Mad About the Marquess (Highland Brides Book 2) (7 page)

Alasdair gave himself another mental shake. It wouldn’t do to be picturing her wee snug arse any more than it would to think of her luscious wee breasts. She was as like to run him through with a sword, as she was to put a bullet in him.

“I oughtn’t know— Honestly. Men.” Her smile was all wry resignation. “Clearly you’re the delicate ones, if you can’t imagine women knowing about blood stains.”

He felt heat scorch up to his hairline. It was remarkable how quickly she managed to turn the tables upon him.
 

Devil take him, but she was an extraordinarily clever lass. “Quite right.” He cleared his throat. Time to put this topic to bed. “Now you know why my face—and yours, I might add—went red. What else do you want to know?”

“I want to know…if my magnificent breasts make you want to kiss me?”

“Aye,” he said before he could think better of the fire that lit his lungs, making it a pleasurable discomfort to breathe. “That and more. Since we’re being so bloody candid.”

Perhaps Quince felt the singe of the scorching heat, because she walked away from him—prowling the edge of the room like a fox perusing a hen house. “What more?”

She was insane to be so provoking. And he was insane to let her provoke him.

“Are you really even nineteen?” Devil take him, but he needed a drink to douse the heat in his gut. But alcohol would undoubtedly only fan the flames. “Has no one in your family—your mother or one of your older sisters—ever told you the facts of concupiscence, as it were?”

“Concu-what?” She gave him a strangely blank frown. “I don’t think so. Or if they did, I wasn’t listening.”

“That I doubt,” he muttered half to himself. “If they’d told you, you’d have listened. I’m sure you would.” He reeled another breath deep into his lungs, and prayed for strength. “I’d think a lass like you’d be all agog to hear all the sordid secrets of marital relations.”

“Oh!” Her smile lit up like a Guy Fawkes bonfire, blazing across her lips. “Marital relations? You mean the act of sex. Why then, that word,
concupiscence
, is just a fancy, ten guinea way of saying fu—”

“Don’t you say it.” He waved his arm at her like a constable. “Don’t you dare.” Even the thought of her saying such a raw, earthy word was like throwing gunpowder on banked embers. “Remember my delicate sensibilities.”

She gave him one of her slippery, mischievous smiles. “I will. Well, then I reckon I do know about
concupiscence.
” She pronounced the word with delicate relish. “My father is a botanist, after all, so I know that all plants as well as animals have sexes, and all the trees and flowers and insects out in the garden are busy day and night with the need to pollinate and copulate and reproduce.”

The last—the very bleeding last—thing he needed to think about was copulation and reproduction. No matter her astonishing frankness, he had to remember wee Quince was a lady, and young, and only making an act of all this jaded worldliness to nettle him. But she had to be stopped from going on in this provoking manner. For her own good as well as his.

“Quite.” He put his hands behind his back, pressing them hard into the wall with his weight, so he wouldn’t touch her. Yet. “But enough of talk. We have got away from the point, which seemed to a bargain you wanted to strike.”

Her eyes met his, ghost bright in the moonlight. “But that
is
the bargain I wanted to strike.”

“Copulation?” He flung the strangled word out of his mouth. “Let me understand you with no mistake, Lady Quince—you want to strike a bargain to
copulate
?”

At last he managed to shock her. At least a little. “Oh, holy lemon ice, no!” A fine spot of color appeared high against her cheekbone. “No, I’ve no interest in ruination. But in something considerably less.”

“How much less?” His tone was a bare mixture of disappointment and relief.

She looked at him from under her lashes. “Just kissing.”

She might as well have said just
fucking
for all the effect it had upon him—every muscle in his body simultaneously tensed and relaxed. And tried to move toward her. “Let me make right sure I understand you—you want to bargain for kissing?”

“Aye.” She frowned and nodded her head, as if she were firming her resolve. As if she had to talk herself into kissing him.

