It was decided that Tessa and the baby would travel to County Durham by private coach, along with Perry, a detachment of grooms, and a burly sailor named Benjamin who would manage the trunks and glare at anyone who dared give them a second look.

Joseph would remain in London for a fortnight, settle the most pressing of the guano business, and travel to County Durham by sea, reaching Hartlepool a day or two before Tessa and the baby.

Joseph hated to part ways with her again, but when she had recovered from the shock of his offer, her immediate priority became departing Belgravia as soon as possible. She was determined to relieve the Boyds.

Joseph was shamed by how uncomfortable she had been. Hartlepool might be a fool’s errand, but he would do anything to make up for allowing her to live on the kindness of relative strangers these last eleven months. If Hartlepool turned out to be a terrible place, or the dockyard held no potential, if she hated it or the baby seemed unhappy, they would return to London and determine some other plan.

And there was the small matter of the boast Joseph had made to her father. He was determined to follow through. More important, Tessa had discovered the little town herself and she wanted it. Her reasons were plainly stated and made sense. Not an abundance of sense, Joseph noted, but she’d hedged no secrets and offered a line of logic they could both see. It was such a hopeful start.

And so Joseph had arranged for the coach, arranged for rooms along the journey, arranged for protection and every comfort he could predict. In a fortnight, they would rendezvous. In good weather, he’d need only four days to make the journey by sea, and he planned to leave in time to scout out County Durham for himself. She’d mentioned a “cottage,” but in Joseph’s view, his days of cottage life were long over.

He arrived early to Belgravia on the day she was scheduled to depart and went over the route and expectations with the coachman and grooms. Tessa and Perry soon convened in the doorway to oversee the loading of the trunks and make tearful good-byes to Sabine and the Boyds.

Tessa tried once again to convince Sabine to join her, but her friend declined. Everyone held the baby one last time. A debate ensued about the rightful owners of Tessa’s goat. When, at last, the trunks had been secured and the baby had been fed and the goat had been given to the Boyds as a gift, Tessa sought out Joseph among the grooms.

“May we speak before I go?” she asked. She held the goat by a lead rope.

Joseph considered her. She’d worn a traveling suit that was not quite as heavy and oppressive as her usual drab shroud. The skirt and jacket were midnight blue. There was a matching hat. She looked elegant and beautiful and not entirely suited for minding a goat.

“I hoped that we would,” he said.

She turned away, pulling the goat in the direction of the mews.

“I’ve charged Benjamin with locating a female goat in each town as soon as you reach the inn,” Joseph said, rushing to take the animal.

“Yes, he’s told me. We can manage with cow’s milk if there is no goat,” she said. “You’ve thought of everything.”

“I’ve thought of you,” he said. “Or I’ve endeavored to. There will be things I cannot anticipate.”

“I’ve managed for months without you, Joseph. Perry and I will carry on as we have.”

I don’t want you to carry on as you have, he thought, but he would not detract from what she had achieved.

They neared the stable door and the goat picked up speed, anxious to be away from the humans and the carriage and an uncertain future. Tessa swung the gate and stepped inside.

He’d called on her frequently since the day at Trevor’s house, the day they’d encountered her father in Blackwall. The plan to visit Hartlepool had come together very quickly, in less than a week, and it had required daily collaboration. Even so, the opportunity to be alone with her, truly alone, had not presented itself. Like a coward, he had not engineered one.

Trevor had accused him again of not being particularly attracted to his wife. It was an offhand jest, intended to spur him to action, but the claim made him almost angry. The desire he felt for Tessa had been so urgent and present for so long—nearly a year now, since they first met—that it felt almost like his shadow, a hulking reflection of himself that hounded his every step. But instead of weightless and easily ignored, his desire was a pressure that never let up, a pulsing, insistent burn.

Let it burn, Joseph had told himself. He would rather burn alive than relive the look of panic on her face when she leapt from his lap. And now that he knew why? He could not pursue her in the usual ways. He would wait and watch and proceed with extreme caution, his burning desire be damned.

In the stable, Tessa busied herself untying the goat and stringing the rope on a peg. “There is something I should like before I go, Joseph,” she said, giving the animal a final pat.

“What have we forgotten?” he asked.

“A kiss.” She left the animal and started to him.

“I beg your pardon?” he said stupidly, uselessly, the best he could do. His actual thought was thank God, which was surely the wrong reaction. His pulse leapt and his hands tingled, itching to scoop her up.

