Her shoulder blades stung from the ice. She propped herself up on her elbows.
“Wait a minute.” She pressed her hands into his muslin shirt and felt the throbbing of his heart, or at least the bulging of his pecs.
“I have protection,” he said.
“I hope it’s not made of sheep’s gut.”
He looked confused. Very confused.
“You knew Regency condoms were made out of sheep gut or fish membrane, didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “No. I real y don’t care—” He slid her gown higher up.
The bricks. The straw. The ice! What kind of a sadist would’ve picked a place like this for a tryst, anyway?
“This just isn’t right. I can’t do this. A Regency lady would never find herself in this position.” She looked him straight in the eye.
His hands gave up on her back laces and he looked hurt. “What position?”
“The horizontal one.” She pul ed herself up to sitting and straightened her stays. “In an ice-house. Like a common trol op.”
He tenderly leaned over and devoured her with a kiss that could make a trol op forget everything—almost everything.
He whispered just under her earlobe. “You’re so excited you’ve got gooseflesh.”
“They’re goose
He yanked his shirt down over his rapidly shrinking shaft. Stil , he managed to look somehow manly in his long white shirt, bare legs, and riding boots. “How what’s supposed to go?”
“You. This. Everything.” She thrust her arm up at the arched brick ceiling and paced the cold brick floor in her boots. She felt her torn gown bil ow behind her; the lantern swung and tossed light randomly around the dark brick like broken glass.
“Wait!” he said just as she aimed for the doors.
He was down on bended bare knee, his shirt, and everything else—dangling. He stretched out a hand toward her.
She stopped, set the lantern down, took his hand, and put her other hand on her hip. “This better be good.”
He kissed her hand as if it were about to disappear forever and looked up at her.
Something as warm as oil burning in a lantern came over her.
“Miss Parker, wil you marry me?”
“What?” She laughed and one of the ice-house doors swung open with a breeze, sending in a pool of moonlight.
“Don’t laugh.”
She bit her lip.
He pul ed her closer, taking both of her hands. “I do believe I’ve fal en in love with you. I don’t know why I haven’t asked you sooner. Wil you marry me? It’l be the perfect ending. The perfect television ending to our real- life beginning.”
A white gown, flashbulbs flashing, and a carriage festooned with white flowers paraded around in her brain. Did the Regency Anglican church al ow divorced mothers to wear white?
He pul ed her closer, leaned his head in toward her hips, and wrapped his arms around the smal of her back. “You don’t have to answer right away. Just let me know you’l think about it.”
“I wil . Think about it.” She thought about Abigail, the money, her business, Wil iam.
His knee must’ve been frozen.
He kissed her hip bone, moving slowly across her pelvis, where she felt the warmth of his lips through her crepe-thin gown to the other hip bone, and a tingling like she hadn’t felt in years sparked al over her. She lifted off his shirt and laid it on the ice block where he flopped down. He pul ed her on top of him.
“Say yes,” he murmured as his fingers worked the buttons on the back of her gown. “Say yes.”
She closed her eyes. She’d gone from something close to a governess to a temptress in a moment’s time, and he’d taken her there. “Yes.” She closed her eyes and kissed him with hungry lips and tongue. “Yes!”
And she would’ve said yes again, but he ripped her bodice open and a lantern appeared at the ice-house doors.
She almost fel off him. What if it was Henry?!
“Excuse me, sir—Mr. Wrightman!” Thank God it was just Sebastian’s footman who shone the lantern on them. Sebastian palmed her breasts to cover them as the lantern light swung away.
“Oh—so sorry—ehm—sir.”
“That wil be al , Smith. Thank you.”
Henry cal ed al his servants “Mr.” or “Miss” and then their surname.
