She nodded, and then she walked to a bench a few steps away. He watched her settle into place there, the moonlight falling over her like she had intended it to do so.
He shook his head as he motioned for the servant to take him to wherever the trouble was back up at the house. And yet he couldn’t stop thinking of Amelia. He couldn’t stop thinking about the kiss.
And he couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that in less than twenty-four hours, he would be married to the woman and then everything he wanted to do with her, to her, would be out of the realm of fantasy and into the reality of his bed.
Amelia sat on the bench in the garden just three feet from where Hugh had kissed her so thoroughly and passionately. She set her head in her shaking hands and tried not to relive that moment for the tenth time since he’d walked away from her.
Tried and failed, for the feel of his hands on her, his mouth on her, his tongue touching hers, was alive in her body. Like he was still standing right there, filling her with an emotion she could not rightly name and a desire she didn’t fully understand.
“Amelia?”
She jumped and lowered her hands. The Duchess of Willowby was coming across the grass toward her, pretty face lined with concern as she adjusted her wrap.
“Your Grace,” Amelia whispered. “Hello.”
Diana tilted her head, examining Amelia like she was reading her. Then she sat down on the bench next to Amelia and smiled. “I have always thought Hugh’s garden very fine. In the moonlight it is even better.”
“Yes,” Amelia mused, staring at the spot in that garden where he had ravished her mouth so thoroughly. “It is…something.”
Diana glanced at her. “Are you escaping the party or the man?”
Amelia worried her lip. “The party initially. Now I have a strong desire to run from all of it. Or…or to it? I don’t know, I’m very confused.” The words fell in a rush, and she blushed as she glanced at Diana. “I’m sorry, that was wildly inappropriate.”
“Why?” Diana asked with a shrug. “Gracious, you have been through a great deal in the past ten days. If anyone deserves all the confusion and uncertainty they feel, it is you. And since you and I are going to be great friends, I’m certain, you can talk to me about it. It might help.”
“I was supposed to announce my engagement to someone else,” Amelia said with a shake of her head. “And tomorrow I’m marrying Hugh. I’m spinning.”
Diana nodded. “It would be impossible not to spin under those circumstances.”
“And I hardly know Hugh,” Amelia continued.
“Yes. It’s a whirlwind.” Diana sighed. “You know, I only married Lucas a little over a year ago, so Hugh is a recent friend to me. But he has been my husband’s closest friend nearly all his life. I’ve watched him over the past year, observed who he is, what kind of man he is.”
Amelia blinked. She was trying to determine that for herself, with little success. “What do you think of him?”
Diana took her hand and squeezed gently. “He is a good man, Amelia. A kind man. A decent man.”
Amelia thought of how he’d bought her father’s debts, how he’d used that to blackmail her into this wedding. It was hard to see him as all those wonderful things when that truth hung over her. And yet…
“Tonight he was kind,” she whispered, almost more to herself than to Diana. “And yet he makes me…he makes me nervous. He is so dark, he is so unreadable, he is so…so…”
“Dangerous?” Diana offered.
Yes, that was the word for it. Hugh was dangerous.
Diana chuckled. “I have a feeling dangerous doesn’t trouble you quite as much as you think it does. And that will ensure that you and I are fast friends. Dangerous can be very…stimulating.”
Amelia felt the heat in her cheeks once more. “He—he kissed me.”
Diana jerked her face toward Amelia. “Tonight?”
“Here in the garden before he was drawn away by some matter in the house.”
“And how did you like it?”
Amelia covered her cheeks with her hands. There was something about Diana that made her feel she could be honest. And she needed to say what she felt out loud, to have someone scold her and tell her that it wasn’t right. That would bring her back in line to propriety, certainly.
“It was wonderful,” Amelia whispered. “I have never been kissed, you know. But he was gentle at first and then it just…spiraled out of control, and suddenly I was being dragged out to sea. I knew I would drown and I didn’t care at all.”
