Chapter 4
Clarissa strolled along the meandering path through Hyde Park, intensely aware of Christian beside her. He cast a mocking glance her way, then nodded at a group of nursemaids and their charges—a cluster of little boys and girls pelting about the lawn of a nearby sheltered grove.
“See, Ladybird? Not a gossip or an old biddy in sight. Just a few nursery maids and their innocent darlings. No one who could be bothered to take notice of little old us.”
She only just managed to hold back a sigh of relief. He was right, of course. No person of fashion would be seen in the park at this hour of the morning, which was precisely why she had insisted on it instead of a drive later in the day. Christian hadn’t been pleased that she preferred a walk to a drive, but she’d stuck to her guns. The thought of sitting up next to him on the high perch of his curricle in a public display made her shudder. Even Blundell, who had been in his cups last night, had noticed Christian’s flirtatious behavior. God only knew what the gossips would say if they saw her tooling about town in his dashing carriage.
A penetrating shriek from the direction of the grove interrupted her thoughts.
Christian jerked his head around in search of the sourceof the commotion. “That’s the most appalling noise I’ve ever heard. Who’s getting murdered?”
Clarissa pointed across the lawn. “I believe the culprit is that little girl. One of those grubby boys yanked on her braids.”
He snorted. “You never screeched like that when I pulled your braids, did you? I think I would have remembered if you had.”
“I didn’t, but only because most of your crimes were so much worse. Shrieking about the occasional hair pulling hardly seemed worth the effort.”
A wicked gleam lit up his eyes. “Crimes such as?”
“Hmmm,” she murmured, pretending to think about it. “There was that time you put salt in my tea. Quite a lot of it, I remember.”
“I would never do anything so underhanded,” he protested, trying to look innocent.
“You would and you did. And what about that time you snuck over from your estate to our manor house—which you did on a regular basis, as I recall.”
“Our houses were only a few miles apart,” he said. “I liked to come by and visit you.”
“Torture me, you mean. Like the day you got into my bedroom and stole all my shoes.”
He laughed, a deep, rolling sound that shot thrills of pleasure all the way to the soles of her feet. The morning sunshine picked out flecks of gold in his light brown hair and gilded his tanned skin to bronze. He looked like a young Greek god—so full of vibrant life that it made her head spin.
“I didn’t steal them,” he said with a grin. “I just hid them for a little while.”
“In the stables, as I recall. It took me days to find them. I wanted to kill you.”
Actually, his ridiculous prank had made her laugh,especially since it infuriated her father. Not that Christian gave a fig about that. He’d been on the receiving end of her father’s wrath on many occasions, but had always shrugged it off. His fearlessness as a young boy had astounded her, and she had admired him for his courage.
“But you didn’t kill me,” he said, gently brushing his hand down the length of her spine. His touch and his warm smile created an air of intimacy around them, as if they shared a delicious secret. It made her feel youthfully awkward, and she had to resist the urge to pull away from him.
Instead, she cleared her throat and adopted a tone of matronly disapproval.
“The worst was when you put a toad in my jewelry box. My heart stopped when I opened the lid and it jumped out at me. If I could have laid hands on you at that moment, I most certainly would have killed you.”
He laughed outright at that. “But that was my way of showing you how much I liked you.”
She frowned and came to a halt in the center of the path.
“You liked me? What do you mean?”
He arched an eyebrow. “What do you think I mean?”
She stared up at him. His gaze, flaring with laughter and warmth, flickered over her. Tiny crackles of energy danced along her nerves. “You were only fourteen,” she exclaimed in a breathless voice.
He gave her a lazy and utterly sensual smile. “I was a very mature fourteen.”
She gaped at him, bewildered by the sense that she was tumbling through a strange landscape—one both terrifying and wonderful. He held her gaze, his eyes no longer laughing, but still full of a heat that made her skin prickle.
“Ladybird,” he murmured in a husky voice.
