"As in 'Antoinette'?" Nicki mocked, wondering why she was lying.

In answer, she threw up her left arm in exuberation and called cheerfully, "Let them eat cake!" A split second later she stopped dead. "Where are we going?"

"To my bedchamber."

Julianna mentally recounted the possibilities for ruination. Three dances with the same man. Allowing a man to show partiality. And being alone in a room with a man. Room. Bedchamber. She nodded agreeably. "Very well, I suppose you know more about it than I."

I doubt it, Nicki thought dryly.

They strolled along in companionable silence, and Nicki liked that about her too. She did not feel a need to talk incessantly. When she finally broke the silence, even her timing was right, although her topic was another stunning first in his vast experience with females. She'd been looking down at the ground when she lifted her head and said very solemnly, "I often find myself wondering about worms. Do you?"

"Not as much," Nicki lied drolly, swallowing back a laugh, "as I used to do." He couldn't remember laughing this much in an entire week.

"Then consider this and see if you can think of an answer," she suggested in the grave tones of a puzzled scientist. "If God meant for them to crawl about on the ground as they do, why don't they have knees?"

Nicki stopped dead, his shoulders shaking with helpless mirth as he turned fully toward her. "What did you just say?"

A heavenly face lifted to his, eyes shining, breasts swelling invitingly above her bodice, generous lips forming words: "I asked why worms don't have knees."

"That's what I thought you said." Grabbing her shoulders, he hauled her abruptly into his arms and surrendered to the uncontrollable impulse to smother his laughter against the soft lips that had caused it.