Page 31 of Earl on the Run (The Duke's Estates 2)

Miss Finch examined his face. She looked worried. About him. That meant she cared, did it not? He wished he knew. There was such a tangle to undo. Of his own making, he admitted.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she said, rising. “I must go. I’m on my way to visit my friend Cecelia.”

“Cecelia?”

“The duchess.” She gestured in the direction of the hall.

“Ah.” Jack heard the sourness in his voice.

“She is very kind, not at all grand.”

Jack doubted this. Or rather, he believed the duchess was kind to Harriet Finch, the rich society girl. She would probably seehimmuch as his great-grandmother did. Would she convince Miss Finch to share her opinion?

“I can call on Cecelia often,” this young lady added, looking suddenly shy. “Grandfather wants to cultivate the connection. I can stop here on the way. No one will question her on the exact times of her callers.”

“You want to come here?” Jack asked.

“Yes,” she murmured, eyes on the leaf-covered ground.

“To see me?”

She looked up and met his gaze squarely. “Yes.”

Jack thrilled at the shy longing he saw in her expression.

“This is where you say you are glad of that and want me to come,” she said.

Jack stood and stepped toward her. “I am tremendously glad and want you with all my heart.”

The flush was very visible on her pale skin. Her smile was warmly glorious.

Jack held out a hand. She took it and then, startling him, moved close and leaned in. Their lips met in a kiss of such sweetness that Jack was stunned. All the kisses of his life paled in comparison. The tumultuous splendor of it washed over him—tenderness, arousal, amazement. His head spun. She slid her arms around him and held him tight, as if she too hoped the kiss would never end. For an ecstatic, reeling time, it seemed it would not. But, of course, it did. They drew back. She gazed up at him with green eyes softened by desire.

She was his. She was the answer to all his questions about the future. “I must tell you something,” he began.

“Yes?” she breathed.

“When I said I had not…”

The clearing erupted with laughing children, dancing around them, led by Samia. “You were kissing!” she exclaimed.

Harriet pulled away.

The children swirled and capered around them. “We saw you!” Samia said. “Kissing. Kissing.”

They made it a chant. Jack batted at the children as if they were swarming gnats. “Go away! Shoo!”

“Kissing, kissing,” they sang.

Scarlet with embarrassment but laughing, Harriet moved farther away from him.

“Don’t go,” called Jack. But he was engulfed by giggling children, and she shook her head.

“I will come again,” she said. And slipped away into the trees.

“For more kissing,” called Samia, her face alight with laughter.

“You and your friends are a pestilential nuisance,” Jack declared.

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