a flood again. So, whenever there is rain, a rainbow will streak across the sky, reminding us of God’s promise.”
Wentworth scowled, and she laughed, the sound rippling through him, creating the warmest feeling he’d ever had on the inside. He came up on his elbows. “It is much more…romantic than that.”
“So, tell me,” she said, a lovely smile playing about her mouth.
“Sir Isaac Newton studied the phenomenon of colors. He was the first to understand that the beautiful array of colors we see is not from a mixture of light and darkness as proposed by Aristotle, but that sunlight contained all colors which could be separated by prisms. Whenever white light is refracted with a prism, we see colors. The sun actually creates rainbows when sunlight passes through raindrops. The raindrops act like tiny prisms. They bend the different colors in white light, so the light spreads out into a band of colors that are reflected back to us as a rainbow.”
Her smile widened. “Ah, so now you have explained how Our Lord did it, but I told you the why. Is it not beautiful?”
Wentworth stared, then he smiled. “You are beautiful. I am going to kiss you…”
Her eyes widened, and she lifted slightly off the earth to glance around. “I do not think it would go over well, should another of your staff see you kissing your valet!”
He shifted, leaning over her, his body blotting the low sun from her face.
“I dreamed of kissing you,” he murmured, “and I woke with the taste of you still on my mouth. How is that possible?”
She cleared her throat, her blushes getting brighter. “Is that not a common occurrence?”
“Not for me,” he immediately replied. “And I’ve kissed other ladies before.”
They stared at each other, and he removed the hat from her face, tempted to remove the wig.
“What is that look on your face,” she said softly, her eyes searching his expression. “I’ve never seen you appear so intense, and I’ve seen you walk into a door before because you were so engrossed with reading.”
“Saw that, did you?”
She touched the corner of his mouth with a gloved finger. “I did.”
“I am a gentleman,” he began.
“I know.”
“I’ve never seduced an innocent before.”
The corner of her eyes crinkled with her smile. “Is that what you’re about? Seduction?”
“Well, I am thinking of kissing you until we are both senseless.”
“I sense an objection.”
“A gentleman does not take advantage of a young lady unless he knows he will marry her,” he said gruffly. “How can I kiss you…do all the things I hunger to do without making you my wife? I would be a right rogue.”
She slipped her hands around his neck, and he braced himself on his elbows. And they just stared at each other. In her eyes, he spied something tender and wicked.
“That means I am a rogue as well because I want you to kiss me more than anything else.”
“Juliana—” he began warningly.
“And I do not want you to marry me when you are done.” This, she said with amusement dancing in her lovely lavender eyes. “Marriage is not a part of my plan, and it is silly for you to have it in your thoughts.”
“That sounds as if you are granting me the liberty to act a rogue, Miss Pryce.”
“And if I am?” she asked teasingly.
“Then, you best be prepared to deal with the corollary effects.”
“A few kisses are hardly something to worry over.”
Her words were bold, but her eyes bright with curiosity and longing. A mischievous sort of anticipation shivered through his heart and trailed down to his cock. He tugged the gloves from his hand, not braced above her, desperate to feel the softness of her skin beneath his fingertips. “Silly, Miss Pryce…a few kisses? Rogues and scoundrels do not stop at kisses, only the most stalwart of gentlemen do.”
Juliana caught her breath at his implication, a flush warming her cheeks. “How shocking, even with that knowledge, I want your kisses.”
Wentworth took her mouth with his, pressing in for a very thorough and naughty kiss. She moaned, the sound so achy and bloody sweet. His heart started to pound, and he reverently cupped her jaw, sliding his thumb to the fluttering pulse at her throat. And he took her mouth in a wet, carnal claiming, sliding his tongue along her bottom lip, and when she parted her mouth, his tongue ravished her.
Wentworth had never felt such raw need from a kiss. Something roared inside of him, urging him to wrench her trousers