A Gentleman Never Tells(91)

He jerked away. “Did I hurt you?”

Gabrielle froze. The book. “Ah, ah, no. I’m fine.”

“Something hurt you,” he said and reached behind her and found it.

Gabrielle gasped and grabbed for the book. But Brent was too fast for her.

She felt as if her blood ran cold as she fastened the front of her dress. “Let me have that,” she whispered.

“Why?”

“I-I, nothing,” she said, thinking quickly. “It’s just a book. Throw it down and kiss me, Brent.”

He still leaned over her, so she reached up and placed her lips to his. She felt him respond involuntarily and, for a moment, he melted into the kiss. She smiled against him.

All of a sudden he rolled away from her and rose from the settee. He opened the book as she lunged at him.

“No!”

He grasped her wrist as she grabbed for the book that he held just out of her reach. “I knew something must have been going on when you started touching me. Why don’t you want me to know what you are reading?”

He let go of her wrist and opened the book. Heat flamed in her cheeks as he read out loud, The Art of Being a Most Pleasing Mistress .

His brow wrinkled in surprise. “You were reading this?”

“No, no.” She blinked rapidly.

The corners of his mouth lifted in a smile. “Yes, you were.”

How dare he be so amused by her horror? “All right, yes,” she said haughtily. “If you must know, I was reading it.”

He flipped through a few pages. “And what did you learn?”

If he could find her situation amusing, she would be damn if she’d be embarrassed about it. She lifted her shoulders and her chin. “I learned that men like to have their golden orbs rubbed when they are tense, so I was trying to please you by rubbing them.”

His smile turned into a wide grin. He nodded as if he understood, but when he saw she was not amused, he cleared his throat and said, “What exactly are my golden orbs, Gabrie?”

The look on his face could only be called predatory, heated. Primal. And she felt a decidedly inappropriate need to do more than fondle his orbs.

She pulled her shoulders back. “Your ears, of course.”

That heated look mixed with surprise before he burst out laughing.

Gabrielle huffed in exasperation. “Why are you laughing? You are being most unkind when all I was trying to do was please you.”

He faced her again, trying his best to contain himself. “You do please me, Gabrielle.”

“That is the real problem,” she blurted. “I have been trying to make myself unacceptable to you as a wife. I don’t want to please you. It says in this book a gentleman doesn’t like for his wife to do these things, like squeezing and fondling his golden orbs, but it is okay for his mistress to do it.”

Laughter was bright in his eyes and on his lips again, but he managed to say, “You want to be my mistress?”

“No, of course not,” she said, completely shocked by the suggestion. “I thought if I did something only a mistress knew how to do, you might be angry enough that you wouldn’t want to marry me.”

He chuckled low in his throat. “Oh, no, Gabrie, that is not going to happen.” He took the book and placed it back in her hands. “By all means, keep reading this and learn all you can. It will be my pleasure for you to show me all you have learned after we are married.”

Her shoulders dropped in defeat.

“And as far as the golden orbs you were reading about—they are not ears. You will learn exactly what they are on our wedding night.”

He turned and walked out.





Eighteen



Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

—Mark Twain

Golden orbs!

Brent smiled and his body tightened every time he thought about his encounter with Gabrielle yesterday afternoon, and that was often. She had bewitched him. If she hadn’t been sitting on his lap, caressing his ears with such tenderness, tempting him with her kisses and touches, he would never have agreed for her to meet him in the park and come with him to follow Godfrey. It was really something he should be doing alone, but given the circumstances of what she had been doing at the time, how could he have denied her anything she wanted?

Brent chuckled to himself. Golden orbs!

She was unbelievable! And oh, so tempting. After yesterday, he could hardly wait to make her his wife.