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The surprise he could almost taste in her mouth disappeared, replaced by an eager little pant, a sense of breath coming from a chest tight with desire.

When he pulled his mouth away, thinking to taste her cheek, her eyes didn’t fly open. There was no cheery little comment. Instead she made a little sound that spoke of disappointment, and so he swooped back to the sweetness she offered, to the delicious plump curves of her mouth. It was Darby who looked . . . looked at the long lashes against Henrietta’s cheek, as delicate as a fringe of finest silk. At the clear shape of her forehead, the cream of her skin, the one dimple in her right cheek. In the shadow of the curricle, his hand drifted onto a sweetly rounded bottom, and even though he immediately moved his hand back to her waist, she sighed into his mouth, and he felt another shiver move through her body.

Some distant part of his brain had heard a coach rumble by, the occupants of which were undoubtedly intrigued by the spectacle they were presenting. A native thread of caution wandered into his brain, reminding him that he was kissing a gently born maiden—the daughter of an earl—on the side of the high road.

As if she could sense that wisp of chilly weather, Henrietta let her arm slip from the back of his neck and opened her eyes. She had eyes the color of a summer night, a beautiful dark blue. She looked at him silently for a moment. Her lips were swollen from his kisses. But it was her eyes that were surprising.

Where was the prim Lady Henrietta, the sharp-tongued spinster with untried advice about child rearing and a tendency to speak her mind?

The woman who stood before Darby looked utterly abandoned to desire, as sultry as any round-heeled wench outside the opera house. The new Henrietta swayed toward him without words and he caught her up, caught her squarely 126 Eloisa

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against his body, held her as tightly as he was capable. It wasn’t until she started kissing him back that Darby put two and two together. What he put together was one pounding heart (his), one set of shaking limbs (his), one sweet mouth (hers).

Those three things combined with a growing conviction—never felt by him in the thirty-some years of his life—

that he had to bed the woman he was holding in his arms. Or die trying.

Two and two added up.

To marriage.

This was his future wife, and if he wasn’t careful, he was going to deflower her against the side of her brand-new curricle.

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Caught in the Act

One of the first things one learns as a member of the polite world is that proposals of marriage do not take place against the side of a curricle with a groom looking on and any number of carriages passing by. Just about the second thing a man learns is that relatives of females do not like to discover their daughters in just such a situation.

Darby had no sooner come to the realization that he was kissing his future wife than he felt a prickling in his shoulder blades and looked about to meet the blazing eyes of his future mother-in-law.

“Lady Holkham, how splendid to see you,” he said, reluctantly stepping back from Henrietta.

“Mr. Darby,” she snapped. “Henrietta!”

Darby noticed with a great deal of personal satisfaction that Henrietta had a rather dazed look, quite at odds with her competent self.

“My goodness,” she said faintly. “I didn’t know you were coming to the village, Millicent.”

“I am aware of that fact,” her stepmother replied, rather grimly. “I am just on my way home.”

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“I would accompany you, but I have a meeting with Miss Pettigrew at the school.”

Henrietta didn’t meet Darby’s eye. He himself had a sense of swelling joy in his chest. Alarming joy. He’d never felt anything like it in his life. All he knew was that the woman who stood before him, with her spun gold hair pushed back on her shoulders from his hands, and a wild rose flush on her cheeks from his kisses—this gorgeous bit of nature was going to be his. Moreover, she was going to be his, although she didn’t know or give a damn about his power in the ton. She knew nothing of his wealth, and thought he was a pauper, in fact. How could one choose a better wife? She would marry him for his kisses, and nothing else.

He looked at her, and he was pretty certain that everything he was thinking was written there because she turned even pinker and looked adorably confused.

“Mr. Darby,” Lady Holkham said in a piercing command,

“I would request that you accompany me to my house, if you please.”