His garden nymph had a temper…how delightful.
Imogen stared at the man who’d just accosted her, struggling to keep her mouth from dropping open. He was undoubtedly one of the countess’s friends. It was common knowledge Lady Somercote came from a wild set. But guests weren’t due to arrive for at least another day or two.
As the countess’s titular companion, she’d been busy assisting with all the tasks no one had time for in the rush to finish the party preparations. Simple things: feeding the fish in the maze, taking the countess’s dog for a walk, delivering a jar of pig’s feet jelly to the parsonage. Servant-stuff really, but they were busy too. Helping out with such tasks was little enough considering all the Somercotes had done for her.
She stared at the smiling man before her, smoothed suddenly damp hands over her skirts. If only she’d brought the countess’s mastiff with her on this errand. The elegant beau smiling predatorily down at her wouldn’t look nearly so attractive with Caesar pinning him to the ground. It would serve him right to have the immaculate folds of his cravat disordered, his beautiful coat covered in dog drool, smeared with mud.
She could picture it as clearly as if it was actually happening.
He wouldn’t be smiling at her in that impudent way, either, the jack-a-napes. She really should go, but it would be too undignified to scramble around him like some ninny of a girl. His had been the offense. It was for him to make reparations, not for her to run away. He certainly wouldn’t hurt her—not if he was a guest of the Somercotes—and it had been a long time since anyone had looked at her with such open admiration. With such clear intent.
Had a man such as this one ever looked at her? It seemed unlikely. He was magnificent. Tall, with an odd cast to his features that put her strongly in mind of the foreign princes and Italian counts who littered the pages of the popular novels. Especially his eyes.
Those were not English eyes.
Gabriel smiled down at his nymph. She was undoubtedly another early arrival.
George would skin him alive if she caught him trifling with any of her friends, but he couldn’t resist the challenge in the lady’s snapping eyes. Anger brought out the best in some women. Firing the blood, raising a flush beneath their delicate skin, making their bosom rise and fall with entrancing rapidity. Yes. Angry, proud, and undeniably a wee bit intrigued.
He knew the signs.
Delicate lace mitts obscured her hands, but no tell-tale flash of gold upon her ring finger warned him off.
Besides, what could a little flirtation hurt? Wasn’t this what country house parties were for? He swept her a bow, eyes locked with hers, his free hand held to his still smarting ribs in theatrical display.
‘She that makes me sin awards me pain.’
The lady cocked her head, sparrow-like. The corners of her lips betrayed her, quirking up into the slightest of smiles.
Oh yes, he had her.
She dropped him a rather frosty curtsy, barely more than a dip of the knees accompanied by the slightest inclination of her head. ‘Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy, and so sir, I shall show you none.’
Gabriel’s smile widened. Beautiful, well read, and witty? What were the odds? ‘And for this sin there is no remedy—much like the wound you’ve done me, my fair Daphne.’
Her brows drew together as she considered him, the winged shape flattening. She crossed her arms, breasts rising another degree like an incoming tide. She really did look familiar. Why couldn’t he remember? How could he have forgotten such a woman?
Gabriel took one small step to the right, placing himself between her and the courtyard’s only exit. Her gaze left his, darted over his shoulder and back again. His strategy hadn’t escaped her notice. Her moment of panic had dissipated, leaving her calm, and—he grinned again—condescending in a queenly way.
She stared him down, batting her eyes at him the way his cousin did when she thought him deliberately obtuse. ‘Tis a sin to flatter, sir, and you’d do well to remember your Greek; Apollo lost his nymph.’
Gabriel gave a bark of laughter, startling the thrushes in the hedge into flight. They escaped in a loud, chattering swarm, spiraling upwards and away.
‘The sun god must have been a bit slow, but we were quoting Shakespeare, not the classics, let us return to whence we came…’ He smiled his most beguiling smile, the one he used to set young ladies fluttering, to scandalize dowagers. The one that always made his cousin rap him with her fan. He took a deliberate step towards the lady in the monstrous hat. She held her ground, merely raking her glance up and down him appraisingly. ‘Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.’
‘Man-like it is to fall into sin, Fiend-like to dwell therein.’
‘That’s not Shakespeare.’ His smile widened. It was beyond his control. He was going to have to kiss her. There was simply no help for it. ‘You’re wandering afield again.’
‘It’s from a German poet, but apt all the same.’
‘Now, now. Let’s stick to our parameters…’ He took another step towards her, getting within arms-length. ‘Repent you, fair one, of the sin you carry.’
‘The sin I carry?’ One arched brow rose. ‘I thought we were speaking of your sin, sir?’
‘My sin? Love is my sin.’
She snorted.
There was no other word for it. It wasn’t a giggle; couldn’t even vaguely be construed a titter. It was a snort, and a rather derisive one at that. Gabriel closed the last step between them, casting his hat aside as he did so. His hands closed on crisply glazed cotton, and for the second time that day, he pulled her into his arms.
He leaned in, ducking his head beneath the brim of her hat, so close her curls tickled his
