“Ah!” Elisa cried, walking faster.
“Why rush?” Parth drawled. He hated the thought of peering up at a man stupid enough to take up rope walking as a profession. Elisa tugged at him in vain until, thwarted, she dropped his arm, and ran ahead to join the ladies.
North had drawn Diana to the side and was, from the sound of it, amusing both of them by making claims about what he would look like in tight pantaloons.
With a shock, Parth realized that he was being as sour as Elisa had charged. He had reconciled himself years ago to having a sober countenance—“Sulky Sterling,” as Lavinia once called him—yet his face rarely reflected his inner feelings. Many times when she would dash past him, flinging insults, he had had to stifle laughter.
But now?
There was nothing flirtatious in Lavinia’s eyes this evening, nothing disappointed or angry. She spoke to him as if he were a mere acquaintance.
Which, he supposed, was precisely what he was.
At that moment, a tightrope walker made his appearance above them. Parth saw instantly why the entertainment had become so notorious among ladies. This fellow was wearing a pair of skin-tight white pantaloons that glowed in the light of the fairy lanterns hanging from the rope on which he balanced.
Parth met North’s eyes and had one of those moments of complete accord that happen to men who are brothers in heart, if not in blood.
“Stuffed,” North mouthed over Diana’s head. His future wife had her head tipped back and was staring with fascination at the man, who was blowing kisses and generally behaving like a fool. He even started dancing on the rope, risking life and limb.
But then, what man wouldn’t, given the three beauties who were gazing up at him?
With a surge of outrage, it struck Parth that the rope walker was able to look down the ladies’ bodices. That wad of stuffing he had down his pantaloons was probably growing by the moment.
Parth caught the man’s eyes. The fellow had an instinct for self-preservation, because he blew a last kiss and nimbly ran on.
Aunt Knowe made a face. “I’m not sure about the authenticity of what we just witnessed, my dears.”
“He looked as if he’d put a marrow down his pantaloons,” Elisa gasped, starting to giggle uncontrollably.
“That’s it!” Lavinia said, giggling as well.
“I believe a stocking filled with sand might be a good explanation,” Aunt Knowe said. “If the sand was heavy enough, it might even help him balance. What do you think, gentlemen?”
“I wouldn’t want to speculate,” North said.
“Did you happen to notice that fabric his pantaloons were made from, Diana?” Lavinia asked.
“No, but they fit extraordinarily well!” Diana chortled.
“I’m not considering his front, but his rear,” Lavinia said thoughtfully. “I wonder if the fabric was cut on the bias.”
Parth would have scowled, but he had resolved to show a more cheerful countenance.
Elisa clapped. “I’m sure there will be another rope further ahead, ladies! All we have to do is walk there, wait for a performer to appear, and inquire about his pantaloons.”
“I’ll ask him to leap down,” Lavinia said, nodding.
Elisa had linked arms with Aunt Knowe, which left Parth free to take Lavinia’s arm. She blinked up at him, startled.
“Why are you so interested in pantaloon fabric?” he asked.
“The type of weave can make a difference in how fabric fits the body,” Lavinia said. She went on about biases and selvages, not caring that she was essentially admiring another man’s arse. Parth wrestled with that all the way up the path.
The other women were galloping ahead in their excitement to encounter another one of those rope walkers, but Parth kept Lavinia to a decorous stroll. Finally, the group ahead turned a corner, leaving that stretch of path unoccupied. Except for them.
Lavinia didn’t notice.
Normally he would feel a swell of disdain at the idea of a woman so excited by tailoring that she didn’t notice he’d stopped walking. Just now Lavinia was standing in front of him, holding his sleeve for emphasis, speaking so fast that words were tumbling out of her mouth.
Lavinia had never talked to him this way before.
He didn’t know half the terms she was using. If he understood her right, Mr. Felton had a new loom that created cloth . . .
“Cut on the bias?” he asked.
Her face fell. “You didn’t understand?”
