“You are an outrageous but exciting breath of fresh air, naughty puss.”
“Don’t evade. What do I do to you with my eyes?”
“’Tis time for you to mingle with the ton.”
“Won’t you tell me? Or is it that I don’t do a thing to you, and you simply are … um … playing with me?”
“Kitty, love!” a voice called from not too far away.
Both heads turned, and Kitty saw Magdalen bearing down on them. She was vexed, for she had cornered the earl and wanted to hear his response. However, this was obviously not the time and the place. She needed the earl alone.
“Damn the fellow’s eyes!” the earl growled beside her.
“I thought he was your friend?” Kitty opened her eyes wide.
“Indeed, which makes him just the sort I wish was not yours!” the earl snapped.
Kitty giggled and put her hand out for Alex’s reaching fingers. Her took her gloved hand and swept her a wide bow. “Look at you. Zounds, woman! You are ravishing.”
The earl’s eyes raised heavenward, and Kitty, catching this, burst out laughing. “I have a notion,” she said in an aside to him as Alex began chattering at her, “that right now you wish you were anything but my guardian.”
“Right now,” the earl bent to whisper into her ear, “I can’t tell you what I wish, but you are right, you are quite right. I wish I were not your guardian.”
“And that is a good thing.” She smiled sweetly and nodded at Alex, who wanted to know if she were listening to him. “Because, I have been telling you from the start … you are not my guardian, not at all.”
~ Twenty-Five ~
KITTY REMOVED HER silk wrapper and stood looking at her nearly naked self in the long looking glass. Was she desirable? Would he succumb? Would it answer? What was she doing? Had she thought this out? This was no longer the whispering giggles that she and her friends engaged in about men and the art of love. This could be her undoing. Yes, but such an undoing. Well, she had always been unconventional …
Think, Kitty, is this what you want?
Her friends had whispered with her in private about such things … about making love with a man and what would be expected of them in a man’s bed. She and Ree had researched the subject of the forbidden pleasures to be had in a man’s arms. Once she had even broached the subject to Harry.
He had been shocked and nearly lost his voice as he screeched, “What?”
“You heard me, Harry … I need to know what happens when a woman goes to a man’s bed.”
He stuttered and spluttered. She had laughed at his reaction.
“Is it so bad, Harry? Is it so wrong for a woman to wonder about such things?”
“You can’t be asking me about this subject,” he said, his face the color of a red poppy.
“You are my friend, and Henrietta doesn’t have the answer, and as we both want to know—”
He spun around. “Henrietta? She wants to know? Why? And is she here?”
“No, she is in the kitchen with Cook. Now tell me.”
“With Cook? Asking Cook about this awkward business?”
“Oh, that is a good idea. Cook would know—she is married.”
“No, no … don’t ask Cook.”
“Then you tell me,” she had insisted. But in the end, Harry threatened to leave if she wouldn’t give over and drop the subject.
Now, here she was, hopefully about to find out. She had quite made up her mind. She was going to tiptoe to the earl’s room, go inside and kiss him, and see where that would lead her. She simply had to make him see that he loved her. He had to see that, because she couldn’t be wrong; he must love her. She was sure she saw it in his eyes and now hoped it wasn’t just lust.