Authors: Julia Ross
He glanced back at the broody hen, releasing
Juliet from the ephemeral madness caused by his smile. "Now she has all
those helpless little chicks hidden under her wings while she glares and
bridles at me. Will she suffocate them?"
"If hens were so inept, poultry wouldn't
survive." Her tone was deliberately acerbic. His hand still rested comfortably
on his hip, his fingers whiter than hers, perfectly manicured, yet with a
deadly strength. "As society would fall apart, no doubt, were gentlemen
always
to forgo the formal courtesies."
"Ah," he said. "Ι didn't
bow."
"And thus omitted the true purpose of a
gentleman's scraping his greeting: to negate his inherent male threat."
Expectant chickens came running as she walked up to him. "The obeisance
shows his weaponless hands. The dropped head reveals his intention to be
peaceful-"
"- In spite of the blade at his side? Or
perhaps the presence of sheer loveliness - the simple sunlit ivory and blue of
it - leaves a man bereft."
Her blue smock flamed against her legs, her
wrists ivory in the sun. "Yet even my hen recognizes danger when she sees
it. You think her attitude unreasonable?"
"It's producing. a great many ruffled
feathers without due cause," he replied. "Ι don't intend her any
harm."
"Thus says the fox."
His eyes filled with innocent merriment as he met
her gaze, as if he recognized her own hidden impulse to mirth. "You think
Ι am Reynard, come to prey on innocent chicks? Ι would never aspire
to be a fox in a hen coop. Ι like the hunt to be more evenly matched than
that."
"I’m not sure Tilly thought so."
"Tilly?"
His astonishment seemed genuine. "Your maid? Lud! She's not more
than what - fourteen?"
"She is fifteen."
"It's a valiant concern, but an absurd one.
She is quite safe from me. Ι never create havoc among baby chicks."
"The proximity of the fox creates havoc,
whether he means it or not. When is any servant girl safe from the attentions
of a rake?"
Sunlight glimmered over his hair. "Rarely,
Ι admit. It's commonly understood that a parlor maid will sacrifice her
virtue for two ribbons, whereas the lady's maid will demand three. Yet Ι
have always lived by a code that leaves the maids to their sweethearts."
He slung his jacket over a nearby oak branch. "Does that surprise
you?"
"It only surprises me that you expect me to
believe you never flirt with the maids."
"Flirt?"
Folding his arms, he propped his shoulders
against the dappled trunk. ''Ι have been known to flirt with grandmothers
- an innocent pastime, amusing to both parties. Ι thought we were talking
about a lady's more intimate favors, which Ι
never
purchase,
especially with something as tawdry as ribbons."
Juliet threw the contents of her basket over the
fence. The chickens scrambled to snatch the choicest pieces. "You expect
such favors to be granted freely?"
"Of course, since Ι grant mine freely
in return."
"But there is no equality, is there, between
men and women in such matters? Women give of themselves, men only take."
"That's not true."
"Isn't it?"
He bowed his head. "Ι speak, Ι am
sure, ma'am, from far more experience than you."
"Yet you have never seduced a servant?"
"Never." His voice held pure
wickedness, rich with masculine conceit. "Why would Ι, when the lady
of the house is always willing?"
"Always?"
She laughed. She wanted to snap her fingers in
his face. "Then you admit without a qualm that you are indeed a rake?
"
His smile warmed, like the sun, as he gazed
directly into her eyes. "Do you
wish
me to admit it?"
"It's nothing to me."
"Yet let any gentleman enter a ballroom and
the flutter begins behind the fans:
Is this α man Ι might marry or
is this one of those dangerous, predatory creatures my mother warned me
against?
Α pet dog or a fox: a delicious quandary for any lady of
spirit. She knows the dog is too tame. Must she believe the fox to be too
perilous?"
"You are saying she is wrong to be
wary?"
"No, but only the fox thrills the blood as
he races by after dark."