“My fault, not yours,” he said instantly. “Tell me again. I’m interested in mechanical looms, but I haven’t heard of this particular method.”
So she did. Parth Sterling stood in the twilight darkness of a meandering footpath in Vauxhall Gardens and listened as Lavinia told him about the new loom that would soon be producing exquisite patterned silks, right here in Britain. Mr. Felton could charge twice as much for it as he might for an ordinary satin. And if the fabric were cut on the bias, she had the feeling that . . .
She lost him again, because she went off into a digression about a new dye made from quercitron, whatever that was.
“Do you see what I mean?” she demanded.
“I agree that offering small bolts in unique colors is an excellent idea.”
“That’s what I told him,” she said, satisfied. Then she tugged on his arm. “I’ve been talking your ear off, Mr. Sterling. I’m so sorry. Let’s catch up with the others.”
“Why ‘Mr. Sterling’?” he growled.
She blinked at him. “I’ve already apologized for the childish names I called you. I am truly sorry. I promise never to treat you with such disrespect again.”
Parth felt like howling, but he just nodded.
Lavinia started down the path.
“We could call each other by first names,” he said, clearing his throat and coming to a halt again. In a moment they would turn the corner. He could hear Aunt Knowe’s hooting laugh somewhere ahead of them.
“It’s better that we don’t,” Lavinia said, not looking at him. “We have a history of hurting each other’s feelings.”
“What? When have I hurt your feelings?” The question burst from him with the force of a pistol shot.
She raised her eyes, and even in this dim light he could make out the rueful smile in them. “Oh, you probably never meant to,” she said lightly. “We must rejoin the others. Elisa will be wondering where you are.”
Parth didn’t budge. “I would never wish to hurt your feelings.”
“I know. I do know,” she insisted, apparently recognizing his dismay. “I don’t mind in the least. You are . . . You are entitled to your opinion about me, and I completely understand. It’s just that I . . .”
“You what?” The feelings crowding his chest were growing violent.
But where most people—bankers and factory owners among them—quavered in fright when he took that tone, Lavinia merely surveyed him and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter; it really doesn’t.”
He caught her hands in his. “It does to me.”
Lavinia was as stubborn as Aunt Knowe, which was really saying something. She shook her head again, not unkindly, but with conviction. Many a frustrated businessman had seen a similar certainty on Parth’s face, usually when he was pointing out a logical flaw in their manufacturing process.
Parth’s gut clenched with frustration. Some part of him knew that it was illogical to be frustrated.
But his logical faculties seemed to have been swept away. He pulled her closer, watching as her eyes grew bigger.
Then Lavinia made a fatal error. “Mr. Sterling?”
He was not Mr. Sterling to her. In fact, he thought savagely, he would never be Mr. Sterling to her. He was Parth.
Parth’s mouth closed on hers before the last syllable of his name left the air, and Lavinia’s mouth opened as if they had been lovers for years. His tongue slid into her mouth and he heard a stifled whimper, before her arms wrapped around his neck. He murmured somet
hing and bent his head to kiss her harder.
A proper lady would be shocked and appalled. Lavinia moved closer to him, close enough that he could feel her breasts press against him. Her hands slid into his hair and held him so fiercely that he told himself that she felt as frantic as he did.
One hand came up and cupped the back of her head so he could plunder her mouth. The other stayed at the small of her back. Even though every blinding impulse in his body was urging him to slide his hand over Lavinia’s arse, one didn’t—
Bloody hell.
One didn’t kiss ladies like this, rough and possessive. Hell, gentlemen didn’t kiss like this. And yet he couldn’t stop. She tasted better than anything—anyone. She tasted like honey and spice, like brandy and excitement.
Dimly, he was aware that blood was thundering through his veins . . . from a mere kiss.
He stopped himself just as his treacherous hand was about to slide down her rump and pull her even closer. Lavinia’s arse was his weakness, and it always had been. Other men lusted after her breasts, which were magnificent. Her lush mouth, her sweet but naughty eyes, her laughter. God, there were so many things.
