“More fools they,” she said. “I am hugely enjoying this faint, and I am only sorry that I had to cut off my performance before you drenched me with water.”

“Call me a fool,” Darlington said. “But Griselda, why did you faint?”

“To see if you had any experience of fainting women,” she said, sitting up comfortably and patting her hair. “You haven’t, have you?”

“Well, no.”

“In fact,” she went on, “I’d lay a guinea to a shilling that you simply make up most of what you print.”

“Not most of it.”

“But you embroider it.”

“Well…”

She smiled at him. “Do you think that I am a fool? That I didn’t surmise your career from our conversation?”

“But don’t you—aren’t you—”

“Am I embarrassed to find that my lover is a writer of lively prose, enjoyed by hundreds, if not thousands of people? That he has managed to make himself rich, so he needn’t depend on his father nor marry a young woman for her dowry?” She met his eyes directly. “Had you bowed to your father and married, Darlington, we would never have known each other.”

“Knowledge in the Biblical sense? Yes.” Before Griselda quite knew what had happened, he was on his knees by the bed and he had her hands in his.

“Marry me, Griselda. Neither of us will be good for anyone else after this; you know that.”

“You’re saying I should marry you just because I’m not good for anyone else?”

“I ruined you,” he said, his eyes holding hers and not letting her make another foolish comment. “You’re mine, and no one else’s, Griselda.”

“Oh—”

But he was kissing her, and it seemed that he didn’t need an answer that very moment.

And perhaps they both knew the answer in her heart.

36

From The Earl of Hellgate,

Chapter the Twenty-fourth

It was all of a week or more before I left my Mustardseed’s grave, and at least a week after that before my faltering steps took themselves to any sort of entertainment. Tho’ I was clad, as you can imagine, in the most immaculate black. Therein lay my downfall, Dear Reader.For I, poor I, have always looked my best in black.

I don’t know what comes next,” Josie said, laughing a bit. “My novels always stop at the bedchamber.”

He walked over until he stood just before her.She kept talking because she felt nervous, and that made her want to chatter. “Of course, you would make a prime hero.”

“Really,” he drawled. “Do you think you could write me?”

“After reading so many novels, I could write anyone,” she said with conviction.

He laughed. “Then write me. Go ahead. Describe me in the lush prose of one of those novels you love so much.”

She reached out a hand and touched his eyebrow. Mayne felt a little shudder, as if he were a mere youngster again, faced by his first woman. But somehow in this particular night, it felt like that, as if they were the only man and woman in the world.

“Two eyebrows, midnight black,” Josie said, her finger lightly stroking him. “Eyelashes that are too long for a man, and oh! Eyes dreadfully tired…exhausted by the debauchery of centuries.”

“Centuries?” Mayne said, laughing. “I’m not really a Greek, you know.”

“Centuries,” Josie said, nodding. “A nose, quite noble really, in its original. One cannot but look at it mournfully, to see the gothic greatness with which it was once endowed, but now—dear reader, alas—faded to a mere nose.”

“A mere nose!” Mayne was starting to feel slightly insulted. “What should it be, pray? And what do you mean faded? It’s the same nose I’ve had for years.”

“Lips of a melancholy dark cherry tint,” she said, her eyes laughing at him. “Even with the beams of the moon falling on them, they retain a hint of wildness…a bacchanalian hint that speaks to the—to the—”

He was leaning forward now. He felt as if every inch of his body was alive, every cell urging him toward her. “Those lips,” he said, “are indeed bacchanalian. But what do nice young ladies know of Bacchus? My turn to paint your face. You’ll have to help me, though, for I haven’t read many novels.”

“No,” she said, grinning. “I expect you’ll describe me like one of those horses you’re always reading about.”

“And what a lovely filly that would be.” He felt like Bacchus himself, drunk on the moonlight and his beautiful young wife. “There are horses with as long lashes as yours, Josie. Did you know that?”

She nodded.

“And horses with a mane of black silk, like your hair.”

“It isn’t black,” she pointed out. “You appear not to know the color of my hair.”

“When we were in the coach on the way to Scotland,” he said, “it would take on a deep ruby glow if the sun was shining in the window. But in moonlight it looks as deep and mysterious as the night sky.” He wrapped a lock around his finger.

“Your lips,” he continued conversationally, “have not the faded glory you give my nose, but a deep red. The kind of red that makes a man feel weak with desire. Do you know why, Josie?”

She shook her head, not taking her eyes from his.

“Because they are plump and luscious,” he said, very close to her now. “Because to look at them is to want to taste them. To look at them is to want to taste you.”

She almost said something about being plump all over, but the words died in her throat. Somehow her disdain for her own body seemed ridiculous in light of the way he looked at her. When he looked at her…

“You look like a fairy queen, Titania from Shakespeare’s play,” Mayne said.

She laughed at that. “A queen!”

“Titania is no ordinary fairy, after all. And you are no ordinary woman.”

“Honesty compels me to admit that I am a terribly ordinary woman,” Josie said. “I’m plump, addicted to novels, and afraid of riding horses.”

“Dear me,” Mayne said, enjoying himself hugely. “Have you no redeeming qualities to offer a spouse? Perhaps I should rethink this.”

“I am fairly cheerful,” Josie told him. “I can be funny if I have a clever moment. I’m very honest, and I’m told that’s a virtue, although it sometimes works to my disadvantage.”

“No beauty?” he said mournfully.

She shook her head. “Not in comparison to other women.”

“Shall I tell you how I see you?”

“Not if you’re going to tell me lies. I really dislike lies, Garret.”

“I won’t bother with your lips, or your hair, your eyes or your skin—though it is the most beautiful skin I’ve ever had the pleasure to be near, Josie. Let’s just start here, shall we?” He pulled her closer. Then he said: “Feel what I’m thinking with my hands.”

She frowned at him.

“You don’t need words for everything,” he told her. “I’ll tell you with my hands.”

He put his fingers on her cheeks, a touch as sweet as a baby’s kiss. His hands slid down her cheeks with deliberate slowness. She shivered a little. A thumb traced the plump curve of her lower lip and then she knew, she knew what he was doing. It was as though his thumb told her everything. It paused on her lip for a moment and she closed her lips around him. He tasted strange and male. Heat flooded her body.