Meg ducked beneath the garland draped along the eaves of the hut to inhale the aroma of the scrumptious lebkuchen. The aunts had already slipped away to ferret out the best recipe at the bakery—or rather, the Konditorei—around the corner.
Smiling to the shopkeeper in a yellow kerchief and apron, Meg nodded in agreement to the price. After paying a few groschen, the paper-wrapped cake was handed to her. Then she was invited to partake in a small cup of delicious water that tasted like cherries. And this was not the first cup.
In fact, with every purchase she had in her overladen basket, she had been invited to partake. And she had partaken with much delight.
“Danke schön,” she said with a wiggle of her fingertips before she continued to stroll along.
The market served as a lovely distraction to leaven the somber mood she’d been in these past few days, ever since departing from Paris.
It was silly, she supposed, to have imagined that the duke would show up at their coaching inn. And if not that one, then the one after that. Surely, a man didn’t say such knee-melting things to a woman—like I’ve been wondering if you would taste like icing . . . all sweet and dissolving on my tongue—and never intend to see her again.
For the first few days, Meg even told herself that if he did appear, she would choose him to be the object of her grand flirtation. And she had been determined to employ every single F to ensure that it was unforgettable.
But he never came.
Therefore, she decided to put him from her mind, and this lovely water was certainly helping.
Yet, somewhere between the lebkuchen and the stollen, she thought she saw a tall and dark figure out of the corner of her eye. The downy hairs on the back of her nape lifted and her stomach swooped in anticipation. She turned quickly . . . but he wasn’t there.
And he isn’t going to be, she told herself. Dukes didn’t pursue almost-on-the-shelf debutantes. They didn’t leave their homes, sail to France and traipse through Germany for the chance of meeting one in a village market, no matter how exceptionally pleasant the market was.
She sighed. It was all true. But at least the vendors were friendly—and far more than the duke had been—always inviting her to sample the fruits and even more of their signature water. And underneath the lovely blanket of warm sunlight, the air smelled sweet and fresh and made her feel giddy.
Then again, the dizzy sensation might have occurred because she heard a familiar voice just then.
“Nein, danke,” the voice said, the words curt, low and gruff, and her heart quickened.
She darted a glance over her shoulder. Searching just beneath the ruffled edge of her parasol, she happened to spot the golden glint of light bouncing off a pair of spectacles just before the owner of that voice retreated into the shadows between two stalls.
She gasped. Could it be? Was the Duke of Merleton actually here?
She faced forward again, her head spinning. It couldn’t have been her imagination. Could it?
Whatever the answer, she could do nothing to control the excited flurry of her pulse, her blood fizzing through her veins like bubbles rising up along the inside of a glass.
Across from her, a vendor hailed her with a friendly “Fair Fräulein” and proceeded to tell her about his drinking horns for sale. They were attached to a leather strap that one wore slung over the shoulder and across the body. Distractedly, she told him they were very fine, but she could not see herself wearing such an adornment. He gave a hearty laugh and a wink and offered her a taste of the local beverage with good-natured hospitality. And since it would have been quite rude not to partake . . . she partook without spilling a drop.
Under the fuddling influence of a potential duke sighting and countless sips of this miraculous water, she decided that Brandon needed one of these and handed over a fistful of groschen to the agreeable man. As she did, she risked another sly peek over her shoulder.
This time, there was no mistaking it. He was here! And he was glowering at the vendor for some unknown reason, but that was neither here nor there. All that mattered was that her plans to have a grand flirtation with Lucien were still possible.
She bit into the cushion of her bottom lip to keep from smiling too broadly. For the moment, she played coy and pretended that she hadn’t noticed him.
After collecting her brother’s horn, she stopped to consider the porcelain dolls dressed in lederhosen as a gift for her nephew. It wasn’t long before she felt the prickling of gooseflesh over her skin and caught a familiar masculine scent on the breeze as she heard the scuff of a boot sole on the pavement behind her.
“Are you following me, Herr Merleton?” she asked without turning around.
A second passed before she heard an impatient exhale. Then he stepped beside her.
“That would be Herzog Merleton. But addressing me by my surname would be Herr Ambrose.”
“Very well, Herzog.” She giggled and turned on her heel to walk away. But that made her muzzy-headed and she faltered . . . just before she felt his hand at the small of her back.
