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And his wife, his little rigid-backed wife, understood the message all right. She braced her hands against his shoulders and said something incoherent. An admonishment, surely. But he could taste her . . . could taste the passion in her, even as she pushed at his shoulders. He merely grabbed her and pulled her across his lap again, a flare of fire searing his groin as her bottom settled on his legs. Then he took her mouth, fell into a dipping stroke, his hands holding her close. Quite suddenly her tongue met his, shyly perhaps, willingly for certain. The raw lust that swept his body was a revelation. Simon Darby never lost his composure. Never. Early in his life, he formed the opinion that raw emotion was inadvisable and unattractive. He had watched his stepmother burst into an ecstasy of rage while his father, still enthralled with his beautiful wife, hardly complained. Later Darby watched his father succumb to a gambling fever, unable to stop bidding higher and higher, even on cards of no value. Darby had early succeeded in curbing his own responses to appropriate measures.

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But now, in the inner recesses of his mind, Darby was aware that his own wife might prove his undoing. He was trembling—literally trembling. He’d never shook while holding a woman in his life. It was mortifying. He had to talk to her, explain that he wasn’t—

“What are you doing to Henrietta?” said a small voice from the other side of the carriage, with some interest. His wife made a hoarse sound in her throat and tore away from him so quickly that she nearly pitched to the carriage floor.

Darby straightened and stared at his sister. How long had Josie been awake? She sat on the opposite seat, thumb in her mouth, looking at them with an inquiring expression.

“I was greeting Henrietta,” he said.

Josie’s eyes narrowed. “You never greet me like that,”

she said.

“You are not my wife.”

Josie’s mouth instantly thinned to a mutinous line. Darby braced himself for an explosion of mamaless cries and shrieks, but Henrietta cut off the shriek as it was about to appear.

“Remember what I told you, dear,” she said, nodding at the lampshade.

To his immense surprise, Josie blinked and stilled. Clearly there was some ferocious threat attached to the lampshade.

“Mr. Darby does not mean to be sharp,” Henrietta continued. She was twisting up her great rope of hair as she spoke, winding it briskly, although how she thought to get it to stay on the top of her head without the hairnet (now snugly stowed in Darby’s pocket) he couldn’t say. Luckily the carriage seemed to be rumbling over cobblestones, a sure sign that they had finally reached the Bear and Owl.

“Your brother and I were merely exchanging greetings,”

Henrietta said. She gave up the effort to rearrange her hair 264 Eloisa

James

and simply crammed her bonnet on over it. “Married persons do greet each other with a kiss when they meet unexpectedly.”

Josie looked unconvinced, but Henrietta serenely suggested that she replace her own bonnet, as they had undoubtedly reached the inn. Darby was as unconvinced as his sister. He glanced down at his lap. If this was a mere greeting, what would his wife think of the night?

He looked at Henrietta and was gratified to see a flush of color high in her cheeks, a fullness to her bottom lip that spoke of his ravaging kisses.

Little flakes of snow were beginning to drift past the carriage as Darby stepped to the ground. It was only early evening, but the sky was dark and lowering, promising to storm. Henrietta handed him a barely awake Anabel. He looked around for a footman, but the only one available to carry the baby looked like a clumsy brute who might drop her. So to his surprise, he found himself carrying the child toward the inn. She woke up, gave him one of those toothless grins of hers, and called him mama. She was a snug little bundle of person, especially when she didn’t smell too markedly. Small flakes of snow were falling into the fiery mass of Henrietta’s hair. They disappeared instantly, scorched, no doubt.

“I shouldn’t think we’ll be able to travel tomorrow,” he said, catching up with his wife as she led Josie toward the inn.

“Oh dear,” Henrietta said, looking at the sky. He surrendered to a sweet temptation. “We may have to spend the day in bed,” he said, bending near her ear. “Just to keep our warmth, of course.”

She looked up at him, lips swollen from his kisses, and surprised him again. There was a flickering smile in her eyes, even curling the edge of those deep rose lips. Snowflakes Fool for Love

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flecked her hair and her eyelashes, but she was no snow maiden, frozen to the core.

He silently followed her into the inn door because he literally didn’t know what to say. The idea that a mere smile could cause heat to sweep his body like a fierce plague was frightening.

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Dinner for Three

“Did you find the village organ of interest, Lord Godwin?”