Gareth sat slowly up, his blue-eyed gaze heating. "You didn't expect me to claim the kiss for myself."

"I thought you'd choose one of the girls." Gideon nodded. "Your sisters had so many friends staying that summer, it was a madhouse." They'd escaped as often as they could to the fields and woods, to his own much quieter home.

"I thought you'd forgotten."

"My memory is not faulty, Gareth. This isn't the place for a trip down memory lane." Already he regretted his teasing remark. Any one of the gentlemen around them might overhear, and rumors once started were difficult to squelch.

Gareth dealt the cards in a desultory fashion. The heat in his gaze faded and his lips drooped in a tiny moue of disappointment. "It was you who started us on this journey, Gideon."

"To my regret." They played in silence for a few minutes, but Gideon found it difficult to concentrate; his mind wandered further on that path of tempting memories of a closeness that he'd missed. When he lost the first rubber, he shook off the fog of memory and desire.

His hands trembled faintly as he shuffled the cards with less than his usual skill. Surely it was just his imagination that Gareth's scent and warmth clung to the cards? He dealt with as much grace as he could muster. It was no good though. Gareth was just too much distraction, too much temptation and he lost again.