Parth only had to visualize the lush curve of her arse and he was hard as rock, breathless, ready to fall at her feet.
The realization shocked him, and he ended the kiss. Lavinia opened her eyes. Annoyed. She was annoyed.
“Kiss me again, Mr. Sterling,” she ordered, her voice husky. She tugged at his hair and he dived back into the kiss as if it had never ended.
What shocked him the second time was the sound that came from his own throat. It was something like a groan, but more desperate, deeper. It sounded a bit like the word “honey.” Surely he didn’t let that word slip . . . even though he thought of it whenever he saw Lavinia’s hair unpowdered.
Gold was commonplace.
Honey? Honey lasted for years. It was pure and never spoiled, never changed. It was sweet and good and—
He broke away yet again.
Lavinia looked up at him, her eyes half lidded, her mouth swollen from his kisses. She looked dazed and . . . and desirous.
“I’ve kissed many men, you know,” she said suddenly. “I told you that before.”
Parth took a step backward. That was not what he wanted to hear at this exact moment, though honestly, he had no idea what he did want to hear.
She stared at him as if his face was a puzzle she was trying to work out. “You kiss like . . .”
“No comparisons,” he barked, and then cleared his throat. “I don’t care who I kiss like. That was a mistake and it won’t happen again. I apologize.”
Then he watched as the dazed—or was it dreamy?—expression left her face. Her gaze flicked to his mouth, and then to the ground.
“Damn it, you agree with me, don’t you?” he said, feeling a bit sick.
“Certainly,” she said flatly. “I completely agree. I understand. You don’t like me and all this darkness probably went to your head.”
“I like you,” he snarled. “What in the hell are you talking about?” In the back of his mind, he was remembering how he’d described her to North.
Worse: She saw the truth in his eyes.
Her teeth closed down on her plump lower lip for a brief moment. Then she gave him a wry smile. “It’s all right, truly it is. It was a very instructive experience.”
“What was?” he rasped.
“Hearing that you find me ‘shallow as a puddle.’ I suspected it, but I . . . I had managed to convince myself that I was exaggerating the distaste I saw in your eyes.”
Parth stared at her, unable to find the right words, horrified to his core.
“Are you two bickering again?” Aunt Knowe called, appearing at the turn of the path. “Come along! Elisa has charmed one of the tightrope walkers to the ground, and she’s chattering at him in Italian, and I believe he’s going to remove his pantaloons and give them to her.”
Lavinia turned away with a blinding smile. “Of course we are not bickering, Lady Knowe.”
She joined his aunt, and the two of them rounded the bend while Parth stood in place, feeling like an idiot. Like the stupidest, most idiotic boy in the classroom. Like a man who didn’t know the answer to a simple problem.
He had always known precisely who he was—the equal of any man in polite society, even if he didn’t choose a courtier’s life. But now he was an ass, who’d said a cruel thing about a lady, a cruel, untrue thing, and it had been repeated, and she had heard it—and he could never take back that moment.
He saw in Lavinia’s eyes just how much it had hurt her.
Bloody hell.
His cock was aching for a woman whom he’d cut to the bone unfairly. She wasn’t shallow.
Not at all. In truth, he suspected she was one of the most intelligent women of his acquaintance. She was a woman who investigated and learned, and was interested in finance and business.
“Bloody hell,” he said aloud, the words slipping from his lips unbidden. Naturally she thought he was a pretentious ass. Because he was. Had been.
How many times had Alaric and North—and even Horatius—assaulted someone at school, and he’d discovered later it was on account of a remark a boy had made about him? He’d never forget Horatius holding a boy down and pounding him for saying that Parth wasn’t born a Wilde, so he couldn’t be a Wilde.
“Parth was born to be a Wilde,” Horatius had bellowed, defending him.
Better than anyone, he knew that insults eventually found their way to the person described. But he had forgotten it when he said that cruel, untrue remark about Lavinia.
Bent on apologizing, he started toward the sound of women’s laughter up ahead.
