Her lips were faintly swollen, her breath uneven, her gaze bright with something that made his chest tighten painfully. She looked at him as though she had not quite caught up either, as though she, too, were standing on the edge of a deuced cliff. He dragged in a breath, his thoughts tumbling over one another in disarray. She was his friend. He had known her for years.

  Jeremy opened his mouth to apologize, to say something reassuring.

  “Do not,” she said sharply, hopping down from the balustrade and fixing him with a glare fierce enough to stop him cold. “If you say ‘what the devil does this mean’, I shall kick you in the most uncomfortable place.”

  “I,” he began, then stopped, the word inadequate to contain what throbbed between them. The ice had irrevocably melted. But the consequences were only just beginning to form. “Why did you kiss me?”

  Her brows knit for the briefest moment, as though she considered brushing past him entirely. Then she lifted her chin.

  “Because I didn’t wish to turn the page without knowing only to regret it all my life,” she said simply. “Now, at least, I can live without regret on that front.”

  Jeremy wanted to ask what that meant. However, that particular question had already been discouraged. But his thoughts were still scattered, his sense of sequence entirely askew, and his wits hadn’t assembled yet for him to attempt to decipher what happened here tonight.

  His interaction with Pippa came to mind.

  “Was this the plan tonight?” he asked, the words tumbling out before he could reconsider. “To steal your first kiss?”

  Her eyes flashed.

  “You understand nothing, Jeremy Locke.”

  Bloody hell. “Then make me understand!”

  She gave a short, incredulous laugh. “Make you? I already doubt a man as dense as you could ever hope to grasp my heart.” She turned away from him. “If you cannot manage to understand what happened here on your own, then you never will.”

  “Nancy . . .”

  “Goodbye, Jeremy.”

  Four

  By Saints, stars, and sheer madness. What have I done?

  Nancy drove her fists into the pillows again, wishing the mattress would open beneath her and swallow her whole so she didn’t have to face Pippa. It did not. The bed, traitorous object that it was, remained precisely the same—unhelpful, upright, and entirely incapable of hiding her from the morning after her misdeeds.

  She groaned and burrowed her face into the fluffiness, but the image followed her there, too. Jeremy’s mouth. Jeremy’s hands. Jeremy’s hair. Jeremy’s heat.

  What was she to tell Pippa?

  She had not moved on. She had not turned a page. Instead, she had kissed Jeremy Locke, ruined their friendship, and had possibly become more obsessed with the man than before. Nancy knew, with terrible certainty, that nothing would ever be the same again. The extent of that change, however, she couldn’t yet imagine.

  She squeezed her eyes shut.

  She just wanted to take it all back. Her parting words to him. The look of confusion in those blue eyes . . . Urgh. They haunted her.

  “Oh, I am a menace,” she muttered into the pillow. However, even though she wanted to take those words back, she had meant them, which somehow made the matter all the worse. People could take back words they didn’t mean, but they couldn’t take back words they meant, could they?

  She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, mortified anew.

  This was intolerable.

  And the day had only just begun.

  A soft rap sounded at the door, and then Pippa’s head popped through with cheerful determination. “Nancy? Are you all right?”

  “No, I might never be all right again.”

  “Oh, nothing can be that bad,” Pippa said cheerfully, stepping fully into the room and closing the door behind her. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I’m not sure I should ever voice this out loud.”

  The bed dipped and Pippa patted her shoulder. “That horrifying? What did Knoxley do?”

  “No,” Nancy said at once, sitting bolt upright. “Not Knoxley. Me.”

  Pippa’s brows lifted. “You?”

  Nancy groaned and flopped back against the pillows. “I have ruined everything.”

  Pippa blinked. “Everything is a large claim for this hour of the morning.”

  “I kissed Jeremy.”

  A breath of silence, followed by a predictable, “You what?”

  Nancy dragged a hand over her face. “I kissed him. You know, with my mouth. On his.”

