Alaric watched Willa leave with a rising sense of disbelief.

She didn’t have a headache. She was avoiding him.

He poked at the idea the way one’s tongue pokes at a sore tooth. He was surrounded by women longing to spend time with him, so it shouldn’t matter that one young lady didn’t feel the same.

Willa was extraordinarily beautiful, but the world was full of lovely women.

His brooding was interrupted a second later as Eliza Kennet attached herself to his arm. Trying politely to shake her free, he realized again that his retinue—as it were—was a genuine problem. He could hardly carry Sweetpea around in a basket to ward them off.

The only thing he wanted to do was follow Willa. Scoop up that tantalizingly curved bottom and throw it over his shoulder.

Go to bed.

Go to bed and never climb out. Not for at least a week, until he had memorized the contours of her body. And the colors. He was fascinated by the darkness of her eyebrows against her pearly skin. Thick, dark-tipped eyelashes. Not a freckle to be seen.

Perhaps she had hair like a raven’s wing, hair that would swirl over a man’s chest when she sat on top of him, taking her pleasure, riding to her heart’s content.

Or perhaps it was a deep mahogany, the color of tree trunks at twilight.

Bloody hell.

He really was losing his mind.

THERE WAS NO sign of Willa the following morning at breakfast. Nor did she appear at luncheon.

Aunt Knowe caught him after the second meal and informed him that his presence was required at archery, to even the numbers. Teams of two would advance to the archery range and take their turns with bows and arrows.

“It’s Diana’s favorite sport,” she explained. “North has had a set of arrows with brass filigree made for her.”

They silently acknowledged between them that lavish gifts would not win North his fiancée’s heart. In fact, it crossed Alaric’s mind that Diana might accidentally shoot his brother, but he pushed it away.

There were better ways to avoid marriage than manslaughter.

Willa’s arms were slim but taut. Perhaps she was an archeress as well. She couldn’t hide in her room forever. “I’d be happy to,” he told his aunt.

She snorted, shrewd eyes on his face, but said nothing, for which he was grateful.

The duke had erected a tent on the lawn, where guests could take refreshment and seek shelter from both wayward arrows and the midsummer sun. The moment he appeared, Lady Biddle curled her fingers around his arm and claimed him as her partner. Willa was still to be seen, so he followed Helena from the tent to the archery field.

She took the first turn, squealing as her arrow missed the target. After the third such failed attempt, she demanded he stand behind her and show her how to hold the bow. When he complied, she promptly nestled her arse against him.

“What’s that I feel?” she giggled, rubbing against him like a cat in heat.

“Nothing,” he stated, which was the truth. He glanced at the tent, where everyone was enjoying lemonade. Some were watching, but they were out of earshot.

He turned her around and caught her eyes. “I’m going to be very blunt, Helena. I am not interested in having an affaire with you.”

Her face reddened. “It’s that girl, isn’t it? Willa Ffynche. You think to marry her. The marriage won’t succeed.”

“Oh?” He picked up his bow, took careful aim, and released the string. The arrow whipped forward with the sound of slashed wind, and slammed into the center of the target. He lowered his bow. “I cede this match.”

“You’ll have to cede your hope of that particular marriage,” Lady Biddle said, her voice sharp. “May I point out that your image is spread all over England—precisely so that ladies can drool over it in the privacy of their bedchambers?”

The words lacerated his gut.

“Willa Ffynche is a lady. She will go nowhere near a life that’s played out in the open marketplace. You think there wouldn’t be prints sold of your wedding? Of your first child?”

The thought had never occurred to him.

“You couldn’t have chosen worse,” she swept on, her words fueling a bottomless pit of dark emotion. “Willa Ffynche is a private woman. Very private. In fact, she—”

Alaric turned on his heel and left her in mid-sentence. If that provoked gossip, it couldn’t be helped.

Damn … Damn.

Willa was private. That was part of her allure. She was all hidden depths and secret thoughts. She didn’t display herself for everyone to see.

For a man who loved the idea of an undiscovered country, she was the ultimate temptation. At the mere thought of her, his body fired with heat.

North’s words came back to him: “I saw Diana, and I had to have her.” Alaric didn’t want a betrothal—or, God forbid, a wedding—like his brother’s, characterized by longing on one side and reluctance, if not dislike, on the other.

He had braved pirate waters in Wilde Latitudes. Sailed into sheltered coves in a boat so small that it could hold only one person. He’d won over pirates with games of chance, with spicy tales, with a true lack of desire to steal their treasure.

He had to win her as a friend. That’s where North had gone wrong, in his opinion. His brother had courted Diana, had gone so far as to don a towering wig to please her. But last night, Alaric had overheard North’s lecture on how a duchess should behave when greeting the queen. Diana had been listening without expression.

North was only trying to ease his future wife into the role of duchess-to-be. But it wasn’t a good idea, to Alaric’s mind. They should discuss anything other than the responsibilities of a duchess.

To this day North didn’t know what his fiancée’s favorite ballad was, or which book she most disliked.

Alaric dropped the arrows he held, and stretched. Helena Biddle strode past him, her shoulders rigid, furious.

North strolled over to him. He looked more splendid than Fitzy, a befringed and beruffled jewel in the midst of the green lawn.

“Frankly,” Alaric said, unable to resist, “if I had to dress like that in order to win Willa’s hand, I’d probably be heading for Africa right now.”

“An unlucky destination,” his brother pointed out. “You do know that in the play, your beloved—the innocent, dewy missionary’s daughter, the lovely Angelica—ends up in the stew pot?”

“Angelica?” It was less a question than a groan.

The one good thing about that detail was that its sheer preposterousness confirmed lack of information about Prudence, the real missionary’s daughter. Angelica’s background must have been a lucky guess on the part of the playwright.

“It’s a heart-rending scene, particularly enjoyed by the apprentices in the pit. They pelt the stew pot with apple cores, but the playwright cannily had the pot appear and disappear without showing actual cannibals, saving his actors from assault.” His brother threw an arm around his shoulders. “We’ll have to stock up on apples to defend your future wife.”

“I would never take my wife to Africa. Perhaps Paris.”

“Not to defend her from cannibals,” North said, just as several women turned about and smiled lavishly. “From English ladies.”

Alaric groaned.