you did.’
‘Yes,’ she said softly, and she smiled at him in a way that revealed this was something more important to her than just stargazing. In telling him this, in bringing him here, she was sharing something very private to her, something that seemed to go beyond the game they were playing. She watched him across the small distance of the daybed’s pillow for a few seconds in silence before asking, ‘How did you learn all of this?’
‘At Eton. At Oxford. From my father’s books.’
‘You are a scholar.’
‘No.’
She paused, studying him for a moment in silence before reaching a hand to his face and tracing her fingers against his cheek. ‘You look like your father.’
He clenched his teeth to stopper the bitter reply.
‘I could not help but notice that matters did not sit comfortably between the two of you the day we met him outside Gunter’s. I thought it was because you were with me.’
‘Why should that make a difference?’
She gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders and he saw the way the dark cloth of her cloak shifted to reveal the smooth white skin that lay beneath. ‘Your father is an earl. You are his son. I am an actress.’
‘I am not ashamed of you, Venetia. And who I choose to spend my time with is no business of my father’s.’
‘You sound angry with him.’
‘Sometimes it turns out our fathers are not the great men we grow up believing them to be. We are a disappointment to them, and they to us. Or perhaps yours was different and I speak only with the bitterness of my own experience.’
She glanced away, a sudden uneasiness in her eyes. ‘Matters between me and my father sat as uncomfortably as yours seem to do. He was very far from being a great man, although he thought that he was.’
‘Was?’
‘He is dead.’
‘I am sorry.’
Her eyes studied his and there was the strangest expression in them.
‘And your mother?’ he asked.
‘She died when I was ten years old.’
‘I am saddened by your loss at such a tender age.’
‘It was a long time ago. And I learned very quickly how to stand on my own two feet.’
‘A gentleman country vicar and his lady wife who married beneath her.’
‘You have been making more enquiries about me,’ she teased, lightening the mood.
‘I have.’ He made no pretence at denial. ‘Is it true?’
She laughed and it had a bitter ring to it. ‘Hardly. Fantasy is so much more enticing than the truth, do you not think?’
‘That depends,’ he said. ‘On what lies beyond enticement.’
She lowered her gaze, the sweep of black lashes feathering against the pallor of her cheek.
‘Venetia.’ Her name was soft and smooth as silk upon his lips, the intimacy of it making her remember the feel of those lips upon hers.
‘Linwood...’
‘Not Linwood,’ he said softly and, reaching across, skimmed the pad of his thumb against her cheek in a single caress. ‘My given name is Francis.’
She scanned those dark eyes, feeling the butterflies fluttering madly in her stomach. ‘Given names are for families and close friends, and for lovers.’
‘And what are we, Venetia?’ There was a blunt honesty to the question that seemed to reach within and touch her.
She hesitated to reply, only held his eyes, not with bold seduction and power, but seeing something of the man beneath. ‘I do not know.’ All the madness that was rushing through her blood, the fast hard pound of her heart, the way her body came alive beneath his touch, his kiss. ‘You are not what I expected.’
‘And what was it that you expected?’ he asked softly.
She reached her hands up, cupping them gently against the strong hard lines of his jaw, holding him there. ‘Not this,’ she whispered and placed her mouth against his in soft surrender. ‘Never this.’
She kissed him gently, cautiously, afraid that the kiss would not be all that she remembered and even more afraid that the memory was true. Their lips teased together, touching, tasting, feeling, while their eyes clung together. And then his mouth moved to take hers and she knew that her memory had not played her false. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the kiss, and to him, yielding to the madness that was thrumming through her veins.
The scent of him, the feel of him, the taste of him, stripped away all of her pretence. He kissed her and the woman that met his kisses with passion and with need was all Venetia. Something in her sparked to