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A more awkward situation could hardly be imagined, Amelia thought. The interruption they had lately suffered had been bad enough, but this was much worse. She knew she was scarlet with mortification again; she felt hot all over.

Marcus said thoughtfully, ‘Did you know her late husband? I was never acquainted with him, and I’m not sure how long it has been since his death. Perhaps she is a widow of long standing.’

‘No, it has only been two or three years, so I did know him. He was an extremely shy, gentle sort of man, and left the direction of all his affairs to my aunt. But they appeared to be deeply fond of each other, nonetheless. Everyone said he was henpecked, and that it was a sad thing, but I thought they were very happy in their own way.’

‘Hence, perhaps, the spanking,’ he murmured. ‘One should not jump to rash conclusions, of course, about who…’ And then, ‘Oh! I should not have said that. I do beg your pardon. What an extraordinary time we have been having. You have been sorely tried this afternoon, I think, my poor Amelia!’

‘Say rather, poor Aunt!’ She couldn’t, she hoped, be blushing any more than she had already been.

‘I have never seen her so utterly routed – I would not have believed it possible. Perhaps Sophie has been practising set-downs in private for just such an occasion. I am only sorry Rafe and Charlie were not here to see it.’

‘So am not I,’ he replied. ‘Our audience was large enough, I think. Any more and we should have been obliged to sell tickets and refreshments.’

She said resolutely, ‘That was all my fault. You would not have been put in such a situation if I had not kissed you, and I am sorry for it.’

‘Are you?’ he said. ‘You will have me thinking that you did not like it, which would be a sad state of affairs indeed. Perhaps we should do it again, just to be sure.’

‘You are every bit as bad as Sophie, or Aunt Millicent,’ she said crossly.

‘I had always been used to think you an excessively serious sort of a person, even a gloomy one, and now when you should be sober, you will not leave off joking me. You know perfectly well that I liked it. But I still should not have done it.’

‘Would it have been better if I had begun it? But you can claim I did, if you wish, because it was I, was it not, who mentioned kissing first? I tempted you beyond what you could be expected to bear. You’re only human.’

‘You did not… tempt me! How can you be so ridiculous?’ She could have stamped her foot in frustration.

‘What was it, then?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps simple, natural curiosity? That is understandable, I suppose. You had never been kissed; now you have. I hope it was satisfactory, as a first experience.’ He did sound a little more serious now, as if his question mattered to him, but she could not regard it.

Such things should not be spoken of. If ladies and gentlemen began revealing their deepest thoughts to each other, where might it end?

‘How is this helping my reputation?’ she shot back defensively, eager to move the subject to slightly safer ground. ‘If we continue on this path, I shall soon be just as bad as people think me!’

He sighed, and the novel, amused brightness of his expression seemed to dim. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You’re right. It is I who should apologise to you. I should not have allowed it.’

This made her unaccountably angry too, even though he was only agreeing with her, which had been what she’d wanted. ‘Well, that would scarcely have made me feel any better, if you had pushed me away!’

‘I had no desire at all to push you away. I would rather have pulled you closer still, and probably would have if we had not been stopped. Perhaps it is as well we were. Shall we agree that the kiss was mutual, and leave it at that?’

The kiss. The kiss . The Kiss. Her brain insisted on capitalising it, on illuminating it as though these were the first words of some precious manuscript, as though it had great significance when surely it had not.

Not to him. A man who hadn’t kissed a woman in eight long years was probably desperate and would snatch at any opportunity he was given; hence, perhaps, his giddiness now.

God knows she had given him an opportunity.

She’d grabbed hold of him, practically forced herself on him – what could the poor man have done, thrown her in the fireplace?

For him, it had been a matter of merest proximity – that was all.

She’d never kissed anybody before, and he’d almost forgotten how, it had been so long.

What a sad pair they were. Though they were not really a pair at all, of course.

‘Very well,’ she said firmly. ‘It shall not happen again.’

‘It does seem a pity,’ he said irrepressibly. ‘But you’re probably right. You’ll just have to restrain yourself in future. Or I shall have to borrow a pin or two from you.’

‘You are the most provoking man who ever lived,’ she huffed. And then, unforgivably, ‘No wonder nobody ever wanted to kiss you in eight years!’

‘Oh, I didn’t say that,’ he said, and suddenly, he sounded a little sad, though that surely couldn’t be right. ‘I didn’t say that at all.’