Sara had not been able to stop talking about "Miss A'brose," who had impressed her greatly with her sweet tooth. He himself had been content to let Sara prattle, his own thoughts on how close he had felt to Vivian as they sat and talked on Innocents' Day.

He had known Vivian for only a week, and yet his hopes were quickly growing that this Christmas he had been gifted with the wife he wanted. What did the shortness of the time matter, when you had found the one with whom you were meant to be?

He made conversation with those near him, listening with half an ear as Captain Twitchen, the whiskey bottle turned over to another for distribution, jingled a purse of coins that he then gave to his wife. "Money for pins, my dear," the captain said.

Would that next year he himself had a wife to whom to give pin money, a wife who would laugh and thank him as Mrs. Twitchen thanked her husband now. Vivian.

He moved through the guests, shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries until at last he found his way to her. She ducked her head, a blush on her cheeks, then looked quickly up at him, smiling.

"When will you stop being shy with me upon greeting?" he asked, feeling his own heart pick up its pace, his growing attachment to her leaving his heart vulnerable to the slightest sign of rejection. To want was to risk being denied.

"I could not say. You have surprised me tonight. I would never have expected you to be first through the door."

"You cannot have thought I would let the new year begin without seeing you," he said, then waited an eternity in the space of a heartbeat for her response.

"I had hoped you would not," she answered quietly.

He laughed with relief. He put her hand in the crook of his elbow and led her to a quieter end of the room, where they stood near a bust of a long-dead Twitchen ancestor, pretending to examine it.

"There's a cobweb in your hair," he said, spotting the wisp of gray, and brushing it away with his fingertips. "What have you been doing?"

"Fortune-telling in the cellar. Penelope and the vicar's daughter insisted I come with them."

"Why the cellar?"

"My guess is because it is dark and cold and suitably unnerving. They had a silver dish full of water, in which they dropped a ring, and we sat around it in the light of single candle, waiting for…"

"Waiting for?" he prompted.

"For the faces of our future husbands to appear," she said, as if embarrassed to admit it. "Someday Sara will do the same thing with her friends, I imagine."

"And did his face appear?" he asked, moving slightly closer.

"I don't know. It was so dark and cold, and we sat for so long, my mind began to wander."

"Where did it wander?"

"Everywhere," she said.

"Did it wander to me?"

She met his eyes: they were as wide and wary as he knew his own to be. "Would you want it to?"

He reached down and took her hand, and after a glance around the drawing room to check that none were watching, led her through a nearby door that went to the library. She came willingly. The chamber was dimly lit by candles in wall sconces, and it was cool after the body-heated warmth of the drawing room. The voices from the party were but a murmur through the heavy door.

He slowly backed Vivian up against a wall of books, standing with his feet to either side of hers, close enough to touch but not doing so.

"I want your mind wandering to me in every free moment of your day. I want you to think of me upon rising in the morning, and to find me in your dreams at night."

"You're already there," she whispered, and the words sent a joyous thrill through his heart, frightening in its intensity.

He knew it was foolish to rush things, that he risked scaring her away, but he had to know for certain. To know the depth of her feelings. To know if she was the one. He bent down his head and kissed her. No lady concerned with appearances would stand for such in the middle of a party.

At first her lips were motionless under his-she was likely shocked-but as he continued the kiss she responded, tentatively mirroring his own movements. He pressed up close against her, gently pinning her to the bookcase, until he could feel each soft curve of her body against his own. He deepened the kiss, and she made a small noise in the back of her throat.

He lifted his mouth from hers, his hips still pressed against her lower belly. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, yes," she said, and her slender arms wrapped around his neck.

She wanted him. Against all possibility, all doubt, she wanted him.

He had found the place he belonged, and was finally free. The joy of it sent him wild. He let loose the reins on his desire, exploring her mouth, her neck, the exposed swell of her breasts, each touch making him hungrier for the next. He breathed in the warm, faintly musky scent of her, and then trailed his tongue up to the hollow at the base of her throat where he pressed gently until he could feel the beat of her heart with his lips.

She was his heart, his desire.

