As midnight approached, Georgie still had no intention of taking part in some midnight rendezvous with Lord Malcolm or anyone else, for that matter. As the night progressed and she’d danced with other gentlemen and enjoyed conversations with her sister and her friends, she’d tried to summon up the proper amount of outrage at his proposition, but instead she found herself amused.

What on earth had made Lord Malcolm think she would risk her reputation for a kiss at midnight? Certainly she’d entertained the idea of having a proper kiss with a handsome beau. What young lady hadn’t? But the kiss she envisioned was with a man she loved. A man who loved her in return. A man who honored her enough to court her properly.

She sighed wistfully at the romantic vision.

But she fell back to reality when she looked around her and saw no such fairytale. Instead she saw the very same gentlemen who’d been here all night. Not a single knight in shining armor among the lot.

Disappointment pricked at her, making her amusement over the whole ridiculous situation fade into something dismal and gloomy. She was aware of Claire watching her carefully. “Dear, are you certain everything is all right?”

She nodded. “I am fine.”

Her sister had been prodding her ever since her dance with Lord Malcolm but she resisted the urge to tell her of his indecent proposition. After all, it wasn’t as though she were even considering it and it would only bring about a scene when she inevitably told her husband.

Claire and Nicholas would turn a silly man’s foolish words into a crisis situation and that would not do. Better just to forget about it all.

Midnight was quickly approaching and the situation would resolve itself when he went to the gardens and found that she was not there.

Instead she would be at the ladies’ retiring room taking care of her needs. Not exactly a romantic thought, but a necessity nonetheless. She made her excuses to her sister and slipped out of the ballroom, heading down the hallway.

After she’d taken care of her personal business she came back to the hallway but she hadn’t made it far before she was accosted.

Well, accosted might have been too strong a word for it.

“Miss Cleveland.”

She’d recognize Roxborough’s harsh and disapproving voice anywhere. She spun around to face him. What on earth was he doing coming from that hallway? He approached from the private areas of the house which led to the back garden.

“Your Grace,” she said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

He moved toward her. Stalked toward her would be more precise. When he was close enough that she could see his features in the glow of the hallway candles she gasped. Oh dear. What on earth had she done now?

He glowered at her with an anger and a passion that was so out of character it took her breath away. “Is something amiss?” Her mind instantly imagined the worst. “Is my sister all right? Your mother?”

His anger was replaced by confusion for a moment before it returned in force. “Everyone is fine. It is you I’m concerned about.”

She tilted her chin up to better meet his gaze. He’d stopped just short of running into her, towering over her as though he might swoop her up into his arms at any moment.

Her heart picked up its pace at that ludicrous thought. The day the duke swept any woman into a passionate embrace was the day this stone townhouse would crumble into dust.

“Concerned for me?” she repeated. “But…why?”

“Why?” His voice was a growl that sent an alarmed thrill through her, the kind she felt when faced with a thunderstorm or a tiger at the Royal Menagerie.

“Yes, why?” Despite the thrill she couldn’t quite keep the laughter from her tone. But really, he was reacting so strongly as though she had done something remarkable rather than retiring to the ladies’ room.

“You will not go to the gardens,” he said. “I forbid it.”

She blinked up at him. The gardens? Whatever was he—

Her gasp sounded loud in the vacant hallways. She was glad for the dim lighting so he might not see her flush. “How did you—Or rather, what do you—”

His expression darkened and his voice grew ominous. “I know.”

She stared up at him. Two words, but he’d made them sound so heavy. So forbidding. So…knowing. Their meaning registered, as did the dark disapproval in his eyes.

“You know…” Her voice faltered. Too many questions bubbled up. How did he know? Who had told him? Who else knew? But the most important one came tumbling out. “And you believed it?”

He widened his eyes, leaning in closer as if he’d misheard her, though she’d hardly made an attempt to be quiet. Why should she? She had nothing to hide.

Other than the fact that she was alone in a hallway with an eligible gentleman, of course. That knowledge seemed to have a direct impact on her senses. Suddenly they were heightened, and now she could not ignore that heavenly male scent of his, nor the way his large, imposing body seemed to be a self-sustaining source of heat. And then there was the weight of his gaze—yes, a weight. She would never have thought that gazes could be felt, but his could. She could feel it on her skin, which heated and flushed at the intimate, phantom contact.

