“A castle he never leaves and into which he never allows a soul. The duke is a recluse.” A recluse who prized his lost filly beyond telling, but who had insisted to the Falcon Club’s director that he would not pay for her return unless he first saw her, and that the man who retrieved her bring her directly to him. Into his fortress.

“They do say some of them great lords is nicked in the head.”

Wyn settled the pads and collar about the nearside horse’s breast. “Not only the great lords.”

“The lady seems to be feeling better this morning.” Tom split a smile. “My mother and Betsy are crowing to have a real lady helping with the chores.”

“I don’t believe she minds it. She is an unusual lady.” A country girl, reared on the stark coast of Devonshire by a recluse stepfather and an unkind mother. A girl who, when she drank to excess, became as affectionate as a kitten and as lusty as an opera singer.

The eldest Bates daughter appeared in the stable doorway. “Tom, Papa wants you at the cote.”

“I’ll be up soon.”

Her glance flickered to Wyn then back to her brother. “He wants you now.”

The lad set the pitchfork against the wall and tugged at his cap. “I’d best see to those sheep, sir.” He cast Galahad another appreciative look then left. Betsy gave Wyn a shy smile and followed. Trailing behind them, the dog turned at the door, trotted on its three good legs back to the carriage, and leapt up onto the box. Wyn shook his head.

“Ramses,” he said, slipping the bit into a horse’s mouth. “A royal name for a scrap of a mongrel.” It watched as he ran the breaching strap along the offside horse’s flank and buckled it. “You do know that you are not my dog.”

It peered back at him with its black eyes set in a mat of brown and gray fur, just as it had when he climbed into the loft the night before.

“I suspect you do not in fact know that.” He moved around to affix the straps on the other horse. “But you see, Ramses, I cannot have a dog at this time.” As he could not have a girl with lapis eyes and a beautiful smile and the most damnably persistent hands he’d ever had the torturous pleasure of being obliged to remove from his body.

She’d spent the previous evening on a wooden chair far from the hearth, embroidering an apron. Brow creased and luscious lower lip caught between her teeth, she plied the needle with quivering fingers—still suffering from her excess of the night before, he’d no doubt. But she had not complained. Instead, when she finished the work she presented it to the farmer’s eldest daughter with a smile. Then she sewed lace to the edges of Mrs. Bates’s nightcap.

“Took that lace from one of her own dresses,” Mrs. Polley had muttered to him as she removed his empty glass from the table. He’d taken only cider, and this morning the tremors were worse because of that discipline. “Wants to give these good people something of true value, just like herself.” Her bulbous eyes had narrowed. “An angel who doesn’t think anything of herself, my mistress. She deserves to be treated right.”

Wyn agreed wholeheartedly. He’d kept that notion in the front of his mind the night of Sir Henry’s fete as she pressed her curves to him and the whiskey in his blood told him to pull her closer yet.

True value. Though perhaps not an angel, not with her delight in teasing and her determination to succeed on her mission. And her seeking hands and perfect breasts.

Better than an angel.

The dog stared at him from ebony buttons in a curious face.

“Yes, I am aware that a man with intent to murder a duke has no business putting his hands on any woman.” He attached the traces, drew the horses one after another to the pole and affixed the coupling reins.

A shadow crossed the square of pale light from the yard. Her knew her shadow. He knew the contour of her neck, and the dimples that flashed in her cheeks, and how her eyes rolled back when she laughed at him. He could describe the shape of each of her fingers and shades of golden brown in her hair, and the precise locations of the tiny scars on her pert nose. These were the sorts of details he had trained himself at an early age to notice and served him well as an agent of the Falcon Club. He was not slipping, it seemed. And knowing her in this manner provided him a decadent sort of agonizing satisfaction.

She came toward him. “Good day, sir.”

“Good day, ma’am. How do you do this morning?”

She laid her hand on a horse’s neck and stroked, her ungloved fingers slender and comfortable upon the animal. “Considerably better. Fully recovered, in fact.” She wore a plain blue gown cinched with a ribbon beneath her breasts. The night before as he lay in the straw alone he’d spent time imagining those breasts stripped of garments. He had imagined touching her. He had told himself it provided distraction from the pull of the bottle Bates offered him earlier, which he’d declined. No more whiskey while in the company of Diantha Lucas. He didn’t trust himself.

Now her breasts were before him, albeit clothed. Still, reality proved greater than imagination. “I am glad for you, then.” He turned from her to recheck the reins.

“It’s true, I will not be experimenting with spirits again. Will we leave soon?”

“Momentarily.”

She glanced toward the stable door. “The Bateses are wonderfully kind people. It is a marvel we were so fortunate to happen upon them.” She hovered at his shoulder on the balls of her feet. “Betsy is their eldest, you know. A year older than Tom. She entered the harvest fair baking competition this year with her own entry and won. She is very proud of that accomplishment.”

He glanced at her. The slightest stain of pink covered her cheeks.

“She must be.” He moved to the rear of the carriage and took up a rope to fasten the traveling trunk in place.

She came again to his side and Wyn felt her move the air. He felt it. She was a spring breeze that with the gentlest aggression threatened to send his world spinning.

“She is fifteen. She told me she has a tendre for a boy who lives on the next farm, yet she is afraid to reveal to him her interest for fear he will scorn her.” She spoke more slowly now. “I think it is more than shyness on her part.”

“Do you?” He tightened the rope about the trunk.

