Edward had wanted to show her how she could lose control as thoroughly as he, but it didn’t manifest itself that way.

She was probably still irritated by his words, since she kissed him ruthlessly, sliding her tongue into his mouth, holding his upper arms in a furious grip.

As though to battle him in who could make the other lose control first.

It might be me, a voice said in his head.

He stood there, returning her savage kisses with his own. Running his hand down to the small of her back, and lower still, to cup the soft curve of her arse, to pull her up against him, his cock rising up in his trousers to press against her body.

She was magnificent, and he wanted to devour her. Or let her devour him, he didn’t care which. He was egalitarian in that way; as long as complete and total ravishment happened, he was fine with it.

He drew his other hand behind her as well and yanked his gloves off, dropping them to the ground. Then he returned his hand to her curves, but brought his other hand to her neck, sliding his fingers down to touch her collarbone, her upper chest, until he was able to cup her breast in his palm.

He felt her shudder at his touch, and he wanted to grin at how reactive she was. If she hadn’t wanted this, she would have made it absolutely and totally clear—her fury at his attempt to own what had happened between them showed him that. So he didn’t hesitate, running his fingertip up at the edge of her evening gown, dipping it into her bodice to touch the warm softness of her breast. To reach two fingers in now to touch her nipple, its hard point a testament to what she was feeling now. What she wanted now.

Dear God, he wanted to fuck her. Or no, he wanted to make love to her, long, slow, and thoroughly. He wouldn’t be satisfied with a mere fuck, a moment where he could explode and have it all be done with. He wanted to savor her, run his tongue over each and every part of her, learn what made her sigh and quiver and scream his name.

She broke the kiss, leaning back to look up at him, a dazed expression in her eyes. Likely the same one was in his.

“What is happening here?” she asked. “I—my God, I’ve never,” and then she shook her head as though to clear it. His fingers still in her gown, his cock no doubt tenting his trousers. Surely she must feel it pressed against her?

“What is happening, Olivia, is something that cannot happen again.” Edward sighed and leaned his forehead against hers, removing his fingers from her bodice and his hand from her arse. Putting his hands gently at her waist. “I am leaving. We likely won’t see one another again.” He placed a kiss on her forehead. “It has been a pleasure. Far more than I can, or should, say.”

He stepped back, and gestured toward the ballroom. “You should probably precede me, since I am in no state to enter polite society at the moment.” Which was a discreet way to mention his erection, and hopefully she would understand.

She darted a glance down—well, then, she did understand—and bit her lip. “Yes, of course. If you’ll excuse me,” she said, as though they had just parted from a waltz, not the most passionate and intense interlude he’d ever had. She squared her shoulders, gave him one last rueful smile, and returned to the ballroom, not once looking back at him.

Leaving him bereft, with a massive cockstand, and a heart full of ache and longing.

“We’re supposed to deliver the shifts today. Or had you forgotten?”

Pearl’s voice roused Olivia out of an uncharacteristic bout of introspection. Normally she thought about the things she was aware of, and was trying to solve.

But now she was also thinking about the man she knew about and absolutely could not solve, and she suspected she would be thinking on that topic for a good long time.

And she would never see him again.

“Olivia?” Now Pearl sounded concerned.

“Yes, of course,” Olivia replied, trying to return to her usual efficient tone. “We can deliver the shifts and we can also stop in to see the children. It’s been over a month.”

“We’ve been too busy with all these parties,” Pearl said, making it sound as though she would rank parties just below stubbing one’s toe or drinking cold tea. Though for Pearl they were; she was too shy, too restless, to want to sit in a room filled with people she barely knew and likely wouldn’t want to.

If only Society had more energetic events, possibly held outside, Pearl would be a lot happier. But until the best families decided Mayday poles and dances held in fields were the most appropriate way for them to show their being at the top of the social world, that likely wouldn’t happen.

Though the thought of some of those ridiculous lords in over-snug trousers trying to waltz among bales of hay was rather amusing.

“We should never be too busy to take care of people who need it,” Olivia replied. Feeling her chin lift in her usual stance of combat.

It was only Pearl, but she couldn’t allow her skills to diminish. She never knew when some misguided man would tell her that children much preferred to work than have to go to school, and she would have to show him—in explicit and excruciating detail—why he was wrong.

“Of course not,” Pearl replied drily. “Oh no, look!”

She held up the topmost shift on the pile, which was now shredded at the neck with a few cat hairs indicating what had happened. “I thought I reminded you to put those in a box so the kittens couldn’t get to them.” She turned to look at Olivia. “You’re not normally this careless. Is something going on? Something I should know about?”

“Uh,” Olivia began, only to stop when Pearl’s face lit up and she flung the shift back on the pile to run over to Olivia’s bed and hug her.

“Something did happen! What happened? Did you finally realize you don’t really love Lord Carson? Was it when you were spending time with Mr. Wolcott? Did you fall in love with Mr. Wolcott? I have to say, I prefer him to Lord Carson. Lord Carson is always so serious and preoccupied. If you ask him a question like ‘Do you want sugar in your tea?’ you get the feeling you’ve just interrupted the course of progressive history. With Mr. Wolcott, he always seems as though he is grateful you’ve asked him about how he takes his tea.”

Olivia bit her lip at Pearl’s statement; obviously Mr. Wolcott was grateful because so few people treated him with courtesy. Or the kind of discourtesy with which she had shown him last night. She couldn’t keep herself from wincing at the memory of it.

“There was something.” Pearl narrowed her eyes at her sister. “You have to tell me. Or I’ll ask Ida to pretend we’re in chancery, and she can be the magistrate. You know you can’t withstand Ida asking questions.”

