Page 72 of Return to Satterthwaite Court

“And I’ll be one and twenty. That’s how time works, always moving forward. Fascinating, isn’t it? Before either of us know it, you’ll be fifty and I’ll be two and forty. A negligible difference at that age, you must agree.” She brought her hands to his chest. “And you’re wrong to assume I want excitement. I’ve told you before, I prefer the peace and quiet of the countryside just like you do.”

“Yes, I’m sure you do,” he said wryly.

“Charles—”

He shook his head. “Don’t tempt me, Kate. I can’t keep resisting you forever.”

“I wish you wouldn’t resist me at all,” she said. And clenching her fingers in the fabric of his waistcoat, she pulled him down to her and brazenly pressed her lips to his.

Chapter Twenty-One

Kate hadn’t planned to kiss him. She rarely planned anything, truth be told. It was often better, she’d found, to throw herself fearlessly into the fray and contemplate the consequences of her actions in the aftermath. It was an instinctive strategy. One that generally worked for her. She was at her best in the midst of the maelstrom.

But she hadn’t reckoned for what happened next.

Charles received her chaste peck on the lips with gentlemanly forbearance, only the rigidness in his frame betraying his surprise. But when Kate moved to draw away from him, satisfied with her virginal bit of boldness, he didn’t let her go. Instead, his arms came around her in a crushing embrace and, bending his head to hers, he kissed her back.

“Oh.” Kate exhaled a trembling breath. The sound was part pleasure and part surprise.

She’d imagined this moment. How it would feel. How she would feel when it happened. But nothing had prepared her for the overwhelming intimacy of it.

He was so close—his body warm as a furnace in the icy anteroom. His lips were warm, too. Firm, warm, and utterly perfect. They shaped to hers with passionate certainty, as though he’d kissed her dozens of times before. As though he knew just what to do to make her melt into his arms.

Her hand drifted up to his shoulder, fingers curving around the strong column of his neck. His bare neck. It was hot beneath her fingertips.

“Oh, Charles,” she sighed.

Heaven knew what else she said. His name again? Murmured words of praise? Of affection? Kate hadn’t the slightest notion. Kissing him was that glorious. That wonderfully sweet. She could have kept at it forever.

But, alas, it wasn’t to be.

All too soon, Charles returned to his senses.

He broke their kiss, his breath coming hard. “There, you see.” He rested his forehead gently against hers. A huff of laughter rumbled in his breast. “That’s the undignified truth of it.”

She threaded her fingers in the thick hair at his nape. “What’s the undignified truth of it?”

“That I’m not indifferent to you,” he said. “I doubt any man could be.”

She refrained from telling him that he was wrong. Plenty of gentlemen were indifferent to her. Not to her fortune, perhaps, but definitely to her character. Though indifferent might be the wrong word. Disapproving would be better.

Or possibly appalled.

“Are you saying,” she inquired, “that I have cause to hope?”

“I don’t want to encourage you,” he said.

“It’s a bit late for that, sir. After a kiss like that—”

The sound of footsteps in the hall arrested Kate’s speech.

She stiffened in Charles’s arms.

Good Lord. It was her father! Or worse yet, James. Either would be a disaster. And not because she feared being caught in a compromising position but because her father and brother would undoubtedly ruin things. She wanted to treasure this moment, not spend the rest of her life looking back on it with mortification.

She stared up at Charles in frozen, wide-eyed silence until the footsteps faded, disappearing into the distance.

A breath of relief shuddered out of her.