“Aunt, I have seen the very best thing ever. Uncle Tye has a picture of my papa.” Fiona scampered over to her aunt and held out the miniature. She did not give it up to her aunt’s possession even temporarily.

“My, what a good-looking fellow he was.” Miss Daniels sank to her knees so she and the child could gaze at the good-looking fellow together. “I especially like the merriment in his eyes, as if he knew happy secrets he was just bursting to tell somebody.”

Tye closed his eyes, trying not to picture his brother’s expression of suppressed glee. Gordie had had charm, about that there was no dispute.

“I look like him,” Fiona announced. “Uncle Tye said.”

“Yes, I can see a resemblance. You must thank your uncle for showing you this. It was very considerate of him.”

“Uncle said I may have it until tomorrow morning.”

“I believe the term used was borrow, but as morning fast approaches, perhaps I’d better rethink my offer.”

Fiona turned her body half away from him, the portrait held out of his sight. “It’s hardly even nighttime, and the moon is still up. I’m going to bed now.”

She shot between the two adults, leaving her aunt kneeling on the floor and a silence where a child had stood a moment before. Tye crossed the room and extended a hand down to Miss Daniels.

“My apologies if we woke you.”

She came to her feet gracefully, her small, warm hand in his providing a curious blend of comfort and upset. To see her thus, ready for bed, her hair hanging in a gilded braid, those ugly socks on her feet… Tye’s heart sped up, and the blood began pooling in inconvenient, ungentlemanly locations.

Which would never do. “May I see you back to your door, Miss Daniels?”

And still, he did not release her hand.

* * *

Spathfoy looked tired and a little frazzled, probably from dealing with Fiona on a bad night. Unfortunately for Hester’s composure, the Earl of Spathfoy tired and a little frazzled had a particular appeal.

As did the Earl of Spathfoy holding forth at breakfast.

And the Earl of Spathfoy in a contemplative mood under the stars.

And the Earl of Spathfoy demonstrating casual equestrian mastery over his unruly young horse.

She went up on her toes and kissed him. He was tall enough that he might have evaded her sally, but instead he stood slightly bent toward her, though very still, as if he wasn’t sure if his brain had heard his mouth aright.

“I don’t especially like you sometimes,” she said. “Though other times, like when you’re being so kind to Fee, I more than like you. I am coming to realize that liking and attraction do not necessarily go hand in hand.”

Solemn green eyes blinked at her. “You are determined on more ill-advised behavior.”

“Not determined, perhaps spontaneously tempted.” She permitted herself to breathe in through her nose, to make an olfactory treat of his clean, floral fragrance. “I came over here to rescue you from Fiona, and now…”

“Who shall rescue me from you? Has it occurred to you, Miss Daniels, you might need rescuing from me?”

He was adorable when he tried to bluster. She added that to a growing list of things she had to admit she liked about him. “You would never force a woman.”

He wouldn’t have to.

“I might pick one up bodily and carry her back to her own room, then shut her door very firmly, return to my own chambers, and lock my door against her further invasions. My gentlemanly resolve goes only so far, Miss Daniels, and I’ve already told you that placing your trust in me is bound to end in disappointment.”

He thought disappointment was going to dissuade her?

“Duly noted, your lordship.” Was all this chatter on his part supposed to make her more determined? For that was the effect it had on her. She cupped his jaw, let the tension of it seep into her fingers. “I did not look for this attraction to you either, but ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. Wasting it seems unthinkable.”

“Nothing makes it go away.” He muttered this last a quarter inch from her mouth, so she could feel the way the words shaped his breath and taste the frustration in his voice.

“Nothing you’ve tried so far, in any case.” Hester put them both out of their respective miseries and pressed her mouth to his. She might have been content to explore him lazily, to let the kiss build as some of their previous kisses had built—slowly, wonderfully, terribly—but his arms came around her, mooring her tightly to his body. He widened his stance and growled as his mouth opened over hers.

And it was heaven, to be held and kissed by a man who knew exactly what he was about. A man sturdy enough in body and masculinity that Hester could let go of everything—propriety, thought, physical balance—and kiss him back.