“What have you been drinking?” he asked in that severe tone of his, and she just knew his mouth was turned in that delightfully disapproving frown.
“Just a little water. Cherry water. They make it here, you know.”
“Do you mean Kirschwasser?”
“That’s it. Cherry water.” She pointed at him. “You, mein Freund, are exceedingly clever to have guessed it. And according to that nice bearded man in the feathered Tyrolean hat, it fills one with vitality. What do you think, Herzog?” She grinned up at him. “Am I full of vitality?”
He continued to frown, and she was ever so tempted to put her fingertips to either side of his mouth and nudge a smile into place.
“You are certainly full of something. Where are your chaperones?”
“Shh . . . I cannot tell you. It’s a secret,” she said and wondered why her whisper sounded vaguely slurred. Perhaps there was something on her tongue. Perhaps she needed more water to wash it down.
Just as she was about to turn around and walk back to the hut with the drinking horns, Lucien liberated her basket and took her hand, tucking it into the crook of his arm.
“They should be here, watching over you.”
Pfft. “I do a better job watching over them. They are terrible flirts.”
“And you are not?”
“I’m only a terrible flirt with you, though little good it has done me. I haven’t seen you for over a senny . . . a sennai”—she shook her head, wondering why her tongue couldn’t say sennight—“for over a week.”
“I think you should get out of the sun and beneath the shade,” he said walking toward the vacant stall at the far end of the market row.
“Oh, look! Two butterflies,” Meg said, tottering to the left as she pointed to the buttery yellow wings flitting from flower to flower among the posies piled up on the back of a cart.
“Moths, actually,” he corrected at a glance and secured her to his side.
“Oh, how can you even tell? Your lenses are likely smudged again.” When he looked down at her with another taut sigh of impatience, she saw that they were, for once, perfectly clean. She shrugged. “Besides, it makes no difference whether they are moths or butterflies.”
“I should think it would matter to the moths.”
He stepped beneath the shingled overhang and removed his hat, absently passing a hand through his hair as he turned to face her.
“What matters is that they found each other. In all of this,” she interjected, gesturing with a wide sweep of her parasol, “they found each other. And just look at how happy they are.”
“Their random flying patterns do not indicate any emotion but rather—”
His speech abruptly halted when, in midspin, her parasol suddenly caught on the corner of the roof. Meg lost her grip. She stumbled forward at a tilt, arms windmilling and she fell. Directly against him.
He caught her easily by the shoulders, his stern expression indicating she was in for a lecture. But then, every grim syllable he might have uttered seemed to have dried up, because she saw him wet his lips as he looked at her mouth. And for some reason, she wet hers, too, just enough to dampen the sudden tingling ache that made them feel plump and ripe as the cherries in her basket.
She wasn’t certain what happened next.
All at once, her hands were curled around his lapels, and she was tugging him down as she rose up on her toes. And then her mouth was pressed to his. Right there. In the market. Underneath a clapboard roof with the scent of flowers and cherries in the air.
His eyes widened the instant before she closed her own.
It was little more than a brief meeting of lips. Enough time for her hands to slide to his shoulders, to feel their breadth and strength beneath her palms. For his hands, warm and strong, to meet her waist, then to rise an inch or two higher to frame the bottom of her rib cage.
Then he shifted. A nudge, an ever so slight tilt of the head. And somehow found the perfect angle to send tingles sparking through her body, all the way to her toes.
A hum of pleasure escaped her. A breath left him. It fanned hotly from his nostrils. She felt the responding pressure of his fingertips as he gripped her, drawing her imperceptibly closer. And there was that deep tug again, stronger than before.
She was starting to crave this sensation. In fact, she never wanted it to end—
“Well, hullo there, cousin,” Viscount Holladay said from behind her.
Meg startled, rocking back on her heels. The kiss disconnected with an audible smooch.
Lucien’s head was still bent, his hands lingering on her ribs for the barest moment until he suddenly jolted to awareness. He straightened with a snap, shoulders back. But his lenses were foggy around the edges.
Tearing off his spectacles, he stared down at them as if he couldn’t comprehend how they’d come to be in such a state. Meg understood perfectly. She felt a bit foggy around the edges herself.
“Imagine my dismay when you did not return to the carriage with my food,” Holladay continued with a nudge of his boot against a spill of cherries. “Then imagine my surprise to find you ensnared by our favorite agent provocateur.” He touched the brim of his hat and smiled. “A pleasure to see you again, my lady.”
