Some two hours later, the carriage drew into the courtyard of the Holy Cheese. He touched Eugenia’s shoulder to wake her. When she sat up, rosy and blinking from her nap, he had to swallow a groan.

Her hair had fallen from its pins again and her dress was on the verge of displaying her breasts to the open air. She would look like this after making love.

“Oh,” she said in a sleepy purr. “Have we arrived at the inn?” She pulled her thick hair over one shoulder and started twisting it, the way he imagined women did flax at a spinning wheel.

“Yes, we need to change the horses,” Ward explained. “I thought you might like to refresh yourself inside. We’ll still be in good time for dinner. And it will give the second carriage a chance to catch up with us.”

“Where are we?”

“The Holy Cheese.”

“The Holy Cheese? ‘Holy’ as in sacred, or ‘holey’ as in full of holes?” Her hands flew around her head until her hair was pinned in place as firmly as shingles to a roof. After her nap, she looked more relaxed, which he liked. Very much.

“Both,” Ward answered. “They take cheese very seriously in these parts.”

He pushed open the door and helped her down before the groom could take out that ridiculous mounting block. It was coming on twilight, and the air was fresh and clean as it never was in London.

“Do you enjoy living in the city year-round?” he asked, taking Eugenia’s arm.

“I grew up in the country, and I do miss it,” she said. “But Snowe’s is in London, and I find it hard to escape.”

As soon as they were seated in a snug private parlor, the innkeeper entered, accompanied by a serving man carrying a bowl of fruit and a platter of cheese. “Good evening, madam, sir.”

Before his eyes, Eugenia, who had been smiling in a fashion that made Ward want to snatch her into his lap, straightened her back and transformed into a perfect impersonation of a lady.

The innkeeper responded to her airs and graces as if she were an actual duchess, bowing and scraping and generally making an obsequious ass of himself as Ward looked on.

Eugenia’s uncle was with the Thames River Police; she could not have come from the gentry, let alone the aristocracy. And yet she would effortlessly fit into one of his father’s dinner parties.

“Governesses teach their charges far more than letters and sums, don’t they?” Ward asked, following his train of thought after the innkeeper left. “After all, children come into the world as little savages. I know I did.”

“Left to their own devices, yes,” Eugenia agreed. “Lizzie and Otis seem to be in a class of their own.” She twinkled at him. “Perhaps naughtiness runs in the family.”

“Among other crimes, I refused to sleep the night in my own bed—as do my siblings, by the way. Apparently, I told endless stories and bored everyone around me. I also sucked my thumb, or so my stepmother tells me; I don’t remember that.”

She laughed. “There’s nothing unusual about that.”

Their eyes caught and his head swam. She was so damn beautiful, and so intoxicating. He wanted to kiss her again.

He cast around for another subject. “Do you see your family often?”

Despite himself, his voice was hard. If he ever met her father, he would have words with him about those rats. What kind of man raises a daughter in those conditions?

“Not often enough,” Eugenia said with a warm smile. “But in fact this unplanned journey has caused me to make up my mind to travel from your house to my father’s and to take at least a week away from Snowe’s. Perhaps longer.” She fiddled with her knife. “Do you know, I had the oddest idea this morning.”

“What was that?”

“I might hand over the registry to my assistant, Miss Lloyd-Fantil.”

Ward looked up from the apple he was peeling. “You would give up control of Snowe’s?”

“I would like a new challenge,” she said, looking as unruffled as a lady talking of learning a new dance step.

“I can be challenging,” Ward said.

The smile that blossomed on Eugenia’s face made lust rise in his body like a tidal wave. He wanted her with an absurd ferocity. The thought of bedding her was like a prickling spur that made his balls ache.

Hell, he didn’t need a bed. The wall would do. The table.

No.

“In fact, you appear to be offering no challenge at all,” she said, eyes glinting mischievously.

That was true.

“I’m at your service,” he agreed. He leaned over and dropped a kiss on her mouth and the touch of her lip sang through his bones like fire.

“Tell me more about your childhood,” Ward said. He twisted his wrist and the last bit of peel fell from his apple.

“My mother died when I was very young, before I knew her.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ward said, giving her the fruit. “I never knew my mother, either. My grandmother, the Duchess of Gilner, handed me over to my father when I was a mere infant.”

She accepted the apple. “Why do I feel as if the Holy Cheese is actually the Garden of Eden, and you’re playing the role of serpent?”

“Nonsense,” he said. Anything they did together wouldn’t be sinful.

“The duchess gave you up because her daughter gave birth to you out of wedlock? I have known courtesans who would never do that, unless driven to it by the extremes of poverty.”

“You are acquainted with courtesans? As in, ladies of the night?”

“In my youth,” Eugenia said placidly. “My father is generously disposed toward those rejected by conventional society.”

Not only rats, but strumpets as well? It was no wonder that Eugenia was determined to play the lady. “One might argue that the Duchess of Gilner saved my life. My mother was markedly unstable.” He cleared his throat. “Were the courtesans part of your father’s household, along with the rats?”

“I would hate to think that you are implying any similarity,” Eugenia said, her voice clear and strong. “I was brought up not to disparage others, whether for their profession or their parents’ marital status.”

Ward grinned. “A fair hit.”

“In fact, my aunt runs Magdalene House, a home for women who wish to escape that life.”