“I love your hair.” She spoke against his neck, which tasted of soap and lavender. “I love your height.”

“Hush.” He loved her mouth on his, apparently, seeking his kisses and his tongue and every oral detail of him she could lap up. She arched into his embrace, reveling in his height, because it meant she had nearly to climb him to get closer.

“Miss—Hester, for God’s sake.” He trapped her hands behind her back and rested his forehead against hers. “Do you seek your own ruin?”

He was breathing heavily. So was she.

“I am ruined. Merriman has seen to this, but if I’m going to be ruined, I want to know.”

“One unfortunate encounter does not a lady ruin.”

She did not point out that by his reasoning, she should be entitled to at least one lapse with him, then. “Jasper has put it about that he was sampling used goods, and eager used goods. I did not understand how any woman could be eager for that… poking business, but with you, I think I could.”

“You could…?”

“Be eager. I can’t seem to be anything but eager.”

“For God’s—” He brought her hands up, kissed each palm, and looped her arms around his neck. “My dear woman, if you were any more eager, I’d be lying on the floor, thoroughly ravished. The male mind boggles to consider such a thing.”

The thread of amusement in his voice encouraged her.

“I apparently can’t help myself around you, Spathfoy. I find your attractiveness unlikely and inconvenient, but undeniable.”

This ought to have given him a little purchase on his lamentable resistance, ought to have put him a bit off. But no, Hester realized as he draped his arms around her shoulders and rested his chin on her crown. He was male, and that she was reluctant, even in theory, piqued his interest.

“How will you bear to look at me over breakfast, Hester? I’ve been to all the house parties. I know how to be cordial and flirtatious the next day without it meaning a thing. Despite what Merriman wants you to think of yourself, you are innocent.”

He was a good man, to try so hard to dissuade her. Hester had suspected this; she only hoped he wasn’t too good. “I managed breakfast this morning, didn’t I?”

He was quiet as he held her, and Hester could feel two things. First, she could feel his mind doing some sort of emotional gymnastics, vaulting between the dictates of traditional honor—which would have him tossing her bodily into her own room, as threatened—and the whispered suggestions of opportunity, lust, and maybe even of a different kind of honor.

“Here is our dilemma,” he said, his hands moving slowly over her back. Hester liked that it was our dilemma. “If I take you to bed and avail myself of your charms, I am a cad and a bounder, regardless that you endorse such behavior. Nonetheless, you are in the grip of misguided female notions about proving something to yourself, and one doesn’t speak reason to a lady on such a course. If I send you on your eager, misguided way, you will be disappointed and emboldened to try again, if not with me, then with some other man who might not be at all considerate of you.”

He fell silent while Hester focused her awareness on the second thing she could feel.

His erection, big, hard, and intriguing against her belly. Maybe he was allowing her to experience his arousal in an effort to bring her to her senses; maybe he was so wrapped up in his philosophical debate, he didn’t realize how closely he was holding her.

She rocked her hips forward.

He did not shift away.

“If you get into my bed, Hester, there will be no undoing it, no taking it back in the morning. You’ll know, and I’ll know, and I promise you, there will come a time when we’ll wish we hadn’t. We will both wish we hadn’t.”

“Stop talking.” She anchored her hand in his hair and went up on her toes again to kiss him. Men this size should come with a mounting block if they were going to be so shy about receiving kisses. “I live with regret well enough.”

When he kissed her back this time, it was different. Slower and hotter somehow. He’d reasoned his way to some conclusion that allowed him at least to kiss her, to insinuate his tongue into her mouth and his hands around her derriere.

“Spathfoy, I want—”

“Tye.”

“Tye.” She tried it out against his throat. “Tiberius Flynn.” He was going to be her lover, and he had a name, not just a title. It was a good, substantial name, imposing, like his kisses—and his erection.

She knew a moment of doubt, even as she subsided against him. “Blow out the candles, please.”

Laughter rumbled in his chest. “Don’t you want to see the prize you’ve captured, Hester?”

She did, but knowing him, that would mean he’d expect reciprocal privileges. She felt his chin on the top of her head again, a comforting weight that let her know exactly where he was in a way his arms around her did not.