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Her eyes sprang open… and dazzled to see the heavens afire with streaks of white. The meteor shower! It had come true, just as the almanac had foretold.
She laughed in delight as Harry twirled her down the empty road, waltzing without music to the tune of wishes coming true all over England.
Even though she knew it was foolish, even though she knew magic did not really exist, nothing in this moment was more real than the wishes all around them and the music of their laughter as they danced in each other’s arms beneath the shooting stars.
“What do you think?” he asked. “Was it worth the wait?”
In answer, she wrapped her arms about his neck and kissed him with all the passion in her heart.
CHAPTER16
Harry knew he was in trouble the moment his lips touched Bianca’s.
He had wanted to kiss her for so long. Before he’d even met her; from the moment he’d glimpsed her across a crowded parlor. Holding back and warning her away had only heightened his desire to taste her lips. He’d thought about it so often and built it into such a tower of yearning that there was no hope of reality living up to his fantasy.
Except it did, and more. She was everything he had longed for. Her kiss was sweeter than expected, her curves softer, her skin warmer, her taste so perfect that he never wanted to come up for breath. The meteor shower lighting the sky with magic was nothing compared to the fireworks going off in his heart.
This was no mere kiss. This was proof that Harry would never be able to walk away. Not without looking over his shoulder every other step, and then giving up and running back to scoop her into his arms to lose himself in another incredible kiss.
The problem was that she was not some idle rakish conquest, a woman whose name he did not know, and it did not matter whether her personality meshed with his.
Hedidknow Bianca. He liked her as a person, not as a passing fancy. Lady Quinseley could not have been more wrong when she’d selected Harry to seduce and abandon Bianca. He was the one seduced. The one most likely to be left behind.
After all, he could not offer her any of the things a woman in her position was looking for. Not the financial arrangement of mistress and protector, and certainly not marriage. Oh God, why was he thinking ofmarriage?
He knew what was expected of him. Knew there was only one path out of the darkness for his family, and that Harry was the only one who could walk it. He knew the names of every dowries debutante by heart, ranked in descending order of fortune. Knew the future of the marquessate lay in an alliance with Lady Regina, not a penniless orphan whose pockets were as empty as his own.
And yet, with every kiss, his heart imagined a hundred more. Early morning kisses, so half-asleep they felt like a continuation of his dreams. Kisses before every meal, and after. Kisses while bathing, while reading, while in a hackney. Kisses before bed. Kisses in the middle of the night.
None of those kisses were destined for him, no matter how ardently he might long for them. He knew what lie in wait for him in his own future. If he truly cared for Bianca, there was only one thing he could honorably wish for.
Without breaking their kiss, he closed his eyes as tight as he could and wished upon every one of the shooting stars for the heavens to grantBianca’swishes.
He wished for her to find security and happiness and love. He wished—
The sound of wheels crunching over gravel in the alleyway caused him to freeze where he stood.
“I thought you said all the guests had already arrived, and none would leave for hours,” Bianca murmured against Harry’s lips.
Thatwaswhat he had said. Everyone who intended to come would have arrived well before supper was served. And with the spectacular display of meteors shooting overhead, no guest in their right mind would choose this moment to summon their carriage to take them home.
Which meant it could only be… a guestnotin their right mind.
Harry lifted his mouth from Bianca’s and stepped in front of her protectively just as a familiar voice slurred out of the open hackney window, “Son? Is that you?”
“You’ve missed supper, Father,” Harry replied evenly. “You ought to continue on home.”
The hackney’s passenger door flung open even before the wheels fully came to a stop. “What are you doing out here, if the party is in there?”
“Everyone stepped outside to see the shooting stars,” Harry explained, then wished he hadn’t.
Father immediately lurched out of the hackney, stumbling as his boots hit the rocks, an almost-empty bottle of the Savoy Club’s port dangling from his hand.
He squinted up at the sky and grunted. “Too blurry. They don’t hold still.”
“Get back into the carriage,” Harry coaxed. “Have the driver take you home.”
God help him if his father insisted on marching drunkenly into the St. Trevelyons’ rear garden and vomited in front of all the guests. Then there would be no Lady Regina oranyheiress to save them.
