“Pen, did you shovel this path to the church as well?” Emily asked.

“No, milady.” Ned’s piping voice came cleanly across the snowy street as he plodded along, wolfhounds at his heels. “Me and milord did it yesterday. Finished it up this morning just in time, didn’t we, gov’nor?”

“Aye, lad. An yer playing was verra fine at the kirk.”

The stable boy winked at the lord of the realm.

Within the inn, Kitty stripped off cloak, bonnet, pattens, and gloves and took a chair by the fire, warming her toes. Emily settled beside her, then Mr. Cox. The inn filled with people, villagers arriving to stomp the snow from boots and hems, throw off coats, and take up a pint.

“Why, it seems to be a regular party,” Mr. Cox said with lifted brows. “Isn’t it, Lady Katherine?”

“Madame Roche would like to see this, farmers and artisans talking so freely with gentlemen of rank,” Emily said. “She is a Republican.”

“His Lordship condescends with such a natural air, almost as though he enjoys it.” The gentleman’s eyes seemed intent on the earl and not particularly kind. A prickle of discomfort slipped up the back of Kitty’s neck.

“I believe it is his disposition.” Like fixing broken roofs and shoveling snow, which certainly explained his physique. She was dying to simply look at him, but she must immediately thereafter drag her gaze away for fear that she would linger too long.

He met her regard. She lingered. When he finally looked away she might have sighed like the perfect ninny she was, if not for her pique. She was after all quite weary, having not slept perfectly well or really at all. He’d left her with many questions. And now she had more.

Her need for answers was to be eternally frustrated. Toasts were made—many, many toasts; pudding was consumed, despite its rather leathery texture and flat flavor (no nutmeg had been found); and revelers only began departing well into the afternoon.

Contrary to her earlier warnings, Mrs. Milch set a roast goose on the table, as well as basted turnips, apples braised in brandy, and a loaf of fresh bread. The party roundly congratulated Emily for her contribution and they dined in relative splendor. Mr. Yale and Mr. Cox entertained with stories from their travels abroad. Kitty might have been vastly diverted if she weren’t so preoccupied with endeavoring not to glance at a handsome Scot. Every time she did, he seemed to already be looking at her, and they could not very well stare continually at one another throughout dinner.

Outside, the sun shone at long angles on the snow as the innkeepers cleared away the remains of dinner. Mr. Yale settled into a chair by the fire, glass in hand and a week-old journal atop his knee.

Emily and Mr. Cox set about mapping out Shropshire topography with raisins and nuts on the table. It all had the happy, peaceful aura of home and holiday about it, and Kitty wished she could enjoy it. But she must content herself that her friend seemed distracted from worries of that which awaited her at her real home as soon as the road was passable.

Lord Blackwood came to Kitty’s side, bearing her cloak.

“Maleddy, care for a daunder?”

She could not look at him, but she allowed him to place her cloak around her shoulders. She drew her hood up. “Daunder?” It must be unremarkable; about him now hung no air of roguery.

“A stroll,” Mr. Yale explained. “Bit cold out, isn’t it, Blackwood?”

“Care tae come alang, Yale?”

“Thank you, but do go on without me.” He lifted his glass in salute. Kitty felt as transparent as crystal. She could refuse the earl. She could once again embrace propriety. Emily and Mr. Cox did not raise their heads from their game.

Kitty went.

“Where to, my lord?” She glanced about at the snow-laden street, pale in the late afternoon sun.

“Back to the church?”

He shut the inn door behind them.

“The stable.” His voice was husky.

So, perhaps roguish intent after all. She did not take his proffered arm, heading straight for the outbuilding and her continued ruination without anyone assisting her to it.

Inside, he pulled the door shut, came to her, surrounded her face with his hands, and covered her mouth with his. Her hood tumbled off and she sank into him, reaching for him beneath layers of wool.

He kissed her slowly at first, as though he were savoring her, then with increasing intensity like he was starving, pushing her back against the wall and bringing their bodies together as he used her mouth to excellent purpose. She wanted every second of it.

She wanted it too much, given the circumstances.

She tore her lips free. “Wait!

Wait.” She pushed him to arm’s length, but her fingers betrayed her, clutching at his waistcoat to prevent him from going farther away. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Whit A been wishing tae dae all day. An it wis an awfu lang day, lass.”

