His brow wrinkled. “What?”
Oh, for God’s sake.
“Yoo!” She shoved at his chest with both hands. “Bass. Tard.”
Rising from his chair, Halford laughed. “I believe she’s calling you a bastard, friend. You’re in for it now. Seems the wench understands a bit of English after all. Whoops.”
At last, Colin caught on. “B-b-but Melissande, I can explain.”
She circled him, snarling. “Bass. Tard. Bass. Tard.”
When he spoke again, she could tell he was struggling not to laugh. “Calm down, pet. And whatever you do . . . please, I beg you, don’t go into one of your fits of wild temper and uncontrollable passion.”
Incorrigible rogue. She had no doubt he meant that as a dare.
Well, then. She would accept it.
Minerva reached for a glass of claret on the table. She downed most of it in a single gulp, then dashed the remainder straight in Colin’s face. Wine splashed them both. Ruby-red rivulets streaked down his stunned expression.
With a little growl, she threw herself at him, catching him by the shoulders and wrapping her legs over his hips. She licked the wine from his face, running her tongue over his cheeks, his chin . . . even his eyebrows. And then she ended her madwoman mistress performance with a slow, deep, savage kiss on the lips that had him moaning into her mouth and clutching her backside in both hands.
“Upstairs,” she growled against his lips. “Now.”
At last, he carried her from the room. And kissed her until they were halfway down the corridor. There he stopped, apparently unable to hold back the laughter one moment more. He pressed her to the wall and wheezed helplessly into her neck, shaking with laughter.
Well, she was glad someone found this amusing.
Still laughing, he set her on her feet and tugged her up a flight of stairs and down a side corridor. He flung open the door of a suite, obviously familiar to him. In decor, it suffered the same excess of gold leaf and dearth of good taste as the rest of Winterset Grange.
“Oh, Min. That was excellent.”
“That”—she banged the door shut—”was humiliating.”
“Well, it was a first-rate mistress performance.” He shrugged out of his coat, set aside the pistol, and began unbuttoning his waistcoat. “What the devil was that, with the . . . the licking, and the wine? And how on earth did you think to—”
“It’s called improvisation! Running down the slope and all.” She thrust her hands through her wild, unbound hair, making a frantic survey of the room until she found Francine’s trunk, tucked neatly beneath a scroll-legged side table. “I had to get you away from the card table before you lost all our money and ruined everything. We already owe him sixteen shillings from my sovereign. Aren’t debts of honor supposed to be paid immediately?”
She crossed to him and boldly reached inside his waistcoat. As her fingers brushed against his chest, she heard his breath catch.
“I need these,” she explained, suddenly timid. She withdrew her spectacles from his inside pocket and fit them on her face. It felt good to put the room in focus.
She only wished the lenses could help her make Colin out. Just what had he been doing downstairs? Trying to end their journey here? Perhaps he’d had enough of her and Francine and had decided he’d rather sponge off the duke’s generosity at Winterset Grange until his birthday.
“It’s the Shilling Club,” he said. “We play with shillings, but they stand for a hundred pounds each.”
“A hundred pounds? Each?” She felt faint. She pressed a hand to her brow. “But how will we—”
“We won’t.” He removed the waistcoat and set it aside. “I always lose, I never pay. They know I’ll be good for it in the end.”
“But why lose at all? I could make out your cards on that last hand. They were better than the duke’s. You let him win.”
He tugged loose his cravat and slung it over the back of a chair. “Yes, well . . . everyone loves a gracious loser. That’s why I’m always welcome at any card table, any evening, here or in London. I have no shortage of friends.”
“Friends.” She spat the word. “What makes people like that your friends? The fact that they’ll allow you to sit at their table and lose heaps of money? That hardly fits any definition of friendship I know.”
He didn’t answer. Merely sat on the edge of the bed to remove his boots.
“They don’t respect you, Colin. How could they? They don’t know you at all. Not the real you.”
“And what makes you an expert on the real me?”
“I suppose I’m not. I’m not even certain you know who you are. You just become whomever the situation requires.”
He kicked his boots aside and passed wordlessly into a connecting room. Presumably a dressing or bathing area. She heard the sounds of water splashing into a basin.
She raised her voice. “I mean, I am beginning to notice a pattern. All your guises are variations on the same theme. The charming, fun-loving rogue with the not-so-deeply hidden pain. Obviously, it works for you nicely. But doesn’t it grow tiresome?”
“Tiresome indeed.” He strolled back into the room with his hair damp and his shirt untucked and cuffed to the elbows. “Min, please. I’m a little drunk and extremely fatigued. Can we hold the rest of this character dissection for the morning?”
She released a sigh. “I suppose.”
“Then get in bed. I’m exhausted.”
With a bit of contortion, she managed to undo the hooks at the back of her gown. She drew the tattered, wine-stained silk down over her hips and cast it aside on the chaise longue. The thought that she had nothing else to wear tomorrow was lowering indeed. At least in the morning, she could ring for a proper bath. For now, she did her best with the washbasin and soap.
After rebuttoning her shift, she lay down on the bed next to him, staring up at the ceiling.
A few minutes passed.
“You’re not sleeping,” she said.
“Neither are you.”
She bit her lip. Something lay heavy on her mind, and she didn’t have anyone else to tell. “He doesn’t know me, either.”
His reply was groggy. “Who doesn’t?”
“Sir Alisdair Kent.” At the mention of his name, she felt the sudden tensing from Colin’s side of the bed. “I mean, he knows of my scientific findings, and he admires my intellect. But he doesn’t know the real me. I’ve conducted all my Society business through written correspondence, and I’ve always signed myself M. R. Highwood. So Sir Alisdair . . . well, he thinks I’m a man.”