“I do adore the scent of you, Tiberius.” She wound her arms around his neck and scooted closer, which reassured Tye he wouldn’t be stomping from the room in a rejected huff. The thought that she might, indeed, turn down his offer was… untenable. Leaving Scotland without Hester did not bear contemplation—and not because it would ease Fiona’s adjustment to a new household.

“You are in the mood to tease me, Miss Daniels. Am I only to have kisses of you tonight?”

“About my new boots.” She levered up and kissed him—really kissed him—her fingers trailing softly along his jaw then stealing down to slip inside his dressing gown and stroke over his bare chest. “I want to ask a favor of you, Tiberius Flynn.”

Her thumb grazed his nipple, sending an electric current racing down through Tye’s body. “I am disposed to grant favors to you in my present situation.” He was also disposed to shift his hand so he covered the fullness of her breast through her nightclothes. Her nipple peaked against his palm, which had to be one of the most erotic sensations a man could endure.

“It’s a small favor.” She pushed him onto his back, though it took him a moment to realize what she was about. He’d never made love on the floor before, but it loomed as a capital notion in those regions of his brain still capable of thought.

“You have to close your eyes.” She brushed her hand down over his face. He caught a whiff of sweet flowers and tart lemon, probably from the lotion she rubbed into her skin.

“My eyes are closed.” He found the bottom of her braid with his hands and slipped the ribbon off it. “What is this favor you seek?”

“In a minute.”

He felt her untying the sash of his robe. This too struck him as a positive development. While she parted the folds of his robe, he unraveled her braid and enjoyed the knowledge that she was in all likelihood looking at his rampant erection. If anything, the knowledge made him harder.

“Shall you blindfold me, Hester? I’d enjoy it, I think.” The night was rife with firsts—he’d never meant such an offer so sincerely: he would enjoy it. “I’m told it heightens the other senses, so I could better revel in the scent, feel, sound, and taste of you.”

“Taste.” She didn’t make it a question, or maybe he didn’t give her time to elaborate. Using a hank of her unbound hair, Tye tugged her closer, cradled her cheek with his free hand, and guided her down to his mouth.

“Taste,” he echoed. With his eyes closed, the kiss became a lovely, voluptuous, opening ceremony for what he sincerely hoped was another step in the seduction of his future wife.

Or possibly, of her future husband.

“Keep your eyes closed, Tiberius.” Fabric rustled and brushed against his ribs. “And you must not move.”

At her admonition, he found himself blindfolded and bound by nothing more than the desire to please her, to be whatever she needed him to be for however long she wanted to keep him sprawled naked on her hearth rug.

“Hester?”

“Hmm?” A silky strand of hair wafted across his chest.

“Do I, or does marriage to me, perchance, in some way resemble a new pair of boots?”

More rustling. When he reached out this time, his hand encountered the smooth curve of her naked back, but the position wasn’t the right one for kiss—

“More a parasol, I think.”

The weight of her head settled low on his belly, and Tye’s heartbeat slowed to a dull, pounding thud against his ribs. “My dear, what are you about?”

“Eyes closed. You mustn’t stop me.”

As if… He licked dry lips. “How do I resemble a parasol?”

He felt her fingers trace up the length of his erection, felt her breath waft across the engorged glans.

“You appear all unassuming, folded up and waiting in the corner for an outing, and then”—she licked him, a delicate, catlike swirl of her tongue over the most sensitive spot—“one unfurls you and reveals your beauty, and all manner of interesting uses come to mind.”

He should say something, before she—

She took him into her mouth, slid her lips along his shaft, and withdrew, but not all the way. He fisted his hand in her hair and prayed for fortitude. “Hester, you must not.”

“Must.” Another caress with her tongue, and God help him, she cupped his balls at the same time. “You did, with me.”

Brilliant, faultless logic. He tried to draw in a breath, but was unwilling to move even that much lest he disturb her. This intimacy was one a man usually paid for, something no decent woman ought to conceive of, and she was glorying in it. He drew her hair back over her shoulder. “There’s a name for this.”