“You recited poetry to me last night. In French.” Then he’d left. And it took her hours to fall asleep. And now, exhausted and strung tight from the day endeavoring not to stare at him, she was excessively peevish. But mostly because he now stood arm’s-length away, only his big warm hands wrapped about her waist, and she wanted instead every bit of him pressing up against her again.

“C ontre vous, contre moi , v ainement je m’éprouve,” she whispered, “I struggle vainly to be free, from you and from myself. It is from Racine’s play, Phaedra. You lent it to Lady Emily.”

Beneath his waistcoat she felt his heartbeat and taut breaths. He did not speak.

“But it is a tragic story,” she added.

He smiled. “An it’s bonnie varse ye be wishing, rather, A’ll be fain tae oblige.” He grasped her hands and moved close again. Warily, she let him. Bending his head, he nuzzled the wonderfully sensitive spot beneath her ear. Kitty sighed. He murmured with only the gentlest lilt of Scots, “‘Around me scowls a wintry sky, that blasts each bud of hope and joy; and shelter, shade, nor home have I, save in these arms of thine.’”

“Your countryman, Burns, I think.” A new sort of trembling overtook her, deep as where he had been inside her the night before. “What happened to the French?”

“A’m warming up tae it. Blanditias molles auremque iuvantia verba adfer, ut adventu laeta sit illa tuo.” He kissed her neck, her throat at her speeding pulse, and she tucked her hands beneath the capes of his greatcoat, holding on to his shoulders.

“I don’t know Latin,” she quavered. “I shall require a translation.”

“‘Bring soft blandishments and words that soothe the ear, that your coming may make her glad.’” Kitty’s breaths thinned, her knees weak. He must simply be mimicking, and a master at it. What man would disguise such a voice of rich, masculine power if it were natural to him?

“And who wrote that bit of advice, my lord?”

“Ovid.”

“Ovid?” Ovid.

“Dae ye prefer the modern poets tae the ancients, than?”

He knew no respect for her sensibilities. “I waver between. Perhaps medieval would do.” Laughter welled inside her alongside desire, even as the slice of disquiet expanded.

“Y así mi suerte ignoro en la contienda, y no querer decirlo y que lo diga: vagando voy en amorosa erranza.”

She circled her palm around his collar into his hair, feeling him as she had not given herself allowance to do the night before. “And that?”

“Dante.”

“That explains why I did not perfectly understand it.”

“‘And thus’”—his hands shifted down her back, his mouth teasing hers with light nibbles

—“‘being all unsure which path to take, wishing to speak I know not what to say, and lose myself in amorous wanderings.’” This was nearly too much to bear. “Wandering speech,” she breathed, “or hands?”

“Baith.”

“I s-see.” He pulled her tight to him, his palm spread across her behind nesting her snug against his hips. Kitty’s blood turned to warm syrup, but even as her breaths shortened from his words and caresses, unease overruled her pleasure. What game was he playing with her? And why, given the liberties she allowed him, wasn’t she privy to it yet?

With the backs of his fingers he stroked tenderly along her cheek.

“‘So beautiful with her delicate limbs, fair waist, and long eyes,’” he murmured, “‘that she put the splendor of the moon to shame with her radiance.’” Kitty could not draw air. “Wh-what was that?”

“Hindustani. Verra auld.”

“I daresay.” She steeled her voice and said at her most proper, “I am still waiting for the French.”

A marvelous smile split across his lips, a glimmer of sheer admiration in his eyes. Then something changed. The glimmer grew warm, warmer.

“Je reconnus Vénus et ses feux redoutables ,” he said, his voice beautiful and deep and not in the least bit teasing, “d’un sang qu’elle poursuit tourments inévitables.”

Kitty trembled. “Venus’s torment,” she whispered. She felt that fire in her blood too. For two days it had sought to consume her and now she wanted nothing more than to submit to it fully again.

Everywhere they touched he heated her, his thighs and hips pressed to hers, his hands on her back. But she would be a fool to think that was all of Venus’s torment.

And finally she understood perhaps too well how her pretense with Lambert had been wrong. He had done very badly by her, but she should never have pretended anything with him, no matter her reason, as this man was clearly pretending. If she allowed herself to be with the earl now when he was denying her the truth so obviously, she would suffer. When she had been young and impressionable, a man claimed to care for her but had only been using her. More than even her ruined reputation, her heart still bore the scars of that falsity. She could not allow herself to be with a man who would not tell her the entire truth now.