I want to be. And I do not believe your assumption of the mantle of a loose woman remotely convincing. Now, be a good girl and say “yes” and we can go out and tell Aunt Kate and all will be easy.’
‘No.’
‘Tallie, you have failed to convince me you do not wish to marry me because you are a wanton …’
‘Not a wanton,’ she protested. ‘Or at least, only with you. I like you kissing me, I have to admit it, but I would not have said so if you had not produced that as a clinching argument as to why we should marry. But liking kissing someone is absolutely no reason to think they would be the right person to marry. How many women have you kissed?’
‘Me?’ He removed his hands and straightened up, although he did not move back. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Did you enjoy kissing them?’
‘On the whole, yes. Tallie, what has this to do with our marriage?’
‘And how many of them have you married?’
‘None of them!’
‘Precisely my point,’ Tallie said triumphantly. ‘Just because you enjoy kissing someone, it does not mean you want to marry them. So that, my lord, is not a good argument. How else do you intend to convince me?’
‘You enjoy sparring with me, do you not, Tallie?’ He had his hands on his hips now, head on one side as he regarded her thoughtfully. His lips quirked and she fought the urge to either smile back or stand on tiptoe and kiss the corner of his mouth. She was proving a puzzle to him, a problem, and Tallie sensed that she was also becoming a challenge, almost an intellectual conundrum to be solved.
‘Yes,’ she admitted. And how much fun it would be to be married to him, to stimulate that sharp brain and tease that flashing sense of humour.
‘You will not win, you know,’ he observed.
‘That is not gentlemanly of you.’ Tallie tried a pout for effect. The only reaction that produced was a grin of sheer devilment.
‘Are you a gamester?’
‘No … no, I do not think so. I have never been tempted by games of chance.’
‘Well, let me tempt you with a bet upon a certainty. I wager you will agree to marry me within two weeks of today.’
That seemed safe enough, she was not going to agree, whatever wiles he used. ‘Marry you within two weeks or simply agree to do so?’
‘Agree, I think. I see no point in setting myself any harder a task than I have to.’
‘And if you win?’ she asked.
‘You marry me.’
‘And if you lose?’
‘What would you like?’ He stepped back and smiled again at the innocent calculation her face betrayed.
‘My own phaeton and a team of match bays.’
‘Very well.’
Tallie gasped. ‘Seriously? I never thought you would agree.’
‘I have absolutely no intention of losing, so I can afford to be generous. Of course, if you want such a rig, you only have to marry me and you can have one anyway.’
‘You are absolutely the most infuriating man I have ever come across.’ Tallie reached behind her for the doorknob. ‘Now, are you going to let me out of here?’
‘Once we have sealed the bet,’ he said and took her in his arms. His mouth silenced her protests and he made not the slightest attempt to restrain her, simply allowing the drugging, languorous, sensual slide of his mouth over hers and the insidious caress of his fingers on her throat and shoulder to hold her to him.
Tallie moaned softly and let her body mould to his for a long, shuddering moment. Her lips parted and his tongue slid between them, so gently, so subtly that before she knew what she was doing her own tongue had begun to caress his in turn. He left her mouth and began to nibble the taut tendons of her neck. The blood was roaring in her ears so loudly that she hardly heard the question at first, then he repeated it, murmuring it as his lips teased and tormented the soft skin behind the curl of her ear.
‘Marry me, Tallie.’
Tell me you love me, Nick, say it. Then I will marry you. Tell me …
‘You stir my blood, Tallie. Marry me.’
Not enough. Oh, I want you too … but it is not enough.
‘No.’ Tallie pushed him away with both palms flat on his chest. ‘No, and I am not going to kiss you again.’
Nick stepped back, his own hands raised in the fencer’s gesture of surrender. ‘I promise not to try—for tonight at least.’
Tallie caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that hung on the opposite wall. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, just look at me!’
‘I am,’ Nick drawled. ‘You look delightfully tousled and it provokes the most terrible desire in me to tousle you even more.’
‘Well, you can’t,’ she retorted crisply, more to suppress her own longing to be back in his arms than out of any real fear that he would snatch her into them. She smoothed her hair, rescued some pins that were hanging on by their very tips, fastened the roses, which her maid had tucked into the knot at the nape of her neck, back with their comb and surveyed herself critically, managing not to catch Nick’s amused eye as he watched her. ‘It will have to do. Now, how are we going to get out of here unseen?’
‘Through the window?’
‘You certainly deserve to!’ Tallie peeped round the edge of the door and saw with relief that a particularly noisy and energetic country dance was in progress with most of the onlookers’ attention focused on the dance floor. She slipped out and wove her way through the chairs and pillars until she had put a respectable distance between herself and the retiring-room door.
‘Cousin Tallie, may I ask you something?’
It was William, appearing at her side as though by magic. Tallie blinked at him, still too shaken by what had just taken place to focus properly. ‘William? Not you as well? It is too much!’
Chapter Twenty
Nicholas sauntered casually out of the retiring room just in time to see Tallie turn from William, fumble in her reticule for her handkerchief and disappear into the sitting-room which had been set aside for ladies.
He laid a none-too-gentle hand on his cousin’s shoulder. ‘And just what have you said to Tallie to upset her?’
‘Damned if I know,’ William retorted defensively. ‘All I said was that there was something I wanted to ask her and she said, “Not you as well? It is too much” or some such nonsense. Then her eyes filled up with tears and off she bolted!’ He looked aggrieved. ‘I only wanted to ask her to dance the boulanger. I know I’m not that good a dancer, but no one has ever burst into tears before when I asked them.’
Nick eyed the firmly closed leaves of the sitting-out-room door, a faint and uncharacteristic line forming between his brows. ‘I suspect she thought you were about to propose.’
‘Propose? Propose what?’ William crooked a finger at a passing waiter, secured a glass of champagne, then choked on the first sip. ‘Not marriage?’
‘Hmm.’ Was that what Tallie thought? That there was a family plot for one of them to marry her because she had been compromised and if she did not marry him, then his cousin would step into the breach?
He regarded William, who was coughing indignantly, and administered a sharp slap on the back. ‘Stop that