"Tell me what?"

Kate hesitated. Then she lowered her cup to the saucer and placed it on the small marble table beside the sofa. "Please don't be angry with me, but I've invited Jack Fulton and his family to dinner day after tomorrow."

Becky gaped at her. "Why on earth would you...?"

"Fulton visited when you were with Lady Devore yesterday," Garrett said. "And Kate took it upon herself to ask him to return. When she learned his father and brother were in Town for a few days, she took pains to invite them, too."

Becky stared at Kate with wide eyes. Her sister-in-law raised her hand in a placating gesture. "I know it was rash of me, and I probably should have asked you first, but I do like him. He seems... well-" she cast Becky an apologetic smile, "-he seems quite besotted with you."

"I turned down his proposal," Becky reminded her.

"Not exactly," Garrett said. "If I recall correctly, at first you said you required time to think on it. You needed time to know him better. Kate is right-what better way to do that than invite him to dinner?"

"And his family," Kate added, tucking a stray strand of dark brown hair behind her ear. Kate always thought of family. To her, there was nothing in the world more important.

"I haven't heard a word from him," Becky said. "I thought he was finished with me. I assumed he'd decided to move on."

Those thoughts had plagued her for the past few days, filled her with doubt and even a glimmer of regret. A part of her wondered if, in her fear and distrust, she'd given away her final hope for happiness.

"He has no intention of moving on. He still hopes to convince you," Garrett said.

"Really? But why?" He'd been furious when she'd said no. He hadn't said a word, but he'd clenched his fists, and his lips had gone white. She'd believed she'd damaged his male pride beyond repair. "I'm surprised he'd even want to set eyes on my face again, much less dine here with his family."

"Sometimes love isn't so easy to relinquish," Kate said quietly.

Becky plucked her book up from the sofa cushion and clasped it to her chest. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Kate. He doesn't love me."

"Are you certain of that?"

"He hasn't known me long enough to love me. He hardly knows anything about me."

Kate's fingers slid up and down the curve of her belly. "Really, how can you know? Love is as variable as people are. How can you be so insistent that love cannot evolve after a month's acquaintance? Honestly, I fell in love with your brother even before we formally met." Kate and Garrett shared a secret smile before Kate turned back to Becky. "He seems so determined to have you. Why else would he persist? Why else would he agree to come to dinner? Why else does he seem so interested in ingratiating himself to our family?"

Becky closed her eyes. God, but she'd missed him these past few days. Her body yearned for him. She couldn't stop thinking about him, remembering the simple contentment of just sitting and talking with him, reliving the erotic pleasures he'd wrought on her body. She'd longed to see him again, even while she knew it was best if she didn't.

Kate's brow furrowed in distress. "I don't want you to feel compelled to join us for dinner. I understand if you prefer to stay in your room."

"It would be cowardly of me not to come." Rubbing her forehead with her fingertips, she looked through her fingers at her sister-in-law. "Tell me the truth, Kate. Do you think I should marry him?"

"What I feel has no bearing on what you should do. You must do what is right for you. Garrett and I only want you to be happy."

The scandal had escalated in the past few days. Now, when Becky walked on the street, ladies tittered behind their fans. Becky could hold her head high for now, but she was already tiring of it all.

A shudder of mixed anticipation and trepidation wound down her spine. "Dinner. Very well."

Kate smiled wistfully. "I must say I like Jack Fulton. I hope that someday things will work out between the two of you. I agree that it would put the scandal to rest if you marry him now, but it's certainly not worth risking your happiness to do that. Take your time to determine if it is the right course. But I truly hope you will give the gentleman a chance."

The day of the dinner engagement with Jack and his family arrived, and that afternoon, Becky sat in her favorite chair in the salon warming her toes by the fire, an unopened book on her lap. Tonight was the first time Becky would see Jack since the morning of his proposal over a week ago. But tonight, her entire family would be in attendance, including her sharp-tongued Aunt Bertrice, who'd arrived from Yorkshire for the holidays just this morning.

A knock sounded on the door and she looked up to see a footman peek into the salon. "You've a visitor, my lady. Mr. Fulton is here to see you."

Jack! She hadn't expected him to arrive before dinner. She jumped out of her chair, set the book aside, and shook out the flounces in her slate-colored skirts. "He's early."

"Yes, my lady."

"Please show him up."

A few moments later, Jack entered, bringing with him that masculine virility that shone about him like an aura. He was tall and broad and everything she ever imagined when she'd lain alone at night and envisioned perfection in a man.

Just inside the room, he stopped, a smile curving his wicked lips. The footman left, closing the door behind him.

"Thank God," Jack said, his voice an arousing amalgam of roughness and quiet. "I thought I'd never see you alone."

Her fingertips fidgeted in her skirts.

In two long, silent strides over the carpet, he stood before her. He hooked one broad arm around her waist and tugged her against him.

Every muscle in her body stiffened, but then his mouth descended over hers, and she melted.

His lips were the richest dessert, soft and creamy, passionate, as hungry for her as she was for him. She dropped her skirts, twined her arms about his neck, and kissed him back with the force of all the twisted emotions that had confounded her in the last several days.

