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share my house taught me.”
    He rested his hips against a worktable and looked at her. The lantern seemed far away suddenly. More moonlight veiled him than the illumination from that one distant candle.
    “You speak as though that teacher is no longer here. Nor is Lady Hawkeswell nor Lady Sebastian. I believe that Mrs. Albrighton also once lived here.”
    “I am surprised that you absorbed such small details about lives so removed from your own.”
    “I remember everything when I choose to.” He cocked his head and regarded her. “How many have come and gone while you remained?”
    “A few more, before the ones you know about.”
    The question induced nostalgia and, deep inside her, a tiny, cringing, recurrent fear that the day would come when there were no longer any transient sisters seeking sanctuary in her home, and she would be all alone.
    “You must envy them at times,” he said. “Envy their return to the world and the families they are building.”
    His words pierced her heart, and she could not deny their truth. Then, for the second time today, her temper spiked abruptly.
    How dare he be so rude. Fending off a seduction would be preferable to these intrusive queries.
    “I am happy for them.” She heard her voice sound crisp with her annoyance. “They are my friends still, and as close to my heart as sisters.”
    “I did not say you were not happy for them. I merely observed that—”
    “I know what you said. And what you implied. I am not some sad little woman pining on a shelf, dreaming about parties and morning calls, Lord Castleford. As for marriage, I am mature enough to know that there are so few men worthy of the effort that I am relieved such a future is out of the question.”
    He just looked at her for a long moment. Then she saw those mischievous lights appear in the dark of his eyes. “I fear that I have distressed you again.”
    “Not at all.”
    “You appear in high color once more.”
    “Oh, tosh. You can’t even see my color in this vague light.”
    “I can hear it, however.” Suddenly he pushed away from the table and was standing right in front of her. To her shock he placed his palm against her cheek. “And I can feel it.”
    He astonished her, s tunned her not only with his boldness but also with the sensation of that hand against her face. Its skin felt as perfect as it had looked. Like warm velvet.
    He moved closer, until his face hovered right above hers. “Perhaps it is not distress at all but only more extreme surprise. You are dazzling when in this state. Strong emotion becomes you.”
    It did not become her. It confused her. It weakened her. It left her gaping at a handsome man taking inexcusable liberties, when she should better remain calm enough to put him in his place.
    She groped for her self-possession, but it kept sliding out of grasp. He was deliberately mesmerizing her. Absorbing her.
    A series of furious denials and insults filled her head but refused to find her voice. You are no gentleman, sir.—I am not one of your bawdy doves.—Unhand me, you scoundrel. She could actually feel the heat of his body with him standing this closely. His hand on her cheek lured scandalous reactions out of her. Tingles and shivers and delicious, sly excitements. You are too bold.—How dare you be so familiar.—This insult is not to be borne. The man was a devil, and she needed to collect herself and—
    “How long has it been, Mrs. Joyes? Since a man kissed you anywhere, even on the mouth?”
    Anywhere?
    His breath flowed softly over her lips, making her head spin and her blood race. “A good number of years, I think. What a sinful waste.” His presence wrapped her, then his arms did too.
    A kiss, careful but confident. She resisted the impulse to close her eyes and float away on the intimacy, but she was tempted far more than she ever expected to be. Within her shock she struggled to hold back the dreamy tide of pleasure that threatened to inundate her and drown her