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"Did you?" he asked noncommittally.

Alexandra nodded, put the puppy on the ground, patted it, and smiled at the boy. "Good luck finding homes for them," she said.

She had not taken three steps before she felt a tug on the back hem of her skirt. She turned, and the puppy she'd been holding let go of her skirt and sat down, its pink tongue lolling, its expression comically worshipful.

"She likes me," Alexandra explained helplessly, laughing. Bending down, she turned the puppy back toward the litter and patted its backside, urging it to go back to the boy. The puppy stubbornly refused to budge. Left with no other choice, Alexandra cast an affectionate, apologetic smile at the small ball of fur, then she turned her back on it, and let Jordan escort her to the coach.

After pausing to issue instructions to his driver, he climbed in and sat down beside her. A few minutes later they were off.

"This stretch of road must be much less smooth than it was to the north," she remarked a little nervously an hour later as the heavy traveling chaise again swayed sharply, pitched to the left, then righted itself and continued on.

Sitting across from her with his arms folded imperturbably across his chest and his legs stretched out, Jordan said, "It isn't."

"Then why is the coach lurching and swaying like this?" she asked a few minutes later when it happened again. Before Jordan could answer, she heard their coachman shout "Whoa" to the team and pull over to the side of the road.

Alexandra peered out the window into the woods alongside the road. A moment later the door of the coach was pulled open and a harassed, apologetic coachman's face appeared. "Your grace," he said contritely, "I can't handle the horses and keep control of this perpetual-motion machine at the same time. I nearly put us into a ditch back there."

The "perpetual-motion machine," which he was holding in the crook of his right arm, was a squirming ball of brown-and-white fur.

Jordan sighed and nodded. "Very well, Grimm, put the animal in here. No, take it for a walk first."

"I'll do it," Alexandra volunteered, and Jordan climbed out of the coach, too, walking with her into a little clearing in the woods beside the road. Turning, Alexandra lifted her shining eyes to her husband's amused grey ones. "I think you must be the very kindest of men," she whispered.

"Happy birthday," he said with a resigned sigh.

"Thank you—so much," she said, her heart swelling with gratitude because it was perfectly obvious he had a low opinion of the gift she'd wanted so much. "The puppy won't be a bit of trouble, you'll see."

Jordan directed a dubious look at the puppy, who was now sniffing every inch of ground it could put its nose to, its stubby tail wagging excitedly. Abruptly it seized a twig and began tearing at it.

"The boy told me she's very smart."

"Mongrels frequently are."

"Oh, but she isn't a mongrel," Alexandra said, bending down to pluck some of the pink wildflowers blooming at her feet. "She's an English sheepdog."

"A what!" Jordan demanded, thunderstruck.

"An English sheepdog," Alexandra explained, thinking his surprise sprang from a lack of knowledge about the breed. "They're very smart and they don't grow very large." When he stared at her as if she'd taken complete leave of her senses, Alexandra added, "That nice young boy told me all that about her."

"That nice, young honest boy?" Jordan asked sardonically. "The same one who told you this is a pureblood?"

"Yes, of course," Alexandra said, tipping her head to the side and wondering about his tone. "The very same."

"Then let's hope he also lied about its pedigree."

"Did he lie to me?"

"Through his teeth," Jordan averred grimly. "If that dog is an English sheepdog, it will be the size of a large pony with paws the size of saucers. Let's hope its father was actually a small terrier."

He looked so disgusted that Alexandra turned quickly away to hide a smile and knelt to pick up the puppy.

The skirt of her cherry traveling dress created a bright circular splash of color against a carpet of mossy-green grass as she knelt down, scooping the wriggling puppy into her arms, holding the pink wildflowers she'd picked in her free hand. Jordan looked at the child-woman he had married, watching the breeze tease her hair, blowing mahogany curls against her alabaster cheek as she knelt in the clearing, holding a puppy in her arms and flowers in her hand. Dappled sunlight filtered through the trees above, surrounding her in a halo of light. "You look like a Gainsborough portrait," he said softly.

Mesmerized by the husky sound of his voice and the strange, almost reverent intensity in his grey eyes, Alexandra slowly stood up. "I'm not very pretty."

"Aren't you?" There was a smile in his voice.

"I wish I were, but I fear I'm going to be very ordinary."

A slow, reluctant smile tugged at his sensual lips and he slowly shook his head. "There is nothing 'ordinary' about you, Alexandra," Jordan replied. His decision to stay away from her, until she was a few years older and able to play the game of romance by his rules, was suddenly overpowered by a compelling need to feel those soft lips beneath his. Just one more time.

As he walked slowly, purposefully toward her, Alexandra's heart began to hammer in expectation of the kiss she sensed he was going to give her. Already, she was learning what it meant when his eyes turned sultry and his voice became low and husky.

Cradling her face between his palms, Jordan threaded his fingers through her dark curls. Her cheeks felt like satin, and her hair was crushed silk in his hands as he tipped her head up. With infinite tenderness, he took her lips, telling himself he was a thousand kinds of madman for what he was doing, but when her lips softened and responded to his, he ignored the warning. Intending to deepen the kiss, he started to put his arms around her, but the puppy she was holding let out a sharp, indignant bark of protest and he abruptly pulled back.

Alexandra was still trying to suppress her disappointment over his abbreviated kiss when she climbed into the coach.

Jordan, however, was vastly relieved that one kiss hadn't led to another, which in turn would have undoubtedly led to another declaration of love from the romantic girl he'd married. He didn't think "thank you" would satisfy her as a reply the second time, and he didn't want to crush her with silence or shatter her with a lecture. He would wait a year or two to take her to bed, he decided firmly—wait until she'd been out in Society and would be more realistic in her expectations for their marriage.