If only it could always be like this. Her guilt and fear melted away, slid down her spine and pooled at her feet, leaving her fresh and pure and clean. Open to whatever he offered her.

He could make her lower all her shields. All he needed to do was keep kissing her, keep his lips pressed against her cheek, her eyelids, her jaw. Keep his hands firmly gripping her about the waist, holding her steady.

This was togetherness. If only they could stay like this, joined, inseparable...

But it ended all too quickly. He pulled away gently, then bent his forehead to hers. "I've missed you," he murmured, his breath a whisper over her lips.

"I've missed you, too."

"I'm going crazy for wanting you."

Should she tell him the truth? Admit that she wanted him, too? Had desperately craved his touch every day since she'd last seen him?

Once, she'd felt this way with William, but that had faded sooner than she ever could have predicted. It was all a figment of her wishful imaginings, this security she felt in Jack's arms. Even that had already proved false-for she'd been in his arms when all those people had stormed into the bedchamber last week.

He stroked the back of his finger down the side of her cheek. "You want me, too. I feel it." His lips moved to her ear, his breath dancing over her lobe. "Let's finish this nonsense. Marry me."

She sighed. As much as she wanted him, she couldn't suggest another evening with him in Sheffield's Hotel. He didn't want that anymore. He wanted more. He wanted too much.

Pulling back, he scraped a thumb over her brow, smoothing it. "I've made up my mind-I made it up a week ago. I want you. I'm ready to commit to marrying you."

She stared up at him, her forehead furrowed in consternation. "How can you say that so easily? How can you commit your life to someone you hardly know?"

He shrugged. "I've chosen my path. I will not be dissuaded from it. Not now, not ten years from now. This is what I what. You are what I want." He gazed down at her face, his dark eyes intent. "Do you understand that?"

"I... think so." She turned away. "But it's not so simple for me."

"Why?" he demanded.

She crossed her arms tight across her shimmery gray bodice, closing herself off to him. "I never thought I'd marry again. I thought I'd live out the remainder of my days as a widow bluestocking."

He chuckled. "You? A bluestocking?"

Once again it struck her how very little they knew of each other. Scandal aside, he intended to spend a lifetime with her based on nothing but their immediate carnal attraction. They possessed only a sliver of knowledge of each other beyond it.

She remembered those long days at Kenilworth after she and William had married. William had grown distant, and she'd begun to realize they weren't as well matched as he'd led her to believe. She'd never felt lonelier.

Since William died, she'd surrounded herself with her family, and more recently, Cecelia, and though she was physically lonely, that feeling was nothing compared to the soul-deep aloneness she'd felt at Kenilworth.

It wasn't a difficult stretch of the imagination to think the same thing might happen with Jack. He was a bachelor rogue. Thirty years old, accustomed to gallivanting about the globe and taking lovers when the mood struck him. Accustomed to his freedom. Perhaps he'd loved a girl once, but that was long ago. Did he have the first idea how to know-to really know-a woman? Did he have the first idea how to be a husband? For that matter, did she have any idea how to be a proper wife?

"Becky?" He touched her hair, lightly stroking his fingers over the braided strands twisted at her nape. "I would make you happy," he said, his voice quiet but emphatic. "I swear it."

"Would you?" Turning back to him, she searched his eyes and found nothing but promise in them.

"I swear it," he repeated. His lips descended on hers again, sweet and warm. His gentle touch swept through her, softening her muscles and her resistance.

"Marry me," he whispered against her lips.

"No," she whispered back. Then she winced as he stiffened. "Jack... I..."

His hands curled around her shoulders, but he didn't pull away.

"I don't mean it to sound so final." Give him a chance, Kate had said, and she was right. It would be ridiculous, not to mention foolish, to dismiss Jack out of fear that he might be another William. "You must give me time."

The tightening of his fingers on her shoulders was subtle, but she felt it. "I want you, Becky. Now."

"I'm not ready."

With a harsh, frustrated breath, he drew back, thrusting his hand through his blond-streaked hair. "I'm going to convince you otherwise. You're afraid because of what happened to you last time. But you keep forgetting: I'm not him."

"I know. Just... please. Be patient with me."

"I'm not a patient man."

"It will take time for me to learn how to trust again."

"And once I win your trust?"

A small thrill wound through her at his insistence, at the steely determination in his eyes. "Then... if it can be done... yes. I will consider marrying you."

He squared his shoulders. His brown eyes bore into hers in direct challenge. "I will win your trust, then. It won't take long."

He seemed very convinced of that, but she knew herself better than Jack did. "I hope you're right," she said with a small smile.

"I am right. By month's end, we'll be at the altar."

He seemed to relish this challenge, and his cocky confidence melted her further. Her smile widening, she pressed her body against him, looking up at him from beneath her eyelashes. "Do you think so?"

"I know it." He lowered his lips to her brow. "I cannot wait to make you mine."

Jack sat stiffly, his fingers clamped around his wineglass, his neck prickling. He resisted the urge to yank off his cravat. He hadn't desired his father and brother's presence tonight, but the duchess had invited them, and he was in no position to naysay the woman.