She watched with fascination as his gaze darted over her face, as if he might be able to read the truth there. As if he could see straight through her outrage and her smiles and her laughter…straight into the heart of her.

She lifted her chin. He could study her as much as he pleased. She had nothing to hide. Watching his disapproval battle with confusion and doubt brought a brief surge of satisfaction.

“But were you not…” He cast a quick glance over his shoulders toward the gardens as if to ascertain that he hadn’t lost his sense of direction.

She straightened to her full height, which admittedly was not much. She barely reached his chin. Moving forward she tried to make up for that lack of stature through proximity, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Your insinuations are not only incorrect, they are offensive.”

He backed away slightly and she breathed a sigh of relief. Stepping so close to him had been a mistake. She could see that now, but she hadn’t wanted to be the one to give up ground. Not when she was attempting to make a point.

“So you weren’t, er…” Now that his judgmental certainty had wavered, he seemed even less inclined to say it aloud.

She arched an eyebrow in question. “What? Meeting a man I hardly know for an illicit rendezvous that could very well leave me obliged to marry the very same man I do not know?”

He blinked slowly. “Well, when you state it as such—”

“It is preposterous,” Georgie finished for him, warming to her topic. Also, warming in general. She wasn’t quite certain how much of this internal fire was due to his proximity, to the heat he seemed to emanate like a furnace, or the self-righteous anger that made it impossible to remember that this man was her host and, what was more, a duke.

Words like respect and deference bandied about in her mind. It was her mother’s voice speaking, as if she’d been brought back from the dead by Georgie’s lack of social propriety. Perhaps one ought to tell those traveling mediums about this new means of communicating with the dead. If chanting and hand holding failed to bring back a deceased parent, try scolding a duke.

Unfortunately for her mother, Georgie had never been good at listening, not even when her mother was alive and in the same room.

“For you to think that I would do something so rash, so gallingly stupid,” she said, her voice growing louder and far more shrill than she liked.

His surprise was starting to fade and it was tempered with irritation. “How was I supposed to know that you would not—”

“Be a simpleton?” she finished. Certainly finishing a duke’s sentences was frowned upon, but she was too incensed to care. Besides, the fact that her voice dripped with sarcasm was surely the greater offense. “How were you to know that I would not risk my honor and my reputation?”

His eyes sparked with fire. The effect left her breathless. She’d never seen anything more than disdain and cold civility in his gaze. But this…this was passion. “How should I know that you prized your reputation when you think nothing of making a spectacle of yourself with your laughter and your incessant chatter and your—”

Her gasp of hurt outrage cut him short and he clamped his mouth shut, his nostrils flaring with barely concealed anger, and something more. Something so dark and dangerous, and so not at all befitting a duke.

At least, not this duke with his stodgy bearing and his cold, impervious manners. But seeing this side of him unleashed her own passionate nature, her anger obliterating the last of her sense. She took another step closer, forgetting her earlier mistake. She leaned in so she was far closer than was proper, her eyes narrowed. “How dare you?” she bit out. “You—you pompous bore.” Hurt battled with anger now as his words and their meaning struck her in their entirety. But anger was easier to cling to and was the safer option. There was no way she would let this man see how badly his words had hurt her. “Perhaps you have no respect for me, but surely you know how much I admire and love my family. Do you really think I would risk their honor?”

“Ha!” His bark of laughter was harsh, but she forgot all that when he leaned in closer as well. They were so close she could smell the brandy on his lips and feel the heat of his breath against her cheek. “Your family’s honor is untenable at best. I’ve only met one Cleveland who can claim—”

Her slap resounded through the hallway, echoing off the walls as though a cannon had blast through the roof.

He stared at her, clearly stunned, and she felt a sickening wave of regret. But she was still in anger’s firm grip, first and foremost, and though her hands were shaking with hurt pride and shock at her own actions, she found herself saying something she knew she would regret. “You and your family are hardly ones to speak of honor, Your Grace.” She drew in a deep breath, her lips trembling with effort to hold back a sob. “You should know as well as anyone that society never forgets a scandal.”

She’d crossed a line that she knew instinctively was far more hurtful than her meager slap. His shock was replaced by anger so quickly it took her breath away, not because she was afraid but because it made him so utterly human. So beautifully, shockingly human.

“What do you know of my family’s scandal?”