Alasdair was astonished to discover it a blow to his pride. “Why me in particular, and not say…your fellow, Davie?” Perhaps she had frightened the lad off with the prick of her sharp, acrobatic tongue.
 

Another wave of heat scorched his face. Thank the devil the room was so dark.

Quince was uncharacteristically circumspect—she gave nothing about her other beaux away. “You seem an experienced, thorough-going mon of the world. You’ve lived in London, and France, and no doubt enjoyed their reputations for pleasure.”

He could feel his better judgment start to give way. “Well, damn my eyes, I have.”
 

The damn vixen smiled back. “Good. Because if what just occurred between us has taught me anything—and it has taught me a number of useful things—it is that you’re a mon of both power and restraint. You can be trusted to act like a gentleman. In short, I can trust you.”

“Not with those breasts.” Since they were being so bloody candid.

Delicate color flooded her cheeks, but she kept her gaze level. “Then we will leave breasts out of it, won’t we, and settle for just kisses.”

“Wee Quince, there is no such thing as
just
kisses.”

“Certainly there is, if you concentrate, and do it properly.”

Despite his better judgment, Alasdair felt the last of his resolve crumble. There was something in her—that dark fairy combination of mischievousness and glee—that made it hard to resist her wayward charm. He tried harder. But not too hard. “You’re incorrigible.”

She was also unrepentant. “I should hope so, my lord. Now come. You want a favor from me, so you must be prepared to offer one in return.”

“And the favor you want in exchange for helping me with my inquiries into the thefts is a nice slow bout of kissing?” He asked again, just to be absolutely clear.

“Aye. And kissing alone, thank you very much.” She held up one elegantly obstructive finger. “I’ve no interest in the rest of it.”

“A shame. You’ve no idea what you’ll miss.”

“Oh, I’ve an idea, Strathcairn. A very good idea. But while I’ve faults enough, I am not so taffy-brained as to want to add ruination to the list.”

Clever lass. “At last, we agree on something.” And what he had to agree was that despite the risk, or perhaps because of it, he was having
fun
.
Everything about this lass was fun—a lark. A lark he could control, and keep from getting out of hand.

“So you agree to kiss me?”

He decided to prolong the negotiation, to heighten the wonderful lazy feeling of satisfaction and anticipation strolling through his chest. “To be clear—just the once?”

She gave him a smile full of shrewd consideration. “Why don’t we think of it as a
trial
kiss. To see how well you do. To see if I’ll be wanting another.”
 

“Fair enough. And I’ll see how
you
do, as well. To see if
I’ll
be wanting another.”

“Fair enough.” She nodded and stuck out her right thumb. “We’ll proll thumbs on our agreement.”

He debated telling her his hesitation was not because he had forgotten the ancient Scots custom of touching thumbs to seal a bargain, but because he had instantly imagined grasping the hand she extended, and then pulling her to his chest and holding her there, so she would be pressed flush against him from neck to thigh, and he might feel those luscious, magnificent wee breasts hard against his chest.
 

And that he was still debating doing that very thing.

But he decided doing so would be too precipitous—too much, too soon. With a lass as clever and curious as wee Quince Winthrop, he needed to let her take her time, and let her take the lead.

He pushed himself off the wall, and bowed over her wrist like a proper gentleman. So he could hold on to her. “We are agreed. Shall we commence with the trial?”
 

“Aye. I suppose.” She retrieved her hand, and almost instantly had a qualm. “But you must stay as you were. With your arms behind you, against the wall, so I know you won’t get all handsy.”

In his efforts to quash his smile, he could only hope that he didn’t look grim. “As my lady desires.”

When he was properly installed back against the wall, she stepped closer—close enough that he could smell the subtle scent of rose and orange blossom wafting off the warmth of her skin. Alasdair drew in a deep breath, and felt his chest expand with the pleasure of anticipation. He was going to explore that delicate, delicious skin in just a few moments. He could almost taste the sass on her sweet lips.

She turned her face up to him. “You may kiss me now.”

