Chapter Thirty-One
Kate waited, impatient to hear what Celine would say. She wanted to know what it would feel like to have Celine’s insight turned wholly on herself. Whether it would feel how she suspected it might.
Celine faced away from her, ribbons flying. Only her mouth and chin were visible at this angle. The stiff shoulder caps of her pelisse were hung with small golden bells, and she jingled as the phaeton sped along, a happy, festive sound.
Animate. Alive. Essential.
Celine turned, her eyes far prettier than any ribbon. “Tell me about this horse we’re going to see.”
A measured place to start, though Kate would happily take the invitation to rave about him.
“His name is Bold Titus. His sire was Excalibur, a hunter of great renown belonging to Lord Vane. He died last year when he went into a ditch wrong and broke two legs. I was there, actually. You never want to hear a horse scream in pain, believe me.”
The chestnut pair were unusually agreeable, responding to the lightest signal from her, and the weather was very fine. She hadn’t thought it possible she would so thoroughly escape the anxieties of London—especially when the greatest of her anxieties rode beside her.
“His dam is Eve’s Lament, the mare who won every Newmarket race three years running.
She birthed five living horses, of which Bold Titus was the last, and undoubtedly the best. He’s the kind of horse that comes along perhaps once every hundred years—a meeting of bloodlines and temperament that feels almost divine.
Mr. Benson will be able to live in style for the rest of his days off what he’ll get for him.
One man’s come from Russia, I’m told, with the hopes of buying him.
But Mr. Benson has held off selling until I could come. ”
Celine’s eyes sparkled in the sun. “And you think you’re going to look very impressive riding him.”
She did. She would. “How do you figure that?”
“Otherwise, you wouldn’t have bothered to bring me along. You must want to impress me rather badly.”
She had asked to be seen, yet the truth embarrassed her, she reflexively denied it. “Nonsense.”
Unfazed, Celine murmured, “Will you like it very much, when I am impressed?”
She couldn’t help how her body suddenly warmed, how it would be visible on her face.
Celine came closer to her on the seat. She turned her body in towards Kate’s, laying her hand lightly at the top of Kate’s thigh. “Do you want to find out what else I’m willing to find impressive about you?”
Heart pounding, she looked sardonically down at Celine and said, “I don’t have that piece of anatomy, I’m afraid.” But it was working. Obvious, clichéd, overdone. And still, it was working on her. Had Celine really known that it would?
Celine came so close that the brim of her bonnet blocked out the sun.
“You’ll have to go easy on me, Your Grace,” she murmured, a tremor of doubt in her voice.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to take it all.
I’ve never … I’ve never done this before.
” She gazed up at Kate with those eyes that had been purpose-made for the slumbrous flush of desire and bit her lip, wetting it. “Will it hurt when you put it in?”
Kate pulled back, horrified. Scandalised and delighted. God, how this was working on her!
“Ah! You’re so big,” Celine went on in a hushed agony.
“It’s such a queer, overwhelming intrusion I can barely think.
I feel like if you put any more in me, I won’t survive it.
” She squirmed on the seat beside Kate, pressing closer still.
“Won’t you put your hand between my legs and comfort me, Your Grace? ”
Kate’s vision whited out, and the reins slipped forward through her hands. She cursed and grasped them tight, shaking her head to clear it. She had called it art; Celine had called it professional skill. But it was a strain of genius, surely, to be able to coax such a swift response from her.
Celine had returned some distance between them and was laughing at her. “How easy you are.”
This wicked, playful girl was a facet of Celine she hadn’t seen before. A sparkling Peitho, making Kate see stars with a few choice words.
It was enough. More than enough. She should gratefully maintain the space Celine had given her and turn the conversation to other matters.
She should ask Celine about her preparations for the ball.
She should ask Celine whether she would write to Lord Burnley and how quickly after his proposal she wished to marry.
“More,” she said. “Show me what else you can do.”
Celine stilled in surprise, and briefly, Kate thought she might not continue.
But then she closed the distance between them.
More than closed. The weight of her body came against Kate’s, and everywhere their bodies touched was warm.
Celine wrapped one hand over Kate’s shoulder and said quietly into her ear, “Shall I tell you it’s not the horse that impresses me, and it’s not the title, either?
It’s you. You, whose like comes along perhaps once every hundred years.
You, who were made by a meeting of bloodlines and temperament that feels almost divine. ”
A shiver ran over her whole body at the words; Celine would feel it. Heat washed through her. “More,” she growled.
Celine gave a breathless laugh and pressed herself even closer. “I adore you,” Celine whispered.
She listened in amazement to her frantic breathing, felt the hectic flush that covered her neck and face.
The conversation had progressed from flattering interest to bawdy arousal and now teetered on the edge of Kate’s most taboo desire.
It was a display of consummate skill. She looked down at Celine and said intently, “More.”
For a moment, there was nothing but a kind of blank surprise on Celine’s face before finally, she began to smile. It was a wicked, wicked smile that lit up her eyes. “I love you,” Celine said ardently, the words formed and thrown by her vulgar mouth.
Kate bit off a curse and looked away.
“I love you,” Celine said with sadistic thoroughness. “I love you.”
She was constantly underestimating Celine and constantly paying for it.
Perhaps she should have taken warning from their night together in Paris.
Perhaps if she hadn’t so thoroughly closed the door on it, she would have remembered how there was nothing Celine wouldn’t do, no intimacy she wouldn’t give or receive.
Perhaps from the first moment she saw Celine in London, she would have felt the level of caution Celine merited.
“Well?” Celine said smugly. “Have I proven myself?” She had returned to her own side of the seat. It didn’t seem to matter. Kate could still feel her.
She had to clear her throat a couple of times before she could answer. “You know you have.”
No lover had ever intuited her desires the way Celine had just done. Celine had unravelled her using only words. What would it feel like if Celine brought the skill of her body to bear as well? If she had put her mouth on Kate’s neck, and her hand between Kate’s legs?
Kate swore again.
She hadn’t at any time forgotten it was a performance, a demonstration, but while she raged with desire, the ease with which Celine now dropped the act and returned to normal conversation was hard to swallow.
She thought, jealously, of the lovers Celine had had in Paris.
Then she remembered those lovers had enjoyed the performance and never known the woman.
Which would Lord Burnley have? She thought of Celine’s eyes opening this morning and the warmth with which they’d regarded her. Her face grew hot again.
If you think I’ll let you near me, then you have taken absolute leave of your senses.
“I hope Mr. Benson has thought to provide a tea on our arrival,” Celine said in an easy, unselfconscious voice. “A day out in the countryside is such a rare treat. You must tell me about your country estates, Duke, I know nothing about them.”
Thus, Celine drew Kate into measured, pleasurable conversation, and slowly Kate was able to forget her embarrassment, her confusion. She was able to enjoy the sunshine and the company, to think with anticipation of the horse she was going to buy.
It was greater proof than anything that had come before it of Celine’s skill.