My Last Duchess, стр. 61

“At any rate,” she said quickly, taking refuge in words, “no one here in England would have the faintest idea whether yourbirth was irregular or not.”

“I have a responsibility to my brother,” Wick said. But that expression was still there. It was almost . . . tender.

Philippa started rubbing Jonas’s back again. “If I understood the conversation at dinner last night properly, Gabriel assumedresponsibility for this castle along with some members of his brother’s court even though he would have preferred to be anarchaeologist off somewhere . . . Tunis, was it? Looking for a city called Carthage? That seems to suggest that a sense offamilial responsibility does not reside only in the lower echelons.”

Wick laughed at that. “I did my best to persuade him to go to Tunis, but he refused, thinking that he had to provide an incomefor the castle. Then he wrote a book—not to mention married an heiress—and now he is free to go where he wishes.”

“I expect you tried very hard to convince him. I can tell that you are extremely close.”

“He was so miserable before meeting Kate,” Wick explained.

“Yet he can’t manage without you? Would he not wish the same happiness for you?”

There was another moment of silence. Then he smiled down at her. Philippa suddenly thought she would love to kiss him. Shewould give him a scandalous kiss, the kind that Rodney had demanded and she hadn’t allowed.

As if he’d read her mind, he said, “I want to hear more about Rodney.” She should never—never—have told Wick about Rodney. Somehow, during these nocturnal tête-à-têtes, it was hard to keep secrets, and Wick had alreadyguessed she was running from someone.

“Well . . . he has a tendency to start braying when he’s nervous,” she offered, feeling a wicked delight in betraying herformer betrothed.

Wick nodded. “I know the type. I think it goes along with the English ancestry. I expect he hunts, and delights in shoutingabsurdities like tallyho.”

“I expect so,” she said. She could not help but conjure a mental picture of Rodney sitting on his horse in that red huntingcoat that made his buttocks look four times wider than they actually were. Involuntarily, her eyes dropped to Wick’s legs.

They were all muscle, as different from Rodney’s as night from day.

“Are you comparing us?” His voice had gone low and husky.

Her nerves jolted again, but she nodded. She couldn’t lie to Wick any longer, now they were so close. Friends, or perhapseven something more. “You are very different.”

“Perhaps because he’s a baronet’s son.” He didn’t say it bitterly.

“He’s always had everything he wanted, but that doesn’t excuse his fat bottom,” she observed.

“Was he really seven when he fell in love with you?”

“He was nine. I was seven.”

“Astounding,” Wick said, staring at her as if she were some sort of exhibit in a traveling show.

Philippa caught back a smile and tossed her head. “Are you saying, Mr. Berwick, that I was not desirable at age seven?”

“You are as pretty as a fairy-tale princess,” he said, his voice suddenly husky. “I’m quite certain that you were just asenchanting at age seven.”

“I actually used to dream of being in a fairy story,” she admitted.

“Vanity, thy name is woman!” Wick said, pulling a strand of her hair.

“Not from vanity. I always pictured a prince who would ride up on a white horse. I’d be there, in the village square, andhe would sweep across and wrap his arm around me and pull me before him in the saddle.”

Wick’s eyebrow was up. “That would take quite a bit of skill. The story would be so disappointing if you took a hoof to thehead. Was the prince wearing shining armor, by any chance?”

“Naturally,” Philippa confirmed.

“Near impossible,” Wick said. “Scoop a girl”—he pulled back and gave her a quick inspection from head to toe—“who’s no lightweightonto a horse while wearing armor?”

“My prince,” she said loftily, “would have had no problem with the feat. He considered me as light as a feather.” She gave him a look akin to the one he had given her. “That was thanks to his physique,you understand.”

Wick burst out laughing and then stopped suddenly when Jonas fluttered his eyelashes.

“You have no romance in your soul,” Philippa said. She leaned back against the sofa and sighed. “It was only very recently thatI realized the fairy story had more to do with escaping Rodney than being carried off by an acrobatic prince.”

Wick leaned over and peered at Jonas. “Fast asleep.”

“I should bring him back to the nursery. I think he sleeps better in his cradle.”

“No, he sleeps better in your lap.” There was a note in his voice that transformed a simple comment into something altogetherdifferent.

She could feel her cheeks turning pink. Maybe he would lean over . . . maybe he would kiss her. She could almost feel hislips on hers.

But not quite.

So she stood up, and together, in the darkness, they made their way back to the nursery. Wick stood next to her, watchingsilently, as she gently tucked Jonas back into his cradle.

When she straightened and turned around, he was there, just before her. His head bent, slowly, and his lips slipped alongher cheek. She stayed still, her heart beating in her throat, willing his lips to touch hers.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said, low and sweet.

He was looking down at her with velvet dark eyes. He was too beautiful for her, too sophisticated, too princely . . .

“Yes, you should,” she said.