“Just kissing,” she whispered against his lips, seizing him tight. He was so much larger than she, a difference that had always pleased her. “Nothing more.”

“Kissing. Is that what this is?” Vane’s breath filled her mouth in warm, brandy-sweet bursts. He thrust his fingers into the hair on either side of her face and cradled her skull, trailing kisses along her jaw, her chin, her nose, her mouth, and eyelids. “Very well. It’s enough. For now.”

There was a place against his neck that always intrigued her whenever he talked or turned his head. Sophia’s mouth found that place now, where his skin tasted of salt and citron and sugar. In the back of her mind, a faint voice, perhaps that of her sensible self, told her she really ought to stop this now because all this kissing and touching and teasing would only lead to—

“Stop thinking,” he murmured, coaxing her mouth open with pressure from his tongue. Her legs ajar just enough, he eased between them, his hands planted on the tabletop at either side of her hips. Gently, with only the pressure of his face and lips, he urged her head back and left a trail of kisses along the same path down the center of her neck as his fingertip had taken moments before. She arched backward, lost to sensation.

Taking full advantage, he again cupped her breasts and squeezed them together. She moaned, and her hands clenched his torso, a response that only aroused him further. What had he been thinking when he’d claimed to hate women’s fashions? Everything about her was more than he remembered. More alluring. More fragrant and intoxicating. And her breasts, so soft and round and plump. He slid her gown from her shoulders.

“That is not kissing.” She pushed his hands away and jerked the garment back up. But she did not push him away. Instead, she lay halfway across the table, her eyes sleepy, her lips swollen and parted. An alluring pagan offering in want of more kissing.

“But it would be.” He smiled. His fingertips traced the edge of her neckline downward, daring to slip to the plush flesh beneath, grazing over her nipple. “I want to kiss you there.”

“Claxton.” She gasped and jerked in response. Her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink.

His blood pulsed forward, like a team of horses hell-bent on one destination. Kissing most certainly was not enough.

He dragged his palms upward over her knees and across the tops of her thighs, ruching her skirts at her hips, exposing her stockinged legs and their black garters. Reaching behind and beneath her buttocks, he seized her, dragging her bottom closer to the edge of the table so their bodies joined more closely.

She stared up at him, eyes wide and expectant. Heat bathed the confines of the kitchen and a hazy golden glow from the stove. Behind her lay a sturdy table, the perfect height upon which to make love. The thought of her stretched beneath him on the aged wood, of rutting into her on a surface still strewn with flour and sugar, sent his already hard cock to twitching with impatience. Bloody hell, she was his wife and they ought to be—

He bent to kiss her—

“The cakes,” she exclaimed and twisted free of him. Her hands went to the place between her breasts, where she pinched and adjusted her corset. With a flutter of her hands, she cooled her cheeks. “How much time has passed?”

“Let them burn.” The way he burned. He groaned, suffering a physical pain at her sudden absence from his arms. “I’d be more than happy to forget the game. I propose we occupy our time in other ways.”

Wicked ways.

“Your lack of competitive spirit disappoints me,” she called without looking at him.

“Disappointed…you may be that,” he muttered, thinking how unhappy she was going to be once she saw the difference in their cakes.

“Let yours burn if you like. I am more than happy to claim the prize.”

Prize? His erection throbbed, dissatisfied. He’d almost won the prize. Primitive male rationale told him if he could only make love to her and pleasure her enough and get her with child, she wouldn’t ever leave him again.

She prattled on, taking up two thick woolen pads and approaching the oven. But her eyes were glazed and her cheeks flushed, proof she’d been just as aroused as he.

“I can’t wait to see them,” she declared shakily. “Don’t be envious when mine turn out better.”

“I’ll try.”

She bent and pulled her tins from inside the stove. He bit the side of his thumb. Certainly there would be no more kissing allowed after this. Hell, it might be days or even weeks before she allowed him to touch her breasts again. For that reason, if no other, he now felt a staggering degree of remorse for what he’d done.

“Hmmm.” Her cheek twitched, and she glared at him. “I expected them to rise more. But perhaps this is how they are intended to look?”