She ran her nose up the length of his shaft, rubbed her cheek against the hair at the base. “Later, Tiberius. I’m a trifle busy at the moment.”

And then her mouth was on him again, until she was drawing on him in a slow, maddening rhythm, sleeving him with her wet fingers and driving him past all self-restraint.

“No more, Hester.” His voice was hoarse with banked desire, and he had to ease his grip on her hair lest he hurt her.

“I like this.”

“For God’s—” He pushed her away as gently as he could and used his free hand to stroke himself exactly twice before he was coming, a cyclone of pleasure and lust barreling through his body, making his jaw clench, his spine bow, and colors dance behind his closed eyes.

He suspected he’d lost consciousness. When his mind settled itself enough to process thoughts, Hester had used a handkerchief to wipe him clean. She set the cloth aside, pillowed her head on his belly, and took his cock in her hand. Her grip was just snug enough to be perfect.

He could not have borne it had she moved her hand on him or—merciful God—run her tongue over him even once more; and yet, he could not have borne it if she’d turned loose of him, either.

“You are an astonishing woman, Hester Daniels. An astonishing lady.”

And she was going to make an astonishingly wonderful marchioness, too.

Eight

“Neville said you were in a taking about something.” Earnest Abingdon, Lord Rutherford, let his observation hang in the air while Deirdre considered bashing him over the head with her teapot.

The Spode was so pretty, though.

“You’re fishing, Earnest. Neville probably passed my every confidence to you under circumstances I do not want to contemplate.”

“You are missing your children and in want of grandchildren, my dear.”

She set the teapot down with an unceremonious thunk. “That is unkind, Rutherford. Has Neville said something to make you jealous?”

“We regularly do things to make each other jealous.” He shot his cuffs, looking like a perfectly unruffled, lanky specimen of blond, blue-eyed English aristocracy. “It is part of the dubious charm of our circumstances. When was the last time you saw your daughters?”

“None of your business. Have a tea cake, and I hope you strangle on it. I am not old enough to have grandchildren.”

She was more than old enough, which was why they took tea, not by the windows where the fresh morning light would reveal her age written plain on her face, but to the side of the room. By rights she should have a half dozen of the little dears, and be spending all her days flitting from one child’s happy household to another.

“Deirdre, I like women. I like them rather a lot, and happen to be married to one I can love, after my fashion. You are nursing a broken heart, my dear. I suggest you mend it before you do something rash.”

“I am doing no such thing, Rutherford, though more of this talk, and you will be nursing broken parts of your own.”

“Violent passions in a woman can be so arousing.” He let his lids droop, the scoundrel, as if he meant what he said. He was trying to cheer her up though, trying very hard in fact.

“What on earth makes you think I’m missing grown children who haven’t needed their mama for years?”

He eyed the teacup she held a few inches above the saucer—the teacup that trembled slightly in her grasp. “When you hold your salons, my lady, you are the soul of graciousness, turning your signature smile on each guest who walks through your door. I watch while that smile fades into something very pretty but a shade less warm. You are waiting for your family to come ransom you from your pride, and you are disappointed that they do not. I’ll have a word with Spathfoy, if you like.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” She set the tea down untasted and dropped the pretense that Rutherford was wrong. “Tye is all Hale has left. I try to leave the boy in peace. The girls ride roughshod over their father, and I’m very much concerned Hale is the one plotting something rash.”

“Such as?”

“Among our set, marriages are still primarily a matter of business. His lordship has the authority and the”—she searched for a word that wasn’t unduly disrespectful—“the consequence to contract marriages for his daughters.”

“The ballocks, you mean. He’d risk the scandal of his daughters crying off though—which might send them running to their mama.”

Intriguing notion—but what of her poor daughters? The Daniels girl had cried off for reasons Deirdre suspected were all too understandable. The last Deirdre had heard, the young lady had been packed off to distant relations on some Scottish grouse moor, probably never to be seen again.

But Rutherford raised an interesting scenario. “If the girls came running to Mama, then Hale would be sending Tye around to retrieve them, and I cannot place my son in such a position.”