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leapt.
    He felt it surge and sweep through him, urging him to lock her against him, bend his head and take her lips—and plunder. The power of the impulse rocked him; its hunger shocked him.
    Unaware, she laughed up at him; he forced a smile at the musical sound. He looked into her eyes, alight with simple joy—and cursed the fact that kissing her witless in full view of the multitudes bustling about the docks was something he really couldn’t do.
    Gritting his teeth, ruthlessly ignoring his baser self, the increasingly compulsive need to kiss her again, he set her back from him.
    “Come.” His voice had lowered. Drawing in a breath, he took her hand. “We’d better head back to the manor.”
     
    The next day was Sunday. As he usually did when in the country, Charlie attended morning ser vice at the church at Combe Florey with those of his family residing at Morwellan Park—on this occasion his mother, brother, and youngest sister, Augusta.
    His other three sisters—Alathea, the eldest, and Mary and Alice—were married and living elsewhere. Although Alathea, married to Gabriel Cynster and mostly resident at Casleigh to the south, lived close, she and the Cynsters attended ser vices at the church near Casleigh.
    A fact for which Charlie was grateful; Alathea’s eyes were uncommonly sharp, especially when it came to him. Throughout his minority she’d guarded his interests zealously; it was largely due to her that there’d been an estate for him to inherit. For that, he could never thank her enough, yet while he understood that she had a vested interest in his life—in the well-being of the earldom and therefore him as the earl—her acuity made him wary.
    He didn’t, at this point, wish undue attention focused on himself and Sarah.
    Sitting in the ornately carved Morwellan pew, in the front to the left of the aisle, he listened to the sermon with barely half an ear. From the corner of his eye he could see Sarah’s bright head as she sat in the Conningham pew, the other front pew, across the aisle.
    She’d smiled at him when he’d followed his mother down the nave to take his seat. He’d smiled easily back, all too conscious that the gesture was a mask; inwardly he hadn’t felt like smiling at all.
    Gaining time alone was proving difficult, time alone in which he could further his aim. Her aim was progressing reasonably well, but his aim required greater privacy than he’d yet been able to arrange.
    Yesterday he’d hoped that when they’d returned to the manor, he would have a moment when he walked her to the door—one moment he could grasp to kiss her again. But her sisters had come running from the house; they’d all but mobbed his curricle, even though there’d been only two of them. From what he’d gathered, they’d been harboring designs on his grays. They’d smothered him with questions, many ridiculous, but he hadn’t missed the sharp glances they’d thrown Sarah and him.
    Clary and Gloria were now wondering. A dangerous situation. When it came to those two, he shared Sarah’s reservations.
    The ser vice finally ended; he rose and escorted his mother up the aisle with the rest of the congregation falling in behind, the Conninghams foremost among them.
    Instinct prodded him to turn and smile at Sarah, almost directly behind him with only her parents between—but Clary and Gloria were immediately behind her. Lips compressing, he told himself to wait; they’d be able to chat once they gained the church lawn.
    But the Combe Florey church was well attended, the congregation thick with the local gentry; he and his mother were in instant demand. As he was so rarely in the country these days, there were many who wanted a word with him.
    Tamping down his unruly impatience—Sarah and her family were coming to lunch at the Park—he forced himself to do the socially correct thing and chat with Sir Walter Criscombe about the foxes, and with Henry Wallace about the state of the road.
    Yet even while