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outside onto the terrace. And you remained out there with him for aeons. What happened between the two of you?”
    “Nothing happened,” she lied.
    “Then why is your face so flushed? Come now, Maura. I know you too well.”
    She sighed, knowing her friend would never give up until her curiosity was appeased. “Your brother kissed me, if you must know,” she confided in a low voice.
    Rather than look startled, however, Katharine smiled slowly in satisfaction. “And how did you like it?”
    “What does that matter?” Maura asked in exasperation.
    “Because I want to know.”
    The heat in her cheeks increased. “I liked kissing him very well,” she finally admitted, although not even under pain of death would she confess that she’d been far more intimate with the marquis than a mere kiss.
    “You don’t say.” Kate clasped her hands together in delight. “This is even better than I hoped.”
    Maura’s gaze narrowed on her best friend. “Katharine Wilde, what in deuces are you talking about? Please tell me you did not invite me here to throw me in your brother’s path. You did not,
did you
?”
    “Well, perhaps I did, a little.”
    “That is perfectly
ridiculous
—”
    “I disagree, darling Maura. I think you and Ash may be meant for each other.” Before Maura could sputteran objection, Katharine hurried to add, “In any event, Ash is the very man to help you get your horse back.”
    “No, he is
not
. I can manage on my own.”
    “No doubt, but you should not have to. You know Skye and I are your family. You claimed us years ago.”
    That much was true, Maura allowed. Upon being sent off to boarding school by her stepmother when she was twelve, she’d arrived at the Ingram Academy for Young Ladies shortly before Katharine and her cousin, Lady Skye Wilde, who was a year younger. The Wilde girls had been orphaned by then, having lost both sets of beloved parents in a tragic accident at sea, and Maura had befriended them at once.
    At that point in her young life, she was feeling terribly alone and lonely herself, and when she’d heard Skye crying softly in her bed late one night, grieving her loss and missing her remaining family—her older brother Quinn and her cousins Jack and Ashton—Maura had promptly declared that
she
would be Skye and Katharine’s family. The three girls had made a pact then and there, a bond that had only grown stronger over the following years as they shared the tribulations and joys of school days and holidays together; then as young ladies negotiating the uncertain waters of society debuts; and afterward, as they moved into full-fledged womanhood, which fostered new dreams and aspirations for each of them.
    When Maura made no reply, Katharine pressed her. “Promise me you will at least discuss the matter with Ash when he calls on you tomorrow.”
    “How do you know he will call on me?”
    “Because I intend to make him.”
    Maura raised her eyes to the gilded ceiling. “Katharine, you know I love you like a sister—”
    “Then trust me, Maura. You know I only have your best interests at heart.” Hearing a swell in the music, Kate glanced over her shoulder. “I should return to the ball. I have a great deal of convincing to do tonight.”
    After planting a swift kiss on Maura’s cheek, Katharine spun around and hurried off, leaving Maura shaking her head in dismay and fond exasperation. Yet she should be accustomed to Kate’s outrageous schemes by now and knew they were usually well-meant.
    The fiery, passionate Wilde cousins had always proudly lived up to their name, rousing the secret envy of the ton with their adventures and exploits and derring-do. No doubt their recklessness came from being raised primarily by their uncle, Lord Cornelius Wilde, a scholarly bachelor who was much happier with his nose buried in a Greek tome than when trying to discipline his unruly nieces and nephews.
    Reportedly the cousins’ vivacious, pleasure-loving parents had generated