“She hides her face when she can.”

Ah. Of course. “She will learn confidence in time. She is young yet,” he only said.

“I don’t think it is her age.”

“Perhaps not.”

A lengthy pause. “Do men notice such things?”

He could not pretend he hadn’t any idea what she meant. Naïve regarding man’s baser nature or not, Diantha Lucas was much cleverer than she liked others to think.

“Yes. I am afraid most men do.”

She was silent a moment. “I knew that, of course. I mostly asked to see how you would . . .” Her voice faltered. “How you would . . .”

He turned. “How I would re—”

Her chin collided with his jaw.

They both jerked back. Her hand flew to her face. A full, rosy flush washed across her lovely features, and tension flooded Wyn precisely where he did not wish it.

Fingers over her mouth, she backed away a step. He crouched and looped the rope above the rear axle, pulling in a slow breath.

“I will not insult either of our dignities, Miss Lucas, by pretending that you did not just attempt to kiss me.” He glanced at her over his shoulder.

“I did.” She performed the usual damnably taking twist of her lips. “I should very much like to.”

He leaned his forearm onto his knee to turn to her. “Did you hear nothing I said to you yesterday afternoon?”

“I wish I had managed it more successfully.”

“Apparently not,” he answered himself, and stood.

She frowned, her features coming to life again. “Oh, why not? The Bateses believe we are wed, and Mrs. Polley has just dropped off to sleep so she will not discover it. I am not proposing marriage to you. It would just be one kiss, and no one would know.”

“I would know.”

“Well then you could simply forget about it right after, couldn’t you?”

“No.” Never. Dear God, she was unbearably pretty. He scanned her face aglow with mingled indignation and hope, unable not to take his fill of looking. “Do you even hear yourself now?”

“Yes. Don’t be silly. Although I suppose it isn’t silliness but rather gentlemanliness. I admire that about you enormously, of course, but it is inconvenient at the present.”

He laughed, because the only other alternative was to drag her delectable body against him and kiss her until neither of them could see straight.

A crease slipped across her brow. “You already know that I occasionally have lapses in modesty. But why must you be a gentleman at all times? Except of course in that stable.”

He had not been a gentleman when she’d drunkenly clung to him and he’d nearly given her what she wanted. The thoughts he’d had then were not gentlemanlike. Nor was fantasizing about her the night before. Nor was the ready tenor of his body now.

Damn it, where were the rules when a man needed them?

Rule #8!

“A man is only a gentleman if he is never otherwise.” He matched her tone, seeking steadiness. “Except perhaps in a stable,” he admitted.

Her lashes flickered up. “We are in a stable now.”

God help him. “That we are.”

“Just one kiss,” she whispered. “I promise I shan’t bother you about it again.”

Bother? Rather, enchant, torment, torture. Her lips and eyes and silken neck and perfect breasts beckoned.

Damn the rules. If only for a moment.

He cupped his hand around the side of her face, his palm reveling in the warmth of satin. Soft skin. Soft hair. Soft woman. He nearly groaned from the pleasure of it. Her eyes were wide as moonlight. He bent to her.

Her lips were infinitely sweeter than he had imagined, plump and yielding. For the barest moment he allowed himself to breathe her in, to capture her scent of fresh air and sunshine amid the autumn mist, to feel the caress of her against his mouth.

Long enough for his body to stir and a hot thread of panic to dart through him. Good Lord, he had to have her.

Intoxicate.

She intoxicated him.

He drew away. She gulped breath, her lashes stuttering open. Then she smiled and the lapis pools shone.

He choked back a groan.

Mistake. Weakness. Enormous mistake. What had he been thinking?

“That was a perfect first kiss,” she breathed.

“Second.” His voice was uneven.

“Second?”

He tapped a fingertip to the place on his jaw that she had first attempted. Her berry lips opened in a grin of pure delight.

He should kill himself now rather than wait to meet his end after murdering the duke. None of the thoughts in his head were gentlemanly. None of the desires. He saw a flash of her pink tongue and wanted it wrapped around every inch of his body—several inches in particular. He wanted her here, beneath him in the straw and damn every scruple, rule, and plan he’d had for the past five years. Ten. Fifteen. The way Diantha Lucas made him feel was far from gentlemanly. He needed to be inside her.

She had no idea. Despite her inebriated advances and innocent insistence, her face wore an expression of complete satisfaction. She hadn’t any notion what lay beyond kissing, of what he could do to her now.

The air seemed thin.

He could regain control.

“Are you in the habit of assigning numbers to the kisses you share with gentlemen, Miss Lucas?” Speech. Inane speech would help. He would imagine himself in a London drawing room trading flirtatious banter with a lady of society. In a manner of weeks she would be just that, after all, safely surrounded by propriety and safely none of his business.

“Numbers?”

“Counting them up on your fingers, as it were, like points in a card game.”

“No. Why would you think that?”

“ ‘First’ suggests you anticipate a second.”

“ ‘First’ actually means that you are the first man I have ever kissed.”

Her first kiss? Impossible. Yet he was a scoundrel for even imagining otherwise.

“Your suitors have not—?”

“Oh, well, I didn’t have any suitors in Devon—except Mr. H. I was all spots and two stone rounder until last summer, after all. Gentlemen found nothing of interest in me. You didn’t.” She said it so blithely, as though commenting on the shade of the grass.

“I found your quantity of opinion interesting. And before that I found that you danced quite prettily.”