To his annoyance, he'd not been seated near Becky. Instead, her aunt, Lady Bertrice, who incessantly peered at him through a monocle, sat on his right. Her magnified rheumy blue eye was so suspicious it made his skin crawl, though if he were being reasonable he'd remember there wasn't any way she could know anything. If the Duke of Calton could discover nothing of interest in his exploration into Jack's private affairs, surely an old woman couldn't either.

Still, he didn't like the way that blue eye pried under his skin.

Lady Westcliff sat on Jack's left, separating Jack from his father. Bertrand, Jack's eldest brother, sat across from them, flanked by Becky in a glorious cream-colored silk gown and Lady Devore. Jack's father and Bertrand behaved with an obsequiousness toward the duke and his family that made Jack's gut churn.

Viscount Westcliff, sitting at the duke's right, was the most affable presence at the table, deftly balancing the surliness of the duke with the fawning of Jack's family, and it was he and his wife who kept the conversation from sinking to banality-or ceasing altogether.

After the second course was served, Jack's father sighed and leaned back in his chair, resting one hand on his protuberant belly while the other lifted his wineglass, his little finger raised in an effeminate gesture. He spoke loudly, so his voice could reach the other end of the table. "I should like to thank you again, Your Grace, for convincing my son to take the proper course and do right by your lovely sister. I only regret that the lady has declined."

Everyone fell silent, and Jack glanced across to Becky. The edges of her lips thinned, and she stared at the table linen beyond her plate of oyster-stuffed venison.

The duke leveled a cold stare at Jack's father. "I convinced your son of nothing. He was the one who decided that marriage would be the best course of action."

Jack didn't look at his father. Not for the first time, he wondered how it was possible that anyone, much less a king of England, could have enough faith in the man to make him a privy councilor. Then again, the Right Honorable Edmund Fulton had always sunk far more effort into his political career than he would with anything related to Jack. And considering King George IV-well, perhaps not so surprising, after all. Jack had never met the current king, but from all he'd heard, the man shared many traits and habits with Jack's father.

Jack had always been his mother's child, his mother's favorite. His father had showered his attention and his love on his two eldest sons, and Jack had never earned much notice from him, except on occasion as someone to vent his frustrations upon when life was not going his way.

When he was six years old, Jack had been blamed for the crops at Hambly rotting due to too much rain. When he was eight, he'd been accused of swaying a particularly important decision in Parliament. When he was twelve, he was solely responsible for the failure of an investment his father had made in a canal.

Between the ages of twelve and eighteen, Jack had gone away to school and had managed to avoid his father for the most part. But when he was eighteen, the murder of the Marquis of Haredowne had coincided with the failure of Jack's middle brother, Edward, to win a promotion to the rank of post captain in His Majesty's Navy. Of course, that was Jack's fault, too.

After the charges against him were dismissed, Jack was sent away forthwith, and weeks after he'd left England, his mother had died suddenly. Jack hadn't heard of her passing until months later. They'd been anchored in Sydney, and in the midst of his anguish and grief over his mother's death, Jack had received a letter from his father.

She'd died because of him, his father said. Because she was brokenhearted about the embarrassment Jack had caused to their family.

Jack knew it was nonsense. His mother had remained his most steadfast, staunchest supporter through every second of the ordeal. Yet a part of him had shriveled and died at those words, and he'd crumpled that letter, held a candle to it, and watched it burn, promising himself that he'd never again listen to a word his father said.

Becky's lips thinned further as Jack's father chuckled. "To be sure, sir, I never imagined my son settling down and marrying, especially into a family as fine as yours. He's a scoundrel of the first order, does naught but toss away his allowance on hells and women."

Jack ground his teeth. Not only were those words inaccurate-the man had interacted very little with Jack for the past twelve years-but they would do nothing to ingratiate Jack to the duke.

Jack had never understood his father. He never would. He could only count the hours until this night was over. He'd have to interact with his father and his brother-fortunately his middle brother had finally been promoted to the rank of post captain and was currently at sea-only at his forthcoming nuptials, and then he'd be free of them until the next family obligation arose, which Jack prayed wouldn't be anytime soon.

The duke shrugged. "You may trust I have looked into his affairs. I found nothing out of the ordinary."

Jack's father continued blithely. "Indeed, I never thought he'd be tamed. Fidelity is not a strong suit in our family, is that not so, Bert?"

Bertrand, who often left his wife in the country only to be seen at various events in London with his mistress on his arm, choked down the wine he'd been holding to his mouth and swallowed, patting his napkin on his lips. Jack felt little fraternal affection for his oldest brother, who'd spent the better part of their childhoods reminding Jack and Edward of his superiority as the eldest son and heir.

The Duke of Calton's blue eyes narrowed into slits, and Lord Westcliff cut in, bringing his champagne glass to his lips. "We are certainly ahead of ourselves, aren't we? They are yet to agree on forging a permanent connection."

"Surely marriage is the best solution. Indeed, the only solution," Jack's father said.