Read Online Rose in the Bud by Susan Barrie - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Susan Barrie
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happiness.”
Cathleen answered a little stiffly:
“You know very well I am not in the least interested in Count Paul. I came here to Italy for one purpose, and I have not yet succeeded in doing what I set out to do. But that doesn’t mean I don’t intend to!”
Edouard smiled again. It was difficult to see his face in the prevailing gloom, but she could catch the white flash of his teeth.
“Then there are men like me.” He lifted her hand from beneath the rug and held it up to what little light there was since the moon was waning, in order to examine the delicate shapeliness of her fingers. “You have such soft little hands, and so well cared-for...” He kissed them lightly, while the gondolier rested for a moment in the bows and sat tuning his guitar. But the kiss, light though it was, caused Cathleen’s heart to somersault. “Men like me are more unpredictable than the Pauls of this world. For one thing, they don’t always know themselves very well, and therefore they should bear the label of the unknown quantity. I’m many years older than you, too, Cathleen.”
“I’m twenty-two,” she said, as if she was asserting something that had to be asserted.
He laughed, and although it was a kindly laugh he shouldn’t have been capable of it just then.
“A great age,” he agreed. “An age when many members of your sex are married and have families of their own. But I am thirty-seven ... fifteen years older than you are! And in actual experience of life I suppose I’m about a hundred years older.” He sounded suddenly quiet, and a little depressed, even profoundly gloomy. “Cathleen, what I am trying to get across to you is that when you return to England I don’t want you to feel hurt in any way. You must remember the glamour, but you mustn’t remember anything else!”
“What do you mean?” she inquired, in a small voice.
He turned and looked at her again. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, rather helplessly.
“What do I mean? I don’t know that I’m altogether clear myself. I...” He issued an order to the gondolier, who immediately started to propel them on their way again, and as dark water slid past Edouard slipped an arm behind the girl’s shoulders, drew her lightly to rest against him and turned her face towards him. It seemed to her that he was smiling crookedly as his face came close to hers. “If it’s experience you’re after, well, I’m as qualified as the next man to increase your store of it, despite my advanced years. Paul may be closer to you in age, but I don’t think he should be the first to kiss you on a Venetian canal ... or anywhere else, for that matter!”
And while the gondolier—no doubt thoroughly well trained in diplomatic behaviour on an occasion such as this—averted his eyes and concentrated on the technicalities of his profession Moroc bent forward and lowered his mouth to Cathleen’s. She had been kissed before—once or twice, rather clumsily, after a tennis-club dance and by the owner of the book-shop for whom she worked (although he had afterwards been put very firmly in his place)—but never in all her wildest dreams had she imagined that contact with an attractive pair of masculine lips could be like this, or the feel of a man’s well-shaven cheek pressed close to her own a revelationary experience.
There was a moment when she wanted to gasp and resist him, as if an unexpected tidal wave had swept up over her and was threatening to remove her from her safe anchorage ... the safe anchorage of her youth and lack of experience. And then, with his mouth pressing firmly upon her own, and his arms drawing her closer, she actually did give a little gasp and clutched at him.
The kiss was short-lived, in actual fact, but when Moroc withdrew from her a little her eyes were bemused in the last of the light, and his fingers stroked her cheek unsteadily.
“You are adorable,” he told her huskily. “But that was merely by way of experience. Now I
Cathleen answered a little stiffly:
“You know very well I am not in the least interested in Count Paul. I came here to Italy for one purpose, and I have not yet succeeded in doing what I set out to do. But that doesn’t mean I don’t intend to!”
Edouard smiled again. It was difficult to see his face in the prevailing gloom, but she could catch the white flash of his teeth.
“Then there are men like me.” He lifted her hand from beneath the rug and held it up to what little light there was since the moon was waning, in order to examine the delicate shapeliness of her fingers. “You have such soft little hands, and so well cared-for...” He kissed them lightly, while the gondolier rested for a moment in the bows and sat tuning his guitar. But the kiss, light though it was, caused Cathleen’s heart to somersault. “Men like me are more unpredictable than the Pauls of this world. For one thing, they don’t always know themselves very well, and therefore they should bear the label of the unknown quantity. I’m many years older than you, too, Cathleen.”
“I’m twenty-two,” she said, as if she was asserting something that had to be asserted.
He laughed, and although it was a kindly laugh he shouldn’t have been capable of it just then.
“A great age,” he agreed. “An age when many members of your sex are married and have families of their own. But I am thirty-seven ... fifteen years older than you are! And in actual experience of life I suppose I’m about a hundred years older.” He sounded suddenly quiet, and a little depressed, even profoundly gloomy. “Cathleen, what I am trying to get across to you is that when you return to England I don’t want you to feel hurt in any way. You must remember the glamour, but you mustn’t remember anything else!”
“What do you mean?” she inquired, in a small voice.
He turned and looked at her again. He shrugged his shoulders slightly, rather helplessly.
“What do I mean? I don’t know that I’m altogether clear myself. I...” He issued an order to the gondolier, who immediately started to propel them on their way again, and as dark water slid past Edouard slipped an arm behind the girl’s shoulders, drew her lightly to rest against him and turned her face towards him. It seemed to her that he was smiling crookedly as his face came close to hers. “If it’s experience you’re after, well, I’m as qualified as the next man to increase your store of it, despite my advanced years. Paul may be closer to you in age, but I don’t think he should be the first to kiss you on a Venetian canal ... or anywhere else, for that matter!”
And while the gondolier—no doubt thoroughly well trained in diplomatic behaviour on an occasion such as this—averted his eyes and concentrated on the technicalities of his profession Moroc bent forward and lowered his mouth to Cathleen’s. She had been kissed before—once or twice, rather clumsily, after a tennis-club dance and by the owner of the book-shop for whom she worked (although he had afterwards been put very firmly in his place)—but never in all her wildest dreams had she imagined that contact with an attractive pair of masculine lips could be like this, or the feel of a man’s well-shaven cheek pressed close to her own a revelationary experience.
There was a moment when she wanted to gasp and resist him, as if an unexpected tidal wave had swept up over her and was threatening to remove her from her safe anchorage ... the safe anchorage of her youth and lack of experience. And then, with his mouth pressing firmly upon her own, and his arms drawing her closer, she actually did give a little gasp and clutched at him.
The kiss was short-lived, in actual fact, but when Moroc withdrew from her a little her eyes were bemused in the last of the light, and his fingers stroked her cheek unsteadily.
“You are adorable,” he told her huskily. “But that was merely by way of experience. Now I
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