Soon Molly entered with a can of hot water, shooting a frown at the kitten as she filled the washbasin and muttering under her breath as she stacked clean linens and laid out the girls’ nightclothes. Nevertheless, Rosamund could have sworn she saw her give the tiny creature a tickle under the chin and a wink before she left.
While the girls washed and dressed, Rosamund wandered into the schoolroom. Curious, she examined the stack of books on Daphne’s desk. Surprisingly standard fare, primers from a generation ago, perhaps acquired when Paris and the elder siblings were young, before their parents had embarked on what Rosamund had begun to think of as their “educational experiment.”
The exception was a small, illustrated book called The Botanic Garden: A Poem in Two Parts, Containing “The Economy of Vegetation” and “The Loves of the Plants.”
Of course.
With a small sigh, she picked it up and returned to the bedroom. Daphne had already slid between the sheets, the kitten held close. Bell stood beside Daphne’s bed, a jealous frown notched into her brow. “Shall I read to you?” Rosamund asked, holding up the little book. In a corner of her heart she kept the fragment of a memory, one of the few memories Charles had never managed to make her doubt: the sound of Papa’s voice as he read to her.
“What is it?” Daphne sounded suspicious. Rosamund read the title aloud. “Oh. Erica left that behind. It’s bound to be deadly dull stuff.”
With a parting glance of longing at Eileen, Bell at last clambered into her own bed, leaving room for Rosamund to sit at the foot. “The second part sounds promising.”
“Let’s give it a go, shall we?”
Rosamund opened to a page that had been marked by a sloppily embroidered slip of silk ribbon, and found the lives of plants fancifully rendered as fair damsels and gallant nights and—oh. Oh, dear. Some of the flowers seemed not always to behave with ladylike deportment. How else to read lines such as this?
Each wanton beauty, trick’d in all her grace,
Shakes the bright dew-drops from her blushing face;
In gay undress displays her rival charms,
And calls her wondering lovers to her arms.
With a smile Rosamund closed the book and rose. “That’s enough for tonight, I think.” The girls protested, thankfully oblivious to most of the poem’s suggestive symbolism. “No, no. We’ve a busy day tomorrow. Geography. And French.” She thrust the book under one arm before bending down to tuck the covers under Bell’s chin. She then turned to Daphne. “For the time being, Eileen will stay downstairs with me.”
“Oh, but Miss Gorse, that’s not fair.”
“Fair or not, it’s what’s best for all of you. Otherwise I predict that none of you would get a wink of sleep. Kittens especially need their rest.”
Though it would be an exaggeration to claim that her words had persuaded them, the girls at last relented. “Good night,” she said, picking up the kitten in one hand and the candle in the other.
Once in her room, she placed the candlestick on the desk and laid both the kitten and the book on her bed. Eileen soon began to creep over the mountains and valleys of the rumpled coverlet, an eager explorer. Rosamund watched for a moment before turning to the washstand and studying her face in the small square of glass that hung above it. In the uncertain light of the candle, the bruise on her temple nearly disappeared into the shadow of her hairline. With practiced fingers, she unpinned the heavy coil, then wove the locks into a neat braid, looser than usual so as not to make her head ache again. Finally, she went to the wardrobe, slipped out of her dress and into her nightgown.
When she turned around again, Eileen was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, her eyes darted to the doorway. But the door was closed. She shrugged. The kitten couldn’t go far.
Ready for bed, but unready for sleep, she sat on the edge of the mattress and with one fingertip, traced the corners of the book of poetry. Scandalous poetry. Surely, she had imagined it… But ladies didn’t imagine such things, did they? Ladies did not spend any time at all thinking about…
She lifted the cover.
How the young Rose in beauty’s damask pride
Drinks the warm blushes of his bashful bride;
Without conscious thought, she drew the slender volume closer, into the circle of candlelight. Onto her lap.
With honey’d lips enamour’d Woodbines meet,
Clasp with fond arms, and mix their kisses sweet—
“Oh!”
