“Then come along, Princess Lenore. The wilds await.”
He offered his arm, and Lenore took it, sending an excited smile to Gladys and Amaryllis, who sat at the kitchen table, devouring their supper with all the gusto of farm hands who had spent all day working. They waved at her and wished her and Phin goodbye with their mouths full and their eyes shining.
“Yorkshire truly is lovely,” Lenore said with a sigh as they made their way across the lawn to a footpath that ran between fields of wild grass and flowers that smelled as divine as they looked. Shades of orange and red blended with sage and darker greens in all directions. “It’s very different from Wyoming, but it has the same sort of homey feel to it.”
“I’m glad that you feel at home here,” Phin said with a grin that held far more excitement than a simple picnic near his home should have.
She sent him a flat look, pretending to be circumspect, even as her heart raced and her head spun. “You aren’t planning anything nefarious for this evening, are you?” she asked. The question was pointless, because of course he was.
“Now, what would make you say that?” He put on a baffled look that was as charming as it was false. His glasses only made him look more devilish somehow, and the warm light of the sun as it sank toward the horizon bathed him in rich hues of gold.
“I know you well enough to know you aren’t the sort to blithely jaunt off through the moors with a picnic basket over one arm,” she said, wondering if she wanted to wheedle a confession out of him and get him to stop his games or not.
“You’ve only seen me in London,” he said with a shrug. “You have no idea what I’m like when I’m in the country.”
“Oh, I have a feeling I do,” she murmured, sending him a wry grin.
They walked on for a bit, climbing a hill to where a small stand of trees in a remote clearing surrounded by tall grass could conceal while still giving them a beautiful view of the purples and greens of the surrounding moors. Their conversation turned to the antics of the girls, and Lenore shared a few stories of her younger siblings and the trouble they’d gotten into back home. For a few, glorious moments, it was as if nothing else existed in the world, as if Bart were a fiction and the troubles she’d gotten herself into had never happened. She wanted to embrace that moment for all it was worth.
“Hazel has truly outdone herself with this feast,” Phin commented once they were settled into their meal of cold meats and bread still warm from the oven. They ate while lounging on a thick blanket Phin had spread across the surprisingly springy grass near a scrubby tree. “I’m always amazed at what she can get up to, even with her limitations.”
“Yes, it’s amazing what a little determination and a mind as clever as I’ve seen Hazel’s is can accomplish,” Lenore said, washing down her last bite of bread with the locally-made mead Phin had brought with them. It was as good as any of the beer she’d ever had at The Silver Dollar Saloon back home.
Lenore expected Phin to go on with some new story of Hazel’s ingenuity, but he merely stared at her with a curious smile, as if a thousand thoughts were running riot behind his glasses and his sparkling eyes. She could tell that none of those thoughts were suitable for mixed company, which sent heat and tingles all through her body. But they also pricked hard at her conscience. There were so many things she really needed to tell Phin, but they were all things she should have told him months ago, when they’d first become acquainted while helping Phoebe Long. Every second that ticked past made her even guiltier of deception than she was when she first set foot in England.
“I love how clearly you can see the stars out here,” she said, resting back on her elbows and gazing up at the swiftly-darkening sky. The sun had begun setting before they reached the hill, and night was closing in fast. A few particularly bright stars already dotted the colorful sky. “Just another thing that reminds me of home,” she sighed.
“How would you like it if this were your home?” Phin asked, packing up what remained of their picnic and setting the basket aside.
Lenore dragged her gaze down from the heavens to watch as Phin slid closer to her, stretching to his side beside her. Her heart thrummed so hard it was painful. She knew the look in his eyes, reveled in the affection she saw there, and winced inwardly as she remembered the conversation they’d had on the train. She knew exactly where the evening was heading, and she was the worst kind of villainess for wanting it to go there with her whole heart.
“To be perfectly honest, I would like that very much,” she sighed, hopelessness joining the undeniable arousal she felt with Phin’s body so close to hers. “But, Phin, I could never—”
He didn’t let her finish, which came as absolutely no surprise to her whatsoever. He leaned into her, kissing her with a passion that took her breath away. His mouth was warm and hungry on hers and tasted of the mead and bread they’d just eaten—good, wholesome flavors. She didn’t bother trying to resist as he maneuvered her to her back and fit himself against her, half covering her, as he roamed her body with one hand, settling on caressing her breast. It felt perfect in so many ways, and wrong in so many others.
“I love you,” he said between lighter kisses. “I know it makes me utterly mad for falling in love so fast and so hard, and for admitting it like a green schoolboy, but I love you.”
Lenore’s heart squeezed to the point of causing her actual pain. “I’m just as crazy as you are,” she sighed. “Because as wrong as it is, I love you too.”
“It’s not wrong at all,” he insisted, inching closer to her and stroking a hand down her side to her hip. “It’s the rightest thing in the world.”
He gathered her skirts in his fist, hoisting them up slightly in a wicked invitation that was utterly and completely Phin-like. If she were honest with herself, she adored the fact that he was so sensual. She was beyond excited by his lust and his bluntness in acting on it. He was everything that good girls were told to run screaming from, and yet he managed to be sexual without coming off as a rogue or a rake. He was simply a man who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to go after it. Just as she’d always considered herself to be a woman who never let convention stand in the way of her desires. They were perfect for each other.
“Phin, I know it might not feel like it right now, but the situation is so much more complicated than you realize,” she managed to squeeze out as it became harder and harder to breathe. The kisses he trailed down her neck while unbuttoning her blouse didn’t help the rationality of the situation one bit.
“I know it’s complex,” he said, losing patience with her buttons and tugging her blouse out from the waistband of her skirt entirely. “I have Lady Hamilton and her detective breathing down my neck. I am a man with a target on his head. But I’m so very sorry for writing about Lady Agnes the way I did. I swear, I’ll never do it again. From here on out, the only heroine I want to write about is you.”
Lenore sucked in a breath—partially because of the way he stroked a hand along her corset to her breast, and partially because she’d forgotten about Lady Hamilton and Lady Agnes entirely.
“I promise I will keep you safe from that Mr. Swan who has come after you,” he went on, finishing with the buttons of her bodice and pushing it aside so that he could rain kisses on the swell of her breasts—a gesture that did nothing to help Lenore keep her thoughts in one place. “I have friends at Scotland Yard. No doubt Freddy and Reese have already appealed to Lord Clerkenwell to thwart whatever purpose Mr. Swan has come to London for. But mostly—” He paused, bringing his lips back to hers and utterly robbing her of breath with the deepest and most heartfelt kiss she’d ever received. “Mostly I just want to marry you,” he finished at last. “I will give you everything and protect you with my life once you’re my wife.”