He would have thought them the words and gesture of a practiced coquette if it had not been for her blush and her wide eyes. Good God, she was probably as innocent as a babe despite her short-lived marriage to a dying man. Did she really know what she was saying? Did she know she was playing with fire? "In bed?" he asked her very deliberately.

She licked her lips, another provocative gesture that he guessed was unconscious. "Yes," she said. "I am not a virgin, if that is what you were wondering.

Hedley was capable - Well, never mind. Yes, I would know how to please you in bed. And out of it too. I know how to make people cheerful. I know how to make them laugh." "And I need to be cheered up and to laugh?" he said, narrowing his eyes on her. "And you can make it happen even though I have no sense of humor?" "Oh, /that/." She looked away from him to gaze out at the lake. "I hurt you, did I not? Somehow that seems to be the worst insult one can cast upon anyone. People will admit to all sorts of vices and shortcomings except a lack of humor. And I did not actually /say /that you had none, did I? I merely said that you never smile. I meant that you take life too seriously." "Life /is /serious," he said. "No, it is not." She looked back at him. "Not always or even frequently.

There is always something to marvel over. There is always joy to be found. There is always the possibility of laughter in almost any situation." "And yet," he said, "you lost a husband in a particularly cruel manner.

Was not /that /serious?" "Not a day passed," she told him, her eyes suddenly bright, "in which we did not marvel at the wonder of our world and our life together. There was not a day without laughter. Except the last. But even then he smiled. It was the last expression on his face as he died." Lord! He did not need this. He waited with some impatience to wake up and find it still early morning with himself still safely in his own bed - preparing to pay his addresses to Miss Huxtable. "But we have strayed from the point," she said. "/Will /you marry /me /instead of Meg?" "Why either of you?" he asked her. "Would you not prefer your freedom if I assure you that I will not then pay my addresses to your sister?" She stared at him again. "Oh," she said, "you really do not want me, do you?" /Of course /he did not want her. Good lord! She was surely the last woman on earth he could possibly ever want. She had nothing - /nothing!/ - to commend her.

He opened his mouth to confirm her suspicion.

Except one thing - she had /one /thing to commend her. How had his mother phrased it yesterday? /Loyalty and devotion. /That was two things. But she had them both - directed not toward him, but toward her family.

She had realized yesterday from something his mother had said that he was considering offering marriage to her elder sister - and Miss Huxtable had realized it too. Mrs. Dew knew that her sister would accept his offer even though doing so would shatter her already bruised heart. So she had thought desperately of how she might prevent such a disaster.

And she had concocted her scheme - instead of taking the easy and obvious course of coming to him today and simply explaining the situation to him. Perhaps she had thought him too much of a monster - or too arrogant! - to listen to reason. However it was, she had decided to offer herself as the family sacrificial lamb. And she had done so even though she had never made a secret of the fact that she disliked and disapproved of him.

And now he was about to humiliate her in perhaps the worst way imaginable. She had offered herself and he was about to spurn the gift - eloquently and brutally.

And serve her right too, he thought nastily, frowning at her.

But he closed his mouth. "I am not even pretty, am I?" she said. "And I have been married before.

It was terribly foolish of me to think that my plan might work and you would be willing to take me. /Will /you promise not to offer for Meg, though? Or Kate either. She needs someone different from you." "Someone more /human/?" he asked. His eyes narrowed again.

She closed her eyes briefly. "I did not mean that the way it sounded," she said. "I merely meant that she needs someone younger and… and…" "With a sense of humor?" he suggested.

She looked at him and smiled unexpectedly - a smile full of laughter and mischief. "Do you keep hoping you will wake up and find it is still last night?" she asked him. "/I /do. I have never in my life made such an idiot of myself. And I cannot even ask you to forget this ever happened. It would be impossible to forget." Yes, it would. He was suddenly angry again.

He leaned forward and set his lips to hers.

She jerked her head back like a frightened rabbit and he raised his eyebrows. "It is just that I would like a little proof," he said, "that your twice-made boast was not entirely idle." She looked at him in incomprehension for a moment. "That I know how to please a man?" Her eyes were huge again, her cheeks aflame. "Yes," he said softly. "/That /boast." "It was not a boast." When he did not move, she lifted her gloved hands to frame his face, raised her puckered lips to his, and kissed him very softly and gently on the lips.

It was the saddest apology for a kiss he had ever been given by any woman who was not either his mother or one of his sisters.

But /that, /he thought as she released him and looked anxiously into his eyes, was /definitely /a frisson of sexual awareness he felt tightening his groin area. More than a frisson, in fact.

Good Lord! "Hats and gloves /are /an impediment, are they not?" he said, removing his own and dropping them to the grass, and then pulling free the ribbon beneath her chin and sending her bonnet to the ground behind her.

She slid off her gloves, biting her lip as she did so. "Now," he said, "you can make a less inhibited demonstration." She framed his face with her hands again - they were warm and soft - and gazed into his eyes until she kissed him.

Her mouth was still softly puckered, but this time she moved it over his lips, parting her own slightly so that he could feel the moist heat within. And her fingers crept up into his hair. She kissed his chin, his cheeks, his closed eyelids, his temples, very softly, very gently. And then his mouth again, touching the tip of her tongue to his lips, running it slowly along the seam.

No other part of her body touched him.

He stood very still, his arms at his sides, his fingers slowly curling into his palms.

And then she was done with her demonstration. She stepped back, and her hands fell to her sides. "You must understand," she said, "that Hedley had no experience at all before I married him. And I did not either, of course. And he was very, very ill through most of our marriage. I do not…I am sorry. It /was /a boast." He looked downward, stooped to pick up a flat pebble, and turned toward the lake to send it bouncing across the water, leaving tiny whirlpools in its wake.

He had suddenly realized something. It was too late simply to dismiss her preposterous suggestion with the contempt it deserved. He had invited her to kiss him, and she had done so. If he had not exactly compromised her, he had at least toyed with her sensibilities.

There was the small matter of honor to be addressed now. "Yes, it /was /a boast," he said, turning back to her, speaking almost viciously. "I /am /experienced, you see, Mrs. Dew, and I would make far more demands on a wife than a sick man ever did. I daresay you would retract your kind offer to marry me in a moment if /I /made /you /a demonstration." "I would /not,/" she said, her eyes flashing back at him. "I am not a child. And there is no cause for you to be angry. I have made a perfectly civil offer and you are quite at liberty to say no - though I do hope you would not then offer for Meg after all. /Make /your demonstration and I shall tell you if I wish to retract my offer." Her nostrils had flared. She was angry.