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Benedict and I talked for some time, wandering the rim of the Winter Garden while I carefully spoke of Samuel. Eventually the conversation shifted, and the lieutenant told me of his ship’s commission to patrol the North Sea. His voice was soft and low, as pleasurable as the sight of him in the half-light, leaning a little forward to speak to me, his hands clasped behind his back.

I wet my lips and clasped my arms across my chest. It had been a good deal of time since I’d been in the company of a man this attractive, and my instincts were not about to let me forget it.

“You are chilled,” he noted. “Perhaps we should return to the ballroom?”

Yes, the ballroom. I wanted to go there. But even as I thought that, my will strayed. I was cold, yes, but the scent of greenery and earth was as intoxicating as Benedict was.

“Perhaps we could simply move away from the windows?” I suggested.

Benedict’s gaze wandered off down a shadowed path. “Are you being suggestive, Ms. Grey?”

I blanched. “No! Not at all.” Again, I blinked, and realized my lips had not opened. My protest remained unspoken.

“Because if you are, I am agreeable.” His dimple reappeared. He ducked beneath the arch of a weeping hemlock’s veil of boughs and offered me a hand. “You are beautiful, I’ll admit, and it grieves me to know I’ll never see you again. Perhaps you might leave me with something to remember?”

His words hit me like a splash of coldwater—onewhich the wine in my blood made a valiant attempt to burn away.

“We just met,” I protested, half disappointed, half enamored.

“And?” Benedict prompted in a tone that made my skin prickle. His hand was still extended.

“Is my conversation not enough?” I lingered by the cool glass, the boughs between us. He looked so like Samuel in that moment, my heart gave a melancholy twist. I’d genuinely begun to like Samuel, and the truth about him felt a lot like loss.

“No,” Benedict replied simply. “And unless I have been misinterpreting your attentions all evening, it’s not enough for you, either.”

I didn’t have a response to that, which was disconcerting. What was it about him that had drawn me in so fast? Was it because he looked like Samuel, and he, it seemed, was all Samuel was not?

“Come.” The sound of his voice brushed all remainingconfusion—andlogic—frommy mind. “Give me one moment, here, in the shadows. No one to see or judge. One kiss, before we return to our responsibilities.”

It wasn’t as though I’d never been in a situation like this before. I’d been betrothed and having an absent mother and a distracted father had given me a great deal of freedom, which I’d explored wholeheartedly. But despite the shadows there was a publicness to this moment, a rarity and a forbiddenness that was both terrifying and exhilarating.

It was perhaps that, more than desire or attraction, that made me step under the tree. Temerity gripped me, spurred by wine and injury over Rosser, the thrill of deceit and the sight of a handsome man, waiting for me.

I slid into his shadow. He took the cue, slipping his hands over my back, flat-palmed and open, holding me at the slightest distance as I plucked at the buttons of his coat for a few, bracing breaths.

Just one kiss. What harm was there in a kiss?

Planting my hands on his chest, I pressed up onto my toes. His lips were warm, a little dry but gentle, easing into mine in a heady rush. His hands moved, one cupping the back of my head as the other pressed into the small of my back, holding me close as we turned. My back met the tree, rough and familiar, and I eased into his embrace.

How many times had my fiancé and I met like this, in the Wold? How many innocent kisses turned to trysts, each joyous, forbidden moment in pledge of the life we’d spend together?

A pledge unfulfilled. A pledge lost to war and time.

What was I doing?

My lips stilled, but his did not. His hands were on my waist now, possessive and insistent. One crept up across my chest, fingers tucking under the edge of my bodice, dragging me into him.

My mind fizzled back to life, even as my body urged me to give in, to fall into a rush of instinct and desire. It would be so easy. Quick. But that was all it would be.

I turned my face away, tearing our lips apart. Benedict ignored the motion, transitioning hislips—teeth—downmy throat and onto my chest, meeting the place where his fingers pulled my bodice insistently away from my skin.

“Stop.” I grabbed his head and pushed it away, but he still loomed.

“Let me give you this.” His voice was rougher now, edged with need.

Warning bells chimed in the back of my mind, my hands still planted on his cheeks, fingers digging into his hair. I hadn’t factored what might happen if he refused to stop at akiss—alifetime of lessons, of warnings, shed in one foolish impulse.

Fear ignited in my stomach. I pushed at him harder, hands scrabbling on his chest. My knife. I didn’t have my knife. Why hadn’t I brought my knife? All I had was my sewing scissors in my pocket, and they would only irritate him.