What was he thinking, Thomas thought furiously to himself.

He walked back through the darkness to his house. He couldn’t even begin to explain the strange emotions warring inside of him.

All right, he could explain them. He just wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

Thomas had been longing for Bridget Hartfield ever since he had first met her. So had a third of the men in England, it seemed. The third that wasn’t lusting after Natalie or Elizabeth. And then, when he had thought all was lost, she had been dropped right into his lap.

By her younger sister, of all people.

But now…

He had been drawn to Regina from the start. This, he could admit. Something about her had intrigued him.

When he had learned of her family’s plight he had thought it was because she was a kindred spirit. They were both missing at least one parent. They both had fathers ill-suited to business. And they both had to rely upon their wits and gambling to restore their family’s fortune and honor.

Then he had spent the evening with her, and he knew it was more than that.

But was it? How much of what he was feeling was real, he thought. And how much of it was a result of playing the part to his friends?

God, but his friends could be so rude. When they felt like it. They were also the most giving and understanding people he’d ever met. Nothing like a little adversity to make you compassionate towards others.

When they wanted to be pains, however…

Of course they had seized upon the idea that he and Regina were a couple. How could he have been such a fool as to not realize that’s where their minds would go?

And did they have the decency to make subtle jibes about it? No. Instead they had forced him and Regina to kiss.

The poor girl. She must have been terribly frightened and embarrassed. She’d brushed it off as if it was nothing, just now. When he had tried to apologize. But he’d seen the hesitation in her eyes right before he’d almost kissed her.

Would that have been her first kiss? A strange kind of possessive heat swept through him. Part of him wanted it to be first kiss. He wanted to possess her in that way.

And what kind of man did that make him?

If her first kiss had been a charade, partially coerced, it would have been awful for her. First kisses were for passion. They were for the innocent bloom of first love. They weren’t something to do because you had to in order to maintain a cover.

It made him feel a little sick.

But that possessive part of him wouldn’t go away. It crowed in triumph at the notion of being Regina’s first. The first to kiss her. The first to brush his lips over her forehead. The first to plant a kiss into her hair. The first to brush his fingertips against her cheekbone, as if she were made of glass.

The first to take that first step of intimacy.

Thomas shook himself. No. He was in love with Bridget. He wouldn’t let himself lust after her younger sister. A woman who was, by the way, eight years younger than he was. He was a better man than that.

Yet he couldn’t help but remember how her skin had felt beneath his fingers. Or how she’d fit so nicely against his side, in the crook of his arm. How he’d loved to push her hair back from her face. She so easily went pliant against him. It showed how well she trusted him. Even if he didn’t quite feel that he was worthy of that trust.

A part of him could not help but see how easily Regina would fit into his life. She loved his home and his library. He was sure that she would love Whitefern, too, and that he could get her to love London and society just with some coaxing and some encouragement.

The poor girl merely needed people to believe in her. He would be happy to provide that. He could show her how to be happy and content with who she was.

It would be so easy to picture her in his life—yet he had only just met the girl. How could he possibly be having such feelings for her?

And wanting to take her under his wing like that when he was already tutoring her and helping her to skirt propriety? Nonsense. And what of his fickleness when it came to his own affections? Could he really have forgotten Bridget so quickly? What kind of man was he to think he loved one woman only to then turn his affection rapidly onto her sister?

No. No, he was going to stop having such awful thoughts.

He opened the door and stepped inside, making his way up the servants’ stairs to his room.

Bridget. He must think of Bridget. He loved Bridget. With her green eyes, and smooth, cream colored skin. Her full laugh. Her dark red hair.

Try as he might, though, when he tried to conjure her up… all he could think of was Regina.

Regina’s warm brown eyes. The way you could get lost in them. The quirk of her mouth. The way she pursed it when she wanted to say something but was scared to speak up. How her hands would twist in her lap or her fingers drum against her leg. Like she ached for something for them to do. Needlepoint, probably.

Thomas stepped into his room. The fourth bedroom was the master bedroom. Done up in various shades of blue, it was called the Sky Room.

He had never felt fully at home in it. Part of him still felt like he belonged in the nursery room. Or the Robin’s Room, as it was also called, for the color of the walls was said to match the blue of a robin’s egg.

It was just that his parents had used this room. He felt odd for using it now even though it was his by right. He was master of the house now. Not his parents. They were gone.

Sometimes he truly missed them something fierce.

Thomas quickly got ready for bed. As he did so, he continued to war with himself.

He merely conjured up Regina because he had now spent more time around her. She was the girl right in front of him. The moment he saw Bridget again, all thoughts of Regina would flee. He would remember how he longed for Bridget.

Soon, he would know all of Bridget’s quirks the way that he knew Regina’s. It was all a matter of proximity. He was letting his imagination run away with him, that was all. He had to remember his heart.

For some reason, the arguments felt hollow to his ears. As though he was trying to convince himself to fight a battle that had already been lost.

He crawled into bed and tried very hard to picture Bridget in it. Instead the face he pictured had a myriad of darling freckles, an adorably pursed mouth, and big dark brown eyes.

Thomas sighed and stared up at the ceiling. He was in deep trouble if he did not find some way to get a hold on this.