She nodded distractedly, her lips damp, plump and tingling. Looking down at her fallen basket, she saw that the contents were strewn over the cobblestones. They seemed to represent her wits in this moment: completely and utterly scattered.
She moved to pick them up, but the gentlemen did it for her. As she watched them, the giddiness that she had felt a moment ago evaporated on the sobering realization of what she’d just done.
She had kissed a man in the market! In the full light of day. Barely concealed by the shade provided by the roof. Only a woman who had no care for her reputation would have done such a thing. Only a woman like . . . Lady Avalon.
But wait, she thought as another realization struck her.
Viscount Holladay had just addressed her as my lady and referred to her as our favorite agent provocateur.
Lucien had also said that Meg reminded him of her, even though he had never met the lady in question. And then there was that encounter in Calais when he’d told her about the theft of his family’s legendary book . . .
“Why do you suppose the culprit would travel to France?”
“I could ask the same of you, for I cannot reason it out.”
“You’re asking me?”
“I can think of no one more qualified to answer the question.”
As all the pieces of the puzzle clicked into place, Meg felt as if a weight had suddenly dropped in the pit of her stomach.
When Lucien stood, she jerked her basket from his grasp. “You think I’m Lady Avalon, don’t you? That’s the reason you followed me, isn’t it?”
He stared back at her with an inscrutable expression but gave no response.
Even so, it was all the answer she needed. And suddenly, she was rather annoyed at knowing that every chance meeting from Calais to Germany wasn’t because he found her irresistible but because he thought her a thief!
Though, to be fair, she had stolen one recipe. But not all of them! Someone else was to blame for that.
Her chin jutted forward. “And what if I told you that I am not she?”
If he hadn’t been so busy attempting to be affable—which she now realized was likely for the sole purpose of extracting information—then he would have known that already. He would have seen her for who she really was. A woman who, according to almost every other man she’d ever met, was too young to know her own mind.
But no. Not the duke. Instead, he thought she was capable of stealing and of . . . seducing men. Dozens of them.
She swallowed. Her eyes met his in time to see his smoldering glance drop down to her lips. Her very kissed lips.
“Such a declaration would be rather unconvincing at this point,” he said, and she felt a rush of prickling heat sweep over her.
Someone really ought to have warned her about the hazards of imbibing cherry water.
The viscount chuckled. “Shame on you, old chap. You’ve made her blush. And that pink color makes her look quite the innocent lamb, too, certainly not the portrait of a wolf you’ve painted. I think I’m inclined to believe her.”
“Pell,” Lucien growled, breaking his momentary silence.
“All I’m saying is,” he continued, ignoring the glare he was given, “what if you’re wrong?”
The question hovered between them, buzzing like a bumblebee that didn’t know where to land.
Meg saw the way Lucien’s eyes changed, unfocused as if he were running various possibilities through his mind. He was a puzzle-solver, and it was likely impossible for him to let a question go without considering all the answers.
But as Meg watched him, her own scenarios formed.
If Lucien kept to his current thinking, then he would continue to pursue her, all the while suspecting her of stealing from him. But if he was swayed by his cousin’s—and her own—claim that she was not an adventuress, agent provocateur or seductress, then they would leave to search elsewhere for the real Lady Avalon.
Meg would likely never see him again. And any hope she might have of engaging in a holiday flirtation before she ended up on the shelf for the rest of her life would be crushed underfoot like a cherry pit.
She didn’t know why but every part of her, every single burning drop of blood in her body, rejected that possibility. If he stopped believing she was Lady Avalon, that would bring an end to all of this. No more tugs. No more kisses. No more Lucien. And he was the only one who made her feel this way.
The flutter of interest, the stirring of butterflies in her stomach when she had been with Daniel Prescott were nothing compared to this. With Lucien, she was forever feeling as though she might collide with him. Or no, that she needed to collide with him.
Whatever it was, she knew she couldn’t let this end.
So Meg had a decision to make.
You should tell him the truth, said the angel on her shoulder, poking at her conscience with a rather pointy pair of wings.
Or—whispered a figure from the other side, casually twirling a forked tail in the air—you could tell him the truth in a manner that made it impossible to believe.
