deal accomplished in some of them.
It would serve an angry gentlewoman well, too. At some point, either in the hasty departure after the meeting or during events behind the curtain, Ashmont had left his hat behind. She could beat in his skull, if she put enough muscle into it, without attracting attention.
She must have been thinking the same thing because her gaze moved down to the umbrella in her hand. “I cannot marry you,” she said.
He felt an inner chill. He ignored it. She had every right to decline. He was an arsehole and she was an intelligent young woman.
“I know, I know,” he said. “Not a good bargain. But Morris’s mother is going to make a terrific scandal. At this moment, she’s already hard at work.”
“That I don’t doubt. But I am disinclined to exchange one nightmare for another.”
“Yes, yes, I understand.” Couldn’t listen to his brain, could he? Had to have a taste, didn’t he? And now he’d had a taste, he was going to drive himself mad wanting more. “Thing is—”
“Have you any idea how infuriating this is to me? If it were you, caught in flagrante delicto—”
“If only,” he said. “We only got as far as the flagrante part. The delicto—”
“That is not translated as delicious, or whatever your dissolute mind imagines. It means crime or offense.”
“We hadn’t got to that part, yet,” he said. “Speaking of which—”
“We’re not speaking of it.”
“Your dress is still wrong.”
“What does it matter? Lady Bartham will make it out to be worse than it was even before you attempted to repair it. She’ll have us both half-naked and writhing on the floor.”
The picture rose in his mind’s eye. He made himself cover it up. He needed to think as clearly as he possibly could.
“Yes. Don’t say that. Distracting. I only meant that we might make you look somewhat neater,” he said. “I know you’d rather present as decent an appearance as possible when you get home.”
Home.
Mama. Papa. Hyacinth.
Your behavior reflects on her, on all of us.
Mama would be mortified. Papa would be mortified and furious.
If I detect the smallest whiff of impropriety, I will kill him.
If Ashmont declined to fight a man so much his senior, her brothers would line up for the privilege of taking Papa’s place.
This was not fair.
Yes, Cassandra had been foolish and careless. Yes, she knew that a man could be foolish and careless in the same way without suffering any consequences, and that was the way of the world and she’d never change it.
This didn’t make the problem entirely Ashmont’s fault. She’d listened to inner voices she knew were unreliable. She’d heeded the voice resenting all Rules for Women, an impractical, idealistic voice. She’d heeded the call of her adolescent self, the part of her that, clearly, had not fully grown up.
She supposed he deserved some commendation for immediately offering to do what everybody would deem The Right Thing, even though this time, unlike at Putney, he was not at all intoxicated and apparently knew what he was doing and to whom he was offering.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’re right. Best to mitigate the damage as best we can.”
“Miss Pomfret—”
“No, no, do what you can with my dress. But make it quick. My aunt will be wondering what’s become of us.”
He looked about him, then speedily went to work. He tugged here and smoothed there.
She was keenly aware of every movement—the breeze lifting strands of pale gold hair while he worked, his hands as smoothly efficient as they’d been when he held the reins. She remembered the way his hands had moved, adept and quick, during their fight. She didn’t need to remember how they felt. She felt them everywhere still.
He stepped away and surveyed her. “Not perfect, but presentable.”
She was far from perfect, further than she’d ever supposed. Even now, knowing how much trouble she was in, she wanted more of his hands and his mouth. She’d tasted forbidden fruit and it was delicious, and she was not the woman she’d always believed she was. Or was she more that woman than she’d assumed?
But no time to ponder philosophy now.
She made herself look away from him and about her. Through the shrubbery she glimpsed a pair of figures. “Time to face it, whatever it turns out to be,” she said. “There is my aunt, conversing with your uncle, at the end of the footpath.”
He looked that way. The two stood talking, their heads bent toward each other. “Yes, there they are.”
Cassandra started for the