Free Julia London by The Vicars Widow

in something of a silent greeting.
    A smile, golden and warm, slipped across Kate’s lips. With a furtive glance over her shoulder to assure herself her father had gone, she looked out the window again and could not help the small laugh that escaped her; Montgomery had moved forward and was standing now, his legs braced apart, one hand shoved deep in his pocket, staring up at the parlor window.
    There was something about that man that drew her like a magnet, and Kate pressed her hand against the glass pane. From where she stood, she could see that he grinned. She abruptly whirled about, walked to the door of the parlor, gathering her bonnet from the chair where she’d dropped it as she went into the entry hall. Picking up the umbrella William had put next to the door, she slipped out.
    He was standing beneath the overhang of the small front porch. “Good afternoon, Kate,” he said, quietly smiling.
    The tenor of his voice reverberated in her chest, almost stealing her breath. “My lord,” she said, returning his smile. “What an unusual way you have of calling.”
    “I would have presented myself, but it seemed rather crowded within.” He closed his umbrella. “I thought it best to wait under the old oak,” he said, nodding to a tree at the corner of the guest house, which could not be seen by the departing gentlemen, lest they turned fully around.
    Kate laughed. “And did you not think, sir, when you saw the other gentlemen depart promptly, that perhaps it best if you joined them?”
    “What? And leave you quite alone?” he asked playfully, tapping the tip of his umbrella against hers. “It was quite clear to me that you were sending them forth so that you might honor me with the particular pleasure of your company.”
    Another warm smile soaked through her. “My, my, your flattery grows more eloquent with each passing day!”
    “That is because I cannot possibly adore you enough,” he said with a smiling bow. “Casual words are increasingly insufficient to describe my esteem for you, so I must improve my thoughts and speech to capture your lovely essence.”
    “That’s really very lovely,” Kate said with a coltish tap of her umbrella against his boot. “But I confess to being quite in the dark as to the true motives behind such eloquence, my lord.”
    “My lord, my lord . . .” He sighed wearily. “When will you take leave to call me by my given name, Kate? I shall remind you once again that it is Darien, the name of my grandfather, and his father before him. As to my motive, I think you have deduced it quite accurately—it is simply to hear my name on your breath as I make you succumb to pleasure.” He gave her an easy, roguishly charming smile.
    A blush spread rapidly across her cheeks. It was strange, she thought, how this sensual banter between them never failed to both appall and appeal to her. Certainly Richard had never spoken to her in this way. She was glad of it. Richard had not been as . . . exciting . . . or dangerous . . . as Lord Montgomery.
    Kate leaned forward onto her umbrella so that she was only inches from him, and tilted her face up to his. “You shall hear that name on my breath, Darien, when I accuse you once again of being a roué. ”
    “Ah,” he breathed, and clapped a hand over his heart, closed his eyes, and laid back his head. “ ’Tis as sweet as I’ve imagined.” With a chuckle, he lifted his head and held out his hand to her, smiling broadly. “Yet there is so much more I’ve dared to imagine. Come with me now, Kate.”
    “Come with you?” She laughed. “Are you mad, sir?”
    “Yes, quite. Mad with thoughts of you, constant and unabashed thoughts of you and your shimmering green eyes and creamy skin and golden-red hair. Come with me, Kate—I’m so bloody mad that I’ve arranged a picnic, in your honor, just for you.”
    “A picnic? Today?” she cried, and laughed again. “Have you not noticed, my lord, that the skies are pouring rain?”
    “I