It wouldn’t be an outright fib, after all. Just a reason for the duke to continue his pursuit. And she would tell him eventually. Just not yet.
“I’m curious as well, Your Grace. What if you are wrong about me?” Meg batted her lashes up at him as she splayed a scandalized hand above her breasts. “Why then, you and I were both just caught in a rather compromising position. I believe my chaperones would expect reparations of some sort. Perhaps even a proposal of marriage.” She shrugged as if the matter were out of her hands and issued an exhausted sigh. “Of course, we couldn’t possibly marry this summer because, well, I’m on holiday, and I intend to enjoy myself.”
The viscount snickered. “I believe that was a direct shot to your manhood, old chap.”
The duke leveled him with another glare, then turned to Meg. The way those river-stone eyes held hers made her pulse quicken.
Her mouth went dry as well. It seemed that he was peering into her soul . . . all the way to the truth. Even though she still felt the burning pressure of his lips against hers, she was far from a seasoned seductress. And she worried that he saw through her facade.
Nervous, she plucked one of the cherries out of the basket and popped it into her mouth. Every bit of it. Which was unfortunate because the stem was still sticking out between her lips part of the way, like a lost worm.
Not wanting to reveal how much of an idiot she was, she took hold of the stem and withdrew it until the fruit was caught between her teeth. Then she plucked it free and swallowed the cherry—stone and all—in a single gulp before dampening her lips.
His gaze missed nothing. And she didn’t know why, but his eyes seemed particularly dark as he growled, “I’m not wrong.”
That low timbre spiraled deep inside her. He sounded so certain that even she believed it.
“Such a shame.” Holladay tsked. “I was so looking forward to seeing you as a bridegroom, cousin. Waiting at the altar. Impatiently calculating the number of footsteps she would take up the aisle.
“As for you,” he said to Meg, his hands clasped beseechingly, “it behooves me to mention that Lucien has an agonizingly determined nature. Once set on a task, he never stops until it is finished. So I beg of you, from the bottom of my heart, please travel somewhere exciting. I mean, after all, this is my holiday, too.”
She laughed. “Then, I shall do my utmost to give you”—she glanced to Lucien—“both of you, an adventure you’ll never forget.”
* * *
Lucien watched her walk away. Without a doubt, she was the most audacious woman he’d ever met. And she had just thrown down a gauntlet at his feet.
“Is that an actual grin on your countenance, cousin?” Pell scoffed. “And here I thought your mouth had been permanently etched into a frown since the age of five.”
Ignoring the jibe, he allowed his admiring gaze to slip from the revolving parasol to the subtle sway of her hips. It took supreme effort not to follow.
He was a rational man, always in complete control of his responses. Yet, for reasons that defied logic, her unexpected kiss had done something to him.
Shaken him. Rattled him. Or perhaps even rearranged every cell in his body.
Of course, he knew that part of this hot surge thrumming through him was basic lust. He was no stranger to matters of sexual congress. As with the majority of pursuits throughout his life, he’d studied every aspect in depth, learned every facet in order to excel. Once those were mastered, he continued for the dual purposes of mutual pleasure and exercise.
But he was never controlled by his baser urges. Never caught off guard by attraction . . . until he’d felt her lips on his.
In that brief moment, he’d been reduced to a six-foot pile of blood, bone and tissue with the mental capacity of a hungry ape, face-to-face with a five-foot-four stack of irresistibly delicious bananas. His lexicon had been diminished to two words—mine and want—along with a primitive grunt.
Indeed, she was an alluring female with inky black hair, laughing eyes and a come-hither smile. All of her lovely attributes were perfectly situated, at least as far as he could tell without a thorough, in-depth examination. And he’d already identified the reason her scent appealed to him.
Aside from that, it was important to note that he had known an ample number of women with similar qualities with varying degrees of appeal. So what was it about this particular woman that continued to cause this undefinable reaction?
The obvious answer was that she was far more skilled than he’d anticipated.
However, now he knew what he was up against. Everything was out in the open. There would be no more games. No more surprise kisses to send him off-balance. And if his little wolf thought she could gain the upper hand by using her wiles on him, well, then he would be more than happy to show her all the things that he could do.
And he was willing to do anything to retrieve his book . . . even seduce the seductress.
“Come, cousin,” he said, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. “Lady Avalon just issued a challenge. Far be it from me to refuse.”