Regency: Courtship And Candlelight: One Final Season. Elizabeth Beacon

      He hustled her out of a side door and into the garden proper before she could find breath or words to protest with and urged her inexorably closer to the long windows of his lordship’s fine ballroom, but not close enough for propriety, of course. The further they got from that darkened room the better, even if it was leading them closer to marriage, Kate decided numbly, and cursed herself for not fighting this more strongly. It was hard to fight temptation when it beckoned so wickedly.

      ‘You could leave me here alone,’ she whispered softly in defiance of her own eagerness for any sort of marriage with him, even this forced one.

      ‘So you could be quizzed from now until next Christmas on the identity of your cowardly lover?’ he murmured back, and anyone watching them would probably mistake them for fellow moon-led idiots lured out here by such promising darkness, she decided crossly. ‘Go back in that room alone after spending such a long time away from it and your chaperon, and you’ll be ruined without anyone having to plot against you,’ he continued relentlessly, ‘and in acute danger once that harpy realises you could have overheard her plot to murder her husband, whilst you wandered about in the shadows so carelessly that anything might have happened to you.’

      ‘And being a perfect gentle knight you’re sacrificing yourself instead?’

      ‘No, being a pattern-card of perfection was so dull that I gave it up,’ he declared flippantly.

      ‘Along with me?’ she murmured, then could have kicked herself for letting him know how much his recent rebuffs had hurt her.

      ‘I thought I’d save myself the pain of enduring another crushingly polite refusal,’ he told her and Kate hurt at the careless apology in his deep voice. ‘I dare say marrying you won’t be so bad once I get used to the idea again,’ he added.

      ‘And if you think I’ll stand by idly while you have affairs with other women you will be sorely disappointed, Edmund Worth,’ she informed him in a fierce undertone.

      ‘That’s entirely up to you, dear Kate. If you keep me otherwise occupied, I probably won’t have the time or the opportunity to stray,’ he observed and silenced her with another mind-stealing kiss.

      Furious, she did her best to bite him, so he deepened his kiss and dared her give whatever she might have had the wits to withhold until now. Defeated by her own need of him, her body seemed to meld itself to Edmund’s powerfully lean one of its own accord and wild heat burst into instant life again. She angled her wanton mouth to his in a way she should think appallingly fast but didn’t. Never mind fast, her deepest buried instincts warred with her training, he’ll still marry you now, even if he doesn’t really want to.

      She couldn’t make herself break away, even with that chilly thought in the back of her mind, but she clenched her hands at her sides and refused them the luxury of his lithely muscled body. It didn’t abate the searing wildfire flaming through her like a force of nature, but it made her feel a little better about herself and the self-control she’d once prided herself upon.

      Unimpressed, his hands ran over her in an unashamed exploration and she loved it. She’d always denied being capable of deep feeling, in her ignorance of how elemental and out of control she would be with the right man. Now he let his wicked hands find a way between them, despite her body’s ridiculous efforts to plaster itself against him like a poultice, and Edmund ran an approving thumb over a raised nipple that immediately hardened and begged for more without permission from her. She had to fight not to moan and cry out a frantic demand for more, for everything. If not for the half-painful gnaw of need, the half-wondrous goad of heat at the heart of her, of course she would put distance between them and escape the purely physical spell he’d cast over her, yes, that was just what she would do, in a minute.

      This was the wild and passionate Kate he’d always known existed beneath that façade of serenely composed beauty. Edmund managed to find enough willpower from somewhere to put a distance between them and convince himself painfully that he’d discovered enough about her most secret passions for now, in public or almost public as they were. He forced his hands away from her delicious body before his fascination with it broke his self-control. She was flushed and breathless, her soft gasps for air drawing his attention to her lush, but firm, young breasts, rising and falling rapidly against the low neckline even a single lady could wear by her fourth Season without being considered intolerably fast.

      Her eyes were wild and more beautiful than he could ever recall seeing them even in his dreams as they blazed with feelings he would give half his fortune to read fully. Her lips parted as she fought to get her breath back and his eyes lingered on them with hungry fascination as she slicked them with her sharp little tongue. If he wasn’t to throw himself on her and ravish her on the lower terrace of his hostess’s garden, he must get their engagement rolling relentlessly on before she lost that starry-eyed, just-kissed look and remembered all the doubts and fears that inhabited her contrary thoughts whenever he wasn’t in a position to haze them with merciless passion. An image he’d best not dwell on if he wanted to get the next few minutes over with without causing an even bigger scandal than the one he had in mind.

      ‘Come,’ he ordered brusquely as he towed her back to the shark-infested waters of the ton, before she balked.

      ‘I still can’t see why …’ Miss Alstone seemed about to take over from his wild Kate, so Edmund summarily tugged her into the ballroom and put an end to her nonsense.

      ‘Good heavens!’ Cromer exclaimed at the sight of a stormy-eyed, very thoroughly kissed Kate on Edmund’s arm and just managed to suppress a grin. ‘They’re quite right about that dangerous moonlight,’ he mumbled as he stepped back to let the company see what it had done to so cool and collected a couple.

      ‘Good heavens, indeed, and yes, very right,’ Edmund replied calmly.

      ‘I don’t think they had much to do with it,’ his Kate mumbled tartly and Edmund wondered if he was suffering from shock and hallucinating when she didn’t just tear herself away from him and flounce off. It wasn’t every day a man heard murder plotted, and with Kate pressed so close he’d struggled to listen to a word of it. He’d wanted her so mercilessly and now he nearly had what he’d longed for so deeply within his grasp at long last, what had happened so far tonight almost seemed unreal to him for a few moments.

      ‘I hope you’ll congratulate us, Cromer, for I refuse to wait any longer after three years of waiting for a yea instead of a nay, even if her former guardian and brother-in-law hasn’t agreed to it yet,’ he said with a possessive look at Kate.

      ‘Carnwood cutting up rough, is he?’ Cromer asked obligingly, managing to look astonished while his eyes told them he didn’t believe a word.

      ‘You see? Everyone thinks I’m your ideal husband,’ he whispered in Kate’s ear and felt her tense, as if she might jump away and deny every last truthful hint of how they’d been amusing themselves since they left the ballroom that he was building up so carefully. ‘Try it and I’ll kiss you right here,’ he threatened softly.

      ‘I hate you,’ she told him between clenched teeth and he met the heat and fury of her furious glare with a satisfied smile.

      ‘Hate away, my fierce Kate,’ he murmured and heard a sentimental sigh from somewhere close by.

      ‘Mountebank!’ she condemned in a spitting undertone, but still made no effort to pull away or give his apparent devotion the lie.

      Looking as if he was trying very hard to come down to earth, Edmund considered his friend’s previous question. ‘No,’ he replied to the clever lead, ‘but I can’t tear myself away long enough to go up to Derbyshire and ask him.’

      ‘Should think you’ve obtained his permission often enough in the past,’ Cromer said.

      ‘So I keep telling Miss Alstone, but it took me until tonight to convince her I can’t endure to wait and be wed with the full fanfare and fuss of a grand wedding. I’ll have to go and beard Carnwood in his lair now she’d agreed at last that our wedding must be soon, then maybe we can get