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“Mrs. Ripple,” he said, all affability, “Mrs. Carstairs and I are very grateful for all you’ve done for us. We are, as you know, on our wedding trip.” Victoria shot him a look but he continued, his voice at its blandest. “Indeed, to thank you for seeing after us, we would like you to take a short holiday. My wife and I should enjoy being alone for a while.”
Mrs. Ripple blinked and exclaimed, “But, sir. Who will see to you and Mrs. Carstairs? I really don’t think that’s at all proper. Why, the dear marquess wouldn’t—”
“No, it’s quite all right,” said Rafael. “Truly. My wife here is a fine cook. We will be leaving on Friday. Why don’t you come back Friday morning?”
Mrs. Ripple did her best to appear reticent about Captain Carstairs’ plan, but within fifteen seconds she was nodding and pulling off her apron.
“I don’t know how to make bread,” Victoria said once they were alone again, “and that is what she was doing.”
“I do,” he said. At her incredulous look, he grinned and added, “Actually, I learned in Portugal. I was on a miss . . . er, trip there a couple of years ago—”
“Yes, Rafael, a mission. I’m not completely without brains or hearing. I do not know how you came out of it with a whole skin. I realized by your stories—all of them in places where there is fighting—that you were not a simple ship captain. Now, about the bread?”
“You know something, Victoria? I talk in my sleep, or so I’ve been told. Eventually, when we come together, you are liable to garner enough information to blackmail me into my grave.”
“Bread, Rafael.”
“I learned to make it over a campfire, that’s all. There was an old Gypsy woman who was supposed to do for us—I was with another fellow at the time. But her hands were so filthy I couldn’t see myself eating anything she made, so I did it myself, with her giving me instructions. The bread wasn’t at all bad, actually.”
Victoria rose from her chair. “Shall we, then, sir? To the kitchen and the flour?”
She was no longer angry at him, he thought, trailing after her to the small cottage kitchen. Mrs. Ripple had already left and the bread makings were spread on the oak kitchen table.
He waited until her hands were immersed in sticky dough, then pulled her gently back against him. He slipped his arms about her waist. He lightly nipped her neck just below her earlobe. “Forgive me, Victoria,” he said.
She felt his warm breath in her ear and wondered at him. Surely he was taking a chance, what with her hands covered with bread dough. No, she thought, forlorn, he knew her, knew she would succumb to him as easily as spreading butter.
“I won’t ever again leave you. Or stop, once I’ve begun loving you. Will you forgive me for being such an insensitive clod last evening?”
She drew in a deep breath. Already she was feeling a pervading warmth inching up from her toes. And his hands weren’t moving. But her back was against his front and she could feel the hardness of him.
“Victoria?” His hands opened and his fingers splayed, going downward over her stomach.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against his shoulder. “Why did you do it last night?”
“Because I’m a bloody proper sod, that’s why. You smell so sweet, Victoria, so much a woman.” She felt his teeth lightly nip her earlobe.
“I can’t do anything,” she said after a full minute of sheer enjoyment. “My hands are a mess.”
“That’s all right. Just tell me you don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you. I don’t even dislike you at the moment. There must be something wrong with me.”
She sounded worried, so he kissed her neck.
“I’m not going to go any further, else the bread will never make its way to the oven. All right?”
She wanted him to continue, no question about that, and damn the wretched bread. But she was a lady, she reminded herself, and a virgin, and a maiden, and all those proper things, and she shouldn’t want lovemaking in the kitchen.
“All right.”
He kissed her neck again, then stepped back.
“Now, the next thing we do is add a bit more water.”
She did as he told her. He was delighted in a most basic masculine way to see that her hands were shaking a bit.
Their finished product, both of them agreed, wasn’t a profoundly satisfactory result, but it ranked above Mrs. Ripple’s efforts. They ate the hot bread in the kitchen, smearing it with sweet butter and strawberry jam.
