The Taming of the Duke

Page 52

Gabe and Rafe even tasted different. Rafe tasted clean, like sun-warmed grass. Gabe tasted like mortal sin—not like the shadow he insisted he was, but like the wicked thoughts a woman only had in the dark of night, in the security of her own bed.
I would know instantly, Imogen thought, who is kissing me. Rafe kisses like a gentleman and Gabe like a devil. Oddly enough, both kinds of kisses made her ache, a muddled, treacherous heat low in her stomach.
Rafe's kisses were slower, less feverish, pulling away to nibble on her lip and then slide his way back into her mouth. He acted as if he had the world enough and time… whereas Gabe's kisses had a kind of urgent hunger behind them.
"Rafe," she said, and her voice came out like a little gasp.
"Hmmm," he said, and then he was rolling her over, his big hands still cupping her face, and he bent back to her mouth.
"Rafe!" she said, stronger now. But he was kissing her again, and he must have remembered how to kiss. Because this kiss made all her thoughts flee, and she just slipped into the moment: the hard body lying next to hers, the fingers tangled in her hair, the smell and the taste of him.
Of course, it was scandalous to be kissing in a field. Scandalous. And even worse, a little voice inside Imogen insisted that what she really wanted was the feeling of that hard body on top of hers.
She didn't open her eyes immediately after his mouth left hers. "Imogen," he said. His voice sounded odd.
"Yes?" She kept her eyes closed. There was something extraordinarily embarrassing about kissing Rafe. She couldn't quite work it out. He was just Rafe—her guardian, the thorn in her side, the man who shook her on the dance floor, the man she called a pickled drunk…
"I'm not sure how to put this."
"What?"
"Oh, marriage. Kissing and marriage." His voice was deep, and casual for such an important topic.
"There's no need to put it any way at all," Imogen said, sitting up. "Where have I put my hat?"
"I left it with the horses. I'm asking you to marry me, rather awkwardly, but…"
She was aware of him watching her brush the grass from her skirts, and then he helped her to her feet. "Rafe," she said, "why are you doing this?"
"Because we kissed in a field."
She couldn't fault that logic. "It's just you and me," she said patiently. "I expect it must be quite interesting for you to kiss a lady after ten years." She met his eyes for the first time. "But you would never wish to be married to someone with my temper. Imagine if I were about the house all the time."
"I can imagine it quite easily. We both know that you primarily lost your temper over my drinking."
She started walking toward the horses, talking over her shoulder. "Go find another woman to kiss, Rafe. If it's practice you're wanting."
"You are suggesting," Rafe said, sounding as if he were entirely enjoying himself, "that after being deprived of the pleasures of the flesh for years, I am foolishly enslaved by base desires."
She stopped and looked at him. "Did you understand anything I told you about my marriage?"
"Of course," he said. "You and Draven had a marriage that was precisely like that of every other member of the ton: empty of conversation and passion."
It was surprisingly hard to hear it drawn up in such a neat package. "When I marry again," Imogen said, "I want to be the one pursued, Rafe. Pursued madly. I don't want to marry someone just because he kissed me, and that kiss was only because I happened to be there. That's how it was with Draven, you know. He kissed me, and then he said 'If we elope, it'll turn my mother into a raving bedlamite.' That was his proposal." She admitted it fiercely.
Rafe's eyes were sympathetic, but he said nothing.
"The proposal that I accept, if I ever accept one, will be planned. It will be formal. It will not follow an inappropriate kiss in a field or elsewhere, and there will be no mention of mothers!"
Rafe was grinning now.
"We should not be having this conversation," Imogen said, realizing that she had turned pink with the fury of it. "I'm not going to marry you," she added lamely.
"I understand completely."
"I'm certain you will find someone to marry."
"But I suspect that you're right, and I would make a terrible husband," Rafe said. "The truth is that I believe my ambitions lie in quite another direction."
Imogen looked at him before realizing that his eyes were dancing with laughter. "What would that be?" she asked cautiously.
"Something more carnal than spiritual."
"I cannot believe we are having this conversation," Imogen said crossly, beginning to hurry toward the road. "I can only suppose that you should marry with dispatch."
"Better to marry than to burn," Rafe said thoughtfully. "Or so Paul says. If you are averse to saving my soul, I shall find someone else."
"I am barely widowed," Imogen said, finally realizing that behind all this teasing was a rather obstinate view that a kiss was tantamount to an acceptance of marriage. "I do not wish to marry again so quickly, Rafe."
The sun was almost directly overhead now. Rafe's hair turned a golden brandy brown, falling over his eyes, his collar.
"You should have your hair cut!" she scolded, brushing it from his forehead.
He caught her wrist. "Do you refuse me because you are engaged in an illicit affaire with my brother?"
The words cut her to the heart. He knew… and he kissed her anyway. He must think her the veriest tart, the plaything of two brothers.
She swallowed hard. "I am not engaged in an affaire with your brother!" Her voice came out low and hard, harder than she would have liked. "I—I am not."
"I thought by the way you looked at him at the breakfast table that something had happened between the two of you."
"You insult me!" Imogen could feel the red flags in her cheeks. She tried desperately to think of a phrase that any honorable, affronted lady would utter. "You have no right to speak like that." To her ears the words sounded feeble.
"I didn't mean to insult you."
"Then how could you suggest such a thing?"
"That you would have an affaire with Gabe?"
"Of course!" she said shrilly.
"Because I imagine that if I were a young widow with no particular propensity to marry, I would find Gabriel a quite delightful prospect for a small dalliance."
"I would never do such a thing."
But he continued as if she hadn't spoken. "If you were to contemplate such an affaire, you might want to modulate the way you look at the gentleman in question, Imogen."
She just gaped at him.
"This morning, for instance, your emotions were written on your face."
Tears were pricking her eyes, from rage, she told herself. "I did not look at your brother in an inappropriate manner."
"I apologize," he said slowly. "I expect that I am merely piqued because you do not wish to marry me." He turned away and began untying her horse's reins from the fence.
"Will you insult the next woman who refuses to marry you?" Imogen asked tightly, hearing the little shake in her voice.