She held up a hand between them. “On the lips, if you please. And do it properly.”

“Properly.” Disbelief echoed in his tone.

His gaze searched her face, and Amelia inwardly cringed as she pictured herself through his eyes. Plump cheeks, gone bright pink with a blush. Puffy eyes, certainly not improved by the purple circles under them this morning. Disheveled blond hair, hanging loose against one side of her neck. What had she been thinking, to bait him thus? Why not simply refuse his proposal and be done with it?

Because she wanted this, she admitted. She wanted this kiss. She wanted to feel wanted. In all honesty, some depraved part of her wanted to go back to his carriage and do everything differently. To find out what would have happened if she hadn’t startled and moved away, but allowed him to keep caressing and kneading her thigh. Perhaps trail his fingers up and up, to the warm, damp place between her legs …

The very thought made her weak.

His gaze settled on her lips.

She held her breath. Braced herself. Grew an inch out of sheer anticipation.

And then he took two steps away.

Oh, Lord. He’d rejected her. In a darkened carriage, she was good enough for a squeeze, but one honest look at her in full daylight, and he’d decided she simply wasn’t worth the trouble.

He cleared his throat. “If I’m to do this properly …”

With his left hand, he began loosening his right glove. First, he undid the small closure at the wrist. Then he began at the little finger and worked inward, working the close-fitted black kid loose with firm, confident tugs. After separating his thumb from its leather sheath, he raised his hand to his mouth. A shiver ran through her as he caught the middle finger of the glove between his teeth … and pulled.

Oh, his hand was lovely. Amelia couldn’t tear her gaze from his fingers as they worked. They were long and dexterous, graceful yet strong. Soon he had the second glove loosened, and when he stared her straight in the eye, took that nub of leather between his teeth, and slowly pulled his right hand free … she couldn’t help it.

She sighed. Audibly.

At once, she understood why men threw away so much money on opera dancers. She wondered why similar establishments did not exist for ladies. Perhaps they did, and she was simply innocent of them. There was a powerful, illicit thrill to watching a man bare himself—even these relatively innocent parts of himself—for her benefit.

Tossing his gloves atop Laurent’s desk, the duke closed the distance between them. He raised his hands—not to her face, but to her hair. Those long, deft fingers plucked the hairpins from her debilitated upsweep. He stood close to her as he worked, almost as though he held her in an embrace. The pose gave Amelia an intimate view of the strong line of his jaw, and the exposed curve of his throat beneath it, where the rough beginnings of whiskers dotted his skin. He smelled of brandy and leather and starch; and beneath all these commonplace scents simmered the unique musk of his skin. She inhaled deeply.

As he freed the last pin, her hair tumbled around her shoulders. His fingers raked deliciously over her scalp as he arranged the locks to his satisfaction.

“There,” he said. Strong, warm hands cupped her face and tilted it to his. “Now we can do this properly.”

A surge of excitement flooded every inch of her body. And it didn’t come from the heat of his breath on her lips, or the firm pressure of his hands bracketing her face. Its origin was that tiny word: “we.” Now we can do this properly.

It wasn’t that he would kiss her. They were going to kiss.

His lips brushed hers, slowly, sensually. And in an abrupt, volcanic explosion, Amelia d’Orsay’s world gained a whole new continent.

She’d suffered a number of Mr. Poste’s kisses, back when he’d courted her. Could it truly have been almost ten years ago? Those horrid kisses still lurked in her memory: wet, grabby embraces that had made her feel helpless and ashamed.

But this was different. So different. The Duke of Morland had spent the past several hours assaulting her feelings with one rude, arrogant remark after the other. The man had no notion of polite discourse.

But this kiss … now, this kiss was a conversation. Again and again, he pressed his lips to hers, then retreated, inviting her to reciprocate. And reciprocate she did, with unabashed pleasure.

“Yes,” he murmured, as she gingerly placed her hands on his shoulders. “Yes, that’s the way.”

Encouraged, she moved her hands higher, clutching his neck. His hands slid backward to fist in her hair, and she followed his example, at last twining her fingers in those dark, touchable curls. Oh why hadn’t she removed her own gloves? She would have given much at that moment to feel his hair sliding between the sensitive webs of her fingers. But she took heart in the little growl he gave when her gloved fingertips stroked his nape. Satin did have its advantages.

He paused to draw breath.

Oh, don’t stop. Don’t stop.

She caressed his neck again, and he renewed the kiss with even greater vigor. Her body went soft to the bones. His lips were insistent, demanding. But what he demanded was not her surrender, but her escalating response.

She hadn’t known kissing could be like this: not a conquest, but a trade. A steady bartering of caresses, licks, gentle nips. She’d never known the corner of her mouth to be so exquisitely sensitive, until he touched the spot with his tongue.

Oh, this was dangerous. Delicious, but dangerous.

He was not just teaching her, he was empowering her. And he was forcing her to reveal far more of herself than she ought. How could he fail to sense her desire for him, when she purred with it? When she drew his lower lip into her mouth to mirror the way he gently sucked her upper one? And oh—oh, Lord—once their tongues had done this, how could she convincingly use this same mouth to refuse him?

