By now, of course, Goddard was no longer waiting for the word. He had been assigned another task.

Typically, although she was clearly not at ease, his betrothed was looking directly and steadily at him.

He leaned forward to set his hands on the arms of her chair and brought his mouth to hers. She was not an experienced kisser, and that was something of an understatement. Her lips remained closed and still, though there was nothing shrinking or reluctant about them. He parted his own lips, moved them lightly over hers, licking them until they parted, and curled his tongue behind them. She moved then. He sensed her hands unclenching and felt them light against his chest and then curling over his shoulders. He pressed his tongue past her teeth and into her mouth. She drew breath sharply—through her mouth—and gripped his shoulders. He drew the tip of his tongue along the roof of her mouth, and she sucked on it.

She could give lessons to courtesans, he thought as he withdrew his tongue and lifted his head. She smelled faintly of lavender water. He straightened up.

“Go and fetch your bonnet,” he said. “Knock on Elizabeth’s door and get her to bring hers too if she does not have other plans for the rest of the morning. If she does, we will have to take Bertha instead.”

“Where are we going?” she asked him. “Will I need to change?”

“You will not need to change,” he assured her. “I am going to take you to an insignificant church on an insignificant street. Neither has any architectural feature to be remarked upon, and as far as I know nothing of any great historical significance has ever happened there.”

She smiled slowly at him. “Then why are we going there?” she asked.

“To be married,” he said.

She cocked her head to one side while the smile was replaced by a look of puzzlement. “To be married,” she repeated. “In an insignificant church on an insignificant street. Grandmama and my aunts will not like it. They have their hearts set upon St. George’s or even St. Paul’s, which is very grand indeed. I have seen it from the outside.”

He drew a folded paper from an inside pocket of his coat, opened it, and handed it to her. She looked down at it, read it, and frowned.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A special license,” he told her. “It permits us to marry in a church of our own choosing by a clergyman of our choosing and on a day suited to us.”

She looked up at him, the frown still on her face, the license dangling from one hand. “We are going to be married now?” she asked him. “This morning?”

“The thing is, you see, Anna,” he said, “that when you said you wished to be wed, it was for the express purpose of making it possible to travel to the village of Wensbury without any lengthy delay and without having to take with you a whole arsenal of female companions to make my presence in the entourage respectable. A grand wedding would delay our departure by at least a month.”

“For the express purpose—?” Her frown had not gone away. “But marriage is forever.”

“Oh, not really,” he assured her. “Only until one of us dies.”

Her eyes widened. “I do not want you to die,” she said.

“Perhaps you will go first,” he said, “though I rather think I hope not. I would probably have grown accustomed to you by then and would miss you.”

For a moment she looked horrified, and then she laughed, a sound of genuine glee.

“Avery,” she said, “you are quite impossible and quite outrageous. We cannot marry today.”

“Why not?” he asked her.

She stared at him for a few moments. “I am not—dressed,” she said.

“I beg to inform you that you are,” he said. “I would be blushing horribly if you were not.”

“I—” She appeared to be tongue-tied before laughing again. “Avery!”

He took his snuffbox from his pocket, opened it with a flick of his thumb, examined the blend, closed the box, and put it away.

“A question,” he said. “Do you want the ton wedding, Anna? It will be very splendid indeed. Everyone will be there, perhaps even Prinny himself—the Prince of Wales, that is, the Regent. We are both very grand persons, and our wedding will be the Event of the Season—that is Event with a capital E, I would have you understand. It might be a bit overwhelming, though it would, I suppose, be the ultimate dream of girls growing up in an orphanage.”

“No,” she said. “You are not a prince. That would be the ultimate dream. And a glass coach.”

He regarded her with appreciation.

“Do you want the wedding, Anna?” he asked again. “The one your relatives are busy planning?”

She shook her head and closed her eyes briefly. “I grow sick at the very thought,” she said. “I have grown so weary of . . . grandness, yet it will only grow worse.”

“Another question.” He gazed into her eyes when she opened them. “Do you want to marry me?”

She gazed back for a moment, then shifted her gaze to the paper in her hand. She spread it carefully on her lap and looked down at it.

“Yes,” she said, returning her gaze to him at last. “But do you want to marry me?”

“Go and fetch your bonnet,” he told her, and he took the license from her lap, replaced it in his pocket, and reached out a hand to help her to her feet.

“Very well,” she said.

She paused to frown at him a few moments later when he held the drawing room door for her. She opened her mouth to speak, drew breath, and then left the room without saying anything.