Too Wilde to Wed (The Wildes of Lindow Castle, #2)(44)

There was a heaviness in her voice that he didn’t like. “I would like to kiss every one.”

Diana rolled her eyes. “You’re a terrible liar, as I told you earlier.”

“I’m not lying.”

She snorted. “Tell me five things about yourself, and I promise I can identify each one for truth or falsehood. Do you know, when we were betrothed, I was never quite sure what you were thinking? Now I know that the trick is to watch your eyes.”

That was a delighted smile on her face. North took a careful breath, exerted control over the lower half of his body again, and said, “A gentleman does not fling about his emotions, treating everyone in the room to a display.”

“Why not?”

It was a simple question, and once he thought about it, perplexing to answer. “Perhaps,” he said after a minute, “because so little that we do is private. Ophelia told me once that if she sneezed at the opera the gossip columns would report that she was dying of consumption.”

“The burden of being a duchess,” Diana said, looking delighted at having avoided that fate. Did she truly believe that a coronet wasn’t in her future? Looking into her clear eyes, he knew the answer to that.

Yes. Yes, she did.

Diana believed herself to be his friend. She enjoyed their kiss. She instinctively knew how to make him feel better.

But she did not consider them to be still betrothed, or betrothed again.

It was a pretty tangle, but he had time to work it out. “I’ll tell you five things about myself,” he said, “and you may guess whether they are true or false. From the expression in my eyes.” He grimaced.

“You can’t try to fox me,” Diana said instantly.

“Of course I can! What’s the point otherwise? What do I get if I trounce you?”

“What do I get? You might as well give up now!”

“You get a new pair of slippers,” he said, nudging her bare feet with his shoulder. “And I get a kiss.”

“A kiss is not equal to a pair of shoes.”

“To me it is,” he said. “A kiss is better than shoes.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t mean to be rude, North, but you say that because you’ve never earned a wage.”

“I was paid for my service.” His voice was raw.

Diana didn’t say anything, but what she did was better than words. She turned a little to the side and wrapped a hand around one of his ankles. He had the sudden feeling he’d had the night before: She was tethering him to the ground.

“Very well,” he said, clearing his throat. “Number one: I lost my virginity to a barmaid.”

“False,” she said, smiling at him. Her fingers loosened around his ankle, but he still felt her touch as if she were stroking his leg.

“Number two: I lost my virginity to a married woman.”

“Fal—” She began, and then narrowed her eyes. “True! I can scarcely believe that, North. I would have thought you would respect marriage vows. You seem so . . .”

“Self-righteous?” he suggested.

She dimpled at him. “If the shoe fits.”

“I was a wild stripling. Horatius was alive, and the future was my own. A young beautiful lady, married to an elderly gentleman, had her way with me, to my great enjoyment. Taught me quite a lot too,” he added.

Diana didn’t turn a hair at this statement, which in his estimation would have had a great many maidens fainting, or at least pretending to be shocked. She gave him a wicked twinkle. “It doesn’t seem fair that a lady can’t avail herself of the same instruction before marriage.”

North kept silent a second while he registered the protest that flooded his body at the mere idea of Diana taking instruction from any man other than himself. Diana taking instruction? He had the sense that she would teach a man—him—things that couldn’t be learned from an adulterous affair, no matter how genial.

“I would be happy to teach you anything you wish to know,” he said, keeping it simple.

“Men!” she said, laughing. “You instinctively turn the simplest remark into an invitation, don’t you? Leonidas—” She jolted to a stop, like a colt encountering a wall too high to jump.

“My brother Leonidas,” North said, his heart pounding steadily, “is just your age, isn’t he?”

“He is a month or two younger,” Diana said, her eyes wary. “He’s a terrible flirt, but no more than that.”

North was fairly certain that his face was inscrutable. “Three: I have every faith that Leonidas would not try to seduce my former fiancée.”

“False,” Diana said, with a small but triumphant grin. “You look uncertain around the eyes. Leonidas has only tried to seduce me if offering witticisms count. I suppose if I were a silly, green girl I might have fallen in love with him. That’s number three, and so far I’ve been right every time.”

North pulled himself together because he was behaving like an irritable toddler. He picked up one of her feet.

“No!” she said, trying to pull her legs back, which made her skirts slide up, much to North’s approval.

Grinning at her, he dug his thumbs into the bottom of her foot. “Those shoes must have been miserable to wear.”