"Then how much more exciting to run with the
foxes!" Tension made her voice high, too bright. Did he notice? His
expression didn't change, yet layers of intelligent awareness lay in that
casual gaze. "No doubt the hens would agree?"
"Reynard doesn't waste time on tame
chickens, safe in their wattle enclosure," he said. "He has far more
sophisticated tastes."
She felt giddy, as if she were being whirled
around and around in too fast a dance.
"Either way he deals death!" She
regretted her vehemence immediately and paced away.
His voice pursued her, gentle but relentless.
"The lady might think she is dying, but if she is one of the wise - like
you – who knows what she wants, Ι assure you she survives to
die
again
the next night. It's why intelligent ladies prefer rakes: either a man knows
how to bring his lady a pleasure worth dying for, or he doesn't. "
Agitation inundated her veins, a rush of feeling,
heady and foolish. Grass crushed under her shoes as she strode back toward him,
her simple hoops swaying, her heart beating too fast.
"How can you claim to know what Ι
want?"
"Your breathing tells me, as the disorder in
mine should tell you." His eyes spoke of mischief, a jester in a fox mask
reveling in a forest.
"Because you vibrate as if you were the
center of an invisible whirlwind? Because your lace trembles with such a fine
tumult? Ι thought perhaps you were afraid."
"Is that what your rapid tumble of breathing
should tell me? Or your eyes when you look at me, or your supple spine when you
turn away? What about the glorious wisp of chestnut that dances, escaped from
its pins, over your nape? The quick color flooding your skin?"
The laces of her corset constricted like a vise.
"What should they tell you? That Ι am discomposed, embarrassed,
irritated-"
"Nonsense." Laughter lit his voice,
warm and seductive. "The fox knows desire when he sees it. You can't blame
him if he stands and quakes, captivated by the loveliness of it."
Hot color burned her cheeks. Strands of hair
caressed the back of her neck. Her legs wished to fold, to carry her down,
quivering, onto the crushed grass.
"Ι don't claim to be immune," she
said. "But Ι am no baby chick. Ι have my own ways to ward off
spells."
"Spells?"
"Charm," she said. "In the old,
original meaning of the word:
casting a spell.
There is nothing personal
about the charm of a rake, it's as natural to him as his heartbeat. Thus,
there's no honesty in such compliments."
"Yes, there is, Juliet. True compliments are
driven by an exact and passionate observation. The dishonesty is the lady's for
denying the truth."
"The truth is that the intelligent lady does
not prefer a fox, because she resents being used only for his pleasure."
"Unless she wishes to use him for
hers."
"She does not."
He shrugged - the elegant, commanding shrug of
the fencer loosening muscles for a duel. "Then how can she be harmed?"
His gaze held hers, blue on blue. "No lady gives herself to a lover, if
there's nothing in it for her. Why do you so mistrust men, ma’am?"
"Ι do not mistrust men, sir," she
snapped. "Ι mistrust you."
"About
Tilly?
"
His voice
mocked openly, yet the undertones were still melodious, seductive, like the
voice of the incubus, whispering in a dream. "Her infantile thoughts
revolve around her plans for matrimony - eagerly, even lustily anticipated.
She's in love with the woodcutter's son and means to marry him. She told me so
.
It's not for such a downy chick that Reynard gambols and frolics to try to
lure her out into the mysterious night. I'm not interested in Tilly, ma'am.
Ι
am
interested in you."
She retrieved the basket, clutching it against
her blue skirts. "So the compliment becomes a declaration? How very bold,
sir, when all we're committed to is a chess match! You expect me to be
flattered?"
"I expect you to be amused. You are not
likely to succumb. Though a lovely enough rose, you are well surrounded by thorns."
Stray feathers clung to the fence. Α small
clutch of eggs brown, white, speckled - filled a nest of dead leaves under a
bramble that had crept into a corner of the pen. Juliet stared at them. She
hated the image of herself as a prickly, hostile plant - like a thistle or a
stinging nettle.
