HE COULD ONLY stare down at her. She was without guile. She also had an outrageous streak that was a good mile wide. She’d lined up her cousins? “You simply wished to experiment?”
“Well, yes. You see, Max and Leo, my brothers, absolutely refused to kiss me, so they announced that they would judge which cousin kissed the best. But as I think about it now, I think I should have been the judge, not two boys who knew nothing about anything.”
“It makes sense to me. What criteria did Max and Leo use to choose the winner?”
Meggie thought back to that splendid day, at the line of dratted cousins, all of them nervous, afraid, knowing there was a lot on the line here, but each eager. “Hmm. They picked Grayson, my uncle Ryder’s son. But the criteria—they claimed they awarded Grayson on form. But come to think of it, they might have picked Grayson no matter what the contest. You know, Grayson tells marvelous stories—ghost stories, adventure stories, really scary gnarly stories—and he’d told them a hair-raising ghost story just the night before about midnight. It was about this old man whose wife shoved him into a well and left him there to die, but his ghost came after her, did all sorts of gruesome things, and Max and Leo were so scared, so happy, wanting so badly to hear Grayson tell another story, that they didn’t even hesitate. Do you know, they announced Grayson the winner before poor James was barely finished.”
“This is an amazing story,” he said slowly. He tried to remember a single evening in his growing-up years that could possibly have been as delightful as this one. He couldn’t dredge a single one up. Then he remembered Nathan had taught him how to dive into the ocean from the cliff that summer of his tenth year. Nathan, who’d left, joined the army, and died in Spain so many years ago.
He shook this off. “Who is James?” he asked.
“He is my uncle Douglas’s oldest son. He and Jason are twins, born only about thirty minutes apart. James will be the earl of Northcliffe someday. Did you know that they are quite the most beautiful young men in the world?”
“No, I didn’t know. They weren’t beautiful then? You weren’t infatuated with one of them when you were younger?”
“Oh no. Both of them have very bad habits. I was always trying to make them better. Now it will be up to their wives to improve upon them, if they ever marry, that is. My uncle Douglas always despaired for their characters since they are so beautiful. In all fairness to other males, though, it’s really unfortunate that today they are quite unspoiled—only male sorts of bad habits that one simply cannot eradicate—but in their hearts, they are not rotten at all.”
“Not rotten at all?”
“No more rotten now than any of their contemporaries. You know, they curse and brag and steal their father’s brandy, run races at midnight and nearly break their necks, lay wagers on who can spit the farthest, that sort of thing. They don’t gamble or get sent down from Oxford or seduce local girls.”
Thomas doubted that last sincerely. They were young men. That was what young men did, rotten or not. Hopefully, they really had outgrown the worst of it. “May I kiss you again?”
“Whyever for?”
He said slowly, even as he lowered his head, “I want to see if you compare me favorably to your cousins.”
“But that was a long time ago and we were all children and—”
He kissed her. This time it wasn’t just touching mouth to mouth. This time there was a bit of pressure, a bit more coaxing, and lots of warmth. His hands were on her arms, slowly bringing her closer. Then he opened his mouth.
He actually opened his mouth, Meggie thought, appalled, like he was going to speak or eat his dinner or butcher a high note like that Milanese soprano.
She felt his tongue lightly pressing against her lips, but she kept her mouth shut. Meggie blinked up at him. His eyes weren’t closed. When he saw the shock in her eyes, he drew back.
She didn’t jump back or slap him. She simply stood there, looking thoughtful, staring up at him. Finally she said, “That was very strange. Since you have lived outside England for a very long time, perhaps you have forgotten English customs, my lord. That, I am quite certain, cannot be one of them. You opened your mouth, you touched your tongue to my lower lip, my upper lip as well, and you sort of licked me. Surely that isn’t done here in England, only in some foreign country where there is permission to explore shameless sorts of things.”
He had to smile. “Actually, Meggie, I swear to you it is the done thing.”
He saw that she wasn’t quite ready to accept that. She said, “So it is the done thing where you have lived all these years? Did someone instruct you to do this where you were brought up? Where you grew into manhood?”
“Oh yes, but instruction really isn’t necessary. Well, perhaps some instruction would be helpful to some young men. What is necessary is practice, a great deal of it, although by its very nature, there is a lot of built-in practice involved in the process.”
“What process?”
“The lovemaking process. Kissing simply sets the whole business off.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, it is done all the time. It is even done in China.” He was lightly stroking his hands up and down her arms. The velvet riding habit was still a bit damp. “Actually, Meggie, there is something that you need to know since you are now a woman.”
“What is that?”
“It is even done here in England.”
“You are certain about this? This tongue business?”
“Oh yes.”