Her palms landed on his chest as if to brace herself against him, but they exerted no pressure. Instead, as he explored the sweet satin interior of her mouth with his tongue, they crept up to his shoulders until she clung to him like a barnacle, as if she feared she would be swept away by the storm.
Then her tongue touched his in a shy mimicry of the searching strokes of his own, and he was lost—her innocent passion seared him, sheared away years of experience and cynicism. He felt his arm band around her shoulders, drawing her flush against his chest, urging her head back to plunder the silky depths of her mouth. She made a soft sound in her throat, surprise and pleasure, and draped herself against him, utterly surrendered.
It was only when he found himself edging down the sleeve of her gown that he realized just how far he had allowed himself to be carried away—dear lord, he had been only a handful of moments away from making love to her in Lady Lennox’s garden.
And he was stunned by the realization that she might very well have let him.

Chapter Seven

With no small amount of effort he dragged himself away from her, steeling himself against her regretful murmur. Her eyes opened, dazed and slumberous, as if she had been pulled, unwillingly, from some sweet, dark dream. Her fingers had clenched on his shoulders just briefly, resisting him setting her away as if all she wanted in the world was to remain in the circle of his arms.
For a moment she stared at him, bereft, and he could not say that he would have refused her had she cast herself back at him—but the passion-flush faded from her cheeks and she lifted her hand to her bruised lips, touching them with a sense of dawning horror, and he knew that there was little danger of that.
“You kissed me,” she said at last, her voice accusing.
“You wanted me to,” he countered swiftly, and ruthlessly shoved the heel of his shoe onto the hem of her gown as she tried to rise.
“I most certainly did not!” She seized the skirt of her gown, tugged it in a futile attempt to pull it free.
“Jilly,” he said, with all of the patience he could muster, “I could kiss you again this very moment and you would let me.” He snatched the fabric of her skirt away from her, seized her hands in his.
“Unhand me. I will scream,” she said in hard little voice, but by the distress lingering in her eyes, he suspected that her antipathy wasn’t directed nearly as much at him as it was at herself. She had convinced herself that she neither wanted nor needed personal involvement, and he had nearly effortlessly put a lie to it. She hadn’t put up anything even approximating a fight. He frightened her not because he’d taken liberties, but because he had successfully tempted her into granting them.
“No, you won’t,” he said. “You’d be ruined. You would have to marry me.” Good lord, her opposition to marriage would provide him untold opportunities to seduce her—she would say nothing of his advances, not when she thought they would mean a path straight to the altar. He shoved aside the thrill that coursed through him. “I have a proposition for you,” he said.
She made a ragged sound of pure fury, her eyes spearing him. “No,” she snapped, yanking at her trapped hands until her fingers slipped in her gloves.
He snatched at her wrists instead. “I’m not proposing marriage at the moment, Jilly. I want to help you—I can keep Kirkland from attempting to renew his acquaintance with you. So long as you are in my company, I will keep you safe from him.”
Her hands went limp in his. The fight left her as suddenly as it had come on, and she sat beside him, astonished and silent. For a moment her eyes were distant, focused not on him but on some intangible point past his shoulder, lost in deliberation. Her shoulders dropped and she pursed her lips into a firm, thin line.