His distress must have been obvious, because she chuckled. Her blue eyes lit up the dim stable. She said, “And it’s not because I am grateful that you have taken my idea of Hartlepool so very seriously.” She stepped to him and placed her palms on his lapels. Joseph stared at her hands.

“I am grateful,” she said. He had trouble focusing on her words. He stared at her mouth. She went on, whispering, “Even if the idea is utter folly—especially if it is folly—I am grateful. But I want to kiss you for no other reason than I enjoyed it so very much before.” She paused, holding his gaze. Her speech felt a little prepared, but he didn’t care. He would hear it again and again.

“I know my final reaction alarmed us both,” she said softly, “but I want you to understand that my final reaction was not my only reaction. I have not stopped thinking about all the things I loved about that kiss.”

And then the speech ended, and she raised her chin, and lifted onto her toes.

She looked so very earnest and excited and delicious, he’d almost been too enchanted to respond.

Almost.

Instinct prevailed, and he dropped his mouth onto hers. He had the fleeting thought, This is actually happening, and stifled a groan. He widened his stance and swept her against him, his hands surging up the curve of her back, kneading every vertebra of her spine. Restraint deserted him. When he reached her neck, he cradled her head.

She kissed like a woman, he thought, not a girl. He loved her proficiency, her confidence. Her anxiety aside, there was no shy, halting uncertainty in the way she kissed. She slid her hands from the rough wool of his lapels to the slick waistcoat beneath. Nuzzling close, she wrapped her arms around him beneath his jacket, sharing warmth, sharing a heartbeat.

He pulled away to trail kisses down her neck. “I should be going with you,” he rasped against her skin.

“You should not,” she sighed. “You should oversee delivery of your guano and sell the next lot. You should provision for the next expedition. Perry and I are accustomed to managing tight spaces and long stretches and babies. I am quite talented.”

You are torture, he thought.

And this had been an ancillary reason he wouldn’t travel with her. The thought of ten nights in ten inns seemed almost inhuman for him to endure. Not now. Not when there was so much to explore about their future.

The thought of exploring while also sharing a country inn suite with a chatty nursemaid? Thin walls and adjoining doorways and the four of them in a coach? It would require an amount of restraint and patience that he did not possess.

He’d been working beside her with maps and open trunks for a week and not touched her once, and now she was veritably climbing his body—and thank God for that. But when they finally, truly delved in to the topic of their life together, whatever it might be, and—hallelujah—when he could touch her all night long, he wanted to be in one location, and he wanted a locked bloody door.

“I pray God you are safe and comfortable,” he said, and he scraped his stubble-rough face against her cheek.

“But we will miss you,” she said. “And there is so much yet to say. And do.”

He swiped his mouth across her lips and she strained to catch it.

“Yes,” he rasped, burying his face in her neck. “So very much yet to do. In Hartlepool, whatever it turns out to be, we will take the time, however long. I can depend upon it, Tessa? Right?”

“Uh-hmmm,” she agreed, searching for his mouth.

Joseph growled, swept away by her enthusiasm and the promise of more. He gathered her so close, he worried she couldn’t draw breath, but then she was grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, wrestling him closer still. She met his passion kiss for kiss, deeper, more urgent.

Joseph swept his hands down her ribcage and beneath her bottom, pressing her to him. She made a whimpering nose and bowed in, swaying, clinging. He dragged his hands to her waist and lifted her, staggering to the stable wall. She released one hand and reached behind her, feeling for the smooth stones, but he pivoted and fell against it. Tessa collapsed against his chest with a sigh.

Joseph turned his head to break the kiss, gasping for air. “Tessa,” he said, a plea, a prayer.

“You came every day,” she panted, “but . . . never . . . once . . . kissed—”

He captured her mouth. “I didn’t realize,” he said, dropping his lips to her neck, “we could enjoy the privacy of the mews.”

She laughed and arched her neck. “Boot rooms and stables,” she said. “I’m beginning to doubt your affinity for the finer things.”

“My affinity is for you, madam,” he growled in her ear, “and there is no finer. Never has a woman excited me as you do.”

“Joseph,” she breathed, straining for his mouth.

“It will be my greatest pleasure to show you every finery.”

“Your greatest pleasure?” she teased.

Joseph paused, reared back, and stared into her face. She looked at him from beneath lowered lashes, an expression of mischief and affection and need.

He made a strangled noise and descended on her mouth again. “Hartlepool cannot come soon enough,” he said between kisses. “Not soon enough.”