful around these men.”
“I would never allow—”
“You’re a passionate young woman, but for your own good, you must curb—”
“I’m not passionate,” she interrupted. “Only with you. I knew it was you, Kit. I’ve never let anyone else hold me like that. Anyone but you.”
He stared, wondering whether to be pleased or angry. Anger won. “How can you lie to me with such a straight face? You expect me to believe that after you admitted you didn’t realize I was the pirate?”
“I didn’t recognize you during the ball,” she returned hotly, “because it never occurred to me you would be there.” She shifted her weight back and forth, popping up and down on her single high-heeled shoe. “And you’re a deuced hypocrite, do you know that? You held me when you didn’t know who I was.”
“Pah,” Kit shot back, “do you take me for a fool? A sightless nitwit would have recognized you at twenty paces. You smell like a blasted garden. But you could be wearing sackcloth instead of flowers and I’d know you, Rose. Instantaneously. Don’t you know that?”
Her dark eyes flashed. “Just as I knew you the moment you caught me in the dark. The moment I touched you, even blind as a bat. I just didn’t connect you with the pirate—although I should have, given that I’ve never wanted to kiss anyone but you, ever!”
Kit stared. She was beautiful in her fury, her cheeks flushed, her agitated breaths puffing in and out between rosebud lips. No one could lie that convincingly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I mistook your meaning and judged you harshly. You’re right.”
“Of course I’m right.”
He cracked a smile. “You’ve got a knack for accepting apologies.”
Her anger seemed to flee as quickly as it had flared. “It’s a good thing, since I still don’t want to fight.” She answered his smile with one of her own, her gaze raking his costumed form. “You make a very fetching pirate.”
“Do I, now?”
Though he’d said it in all good humor, her voice dropped to a whisper. “You appeared like magic, and I was so grateful to have you there. You swept away my fear with a single touch…”
Unable to help himself, he moved closer and touched his lips to hers. A silent apology that was swiftly turning to more—
“Rose?” her mother’s voice drifted down the Great Stairs. “Rose!”
Reluctantly Kit drew away. “We’re out here, Lady Trentingham.”
Her high heels clicked on the cobblestones as she made her way over to them, carrying Rose’s missing shoe. “Oh, how I feared for you, my dear. I know how you hate the dark.” She kissed her daughter on both cheeks, then drew back and touched the one with the shallow scratch. “What happened here?”
“A lady with claws like a wildcat.” Rose’s hand went to the injury. “Does it look terribly bad?”
“A little powder and you’ll never know it’s there,” her mother assured her.
Rose sighed. “I cannot imagine what Nell was thinking when she ordered the torches doused.”
Lady Trentingham cocked her head. “Did you not know Nell is famous for practical jokes? Why, recently she left King Charles at a brothel—”
“Without any clothes or money,” her daughter finished for her. “I heard about that. Remind me never to introduce her to Rowan and Jewel. The three of them together could prove deadly.”
“You’re all right, though?” Lady Trentingham tried to smooth Rose’s hair, but her efforts made little difference. “You’re not truly hurt?”
“Kit rescued me,” Rose said.
“Did he?” Lady Trentingham shared a furtive glance with him, that one brief look conveying a mixture of emotions: gratitude, congratulations, and a silent admission that she’d been wrong. “I think we should leave,” she told Rose quietly.
“Yes,” Rose agreed. “There’s Judith’s wedding, of course…but I believe I’d want to leave anyway.”
Lady Trentingham looked back to the great hall. “Then shall we make our good-byes?”
“Please, Mum, just give King Charles my apologies. I’d rather go straight to bed.”
Kit was glad Rose didn’t want to go back to the ball. “I’ll walk you to your rooms,” he said, taking her arm.
While her mother ascended the staircase, Rose leaned to put on her shoe. “I look like something one of Lily’s cats dragged in, don’t I?”
“No.” His mouth quirked in a half grin. “Worse.”
She winced as she straightened. “Well, thank you for being honest.”
“I’ll love you no matter what you look like. Always. Would the duke feel that way as well?”
She had no clue what the duke felt, as evidenced by the way she changed the subject. “Did you check all the measurements?”
He took her hand to walk her toward her apartments. “Many. Not all. There are hundreds.”
“Have you found anything wrong?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure yet. The set of drawings I keep with me doesn’t seem to match the plans I