  Pippa collapsed beside her. “You kissed Jeremy Locke?”

  “Yes.”

  “Our lovingly dense, Jeremy Locke.”

  “There is, unfortunately, only the one.”

  “But,” Pippa’s head turned to her, “I thought you were turning a page.”

  “I was.” Nancy groaned, covering her face with her hands. “I intended to. And then Jeremy happened.”

  “Well, that does complicate the matter,” Pippa said faintly.

  Nancy sat up again, pointing at her friend. “Precisely. I’ve circled back to the same chapter and set it on fire.” She fell back onto the mattress once again. “What am I going to do?”

  “You could try talking to him? Perhaps even confess.”

  “I already confessed,” Nancy admitted. “And got rejected.”

  This time, Pippa shot upward. “What? When? Where?”

  “Your wedding.” The most humiliating moment of her entire life.

  Pippa stared at her eyes wide. Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

  “You look like a gaping fish,” Nancy pointed out.

  “Nancy!” Pippa spluttered. “You confessed at my wedding and never told me anything?”

  “Well, who would want to relive rejection like that?” she added when she sensed her friend about to scold her further, “It’s done, all right?”

  “It’s done? Are you sure? You kissed him last night. Your actions suggest ‘dramatically unresolved’.”

  “It was a goodbye kiss,” Nancy muttered woefully. A ruinous goodbye kiss.

  “And he . . .?”

  “Kissed me back,” Nancy muttered. “Enthusiastically. Which frankly makes this worse.”

  Pippa pressed a hand to her chest. “I need a moment to process.”

  Yes, well, Nancy had been processing since the wedding, and all it had accomplished was last night.

  “What,” Pippa asked slowly, “exactly did he say to you when you confessed? I mean, a well-meaning, infuriating block of wood at times. Could you have misunderstood him?”

  Could she have? No. “Well, first, he blinked at me,” Nancy continued bleakly, “as though I had begun reciting poetry in Greek.”

  “And then?”

  Nancy sighed. Those words had been etched deeply into her heart. “What do you mean, Nancy?” she recited, deepening her voice to mimic Jeremy. “Have you been reading romance books again?”

  Pippa winced.

  Right. Nancy couldn’t have winced better herself.

  “Lord, what a clodpoll.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  Pippa scoffed. “You’re not much better since you kissed that clodpoll.”

  Do not remind me.

  The taste of that kiss still crackled on her lips. Her soul. Nancy groaned and reached for the pillow again. How was she supposed to move on from him, to turn the page, if her head, her heart, and her mouth, couldn’t forget? “There’s nothing for it. I shall now have to hide, forever hide.”

  “Do not hide,” Pippa said briskly. “You kissed the man. You may now face the day.”

  “I truly wish I had been swallowed by the mattress,” Nancy muttered.

  “Yes, well,” Pippa said, standing. “Life rarely offers us such kindness.”

  Nancy sighed. “I know.”

  He had made himself clear at the wedding, and last night she’d simply startled him into reaction. She might misunderstand many things, but not this: he had not fought to understand her in any way. Not fought for her period.

  The time had come.

  She needed to turn the page, and Jeremy Locke could not follow.

  Nothing in Jeremy Locke’s life had ever been so clear.

  Not the conversations he replayed long after they ended. Not the decisions he weighed and reweighed until they dulled into habit. Not even the certainty with which he had always believed he understood Nancy; her wit, her patience, her infuriating habit of biting down on the corner of her lip whenever she was scheming something mischievous.

  But the damn kiss . . .

  He could recall the kiss step by step. His body had committed every torturous detail to memory before his mind ever had the chance to interfere. The moment her fingers closed on his lapels and then the unmistakable press of her mouth against his, so decisive and entirely without hesitation. He had imagined this—God help him, in his deepest fantasies he had—but the imagining had done nothing to prepare him for the reality of those dreams ever coming true. The way she fit against him as though she had always belonged there.

  Her sweetness persisted, familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

  Dangerous.

