Gabby was clearly used to Kasi’s leaps in logic. “Perhaps Mrs. Malabright will allow you to have a pet mouse,” she suggested.

Just then Mrs. Malabright bustled up with samples of Kasi’s handwriting. So they stayed another half hour, and ate some of Mrs. Malabright’s best spicy gingerbread, and finally left.

Quill had spent quite a bit of time considering why Lady Sylvia did not accompany them to Mrs. Malabright’s house. If Lady Sylvia had intended that Quill indulge himself by kissing Gabby, Quill was not willing to satisfy her. Gabby was Peter’s betrothed, and Peter’s betrothed she would remain.

Not that Gabby showed any inclination to kiss him anyway. She chattered all the way home about Kasi and Mrs. Malabright, and she obviously had no idea that Quill could only think about how soft she felt in his arms, the way she trembled against him, the way her lips opened with a little gasp, the way…the way she made something inside him ache to hold her again.

Chapter 8

IT HAD TAKEN Lucien Boch two weeks of concerted effort to achieve his current success: luncheon with Phoebe Pensington, her adoptive mother, Mrs. Ewing, and her aunt, Louise. He was seated at a small table, Phoebe to his right and Emily to his left. And he was well aware that the ladies didn’t want him there and that, in fact, he was a thoroughly unwelcome guest. And yet, gentleman though he was, Lucien had ignored all the obvious signals and stayed for the meal anyway.

At the first, Lucien had accompanied Phoebe to her house with no thought other than to satisfy a mild curiosity he had about the child’s important new mama. But when he found himself in front of a slender, exhausted-looking Mrs. Ewing, his feelings had undergone a rapid and inexplicable change.

He had bowed his most charming bow and kissed her hand. And then he had embarrassed himself by mentioning the fact that he was a marquis before he left France. Why did he do that? He had terrible scorn for the émigrés who traveled to England and clung to their dead titles.

It wasn’t that she was so beautiful. Well, she was beautiful. Moreover, she was exquisitely dressed and wearing one of the most modish little caps that Lucien had ever seen. But it was something about her blue-gray eyes that had made him visit the house the next day, and the day after. And finally, when he had deliberately appeared on their doorstep at an unforgivably unfashionable time of day, Mrs. Ewing had extended a reluctant invitation to join them for luncheon. She was wary, the beautiful Mrs. Ewing. She didn’t like him very much, he could tell, and her fingers invariably had ink stains on them. She was entirely too thin. And she fascinated him.

So there he was, eating a vegetable pie dished out by an incompetent maid.