Rather than sprawling in many directions, like so many ancestral mansions that had been added to in bits and pieces, it stood upright, trim and perfectly symmetrical, surrounded by immaculately manicured lawns.

It was too neat for her. Each feature had its exact duplicate on the opposite side: windows, gables, chimneys.

“What do you think?” the duke asked, as she drew up her horse.

“It’s too orderly for my taste,” she said, with a wave of her hand at the windows marching along like tin soldiers. “I’m a quite haphazard person.”

“What does haphazard mean in architectural terms?” he asked. But she could see Lady Cecily and Justin waiting for them, so she put her mare to a trot.

“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Lady Cecily,” she said, bending down once she reached the pony cart.

“You should be apologizing to me,” Justin said with some indignation. “Aunt Cecily arrived only a moment ago, whereas I’ve had time to write an entire roundel. It’s not bad either, if I say so myself.” He waved a piece of foolscap at them.

“I will look forward to hearing it,” Olivia said. “How is your ankle, Lady Cecily?”

“Excellent well! I put a poulder on it that I bought in Venice two years ago. The medicine is so powerful that it kept Helen herself young. And it’s particularly for bones; I remember that the man selling it—’twas on the square before Saint Mark’s—said that it would set your teeth and make them dance like the keys of a harpsichord. And so it did, though of course, it was my ankle, not my teeth.”

“We’ll go to Ladybird Ridge,” the duke said to Justin. “Endeavor not to tip the cart over, if you can help it.”

“It would be impossible to tip this thing over,” Justin said, looking disgusted. “Now, if you’d let me drive your phaeton, I would at least having a sporting chance to roll it—”

The duke didn’t bother to answer, instead turning to Olivia. “Shall we?”

“I wish your dear sister were with us,” Lady Cecily called up to Olivia. “I gather that she has a headache, so I sent her a dose of this poulder as well. It’s as precious as gold, I assure you, so I’m quite sure that she’s already feeling herself again. Should we send indoors and ask if she’d like to join us?”

“No,” the duke said, before Olivia could respond. “We’re leaving now.” And he wheeled his horse. It was a great black gelding that pranced forward and made a halfhearted attempt to shake him off.

Olivia turned her mare and followed.

Fourteen

The Flight of the Cherry Kite

Of course Olivia was no stranger to flirtation, let alone lust, Quin said to himself. It made complete sense. One didn’t need to conduct a third experiment to prove this hypothesis: for whatever ignoble reason, he was particularly vulnerable to women who had a liberal relationship with the concept of chastity.

Even worse, he was more besotted now than he had been with Evangeline.

Evangeline had fascinated him: he had wanted to bring her home, cherish her, and make love to her. He had thought the curl of her hair and the tinkle of her laugh enchanting. But he could not remember feeling this sort of overwhelming sensuality, a wild madness that tangled up his reason and sent all the blood in his body to a place between his legs.

He didn’t even have to look at Olivia to catalog her features. Her eyelashes were a trifle longer at the corners, which gave her a wicked air, a touch of Cleopatra. Even thinking of her body made his tighten painfully. She was all curves and plump, creamy flesh.

And her eyes—they were honest. Unlike Evangeline, she told him the truth about herself, straight out. Both women were, one might say, less than chaste. But Olivia didn’t pretend otherwise.

What’s more, when he’d asked her in so many words if she would consider him rather than Montsurrey, she’d remained loyal to the marquess. He had the sense, as well, that she would always be so. No matter how coquettish she was as a young lady, once she married her returning warrior, she would be true to him.

There was another signal difference, too: Olivia was genuinely desirous. In his arms she was like a quick flame.

Evangeline . . . well, Evangeline had wanted words. That’s what she’d longed for. When they made love she would squeal and push at his chest, hating the fact that he towered over her. For her, it was all about the time before, and the time after: the words. And he was so terrible at words.

He had slowed his mount to a walk, and Olivia caught up with him. She had a pretty flush in her cheeks from the exercise and wind.

“I like your hat,” he said, suddenly finding a few words. It was like a cherry, perched atop a luscious mound of dark bronze-colored hair. Since it could have no useful function, it was obviously designed to make a man long to pluck it off.

She looked startled for a moment, and then beamed at him. “It wouldn’t keep off the rain.”

He turned onto a little dirt track, the pony clop-clopping behind them. “We’ll take the kites to the top of the ridge,” he told her, nodding ahead of them. “They fly best on a hill, and this is a particularly windy spot. Sometimes we can spin out ells of string before they lose the current.”

Olivia looked at him curiously. “You sound like a kite expert, which is rather like finding a grown man admitting to playing jack-stones.”

His heart gave a thump. “I used to play—” he said, before he caught himself. There was no reason to tell her the details. He was coming to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t be his. She belonged to another man, he of the patriotic bent and scrambled brain.

So he turned it into a weak retort. “Kites are not something one ever forgets how to fly.”

“I suppose not,” she said. But she looked curious, as if she saw through him.

He jumped from his horse, threw the reins over a bush, and came back to Olivia. It was ridiculous, really. He was damned sure that desire was etched on his face, which made him feel vulnerable and slightly mad. But he walked over and reached up to her waist anyway because, really, what are men? Merely animals, as subject to mating urges as any other biped. Or quadruped, for that matter.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked, shaking her skirts free as he put her down.

“Science,” he answered, somewhat less than truthfully.

“Are you interested in more than mathematical functions, then?” She looped her mount’s reins on the same bush.

“Yes. But I don’t want you to fall asleep from boredom, so I won’t elaborate; we’d have to bring you home in the pony cart.” Justin was tying up the pony. He walked over to see if his aunt would like to descend from the cart, but she declared that she had a better view from her seat.

He took the kite box from the back of the cart. The lid opened as if he’d opened it yesterday, as if all those days in between hadn’t existed. He had to take a deep breath before he pulled out the first kite: cherry red, a light and speedy one that tore through the air and generally plunged to the ground with equal velocity.

Underneath were two good, sturdy kites that had held up in wind after wind. And beneath that . . . he touched the small spines for a moment, his finger rubbing the delicate wood as if it could touch the child who used to hold it.