Royal Weddings(9)

“I thought your parents did an admirable job of taking the lead and smoothing things over.”

“I had them well-rehearsed. Besides, they’ve done such deeds often enough, while the vicomte and vicomtesse are so . . . well, babes-in-the-woods when it comes to such affairs.”

“Not everyone is born and bred to the purple.” Gaston reached out and captured her hand, holding tight when she started, then tried to ease her fingers free. “Come and show me your lovely gardens. Everyone in there”—he tipped his head toward the drawing room—“is presently comfortable, and our bride and groom are being suitably watched over.”

She hesitated, but he gently drew her on, knew when her feet started to move that he’d won.

“There’s not much to see.” She followed him down the shallow steps to the graveled path.

He wound her arm with his, then set out, slowly strolling. “But the air here is fresher, and the noise so much less.” He glanced at her, smiled. “Surely, having steered the event so successfully thus far, you are due a moment of respite, to catch your breath and clear your head before returning to guide the throng out of the door.”

Her eyes narrowed on his. “That sounds far too reasonable for you.”

He grinned and looked ahead. Debated his next move. He knew what he wanted, but how to get it . . . In the curve of the path ahead, tucked under the overhanging boughs of a large tree, he spotted a small summerhouse. “Mignonne, there is something I wish to discuss with—”

“You can’t call me mignonne. I’m not anyone’s mignonne.”

“Ah, but you most assuredly are.” He guided her up the two shallow steps into the dense shadows of the summerhouse.

Retrieving her hand, she turned to glare at him. “That’s nonsense. Juliette might quite rightly be termed a mignonne, but as for me—”

“What do you think mignonne means?”

Meg blinked. Studied him. After a moment spent checking her translation, she replied, “Dainty. Delicate.”

He grinned; she saw his teeth flash white in the darkness. Knew without sight that his eyes were twinkling as he stepped closer, inclining his head. “That’s one version.”

She frowned direfully, even if in the dimness he wouldn’t get the full effect. “What else does it mean?” What was he, in his devilish way, calling her?

“I will tell you one day, but not tonight. As I said”—he drew closer yet, lowered his voice, tipped his head down, closer to hers, as if to whisper some secret—“there is something I wish to discuss with you.”

Her traitorous gaze had slid to his lips. She felt faintly dizzy, almost as if she swayed, the blood slowly draining from her brain to throb in her lips, then slide lower . . . “What?” The word was a mere whisper; she tried to raise her gaze to his eyes, but couldn’t drag it from his lips. So close . . .

They moved slowly closer.

“This.”

The word, carried on a single breath, washed over her lips, then he closed the last fraction of an inch as she, entirely involuntarily, following an impulse as old as time, tipped her face up to his.

In a wordless invitation she’d never meant to offer.

An invitation he accepted.

The kiss . . .

Was all and more than she’d ever dreamt his kiss might be.

His lips moved on hers, confident, yet not urgent.

She felt his fingers touch, trace her jaw, frame it, his hand resting heavy against her throat. His other hand blindly reached and found her hand; his fingers twined with hers, held tight as the delicate, enthralling, intoxicating caress spun on.

Moonlight and madness, silver and gold, swirled and snared her.

She parted her lips, wanted and needed, to feel, to know, to experience.

She felt him drag in a breath, then slowly, to the beat of their hearts, his tongue slid between and he showed her. Claimed her.

The moment stretched, crystal and sharp, and achingly sweet.

No rush, no pressure, no overwhelming heat.

Just pleasure.

It drew her on, forward, inexorable and inevitable.

Until she stood teetering on some indefinable edge.

She drew back, breathless, wide-eyed.

Unable to do anything but stare through the dimness into his night-dark eyes.

She searched, but couldn’t see, could sense nothing more than her heart beating, heated and hot, beneath her skin, in her fingertips, in her lips. She eased back a fraction more, settling back from her toes to her heels, realizing only then that she had stretched up to him. She moistened her lips. “I—we—have to get back.” She glanced fleetingly at the lighted drawing room windows, at the glittering throng within, but immediately looked back at him.