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“You’re wrong!” she said putting her hands on his chest and leaning in, her head tilted up, her eyes fixed on his. Her intoxicating scent, the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, cupped so beautifully in her blue silk-and-net gown, inveigled their way past his defenses, his body responding in spite of every attempt to stop it.

“I am not, Ava,” he said, his voice thickening. “If he hasn’t shown that side of himself to you yet, be assured that he will if you allow him to.”

“What side?” asked Ava, her voice suddenly breathless. Her hands sliding up to his shoulders.

He lowered his head, their gazes locked, as the madness he had been trying to contain for more than a year and a half burst its banks and he said softly, “This side,” and his lips pressed to hers as his arms slid round her and pulled her lovely, soft little body tight against his.

She uttered a small moan in her throat as his lips moved over hers with devasting delight, the explosion of pleasure flooding his senses making him forget everything but holding her closer and kissing her more deeply. Her small hands plunged into his hair, and her body pressed closer as she parted her lips and kissed him back with a fervor that set fire to his blood.

The last remnants of his perception of her as a girl disintegrated. This Ava was all woman and he wanted her with bone aching desire. Another little moan of delight from her brought him back to himself with a sickening jolt.

He tore his mouth from hers and let her go, stepping back. His breathing was ragged. So was hers. And he realized he had crossed a line he could never uncross. But he had to try.

“That is what you invite from a man without scruples!” he said, trying to turn his lapse into a lesson. And then because he couldn’t trust himself, he backed to the door and escaped like a coward, unable to bear the look of confusion and betrayal invading her eyes and dispersing the earlier glow of joy and desire.

*

London, March 1820

“Good God, Ava, I’ve received two dozen proposals for your hand, and you’ve refused every one of them! What are you looking for?” said her exasperated brother, Robert Layne, Duke of Troubridge.

Ava stood with her back to him, staring out the window of the front parlor of Layne House in Berkeley Square and clenched her hands together to suppress her urge to tell him the truth.

When she didn’t answer, he went on, “You’ve broken the heart of nearly every eligible bachelor in London.”

“Really? I think not,” she replied lightly. “I simply wish to marry for love, like you did. Is that so unreasonable?”

“It’s not unreasonable at all. But if two dozen of London’s finest can’t capture your heart, who can?”

She bit her lip. “You would never let me marry him.”

“So, you’ve set your heart on someone unsuitable, is that it?” She felt his hand on her shoulder as he tugged her around to face him. He was frowning down at her. “Who, Ava?”

“Can’t you guess?” She smiled sadly.

“Not Lannister?” Robert’s expression of horror almost made her laugh. “You’re right, I would never let you marry him. Put him out of your mind!”

She dropped her head to mask her expression, lest she give herself away. If he knew the truth it would be far worse.

“I mean it, Ava!” Robert put his hands on her upper arms. “He wouldn’t dare approach me with a proposal in any case. He knows what I think of him. But if he’s had the temerity to trifle with you—”

She burst out laughing then, unable to keep it in as she thought of what Rey would say to that.

“Oh, Rob, you are by far too easy to wind up!” she said, wiping her eyes and trying to suppress giggles. Reynard Fairbanks, Earl of Lannister, would flirt outrageously with her under Robert’s nose, just to annoy him if she encouraged him to. Rob really was too serious for his own good. As much as she loved Rob dearly, his antipathy for a man she considered one of her closest friends could not but irritate her, as she and Rey had become very close over the last months of the little season. Robert’s attitude forced her to conduct her relationship with the earl clandestinely. Especially after Jerome had caught her with him at Lady Bellingham’s ball.

“Ava, your sense of humor—” He stopped. “Will you be serious? If it isn’t Lannister, who is it?”

She just shook her head, drifting toward the door, saying lightly over her shoulder, “No one, Rob, I was just baiting you. I daresay I’ll meet someone this season, or not . . .”

But his next words halted her. “I have a match to propose to you. Will you consider it?”

She turned, her heart thudding with sudden, irrational hope. “Who?”

“I’ve been approached by the Duke of Silverly—”

Revulsion swamped her. “Rob, he’s seventy if he’s a day! You wouldn’t!”

“Seventy-five actually, and no, he hasn’t approached me on his own behalf, but on his son’s: Haldane. Apparently, he’s quite smitten with you.”