Disastrously, he did.
“I have kissed Mr. Dour.”
“Oh?”
“It was not that grand an experience. Not particularly memorable.”
“You were kissed badly, then.” How could Dour have botched it so?
Her eyelashes fluttered and her fire-warmed cheeks pinked. “There’s better kissing to be had?”
George chuckled. “Yes.”
“Is not it improper to be speaking of such things?”
“Very much so.” In fact, he should turn the conversation immediately.
Jane grinned up at him. “Then let's do more of it.”
He wanted to groan at the impossible attraction tightening his muscles and seeping into his bones. No, not seeping. It had been there for a while. He only now awakened to it. He wanted to do more of something else with her, not talking.
Instead, he reached across the crackling space between them to tweak her nose. “You’re a minx.”
She ducked backward, out of his reach, merriment in the curve of her lips. “And you love it.”
He rather did. He enjoyed it quite a bit. He enjoyedhereven more. More than he should. Always had, but more so today.
“Mr. Dour said he and I should try kissing again. Should I? Do you think it, he, will improve?”
This, George did not trust himself to answer until he’d pushed down and smothered into oblivion the instinctual answer that had risen in him—absolutely not. He was helping her, not further confusing her. He must answer for her benefit, not his own.
“Ifyouwish to. I trust him not to take things too far.”
“You do not think it beyond the pale for an unmarried miss to test her kisses before taking a husband?”
“I do not, odd as it may sound.”
She shifted her jaw from side to side as she considered him. “It is odd. But it’s wonderful, too.”
“You should choose Mr. Dour. He’s smart enough. You’re attracted enough to him to welcome his advances, and—”
“I do not choose him. Not yet at least. Let’s continue.” She blushed bright red. “What else?”
Thank God.He never should have waded into that mire to begin with. His brain began to beat against his skull.
“That is enough to think about for the moment. You should rest, Jane.” George said.
Somewhere during their conversation he’d stopped addressing her formally. It seemed to change how he viewed her. Lady Jane was untouchable, a phantom of delight moving always out of reach. But Jane… Jane was a woman rolled round in earth’s diurnal course, touchable among other things.
The throbbing of his headache demanded all his attention. He closed his eyes and tried using slow steady breaths to tame it.
“Does anything help the pain,” Jane asked in the darkness.
“Rest. The doctor says time.”
“Will you ever tell me about the laudanum?”
He opened his eyes as the headache abated and attempted a sigh. “Perhaps one day. When you're an aged woman, and I'm an aged man and have nothing better to do with my time than dote upon you and Mr. Dour’s offspring.”
