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“I haven’t given you permission to court me,” she pointed out. “Although I do like children.”

His hand tightened around her waist. “I couldn’t have imagined being so lucky as to meet you. We are courting, Ophelia.”

Ophelia felt as if the white-topped trees of Hyde Park had drawn closer as the horse stepped forward, the sound of its shoes lost in the soft blanket that covered the path. Snow was still falling thickly into the tall trees around them, creating a chilly boudoir, a private refuge in the middle of England’s largest city.

They had kissed twice: in the carriage and the snow. Those were the duke’s—Hugo’s—kisses. Now she curled her gloved hand around his right hand, the one that held the reins.

He pulled up, giving the horse a soft command. It came to a halt, and then even the soft clip-clop of its hooves was gone and the only sound was the gentle swish of branches bracing themselves against white blankets.

“I feel as if time has stopped,” His Grace said, the words a deep rumble from his chest.

“I’m not marrying you,” Ophelia said, peaceful with the decision. “I’m going to kiss you because, as you said, this is a time stolen from our ordinary lives. And you kissed me twice.”

“Which means you owe me two kisses?” he prompted hopefully.

“I haven’t kissed anyone since Peter died. I didn’t even think about that.” How could she have let the moment go without noticing, without marking it, without a silent apology to Peter?

The duke nodded, his eyes dark. “After Marie died, I thought I’d never kiss another woman.”

“But you did.”

A rueful look crossed his eyes. “In the second year, I got drunk one night, and found myself in the arms of a cheerful barmaid.”

Ophelia couldn’t help her spurt of laughter. “The barmaid and the duke!”

“Oh, she had no idea who I was. I dropped into a public house with friends. She was friendly and warm, and she coaxed a frozen man back into life.”

“I’m not frozen,” Ophelia said.

“We men are stupid,” he said, his shoulders shifting, uncomfortable with the subject. “I couldn’t bear the pain of it when Marie died. I . . .” He sighed. “I was very young and passionate. I vaguely wanted to be Romeo to her Juliet—though she hadn’t taken her own life but succumbed to a chill—but I had children. And a ferocious will to live. What I did instead was turn myself to stone.”

“Stone?”

Ophelia leaned against his shoulder so she could see his eyes.

“Walking about, not really alive.”

“Ah.”

He shook his head. “You weren’t nearly as mad, were you?”

She took a deep breath and decided to tell the truth. “It sounds as if you loved Marie in a different . . . as if you had a . . . Peter and I were enormously fond of each other.”

His eyelashes closed for a moment, and the sound that came from his chest sounded like—like relief? Surely not.

“I loved him, of course,” she added. “He was Viola’s father and he would have adored her. I see him in her every day.”

“I tell myself that if Marie hadn’t died, I would have been a good father to the three boys she and I had together,” His Grace said thoughtfully, “but I’m not certain. I might have followed the path of least resistance, like my parents and all my friends, and just seen the boys a few times a year.”

The snowy silence felt as if it compelled truth. “I might have done the same. I know that Peter would have insisted on attending social functions every night as soon as I was in full health.”

“Mourning sent me into the nursery,” Hugo said, nodding.

Ophelia lifted up her face and finally remembered what she meant to do when she silently asked him to stop the horse in the midst of a snowy forest. “A kiss,” she whispered huskily.

His eyes lit.

“Not marriage,” she reminded him. But her lips had reached his, and the slow slide of her tongue against his made her shiver, her hand closing around the chilly wool of his greatcoat.