The book leaped out of her hands and onto the floor. From nowhere, Eileen had launched herself onto Rosamund’s back and was now hanging, one set of fragile claws hooked in her braid, another in her nightdress. First with one hand, then with the other, Rosamund flailed behind her back, reaching for the kitten. Her long sleeves hampered her efforts. Neither from above nor below could she touch anything more than a wisp of fluff—either the tops of Eileen’s ears or the tip of her tail. How on earth was she going to—?
“Miss Gorse? Are you all right?”
Oh, God above. She was well and truly punished now for looking into that book. “Quite all right, thank you, Mr. Burke.”
Through the door, she heard him take a step closer. “Are you certain? You sounded as if you were in some pain.”
The latch shifted slightly. He’d laid his hand upon it. Oh, dear. Screwing up her courage, she rose and went to the door to reassure him. With every step, Eileen gripped harder, holding on for dear life, and the tiny daggers at the ends of her paws sank through the nightdress and into her skin.
Forcing a smile onto her face, she opened the door. “Perfectly certain, thank you,” she managed as her chin jerked a notch higher, tugged by the weight of the kitten. “I’ll wish you good night.”
He’d been on his way to bed but not in it, by the looks of things. He still wore the dark red wool coat. Beneath his loosened cravat, she could just glimpse the notch at the base on his throat, disguised as a shadow in the folds of his linen.
He quickly looked her up and down, took in her state of dishabille, and fixed his iron and ebony gaze somewhere on the far wall. “Are you—are you hiding something behind your back, Miss Gorse?”
If she shook her head in denial, as she so desperately longed to do, the kitten would grip even harder. Resigned, she turned slowly and rather stiffly away from the door but made no move to close it.
She knew the moment he saw Eileen and understood her predicament.
Gruffly, he cleared his throat. Almost the sound he had made at dinner. Not quite a laugh. “Ah. The subject of the zoology lesson, I take it?”
“Yes.”
He stepped closer, and the warmth of his hands seeped through the cambric of her nightgown as he proceeded to disentangle the kitten, claw by claw. “Perhaps ‘animal husbandry’ would be a more fitting description of today’s lesson. Did you rescue this creature?”
“Bell,” she whispered. “She is fearless, you know.”
“My sister, or the kitten?” When he had worked the last claw free, Rosamund turned slowly to face him. The kitten was curled in his cupped hand. “I suppose she and Daphne are determined to keep it. Does Molly know?” His expression was stern. “Because I certainly will not be the one to tell her.”
“She knows. Which is not to say she approves…”
He held out the ball of fluff, clearly expecting her to take it. But to do so, she would have to step closer. Touch him. Slide the back of her hand into the curve of his palm. The muscles of her arm ached with longing as she curled her fingers into her nightgown.
At last he gave up waiting and twisted just enough to tip Eileen onto the bed behind him. When he faced Rosamund again, his eyes still respectfully averted, he bowed his head as if to say goodnight. The movement must have brought the fallen book into his line of sight, for instead of rising to go out, he bent further to pick it up. “What’s this?” Turning the spin
e toward the candlelight, he read the title aloud. “Something of my sister’s, I suppose.” He glanced up at her, and his hair fell forward, shadowing his eyes. “Were you reading it?”
“I—yes,” she confessed after a moment, and her hesitation seemed to pique his curiosity. Heat flushed up her neck and into her face. “It’s quite, um…fascinating, really.”
She hadn’t meant to repeat his word. The word he’d used to describe his interest in the law. The word that more accurately described her interest in him.
When he leaned forward to hand the book to her, she reached for it at the same moment and nearly knocked it from his grasp. “Oh, dear. Forgive me. I didn’t—”
Only the width of the book separated them now. With a trembling hand she once more reached out…and up…and…oh. That stubborn, misbehaving lock of black hair was silky soft, tickling through her fingertips as she swept it off his brow.
Never in her life had she been so bold. So reckless.
Not even when she had escaped Kilready Castle.