  Friends didn’t kiss like that. That crossed the line of friendship into something else entirely. A relationship beyond the boundaries of friends. He didn’t have to be an expert to know this could destroy the bond he shared with his closest friend.

  What was his fear there?

  He couldn’t imagine a life without Nancy Byrne.

  I’m in love with you, Jeremy Locke.

  The soft whispering of those spoken words in his dream came back without invitation, settling into his thoughts with implacability. Jeremy groaned, dragging a hand through his hair, his head dropping back to the chair he occupied in Chatteris’s study.

  She was so close.

  So deuced close.

  Above him somewhere.

  He couldn’t bring himself to call for her, so he’d settled here. Of course, Chatteris chose that moment to enter.

  Jeremy groaned. “What are you doing here?”

  “This is my study. What are you doing here?”

  “Reflecting on my life choices.”

  “Go reflect somewhere else,” Chatteris said, crossing over to his desk and settling in the chair.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why the devil not?”

  Jeremy stared at the ceiling. “Because if I move, I might do something irreversible.”

  “Such as?”

  “I can’t rightly answer that.”

  Chatteris sighed.

  Jeremy groaned again. “Talk to me, Chatteris.”

  “Why? We’re not even friends.” Chatteris paused. “And you won’t even tell me what happened.”

  “You’re the husband of my friend, which now makes⁠—”

  “Don’t finish that sentence. I am not your friend. What’s this even about?”

  “I kissed . . .” Jeremy glanced at Chatteris, once again questioning his sanity. I kissed your sister. He could not, however, admit that to this man. Chatteris would call for pistols at dawn. “A woman.”

  The man arched a brow. “What’s so shocking about that?”

  Heh. Would he still say that if he knew it was his sister? “This woman . . . She’s mad at me.”

  “Not shocking either.”

  That was the problem. None of this was shocking. Wanting her was not shocking. Kissing her was not shocking. What terrified him was everything that might follow. He could endure rejection. He could endure longing. He could not endure a life without Nancy Byrne in it.

  Such a life would be hollow and empty.

  Jeremy’s head fell back to the chair. “I’m in agony.”

  A sigh. “Go be in agony someplace else.”

  “Chatteris.”

  “Bloody hell.” The man lifted his chin and bellowed. “Williams!”

  A footman appeared at the door.

  “Where’s my wife?” Chatteris demanded. “She usually deals with,” he gave him a faintly distasteful glance at Jeremy, “whatever this is.”

  “Pippa,” Jeremy bemoaned.

  “Christ.”

  “Her ladyship is out, my Lord,” the footman said. “With Lady Nancy, my Lord.”

  Jeremy shot upright, a strange foreboding prickling all over him. That same feeling of restlessness from the night before. “Pippa and Nancy went out? Where?”

  “Lady Ashcombe’s tea party.”

  Perfectly respectable. Perfectly ordinary.

  Knoxley wouldn’t attend tea parties, would he?

  Jeremy shot to his feet, a sharp sense of urgency tightening in his chest. He tugged at his cravat, the thing suddenly intent on strangling every breath he tried to draw, images of Nancy and Knoxley flashing through his mind.

  This was going to drive him mad.

  “Silverton?” Chatteris called after him.

  Jeremy had no patience to spare him a reply, his feet already carrying him through the door.

  Five

  “I cannot believe you dragged me to a tea party.” Nancy sent a sulky glance at her friend. “A tea party.”

  “It’s the perfect event to turn your page.”

  Nancy glanced at the surroundings. The tea had been laid out on the lawn beneath a canopy of pale muslin, the fabric billowing gently in the breeze. Small round tables dotted the grass, each dressed in crisp linen and crowded with china, silver, and an indecent number of pastries. Flowering shrubs framed the garden in soft abundance, and nearby a quartet attempted cheerfulness through violins. Ladies clustered in all colors of pastels, parasols tilted just so, while gentlemen chatted easily among them.

  “It all seems so thrilling. Drinking tea.”

