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‘May I join you? I confess to finding the Parliamentary reports have little attraction in comparison to a walk in your company.’
‘Of course, my lord.’
He thought she had gone pale, and her smile was forced, but Cleo’s chin was up and she kept her tone pleasant. She had courage, his Cleo. My Cleo? Quin pushed the thought away, unwilling to examine that feeling of proprietary pride.
He offered her his arm and she rested her gloved fingers on it with perfect grace. ‘Something amuses you, Lord Quintus?’ He must have smiled.
‘I was thinking that those fingers, so prettily sheathed in pale primrose kid, are the same ones that cleaned my wound, milked the goat and hefted water jars,’ Quin said, jolted into honesty.
‘Yes. My aunt insists I retain my gloves at all times until the calluses have vanished.’ Her voice was cool.
Damnation. ‘I did not mean to refer to that. I admire the way you worked, the strength in those fingers. Their care.’ Their touch.
‘Really? But what I was doing was so unsuitable for a lady, was it not? I had to be removed from it, after all.’
‘That does not mean I do not value the way you lived your life under those circumstances. Your character.’
He expected a tart retort, that she would pull her arm free. Instead her fingers tightened convulsively and she made a small sound, horribly like a smothered sob.
‘Cleo? Damn this bonnet!’ Quin ducked his head to see her face. ‘Cleo, don’t cry, please.’ I never meant to make you cry. Never. He glanced behind, but Maggie and the footman were chatting and laughing on the edge of the Serpentine, pointing at the antics of the ducks. No one else was near and there was a small shrubbery just ahead.
Quin guided her in and found it enclosed a small circle of grass, surrounded by benches. A child’s hoop lay forgotten. This must be a place where the nursemaids gathered with their little charges, but it was deserted now.
He guided her to a bench and she sat down without protest, even when he removed her parasol, snapped it shut and began to untie her bonnet ribbons. ‘That’s better, now I can see your face.’
‘I can’t think why you want to,’ she muttered. ‘And I am not crying. I never—’
‘Cry. I know. Here, have my handkerchief and remove the gnat from your eye or whatever it is that is irritating it.’
‘It would take rather more than a square of linen to remove you, Quin,’ she snapped with so much of her old spirit that he grinned despite himself. ‘Have you no work to be doing instead of lounging around in the park?’ Her eyes narrowed as she stared at him. ‘Oh, of course, you are working, aren’t you? You have been following me. No wonder Grandfather was so complaisant about allowing me out, he knew his spy was in place.’
‘You think I would— Yes, you do, don’t you? No, Cleo, I am not spying for the duke, my word of honour on it. I was following you, I admit. I waited in the square, hoping you would come out, but that was for my own...satisfaction.’
‘Very well, I know your word of honour is absolutely sacrosanct.’ She blew her nose and stuffed his handkerchief into her reticule. He could not tell if she was being sarcastic, but he guessed she was. ‘But how does spying on me give you satisfaction, pray?’
‘I was worried about you. I am worried still. You are not happy.’
‘Of course I am not happy! Do you not listen to a word I say to you? I told you how it would be and I was right. My grandfather wants me to marry Dryton, I am certain of it.’
‘That rake?’
‘Are there any other by that name? Yes, that rake. He is, apparently, eminently suitable. But if it is not him, it will be another, chosen, just as you have decided to choose a bride, for bloodlines, fortune and influence.’
‘Cleo, damn it—’ She levelled a look at him. ‘And don’t prim up at me like that, you are enough to make a saint swear. Cleo, darling... Oh, hell.’ He kissed her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kissing Cleo was like coming home...and it was like exploring some exotic new land. He had kissed her before, knew her taste, knew the softness of her lips and the sharp nip of her teeth and the languorous, adventurous sweep of her tongue, but something had changed. There was a heat and a wildness in her and a rightness in what they were doing. Her fingers speared through his hair, sending his hat flying, his found the fastenings of her pelisse and then the bodice beneath, found soft, warm flesh rising to meet his caress.
‘Cleo.’ He dragged his mouth free and stared down at her, into the stormy green depths of her eyes before she pulled his head back down and he was lost again.
