Your father is dead, and you have no one left in the world but me, Stephen thought, but he knew there was another reason that was far more compelling, though not entirely true: "Yesterday, I didn't fully recognize how badly we want each other."

"Yes, but earlier tonight, I was perfectly certain I did not want you at all. Wait, I have a suggestion-" she said, and Stephen grinned at the way her face lit up, even though he knew he was neither going to like, nor to agree to, any alteration in his plans. Five hundred years of undiluted nobility flowed in his veins, and with the true arrogance of his illustrious forebears, Stephen David Elliott Westmoreland had already decided that his will was going to prevail in the matter. All that was important was that she wanted him, and he wanted her. Beyond that, his only reason for haste was that he wanted her to be able to enjoy some time as his wife before she had to confront her father's death.

"We could go on as we are, and if you don't become disagreeable, and if we continue to like kissing one another, then we could be married."

"A tempting suggestion," Stephen lied politely, "but as it happens, I have a great deal more in mind than merely kissing you, and I am… uncomfortably eager… to satisfy us both on that score."

Her reply to that remark proved that she'd forgotten more than merely her own name, and her fiance's name. Either that, or like many of her gently bred English counterparts, she'd never been told what was actually going to happen on her wedding night. With her delicate russet brows drawn together over quizzical gray eyes, she confirmed it. "I don't know what you mean or what precisely you have in mind, but if I am making you uncomfortable, it's little wonder. I am practically sitting on your lap."

"We'll discuss all my meanings and motives later," he promised in a voice roughened by the pleasure she gave him as she wriggled her way off his lap.

"When will we discuss it?" she persisted stubbornly when she was seated across from him again.

"Sunday night."

Unable to summon the fortitude to argue with him further or even meet the challenge of his gaze, Sherry parted the curtain at the side window of the coach and looked out. Two things hit her at once: First, they were stopped in front of a house with footmen standing at attention on every step, holding torches to welcome the droves of splendidly garbed guests who were moving inside in a steady stream while casting curious looks over their shoulders at the door of the coach. And worse, if her reflection in the coach window was even close to accurate, Sherry's elaborate coiffure had been hopelessly damaged by her fiance's marauding fingers. "My hair!" she whispered, aghast, reaching up and confirming that the intricate curls had come loose and were hanging about her shoulders in what Stephen privately thought was delightful, artless disarray. But then the moment she'd called attention to her hair, his thoughts had immediately gone to his regular fantasy of seeing those locks spilled over his bare chest. "I can't go in there, looking like this. People will think-" When she trailed off in embarrassed silence, Stephen's lips twitched.

"What will they think?" he prompted, studying her flushed cheeks and rosy lips knowing damned well what some of them were going to rightfully assume.

"It does not bear contemplating," she said with a shudder, pulling the pins out of the gleaming mass and letting it tumble over her shoulders.

Sherry pulled the comb through her hair, growing increasingly aware of the way his warm gaze lingered on her movements, and it only added to her confusion. "Please stop looking at me in that way," she said helplessly.

"Looking at you has been my favorite pastime from the moment you asked me to describe your face," he said solemnly, looking straight into her eyes.

The velvet roughness of his voice and the amazing words he'd spoken were more seductive than any kiss could have been. Sherry felt all her resistance to marrying him begin to collapse, but pride and her heart demanded she mean more to him than she apparently had. "Before you think any further about a marriage on Sunday," she said hesitantly, "I think you should know I have a freakish aversion to something that English ladies seem not to mind in the least. I myself did not recognize, until earlier tonight, how strongly I feel."

Baffled, Stephen said, "To what do you have this aversion?"

"The color lavender."

"I see." Stephen was stunned by her temerity and unwillingly impressed by her courage.

"Please consider it very carefully before you decide if we should even remain betrothed another day."

"I'll do that," he replied.

He hadn't conceded as she'd hoped, but at least he wasn't angry, and he had taken her seriously. Sherry told herself to be satisfied with that and lifted her hands to try to restore more order to her tumbled hair. Self-conscious as the focus of his lazy, admiring glance, she said with a helpless smile, "I can't do this if you're going to watch me."

34

Reluctantly Stephen withdrew his gaze, but no one else who saw her walking along the balcony beside him and down the steps into the Rutherfords' crowded ballroom a few minutes later looked away from her. Her head was high, her lips were rosy from his kisses, and her smooth skin seemed to glow. In contrast to the image of quiet serenity she presented in the cool ivory gown, her hair was loose, flowing over her shoulders and down her back in a molten mantle of graceful waves and curls.

To Sherry, it seemed to take forever to work their way through the guests who stopped the earl on the balcony, the steps, and the floor of the ballroom to speak to him-which wouldn't have mattered to her in the least if so much of their conversation hadn't been littered with joking references that made her feel excruciatingly uncomfortable. "I say, Langford," a gentleman on the balcony said with a laugh the instant the butler finished announcing their names, "I heard you've developed a recent fondness for the assembly rooms at Almack's!"

The earl sent him a look of comic horror, but the joking had only just begun. An instant later, another man stopped a servant who was in the act of offering the last two glasses of champagne on his tray to Stephen and Sherry. "No, no, no!" he said to the startled servant as he whisked the glasses off the tray and out of their reach. "His lordship prefers lemonade these days. Oh, and be sure it is nice and warm," he instructed the servant, "just the way they serve it at Almack's."

The earl leaned forward and said something that made the other man guffaw, and the good-natured joking went on and on and on as they wended their way slowly down the stairs…

"Langford, is it true?" a middle-aged man joked, when they finally reached the ballroom floor. "Did some red-haired chit at Almack's actually give you the cut-direct in the middle of the dance floor?" Stephen tipped his head meaningfully to Sherry, acknowledging it was true and that she was the "red-haired chit" who had done it. With a large group of people looking on, the other man demanded an introduction, then he grinned widely at her. "My dear young lady, it is a privilege to meet you," he declared as he raised her hand for a gallant kiss. "Until tonight, I didn't think there was a female alive who was immune to this devil's charm."

Moments later an elderly man leaned heavily on his cane and said with a wheezing cackle, "Heard your dancing isn't up to snuff these days, Langford. If you'll come round tomorrow, I could give you a lesson or two." Overcome by his own humor, he banged his cane on the floor for emphasis and cackled with glee.