He decided that this time, he was going to be the one who did the unexpected—he didn’t take the lips she so freely offered. “You’re a bit fast off the mark, aren’t you, lass?”

“Absolutely.” She didn’t so much as blush. “Do try and keep up.”

“A fool’s errand, that would be,” he half muttered to himself before he cleared his throat. “I don’t think I will kiss you.”

Her arms went straight to her muslin-clad hips in indignant protest. “But you just said you would. You agreed.”

Alastair felt his smile spread full across his face, as he ducked his head nearer. Near enough to whisper. “Oh, no, my devious wee lass. If I’m to keep myself from getting
handsy
, then you’re the one who’s going to have to kiss me.”

“Oh.” She took an unsure step or two back, flustered, her eyes wide with confusion and unexpected indecision.

“Do you mean to say you, Quince Winthrop, haven’t kissed anyone before? You? At nineteen, I’d have thought you’d have sampled half the lads of Edinburgh.”

“Don’t be insulting, Strathcairn. I’ve been busy. With other things.”

“If you say so.” He contemplated her dilemma for a moment or two. “I didn’t realize it was instruction you wanted, and no just greater experience. So”—he dropped his voice to a low, encouraging murmur that brought out the brogue he had worked to eradicate from his accent—“I’ll gie ye a proper lesson in kissing. I’ll tell ye how to begin, and then how to get on.”

“Oh, all right. I can’t resist when you talk like a proper Scot.” She tipped up that chin in a gesture he was coming to recognize as willful determination. “What do you suggest first?”

“I’d suggest ye fetch yourself a wee bit closer, lass, so it’s not such a fair reach.” If it was a proper Scot she wanted, it was a damn proper red-blooded Scot she would get. He leaned his own head down, and angled it slightly to the side for her convenience. “So ye can take your time considerin’ and decidin’ what part o’ me you’d like to kiss first.”

She drew back, so she might get a better look at his face. “Well, your mouth, shouldn’t it be?” At such a slight distance, her voice had fallen to a whisper—she wasn’t nearly so cool and collected as she might like him to think.

“Only if ye desire, lass. A cheek, perhaps”—he dutifully turned the cheek in question—“might be a less demandin’ place to start. But what ye’ll want to do, is just come in close…” He waited while she inched closer. “That’s it, lass. Now just take a good long gander at me a’fore ye decide. Slowly, now. Have a good, long look. And remember, even if I can’t touch, ye can.”
 

She was an apt pupil, clever, curious, fey Quince Winthrop was. “Ooh. I see what you mean.” Her breath warmed the side of his neck above his collar for fraction of a second before her finger followed, drawing a light, evocative line down the side of his neck. “Aye. I do see.”

He himself could see nothing—the scent of her filled his head, all but blinding him. She smelled like a warm summer day, all blue sky and fresh breezes. He closed his eyes, and inhaled until he fancied he could smell the wild roses that grew in the hills around Cairn. “Oh, aye.”

And then, there it was, the merest warming just below his cheekbone—a murmur against his skin. A hint of warmth, and then the slight press of sweet firmness, her lips touching his skin. So soft. So very surprisingly soft, when all the rest of her was a bundle of sharp, stinging nettles.

Alasdair squeezed his eyes tight so he might take it all in—his anticipation, the pleasure and newness of their wary dance toward trust, the eroticism of her surprising restraint—and turned carefully to present her with the other cheek.

Her second kiss was less tentative. More sure, more emblematic of that characteristic bold curiosity of hers. She let her lips linger against his skin, and then meander across his face, making their slow curious way toward his mouth.
 

“Aye, lass.” It was everything he could do to stand and wait and hope her lips would soon find his. To pray that she would like her first taste of him enough to take a second, and a third kiss. And want to delve deeper.

Her hesitation—the delicate approach that seemed so out of tune with her brash character—nearly did him in. It made him want to take her in his arms and hold her and draw her close and tell her all the words he should not say. Encourage her to do her worst, because he was more than prepared to do his best.