“Yes, I am. It’s only … I keep thinking I should have stayed with your sister when she came to the shop last Saturday. I told you we’d deal with Adderley, but I didn’t tell her. I had other things on my mind. Your mother. And Dowdy’s. And now … it seems my priorities were wrong.”
“What rot. You didn’t know Clara was going to act like an idiot.”
“I wasn’t paying attention! And now she’s in danger. She hasn’t the slightest idea how to survive. She wouldn’t know a scoundrel if he wore a badge announcing it. She trusted Adderley, of all men! I should have done something!”
“What are you talking about? What could you have done?”
She waved her arms. “Something. A diversion.”
He stomped back to her, grasped her shoulders, and gave her a little shake. “Stop it,” he said.
“I’m so worried,” she said.
He took her face in his hands and tilted it up so that he could look down into her eyes. They were filling. It was like looking into the Adriatic Sea through a mist. A tiny bead of moisture trickled down the side of her nose. Her lower lip jutted out in a pout. It trembled.
It wasn’t the time and place.
He oughtn’t to rush his fences.
But she’d waved her arms, and that made her womanly parts jiggle and he could only keep one idea in his head at a time, and in any case, oughts never went down smoothly with him.
He was who he was, and that wasn’t a good boy. And so down he went, and crushed her sulky little mouth under his.
He’d never done things by halves. He wasn’t likely to start now.
He kissed her firmly, fearlessly, recklessly, the way he did everything. It never occurred to him to be cautious.
Not much occurred to him, in fact. He simply did it, in the way he did everything, without thinking or worrying.
And then he walked off a cliff.
Down he went, as though there were a sea below, and he was falling straight into it.
He was falling into her somehow. He tasted the sea—a hint of salt tears—and there was a hint of the wine she’d drunk, too. He breathed in the fresh scent of her. Where he was sinking, the world was warm. Lavender and something else scented the air and the scent brought back a moment: the sun of Tuscany and a villa framed in lavender and jasmine. He felt the same inexplicable, soaring happiness he’d felt a few years ago, far away from England.
He wrapped his arms about her. It was instinctive to hold on to something too wonderful to understand.
And her mouth simply melted under his, so soft and welcoming. Her body melted against him, too, as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Her arms came up and wrapped about his neck. Her breasts pressed against his waistcoat. She was so warm and so softly curved and he was warm and warmer still, his pulse racing while he drank in more deeply: the sweetness of her mouth and the clean scent of her and the way her soft curves fit against him.
He slid his hands down and grasped her bottom and pressed her close—and she made a choked little sound against his mouth—and small as it was, it was a jolt, and all the signal he needed.
He lifted his hands away from her bottom.
He lifted his mouth from hers.
He took one unsteady step back, and another.
Her great blue eyes were dazed, and she swayed a little. The shawl lay in a puddle on the floor.
“My goodness,” she said breathlessly. “My goodness.”
She tipped her head to one side and studied him in the manner of a drunk trying to focus.
Hell.
It was her first time.
She’d never been kissed before.
That was completely impossible.
No, it wasn’t.
Yes, it was.
Never mind. There was nothing for it but to bluster his way out of it, whatever it was.
“Don’t,” he said. “Do. That. Again.”
“Yes,” she said with a dazed little smile.
“I can’t abide hysterics,” he said firmly.
“Yes,” she said.
He was dizzy, too, but he could see her clearly enough. He could see far too much of her … or not nearly enough. He could see the bed as well, only a few steps away, so inviting.
Well, then, why not accept the invitation?
Because … he didn’t know why. Or why not.
He turned his back, on her, on the bed, on everything, and stomped out.
In a kind of haze, Sophy watched him go.
She watched all of him go: his black hair disheveled as though he’d dragged his fingers through it—or had she done that? … the broad shoulders and the motion of his shoulder blades under the waistcoat … the muscles of his arms, tantalizingly visible under the fine linen of his shirt … the back of his waist and the upside down V of the waistcoat where it gathered at the base of his spine … and on down over his hips and the long legs … and all of that big body moving so smoothly and as gracefully as a thoroughbred.
He walked to the door and closed it behind him, with a sharp thud that made her jump, and jolted her out of the daze.
She shook her head. She closed her eyes and opened them. She drew her tongue over her lips … the way he had done.
She moved to the table, refilled her wineglass, and drank it down in a gulp to strengthen her resolve.
She marched to the door connecting their rooms and pushed it open.
He froze, a wineglass halfway to his mouth. That wicked, dangerous mouth.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
“What are you saying?” he said. “Are you insane?”
“I was for a minute,” she said. “But you can’t do that again. You can’t be such an idiot.”
“Go away,” he said. “Do you know you’ve almost no clothes on?”
“Never mind. I need—”
“Never mind? Listen to me, Miss Innocence. There are many things a man can ‘never mind.’ A nearly naked woman isn’t one of them.”
“Taut pis!” she said. “There wasn’t time to dress. I have to say it
