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happiness. All his own relationships with women had been based on physical pleasure and mutual satisfaction, but he might relish having the kind of love and intimacy that Marcus now shared with his new bride. Marriage to a woman he could respect and enjoy and cherish.
    In many other ways, Lily Loring would make a fitting candidate for his wife. Her birth and breeding, for one. More importantly, she would rarely bore him and would doubtless prove a delight in his bed.
    Unquestionably he found her highly desirable, with her dark eyes, that lush mouth, those ripe breasts, her silken hair that shimmered with shades of russet and gold. Something about her called to him…something complex and compelling. Perhaps the way she pulsed with life and vitality. There was an inner fire to her, a fire that stoked the one inside him.
    She was compassionate as well, Heath reflected. How many ladies of her elite station would concern themselves with the fate of the stable cat and kittens?
    And there was that undeniable twinge of tenderness that kept pricking at his heart each time he learned something new about her.
    Yes, Lily was suitable—and suitably intriguing enough—for him to consider wooing. Although most certainly he would need to use every ounce of charm and skill he possessed to overcome her reticence. She was afraid to give herself to any man in marriage, to trust that she wouldn’t be hurt.
    She wasn’t cold-natured in the least, however. She only needed awakening. Heath knew that in his gut, had felt it in her innocently sensual kisses. Lily had responded to his embrace as if she’d never wanted before, never needed before.
    She’d been shocked by the erotic fire between them, he could see it in her flushed cheeks and dazed eyes. He’d been more than a little jolted himself.
    He couldn’t recall ever being that powerfully, that savagely, attracted to anyone. She’d had a profound impact on his equilibrium.
    At the recollection, Heath muttered a low oath. Remembering that passionate interlude in the loft with Lily was enough to arouse him again, so he turned away from the ballroom guests to hide the consequences.
    And yet he couldn’t regret the effect Lily had on him. It had been a very long time since he’d felt the rush of anticipation and expectation that was pumping through his blood now. An even longer time since his pulse had quickened at just the thought of coming to know a woman more intimately.
    And as he stepped through the French doors onto the terrace so that the cooler night air could help calm his lust, Heath knew he had made his decision. He would pursue the enchanting Lily and see where a courtship could lead.
    And if matrimony was the result? Well, he no longer found the prospect quite so unsettling or intimidating.
    Indeed—amazingly enough—not intimidating at all.
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    â€œPerhaps I should come in just for a moment,” Tess Blanchard said the next morning as she brought her gig to a halt before Danvers Hall’s front entrance.
    â€œNo,” Lily replied. “You are already dreadfully late for your appointment. I’m certain my sister is fine.”
    With a faint smile at her friend, Lily gingerly stepped down from the gig. She was exceedingly glad to be home, for several reasons. First, her head was throbbing from her lamentable overindulgence in champagne at the ball the previous evening. Second, her conscience was throbbing just as painfully. She hadn’t slept much last night at Tess’s house; instead she’d been busy tossing and turning and mentally writhing at the memory of the Marquess of Claybourne kissing her witless—and her returning his enthralling kisses like a total wanton.
    And finally, this morning they’d learned the dismaying news that her sister Roslyn and her friend Winifred, Lady Freemantle had been the victims of a highway robbery shortly after leaving the