She removed her hand, and he wrapped her fingers in a snug grasp.

“Abigail, I do not get this way frequently, not anymore. One learns to manage one’s impulses lest one make a fool of oneself. I can appear to court you in all sincerity, steal kisses that I will genuinely treasure, disport with you in secluded alcoves and honestly resent any intrusions. You should know this before you embark on any subterfuges with me.”

He was trying to tell her something, to posit a thesis delicately. Abigail was too bothered with conflicting emotions and bodily sensations to properly dissect his words.

“You are attracted to me?” she asked.

“Need you make it a question?”

The slight testiness of his response, the evasiveness, suggested an extraordinary possibility: This gloriously intelligent, handsome, shrewd, wealthy, titled, and clever man was unsure of his own appeal. The test had been not of his ability to appear the doting swain, but of her willingness to appear doted upon—by him.

Abigail would ponder the why of that conclusion later, but in the easy rhythm of Lord Stephen’s caresses and the patience with which he awaited her reply, she accepted that Stephen Wentworth was even more complicated than she’d realized, and not what he appeared to be.

He was more, much more, than an arrogant London lord with a penchant for solving mechanical questions.

“You will forgive my befuddlement,” Abigail said, snuggling closer. “I am unaccountably muddled.”

He squeezed her in a half hug. “Got you stirred up, did I?”

“Don’t sound so pleased with yourself.” He sounded, in fact, relieved.

He kissed the top of her head. “Don’t sound so displeased with yourself. Women have needs. As it happens, I delight in meeting those needs.”

“Nobody needs to be kissed.” She was arguing in part for form’s sake, and in part because it seemed to amuse his lordship. Also because—no harm in being honest—she did not want to leave this couch or leave Lord Stephen’s comfortable, almost friendly embrace.

“Abigail dearest, we all need a little kissing, cuddling, and cavorting. Proving that to you shall be my fondest challenge.”

Abigail closed her eyes, savoring the rare comfort of another’s animal warmth, the utter relaxation Lord Stephen’s touch encouraged. Even as her body quietly hummed with pleasure, her mind faced an uncomfortable truth.

She could pose as the object of Lord Stephen’s affections. She could easily reciprocate his overtures and enjoy his attentions. That playacting would complicate the whole business of the letters, even as it sheltered her from Stapleton’s mischief.

The greater problem was the role Abigail would be inhabiting. She would be impersonating the woman she could never be, the woman Lord Stephen Wentworth loved with his whole, complicated, magnificent, devious heart.

Lady Mary Jane Christine Benevolence Wentworth was perfect, her tiny fingers and toes all present in the proper numbers, her face the envy of Botticelli’s cherubs. In sleep, her mouth worked in a pantomime of suckling, as if even her dreams were of nurture and security.