The thought made Olivia flinch. No, she did not want her most analytical sister asking questions that would reveal that Olivia had basically thrown herself at Mr. Wolcott. Well, thrown her lips at his lips, to be more accurate.

She leaned over to look under her bed, locating two of the four kittens and scooping them up into her lap—they protested with ridiculously cute meows.

One of them, Snapper, began to knead her gown, his tiny claws getting stuck in the embroidery of her day gown. She kept extracting him from it, and he didn’t seem to be ruining anything—yet—and the joy of having two little furballs of love on her lap was worth a slight disarray of her gown, which was the one she kept for visits to the lesser neighborhoods she visited anyway.

The other kitten curled up into a ball on her thigh and promptly fell asleep, Olivia scratching its head.

“Yes, they are very sweet, but you cannot evade the questions through the use of feline subterfuge.”

Olivia looked at Pearl in surprise. “Have you been spending more time with Ida lately? ‘Feline subterfuge’ sounds like something she would say in court, actually.”

Pearl laughed. “No, I was just reading The Mystery of the Urn, or one of those kinds of books, and I thought I’d try speaking that way in real life.” Her expression became haughty. “Do you surmise I would be sufficiently able to persuade those persons of lesser intelligence and education of my undeniable ability to counteract any such attempt by another cat or cat-like animal to ravage ladies’ unmentionables?”

“You mean convince people you can keep the cats away from the rest of the shifts?” Olivia replied, laughing at Pearl’s absurdity. “I think so. Have at it, sister.”

Pearl got off the bed to take the shifts out of the cats’ way, and then returned to the bed, crossing her arms over her chest. “And now you have to tell me.”

She did. She would have to. It often felt as though something hadn’t truly happened unless she could tell her twin all about it.

They would have to discuss that in the future if or when one of them got married. But meanwhile, Olivia could tell her twin most of this.

“I kissed him.”

Pearl nodded slowly, encouraging Olivia to continue. “You kissed Mr. Wolcott, to be clear. You did not kiss Lord Carson.”

“No. Not yet.” And maybe not ever, if what Pearl was suggesting and Olivia herself had wondered was true. Had she fallen out of love with Bennett? Had she ever been in love with him at all?

“What kind of kiss was it? The kind that says ‘thank you for the dance, I’ve had one glass too many of champagne, and there’s your cheek’?” But judging by the way Pearl said it, she knew perfectly well it wasn’t that kind of kiss.

“How would you know anything about any kisses at all?” Olivia glared at her sister, whose expression did not change.

Pearl was very good at keeping her own counsel. Nor would she be deterred when she had questions. “No, not that kind of kiss.” How could she put it? She settled herself cross-legged on the bed, dislodging the sleepy kitty, which growled and then went right back to sleep. The other kitten was playing with a ribbon on her gown.

“You know how when you’re reading one of those novels like that mystery one? And it’s so good and so enthralling, and you can’t believe the things that are happening in it. And you’re rushing so fast to read it, only you don’t want it to ever end, since then it will be over.”

“Ooohhh,” Pearl replied in a soft exhale. “That sounds wonderful.”

“It was.” Olivia lowered her face to stick her nose into Snapper’s fur. As much for the kitten’s cuteness as so Pearl couldn’t see her expression right then. Because she was fairly certain it would reveal a certain amount of regret, and her fascinated wish to do it again, and confusion about just how she felt now about everything.

And Pearl would see it all and would no doubt have something to say about it. For a relatively quiet person, Pearl could definitely talk a lot.

“So does that mean he is courting you? Are you the respectable lady who will marry him and make him respectable too?”

The thought should have occurred to her before, what with the kissing and all, but it simply hadn’t. She straightened like a shot, a few cat hairs wafting about in the air in front of her nose, and stared at Pearl.

“No, of course not.”

“Because you still think you’re going to marry Lord Carson?” Pearl asked in a gentle tone. The one she used right before she gave Olivia some hard truths.

Olivia thought she knew the truths already, so perhaps they could skip that part.

“I don’t think that any longer.” Now it was Pearl’s turn to look surprised.

It felt as though Olivia’s world was shifting, again. She’d thought for so long that she would marry Bennett—Lord Carson—that admitting it wasn’t true felt as revelatory as when she had realized there was more to life than parties and gowns.

She licked her lips, which had become dry. “I think if I am so easily able to kiss somebody like Mr. Wolcott without thinking of Lord Carson, then it is probably true that I am not, actually, in love with Lord Carson after all.” Dear lord. I am not in love with Bennett. I might never have been in love with Bennett.

Who am I? Who will I be?

The thoughts came fast, making her feel as though she were spinning in a circle, her brain going faster and faster until she couldn’t think anymore.

Pearl’s eyes widened as Olivia spoke, and then she smiled, a warm smile that felt lit up from the inside. “Oh, thank goodness. I was worried I was going to have to toss you over a horse and gallop away from the church with you. You can’t marry him—that’s clear enough.”

Olivia couldn’t help the pique in her tone. “Clear enough? Why is it clear enough? Because he is handsome and intelligent and wants to do the right things and is of our world and was supposed to marry Eleanor until his brother stole her?”

Pearl rolled her eyes. “Look, you and I agreeing on this very important matter—the matter of your future life—does not mean you should be defensive about it. It does happen, our agreeing sometimes.” She gestured to the kittens in Olivia’s lap. “We agreed these little ones should be saved from the Robinsons’ gardener, although we still don’t know what we’re going to do with them. They should be running around free somewhere, not stuck in our rooms in London.”

Olivia grinned at the thought that popped into her head, making Pearl look at her suspiciously.

“I have an idea,” she said.