“Mr. Boch,” she said. She felt like an idiot child, unable to form words.

“I would like to invite you—” Lucien began. But he stopped. Her eyes were the blue-gray of a sea mist, and they looked at him so innocently. He forgot that he was old, and widowed, and no good for her. He forgot that Emily had her whole life before her and deserved a man who was not wounded by life. He forgot it all in the blue-gray depths of her eyes.

He kissed her without touching her. He even dropped the hand he held, moved forward one step and bent his head. They were much of the same height, after all.

And she—the lovely, untouched Emily who deserved a better man than he—Emily kissed him back. He knew in an instant she had never been married. Her mouth trembled against his and then slipped open with a sigh.

Lucien kissed her, and stopped. He drew back and looked down at her and somehow managed a sensible tone of voice. “I prefer Emily because Mr. Ewing never existed.”

“Mr. Ewing died in a carriage accident,” she said. Her knees were weak and she knew perfectly well that she ought, as a gentlewoman, to order the man from the room. He was trying to seduce her. He was undoubtedly planning to turn her into his paramour, given that he wanted to buy her gloves. And yet she couldn’t work up any indignation. Her heart was pounding too hard.

Lucien bent forward again. Emily swayed, slightly, as he took her mouth and his arms pulled her hard against him. She gasped as he tasted her sweetness, tasted something that was not innocence but desire.

When he raised his head again, she didn’t try to escape. She simply looked back at him. He blurted out, “I should like you to marry me.”

She said nothing.

“Forgive me,” Lucien said awkwardly. “I should have phrased that more…Mrs. Ewing, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

Emily swallowed. She had thought about Lucien Boch endlessly in the last months. She had thought she knew why he called, morning after morning, why he invited himself to lunch. Either he owned a rival magazine or he was a rake planning to make her into a fallen woman. On the whole, she had preferred the second explanation. But marriage had never occurred to her.

“I do not have a dowry,” she said. “My father threw me out of the house years ago. He gave us a small sum of money, and said there would be no more. And he has not wavered in his opinion.”

“Your father is a blockhead.”

He had taken hold of her hands again and was pressing her palms to his lips. Emily felt a treacherous wash of heat. “I can’t marry you,” she said rather desperately. “I’m a social outcast. I have no family. I have responsibilities—Phoebe, and Louise …”