It felt as if the whole world waited, the sounds of the stable, the noise of Gavan’s unsteady footsteps walking down the corridor, the occasional stamp of a horse’s hoof, the creaking wood . . . it all faded before the intent look in his eyes.

“Your eyes—” she said, but he cut off her words.

His lips were like brandy, like an intoxication that swept down her back and stole her breath away. And his tongue—

She had hated it, loathed it, when the prince thrust his tongue into her mouth. Only the good manners drilled into her by the most rigid governess her father could find in the whole of the British Isles had stopped her from slapping Augustus in the face.

But now . . .

Piers didn’t thrust his tongue where it didn’t belong, the way Augustus had. Instead he traced the seam of her lips, a touch so sweet that she opened her mouth, asking him in. He didn’t take the invitation. His tongue dawdled, savored her, teased her lips.

Her heart was beating faster and she wanted—she wanted . . . Her tongue met his, played for a moment, tasted essence of Piers.

Then, finally, finally, the hand around her head pulled her closer, against the hard lines of his body. He bent his head, just a fraction of an inch, but Linnet, every instinct wildly alert, felt the movement, the change, his intention.

His kiss was no gentle adoration. It was a ravaging, craving kiss, a wildly passionate, tumultuous stand-and-deliver kiss. Her arms went instinctively around his neck. He tasted of the smoky tea he had had for breakfast, and some wilder substance: desire.

It was the sort of kiss that a gentleman never, ever gave a lady.

Linnet loved it.

Chapter Fifteen

Evening

Linnet was wrong about his father’s being a distraction. She was a distraction. Piers stared at the patient who had just arrived at the castle, not even seeing her distended abdomen; instead he saw the way Linnet’s eyes darkened, from blue irritability to—something else.

It was just sexual desire, of course. Same thing that led a million men to turn themselves into total asses. She was outrageously beautiful and he—well, God knows why she wanted him, but she did. Or at least she seemed to.

Suddenly he heard Sébastien’s voice. “You’re very large for five months, Mrs. Otter. Have there been any twins in your family?” He tapped her stomach on one side and then the other.

“You look like someone trying to select a ripe melon,” Piers said, pushing his cousin to the side. “She’s obviously not carrying one baby unless she’s been consorting with a bear.”

Mrs. Otter gasped. “Well, I never!”

“He doesn’t mean it,” Sébastien said. “It’s his idea of light humor.”

“Buttocks here,” Piers said, pointing to one little bump. “Another one to that side, though it might be a head. Hard to tell. Have you ever had twins in your family, Mrs. Otter? Yes, well, then you’ll want to get yourself a couple of cradles.”

“My aunt—and my mother—they both lost their twin babies.” Her voice trembled. “That’s why I came here, because their babies were born dead.”

“Born dead, or died thereafter?” Piers demanded.

“Died after,” she said. “I think. They were too small. I remember my mother saying that her babes had hands just like a walnut, a shelled walnut.”

“Well, yours are both alive at the moment,” Piers said. “Go home and go to bed. For the next four months.”

“What?”

“Go to bed,” he said, spacing out the words. “Get up only to take a wee, and probably not even then.”

“I couldn’t possibly do that! Why, my husband needs me. And my father-in-law lives with us; he’s old and I have—”

“Go on out and tell Mrs. Havelock that you need a bed in the west wing. For a few months at least. We have to try and get your babies’ hands past that dangerous walnut stage.”

“A bed?” she said, almost shrieking. “You want me to stay here?”

“Oh, you’ll love being here,” Piers told her. “All my patients adore it. I have a housekeeper who’s saint-like in her loving care. In fact, she’s due for canonization any moment.”

“I can’t just go to bed for months! My husband couldn’t do without me, and I’m the leader of the sewing circle, and I run the benefit for—” Her voice died at the expression on Piers’s face.

“I can see that you are entirely worthy and likely a comfort to the entire county. But you have a better chance to bringing these children of yours into the world actually breathing if you lie down for four months. Of course, twins are a great deal of trouble, so if you’d prefer to trot along home, we would all understand. I daresay your mother slept better with only you, rather than two of the same.”

She shook her head.

“Are you sure? Your mother obviously had better luck the second time. Go on upstairs, then,” he said when she remained silent, glaring at him. He turned toward the door, dismissing her from his mind. “Is that it for the day? I didn’t go to all the trouble of changing for supper just so I could make rounds again.”

“I don’t like the fever case that came in this morning,” Sébastien said, following him.

“Petechial, most likely,” Piers said. “There’s a rash of it going around.” He was thinking about swimming. Tomorrow morning.

“It doesn’t look like it to me. It looks worse.”

“How can it be worse? Half my patients with petechial fever die, and I’m not even bleeding them. Besides, you’re no good at diagnosis, may I point out?”

Sébastien shook his head. “That man is really sick. I told the housekeeper to put him in a room by himself.”

“Fine,” Piers said, pausing for a second to ease the pain before they headed down the stairs.

“How’s the leg?” Sébastien asked.

He glared at him. “How’s the twig of a dick you carry around in your breeches?”

“Feeling no pain,” Sébastien said cheerfully. “Unlike your leg, given the fact you’re tilting to the side like a drunken man at a Yule feast.”

“Bollocks,” Piers said, thumping his way down the stairs. And then, “Have you seen my mother?”

“She’s flitting about, trying to find your father so she can torment him by not speaking to him. And she’s dressed up like she’s going to meet the queen.”

Piers stopped for a moment, leaned against the banister.

“You’re overdoing it with the swimming,” Sébastien said. “Cut back. Every other day.”

Not a chance of that. Not now that he had a playmate in the pool.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, starting down again. “Do you suppose my mother wants to take him back, then?”

Sébastien thought about it. “She’s got on one of those corsets that’s pushed her bosom out where you can’t miss it.”

“You’re a pervert to take notice of such a thing in your aunt.”

“I didn’t take notice in a desiring sort of way,” Sébastien protested. “Your father did, though.”

“She’s just tormenting him,” Piers said. But his voice sounded uncertain even to himself.