She blinked and thought about that. “No,” she stated. “I don’t.”
“Good. Then let us go.”
She allowed him to whisk her out the door down to his grand ducal coach with his coat of arms on the side and she climbed into the luxurious compartment.
She sat upon the silk cushions and stared at him.
As the coach took off into the darkness, shadows played over his face. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. The strangest too, and she felt herself longing to know more about him, to knowanythingabout him.
“Tell me more about you, Your Grace.”
“I do not think that necessary,” he said, gazing out the window.
“Why not?” She protested lightly. “Surely, I should practice conversation with you. And you did say that gentlemen like to talk about themselves.”
“So I did,” he agreed ruefully, clearly not looking forward to the possibility of sharing more about himself. His eyes lit with desire then. “But I think I’d rather do something else.”
“Something else?” she queried.
“Come here, Cat,” he growled softly.
She blinked, astonished at the change in his voice. It went from a stern gruff tone to a rumbling low river, and she did as she was bid.
She crossed over.
“Sit on my lap,” he said.
She swallowed again.
Only this time, she realized, in anticipation. Carefully, she positioned herself on his hard splayed legs and gazed up into his eyes. He was so tall that even sitting upon his lap, she looked up at him.
He studied her and then lowered his hand to touch her cheek. “You’re very beautiful. Do you know that?”
“Yes,” she replied.
His eyes widened in surprise.
She groaned, realizing how blind she’d been. “You see, I have been told every day of my life that my beauty would secure me a good marriage along with my fortune. It was not meant as a compliment. Merely as a fact to make me more marriageable.”
He stroked the back of his knuckles gently along the line of her jaw. “It is the thoughts that dance in your eyes that make you most beautiful to me. Do not ever let them stop.”
She gaped at him. “But you said I should have to lie.”
“Yes,” he affirmed. “But it is the mysteries that dance in your eyes that will cause many men to wonder what you are thinking.”
“Do you wonder?” she queried.
He stroked his thumb over her bottom lip. “Indeed, I do. I wonder very much what you are thinking right now.”
“I’m wondering why you have called me over here onto your lap. It seems, well, indecent,” she admitted.
“Oh, it is, but I must teach you something new.”
And with that, he slid his fingertips to the bottom of her gown and worked his hand upward toward her ankle, then to her knee and further north.
She gaped at him, astonished. “You don’t possibly mean here in the coach,” she whispered.
His gaze grew dark and hooded. “There are very few places where a lady and a man cannot engage in the sort of behavior that a mistress plies her trade in.”