She bent to reach through the fence to gather the
eggs. "Oh, Ι am amused; but don't try to tell me you aren't
dangerous, sir. The fox isn't all fun and games. You well know how to use that
smallsword, don't you?"
"Would you rather Ι told you Ι
wear it only for show?"
She glanced up. He had moved silently across the
grass to stand beside her, heightening her awareness of him, of his nearness,
of the very scent of him, male and hot, tempered only by traces of fine soap.
He held out one hand to help her up. The beautiful, open hand of a lover.
Without hesitation, she set a brown egg on his
palm. "No doubt you have reveled determinedly enough on a dueling
ground?"
"Men duel because it's the ultimate wager.
Certainly, it's the only one where winning is guaranteed."
"Now you speak in riddles." She
straightened up, keeping her back against the fence. "Victory is never
certain."
"Just to survive is to win." His
fingers closed gently around the egg. "The dead, poor fellows, no longer
have any opinion to express, but every man that survives a duel has experienced
the most intense gamble of his life." He took the remaining eggs from her
hands and set them in the basket. Sunlight gleamed on his hair and warmed his
satin waistcoat to bronze. "The nearer he came to death, the greater the
victory when he emerges unscathed. That's seductive enough to make men crave
it, over and over again. It's like an addiction to wine, an ecstasy."
"Because there's exhilaration in risk?"
She almost laughed, triumphant. "Ι think it an appalling
philosophy!"
His innocent gaze met hers. "Yet you cannot
deny the pleasure in this, can you, ma'am? The purity of debate, the fun of
leaping after an idea, the game of it. Men aren't the only creatures who enjoy
a challenge." The waistcoat flexed over his spine as he gestured toward
her broody hen. "This female is as ferocious as any male."
Juliet opened the wicker gate and went into the
coop. The broody hen ruffled its feathers and fixed its eyes on her face, but
did not move. She knelt and slipped a hand underneath one wing. Her fingers
closed over a soft ball of down, then another.
"This is what the hen defends," she
said, stepping back out of the pen with the tiny chicks cradled in her hands.
"It's the purpose of her whole existence, not just an exercise in
vainglory and arrogance, however amusing that may be."
"Amazing!"
She glanced up at his face, puzzled. His tone was
suddenly serious, even reverent.
A little breeze stirred through the spinney.
Leaves rustled. A soft strand of gold danced against the carved line of male
cheek. He was staring down at the chicks as if fascinated.
Without moving his gaze, he held out one hand,
palm cupped. "May Ι?"
She stared at the corner of his mouth - the
texture of smooth lip against the subtle roughness of a man's jaw. He had
beautiful teeth and such a mobile, expressive mouth! Above the lean line of his
cheekbone, his eyelashes were as long as her own, the lowered 1ids hiding that
disturbing blue gaze.
"Ι should give the chicks directly to
the fox?" She reached for sarcasm, but it came out as a whisper, too
husky. The babies huddled in her hands, as if they could hear the strong beat
of her heart.
He glanced up and smiled again - that thoughtful
smile this time, like a carved saint.
"You trusted me with the eggs."
Juliet felt the impact in her bones, far deeper,
more perilous than the simple flush of arousal. It was as if she had been
racing like a girl in short skirts and was abruptly arrested by a flood of
mysterious adult awareness.
"You know Ι am in truth harmless to
chicks, ma'am," he added gently. "And Ι would like it, very
much."
As if bewitched, she placed the baby birds into
his hands. He cradled them both in one careful palm and stroked their heads
with a fingertip. The chicks huddled down, secure under his caress.
"Lud!" he said. "They're
incredibly soft - except for some remarkably scratchy little feet." He
laughed. "Too bad they're doomed to turn into chickens!"
Her back was pinned against the fence. Unable to
move away, Juliet stared at the babies, so she would not have to look at the
devastating tenderness in his eyes. One chick peeped suddenly, its
beak
a cavity of red in the tiny mottled-brown head. The broody hen launched herself
at the fence, scattering the rest of her brood.