Wildfire Kiss (Sir Edward 1)

“Give me time … I have to think …” Babs again stalled, hoping to find a way out of this predicament.

He chortled. “No.”

She touched his arm. “Ned … may I call you Ned?”

“It is my fondest wish that you will do so,” he said on a husky note.

“Then do but hear me out. At least honor me with a few weeks courtship.”

“You already had that and refused me,” he snapped impatiently. He sighed. “However, I will give you a few days time before I send in the announcement of our engagement to the newspapers.”

“A few days …?” she squeaked. What was she going to do? “You can’t mean to woo me in just a few days?”

“My dear, I don’t mean to woo you at all. I mean to take you.”

She surveyed him coldly. “Do you know, Sir Edward …” she said, purposely dropping the ‘Ned’, “that a man obsessed with winning does not always find satisfaction with the prize? You might want to remember that when Leander swam the Hellespont, he was a man driven by true love’s hottest blood, but having gone the distance, he was unable to make the girl! This might just turn out the same for you …” she warned.

He reached out and gripped her arm roughly, and his answer was to bend and take her lips by force. Though he found them soft, though he found her mouth sweet, he also discovered a hellcat. She bit him.

He jumped away from her and held his hand to his mouth. “You will never get away with that again.” He shook his head. “I might just end by wishing you and yours ill and whispering your secret to anyone who will listen … and they will listen!”

She gasped, and he grabbed her again. “Babs, when I am done, your lips will part for mine, and you will whisper my name against my ear.”

“No, Sir Edward, I will not. You take by force that which can never be yours.”

His brows moved and his eyes were slits of fury. “We shall see.” He let her go. “In the meantime, you will inform the duke that you intend to become my bride and that he is no longer welcome at your side.”

“I shall do no such thing,” she snapped back. She was now in tears.

“Won’t you, my love? Then perhaps I shall.” He started to move off.

“Please …” she called after him. “Sir Edward, it is unnecessary. He has no wish to marry me.”

“And still, I would have him know.” Sir Edward’s gaze was hard and cold.

Lowering her eyes, she tried to stem her tears and prohibit the catch in her throat f

rom oversetting her. “Sir Edward, if it is your wish that the duke be told such news, then, yes, you tell him.”

He was taken aback. He had genuinely wanted the news to come from her. He was doubtful that the duke would believe him. Was that her game?

She smiled, for she could see he meant to call her bluff as he said, “It will give me the greatest pleasure to give him our wonderful news.”

“Sir Edward, it won’t do you any good. I have lost my heart to him, and therefore, you shall never have it,” she told him bluntly.

He fired up but controlled himself. “Is that so? We shall see, for this first round has gone to me, as will all the others in the end.”

She watched him go and leaned back against the oak tree for support. She wanted to sob her heart out, but she needed a clear head. Somehow she pulled herself together and said out loud, “Do you think so, villain? I do not …”

***

Sir Edward sent his card in for the duke, anticipating the moment when he would deliver the news that Lady Babs had accepted to be his wife. He wanted to rub it into his rival’s face. He wanted this moment of glory almost as much as he wanted the Lady Babs. He stood in the squire’s central hall and twirled his hat about with glee as he waited.

He had seen the look on Lord Wildfire … huh, Wildfire indeed … but he had seen the look on his face whenever he glanced at the Lady Babs. This would come as a blow, and he reveled in the notion.

The duke came out to greet him and invited him into the library where there was, he told him, some hot tea.

“I am not here on a social visit, and I don’t require tea,” Sir Edward said grimly.