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into near incoherence. Grace suspected that was precisely why he used them.
    No, she flinched because Crispin seemed to be able to hear exactly what she was thinking. How did he know her mind so well?
    “Ask anyone. They’ll tell you.” Crispin stretched his lame leg out to its full length and grimaced. “No doubt when you inquire around you’ll hear that my lover’s husband came home unexpectedly and I injured myself leaping from a second storey window.”
    “I can’t say I’m surprised.” She curled her lip at him in disgust. Private immorality was one thing. Making a public virtue of it, quite another.
    He laughed. “I started that rumor myself because it’s far more entertaining than the truth.”
    She rolled her eyes. “One wonders if you’re capable of the truth.”
    “When it suits me.”
    She shook her head. “You are without doubt the strangest man I’ve ever met.”
    “I don’t know whether to be flattered or sorry that you’ve met so few men.” He leaned toward her and she caught a whiff of his clean masculine scent.
    Her toes curled inside her slippers.
    “On the grand scale of things, I’m really not so strange. Believe me, Grace, the world is filled with people who would permanently cross your eyes.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Take that gang around the Maypole, for instance.” He smiled indulgently at the bacchanalian-style revel. “They dress themselves in gaiety and deck their brows with mirth. Just to look at them, you’d think they haven’t a care in the world.”
    Grace nodded. In fact, her feet itched to join their dance on the broad green lawn. Could she ever be that wild and free?
    The amused grin faded from his lips. “But I’d bet my favorite chisel every one of them bears a secret that, if you only knew it, would break your heart.”
    They sat in silence for a few moments and Grace wondered what heart-breaking secret Crispin bore. He made her feel terribly . . . young. She’d experienced no real heartache, known no grand passion or loss.
    She’d never even remotely considered leaping from a second storey window.
    In truth, her run-in with those scallywags on the Dark Walk was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her. The trembles in her belly still hadn’t subsided. Now that she realized how much danger she’d actually been in, she was beginning to think adventures were not nearly so fine to have as they were to read about.
    “About my leg,” he said softly. “The truth is, I had an argument with a large block of marble. The stone teamed up with gravity and won in a rather unfair fight.”
    “Oh, my.” Her imagination painted a lurid picture of Crispin pinned beneath one of the monoliths she’d seen at his studio. If that’s what happened, it was a wonder he wasn’t killed outright. She glanced at his thigh and was glad to see that his muscle had stopped tremoring. Then she pulled her gaze back to his face before he could notice she was taking an inordinate interest in the state of his trousers. “I’m sure it was horrible.”
    “And stupid. Not at all the thing one expects from an acknowledged genius.” He shrugged. “You see why I had to invent something more in keeping with my public image.”
    “You think leaping from an upper window to avoid your lover’s angry husband sounds less stupid?”
    “Less stupid? I assure you it’s nothing short of brilliant. The tale secures my reputation as an incorrigible rake. It’s more than enough to earn the respect of my fellows and the fear of virgins and their mamas.” He chuckled. “How little you know of people.”
    “That’s what you think,” she said. “I happen to know a great deal.”
    He cupped her cheek suddenly and tipped her face up to his. “Do you know when someone is about to kiss you?”
    A soft gasp escaped her mouth.
    Instead of their usual burnished pewter gray, his eyes had gone dark as he looked down at her. Black as the most wicked sin. Memories of his kiss flooded