Page 51 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“She’d have run away with me if I’d let her. Demanded it, actually. But what have I to give ’er? Told her so, broke her heart, and took m’self away instead.”

Joseph contemplated the tangle of emotion on the other man’s face. “And here you are, counseling me to have my way with Inez.”

The other shrugged. “There’s hell to pay after, to be sure, but to have her? Why’d you deny yourself that? If you want her, that is.”

Oh, Joseph wanted Inez. He wanted her with an intensity that had taken him off guard.

He wasn’t built like other men; he’d learned that in university. They could drop their breeches for any pretty face and not see the girl again after. Joseph required some sense of attachment to his partner before the blood could rise. He needed to feel she was a woman he could admire, possibly share a future with, and then the little head followed the lead of the larger.

Until it came to the actual act. There, he was rubbish. And he didn’t want Inez to know that.

He hadn’t known how much she riled his senses until he’d seen that eel Wigsby advancing on her. She was Inez. Bearer of trays. Baker of delicious bread. A proud, beautiful, prickly woman he could seem to offend just by looking at her.

He held her in esteem. He cared about her welfare. She stirred his heart and his senses together. That was why, when she tore off her gown and stood before him as perfect as God made her, he’d wanted to dive at her, bear her back to bed, and bury himself in her softness.

But. There were so many buts. So many risks that joining with her—or attempting such—would create a rend he couldn’t repair.

You’ve never been with a woman. You don’t know what to do.

“Tell me how not to leave her with a babe,” Joseph said.

Before this night, Joseph had only known one way to find pleasure with a woman. By the time he’d bought and finished another round of ales with Henry Jock, he knew at least five.