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of the peerage as a wallowing pig was from a horse?
    Lady Caroline stepped closer and touched him on the arm. “Please…” she whispered.
    With a sigh, he turned to look at her and found himself captured in her pale gaze. How had he not noticed the little flecks of gold that glinted in her eyes? Wordlessly, she pleaded with him for… for what?
    Desire wound through him, heating his blood, chasing away all reason. When she teased her upper lip with her tongue, accountability took flight. With a strangled moan, he grasped her shoulders and tugged her closer until not a finger of the late autumn air could flow between them. He caught the startled expression in her eyes as he crashed his lips into hers.
    Driven by insatiable physical hunger, he ignored the fact that he was crossing yet another forbidden line. After initially stiffening, Lady Caroline melted against him, her softness meeting his taut, demanding body. Hugh slipped his right arm around her shoulder to the center of her back. If he could have pulled her closer, he would have. He shifted his left hand until his fingers cupped the slender curve of her neck. Her light floral scent wove around him like a persistent sweetpea vine. She moved her lips beneath his, meeting his every demand.
    When he would have pulled back, she whimpered in protest, the little noise sneaking past her parted lips. Hugh lingered at the edge, his breathing ragged and labored. “Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb,” his father had been fond of saying. Still… maybe better not to be hung at all.
    Hugh withdrew his arm from her shoulder and stepped back but continued to rest his fingers lightly against her neck, unable to bear cutting the contact completely. I’m sorry… The words trapped themselves in his throat. He wasn’t sorry. He’d never be sorry even if he did end up on the gallows for his actions.
    He focused on the woman — yes, she was all woman and kissed like one as well — in front of him. Wide hazel eyes stared up at him. Kiss-swollen lips moved wordlessly. Her breathing was as tattered as his. Did the blood run as hot in her veins? It drove him nearer to madness to consider it. At the base of her throat, a tiny pulse throbbed, quick as a bird’s beating heart.
    “I… I…” She seemed to be struggling with words herself.
    As Hugh stepped back, he allowed the tips of his fingers to trail across her collarbone. Lady Caroline rewarded him with a sharply indrawn breath and a shiver.
    “Thank you,” she whispered as he stepped back.
    The image of her in another man’s arms, an older man who preferred his women “sophisticated,” rose to the forefront of Hugh’s mind, taunting him. Deliberately, he turned the torment to anger.
    “And will ye kiss yer gentleman like that under the mistletoe? Do you think you’ll manage now, my lady?” he ground out, uncaring if his words sounded spiteful. “Will one lesson do ye? Will ye be able to give him a kiss he can remember?”
    Lady Caroline covered her mouth with the back of her hand. Tears welled in her eyes. “Why are you so unkind?”
    Because I’ve just stolen the first of your sweet innocence… and maybe lost a bit of myself in the process.
    Hugh sliced the air with his hands. “If ye get yer gentleman under the mistletoe and kiss him, I’d say it’s a fair wager ye’ll get his attention.” Unable to remain in her presence any longer, he turned on his heel and stalked across the terrace. She’d find her way back to the manor. Or not.

Chapter Five
     
    Kitty watched Hugh McCollum march along the garden path until he became no more than a tiny moving speck. The breeze pushed a thick strand of hair into her face. He must have loosened it while they’d been kissing.
    Kissing… that kiss.
    She no longer wondered how a man kissed… or how he would want to be kissed. Her lips still tingled. Her body still hummed with an awakening ache she’d never before experienced. If one kiss from a man of Hugh’s