“Let me pull out mine, and we can compare.” He took the rag from her and carefully removed his cake tins, which boasted twelve perfectly plump, rounded tops.

Her mouth fell open. “Yours turned out completely different. I wonder why.”

Of course they had. His flour had been dry and he’d used the proper number of eggs.

Did he detect a note of suspicion in her voice? Too late for that. He tried not to appear smug. He’d also buttered his tins while she searched the cabinet for the missing twelfth heart-shaped tin, which he had strategically hidden behind the farthest row of pots.

With ease he turned his cakes out of their metal forms and sifted powdered sugar on them. Their heat instantly glazed the sugar into a thin icing.

Sophia, however, hadn’t managed to remove a single one of her cakes. Dismayed, she exclaimed, “They are hopelessly stuck.”

Of course they were stuck. After drinking that brandy, she’d completely forgotten to butter her tins. She knew better! But at some point, in stealth, Claxton had buttered his.

“Something stinks,” she muttered.

He did not glance up from the plate, where he arranged his cakes with meticulous care. “Probably just some crumbs burning in the oven.”

No, that’s not what she meant. That isn’t what she’d meant at all. With a knife, she at last chiseled one cake free. Or part of one. Half the heart remained in the tin.

“Don’t worry about the ragged edges. They’ll look grand once you sift them over with icing,” he assured.

“Yes, I am sure Mrs. Kettle’s decision will be determined on taste,” she said, eyes narrowing. Even without the proper number of eggs, hers would taste much better than his overly salted cakes.

“I strategize,” he had said. Well, Claxton, so did she.

She proceeded to chisel out the remainder of her cakes. He had plied her with brandy, and worse yet, she now realized, kisses. If she hadn’t been so befuddled by brandy, she wouldn’t have been such a willing participant. That probably wasn’t even true, but she felt better thinking it. But she wasn’t done yet.

Shoving the broken pieces together, she sifted sugar over them and did her best to arrange them in an appetizing fashion. Soon they were both bundled up, and Sophia seated in the sledge with their cakes held in her lap in two baskets so he could drive.

“Oh, dear,” she cried. “I’ve forgotten my mittens.”

He stepped down off the blade. “I’ll go back for them.”

How very gallant he was, for a charlatan. She gave him instructions where to find them, and as soon as he disappeared inside the house, she scrambled out from the sledge, pausing only long enough to secure her plate of cakes in the soft nest of the blanket. With a wicked laugh, she tossed his basket aside into the snow.

Mittens drawn from her pockets, she yanked the reins free and climbed onto the blades. She was much better at driving carriages and handling horses than baking cakes. She’d never driven a sledge, but how difficult could it be?

The first bend in the road answered her question. When the sledge swung wide into a deeper snowbank, the vehicle and animal leading it lurched to a stop.

* * *

“I couldn’t find your mittens, but I—”

Claxton’s voice trailed away at finding only the deep groove of the sledge’s blades in the snow to greet him. Not just that, but his cakes lay scattered in the snow beside his upended basket. Bells jangled in the distance.

A glance down the hill revealed the horse and sledge with Sophia expertly poised on the blades, reins in hand, her dark hair streaming out behind her.

Laughter welled up from inside his chest. “You little minx!”

Of course he hadn’t found her mittens. She’d tricked him. All along, his spirited young wife had been playing the game just as hard as he. Of course she had.

But the game wasn’t over yet. Grinning, he grabbed the basket and tossed his frozen cakes inside.

* * *

A flicker of movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention. Claxton raced in the opposite direction of the road, churning across the paddock, snow flying up in his wake. Amazingly, it appeared he carried the discarded basket of cakes. Curse his long legs and boots.

He proceeded past the place where they had crossed the frozen riverbed the day before. From a distance, voices shouted and laughed. On the hilltop that overlooked the village, children played. Several boys threw snowballs while another group raised a small army of snowmen. Still others streaked on sleds or barrel lids down the snow-covered hill.

“No,” she wailed, realizing his intent. Snapping the reins, she urged the horse to resume its forward motion. With a shrill whinny, the animal plowed forward, high stepping through the snow, yanking the sledge free.