Surprise flared in his dark eyes, and as her hand fell away, his rose. Lightly, he caught her wayward wrist. The frantic tattoo of her pulse would tell him everything she couldn’t. Oh, how she longed for the courage to speak. Though what to say? An apology would be a paltry thing at this juncture—and a lie, to boot.
“I—” She swallowed but did not break her gaze. “I’m not sorry.”
“No?” His thumb swept a lazy arc across her palm, the same practiced touch that had made the spinet give up its music. “Is there something else you wanted, Miss Gorse?”
She had so little experience with men. But some experience, at least, with her own desires. Desires on which she’d begun to think she would never have an opportunity to act. Why, if Erica’s book was to be believed, even flowers indulged now and then in a… “A—a kiss?”
Before he could respond to that daring request, before either of them could come to their senses, she stretched up on her toes and brushed her lips against his.
As she drew back she watched a mischievous smile play around his mouth. Slowly, he shook his head. “No.” With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the forgotten book onto the desk. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it slide across the polished surface, coming to a stop near the far edge. Then his newly-free hand settled at her waist, and all her attention was taken up by the delicious heat of his touch as it seeped through her nightgown and into her skin. “A kiss.”
She let her eyelids fall as he lowered his mouth to hers, more than willing to lose herself in the senses that remained. Her fingertips curled against the soft wool of his coat when he brought her hand to his chest. The woodsy scent of his cologne was an invitation to wander into shadowy, forbidden places. But best of all was the sound of his breath, that delightful catch of anticipation just before their lips met.
He’d been right, of course. Her swift peck had not been a kiss—not if one judged by the sweet, soft movement of his mouth over hers. And she felt quite certain that she would measure any future kisses against this one.
A muffled whimper of pleasure rose in her throat as his mouth grew firmer, more demanding. Awareness shot through her, every place where they touched and even where they didn’t. Her pulse fluttered in her chest and in the second, secret heart between her thighs. When the gentle pressure of his lips coaxed hers to part, she gave in to the inexplicable need to taste him, to take him into herself and to be taken.
As if startled by her eagerness, he stiffened and jerked her closer, her breasts tight against his chest. Below, she could feel the growing sign of his arousal. Lifting his head, he broke the kiss and his eyes bored into hers. “Miss Gorse,” he began, his voice a gravelly whisper.
“Rosamund,” she corrected brazenly.
His brows lifted. “Rosamund, then. Will you do me the great favor…?”
It was her turn to catch her breath. “Yes?”
“…Of informing me as to whether or not my sisters have given this infernal creature a name? I wish to be precise when I rain curses upon it.”
Baffled surprise warred with mortification, then stifled laughter, as the soft tips of pink ears appeared over his shoulder, followed closely by the rest of the kitten. Eileen wobbled a bit before finding her balance and sitting down near Paris’s collar, her white fur set off nicely by his black hair and the color of his coat.
“I am sorry,” he said. Was he was apologizing for kissing her, or for stopping?
Either way, the spell was broken. Rosamund slipped free of his embrace and reached up to retrieve Eileen, who was clearly pleased at last to have made a successful climb, purring as she curled into the hollow of her palm, still warm from Paris’s touch. Rosamund stepped back and tucked the kitten close to her breast, cradling her with both hands, while Paris tugged his coat collar into place.
When he was done, he shot a narrow-eyed glare at Eileen—at least, Rosamund hoped he was looking at the kitten. The thin, old nightgown she was wearing didn’t leave much to the imagination. “I suppose an interruption from some member of this household was inevitable,” he said. And fortunate?
She nodded, darting her eyes toward the door, then back to him, not allowing her gaze to fasten on any one feature, in the vain hope she would not be tempted to catalog them when he had gone. “Good night, Mr. Burke.”
“Good night, Miss Gorse.”
He closed the door behind him, but she waited until she heard his booted tread descending the staircase before she allowed herself to sink to the bed and cuddle the kitten to her burning cheek.
