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‘Giles? Too fast for what?’
‘For you, of course.’ His smile was rueful. ‘I should have remembered that society events might be a trifle overwhelming at first. You are older, more mature than the girls making their come-outs and I am treating you as I would a married lady, out for several years.’
‘You kiss the breasts of married women on terraces, do you?’ She felt the need of the Duchess’s technique with her fan.
‘Laurel, I cannot pretend that I have been a good boy for nine years. I have not. But here I am, as I am, and I would very much like to get to know you again, as you are now, a grown woman. And while I am doing that I can promise you that married women, in fact any women, will be out of bounds to me.’
What did he mean? Once she would have asked him directly, but now something held her back. Did he mean that he wanted to enjoy a flirtation with her for as long as it suited them both? That he wanted to be her lover? Or that he was courting her? That possibility almost brought her train of thought to a shuddering halt. No, it was simply her foolish fantasies. Why her, the country spinster, virtually on the shelf, when there would be so many fresh young beauties to choose from? She realised why she dare not ask him outright. He would probably laugh, assuming that she was in jest.
I cannot trust him to tell me the truth about something so personal any more. I misjudged the youth and I know this man even less well. I cannot trust myself either.
On the other hand, keeping him at a suspicious distance was not going to teach her anything about Giles, or about herself. ‘I wonder if there are any lobster patties left? And champagne.’
‘I would be amazed if the Duchess would tolerate a shortage of either.’
‘Then I have a fancy to eat a patty and sip champagne on the terrace.’
‘That was not quite what I had in mind, but, of course, what a lady requests, a lady must have.’ From his smile she could tell he was not put out by her apparent refusal of his lovemaking.
He was teasing me by being outrageous, she realised.
‘And while I am sipping and nibbling we can look to see if there are any pools of water for the lamplight to be reflected in. Simply to admire the effect, of course.’ Two could tease.
‘We might indeed.’ The smile became wicked. Giles gestured to a footman. ‘A plate of savouries—especially the lobster patties—and two glasses of champagne on the terrace, if you please.’
The man bowed and hurried off and Laurel slipped her hand under the crook of Giles’s elbow. She felt a little self-conscious, people were looking at them and she wondered if she would be considered fast if she went outside with him. Or perhaps they were simply looking at him and wondering who the handsome stranger was.
‘You see, there was no need to clutch my arm quite so fiercely,’ he murmured as they stepped outside to find several tables had been placed on the well-lit terrace and a number of couples and a few small groups were strolling up and down, chatting in the cool evening air. ‘No one is going to be pointing a finger at the fast Lady Laurel Knighton going outside with that wicked rake Revesby.’
‘And I do not believe for a moment that you would have done any of those wicked things you were whispering about,’ Laurel said tartly, wondering if she was overreacting to the discovery that Giles did not intend to make an attempt on her virtue in the shrubbery.
Would I have allowed him to?
‘Would you have let me?’ he asked, in an uncanny echo of her thought.
‘I do not think you would have risked my reputation like that,’ Laurel said, suddenly certain. ‘I realised that once I had stopped being flustered and thought about it, or if you had begun to...to take liberties, then I am sure you would have done nothing I was unhappy about.’
Perhaps that was just a little too frank.
‘That is very trusting.’ Giles pushed a glass of champagne closer to her. ‘To assume I would stop if told to, I mean.’ When she looked at him, eyebrows raised, he shook his head. ‘I would have done, of course.’
‘Here is to trust, then.’ Laurel raised the wine glass in a toast. It felt like a momentous declaration. ‘We have lost too many years of our friendship to a lack of it.’
‘To trust.’ Was there something uncomfortable in the expression in those blue eyes that were not quite meeting hers?
‘Do you think that perhaps we have forgiven each other too quickly for there to be real trust between us yet?’ she probed.
‘No.’ Giles offered her the platter of savouries. ‘You see, I even trust you to leave me at least one lobster patty.’
‘Be serious.’ She thought about it, studying him. ‘If we had met the next day we would have straightened things out, talked it through, however upset we both were, wouldn’t we?’
‘We would,’ he agreed, arrested with a sliver of chicken halfway to his lips. ‘I had not thought about it like that, but you are quite right. Somehow, if only we had been able to talk to each other, we would have made it up. Do you realise that if we had, then we would be married by now?’
Laurel dropped the patty she had absentmindedly picked up. Flakes of pastry scattered over the plate.
My instinct had been right all along. He knew we were meant for each other.
Then another reason for Giles’s acceptance presented itself—logical, likely, disappointing. ‘Did you know about those plans of our fathers’ all along? I did not, I had no idea. Would you have agreed to it?’
