“You care.”
“Of course I care.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Did you doubt that? She’s my sister. I love her.”
A horse clip-clopped around the square with a carriage creaking behind. “You two quarrel all the time.”
“Not all the time. Only since she met Whittingham.”
“Have you met Thomas?”
“Briefly. Long enough to know he doesn’t have horns. But I want better for Ellen.” Kit hesitated a moment while the carriage squeaked off down King Street. “I’ve worked hard so she can have better.”
Eleven thousand pounds’ worth, and Rose had no doubt that kind of money could win Ellen the sort of man Kit was envisioning. The Civil War had left many good families land-rich and cash-poor.
But Ellen was her friend, and she’d promised her support. “Thomas is actually quite nice. And, from what I can tell, he’s a very astute businessman.”
“He’s a pawnbroker.”
“He’s educated. If you’d talk to him, you’d discover that.”
“He’s still a pawnbroker. There’s no security in a life like that. My parents wed for love alone, then couldn’t protect their family when times got hard. I can buy Ellen a man with land and the king’s ear—”
“There’s no security in any life,” Rose interrupted to point out. “Look to your own projects for the proof—going along fine one day, ruined the next. Titled men can be ruined, too. It happens all the time.”
Kit was silent a moment before he stopped walking and turned her to face him, his hands on her shoulders. “You said it’s as easy to fall in love with a titled man as one without. Have you changed your mind?”
His eyes searched hers, and frustration was evident in his voice. But he also sounded hopeful. Which was absurd. They would never be anything but friends.
“Of course not,” she said quickly.
“Oh,” he said. “I see.”
“You see what?”
“You wouldn’t settle for less, but Ellen and I, we’re different. An educated pawnbroker is good enough for her, and as for me, I’m good enough for kissing, but nothing else.”
He was confusing her—and worse, he was making her sound terrible. Although she couldn’t imagine how Kit and Ellen had managed to become so close to her family so quickly, she liked them—and she didn’t think herself any better than they.
Did she?
Kit’s fingers tightened on her shoulders. “Rose?”
Her thoughts were in chaos. When she tried to twist away, he held her fast. His gaze commanded hers, looking gray in the darkness.
“Perhaps that was exhaustion speaking,” he said. “I haven’t slept in two days. Should I say I’m sorry?”
He didn’t look sorry, and she didn’t know. If he’d touched a nerve, maybe that said more about her than it did him.
“Why do you kiss me, Rose?” he demanded softly.
Realizing she definitely had more to think about than just the Duke of Bridgewater, she took a ragged breath. “You’re very good at kissing.”
The tension eased from his face, and his sudden grin flashed white in the night. “I like a woman who says what she thinks.”
His hands slid from her shoulders down her arms, slowly…slowly. She held her breath until he locked his fingers with hers.
“I’m good at other things, too,” he said.
When he drew on both her hands, she didn’t have to sway forward. But she did, landing against his solid chest. A warm shiver rippled through her. “Show me what you’re good at,” she whispered.
“My forthright Rose.” He searched her eyes for a moment, so intense she’d swear she saw glints of green even in the darkness. “I’ll show you,” he promised right before his mouth met hers.
Heat that had simmered all through supper burst into flame now. His kiss was wild and demanding, and she gave as good as she got. Somewhere in the back of her mind she despaired of ever finding this with anyone else, but as their tongues tangled, all thought fled, replaced by fiery sensation.
“You’re a quick study,” he murmured appreciatively, trailing his lips beneath her chin and backing her up to a bench as he went. They both sank down to it, Rose sprawled wantonly with Kit half on top of her. He unfastened her cloak and grazed the tops of her breasts, first with his hands, then his mouth. Her shiver had nothing to do with the cool night air. His touch was magic.
Laced tightly into her bodice, her breasts ached. Remembering how the ladies behind the curtain in the King’s Drawing Room seemed to enjoy having men touch them, she reached to unfasten her stomacher.
“I want you to touch me,” she whispered.
“Here?” He skimmed a finger inside her neckline.
She trembled. “Yes, there.”
While she worked the tabs, he pressed little kisses to her cheeks, across her forehead, on the tip of her nose.
“Kit,” she breathed.
“Let’s take these off, too.” He slipped the rubies and pearls from her lobes and whisked them into his pocket. “I don’t remember you wearing earrings.”
Finished with the stomacher, she attacked the laces beneath. “They were a gift from Gabriel.”
“Gabriel?” His mouth moved to where the jewelry had been, suckling her soft flesh. “The angel?” he whispered in her ear.
“The duke. Bridgewater.” She could melt, she thought. She could melt right here.
“The man has taste,” he said dryly. “I’ll give him that.”
“I chose them.”
“I should have known.” He chuckled, a burst of warm air beneath her ear. She’d never dreamed the skin there was so sensitive.
Then her bodice was open, and he cupped a breast and rubbed a thumb over the peak. “Good God,” she murmured, arching up.
“I told you I was good,” he allowed. “But God?”
She was beyond finding humor in anything he said, beyond anything but reveling in these new sensations. Now she knew why the ladies at court liked this. Kit’s caresses sent currents racing through her, made her pulse speed, incited a heaviness low in her belly. A warmth that turned into a searing heat when he replaced his hand with his mouth.
Her fingers clenched in his hair, holding his head captive. “More,” she whispered.
“More?” Licking his way to her
