Hugo might have thought Ophelia was tipsy, but in fact she knew exactly what she was doing, and the rightness of it hummed through her veins as she bathed and allowed her maid to put her in a nightgown.

A chaste white nightgown, because that’s all she had, but the very next day she meant to sally forth and order something marvelous made of silk and lace for her wedding night, whenever that occurred.

First things first.

The deep-down connection she shared with Hugo? The way she no sooner glanced at him than she felt a flutter of desire?

That trumped everything.

When she walked into his room, it was lit just enough to create a cozy nest. Perhaps an eagle’s nest, because propped on piles of snowy white pillows was a man with piercing eyes and a powerful body who—

Wanted her.

Loved her, according to his sister.

Was in love with her.

Was Peter ever in love with her?

The answer was obvious. They had never walked toward each other, knowing that their hearts were beating as fast as physically possible. Knowing that desire was a thrum in the blood and the legs and the head.

Of course, Hugo had climbed from the bed to greet her, his manners bred in the bone from generations of noblemen and their nannies. She paused and let him come to her. Ophelia had never felt more than pretty: Usually she thought of her face as comely, an old-fashioned word that seemed appropriate.

But under his gaze, she felt beautiful.

Hugo reached out and wound his arms around her, pulled her close, and put his cheek against the top of her head.

“I’m short,” she said, breathing the words into his chest. He smelled like the soap she bought for guests. It made her happy, as if she owned a small part of him. As if she had changed him.

“Just the right size,” he replied. She could tell by the roughness in his voice that he meant it.

She ended up smiling against his skin like an idiot, and then because there it was—smooth and warm, roughened with hair—she started to kiss his chest, brushing her lips across ridges of muscle, kissing his flat nipple and then kissing it again, harder, when she felt the effect ripple through his body.

Like the wind in a wheat field, she thought dimly, and lost track of the thought because he had scooped her up in his arms and was carrying her to the bed.

He put her down gently on her back and lowered himself on her tentatively, but Ophelia had always been the sort of person who made up her mind and then threw herself into life with abandon. She wrapped her legs around his waist in an instinctive movement that would have likely given Peter a heart attack. Hugo groaned aloud, and the sound went down her spine.