“What is the matter?”

“This room,” she breathed.

He glanced about at the brown wallpaper, the bed plumped high with quilts, the dressing table and washbasin. “It’s a bedroom,” he said.

“It’s Aunt Darlington’s bedroom,” Cecilia elucidated. “You kissed me in Aunt Darlington’s bedroom.” A shudder went through her whole body.

Ned smiled wickedly. “And I’m going to do it again.”

“No.” She tried to back up but the door behind her was unrelenting in its material properties. Damn science, she thought. At least the Brontës would have had the door swing open or a madwoman burn the house down.

“No?” he asked, stepping toward her.

“Absolutely not,” she declared. The heated look he was giving her did not bode well for calm, reasonable discourse.

“All right,” he conceded, stepping back again, and she grabbed his coat lapels, pulled him to her, and kissed him until he tipped forward, pressing his hands against the door. Then, ducking beneath his arm, she slipped away, leaving him staring with frustration at the decal of a cherub Miss Darlington had pasted to the door. With luck, his internal calm was now restored and they could have a measured conversation.

Her own internal calm had disappeared somewhere she could not find it, but that was of no account—she was a woman, and therefore stronger willed.

Although perhaps not stronger boned. It felt like the only thing keeping her upright was that aforementioned will. My goodness, and Aunt Darlington had kissed two men?

(Cecilia was disinclined to think of Aunt Darlington doing anything more than kissing men, despite the evidence otherwise. Even that was disturbing enough. It was akin to recollecting where milk came from. Cecilia glanced at the bed, and her internal calm leaped onto a boat and sailed for the West Indies.)

“Cecilia—” Ned began, his hand in his hair, his voice heavy.

“No.” She shook her head, trying to convince herself. “No. If I married you, Aunt Darlington would dwell in a constant state of terror that I’d contract lunacy or some other marital disease.”

“She could come and live with us. Or I could live here.”

Cecilia gave him a wry, sad smile. “She’d eat you alive. Besides, any day now the Wisteria Society are going to make me a senior member. I’ll be presented with a black flag and given permission to fly my own house—”

“Given permission?” Ned repeated dryly. “Um, aren’t you a pirate? An unscrupulous lawbreaker?”

“Yes. And?”

He laughed. “You really don’t see the irony?”

“All I see is that I’ll at last be fully accepted by my family—er, my Society. But if I take up with a handsome and mysterious man, they will never trust me enough. It’s not you. It’s not even me. It’s my mother running away with my father and betraying the Society, and then him killing her, and no one ever quite recovering from that . . . It’s my inheritance.”

“I’m not planning to kill you, Cecilia.”

“I know. But I’m sorry, I can’t risk doing anything like her, not now, after waiting and working so long for this.” And yet, oh, she did secretly wish—