She stared up at him. She didn’t regret the words as she’d thought she would. Not really. After all, he’d thrown her family’s scandal in her face and she had returned the favor. But she wouldn’t respond. There was vengeance and then there was cruelty, and she knew better than anyone how deeply a family scandal could cut one to the bone.

Though in his case, as far as she knew, the scandal was dead and buried. His father had been accused of espionage during the war with France, but he had been proven innocent. Still, the rumors lingered even until this day, and the one thing a Cleveland knew was how insidious, how disruptive, how utterly transformative rumors could be.

She knew he would not strike her back, but the rage in his eyes made it clear that were she a man, it would be a different story. A flicker of pain shot through his anger and for a moment her heart went out to him. But then she’d remembered what he’d said about her and about her family.

No, she did not regret a thing.

Their labored breathing filled the silence, tension growing so thick it was hard to breathe. But she couldn’t look away and her anger…shifted.

There was no other explanation for the way her rage turned to something else, equally passionate, but confusing. It made her brain muddled, unable to form words or thoughts, and unwilling to look away.

His dark gaze was magnetic. Hypnotic. She saw the same shift in him. The way his anger turned to stormy passion, the way breathing grew ragged and his tension palpable.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as the gaze lengthened into something meaningful. Something more than a stare or a glare or a glower. She couldn’t breathe properly and words wouldn’t come.

When he lowered his head, she knew what he was going to do but she couldn’t protest. Instead, she found herself leaning in to meet his kiss.

His lips were warm and firm, and the sudden intimate contact made her gasp. The sound seemed to unleash something in him. He moved suddenly, pulling her close so the length of her was pressed to him, all hard planes and taut muscle against her soft curves. He held her tight, his arms wrapped tightly around her as he slanted his mouth over hers, parting her lips with his as he intensified the kiss.

She clung to him, caught in a swirling storm of emotions and sensations. A delicious, thick heat spread through her, making her limbs heavy and her head empty. She was spinning, lost in this heady dream world. Caught up in a tangle of sensations that made her achingly satisfied and desperately needy.

It was confusing and also oh so right. It could have lasted an eternity or a moment, she didn’t know. Time ceased to exist. The sound of a door opening and closing in the distance was the only thing to break through that monumental haze of longing.

He pulled back and she found herself standing there with her eyes closed, hating the sudden coldness where his warmth had been.

But then reality set in, swift and merciless. Footsteps were coming. She could not be caught here, with the duke. Not like this.

She pulled away abruptly, not meeting his gaze, not even risking a glance at his face to see his expression before turning on her heel and racing down the hall, back to her sister and the others in the crowded, noisy ballroom.

She had the horrible sensation she knew exactly what she’d see if she looked into his eyes. Validation. He’d been proven right. One kiss and she’d lost herself entirely. She’d let him touch her intimately, she’d let him kiss her after going on about her reputation and her honor.

She paused just inside the entry to the ballroom, blinking rapidly at the sudden brightness and sounds which were an onslaught to her already beleaguered senses.

Claire was at her side in a moment. “Georgie, are you all right?”

She stared at her sister.

“You look flushed,” her sister said, a frown marring the legendary perfection of her features.

She tried to smile but could not. “Perhaps I have, er…overexerted myself.”

That was one way of putting it.

Her sister clutched her arm and drew her toward the front hall. “Come, let’s get you some air.”

She nodded and meekly followed along. But it wasn’t air she needed. It was answers.

Namely, what had happened back there? With him, but more importantly what had come over her? She didn’t recognize herself. She’d never acted so rashly in all her life.

She tried to laugh it off. Their lack of judgment, their obvious moment of insanity, it should have been humorous.

But she couldn’t laugh. Her insides still trembled as she followed Claire’s lead, not seeing nor hearing the crowd around her. It took all her concentration to walk normally, to smile as usual, when she had the inexplicable sensation that something had altered within her.

That kiss had fundamentally changed her and she couldn’t explain how. She clutched Claire’s arm tighter. Perhaps her sister would know. After all, she kissed Nicholas on a regular basis. Maybe this shaken, unsettled feeling was a normal result of kissing. But how could she tell Claire that she had kissed her brother-in-law, their host? Even if Claire kept it a secret, she would form some sort of opinion about Rhys and his behavior, perhaps even speak to him of it, and that she could not have.

