Chapter 3
Three
Have you ever been kissed, Lady Nancy?
Nancy stared into the Marquess’s unnervingly focused eyes. No, she had not. She had imagined it, of course. Imagined her first kiss more times than she cared to admit. Always with one man.
You are turning a page, Nancy.
Yes. But . . .
“Mmm?” the Marquess murmured, the bored curve of his mouth from earlier entirely wicked now.
Nancy lifted her chin.
“I have not.”
Turn the page.
The Marquess moved closer, not enough to touch, merely enough to remind her how little space remained between them.
Instinctively, Nancy shifted back, the smooth soles of her slippers whispering over stone until her back hit the terrace’s balustrade.
He followed her lazily. This was a dance he had long since mastered.
Her depth of miscalculation became ever so clear. This man held all the advantage.
“Never?” he asked lightly, one brow lifting. “Not even a stolen moment behind a hedge or beneath a staircase?”
“Those are the popular spots?”
He chuckled. “Anywhere is good for me.”
She arched a brow, trying to mask how her heart was threatening to spill from her throat. “Even against a pillar in full view of a ballroom?”
She swore those hypnotizing eyes flashed.
“Of course,” he murmured. “I have enough skill to steal a kiss in the brightest corner of Almack’s Assembly Rooms.”
Oh, Lord.
“Nancy!”
Nancy’s whole body jerked at the growl of her name.
Knoxley merely glanced over his shoulder. His arms remained braced on either side of her, the stone cold at her back, the night suddenly very bright.
“Ah,” he drawled. “Silverton.”
Jeremy was already moving.
He crossed the terrace in three long strides and wedged himself between them without apology, one hand slapping flat against the balustrade where Knoxley’s arm had been a moment before as he forced the man back with his body.
Nancy inhaled deeply as the air rushed back in, but only for a second before Jeremy’s cologne enveloped her.
Her knees almost melted.
“Am I interrupting?” Jeremy asked in a hard voice.
Knoxley’s lips curved. “You are, but I suspect that was your intention, and I’m nothing if not generous. I shall leave you to turn your page, Lady Nancy.”
“Er, yes, thank you, my Lord,” Nancy muttered, uncertain what else to say after Jeremy’s intrusion.
He departed without another word, disappearing back through the French doors.
Silence fell.
Jeremy exhaled slowly and turned to her, his expression unreadable. “What did he mean by that? What,” he asked carefully, “were you doing?”
Nancy lifted her chin, pulse hastening its gallop.
“Turning a page.”
“What the devil does that mean?”
Nancy glared at her friend. What did that mean? But then, why was she not surprised. Had he not asked such a question at Pippa’s wedding after she confessed to him, blinking at her as though she had begun speaking in riddles?
What do you mean, Nancy? Have you been reading romance books again?
As if she could not possibly mean exactly what she said.
Her fingers curled at her sides, nails pressing into her palms. She forced herself to meet his gaze steadily. “It’s exactly as I said, Jeremy. I’m turning a page.”
“Why? What’s wrong with the old page?”
Was he being serious? Lord. Men. “If you wish to pretend not to know, fine, then. But I’m moving on. Please let me do that.”
“Moving on from what?” he almost said desperately.
“You.”
His eyes widened. “Me? What do you mean you’re moving on from me? What did I do?”
Nancy stared at the man’s confusion, all the cogs in his head turning, grinding, missing one another entirely. His density truly had reached a new depth. There was no penetrating this man’s skull. But Knoxley had made one thing abundantly clear. She wanted her first kiss to be Jeremy Locke.
Even if it was their first and last kiss.
Even if it was a goodbye kiss.
Her first kiss could not be anyone but him.
Jeremy was still staring at her, baffled, mouth parted as though another question hovered on his tongue.
Enough.
Nancy stepped into him, fisted his lapels, and pulled him down, and pressed her lips to his. This was what she wanted, had wanted for such a long time. Her last thought before everything but the sensations sweeping through her body took over was, let the whole world go up in flames.
Jeremy’s mind froze.
He could not, for the life of him, form a thought. Not one sensible, coherent notion rose to meet the reality of Nancy’s mouth on his.
That did not, however, stop his body.
And oh, his body reacted.
Reacted so damn much that his hands moved before his brain ever hoped to catch up—one coming up to her back, the other fisting instinctively in the soft fabric at her waist. Shock raced through him, sharp and electric, followed immediately by something far more dangerous.
Want.
Desire surged through him with humiliating speed, his heart slamming against his chest, a blunt, breath-robbing force.
He kissed her back. Not gently. Not cautiously.
His mouth moved with sudden purpose, as though some long-dormant instinct had been waiting precisely for this permission.
Her breath caught, and the sound slid down his throat, spread through his chest, and chased down his spine, leaving heat only in its wake.
Merciless, unforgiving heat.
He lifted her, set her upon the ledge of the balustrade and crowded close, one knee braced between hers, hands firm at her sides as if letting go were no longer an option he possessed.
The entire world narrowed to her mouth, her taste, the impossible truth settling in his bones: he had been frozen his entire life.
And now the ice was melting.
Her hands pushed up his shoulders, looped around his neck, and curled into his hair.
“Christ, Nancy,” he breathed, scarcely aware he’d spoken.
She pulled him back into her, answering with quiet insistence that stole what little thought had started to form. Her fingers tightened along his scalp, an unmistakable ‘do not stop’ pressed into every touch.
The ice melted faster.
Jeremy ground closer, bracing himself against the balustrade.
Shrill laughter drifted through the night, causing them both to stiffen.
Reluctantly, he eased away, the loss of her touch as keen as a sudden chill.
The moment their eyes met, all the thoughts which had evaporated earlier, came rushing back at once.
What the devil just happened? What had they just done?
Nancy had kissed him. He had kissed Nancy.
Her lips were faintly swollen, her breath uneven, her gaze bright with something that made his chest tighten painfully.
She looked at him as though she had not quite caught up either, as though she, too, were standing on the edge of a deuced cliff.
He dragged in a breath, his thoughts tumbling over one another in disarray.
She was his friend. He had known her for years.
Jeremy opened his mouth to apologize, to say something reassuring.
“Do not,” she said sharply, hopping down from the balustrade and fixing him with a glare fierce enough to stop him cold. “If you say ‘what the devil does this mean’, I shall kick you in the most uncomfortable place.”
“I,” he began, then stopped, the word inadequate to contain what throbbed between them. The ice had irrevocably melted. But the consequences were only just beginning to form. “Why did you kiss me?”
Her brows knit for the briefest moment, as though she considered brushing past him entirely. Then she lifted her chin.
“Because I didn’t wish to turn the page without knowing only to regret it all my life,” she said simply. “Now, at least, I can live without regret on that front.”
Jeremy wanted to ask what that meant. However, that particular question had already been discouraged. But his thoughts were still scattered, his sense of sequence entirely askew, and his wits hadn’t assembled yet for him to attempt to decipher what happened here tonight.
His interaction with Pippa came to mind.
“Was this the plan tonight?” he asked, the words tumbling out before he could reconsider. “To steal your first kiss?”
Her eyes flashed.
“You understand nothing, Jeremy Locke.”
Bloody hell. “Then make me understand!”
She gave a short, incredulous laugh. “Make you? I already doubt a man as dense as you could ever hope to grasp my heart.” She turned away from him. “If you cannot manage to understand what happened here on your own, then you never will.”
“Nancy . . .”
“Goodbye, Jeremy.”