The Honourable Fortune Hunter (Scandalous Miss Brightwells 5)

“Yes. If I am going to accept him, I need to know that I like kissing him. Mrs Hodge’s daughter told me that is a preliminary to children who will be my most important duty, as all women know. Why, the purpose of marriage is the begetting of children. I hear it in church all the time. And if kissing is the preliminary to the begetting of children, and I am here to decide whether to become Mr Dalgleish’s wife, then what we did beneath the mistletoe was a very necessary part of my research.”

“Ah, yes…I suppose it is research.”

It seemed that the tone of his voice stopped her excited little speech, and as he looked at her bright eyes and confused expression, he felt a surprising tenderness. How little she knew of the world, but how eagerly she embraced it. And with what determination to improve her poor lot in life. For it must indeed be a sorry situation to be under the dominion of the deplorable Mrs Hodge.

“And did your research please you?” he asked.

She pressed her lips together and looked over his shoulder to a point somewhere in the dim depths of the room. “I quite liked it,” she said, musingly. “Certainly, I did at the time. After all, I’d never kissed anyone before and…well, his lips were quite soft, and it did feel quite nice.”

“Just quite nice?”

She nodded.

“It should feel quite delightful. That is entirely possible, you know.”

“Well, I don’t have anything to compare it with,” she grumbled. “I had hoped you’d kiss me under the mistletoe, but of course you are betrothed to someone else.”

“Not betrothed, exactly.”

She blinked in surprise and her face fell. “Yet you still didn’t want to kiss me? Oh Theo, tonight has been most disappointing. I did not mean to say what I said, but I think there was quite a lot of brandy in the eggnog, and I’ve discovered I have no head for brandy. But…” She stared at him. “Have you changed your mind about marrying?”

“Not at all.”

Lizzy traced the pattern of the curtain with her forefinger. “And was she thrilled when you asked the question?”

“You’re fishing now, aren’t you?” Theo tried to think back to just when the moment was that marriage had been agreed upon, and couldn’t. “We have an understanding.”

“So, it is not something that’s definitely been decided upon between the two of you?”

“It will happen.”

Her disappointment was so transparent and the sweetness of her expression so taking, Theo barely knew the words were out of his mouth before he said, “And I don’t mind kissing you right now, Lizzy…just so as to satisfy you that Mr Dalgleish’s kiss is without a doubt the most superior.” A shaky justification but it would help him, too. Clearly, they’d both had too much to drink and a kiss was just a kiss. This would prove it. He blinked to clear the slight blurriness that was altering his ability to think with as clear a head as he knew he ought to have to be making such a rash offer. “Do you think that would help you accept him with no doubts at all?”

Her face lit up, and pure delight danced in the depths of her beautiful blue eyes. “Oh yes, I think it would!”

> Before the words were even out of his mouth, she was standing on tiptoe, tilting up her face, and offering him her lips; her eyes closed, a faint smile upon the soft, pink mouth that he knew—with the greatest foreboding and the greatest excitement in this instant—would be fatal to taste.

But taste he must. He had made the offer, and there was not only his promise to honour but her dignity to maintain. He’d rejected her so many times before, but surely this one opportunity would be a means of satisfying them both. A brief kiss excused upon the grounds of providing education and elucidation for her, and on his part, delivering a kindness.

Placing one hand gently behind her neck, he lowered his face and then hesitated. If she opened her eyes and displayed the slightest hint of having second thoughts, he would withdraw.

But she did not, and no sooner had he registered the fusing of their lips, a featherlight touch at first, tentative, then only slightly exploratory, Theodore felt his entire body seemingly combust in a reaction that was as unexpected as it was unwelcome.

He should put her away from him was his first thought as her hold around his neck tightened. He should never have suggested this, his instincts told him as the mists of a rapidly enveloping fog further clouded his judgement; so that as she drew him down, intensifying the pressure of their kiss, her soft sighs making no secret of her growing enjoyment, he knew it was far too late to take account of anything beyond the here and now.

When he breached the seam of her lips with a gentle probing of his tongue, she was only too ready to give him access, the press of her body cleaving against his, pushing her breasts against his chest and making him harden like a young buck.

Conscious of the impropriety when there could be no marriage proposal to follow, and that was, quite clearly, what had brought her to Quamby House, he pulled away, his breathing ragged and the slight befuddlement of his mind a signal to the small piece of conscious rationality that he had overstepped the mark.

“Don’t stop,” she whispered, her eyes still closed, her hands gripping the lapels of his coat; her mouth curved in a smile of infinite pleasure.

He stared down at her; at this young woman who made no secret of her feelings: indignation, hope, pleasure. He’d been on the receiving end of them all, and how refreshing it was to know that artifice was not a measure of her makeup. Lizzy Scott was as transparent as a pane of glass, and right now she wanted him to continue making love to her.

Yet, while his body cried out to respond, he had enough wit to know he could not do so without passing the point where he could no longer be responsible for his actions.

He shook his head and she glanced up at him, her lips parting in disappointment. “This is how I wanted to feel when Mr Dalgleish kissed me,” she said honestly.

It was how Theodore wanted to feel when he kissed the woman who would be his wife. It was how he wanted to feel when the time came to kiss Amelia. He would have a lifetime of kissing Amelia. He was honour-bound to make the commitment they both knew was forthcoming.