“Aretino? I seem to remember the name, but I’m not sure . . .”
“You definitely don’t remember the name; he’s not an author known to ladies. Aretino was an Italian who specialized in books of naughty drawings that taught me a great deal as a lad. My father had a copy translated into English, though I have to say the language is fairly irrelevant. Ask your husband about his work someday.”
Kate swallowed a grin. She knew exactly where she remembered that name from. She’d discovered Aretino’s School of Venus in her father’s library two years ago. The illustrations were revelatory.
“Here, have some more wine,” Gabriel said. It poured into her glass like stained glass turned liquid, golden, fragrant, heady. “Rupert’s looks, together with his title, have had a bad effect on him.” He smirked. “I know you’ll have a hard time agreeing with me that a title could be an evil influence on a man.”
She laughed aloud. Gabriel making fun of himself and his title was devastating. She felt a ping in the area of her heart and pushed it away.
“He practiced on the household women from the time he was fourteen, until he started practicing on the countryside at large. My father thought it was funny.”
“You didn’t.”
“Rupert could never get his mind around the fact that there was the chance that the women were afraid of losing their positions if they didn’t comply. It’s all fun to him: He sweet-talks them and undoubtedly gives pleasure in bed. But . . .”
“What has happened to his children?”
Gabriel shrugged. “We have a few of them in the castle with us. Along with their mothers, of course. When Augustus castle-cleaned, he threw fallen women out regardless of who tripped them up.”
“That’s just wrong,” Kate said, biting down hard on a piece of candied pear. “But you don’t have any children of your own.” She knew it instinctively. Gabriel was as arrogant a male as a male could be—but the whole castle stood at his shoulder as evidence that he didn’t duck responsibilities.
“Wick would kill me if I started producing false pennies,” he said lazily. “Otherwise I’d be seducing a milkmaid right now.” And he gave her an exaggerated leer that left no space for misunderstanding about the milkmaid in question.
Kate reached over and snatched another bit of pear from his hand. “So Wick has kept you on the straight and narrow. I like it. He’s a good man.”
Gabriel drained his glass. “Believe it or not, Katelet, I like to make love to women who won’t be hurt by my seduction. Otherwise . . .” He gave her a smile that the devil would love to imitate. “Otherwise I’d have you flat on your back in the grass, and you, my girl, would let me have my wicked way with you, title or no. Even if I was a swineherd.”
Her mouth fell open. “Charming! You arrogant beast!”
“I’m falling into the habit of honesty.” He leaned closer. “You’re the one who told me that English people favor uncomfortable truths.”
“I fail to see what that has to do with anything. You are not English. And you’re not irresistible either.”
“Let’s play English and trade uncomfortable truths. You can tell me one first. Or rather, since that’s your stock-in-trade, tell me another.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Tell me something that you think I don’t want to hear.”
“There’s so much that you don’t want to hear,” she said, letting a touch of mockery edge her voice.
“If you’re going to tell me that I’m outrageously handsome, I know it’s not true.”
“You did say truths ,” Kate said. His nose was too large for outrageous beauty, anyway.
He laughed. “True enough, hard-hearted little Katelet. So go on, then.”
“I think you’re . . .” She hesitated.
“Arrogant?” he supplied.
“You know that.”
“Worse?”
“I think that you will break your wife’s heart,” she said, coming out with it.
She surprised him. He turned his head, and hair fell out of its queue, and curled by his shoulder. “Why?”
“Because you intend to leave her, and go dig up this ancient city that you told me about. I can see, anyone could see, that you’re just biding your time here.”
“I told you that myself. You can’t claim particular insight into my character.”
“You’re going to leave for Carthage,” she said steadily, “and that’s not right. It’s not honoring the vows of marriage.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“To have and to hold,” she said. “In sickness or in health. With you off in Carthage, how would you know if your wife fell ill? If she died in childbirth?”
“Her name is Tatiana. And I wouldn’t leave her if she were breeding!”
“How would you know? Women often don’t know for months. To be even more blunt, are you planning not to bed Tatiana for three months before you skive off for Carthage? Because that’s problematic in a different way.”
He sat up. “There are women who don’t want a husband sniffing around their petticoats all the time, you know. You seem to have a very romantic view of marriage in mind, and believe me, it’s not one that I see among royal families.”
“I’ve read about dynastic marriages. Look at our own King James. He never loved his wife; they lived separately, and by some accounts, he loved the Duke of Buckingham better than she.”
“Now you’re shocking me,” he said lightly. But his eyes avoided hers.
“You won’t do it,” she said, suddenly realizing where she’d been blind. “You won’t be able to leave her.”
“To leave?”
She nodded.
“I certainly will leave,” he said, with all the stubbornness of a very small boy insisting that he wants to ride his pony again.
“No, you won’t. It’s not in you, Gabriel-the-Prince.”
“Sods to that,” he said, and with one quick move, he pounced on her, flattening her onto the blanket.
“Ugh!” Kate said, as the breath escaped from her lungs.
He just looked down at her as if the heat of his body wasn’t burning into her limbs.
“This is shocking,” Kate said, sounding like a silly, bleating lamb. But it was taking all her energy not to curl up against him and purr. Rather than wrap her arms around his neck, she made herself shove at his shoulders. “You, sir, are a regenerate!”
He bent his head to one side and she felt his breath against her cheek. “Regenerate? Re generate. Hmmm.”
“Get off of me,” she said between clenched teeth. “You promised.”
“I promised not to kiss you,” he agreed readily. “And I won’t.” His head dipped as she pushed against at his shoulder. “We de generates don’t bother with kisses.” Then softly, wickedly, a wet tongue slid across the plane of her cheek. “Or did you mean that I’m a renegade ?”
“Oh!” A shiver went straight down Kate’s body, a kind of warning, followed instantly by a sweep of warmth. “Get off me!” she squeaked. “You promised not—”