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When Henrietta still looked blank, she said, “I was in the traveling carriage. And if you don’t mind my saying so, I truly think that you might well wish to be more circumspect, Lady Henrietta. As the Second Book of Titus says, a good woman is discreet, chaste, and keeps at home.” There was an edge to the sentence. “I could have had a young child with me. One of my nieces, for instance.”

“I’m afraid that I don’t—” Henrietta began, but her stepmother interrupted.

“Mrs. Cable, I would hazard a guess that you witnessed the admiring kiss that Mr. Darby bestowed on my daughter?”

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“Indeed,” Mrs. Cable said, plumping herself into a chair.

“That is exactly what I saw, my dear lady, but if I might say so, that kiss showed more than admiration!” She tittered. Henrietta sat frozen on the settee, but Millicent had taken over. “The poor man offered for her hand, ladies.”

Everyone looked at Henrietta and then glanced away as if she showed signs of the pox.

“Of course, Mr. Darby didn’t understand the circumstances,” Millicent finished. Lady Winifred, who was seated next to Henrietta, patted 168 Eloisa

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her hand. “That must have been very difficult for you, my dear. If only the old customs prevailed, and gentlemen had the decency to approach one’s parents or guardians before expressing their feelings! In my day, this never would have happened.”

“True, true,” Mrs. Barret-Ducrorq said shrilly. “I have instructed dear Lucy that she is not to respond at all to an importunity from a gentleman unless he has spoken to me and I have given my assent.”

Henrietta shaped her lips into what she hoped was the smile of someone importuned against her wishes. Now she knew why Millicent had joined the sewing circle. It wasn’t so she could observe Henrietta conversing with Darby. It was so that she could defend Henrietta from the consequences of that scandalous kiss.

Esme joined the battle. “My nephew is simply devastated by the news,” she said with a convincing catch in her voice.

“I’m afraid that he truly lost his heart to Henrietta. He told me that it was the effect of being offered absolutely no encouragement, ladies. Now isn’t that an improving tale for young women? I daresay you know that my nephew is quite authoritative in the ton. So many young ladies have tried to engage his interest. But it wasn’t until he met Henrietta, and encountered her utter lack of interest in him, that he felt the wish to marry.”

Millicent nodded. “I could tell that it was a tremendous blow, when I had to inform the poor gentleman of Henrietta’s circumstances.”

Everyone looked sympathetic.

“I daresay he’ll recover,” Esme said sadly. “But not for a good period of time. I only hope that I might see a grandnephew or -niece during my lifetime.”

That was overdoing it, to Henrietta’s mind, but the ladies were nodding.

“It must have been a terrible disappointment,” Mrs. Cable Fool for Love

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murmured. “There, I could tell from the way he was—was holding Lady Henrietta that his heart was engaged. And all because you showed him no interest! ’Tis truly a pity that more young women don’t have our dear Lady Henrietta’s circumspection.”

“I’ve had to tell my niece more than once to be more prudent in her behavior,” Mrs. Barret-Ducrorq noted a bit sourly.

“Mind you, Lucy gave Mr. Darby no encouragement. Said she thought he was not terribly nice. But there you go, we’ve always been a very perceptive family.”

Darby sat in his small bedchamber and wrestled with his conscience. There was absolutely no reason to go downstairs for tea. What he ought to do was return to London. He came to Limpley Stoke to discover whether his aunt was carrying his uncle’s child, which she was. Actually, he felt ashamed of his suspicions. The fact that Esme might well have a lover on the premises, given that Sebastian Bonnington seemed to be masquerading as a gardener, was none of his business. There was nothing to keep him here.

The problem was that he couldn’t remember ever wanting something the way he wanted Henrietta Maclellan. In the past four days it seemed all he could think about was that he should have taken the reins of that absurd little curricle and driven them back to the house and then—and then—

Even thinking about her made his mouth dry. Thinking about the way she shivered when his hand swept down her back and clasped her bottom made his groin leap to full attention. Thinking of her throaty little cry when he pulled away from their kiss made him certain that if he could have maneuvered her into a bed, she would have been the partner of his life.

That was the hell of it. He’d never even considered another woman as a partner for life. As an exclusive occupant of his bed.

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Never.