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“If I had minded, I would have told you as much,” she informed him. Then she added thoughtfully, “Perhaps I would have bitten your lip. Or your tongue.” She had dimples; the sight of them made his heart skip a beat.

Crucial questions ranged in his mind: Who was she? Where could he find her father to ask for her hand? What in hell’s name was she doing, sneaking out to a masquerade of this nature?

That wasn’t what came out of his mouth.

“Please tell me how you toppled Clod?” he asked again.

“I’ll tell you if you make me a promise.”

From what he could see, she had a piquant little face, with the kind of charm that could make a man drop to his knees before her.

“Anything.”

She tapped him on the hand with a finger. “You oughtn’t to be so trusting, Major. Here’s the promise: whenever I ask you to jump, you must do so.”

He blinked. “What?”

“If I ask, you jump. You needn’t jump very high.” Her voice was merry.

His body offered a clear interpretation of that request: he wanted to jump forward and cover those smiling lips with his or, even better, to jump on top of her. He cleared his throat. “I promise to jump whenever you ask.”

“In that case, unless I truly need to, I promise not to sweep your feet out from under you,” she said, laughing.

“I think you already did,” he said frankly.

Around them, the ballroom was filled with women determined to dazzle and bewitch the fashionable men who bowed before them. This was a market for the demimonde of London: the underbelly of polite society. Not as obvious as a brothel, but a market, nonetheless.

Each woman was fishing for a gentleman who would give them a home and an allowance in exchange for intimacies.

His lady wasn’t fishing, but she had caught him.

“That was a good kiss, wasn’t it?” Her smile widened. “It was my first.”

Joshua nodded. “I thought as much.”

“Was it all right? Not that I should be kissing strange men, but this is a unique evening, don’t you think? Out of time, as if it didn’t happen at all.”

“It is happening,” Joshua said, knitting his brows. He wasn’t sure how to tell this joyous sprite that he would be taking her home—and perhaps even having a word with her father, given that she’d put herself in danger.

Yet she was brave and independent; he certainly didn’t want her to change. Before he enlisted, he had attended local assemblies, of course. He had met many marriageable maidens, from languid to giggly. None of them could have swept Clod’s feet out from under him. They paled in comparison to her.

Only rarely did ladies follow their husbands to the site of a battle, but there were those few who embraced adventure. Lady Florentia Sale, for example, famously accompanied the British forces led by her husband, Major Sir Robert Sale. He’d known Robert for years and envied him the “Grenadier in Petticoats,” as Robert’s officers called her.

Maybe … just maybe …

“I’d like to see you again,” he said, choosing his words carefully.

“That’s impossible,” she replied. He could tell from the regretful tone in her voice that she truly meant it. She thought he would kiss her and walk away. Or that she could kiss him and expect never to see him again.

What had been lust in his veins became a pounding instinct to make her his—the only excuse he had for the thoroughly ungentlemanly action of picking her up, putting her on his lap, and gathering her curvaceous body close.

“Major FitzRoy,” she scolded. But her eyes were sparkling with mischief. The cluster of standing candelabra behind the settee cast golden light over her scarlet cloak and made strands of her hair gleam like polished mahogany.

“I am breaking every rule my mother taught me,” he told her.

She leaned back, fitting into the curve of his arm as if she were designed for him. “I am certain your mother would not approve of your attendance at this event, let alone the way you are holding me, Major. I can assure you that my father would be furious.”

“I promise to bow before you in Almack’s,” he told her, his voice a hoarse throb. “I will court you.”