Why?

She didn’t know. But the fact of the matter was, she didn’t want to tell anyone. This was her secret. It was a memory she knew she would treasure, but more than that, she needed to make sense of it. She wanted the time and the space to sort through this bizarre response. The way her chest kept tightening at the mere thought of him, as though the laces of her stays had suddenly been cinched too tight.

Besides, there was every possibility that these feelings were natural. Perhaps every kiss brought on this sort of internal disruption, as though she’d lost her balance or—oh dear. Oh heavens.

Almost as though she’d been swept off her feet.

She blinked rapidly at the back of her sister’s head as though her pretty blonde hair might have the answers. Was this sort of reaction typical? Had her body’s instant and bone-deep response to his lips and his body been normal?

How would she know? She’d never been kissed before. Perhaps it would fade. Yes, that was surely the case. She lifted her chin as they reached Nicholas, who was also peering at her with obvious concern as he asked after her.

Once again she muttered something about being overheated. Just then she glanced back toward the hallway through which she’d reentered the ballroom and caught sight of Rhys…no, Roxborough. Heavens, one kiss and her mind gave her airs of some sort of intimacy.

Roxborough had reentered the party and the air in the room seemed to grow a thousand times more dense, thick with heat and tension. She took a gasping breath. Did no one else feel it?

His chin was held high—of course it was, he had nothing to be ashamed of. She was the one he’d thought to be a tart for going to meet Lord Malcolm. And just when she’d thought she’d made her point, he’d gone and proved her a fool and a liar with that kiss.

Why, she had practically thrown herself into his arms. A wave of embarrassment made her look away. Was that how he’d seen it? Did he think her easy of virtue because rather than push him away she had encouraged him? Was it so very wrong that she’d enjoyed it?

And oh how she had enjoyed it.

“Are you certain you’re all right?” It was Nicholas asking this time. Her dear, sweet, formerly rakish brother-in-law. A handsome, charming man who pursued her sister with heartwarming alacrity. A man who so adored her sister he’d forsaken his old ways and devoted himself to becoming worthy of her goodness and her love.

But then again, Claire was good. For all her mischievous ways and her wry wit, Claire wasn’t foolish nor false.

You think nothing of making a spectacle of yourself with your laughter and your incessant chatter. She winced at the memory of his words, so harsh, yet so true. Her talkative nature and her inability to remain silent and solemn had always been her mother’s bane. It had also been the one trait to draw her attention from Claire and Georgie was self-aware enough to realize that perhaps that had only helped foster her bad habits. And now…well now she was who she was.

And who she was seemed to be a disappointment. Certainly not someone the duke found worthy. Though that hadn’t stopped him from kissing her.

A mix of emotions churned in her belly. Shame and anger, longing and embarrassment. She didn’t know what to think nor what to feel.

Nicholas was still watching her with concern, waiting for her to answer. For a moment she felt weepy at the sight of him, this man who was so very different from his brother. So kind and accepting. But then again, she was also so very different from her sweet and elegant sister.

Claire at least had the outward appearance that Roxborough would surely want in a wife. She might have a wicked sense of humor and a lust for adventure that most of the world didn’t recognize, but to the casual observer and at a ball like this one, Claire must seem the very definition of a duchess. Regal, cool, and unflappable.

So very unlike Georgie.

Without meaning to, she sought out Roxborough in the crowd. He was speaking to a woman she recognized. Lady Regina. Proud, proper, and absurdly pretty standing next to the large, overbearing duke.

Something dark and unsavory twisted through her veins at the sight of them together. She turned away quickly lest Roxborough should see her staring. It wasn’t jealousy she was feeling, it couldn’t be. This was nothing like that competitive demon inside of her that had her constantly in a friendly battle with Mary Beaucraft.

This was something else entirely, and she was certain she did not like it. But it did not fade, nor did that unsettled feeling that the world had tipped over on its head. She was discombobulated, there were no two ways about it.

And now that she knew where Roxborough stood, and with whom he was talking, it was nearly impossible to look anywhere else. Her traitorous eyes kept seeking him out, as though the sight of him might answer the questions that were swarming her brain.

Why had he kissed her? What did he think of her now that he had? And what on earth was this insane reaction she was having?

Above and beyond all that, another question loomed bigger than all the rest. Why, oh why, did she so desperately want to kiss him again?