“How does that make you feel?”
She wanted to take back the words the moment they left her mouth. Of course, he felt unloved. Rejected.
“Like a fool,” Thaddeus said unemotionally.
“He’s the fool,” Joan cried. “He’s the one going against British tradition back to, back to, well, not the Roman times, but a long time ago. Inheritance is all about marriage. And blood, the right blood. As you said earlier, with future dukes marrying noblewomen.”
“Which you know all too well, given most gentlemen’s rejection of you as a possible spouse,” Thaddeus said grimly.
“That’s an exaggeration,” Joan said, giving him a mischievous smile. “I don’t know how many British men are in the gentry and below, but I haven’t met with any particular reluctance from the larger group.”
He rolled closer and ran a finger down her nose. “You laugh at the very things that would destroy a woman such as my mother.”
“I’m not laughing,” Joan protested. “I’m just making my point. If you add together the men whom I’ve kissed in order to prove that point—”
“Let’s not,” Thaddeus murmured. He bent his head and feasted on her mouth, letting himself kiss her slowly and thoroughly. She gasped, then murmured something and put her arms around his neck.
Long minutes later, they were still kissing, occasionally breaking apart for air. He was so thirsty for her: for the sweetness of her lips, the sauciness of her tongue tangling with his, the way her slender body trembled against his.
Though he hadn’t allowed himself to touch her, other than to cup the back of her head with his hand, protecting her from the ground.
More kisses . . . He became aware that he was shaking too.
“Are you making a point of your own?” she whispered against his lips, opening eyes drenched in desire. Real desire, not the kind she displayed at balls.
He felt a throb of triumph go through him, and then registered her question.
“No.” He took her mouth again. Joan’s lips were pliant and sweet, but she’d asked a question that ripped the erotic haze from his mind.
So he pulled back, ignoring the needy pulse in his body. “What point could I possibly be making?” he asked in a husky voice, tracing her rosy bottom lip with one finger.
Joan looked up at him. “That I shouldn’t have brought you to the island. Or that I’m attractive, even though I’m illegitimate. Or that . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I’m not sure, to be honest.”
“I would never hurt you,” Thaddeus said. The words sounded like a vow; he watched her eyelashes flutter as she looked away. “You’re not merely attractive; you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”
She flinched, a small movement, but he saw it. Then she pulled away and scrambled to her feet. “Enough of this foolishness,” she said, her voice gay. “We really ought to fold the cloth and practice fencing now.”
Thaddeus got to his feet, knowing that his cock was straining his silk breeches.
Her eyes flew to his crotch and away. Oddly, Thaddeus found himself grinning. His cheer felt like part and parcel of the afternoon: He’d shared his father’s claim of a wedding to his mistress with someone other than his solicitor; he’d had his first picnic; he’d kissed a gentlewoman . . .
With no plans to offer marriage, and she knew it.
He rolled up his sleeves. The light linen of his shirt was not overly warm but he’d seen Joan looking at his arms. On the other side of the glade, Joan rolled up hers as well. His arms were burly, roped with sinew and muscle. Hers were slender but not frail.
Mind you, she was gripping her rapier as if it were a cricket bat.
He strode across to her and adjusted her grip, then backed up again. “En garde,” he said, bending his knees slightly. “No, no, look at my hands.” He held his sword lightly before him. “You must always know where your opponent’s sword is.”
“First, you stop that,” she said, her voice rising.
He frowned.
Rosy color poured into her cheeks. “That!” She waved her fingers toward his waist.
Thaddeus looked down. His cockstand was as evident as it could be, given the silk breeches he wore. He was well-endowed, and every inch was proudly displaying itself. A smile spread across his face, and he found himself laughing.
“Laugh number four,” Joan said crossly.
“I’m choking back any number of boyish jests about swords,” he told her, and then took pity. “It’s not in my command. Nor that of any man.”
She scowled at him.
He straightened. “I want you, my body wants you, and my mind can’t control that.”
The sentence interrupted the bees, the quiet, the birdsong.
“You can’t have me,” she replied, eyes meeting his. “Not just because you’re a future duke, but because you will need to fight a battle in the court of public opinion, if your father has his way. Lady Bumtrinket is right. You have to marry someone of irreproachable, noble birth.”
“I know. But my body doesn’t.” He paused. “I suspect that my body will always want you, Joan. Forever.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “Remember your father? He should have cleaved to your mother, as it says in the Bible. Put his mistress to the side.”
He felt his brows drawing together. “Are you suggesting that I will long for you my whole life? Find myself berating my legitimate son, wishing to disinherit him in favor of a child of yours?”
“For God’s sake,” Joan said blankly. “You’re suggesting that I might become your mistress?”
“You brought up the simile, not I,” he said.
Her turn to laugh, startling the birds. “The role of courtesan doesn’t interest me, Thaddeus. Even for you.”
Then she bent her knees and gripped her sword. “En garde!”
He shook his head and walked behind her, putting his arms around her from the rear. His body fired to even keener attention, but he forced himself to breathe evenly. “Hold your rapier like this. Now dodge and twist, like this.”
His arm curled over hers, the foil pointed at an imaginary Laertes, he showed her how to thrust while turning, and finally to plunge forward with a straight lunge under the armpit of her imaginary foe. “Pull back your blade with a shuddering motion, as if withdrawing it from flesh,” he advised.
“You learned to do this in school?” she asked.
“Play dueling in the bedchambers. We would drive each other back and forth, leaping on and off the bed.”
Two hours later, as Thaddeus was rowing them back through the weedy lake, Joan was tired but happy. She was hopeful that she could fool the eye enough to please an audience. Thaddeus had taught her some flashy moves with her sword, while cautioning her that they would get her killed in a real duel.
She was going over the moves in her head, when she heard a loud curse and jerked up her head.
Gulliver was waiting for them on the bank.
Joan’s clothing was untouched, in the same heap where she left it. But Thaddeus’s clothing had been scattered. A white stocking hung from both sides of Gully’s mouth, as if he had suddenly grown a long, snowy mustache.
Thaddeus bounded to the bank and tied off the boat, shouting, “Bloody hell, Gulliver!”