Surrender The Night by Colleen Shannon Page B

he had maggots in his head. “The Earl of Brookstone surely has more dignity than that,” she teased.
    He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Now who’s toplofty?” He stood, took her hands, and hauled her to her feet. ‘ ‘Come along, my lady. You should look forward to seeing me at a disadvantage.”
    “How so?” she asked, but she followed when he led her to the door. Billy grinned at them as they passed his post, but turned his head discreetly when their banter became suggestive.
    “You can hide your feelings much better.” Devon glanced down at the front of his breeches.
    She blushed, but threw back, “And shame on you if you’ve aught to hide. Twice already today—”
    “Ah Kat, as long as you supply such quality. I’ll want quantity. In truth you make me feel like a lad sowing his first wild oats.” There was that kindling warmth in his eyes again, but something else, too. Something that touched her heart as well as her body.
    She looked away from that compelling stare and collected her scattered wits. “Lad indeed! There must be many a field in every comer of England stripped bare from the ‘sowing’ you’ve done.”
    Throwing back his tawny head, he roared with laughter. Then, removing his heavy coat and tossing it over the banister, he took her hand and said between chuckles, “Your wit is rapier sharp, but you’ve mixed your analogy a bit. One sows oats, not reaps them.” When she tossed her head, he leaned down and nuzzled under her ear. “Shall I show you yet again the difference?”
    She shivered. When his arms snaked about her waist, she slipped from his grasp, flung open the door, and leaped down the steps. “First one to the park gets to decide what we have for dinner!” She raced off, her feet flying so fast that her hair escaped its pins and streamed down her back. She lifted her face to the rain and laughed, feeling carefree for the first time in years.
    Devon loped alongside her, his hair, too, becoming a ragtail mess. She grimaced at him, realizing that he was matching his strides to hers and could outpace her when he pleased. Her eyes narrowed on the park gates, barely twenty feet away. She glimpsed a leashed pug huffing out of the entrance. Deliberately, she turned her head and gave Devon the smile he claimed always drove him wild.
    His eyes dropped to her lips and watched as she licked the rain away, so he didn’t see the pug that veered into his path. A rotund little woman hurried along behind the dog in apparent eagerness to escape the rain.
    Katrina leaped over the leash that would have tripped her; it caught Devon neatly around his ankles. He sprawled across the soft turf, jerking the leash from the woman’s hands. The pug, with a triumphant yip, trotted off to his first taste of freedom.
    The middle-aged woman screeched, “Come back, Pip!” When the little dog ignored her and began sniffing at the curb, the woman removed her drooping hat and slapped Devon on the shoulder with it when he tried to rise.
    “You clumsy oaf! Why, it’s a sorry day when a lady cannot even walk her dog in the park.” She went on in an aggrieved tone, periodically tapping Devon with her hat to emphasize her words.
    Devon was wet to the skin, his hair straggling down his shoulders, his stockings muddy, and Katrina wasn’t surprised that the woman mistook him for a lackey. She covered her mouth to stifle her giggles when he sent her a fulminating glare.
    “Forgive me, madam,” he said, standing to take her hand and kiss it.
    The woman’s whine wheezed to a stop. She blinked down at his wet gold head, then batted her short lashes at him when he straightened.
    Almost choking on her laughter, Katrina trotted down the street, stepped on the dog’s leash, then led the panting little animal back to its owner. “Here you are, ma’am. I, er, tripped his lordship, so it’s my fault. I apologize for the inconvenience.”
    At Katrina’s reference to Devon’s title the woman’s tight mouth gaped