He worked his way up and let his tongue play at the sensitive place behind her earlobe, while his hand went down to cup her buttock and pull her against him, where he could press the firmness of his arousal against the softness of her body.

Her breathing was a soft panting against his ear, and he could feel her trembling even as she pressed herself to him.

He fastened his mouth over hers once more and thrust with his tongue in frantic substitute for how he longed to thrust inside her.

She made a soft sound of pleasure, and he felt her fingers working their way into his hair, gripping tight. He pulled her away from the bookcase and backed her slowly to the library table until she bumped up against it. He boosted her up the few inches until she was sitting on its surface.

"What are you doing?" she asked in a whisper.

"Exactly what I wish."

"Good."

Had she said that or sighed? He wasn't sure. He chuckled and parted her knees so he could stand between them, then brought her tight against him. Her eyes widened, and then she wrapped her arms back around his neck and pulled him down on top of her.

He had one hand lost in her hair, the other on her bare thigh, his mouth sucking at her breast and her legs wrapped around his still-clothed hips when the library door opened. The sounds of the party flooded in upon them, accompanied by an outraged gasp.

Vivian heard it as well and reacted with the reflexes of a startled cat, thrusting Richard off her and scrambling to disentangle her legs from his person as he helped her to pull down her skirts. A quick glance told him it was Captain Twitchen who had discovered them.

There could have been no worse-or better-person to walk through that door. Richard felt a perverse, happy satisfaction stirring within him.

"Mr. Brent!" Captain Twitchen sputtered, then shut the door behind him, blocking off the sounds of the party and the possibility of witnessing eyes. "How dare you, sir! How dare you!"

"My deepest apologies, sir."

"A guest in my home, and this is how you repay my hospitality!"

Vivian gave a soft whimper. Richard put his arm around her, pulling her to his side, concerned for her embarrassment. He would not let her be shamed. "It was a transgression against the kindness you have always shown me, and unforgivably ill-mannered," he said. "I hope that you will allow me to make the proper amends."

Captain Twitchen seemed not to have heard. "I never listened to the rumors about you, never let them cloud what I thought I saw before me. But damned if I shouldn't have paid attention. Mrs. Twitchen was right, and even if you are my nephew's brother-in-law, you are unfit for decent company. Vivian! Go to your room, girl, and stay there."

Richard felt her start under his arm, but he held her more firmly. "What we have to say concerns her, as well."

He saw he'd made a mistake when the captain's face, already red, took on a deeper, almost purple shade of rage. His feeling of satisfaction and confidence assumed the barest quiver of uncertainty.

"Contradict my orders, will you? In my own house! My own house!"

"I should go," Vivian whispered.

He did not want her to have to stand here and suffer as a target of Captain Twitchen's fury. The man might say something hurtful. "Perhaps for the moment," he whispered back.


She started to slip away from him, and he bent down and pressed a quick kiss to the top of her head. "Not to worry. You'll be called back down within the hour, I promise."

She cast him a quick glance-was it one of hope and uncertainty?-and he smiled in reassurance.

Once she was safely from the room, Captain Twitchen lent full force to his ire. "Now, sir, are we going to settle this like gentlemen?"

"That is indeed my intention."

"Pistols or swords?"

Richard felt a sinking in his gut. Soothing Captain Twitchen was going to be more difficult than he'd thought.

An hour passed, and there was no call for Vivian to come down. She paced her bedchamber, she listened at her door for footsteps or the distant sound of voices, she watched from her window as guests left in pairs and in groups. She built up the fire in the grate, and wished that there was something to eat.

Horrible, to have been seen by Captain Twitchen with her bare legs wrapped around Richard, flat on her back, his mouth at her breast. She knew that she had briefly entertained causing such a scandal, but… The sickening embarrassment of it made her stomach churn. Far worse, was not knowing what was presently happening down in the library.

Another quarter of an hour passed. Was Richard still here? He must be. He and Captain Twitchen must still be arguing. She rubbed her forehead; the muscles there were sore from her frown of worry. Richard had given every indication that he would ask permission to wed her. Captain Twitchen couldn't possibly refuse, could he? Surely his pride could not be so severely offended.