Gabby still hadn’t said anything, so Quill walked over and stood just before her. He looked down at her downcast head. “Everything I see about you is sacred and sweet.”

He took Gabby’s chin in his hand and forced her head up. It was evident in a second that his plan had gone awry. Gabby was shaking all over like a blancmange. It didn’t take a lummox to realize that she was nearly killing herself trying to restrain her laughter.

“Forgive me,” Gabby said in a choked tone. “I—I—” She gave up, breaking into a gloriously husky shout of laughter.

Heat rushed up Quill’s legs and into his chest. He had the impulse to violently shake the woman before him. It was all her fault that he had behaved like a nodcock. Ice replaced the embarrassment, and he stepped back. He began turning over cool, mocking phrases, shaping a comment that would make it absolutely clear that he, Erskine Dewland, had never in his life compared a woman’s eyes to stars.

But then he remembered. He had promised Peter that he would marry Gabby. He couldn’t snub her.

Besides, this was all gibberish, nothing more than a silly fable to make a romantic woman marry him. He needn’t feel embarrassed. It was all lies, after all.

Not for nothing had Quill attended Drury Lane when the great actor, John Philip Kemble, was performing. If Kemble could do it, so could he. Gabby was still giggling to herself. Quill reached out and dragged the minx into his arms.

She fit there as if she were designed to melt against him, as if every one of her curves was matched by a hollow in him.

She stopped giggling, but her voice was still husky with laughter. “Quill?”

“Gabby.” He swooped, bending her over his arm with Kemble’s own dramatic flair.

She tasted like laughter. She tasted like Gabby.

His lips were everything his words had not been: carnal and dangerous, sure in their approach, commanding her attention.

Gabby twisted in his hands, trying to pull away from the undertow of desire. She didn’t want this again. Not the drugging feeling that turned her stomach into liquid fire, sent her up against Quill’s body, trembling and making pleading noises. It was morning. It was indecent to feel this way even at night. Especially—

But he wouldn’t let her go. His large hands held her against his muscled thighs. He pressed her indignant eyes shut with his lips and then kissed his way back to her mouth.

Despite herself, Gabby stopped pulling away and shuddered closer, her arms coming up around his neck, her mouth opening to his demands.