.

patrols. Some of the locals had even volunteered to ride themselves.

      “I was waiting in your study when I heard the women talking,” Sherry explained. “I realized they were looking for you, and that Miss Moran was also missing. Your fiancée-to-be’s mother did not seem happy about it.”

      “What about Jocelyn?”

      He shrugged. “She said she imagined you were out in the stable and that Lily was probably in the village buying something for her hatmaking. I don’t think she sees her cousin as much of a threat.”

      Royal just grunted. If she only knew. His body still throbbed with desire for Lily. When he moistened his lips, he could taste her there. She had the softest lips he’d ever known, the smoothest, silkiest skin. He hadn’t wanted a woman so badly since he had been a green lad lusting after one of the milkmaids.

      Royal sighed as he walked next to Sherry toward the stable. It had taken the full force of his will not to open Lily’s bodice and slide his hands inside to explore the shape of her breasts, not to make a bed of his cloak, bear her down in the grass, slide up her skirts and bury himself inside her.

      If it had been any woman but Lily, he might have continued his unplanned seduction. But Lily wasn’t that kind, no matter the years she had spent with her uncle. Royal knew women and this one was innocent of a man’s passions. If he’d had any doubt, her untutored, sweetly arousing kisses today would have convinced him.

      His body tightened, the memory of her soft mouth under his making him hard all over again.

      “So the two of you were in there together, as I thought,” Sherry said. “I am beginning to understand the way the wind is blowing. Are you ready, then, to give up your heiress?”

      Royal sliced him a glare. “It was only a kiss and it shouldn’t have happened. I’m marrying Jocelyn, just as I planned.”

      “Well, then, I suppose I shall have to settle for her very lovely cousin.”

      Royal stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “Leave Lily alone.”

      Sheridan’s lips curved in a mocking half smile. “Jealous, are we?”

      Royal turned away, determined to convince himself it wasn’t true. “Marriage to Jocelyn will make Lily a distant relative. That means she falls under my protection. She deserves a husband and children—not seduction by a rogue like you.”

      Sherry straightened. “I wouldn’t dishonor the lady, my friend—no matter my past indiscretions. If anyone is at risk of doing that, I believe it is you.”

      Royal clenched his jaw, but he didn’t argue. His best friend was right. Every night as he conversed with the beautiful Jocelyn, he thought of Lily. Lily sitting on the yellow damask sofa with the sunlight silvering her pale golden hair. Lily’s crystalline laughter. Lily smiling as they held hands and made their way through the hedge maze.

      From now on, he vowed, he would stay as far away from Lily as he possibly could. Better yet, he looked forward to the day she went home.

      He glanced over at his friend. “Your point is well made. I have postponed the inevitable too long already. Tonight after the soiree, I am going to propose. Once Jocelyn agrees, I’ll go to London to formally ask her father’s permission and finalize the arrangement he and my father made.”

      Sheridan slowed on the path to the stable. “Once you do that, you’ll have no choice but to wed her.”

      “I never had a choice, Sherry. Not since the day I agreed to my father’s dying request. I thought you understood that.”

      It was only a small soiree, no more than twenty people. Lily had helped the dowager countess pen the invitations from a list that included Squire Brophy and his wife, their two sons and their wives; Royal’s friend, Sheridan Knowles; Vicar Pennyworth, his wife and daughter; and Jocelyn’s father, Henry Caulfield. Lady Tavistock had invited several widowed lady friends who lived nearby, including the Dowager Baroness Bristol and Lady Sophia Frost.

      The pace of living in the country was slow and people looked forward to any sort of social event. Which was the reason that with little more than a week’s notice, almost everyone who had been invited had accepted the invitation, all but Jocelyn’s father, who was, as always, simply too busy running his numerous businesses to leave his offices in London. Even the incredibly wealthy Marquess of Eastgate, in residence at his country estate near Swansdowne, would be attending, accompanied by his daughter, Serafina.