"Of course you may," Kit replied. "Nathaniel, would you like to be the prince?"
Nathaniel"s enthusiastic nod was quickly overridden by his sister.
"Why can"t Lord Bainbridge be the prince?" demanded Emma, with a shy glance at the marquess.
"Because I have other plans for him," Kit said blithely. "Now, the t.i.tle of this story is the Ramayana, which means "The Story of Rama." "
Emma piped up, "Who"s Rama?"
"Shhhhh, child-don"t interrupt," advised the dowager. Emma bit her lip and fell silent.
"Rama was a great prince," Kit began, warming to her role as storyteller. "He lived in a great city called Ayodhya, and he was a very good and wise man, and a skilled soldier."
Nathaniel popped to his feet, grinning.
Kit paused a moment. The Ramayana was an epic; telling the entire story would last well into the night, not to mention bore the children to tears, so she decided to stick with the most interesting portions.
"Emma, you will be Princess Sita, Rama"s beautiful wife," she continued. "And Your Grace, I would be most pleased if you would play the part of Hanuman, a great monkey warrior."
"A monkey?" blurted Lady Elizabeth. "How rude!"
"Not at all," chortled the dowager. "You see, Hanuman is the embodiment of cleverness and devotion. Very good, child, very good. I shall do my best."
"What about me?" drawled the marquess, a teasing slant to his mouth.
"You, my lord," Kit replied with asperity, "will be Ravana, the ten-headed demon king."
"A demon? Interesting." His smile broadened. "I"ve been called worse."
"I a.s.sume you have a part for me," said Lady Elizabeth.
"There are not many women in the Ramayana, so I will have to think a bit. . . . What about Trijata?"
Lady Elizabeth raised a perfectly arched brow. "And who is Trijata?"
Kit made a moue of embarra.s.sment. "She is a rakshasi-a demoness."
"Well!" huffed Lady Elizabeth, her lips compressed.
"Well, of all the rakshasi, she is one of the kindest," Kit added, torn between mortification and laughter. "She consoles Sita after Ravana has kidnapped her and imprisoned her in his garden."
"This is all in fun, Lady Elizabeth," purred the marquess. "Surely you can play along."
"Oh, very well." But she did not look pleased.
With everyone eager to play their designated roles, Kit began the story. She started with Ravana"s abduction of Sita from the forest and her imprisonment in Ravana"s garden in the island kingdom of Lanka. Emma played a tearful Sita to the hilt, rubbing her eyes and pretending to cry.
Kit went on to tell how Prince Rama sent Hanuman to find Sita and give her Rama"s ring as a token of his love and devotion. The dowager, her face alight with merriment, pretended to dodge imaginary demon hordes until she reached Emma"s side. Then the two of them sat down at the edge of the blanket, giggling.
Finally, Kit staged a rousing battle between her diminutive Prince Rama and the much larger Ravana; Nathaniel took on the marquess with glee, wielding a stick sword, until Lord Bainbridge gave a mighty groan and fell to the gra.s.s. Ravana"s "death" was greeted with cheers and enthusiastic applause. The marquess climbed to his feet and bowed.
"It didn"t hurt when I cut off your heads, did it?" Nathaniel asked.
"Not at all." Bainbridge winked at him. The boy grinned.
Kit"s heart turned over. He was so at ease with the children; it was not hard to imagine him with a little boy and girl of his own. Dark-haired children with green eyes . . . She bit her lip and chided herself for being so foolish.
She praised each of her players, and made sure everyone, especially the children, received a round of applause. After a curtsy to her audience, Emma beamed, then gave a huge yawn.
With that, Miss Pym apologized, saying it was past time for the children"s naps. She gathered the protesting Nathaniel and Emma, then started back toward the house. The marquess stretched himself out on the blanket, his laced fingers pillowed under his head, his eyes closed. Lady Elizabeth asked him if he would row her across the lake; he declined. When he also declined to show her the folly, called the Temple of Virtues, Lady Elizabeth declared that she had had too much sun and would retire to the house. She flounced back up the hill.
"Well, that"s much better," announced the dowager. "I was beginning to think we"d never have a moment"s peace."
Kit chuckled, then became aware that the marquess was watching her through slitted lids. She gave him a warning glance, then pointed with her chin down to the lake. He smiled lazily and closed his eyes. Kit pursed her lips. What was the matter with him? If he would but leave, she could negotiate with the dowager. But he showed no inclination to move, drat him.
After a few moments, the dowager levered herself to her feet. "I do believe I will go down to the temple and see what my grandson is up to," she announced.
"Let me help you," Kit volunteered, and started to get up.
"No, no, child. Stay where you are. You look comfortable, and I fancy a bit of a walk. I shan"t be long." Humming to herself, the elderly woman started back down the hill.
Kit cast a glance over her shoulder-and then looked with more alarm. The footmen had disappeared. She was alone with the marquess. The back of her neck grew warm.
"I really should go with the dowager," she said, rising to her knees.
Bainbridge put a hand on her arm. "No more running away," he murmured.
"I am not running."
A laugh rumbled from his chest. "No, you were going to walk at a very hurried, yet still ladylike pace."
"What do you mean by this?" she demanded.
"By what?"
"The footmen have very conveniently gone missing," she said with a hiss of indrawn breath.
"What if they have?"
"Did you dismiss them?"
"Yes," he admitted with a shrug. "I wanted to spend some time with you without the presence of overly curious eyes and ears."
"Why?"