When he turned the bend, he found a slender performer with a halo of curly hair standing in the middle of the path, wrapped in North’s black cloak. Eyes shining, the man was babbling in Italian.
“Parth!” North called. “Will you please come over here and try to make the women in our family behave like ladies?”
Lavinia was turning a pair of white pantaloons over in her hands. As he watched, she gave a sharp pull at one of the legs and nodded, turning to his aunt and showing her the fabric.
A growl rose in his throat before he could stop it. She was handling a pair of breeches that a man had just removed.
Parth was headed straight toward Lavinia when North caught his arm.
“What are you doing?” North hissed.
A muscle jumped in Parth’s jaw. “She’s handling that garment that was just—”
“She’s interested in the fabric. The fabric.”
It took a moment, but Parth regained control. Lavinia had bundled up the borrowed item and was returning it to its owner.
Elisa turned around with a huge smile. “Parth, caro, you must meet Lorenzo. He’s from Rome, and he hates walking up and down these ropes all night long.”
“Buona sera,” Parth said, forcing himself to smile and shake hands with the man who’d removed his breeches in front of ladies. He shouldn’t blame him. Very few men could resist Elisa and Lavinia when they banded together.
Poor Lorenzo was looking from one woman to the other with the adoring eyes of a stray dog.
“He’s been treated despicably,” Elisa exclaimed. “My mother was Roman, did you know that, Parth?”
It seemed Lorenzo would be joining Elisa’s household as a groom, or a footman, or perhaps a household rope walker.
“I must give a week’s notice,” he said, which Parth respected. “There are not so many people who can walk a rope.” After wriggling into his pantaloons within the shelter of North’s cloak, he returned the garment, bowed, jumped to the rope, swung himself up, and walked away backward, waving.
Elisa slipped her hand under Parth’s arm. “I love your family,” she said, beaming. “I didn’t realize, you know. I thought you were merely acquainted with the duke. But the Wildes are your family, are they not?”
Elisa was looking at him with a
sparkle in her eye. Damn it. Her smile widened. “I believe I might marry you.”
Parth flinched, and her laughter rang out.
“You thought I didn’t know you were courting me?”
“You showed no signs of it,” he said cautiously. “I had the idea you wanted to marry Lord Roland.”
“I could never marry a man called North,” Elisa said, giggling. “I’d have to call him Roland, which he wouldn’t like.” She laughed again, and hugged his arm closer to her side. “In any case, the question is theoretical: He is desperately in love with Miss Belgrave.”
Parth didn’t feel like laughing.
“I shall not be a duchess.” Elisa shrugged
“Elisa,” Parth said, not knowing how to continue.
“You must continue to woo me,” Elisa said. “I am not ready—”
She caught the look on his face, and her sentence broke off. “Caro, you don’t wish to marry me any longer, do you?”
Parth’s jaw tightened. “Indeed I do.”
He didn’t.
Elisa started chuckling. “I’m glad that I didn’t develop a fancy for you! All the same, I will not let you off your promise to take me to Lindow Castle for the wedding, so you are stuck with me for a few months at least. Stuck? Isn’t that right?”
Parth found his lips curling into a reluctant smile. Elisa was adorable, and he genuinely liked her. “I am happy to be stuck with you, Contessa.”
She came up on her toes and kissed him, not on the cheeks the way she usually did, but right on the mouth. Her lips clung to his for a moment with a sweet regret that suggested she had truly considered marrying him.
He felt nothing.
Except when he looked over her head and caught Lavinia’s eye. He felt something then.
“Lady Knowe and I are returning to the table,” Lavinia called, smiling as if it were inconsequential to see him kissing another woman no more than ten minutes after he’d kissed her.
“Andiamo, caro,” Elisa said, turning in the direction of the table. “It’s too dark out here.”
Feeling hollow was a new sensation, and one Parth found disagreeable. It was an echo of what he’d felt when Lavinia repeated his insult, and he’d seen in her eyes that he’d hurt her.