Page 125 of Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

She went very still beneath him.

He whispered the last: “I’m saying it because it is true.”

Tears formed in her eyes, and he bent down to gently kiss them away. “I love you,” he whispered. And then he could not stop his sly smile. “But for once in my life, I’m not going to do the right thing.”

Her eyes widened with alarm. “What do you mean?”

He kissed her cheek, then her ear, then the graceful edge of her jaw. “The right thing, I think, would be to stop this madness right now. Not that you’re not properly ruined, but I really ought to get your father’s permission before continuing.”

“Continuing this?” she choked out.

He repeated his kisses on the other side of her face. “I would never be so crude. I meant the courtship. In the general sense.”

Her mouth opened and closed a few times, then finally slid into something that wasn’t sure if it ought to be a smile.

“But that would be cruel,” he murmured.

“Cruel?” she echoed.

“Mmm. Not to continue with this.” He pushed forward. Just a tiny bit, but enough to make her squeak in surprise.

He nuzzled her neck, increasing the rhythm between them. “To start something, and not finish it—that doesn’t seem like the right thing, does it?”

“No,” she answered, but her voice was strained and her breaths were growing ragged.

So he continued. He loved her with his body just as he loved her with his heart. And when he felt her shudder beneath him, he finally let go, exploding inside of her with a force that left him spent, exhausted…and complete.

Maybe it wasn’t the right way to seduce the woman he loved, but it had certainly been good.

Chapter 22

In the end, Thomas did do the right thing.

Almost.

Amelia had expected that he would seek out her father the next day and formally ask for her hand in marriage. Instead, he asked her to deliver the note and his ring as planned, adding that he would see her in a fortnight in England.

He loved her, he said. He loved her more than he could ever say, but he needed to return on his own.

Amelia understood.

And so it came to pass that she was sitting in the Burges Park drawing room almost three weeks later, in the company of her mother, all four of her sisters, and two of her father’s dogs, when the butler appeared in the doorway and announced:

“Mr. Thomas Cavendish, my lady.”

“Who?” was Lady Crowland’s immediate reply.

“It’s Wyndham!” Elizabeth hissed.

“He’s not Wyndham any longer,” Milly corrected.

Amelia looked down at her book—some dreadful etiquette guide her mother had termed “improving”—and smiled.

“Why on earth would he come here?” Lady Crowland asked.

“Perhaps he is still engaged to Amelia,” Milly suggested.

Her mother turned to her with utter horror. “Don’t we know?”

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