He gazed at her with a thoughtful frown. "You seem to labor the impression that no one wants to spend time in your company. Do you think yourself so unworthy of attention?"
"Just of yours, my lord."
He released her arm, then c.o.c.ked an eyebrow at her. "My dear Kit, perhaps I am mistaken, but somehow I get the distinct impression that you do not trust me."
"Oh, you are not mistaken in the least, my lord," she shot back.
"When I asked you yesterday, you didn"t give me an answer. So I"ll ask you again-what are you so afraid of? Men? Or is it just me?"
She ducked her head. "No," she mumbled.
"Well, then, sit down. You have nothing to be afraid of; we are still in full view of Their Graces, so I won"t be able to ravish you. At least not now." He smiled, reached back, and opened one of the picnic hampers.
"What are you-?"
He put a finger to her lips. "I have a surprise for you."
Chapter Six.
With a flourish and a wide, wicked grin, Bainbridge presented the bowl to her.
The veiled suspicion vanished from her beautiful green eyes. "Strawberries? This is the surprise?"
"Why? What were you thinking of?" he asked with a chuckle, and popped a small, slightly overripe fruit into his mouth. Juice stained his fingers; he licked them off, his gaze never leaving hers.
She blushed a very becoming shade of pink. "I . . . I . . . Oh, never mind."
He selected another strawberry and presented it to her. "Have one. They"re very good."
The lovely widow hesitated. Her fingers twitched. Then, with thumb and forefinger carefully aligned, she plucked the fruit from his grasp and ate it.
"You see?" he murmured, and set the china dish between them. "It"s exactly what it seems to be."
"And are you, my lord?" she asked.
"Am I . . . what?"
"Are you exactly what you seem to be?"
He paused with a strawberry halfway to his mouth. "Why do you ask?"
Her nostrils flared. "You have a most annoying habit, sir, of answering a question with another question."
"Do I? I hadn"t noticed." He chuckled.
She took another piece of fruit from the bowl and contemplated it. "I asked because I know so little about you."
Bainbridge felt his smile dwindle. "I am a rake and a scoundrel, my dear, albeit a very well-bred one. What more do you need to know?"
She glared at her berry, then at him, as if she were considering throwing it at him. Then she sighed and ate it. "I do not know how they do things in London, sir, but if I am to be your mistress, I would like to know a bit more about you than that."
"But you will not be if our gambit is not successful. That was our bargain."
"We will succeed," she said quietly. "We must. So I believe the two of us should become better acquainted with each other."
A strange sensation began deep in his stomach. For a moment she sounded as though she had resigned herself to success . . . and to becoming his mistress. What was she up to? Was she trying to throw him off his guard, or was her curiosity as innocent as it sounded? Most women seemed content with the knowledge of his name, t.i.tle, and yearly income, with a few other obscure details thrown in as window dressing, but he was quickly coming to realize that Katherine Mallory was not like most women. He lounged back onto one elbow. "What do you want to know?"
She selected another berry. "I"ve told you something about what my life was like when I was young. What about you?"
d.a.m.n. With one swift thrust, she"d gotten down to things he would gladly forget, if given the chance. "My upbringing was rather ordinary," he hedged.
"What about your family? Do you have any brothers or sisters?"
"I had a brother. He died when I was ten." He bit into a large berry, and relished the sensation of his teeth ripping through the yielding fruit.
Her eyes rounded. "I"m sorry," she whispered.
The berry turned tasteless on his tongue. He gulped it down. "You"re bound to hear the story eventually. Nothing t.i.tillates the ton so much as scandal, even twenty-year-old scandal."
"You do not have to tell me, my lord, if the memory pains you so."
"I am not such a coward as all that, ma"am," he said with a humorless smile. " "Tis a simple tale, so I will be brief. My mother and father loved each other once, or so they claimed, but by the time I was five they hated each other with a pa.s.sion. I suspect that was the one thing in their lives about which they felt anything at all. When I was ten, my mother left, and tried to make us leave with her. I refused to go, but she took Geoffrey."
"How old was he?" she asked quietly.
"Six." Bainbridge stared up into the patch of cloud-scattered sky visible through the branches of the tree. "My father rode off in pursuit, of course, but my mother, I learned later, went to great lengths to avoid him, including urging the coachman to breakneck speed. The wheels. .h.i.t a hard rut in the road, the axle snapped, and the carriage crashed to flinders. My father found them moments later. No one survived."
Kit sat motionless, one hand raised to cover her mouth. Telltale moisture glistened at the corners of her eyes.
"No need to shed tears on my behalf," he said, his voice rough. "My mother never cared a whit for anyone but herself. We were well rid of her."
"I do not believe that for a moment," Kit murmured. "I"m sure she loved both you and your brother very much, and that is why she wanted to take you with her. If she hadn"t loved you, she would have left you behind without a second thought."
"I suppose that is one theory." His lips curled in a sneer. "But I rather believe she wanted to torture my father by taking away his precious sons."
"You mentioned something yesterday, that people who fall in love end up hating each other in the end. This is what you meant-it happened to your parents."
"My parents were not the only ones foolish enough to make a love match. Among the members of the ton you see dozens of lovestruck newlyweds mooning over their spouses one year, then taken up with paramours the next. Love is a pointless complication in one"s life."
"Was your father bitter?"
Bainbridge turned away, lest Kit see in his face any shadows of the memories that haunted him. He felt her light touch on his shoulder.
"It"s all right," she said.
His eyes narrowed to mere slits. "I do not want your pity, madam."