“Do you really think so?” Imogen said, utterly unmoved by his criticism. “And here I thought gentlemen had such a variety of acquaintances.”

“There’s been nothing so adventuresome about my life. Generally speaking, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing ladies whose language matched the delicacy of their minds.”

“Ha!” Imogen said. “If that is what you believe, then it doesn’t take much speculation to realize that you have never really had an intimate conversation with any woman in your life.”

Mayne had a flash of near-homicidal rage, a reaction that was becoming common around his supposed mistress. “I have had many intimate conversations,” he said. “Not that such intimacy or a lack thereof is a suitable topic to discuss before your younger sister.”

“I may be young, but I have a great deal of common sense,” Josie said, looking over the top of her book. “I am perfectly aware that Imogen has made you several proposals of a less-than-honorable nature, and that you have rebuffed her. I expect that explains her impertinence; Plutarch says there is nothing sharper than the sting of rejected affection.” She turned back to her book without further ado.

Obviously Josephine would be just as much trouble as her sister once she reached her majority; Mayne shuddered a little at the thought.

“Why don’t you set up your own stables?” Imogen asked.

“I have stables. How many times have I told you that I’m missing the Ascot and I’m running two horses there?”

Griselda appeared from the door of the inn, leaning on the arm of her maid and looking marginally better than she had an hour ago. “I have steeled myself to return to that vehicle,” she called to them, her face as set as that of a French aristocrat facing the guillotine. “Josie, put on your bonnet. How many times must I tell you that freckles are most unattractive? If you would all enter, please, the innkeeper tells me that he has prepared a light repast.”

“I know you have a stable,” Imogen said, winding up the blue yarn and scooping the tangle back into the box. “Why don’t you let yourself take it seriously? Hire a proper training crew. My father talked of his competition for years, of you, as well as every other man in England who might be persuaded to buy a horse from him. You’re a gentleman dabbler, buying a horse here or there, selling it if it doesn’t win its first race. You’ve never taken your own stables seriously. Well, how could you? You were always in London.”

And I was never awake until afternoon, Mayne thought. He picked up the ribbon box and headed after Imogen toward the door of the inn. Her traveling dress hugged her every curve. He eyed them deliberately and discovered—

Nothing.

He was completely uninterested. An altered tomcat indeed.

She was right. Without women, what was he? What would he do?

Twenty-three

She gave him a smile she had practiced and never used, the smile of a siren beckoning Odysseus, the smile of Venus hailing Adonis, the smile of any pagan goddess faced with male beauty. “We’re marrying as soon as we reach your lands,” Annabel stated.

“That is not tonight,” Ewan replied. But she could see that his eyes were black, and his voice hadn’t even a thread of amusement. “We would be anticipating the bonds of matrimony. I shouldn’t—”“Tonight,” she whispered achingly. “I want you, tonight, Ewan. I want you to make love to me. I like the coney’s kiss. I did. But there’s something more, isn’t there?”

It was as if all sound had drained from the room. “Oh, God, Annabel, of course there is. And you know it.”

“Show me. Please.” She caught his face in her hands, pulling him down to her, brushing her lips over his. “We’re alone,” she said into his mouth. She put little kisses on the strong curve of his lips, on the angle of his jaw, on his ear.

Then, just when she thought that he might have changed his mind, that his principles were stronger than his desire, he turned his face and captured her mouth. She could read the truth in the possessiveness of his touch.

“You won’t regret it?” he asked her, his voice hoarse. “We aren’t married.”

“Never,” she gasped.

He turned her toward the bed, keeping her body against his, and then stopped short.

“What is it?” she asked.

Ewan eased her away from him. “The bed,” he said, voice tight with need. “I forgot to ask my man to put on our sheets.” He looked around. “In fact, I forgot to have our sheets taken off the carriage.”

“Oh,” Annabel said, pulling back the thin coverlet. The sheets were a grayish color. “I expect Peggy finds it difficult to do washing.”

“I can take care of it,” Ewan said. “Just let me find the linen closet.”

A little smile played around Annabel’s mouth as she watched him prowl around the cottage. “Ewan,” she said finally, “there is no linen closet.”

“Well, where does Peggy keep clean linen?”

“She doesn’t have any.”

“For God’s sake,” Ewan said. There was a soft growl in his voice. He was so beautiful that Annabel’s body tingled all over just looking at his broad shoulders and the square line of his jaw.

“The tablecloth,” she said, hearing the tremor in her own voice. “We can use the tablecloth that was in the picnic basket.”

Ewan jerked the cloth from the basket so fast that crumbs flew through the air. Annabel stripped off the bed, and they found that the beautiful linen tablecloth—generously embroidered with Ewan’s crest all around the hem—fit the Kettles’ bed perfectly.

“Now,” Ewan said, with a note of slumberous satisfaction in his voice. “Come here, Annabel.” He sat down and held out his arms.

She moved toward him, suddenly shy.

“My wife,” he said, pulling her toward him.

“Not yet,” she whispered.

“In my heart. You know that I believe in the soul, Annabel. But”—he paused and skimmed a kiss along the edge of her mouth—“not all the teachings of the church. You are my wife in my heart and soul, from this moment forward.”

Annabel drew a shaky breath. In truth, she wasn’t even thinking in words. She craved Ewan with the depth of her being, craved his mouth and his touch, and the weight of his body.

Two seconds later she was lying on cool linen. Her clothes were gone, stripped away by Ewan with the ease of someone who had disrobed many a woman. And yet…The stray thought made her body suddenly rigid. She didn’t have much idea how to do this, and if everything Ewan said was correct, neither did he.

The village women had told her that consummation needn’t be painful, if she married a man who knew what he was doing. “Marry a tired rake,” Mrs. Cooper had said. “They know everything, and yet they’re worn out and ready to settle down. As long as he doesn’t have the pox.” The pox was something she didn’t have to worry about. But Annabel’s thighs tightened at the thought of pain.

He knew instantly. “Ach, lass, are you frightened?” he whispered against her skin.

“There are ways to make it not painful,” she said hopefully.

“Old wives’ tales, or so Nana says.”