But the kiss was new. And it felt like the beginning of everything he truly wanted. What he’d been searching for too long.
She reached up to stroke his cheek and drew her fingers along his jaw. A stroke he felt like a lick of fire from his head to his toes. He traced his tongue along the sweet fullness of her bottom lip, and she let out a pleased gasp.
Under the fabric of her cloak, he traced a hand down her back, pulling her flush against him. The heat of their joined bodies warmed something deep inside him, and he let out a little growl of satisfaction when she followed his lead and drew her tongue across his lips.
“Lucy,” he whispered against her lips, and she pulled her head back, breathless, her mouth flushed from their kisses.
“Don’t stop.” She glanced around them. “There’s no one about, and I don’t care about propriety. I want this moment with you.”
James chuckled and bent to nuzzle her cheek, then taste the floral-scented softness of her neck.
“I hadn’t planned to stop.”
“Oh.” Her seductive smile held so many promises.
“You’re beautiful.”
She blinked and her eyes turned glassy. “Just kiss me.”
He did, stroking a finger along her lips and then bending to taste her. This time she opened to him, letting him taste deeply. But it was clear she wasn’t content to let him take the lead. She kissed him hungrily, her hands exploring beneath his coat, pushing his waistcoat aside to get her palm against his chest.
He was hers in that moment, and she was his. And that was what he wanted. She was what he wanted, even if this kiss would be all they had.
Lucy broke their kiss first. She turned her gaze toward a couple ascending the hill a few feet away.
He’d been too lost in her to hear their muted conversation, but she was more observant.
“We should probably go,” she said with all the disappointment he felt in his chest.
They still held on to each other, and she lifted her head to kiss him once more.
“You’re right.” He hated it, but she was being practical. He’d been practical once. Good grief, a few days had changed everything.
“You still have your meeting to get to.”
“My meeting.” For the first time since learning he’d inherited a Scottish manor that could mean the ability to turn his financial woes around, he considered whether there was any other way.
Not that he hadn’t exhausted every other way. Not that he hadn’t been trying to change his fortune for nearly a year.
Selling Invermere could finally give him back all he’d lost, but now there was also the possibility that it would cost him any connection with Lucy. Something in his gut—those old instincts he’d once believed in so fiercely—told him that once he took possession of her home, Lady Cassandra would not be happy to see him continue any kind of acquaintance with her niece.
Lucy kept her gaze focused on her travel guide as they walked, and he kept a firm hold on her arm to keep her from stumbling.
“I found it!” She stopped short, pulling him off stride. “There’s a tearoom just down the lane from where you said your solicitor’s offices are located.”
James noted the name and then scanned the street ahead. “Just there. And Abercrombie’s office should be in the building over there.”
The tearoom wasn’t opulent, but somehow that made it more charming. He preferred simplicity tobusyness and grandeur, even when he’d had plenty of money to spend on luxuries.
“It’s perfect,” she said enthusiastically. “I’ll be quite happy to wait for you here.”
James was immediately sorry he couldn’t sit with her and have a leisurely luncheon together. But even if he hadn’t glanced at his watch in nearly an hour, he sensed the time slipping away. Their day together would soon come to an end.
Lucy mistook his expression and tried to reassure him. “I’ll be fine. And you’ll be back soon. Maybe I can recall enough of what we’ve seen to do some sketching.”
James brushed a kiss on her cheek, and that alone bolstered him for the meeting with Abercrombie. A few minutes later, he rushed across the street, eager to have it done.
Inside a wood-paneled office with the name Abercrombie carefully painted on the outer door, James found a clerk who peered at him over the rim of his spectacles.
