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So Darby propped himself into the corner and watched Josie drift to sleep. By the time her eyes closed, he had decided to please himself and remove that little netting that Henrietta used to keep her hair in place. Slowly, slowly, he began removing just as many of his wife’s hairpins as he Fool for Love

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could reach without waking her up. No wonder her hair seemed so docile. She wore far more pins than he would have guessed a woman needed. Finally, he managed to ease the little net she wore on top of her head off and toss it to the side. No wife of his was going to dress like a grandmother. Two minutes later, he knew precisely why Henrietta Maclellan resorted to a hairnet and more hairpins than one normally saw in a mercer’s shop. Her hair tumbled down her shoulder like a lion’s mane, streaked and shot with gold and amber. It didn’t curl: the word curl brought to mind ringlets, and little girls. It leaped with fire, unruly and ungoverned, all the way to her waist. His fingers ran through great masses of rough silk.

Naturally she was wearing a traveling gown constructed with no regard to the female body. It was thick, and the seams didn’t even lie flat in places. Darby ran an experimental hand down Henrietta’s front, but he couldn’t feel anything other than poor seamsmanship. Well, there were bumps that likely hid her breasts, but damned if he could feel their shape. Not that he needed touch to remind him, he thought a bit grimly. The swell of her breasts in his hand haunted his dreams. His fingers traced the sturdy wool of her bodice. Under this wool, her breasts were the color of the finest cream lace, yet far softer. And from cream bloomed a nipple as dusky as a late rose.

Josie snorted in her sleep and Darby froze. It was not very gentlemanly to feel his wife’s chest in the presence of children, even sleeping children. He left his hand on the warm curve of Henrietta’s right breast, or at least on the rumpled broadcloth presumably covering her breast, while he thought about it. Then he stopped thinking and began feeling the shape of her body with his hand again. It was rather like trying to guess the shape of a fruit in the dark. 260 Eloisa

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Except that all he could feel were her garments. He could feel each separate bone in her corset, which meant that his bride was wearing undergarments as restrictive and as heavy as those his grandmother presumably had worn. He idly traced each up-and-down spear, feeling through the layers of rumpled wool. No wonder Henrietta kept her back rigid. She didn’t have a choice.

For her part, Henrietta was enjoying herself far too much to open her eyes. It was oddly soothing to wake from sleep to find Darby’s long fingers dancing over her breasts, sweeping down her sides. She almost shivered, it felt so good, except that would give her away. Even through layers of wool and corset and linen, her body knew his hand was there. He seemed to be feeling her corset now. Henrietta’s eyelids trembled and almost opened, tense with the desire to demand what he was doing. It was intoxicating, the sense that his fingers were gliding over her breasts. The very thought made her heart thud in her ribs, made a tremor of feeling quake down, down between her legs. It was as if he skimmed the surface of water, and she were just below. Longing for him to break the surface. Her breasts tingled and almost begged for his touch.

She opened her eyes with a little gasp. His fingers stopped instantly, relaxed as if he were doing nothing more than prop up his sleeping wife, and had happened to drape his hand on her chest.

For a second his eyes burned down at her. Then she saw, deep in their depths, a glint of laughter. He knew she wasn’t asleep. He’d guessed somehow. She never could keep a secret.

“Enjoying yourself, darling?” he whispered, bending his neck so that his breath stirred the curls on her forehead. She should deny it . . . she should claim sleep . . . she should act like a lady. She sat up and thought about what she wanted to do next.

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“Are you comfortable?” he asked, and his husky, almost sleepy voice made her feel like sagging back against his shoulder. It was as if he heard her thoughts. “Why don’t you lean back, Henrietta?”

She never, ever leaned, or sagged. “Keep your back straight and your deformity will be less noticeable,” one doctor had advised. Henrietta had never forgotten that advice. Suddenly she leaped up. “The children!” she gasped.

“They’re both asleep,” he said, pulling her back against him. She lost her balance and fell directly onto his lap. His breath caressed her neck.

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“What on earth has happened to my coiffure?” As she twisted to the side to recapture the heavy fall of hair, she heard the oddest, almost stifled noise from Darby.

“Is something the matter?”

Darby had to think about how to answer that. The cruel gods who had designed corsets had forgotten to cover Henrietta’s curving little bottom with whalebone. It rounded into the juncture of his legs, intoxicatingly round, soft and tender. She probably had no idea what was jutting between his legs. But she sure as hell noticed something. She kept wriggling, trying to find a comfortable spot. He put his hands on her waist and placed her next to him on the seat. His wife was looking about, obviously wondering where her little hairnet had gone. Then her eyes widened as she noticed something else was missing. “Where’s Anabel?”

“Here,” Darby said, lifting the top of the picnic basket proudly. It was an admirable baby carrier, if he said so himself.

“You put Anabel in a picnic basket? And then you put a—

a top on the basket!”

“She couldn’t suffocate,” Darby pointed out. “The basket is made of woven reed, and there’s plenty of air.”

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sure that had there been a side of roast beef in the area, it would now be sailing through the air in his direction. So he moved first.

No gentleman’s kiss, this.

It was a warning, an advisory, a precursor to the evening. If she didn’t know why his lap had turned into such a lumpy seat, Darby certainly did. For some unknown reason, his drably dressed little wife had him aching with lust in a way he hadn’t experienced even when he was infatuated with the third housemaid. It was a deep, hungry need that he felt, one as primitive as anger or grief.

His tongue invaded her mouth in the way that the Cossacks invaded small villages: invasion first, questions after. It was a kiss that spoke of nakedness, of breasts without corsets, and laps without trousers.