Perfect Kisses

backed her into a corner by the window where the sleeping chaperone could not see them if she awoke.

He was too fast to fight off and in an instant Carlyle silenced her with a kiss. It was not a brief one. His lips were inexpressibly tender, and the sensation of being swept off her feet and held in such strong arms was a thrill. His powerful thighs pressed against her and her body arched into his.

Instinctively-she had no other word for the shamelessness of it-she pressed her soft breasts against a linen- clad chest that was hard and warm, feeling her hard nipples grow harder still. Susannah slipped one hand over his heart without thinking, feeling it beat faster while she permitted him every liberty that a kiss had to offer.

He caressed her back, then slid both big hands down over her hips and bottom, pulling her closer still to him. Still kissing him back, Susannah struggled not to moan. She was entirely bare under the gown and he seemed well aware of it, handling her with very masculine skill. The sheer pleasure of it was nearly too much for her. Scared but wildly curious, she reached around to feel his hard buttocks. Oh, no. He was rigid. She moved her hands up quickly to his waist and felt those muscles tighten.

And all the while his mouth was on hers. So that is a kiss, she thought dazedly, when he broke it off and held her head close to his shoulder, stroking her tumbled hair. He bent to her, rubbing his head against hers like a huge cat.

No-no. It wasn’t a kiss. It was his kiss.

Confused as she was, Susannah did not suppose that every man kissed in such a way that his partner might well swoon with pleasure.

She put both hands on his chest and pushed him away. Something had changed forever in that magic moment when he had claimed her lips. She belonged to him in some indefinable way that infuriated and frightened and thrilled her beyond measure. Gasping a little, touching a finger to lips swollen by the ardent pressure of his, Susannah backed away from the corner and from him.

Carlyle watched her, a troubled look on his handsome face. He too seemed to be fighting for breath, but he stayed where he was. After a moment, he bent down and picked up the corset. He said but one word as he threw it to her.

“Catch.”

Susannah didn’t even try. She watched the crumpled pink corset unfold as it fell to the floor once more.

Mrs. Posey emitted a wheeze and the folds of flesh around her eyes squinted into wrinkles. But she did not open them, not just yet.

Carlyle took his coat from the chair, taking his time about putting it over his arm. “Thank you for allowing me to share your morning. It has been a very great pleasure.” He coughed. Susannah stared at him incredulously. “I do hope you enjoyed our conversation as I have. Good-bye.”

Susannah clapped a hand to her cheek. How could she have been so foolish-and how could he have done what he did with no resistance from her?

He made a half-bow before she came up with answers to those questions. “I will see myself out.”

She stood there and watched him go, the coat slung over his broad back. Unwillingly, she took him in, from his tousled dark hair to his boots. His confident stride extended from the muscular buttocks she had shyly touched, moving in rhythm with long legs that had captured his prey: Her.

He was gone. She heard the front door shut.

If only she had a fraction of his confidence. Or should she call it arrogance? She had been planning to kiss or kick what she wanted to know out of him, and he had beaten her to it.

But what a kiss. What a man. He was capable of anything. She almost…admired him for it.

Susannah picked up the corset once more, moving to the open door to hear if he had gone. He was exchanging pleasantries with Mr. Patchen. As if nothing at all had happened.

Her ire rose up again and she reminded herself how much she hated losing as she paced, her rapid strides quickening as she thought. More than ever, she was convinced that he had hidden the jewels in the corset.

The kiss had blindsided her. Owing to her regrettable curiosity to find out what happened next-what she had felt while clasped in his arms no more than that, surely-Susan-nah had not been able to winkle the truth out of him. He would be exceedingly wary from this moment on.

Carlyle had bested her without even trying. She hated him. Suddenly, madly, deeply.

“Now who was that, Miss Fowler?” asked the old lady in the chair, yawning. “I seemed to have dozed off. Did I miss anything?”

He waited until he reached the end of her street to put his coat back on. He’d stalled as long as he could in her front room, hoping to get a better look at the corset, but the fire in her eyes told him that she was very close to flinging something breakable-a china vase, perhaps-that would have woken Mrs. Posey.

He had seen a small cut in one of the corset’s ribs when he’d sat down. And the thing had been limp-Susannah folded it easily. Therefore, she had removed the rubies and sapphires that had made it stiff enough to stand up by itself. There was no doubt in his mind that she suspected him of using her personal belongings to smuggle jewels, and despised him for it. It was too bad, but explaining Lakshmi’s predicament would reveal more than that unfortunate young woman wanted the world to know.

Spouting off about the paintings of Zoffany had distracted Susannah just long enough to make a second quick study of the corset. He was sure that she had not found the diamonds inside the ribbon rosebuds nestled in the corset’s frill, and that fact meant he breathed a little easier as he walked away from Albion Square. But only a little.

Though there were only six diamonds, Carlyle happened to know that they were worth far more than the rubies and sapphires. He might have to resign himself to Susannah keeping those, especially since she had found them. The diamonds, however, were a different matter. They were much prized by the maharajah, who boasted that they had once belonged to a Mughal emperor. In an offhand conversation about the old fellow’s love of baubles, Alfred Fowler had said the same thing and added that they were a set, perfectly matched for extraordinary brilliance and clarity.

The maharajah had unwisely bestowed them upon his favorite, who had given them to Lakshmi in secret, and they were the stones, Carlyle knew, that the old fellow was most likely to want back. The diamonds had been easy enough to conceal, from what he could make out of Lakshmi’s tale.

Bloody hell. Carlyle told himself it was only a matter of time before she found the diamonds, too. He would have to get them first and try to figure out some way to return them to the maharajah. That process would take months and was sure to cause no end of ill-feeling-meaning he would have to explain everything to everybody eventually. The prospect was daunting.

She very well might try to sell the rubies and sapphires-certainly she understood their value. If he told her that Lakshmi had removed them from the maharajah’s palace, she might not. But it was difficult, if not impossible, to predict what Susannah would do.

The smaller gems were in her possession and possession was nine-tenths of the law. And they were worth a fortune, and what woman would not want to control a fortune of her own? It was becoming increasingly clear that she valued her independence more than he’d thought. That was only one reason why marrying off Miss Fowler was a thankless task, he told himself. Of course, the candidates thus far had been a lackluster lot. He could not blame that entirely on the half-aunt.

Carlyle had arranged several of the introductions, relying on recommendations from friends at his club, and choosing the safest-seeming men, in deference to Mr. Fowler’s last wishes.

Yet he knew quite well that they were not suited for her, a curious fact he could not deny. He didn’t understand it, but he was not inclined to soul-searching. Carlyle prided himself on being a man of action.

Still, her happiness was important to him. They had been fast friends in India. If he had been the unprincipled seducer and corset connoisseur she now seemed to think he was, they would have been lovers.

But nothing had happened. She was too young and too headstrong and too innocent-a volatile combination in every way. And her father had been his good friend. Carlyle considered his sexual attraction to Susannah quite understandable, but he also prided himself on his self-control.

He turned the corner, took a deep breath, and summoned up every ounce of it he had.

If she really did not wish to marry, then he might as well let her have the little gems, so to speak, and sell them to provide for herself. She could not prove he had put them in the corset. He hadn’t. She might ask why she hadn’t told him right away. He couldn’t, that was all there was to it.

Time would pass. It seemed unlikely that she would accuse him outright of smuggling and even less likely that