Page 644 of From Rakes to Riches

Beech made an infinitesimal adjustment to his coat. “My apologies. Where were we?”

“I hardly know.” Every idea was overthrown by Beech’s astonishing actions. Though he was as cool as a summer ice, she was very nearly shaking.

“Indeed.” Beech spoke into the silence that was the sound of every gossip within the room holding their breath in anticipation what might happen next. “Come, my dear Miss Pease. We need air to rid ourselves of that fellow’s foul stench.”

Then he gave her his hand, to lead her away from the gaping assembly.

She went with him, her father and his apoplexy be damned. A reckless mixture of astonishment and gratitude filled her so full, she thought she might burst into tears. “You really are the bravest bloody man, Beech.”

“It is only a country ballroom,” he said in his wry way, “not the deck of a man-o-war.”

“That was more than a dance, Beech,” she insisted. “You must know that.” He had to know that the ballroom, and society in general, was a battlefield forher—that she had already lost upon such ground.

“You must know what it meant to me. Thank you for defending me. And thank you for dancing with me.” She came up upon her tiptoes to press a hasty, heartfelt kiss to his cheek.

“And you must know, I would give you more than a dance, my sweet Pease.” His voice was low and all the more earnest because of his quiet. “I would give you the world.”

7

“Come away with me now—we’ll elope.” Marcus felt the same strange, heightened calm that he did before a battle, knowing he was doing the right thing and trusting himself to fate.

Penelope gasped as if such an idea were surely a joke. “Elope? You can’t mean to run off to Scotland?”

“Too far, and far too inconvenient,” he returned. “I find I’m a duke, and I ought to be able to persuade a bishop to write me a special license. We can be married tomorrow morning.”

“Beech, you can’t be serious.” She gaped at him. “And anyway, tomorrow it’s going to snow so you’d never get a special license.” She turned to the darkened window. “See, it has already begun to fall.”

Now that he had made up his mind, he would allow no obstacles to block his path. “Snow or no snow, Pease, I mean what I say. I always mean what I say.”

But she was unsure. Perhaps, despite her laughter and friendship and frankness, she could not envision herself with him. “Beech. We dare not.”

“Why not?” He damned his wounded pride and self-consciousness, and set himself to convince her. “Where is the girl who never refused a dare? Where is my old friend, the girl who went first, jumping off the old bridge into the Avon that summer afternoon?”

“That girl was thirteen and a monstrous hoyden.”

“Nothing about you was monstrous. You were magnificent—daring and bold and everything I admired.”

“That was a long time ago.” Her low voice was full of emotion he could not quite fathom. “We aren’t children now. We can’t jump off bridges or go rushing out into the snow.”

“Why not? What are you afraid of?”

The moment he said the words, he wished them back. Wished he hadn’t asked her to tell him exactly whathefeared.

But she whispered, “Afraid it will make everything worse.”

His relief made him stubborn. “How? I thought you were about to be banished to the hinterlands? How much worse could it be?”

That put the wind back in her sails—the color rose in her cheeks. “I hadn’t— You do have a point.”

“Don’t go to the maiden auntie, Pease,” he pled. “Come away with me into the dark and snow and make me happy—as happy as I promise to make you. Please.” He wanted it so badly he ached.

He ached for her affection. He ached for her simple, kind touch.

So, to convince her he meant every word, he kissed her.

He put his lips to hers and hoped his honest attraction and affection would convince her. But what began in persuasion, soon became something more, something hungrier and more assertive.

A hunger they shared—her lips, her lovely, plush, bow-shaped lips—soon pressed into his, again and again as if, once started, she could not get enough of kissing him.

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