Never Fall for Your Fiancee

Minerva stared down at her tea. Had she sugared it already? If she had, she didn’t remember, so she spooned some in to be sure and stirred it idly, returning to the same thing she had been mulling over all night.

That kiss.

Thank goodness she had the breakfast room to herself, because all these hours later she was still not fully over it or fit to be seen in company.

Obviously, it had been a goodbye. A thank-you. An acknowledgment that the attraction between them had been mutual. Bittersweet, too, tinged with regret that their enjoyable interlude was at an end but also accepting of the fact that they could never be more. Under all normal circumstances, a carefree earl who owned this palace and a cynical girl from Clerkenwell would never have met, let alone spend almost a week ensconced in one another’s company. She was in no doubt, life for them would move on—but oh my goodness! That kiss had been something!

Thanks to Hugh, she now knew a kiss was not just about lips—but teeth and tongues, bodies and hearts as well.

Somewhere she had offered him both and gave them freely, expecting nothing in return. Because what was there to expect? He lived in his world and she lived in hers, and never the twain should meet. There was no future, no past, only that moment. A moment she had lived in fully.

In truth, if he hadn’t been the one to tear his mouth away, she realized she would have given him more. Allowed him greater liberties, Lord only knew how many, because her body had craved them and in that moment it had felt right.

She smiled and added more sugar to her tea. Because Hugh had been as stunned as she at the spontaneous passion that had erupted like a volcano between them. Wonderful, poignant, perfect but as impossible as it was impractical. As soon as her door had clicked quietly closed, she had staggered to the chair at her dressing table. And there she sat for a good ten minutes before she allowed her eyes to finally focus on her own reflection in the mirror, and barely recognized the wanton creature who stared back.

Her hair was a tangled disaster. Her lips plump, swollen from his kisses, while the proper nightgown she had dressed for bed in had somehow undone itself at the neck and had slipped down, exposing one entire naked shoulder and an improper amount of flesh between her chin and the upper swells of her breasts. If that hadn’t been scandalous enough, two very erect, very greedy nipples were prominently poking through the filmy linen, the dark shadows of them something he had to have seen when his eyes had possessively raked the length of her just before he left.

Hours later, those same nipples kept pebbling each time she remembered how she had craved his hands on them—so persistently, she had wrapped her thickest new shawl around her upper body in case they announced her shameless behavior and carnal desires to the entire household with their blatant erectness.

“You’re up early.”

Minerva jumped, then felt her face heat guiltily at the sound of his mother’s voice. “I am an early bird by nature, my lady.” Hugh’s mother was the last person she wanted to see in her current state. Not when she was still in the undeniable throes of residual lust for her son. Self-consciously, she checked the shawl around her shoulders and gave the sturdy knot she had tied a tug in case it shifted and gave the game away. “I have never been very good at sleeping in.”

“Me either—and please, call me Olivia … until we are officially family, at least.”

“Very well … Olivia.” It was very hard to appear normal when her bosoms felt so heavy and she was in the midst of guiltily recalling every scandalous moment of that eye-opening embrace.

“Is everything all right, Minerva?”

Good gracious! Was it obvious she had been thoroughly ravished and had enjoyed every second of it? She had no choice but to brazen it out. “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t it be?” To prove it, she took a sip of her tea and nearly gagged at the sickly-sweet taste of it. Exactly how many sugars had she put into it whilst mooning about Hugh? It was like treacle. But for the sake of appearances, she had to choke it down regardless.