“All right, then. You can take the mementos of your brief engagement and put them in a box. In the attic.”

She could feel him laughing before she heard his response: “Would I be allowed to visit them now and then?”

“Yes,” Josie said. “I’ll find you occasionally, in the twilight of the attic, turning over a faded blue ribbon that Sylvie wore in her hair.”

“What a lovely picture,” Mayne said.

“Actually,” Josie said, getting into the spirit of the thing, “you might want to take a ribbon of hers, perhaps the one she wore the night you first kissed her, and wear it next to your heart, Garret. Then when you die and we’re laying you out in state, I’ll find the ribbon, and almost throw it away, but then—”

“With sobs that would break the heart of Beelzebub himself, you’ll tuck it back next to my heart and go to your grave knowing that your husband loved another.”

“I like that,” Josie said, thinking about it. “Especially the part where I almost throw your ribbon away but stop myself.”

He pulled her a little closer and she could feel his body, hard against hers. “There is one problem.”

Josie was rethinking about the heartrending scene at the coffin. “I think I will throw away that ribbon, Garret, so be warned. I may even burn it.”

“I don’t have any ribbons,” Mayne pointed out. “Not even from the first night I kissed Sylvie.”

“You must have something.”

“Nothing.”

“A shame,” Josie said. He was looking at her now, and there was something in his eyes that made nonsense of the idea of Sylvie’s ribbons. Yes, he was in love, but…

“I’ve often thought that desire and love are very similar,” she said, telling him because he might as well know now how scandalous she was. “Who’s to say that desire is not the same as love?”

“I’ve felt many a stroke of desire, Josie, and only a few of love.”

She shook back her head, letting her hair fall behind her, free and wild. “I suppose you’re right. If desire were love, there’d be no unmarried streetwalkers.”

He laughed, but she could feel him drawing even closer. His hands were spread on her back, their bodies just a hair’s breadth apart.

“Do you desire me, Garret Langham, Earl of Mayne?”

His eyes were dark in the moonlight. “You’re no streetwalker, Josephine Langham, Countess of Mayne.”

“If I were, I would be more practiced at seduction,” she said. “Shan’t you give me lessons?”

“In seduction?”

“You are an expert.” She raised her hands to her hair again, feeling as pagan as any fairy queen. “If you return to the house, I will take it that you do not desire me enough for this marriage.”

She turned her back and began walking toward the small house nestled into the corner of the garden.

“Josie!” His voice was like liquid velvet, wild and sweet.

She turned, knowing that her breasts were completely visible through the light fabric of her gown, and understanding for the first time in her life that their sweet, unsteady weight was no drawback in a man’s eyes.

“What if I were a fairy queen?” she said.

“What then?”

“I would command you to stay. Out of this wood do not desire to go. Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt or no.”

“I feel a donkey’s head descending onto my shoulders,” he muttered. But he was walking after her.

She didn’t look back, just walked up the step to the little house and pushed open the door.

“That’s supposed to be locked,” he said. But he was following her.

It was a small room, with nothing more than a sofa in the corner. The moon streamed through the small window.

“If I remove your donkey’s head, will you kiss me?” she whispered.

He stood by the door, large, shadowed. She couldn’t see his face.

“There’s no going back from this.”

“I don’t want to.” Exhilaration was running through her veins. For her, there had only been this man, from the moment he kissed her and showed her how to be a woman. Garret turned her, with his desire, from shapeless to shapely. From undesirable to desired.

She would never want anyone else in her bed, or in her life.

35

From The Earl of Hellgate,

Chapter the Twenty-fourth

For weeks I haunted my Mustardseed’s grave, weeping silently and refusing nourishment. For was I not some sort of pariah, as damaging to a woman’s soul as the gaze of a basilisk? I expect, Dear Reader, that you think I quickly recovered my spirits and felt the flame of lust raise again in my soul.No! I assure you that days passed…

I must return to my house.”

“No.” He said it sleepily, but with such satisfaction that she almost laughed. But still she struggled to a sitting position.“I’m sore, and I’m tired, and I’m far too old for this sort of gallivanting,” she told him.

He propped himself up on one arm.

“Marry me?”

Griselda was bending over to pick up a stray stocking that lay abandoned on the bedroom floor. The words drifted over to her slowly, as if they’d been whispered. She straightened, stocking in her hand, and turned. “There’s no need for that,” she said, smiling at him with all the gladness she felt in her heart that her lover was a man of honor. “I am so grateful for you asking the question, though. It always struck me as utterly demoralizing that people carry on affaires when—”

She broke off. What she saw on his face wasn’t the polite relief of a man who has asked the requisite question and been offered a reprieve. She froze in the middle of the room. “Don’t say that,” she said. “Don’t.”

“I must. I can’t think of anything but you, Griselda. I dream of you. I smell you when you aren’t with me. I can’t make clever remarks, because the only person I want to speak to is you.”

“You—” she said, and swallowed. “You are suffering an infatuation. It happens to young men.” She said that briskly, to remind herself that he was young. Very young.

He didn’t look very young as he got out of bed and walked toward her. “Age has nothing to do with it.”

“It has everything to do with it,” she retorted. “Everything! I wish I’d met you when I was younger, or you were older, or…or whatever was needed. Truly, I do. I would have pursued you so fiercely you couldn’t see another woman without me smiling over her shoulder. I would have done anything—anything!—to marry you.”

“Then have me.”

“To have is not to take. I won’t take you, with your life ahead of you. You’ll find a wife who’s your age or younger, and she’ll bear you a dozen babies.” She reached out and brushed back a lock of his hair. “I will dance at your wedding, darling, and that gladly. But I will never be your bride, for all that I am honored beyond all measure by your request.”

His eyes burned into hers. “You love me.”

Griselda raised her chin. This was getting entirely too personal. “I do not love you,” she said, keeping her voice steady and gentle. “I appreciate you. I am proud of you.”