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She leaned over him, burying her head against his chest, and felt his good arm come around her, his good hand sweep up and down her back, until the sobs became hiccups.

“You’re overset,” he said. “You’ve been taking care of me this whole while, haven’t you?”

She nodded against his chest. She had come to know that chest quite well, the simple churchlike symmetry of arching ribs over the hollow of his belly, the surprising soft dark hair around the coins of his nipples and down the center valley of his torso. Because their captor had accepted the story that she was Nate’s wife, she’d seen rather more of him than propriety allowed. She found she liked the compact shape of his body, lean and neat, and hard and flat where she was soft and round.

He cleared his throat. “It’s time I did something for us, and I promise I won’t lead you through the woods again.”

Miranda lifted her head. “Did you hear me? I am the one to blame for the club closing.”

“I heard you,” he said. “Can you help me sit up against some pillows? I’m weak as a cat.”

For a few minutes they pushed and pulled pillows and bedclothes until Nate lay back panting against the headboard. “Come here.”

Miranda sat back on her bottom and scooted up against the headboard next to him. He lifted his good arm over her shoulders and pulled her tight against him. He had claimed to be so weak, but his arm was lean and hard and strong around her. He turned his head slightly, and his mouth brushed against her forehead.

It was a light touch, sweeter than spun sugar. It made her eyes fill up again and spill down her cheeks.

“You’re crying,” he said. “It was just a kiss. I didn’t think you would mind so much.” His hold slackened. He tipped his head back against the headboard.

She glanced at him and watched his throat work as he swallowed.

“I didn’t mind,” she said, snuggling closer under his arm. “I just thought that it was...that you meant it to be a last kiss.”

He opened one eye. “Never.”

“You’ll kiss me again?”

He smiled. “As soon as you lend me some tooth powder.”

“I haven’t got any,” she said.

He didn’t say anything. She sneaked a peek at him. His eyes were closed. His cheeks shadowed with beard. A year earlier he had kissed her for the first time. It had been a revelation, that kiss, but then she’d been so foolish over Lord Hazelwood.

She nudged him. “Does that mean you won’t kiss me again?”

“I’ll kiss you senseless when I get the chance. If you’ll let me.” One eye opened. “It’s a good thing you came with me, Miranda,” he said. “Together, we’ll get the club open again. You’ll see.”

The husband hunter’s Season offers such a round of pleasure, activity, and novelty, that she may mistake the dizzying whirl that occupies her for the happiness she seeks. She may, like a child dazzled by gaily wrapped presents and frosted cakes, imagine that these are the source of the gladness she feels in being alive and engaged in her world. But the happiness she seeks in marriage is of a different order entirely. It is the happiness of what is suitable, fitting, and felicitous in the choice of a partner.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter 18

Lucy looked around the little white-and-blue chapel. She and her friends had attended services together for nearly two years. They sat in their favorite back bench, awaiting the call to rise for the final prayer and recessional hymn. By now Lucy knew many faces in the crowd, and some names. She tried to guess who had left The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London on the last pew for her friends to find. Everyone in the chapel certainly recognized the group of them as most regular members of the congregation and knew something of their habit of exchanging books each Sunday. Someone had placed the worn blue volume with the water spot on the cover just where Lucy habitually sat. Whom was she to thank? If she understood him at all, Captain Harry Clare was to meet her at the chapel, take her up in his curricle, and propose.

A fortnight had seen this change in them from near strangers passing in her father’s inn, to friends who understood each other deeply. It was not only the little book that had helped them, but dear Adam, her first and dearest friend, her playmate, her charge, and some would say, her burden.

Harry Clare’s kindness to Adam, his defense of Adam from Findlater, and his understanding that Lucy needed Adam to be kept safe so that she could enjoy London—those were the acts that had first made Lucy see something more in him than the faded glory of his scarlet coat over his broad shoulders. Then she’d seen his other self in town among the fashionable people her friends collected around them and understood his loneliness, his wit, and his sense of duty.

The other, the necessity of being close to his person, of touching and being touched, of sitting in the middle of the bench together rather than at either end, that had come later, somewhat mysteriously, catching her unawares, a thing you could not observe happening, until it had happened, until you were in the midst of it. No other gentleman had awakened her senses as Harry Clare had.

Her book would say that she had permitted liberties, but it had never been a matter of permission, nothing had been unwelcome, she had given as good as she got. If he had more knowledge than she in such matters, he had not pressed her beyond where she was ready to go. The least ladylike of feelings—impatience and greed—had possessed her in those moments. She hardly knew where such feelings came from.

Around her, people stirred. Lucy took up her hymnal and stood. One final song, a few words to friends and acquaintances, and her husband hunting would end. She would be in Harry Clare’s curricle, headed for the park, and a new life.

* * * *

Harry saw the sexton open the chapel doors and heard the organist begin the recessional. Lucy and her friends would be the last of the congregation to leave. Their habit of gathering in the rear of the church to exchange the latest novels they’d read always put them behind the rest of the churchgoers. But Harry could afford to be patient. The day was mild. They could roll through the park at a leisurely pace to exchange smiles and vows. He would give her the ring he carried in a box in his coat. He had let go of the case, of his role as a spy, and of the ambition to possess Mountjoy and restore it to its former dignity. All the things he had been fighting for since he’d left the army.