Kasey Michaels - How to Tame a Lady

She looked at him for a moment, her head tipped to one side, and then put out her hand so that he might help her rise. “Dare we leave these two unchaperoned?” she inquired in a whisper, those violet eyes dancing.

“You don’t wish to invite them to accompany us?”

“Do you?”

Perhaps she could read his mind? Still, politeness decreed that he had to ask the others to come along. “Fletcher? Lady Lydia? Would you care to join us on a small stroll?” he asked as Nicole, her back to her sister, pulled a face at him.

Lydia and Fletcher exchanged looks before both begged off, much more interested in discussing whatever had been keeping them intent on each other these past minutes whenever Nicole wasn’t joking about mice and butterfly nets.

“I imagine we can just leave the door open when we leave,” she said, taking the bonnet he handed her and placing it on the tabletop. “You know, I’ve got a solid dozen of these things, a promise I made to myself, yet I have found them more a nuisance than anything else. The brims are lovely, but for the most part I feel like a draft horse with blinders on.”

Lucas looked at his curly-brimmed beaver for a moment, and then left it where it was as he offered his arm to Nicole and together they headed for the front door of the inn. “I suppose, since we’re only taking a short walk, we can be informal without shocking Society at large.”

“If I thought that Society at large had anything to say about whether I wore a bonnet or you your hat, I should think Society might consider finding something more serious to occupy itself with.”

“Do you plan to tell Society that, or shall I? Just before we’re both banished, that is.”

“And you’d worry about that?” Nicole asked as they stepped out of the inn, turning to the left and a path that seemed to lead into a fairly light woods. “That Society might look askance at you? I would have thought you had more consequence than that. You could even set a new fashion. A hatless fashion.”

“I could do that, I suppose. According to Fletcher, I’m fairly dripping with consequence. You, however, would be immediately labeled a hellion, even fast, and mamas would steer their sons clear of you—unless Rafe has set up a large dowry, in which case you could have three ears and no one would care.”

Nicole’s laugh was a delight, and she unaffectedly leaned her body into his side as she kept her arm through his. “If I had three ears, I’d always wear my bonnets.”

Lucas looked at the way the sunlight danced off her shining curls, his fingers itching to slide into the thickness, feel their warmth. “And the world would be the less for it. Is that what you hoped I’d say?”

Her smile fled, and she bit her bottom lip for a moment before looking away from him. “No, I didn’t. I wasn’t angling for compliments, my lord. I thought we were friends now, and only being silly. I am not always, as Charlotte says, on the flirt.”

“Your sister-in-law has all the best intentions, I’m sure, but she clearly can’t see you the way I do, the way any gentleman less than eighty and not deaf and blind would see you. You flirt , my dear, simply by existing at all. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if Her Grace is truly worried about either you or the male population at large, she would be doing a service to hang a sign around your neck, warning the unwary away.”

Nicole pulled her arm free of his and danced ahead of him along the narrow path. Stopped a few paces in front of him and turned to confront him. “I didn’t think you were unkind. But that was a horrid thing to say.”

Lucas wanted to kick himself. “Of course it was,”

he said quickly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you in any way.”

That imp of the devil was back in her eyes. “Me? Oh no, my lord, I wasn’t at all insulted. You insulted yourself, and—how did you say it?—the male population at large. Surely there are gentlemen who care for more in females than appearances.”

“At the risk of further insulting my own sex, I have to say that for many of us, appearances aren’t just important, but all that’s important. We’re by and large a shallow bunch.”

“So, if I had three ears, and no dowry, you’d turn and walk away from me right now? I see.”

Lucas mentally retraced his conversational steps from the moment they’d left the inn, and wondered where he had first gone wrong. And then he realized what she was attempting to do. “Are you deliberately trying to provoke an argument between us?”

Her shoulders slumped for a moment, and then she lifted her chin and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Yes. And it’s not working, drat you for being so uncooperative. Why isn’t it working? Rafe says I can try the patience of a saint when I put my mind to it.”

“I’m not a saint,” Lucas said quietly, stepping closer to her. He could smell the sunshine in her hair. “Are you really that afraid of me? Am I that much of a threat to you, Nicole?”

She bit her bottom lip once more, and then quickly raised a hand to her mouth, as if to wipe away some betraying gesture. “I don’t even know you, not really. You don’t know me, either, when we come straight down to it. So why do you have this effect on me? Because I don’t like it, my lord, I truly don’t.”

“How do I affect you?” he asked intently, daring to touch a finger to the soft underside of her chin, hold it there, mesmerized by the way the sunlight seemed to kiss her lightly freckled skin. “Tell me.”

“I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction,” she said, jerking her head away from him. “This has gone too far. Take me back to the inn or step out of my way.”

He couldn’t do that.

“Have you spent the past three days wondering what it would be like to have me kiss you, Nicole? Because I have. Sister of a duke, sister of a good friend, and all I can think about is how your mouth might taste, how you’d fit in my arms. From the moment you first crashed into my life, setting my world tipping on its axis.”

She shook her head slowly, but didn’t turn to run from him. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Really? Because I’m not certain I can believe that. I’m afraid of you. You’re everything I don’t need in my life right now, just as you’ve made it clear that you don’t want me in your life. And yet here we are, and I still want to kiss you, and I’m more than fairly certain you want me to kiss you. Truth to tell, I doubt either of us will be capable of thinking of anything else until—”

She nearly knocked him off his feet, surprising him by launching herself at him. She took his face between her hands as she stood on tiptoe and pulled his head down and fiercely pressed her mouth to his, her eyes screwed tightly shut, as if she might be in pain.

She released him just as abruptly, stepping back, her chest rising and falling rapidly. “There! Now we neither of us have to think about it anymore.”

Before he could respond, she lifted her skirts and ran past him, back to the inn. He decided to light a cheroot and stay where he was for a while, giving her time to recover from her impulsive action.

God, she was magnificent.

And as he smiled, and smoked, and replayed the moment of her impulsive kiss, an idea began to form in his mind. An insane idea, but one that seemed more reasonable the more he thought about it…

WHEN WOULD SHE LEARN not to be so impulsive? When would she finally think first, and then only act afterward?

But Nicole desperately had wanted him to stop talking. To simply shut up, say nothing else that she couldn’t deny without sounding like a complete ninny.

It had all seemed so eminently reasonable at the time. And, as it turned out, rather enjoyable.