  “Oh, come now.” Pippa smiled with maddening optimism, pointing to a gentleman in blue. “Knoxley is here.”

  Nancy’s eyes flew wide. “Why is he here?” She cast an accusatory glance to Pippa. “You knew, didn’t you?”

  Her friend shrugged. “I have ears everywhere in town.”

  Lord.

  “Didn’t you want to turn a page?” Pippa asked.

  “Yes, but Knoxley is a bit . . .” Much. Certainly not a man any woman should purposefully approach to move on with. The man was far too practiced for that.

  “Having second thoughts?” Pippa chuckled. “Now that you’ve kissed Jeremy, perhaps you ought to see how it feels to converse with other gentlemen before you attempt a conversation with him? It might be insightful.”

  “Jeremy isn’t joining, is he?” She wouldn’t put it past her friend to orchestrate such a thing!

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Pippa.”

  Pippa laughed and patted her arm. “I promise I did not invite him.”

  Nancy drew in a fortifying breath. It was not entirely reassuring, but since she had been dragged here regardless, she was determined to enjoy the day.

  “Lady Nancy,” a low voice drawled, and her gaze fell upon the wolfish grin of the Marquess of Knoxley. “This dull event has just turned slightly brighter meeting you here.”

  “And on that note, I believe pastries are calling!”

  “Pippa!” Nancy hissed at her friend’s retreating back. “Traitor.”

  Knoxley chuckled. “Not turning the page anymore, I take it?”

  “Oh, I’m still turning, my Lord. Just not . . .”

  He arched a brow. “With me?”

  “Well, since you’re being so blunt,” she muttered, averting her gaze. “Yes.”

  He chuckled. “Just so we are clear, my Lady, I take my cues from you.”

  Heh. She glanced at him and couldn’t help returning his grin. “Very well, I’ll admit I was rather blunt first.”

  “Would you like to take a turn about the garden?”

  Nancy hesitated. A simple thing, really. Still, she paused. The inconvenient truth was that her lips still remembered Jeremy Locke.

  Vividly.

  And the confusion hadn’t cleared yet.

  That doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a stroll, Nancy.

  Right.

  “Well,” Nancy said, lifting her chin a notch, “I suppose one cannot linger in one place forever.”

  His grin deepened and offered an arm. “True.”

  “Nancy Bathsheba Byrne!”

  Nancy jerked, whirling around.

  “Remove your hand from his arm right this minute!”

  Her gaze locked with a furious Jeremy. Damn you, Locke! “How dare you say my full name in public!” Embarrassment blazed from her cheeks to the tips of her ears. She had sworn him to secrecy!

  A sheepish expression crossed his face.

  “Silverton,” Knoxley greeted.

  Jeremy’s face darkened again. “Step away from her, Knoxley.”

  The Marquess sighed. “You make me sound like a villain, Silverton.”

  Nancy furrowed her brow at her best friend and first love even though her heart could not help doing a little summersault at his appearance. He looked so dashing and handsome, all she wanted to do was rush to his side, but she had to stay strong. She could not slip again. “What’s gotten into you, Locke? And why are you here?”

  “Am I not allowed to be here?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying . . .” she trailed off when he strode over. His eyes dropped to where her hand rested on Knoxley’s arm, and without so much as a word, he claimed her hand and drew her close.

  “Stay away from her,” he directed at Knoxley.

  Nancy’s breath caught. It was ridiculous, mortifyingly so, but her body betrayed her all the same. Heat rushed through her at his touch, swift and familiar, as though some part of her had been waiting for him to do precisely this. Her pulse leaped hard enough to make her lightheaded. For one reckless heartbeat, the garden fell away, Knoxley fell away, everything fell away, leaving only him. Him and the claim he had on her soul that refused to release.

  The memory of his rejection flashed, snapping her back to herself.

  She stiffened and wrenched her hand free, the loss of his touch sharp but necessary, and took a deliberate step back away from him.