“That is charitable of her.”

“Well, she—” Eugenia stopped. “Yes, she is a good woman. She taught me a great deal about what truly matters in life.” She rose from the table. “Surely your coach will be ready by now.”

Eugenia couldn’t be implying that her aunt taught her the tricks of that particular trade. Ward couldn’t control the swirl of heat that went through him at the idea that the ladylike Eugenia might be adventuresome in the bedchamber.

He pushed his chair back and came around the table to escort her. “What did your aunt teach you?”

She turned and looked back at him over her shoulder. His breath caught at the pure sensual beauty of her sculpted cheekbones and peony-pink mouth. “The differences between the sexes, for one thing.”

“What differences are those?”

“Differences to do with bedding.”

With one stride, Ward moved close enough to pin Eugenia against the wall, though their bodies didn’t touch. He braced a hand above her head.

“Didn’t Mr. Snowe teach you about bedding?”

Eugenia’s eyelashes lowered, dark against her cheek, and then she looked directly at him. Her eyes were as green as new leaves in springtime. “Of course he did.”

Jealousy felt sour in his gut. “You’ve been faithful to his memory for how many years?”

“I have been a widow for seven years,” she stated, chin up. Back straight.

“He was a fortunate man,” Ward said. To kiss or not to kiss? He felt as if he might expire from pure lust. “Still, your husband couldn’t have taught you everything there is to know about intimacy. In fact, how do you know he was any good, if you’ve slept with only one man?”

She broke into a peal of laughter. “If you don’t know the answer to that, my friend, nothing I can say will enlighten you. Perhaps I shall give your future wife a hint or two.”

“My wife won’t need any hints,” Ward said, easing closer. He could smell her now, that sweet berry fragrance that was all her own.

“Perhaps it’s you who needs advice,” she said merrily.

“Your husband did not, I gather.”

“He took me to heaven and back,” she said, her voice softening with the unmistakable ring of truth.

Well, damn.

Some shamefully envious part of Ward’s soul had hoped that the man had been less than accomplished.

“It’s a tragedy you haven’t been with a man for years.”

“That’s a woman’s lot,” she pointed out. “Either we marry, or we fend off unwelcome advances.”

“Seven years without a moment’s pleasure,” he said musingly.

Her eyes dropped, and pink rose in her cheeks again. Ward’s balls tightened and sent a throb through his lower body. Damn, but she was delicious.

She’d pleasured herself.

“Without a man’s touch,” he clarified.

“This conversation has gone from improper to obscene,” she observed.

He shook his head. “Haven’t you noticed, Eugenia, that almost all of our conversations start at improper?”

“That speaks ill of both of us,” she retorted. “Would you please allow me to pass so that we can continue our journey?”

“I’d rather discuss your experience of heaven.”

She pushed at his shoulder. “Absolutely not!”

Ward brushed the pretty curve of her ear with his lips. “Why not let me teach you my version of heaven? Your husband wouldn’t have wanted you to be alone for the rest of your life.”

“No,” Eugenia agreed, giving Ward a clear-eyed look. “Andrew also wouldn’t want me to engage in any sort of unsavory relationship. I bear his name now, and that was very important to him.”

“I wasn’t thinking about an unsavory relationship,” he clarified. “There’s nothing unsavory if a man were to give a woman pleasure, to make up for years of widowhood. No ‘relationship,’ so to speak, is required.”

“The vicar would not approve.”

“What about something so small that the vicar would never need know?”

“Small?” She gave a naughty giggle.

He leaned closer and breathed in that elusive scent of hers again. “She-devil.” If there was anything he needn’t worry about, it was the size of his rod. “What if I offered you one minute for every year since your husband’s death?”

She burst out laughing, and brushed past him. “Only seven minutes? That is very like a man.”

Ward watched her leave the room, an unwilling grin on his face.

Ladies—that is to say, true ladies, with birth and titles and the rest of it—were tiresome; all the humor and life was bred out of them by the time they reached the age of twenty. Eugenia, on the other hand, was funny and wry, indisputably brave and intelligent—and wickedly sensual as well.

He prowled behind her, riveted from head to toe.

If she granted him only seven minutes, he wanted every one of them. If he could lure her to his bedchamber, seven minutes would turn into seven days.

Just as Eugenia was about to leave the front door of the inn, he caught her waist and spun her to face him.

She let out a sound between a squeak and a gasp, tipped back her head and gazed at him from under those lovely, curling lashes of hers. “Mr. Reeve,” she said. “Was there something I could help you with?”

“Yes,” he said tightly, pulling her against him.

Her eyes closed as their bodies came together, fitting like two spoons.

“Give me seven minutes,” he breathed. Her mouth opened, her tongue met his, and lust shot up his spine. She tasted like fresh apples and spice and Eugenia.

“Seven minutes,” he repeated hoarsely, when he could speak again. “Please.”

Her wide, gleaming smile made his pulse race even faster. “Seven minutes? I deserve more than that, Ward.” She leaned forward and put a finger on his lips, stopping his offer to turn seven into seventy. “No.”

Denial was as heady as a kiss. His blood was pounding a litany that went something like, Mine, mine, mine.

She turned her head with a flip that made her hair glow in the waning daylight like strands of fire, and walked outside with a swing in her hips that was enough to bring a man to his knees.