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her head and continued slowly. “But I confess I don’t always feel that way. My good fortune is an accident of birth and nothing to do with me. I’ve always felt”—she paused—“like an empty vessel, the unwitting repository of the Brotherton future. My father and mother both died when I was an infant. I lived at Camber with my grandfather and my governesses and later my companion. Nothing much happened, except when Caro came to visit.”
    “Livened things up, did she?”
    “What do you think?”
    “It’s impossible to be bored when she’s about. Robert was a lucky man, and so is Castleton. The loss of her friendship is one of the great regrets of my life.” He’d never spoken with more sincerity.
    “She’ll come round.” A light touch on his arm squeezed at his heart, though never was sympathy less deserved.
    “I hope so. Now go on. Did you have friends? And admirers. I’m sure you always had the latter.”
    She wrinkled her nose. “My grandfather’s health was poor so we neither visited nor received many people. Felix was with us a good deal of the time, my second cousin, the heir to the earldom.”
    “Was he your playmate?”
    “Hardly, since he was a decade elder, but he was always kind to me, even when I was a little girl. He didn’t seem to mind too much when he proposed to me.”
    Although he knew all about her former engagement to Felix Brotherton, Marcus feigned surprise. “A lady should expect a stronger sentiment from a husband than mere tolerance. I should hope you sent him about his business with a flea in his ear!”
    She gave a little giggle, more animation than he’d yet seen in her. “Of course not! I always knew we would marry. We were betrothed when I was seventeen.”
    Poor little heiress . In some ways she had even less choice in life than Lewis Lithgow’s son. He at least had traveled the world and made his own luck. He beat down pity and with it compunction.
    “What happened?” he asked, well aware of the answer. “I hope you came to your senses and sent him to the right about.”
    “I accepted him. He died of a lung fever less than a year later.”
    He gathered her hands in a light clasp. “I’m sorry. Did you love him?”
    “We were comfortable. We knew what to expect of each other.”
    “Did he ever kiss you?”
    “No.” The answer was more a breath than a word.
    Her eyes grew large and lovely and her lips parted, just enough to emit a breath. Gently he cupped her cheek, warm and smooth as an Italian apricot under his palm. He lowered his head and brought his mouth to hers, soft as a whisper, frightened she might melt away. He found her as pliant yet firm as he’d suspected, and every bit as sweet. Instinct told him to surge in and take possession, and only years of practiced control held him back. His reward, after a second that lasted an age, was a perceptible movement. In her inexperienced way she kissed him back.
    It wasn’t much of a kiss, little more than a mingling of breath, and he wanted more. His fingers found the wild pulse at her temple, threaded into the hair she wore firmly coiled about her head. It was soft and fine. Closing his eyes, he let her scent and taste and the texture of her lips wash over him. She felt clean and pure, and that very fact lent a faint erotic charge to their contact. He wanted to pull her into his arms, to discover the body hidden by ill-fitting layers of wool, and most of all to kiss her properly, until she was gasping and crying out for more.
    Her innocent enthusiasm touched him, and shamed him too. A man like Marcus Lithgow had no business with this artless girl.
    Too bad. He needed her and he couldn’t afford scruples.
    He opened his eyes and hardened his resolution, gauging her reaction as though she were a hand of cards. He knew the moment when the crescendo of pleasure halted. Her mouth lost its pliancy and her entire body stilled. Before she could succumb to panic he ended the kiss himself, inching his face away