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And without further thought, he bent his head and put his lips on her mouth.

For a moment, his rational abilities stayed with him. He tasted surprise on her lips. She held herself very still, the way she did when she was afraid that she would fall over and embarrass herself. So, purely in order to relax her, he ran his hand down her back. She had a back like a bird’s wing: slender, fragile, speaking of willowy bones and exquisitely delicate shapes. He kept his hand there, a great still hand that could almost encompass her entire back in one grasp. So she couldn’t fly away, his little bird.

Then he turned his head and began to kiss her in earnest. And forgot about his rational thoughts.

She opened her mouth and welcomed him in. He meant to teach her a lesson. But she opened her mouth as if she craved him, as if she felt even half of the surging roaring waves of lust that made his life miserable when he saw her. Her tongue met his. Heat roared down his spine. She gasped against him. Heat pooled in his loins, thundered in his ears. He took her small mouth as if it were a world to be conquered. And she let him . . . how she let him!

She moaned. He tasted the moan on his tongue. She gasped; he stole her breath with his own. He melted into a simmering, driven lust, a fierce desire to taste her, to touch her. He spread his hand on her back. She had not swayed toward him, the way women normally did during such a kiss. She still sat as upright as a statue. Her breath was coming quickly, in little pants. She had her eyes closed. And yet she sat without touching him. She had not even moved her hands from her lap.

“Henrietta,” he said.

Her eyes slowly opened. They were the color of the evening sky, dazed pools of desire. 222 Eloisa

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“Put your hands around my neck.”

She blinked and looked down at her hands as if she’d forgotten they were there.

“Of course,” she murmured. And lifted her arms around his neck, as commanded. Her back was so narrow that he could feel every movement.

Then she just looked at him.

This was damnable. He’d never wanted anyone as much. Even now, he could catalog her face without hesitation: slim nose, the most intelligent eyes he’d ever seen in a woman, eyebrows that bent delicately, lips that were a deep red. Normally her skin was porcelain white. Now there was a little bloom in each cheek.

“I have a—” she blurted out and stopped.

He kissed her nose, let his lips slide to her eyes. “You ravish me,” he said quietly. “That’s the damnable thing, Henrietta. I’m damned with you, and damned without you.”

“Esme told me about an object called a sheath,” she said in one breath.

He stopped for just a second, and then went back to kissing her cheekbone.

“It prevents conception,” Henrietta whispered, drunk with kisses and mortified by the very words that were falling from her mouth.

“I’ve heard of them,” he said neutrally. Inside, his mind was racing. Henrietta—his own prim and proper Henrietta—

was raising the issue that he had intended to save for marriage. For the right moment on their wedding night, even if he had beg her to try it on hands and knees.

“She—” Henrietta gasped. He seemed to be licking her neck so she forgot what she was saying.

“Do you have a sheath?” he said, sometime later. “Do you know how to use it?”

She blushed even brighter red. “Esme will explain its use.”

“Infamous Esme,” he said.

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“She is not infamous,” Henrietta said sharply.

“Mmmm.” His fingers played with the neck of her gown and then very slowly, looking directly into her eyes, he pulled it down. For a moment Henrietta thought about protesting, but every inch of her body was celebrating the fact that he seemed to be giving in.

Perhaps he would marry her.