For just a moment, she had forgotten to be the prim governess. A moment more and she might have let herself forget to be a proper young lady.
Never had she exhibited such a shocking lapse of judgment. Yet she regretted only Eileen’s disruption. She’d wanted that kiss, the heat of his palm rising from her waist to brush the underside of her breast. But she wanted something else, too.
Behind that wry smile that occasionally turned up his lips—the one he deployed so ruthlessly, both shield and weapon—she’d glimpsed something else. And for some reason she couldn’t quite put into words, she wanted to know what it was. She wanted to see inside him.
Eileen squirmed, asking to be set free, and Rosamund obliged. In another show of daring, the kitten leaped from the pillow to the desk and explored for a bit before sitting down atop The Botanic Garden and beginning to groom herself, making it impossible for Rosamund to resume reading.
Probably for the best.
When Rosamund collapsed backward on the bed, Eileen paused in her ministrations to send a firm glare of blue-eyed disapproval. A huff of silent laughter lifted Rosamund’s chest at the sight of the kitten’s pink tongue paused in mid-lick. If only the library below contained books that had to do with something other than plants. Or the law. She needed an entirely different sort of book. A guide to animal nature. Preferably one with a chapter on cats.
And two chapters at least on men.
Chapter 11
Paris woke with the sour tang of whiskey in his mouth. Too familiar, but surely preferable, at least in some small way, to waking with the sweet taste of Rosamund’s kiss on his lips. Waking to proof he’d fallen so far, he was capable of debauching the governess. The prim, prickly, oh-so-English governess…
Unfortunately, that string of adjectives was proving far more appealing than he liked.
But by God a gentleman was accountable for his actions, even if he could not always control his wayward thoughts. He deserved every pang of guilt that had wracked him through yet another interminable night. Even now he could not be certain what he’d meant to do when he’d grabbed her wrist. Stop her from issuing a second invitation, he’d told himself.
If only he’d been strong enough to decline the first.
Molly appeared in the doorway to the drawing room bearing coffee on a tray, for once a w
elcome distraction. “Och, here you are, Mr. Paris,” she called as she sailed into the room and deposited the tray on the table beside his chair. “Up early I see.” For a housemaid who found his bed undisturbed more mornings than it had been slept in, she oughtn’t to sound so surprised.
He’d fully intended to retire last night, though. He’d even allowed himself to imagine a night of undisturbed rest. Then he’d heard Miss Gorse’s muffled cry of distress from the neighboring room and the evening had taken rather a different turn. Afterward, he’d been unable to bear the thought of lying for hours in the darkness of his own chamber, knowing Rosamund slept just a few feet away. So he’d retreated to the darkness of the drawing room instead, taking a perverse sort of comfort in the least comfortable chair he could find. He’d allowed himself a single dram of liquor, just enough to dull the too-sharp memory of her lips and what might have happened if not for…
“That damned kitten,” he muttered aloud—a phrase he’d never expected to say. Certainly not in a voice tinged with jealousy. But he could not deny that he’d wanted to be the beast cradled against Rosamund’s perfect breast last night.
Molly sighed and shook her head as she poured. “Likely it won’t be any worse than Miss Erica’s hedgehog.”
How could he have forgotten that poor creature? Rescued by his sister a year ago—no, two, of course. How time did fly. She’d found it during one of her botanical expeditions to the very outskirts of Dublin, farther afield than she was supposed to wander alone and therefore forbidden. For that reason, she’d been determined to keep the hedgehog a secret. She’d almost succeeded, until the night it had escaped its box and somehow made its way down to the kitchen, where Cook had heard it grubbing about and gone, skillet upraised, to investigate. Molly had reacted just in time to prevent the slaughter of innocents—both the hedgehog and Erica.
Erica had made a sort of pet out of the thing. Only she had ever managed to learn the trick of persuading it to unroll from its defensive ball so its soft belly could be stroked. He remembered once joking in a low voice with Henry Edgeworth, who had often dined with the family: “How do hedgehogs mate?”
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