And then she finally stopped thinking and gave herself over to sensation. Blissful, all-consuming sensation. Her body sang, shivered, ached. She needed more. She needed to feel his hands on her body, somewhere below the neck. Everywhere below the neck.

Lacing her fingers behind his collar, she pitched forward. Her breasts met the welcome resistance of his hard chest. And he rewarded her by sliding his hands from her shoulders, to the small of her back, over the swell of her hips and all the way down to her bottom, which he cupped firmly in both hands. He pulled, bringing her hips flush against his. Pleasure, sharp and intense, burst through her.

He moaned. “Amelia.”

Here was a gesture she couldn’t reciprocate. For she didn’t recall his Christian name, and to call him “Morland” seemed just wrong. She certainly couldn’t call him “Your Grace”—not with his hands on her backside.

Then his tongue was in her mouth again, and she couldn’t have called him anything at all.

After some time—it might have been minutes, or hours or eons, for all Amelia knew; this kiss had rendered her quite insensible to such frivolous things as the passage of time—he gently pulled away. Shamelessly she chased him, pulling his face down and pressing one last kiss to the corner of his lips.

He laughed—a breathless, husky, arousing laugh.

“So,” he said, “not a chore, I think.”

“No.”

He regarded her closely. One eyebrow quirked. “That wasn’t your answer, was it?”

“No,” she said hastily. “Or … I don’t know. My answer to what?”

“I’m confused.”

“So am I.”

She slid her hands from his neck and clutched them together in front of her. Oh, what a miscalculation this had been. She’d asked for the kiss. She’d hoped it might be enjoyable. She hadn’t expected it to alter her understanding of the world. How was she supposed to tell him, No, no, a thousand times no. Take your insulting proposal and begone, when every corpuscle in her body was screaming, Yes, yes! Please, Your Grace, may I have some more?

“Perhaps we should begin again.” He covered her knotted fingers with his. “Lady Amelia, will you do me the honor, et cetera.”

“Did you just say ‘et cetera’ in a proposal of marriage?”

“No, I believe I said ‘et cetera’ in reprising my proposal of marriage. Have you arrived at an answer yet? I think you’re stalling again.”

“I’m not stalling.”

He drummed his fingers on the tops of hers, making it quite clear to them both that she was, indeed, stalling.

“We don’t get along at all,” she said desperately.

“That’s not true. We’ve been getting along quite well for several minutes now.”

Yes, they had. They had.

Knowing herself to be a very poor liar, Amelia opted for honesty. “I’m infatuated with you, I cannot deny it. Physically speaking, you’re a very attractive man. But I don’t like you, the vast majority of the time. So far as I can gather, you behave abominably in public and are only marginally better in private. I only find you remotely tolerable when you’re kissing me.”

He gave her a chastening look. “Even from that stinting description, we’d have a better foundation for marriage than many couples.”

“Yes, but it’s still nowhere near the marriage I’d dreamed of having.”

“Well.” The duke released her hands and stepped back. “It would seem you have a choice. Will it be the dreams? Or me?”

“No woman should have to make such a choice.”

But she knew that women did, all the time. Every moment of every day, somewhere a woman surrendered her blissful fantasies to the cruel reality of the world. Years ago, she’d managed to delay the inevitable, but now Amelia knew in her bones—her day, her moment had come. It was her turn to lay down those fantasies of romantic love and grab what she could: security, the opportunity to help her brothers, and something undeniably tempting—the chance to explore physical passion. As for love … well, there would be children. And Amelia would love those children as no mother had ever loved. No mother except her own, of course.

She knew what she ought to do; what she would do.

Still, she could not say the words.

“Don’t make the choice, then,” he said. “Come here.”

It was not a request, but a command. And she complied, gratefully. His confidence drew her forward, as though he pulled her to him with a string. She stopped, just inches from him, staring up into his handsome face.

“Kiss me.”

Another command. Another so easily obeyed, because it was exactly what she wanted to do. He bent his head, and she pressed a warm, unhurried kiss to his lips. She would know a lifetime of these kisses. She would know what it was, to see this formidable man unclothed and vulnerable, to feel the weight of his naked body stretched out over hers.

The kiss ended.

“Now,” he said, “say yes.”

She would be a duchess. She would be mistress of six houses. She would be married from St. George’s in Hanover Square, in front of all London, wearing a gown of the divinely embroidered and obscenely expensive ivory brocade she’d seen last week in Bond Street. She would serve white cake at the wedding breakfast, with three different fillings and rolled gum icing cut in the shape of blossoms—orchids, not roses. Because everyone had roses. She would have real orchids in her bouquet, and she would visit the hothouse this very week to order them.

Some of her dreams could still come true.

“Say yes, Amelia.”

“Yes,” she said. And because it came more easily than she’d expected, she said it again. “Yes.”

“Good girl.”

He gave her a smile—slight, yet devastating—and to that subtle quirk of his lips Amelia impulsively hitched all her hopes and dreams. For better or for worse.

“I’ll go speak with your brother.” He gathered his gloves from the desk.