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The foolish dreams of an idiot. Perhaps he needed to reconsider the situation, especially where Miss Belinda Bellamy was concerned.

She wouldn’t be easily persuaded to welcome the attentions of a man, not after her previous experience.

But the fact that she did have experience and that she was forbidden fruit made her all the more tempting.

He must remember, however, that she’d expected a future with the man who’d bedded her, a future that had been ripped away from her.

The next man to take her to his bed must be different in every way, for whoever wanted to win Belinda Bellamy’s heart would need to offer her the security of marriage.

“Ouch. That bump just hurt my ankle.”

“I’m so sorry—I was wool-gathering.” He blinked hard several times. Whatever had got into his head, thinking of her as a potential conquest, a potential spouse?

“Here we are.” Gratefully, he lowered his lovely burden to the ground and prayed she had not been aware of the direction of his thoughts or the excitement coursing through his body. “Here is Jacques. I regret there’s no sidesaddle for you. Can you ride astride?”

“That would be a shocking thing for me to do, wouldn’t it?”

He laughed. “Just so long as you don’t fall off and expose yourself like the infamous Kitty Fisher, I shouldn’t worry.”

She gasped. “To lose one’s dignity like that—how could any woman bear it?”

He enjoyed her blush. “I won’t look, I promise. Or rather, I won’t let you fall.”

He helped her mount and carefully inserted the injured foot into the stirrup, then tightened it to make sure it gave the support she needed. Mockingly shielding his eyes, he went to Jacques’s head, took hold of the reins, and led the puzzled horse up the track toward the road.

“Where are we going? Buckleigh’s that way.”

“I’m not having you bouncing all the way to Buckleigh, and poor Jacques and I will be exhausted by the time we get there. Even Ordulf looks worn out from all the excitement. No—my home is closer.”

“ Your home?” She sounded curious, despite herself.

“Yes. I don’t own it—but my parents live there. It’s the parsonage at Tan’s Cross. Perhaps you know it?”

“The toll road from Exeter goes through Tan’s Cross, but I’m usually asleep by the time we reach it. I only wake up when somebody nudges me to say we’ve reached Buckleigh.”

“You didn’t come here post?” Why hadn’t the Earl of Aylsham sent her in his carriage, along with a companion to keep her out of trouble?

“No—Roland brought me. It seems you and he are great friends now.”

“He’s a good enough kind of fellow, but I doubt we’ll ever be close. He’s been reinstated at the Lyon’s Den, as I imagine you know. I put in a good word for him.”

“Oh, I rather think it was me working in the kitchens that did that. Mrs. Dove-Lyon would want more than a word from an important gentleman to reinstate Roland.”

He was an “important gentleman,” was he? He supposed he should be flattered.

“Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s price is high. She required her pound of flesh from both of you.”

“Like in The Merchant of Venice .”

“You know Shakespeare?” He was impressed. Although young ladies of her status had probably seen many plays, he’d rarely met any who remembered them.

“Oh, yes. I read them all during my confinement. I had bound volumes of The Bard’s tragedies, histories, and comedies. I read some more than once.”

“‘The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.’”

“ Julius Caesar. Mark Antony’s speech.”

“Good! How about this one? ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day.’”

“‘To the last syllable of recorded time.’ Macbeth. You know Shakespeare, too?”

He tutted at her. “You mean The Scottish Play, don’t you? You know I own a theater and consort with actors and actresses. You don’t think I’m just doing it for the money, I hope. I enjoy the culture, too.”

“I wish I could go to the theater all the time,” she said dreamily.

“I shall endeavor to make all your dreams come true.”

A heavy silence followed this statement. What had he just said? And what must she think he meant by it? One didn’t make such extravagant claims to people who didn’t matter.

Piers patted Jacques on his velvet nose and fiddled with the horse’s bridle to cover his confusion.

The next mile or so was traveled in silence, and he imagined he could hear Belinda thinking, turning over pictures and information in her mind, trying to work out whether she should put him on the acceptable pile or the reject heap.

And she was probably still trying to work out what he meant by his last remark.

He was wondering the same. He’d never offered such a service to Katie or even to Charlotte, and the latter had certainly owned his heart when they’d been together.

Could Belinda ever be something more than an amusing aside?

Was he starting to like her, to want to please her, just a little too much?

He was balancing on the edge of a precipice—one false step would send him tumbling down and destroy all his carefully erected barriers.

It was an enormous relief when the cottages on the outskirts of Tan’s Cross loomed out of the mist. A few moments later, he lifted Belinda down and propped her against the gate post with instructions to keep her weight off the injured ankle while he stabled Jacques.

“I’ll see to him later,” he told Belinda on his return. “For now, we need to get you inside and comfortably settled. Can I help you to the door?”

She met his eyes for the first time in an age, and he was gratified to see no enmity there.

“It might be best if I take your arm at least. Who are we going to find within?”

“Mr. Peter Carlyle and his wife Jennifer. But I call them Papa and Maman.”

She paused and held him back before they reached the door. “Why do you call them that? They’re not French, are they?”

“No. Do you have a problem with the French?”

She frowned. “You call your horse Jacques. That’s French too, isn’t it? Isn’t that a bit poor taste, considering we’re still at war with the French?”

The warm glow that had invaded his heart blinked out. “You dislike the French?”

“Oh, not all of them. It was all a horrible, brutal mess, so we hear, and I wish they could have resolved their differences humanely. There must have been lots of ordinary people, like you and me, who didn’t know which way to turn, who lost their lives, who lost everything during the Revolution and the Terror. ”

“It is a relief to hear you say so because I am, in fact, French myself. I would be most put out if you hated me for it.”

“Oh, I could never hate you. ” Her words tumbled out in a rush, and her blush was an absolute delight. The next instant, he was doing the very thing he’d sworn not to do.

He pulled Belinda into his embrace and kissed her—thoroughly.

He was vaguely aware of a noise nearby, but he was so intent on the delicious abandonment of exploring her lips that he paid it no attention.

At least, not until a disapproving male voice said, “Well, well, well! What do we have here?”