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hands in
them.
    He blinked and forced himself to look away.
    "Naturally, there are some things not available locally, but we
send out for them."
    "Naturally," he murmured. Shifting so he stood beside her,
supposedly scanning the room, he glanced swiftly at her profile. The ice had
melted significantly; with her flaming tresses and those gold sparks in her
eyes, he felt sure there'd be a volcano beneath. For the first time since
joining her, he focused intently on her face. "Your lips taste of roses,
did you know?"
    She stiffened, but didn't disappoint him; the look she shot him over the
rim of her cup held fire, not ice. "I thought you would be gentleman
enough to forget that incident entirely. Wipe it from your mind."
    There was compulsion in her last words; Richard let it flow past him. He
smiled lazily down at her. "You have that twisted. I'm far
too
much a gentleman to forget that incident, not even its most minor detail."
    "No gentleman would mention it."
    "How many gentlemen do you know?"
    She sniffed. "You shouldn't have grabbed me like that."
    "My dear Miss Hennessy! You walked into my arms."
    "You shouldn't have held me like that."
    "If I hadn't held you, you would have slipped and fallen on your
luscious—"
    "And you certainly shouldn't have kissed me."
    "That was unavoidable."
    She blinked. "Unavoidable?"
    Richard looked down, into her green eyes. "Utterly." He held
her gaze, then raised his brows. "Of course, you didn't have to kiss me
back."
    Color rose in her cheeks; she looked back at her cup. "A moment of
temporary insanity, immediately regretted."
    "Oh?"
    She glanced up, hearing danger in his tone, but wasn't quick enough to
stop him from stroking, not the nape of her neck, so temptingly exposed, but
the coppery curls that caressed her sensitive skin. Unobserved by the company,
Richard caressed them.
    And she shivered, quivered.
    Then hauled in a breath and thrust her empty cup at him. "I find
the company entirely too fatiguing—and the journey here was boring in the
extreme." Her words were couched in sheet ice, her tone a chill wind
blowing straight from the Arctic. "If you'll excuse me, I believe I shall
retire."
    "Now,
that
," Richard said, taking the cup, "I
didn't expect."
    She paused in the act of stepping away and shot him a suspicious glance.
"What didn't you expect?"
    "I didn't expect you to run away." He looked down at her as
she studied him, and wondered how she did it. No hint of volcanic heat
remained, not even a tiny glow of feminine warmth; she was encased in polar
ice, colder than any iceberg. And the air had literally turned chill—the lady
of the vale could give the ice-maidens of London lessons. He let the ends of
his lips curve. "I'm only teasing you."
    It came to him then—no other man had—no other man had ever dared.
    She frowned, measuring him and his words. Eventually, she exhaled.
"I won't go if you keep your hands to yourself and don't mention our
previous encounter. As I told you, that was a complete and utter mistake."
    Catriona imbued the last words with conviction, but, as before, it had
little effect. He seemed immune, as if he could deflect her suggestive powers
easily—an observation that did little to settle her skittish nerves.
    When she'd walked into the drawing room and seen him there, his blue
gaze direct, as if he'd been waiting for her, she had, for the first time in
her life, literally felt faint. Dumbfounded. And… something else. Something
more akin to searing excitement, something that had made her nervous, aware,
set alive in a way she'd never been before.
    For the first time in a long while, she wasn't sure she could control
her world, her situation. She was not at all sure she could control him.
    Which, first and last, was the crux of her problem.
    She watched as he set their empty cups on a side table, and wished he'd
been forced to keep them in his hands. Hands she'd already spent some time
studying; long-fingered, elegantly made, they were the hands of