Then there was the aching certainty that it was only that. A minute. A moment stolen from time that it would demand back. An impossibility. He broke away with a sigh and rested his forehead against hers. “You should make me stop doing that.” Or better still, he should stop of his own volition.

If he could make himself want to.

“Should I?” Her voice sounded a bit fogged-up still. And made him want to kiss her again, and again.

He resisted, though his fingers protested by flexing against her back. “Libby . . . they’d never approve of me. Your family, I mean. I’m not wealthy enough or titled. I could supply your needs, but nothing more. Not with all we spent on Morgan.” And what was he doing, speaking of such things when he barely knew her?

But no, he knew her. Not in terms of time, perhaps, but in terms of heart. He knew her. At least as well as any society gentleman did after a Season of balls and soirees, and no one would have batted an eye at one of them proposing.

Not that he was proposing. Not that he dared to.

Her fingers curled into his shirt over his heart. Pressed there. “I don’t care about any of that.”

No. She didn’t. And that was why his heart had melded so quickly with hers. “But you care about your family. Their approval matters.”

A truth she couldn’t refute. She sighed, and her shoulders sagged. “You’ll win them over. Just take them by the elbow and you’ll have them charmed in minutes.”

He had a feeling her brother wouldn’t be open to that particular tactic. He made himself ease away, though his stubborn hand refused to break contact entirely. It found hers again and held it tight. “For you, my sweet one, I’ll try anything. But I don’t ever want to cause trouble between you. I know too well how important family is.”

She mustered a smile that looked braver than it should have to be when the subject was something as sweet as the first blush of love.

Not that he was mentioning love quite yet either. Perhaps it was the only word he could think of to describe this certainty inside him, but he knew once he spoke it, gave it that name, it would take on new power. Power that might try to run roughshod over the promise he’d just made her. That would seek its own bond with her above others’.

“A worry for another day,” she said. “Heaven knows today has plenty of its own.”