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And something sparked in his eyes, something hot and sharp and gone before she could inhale.

“No, it does not,” said the baron quietly. “Careful now.”

Before Gwen could understand what was happening, before she could even think, the man had closed the gap between them once again and had actually lifted a hand to cup her cheek.

And fireworks started to go off in Gwen’s stomach.

That was all she could think of: the fireworks, the twisting, whizzing heat cascading through her body as his palm rested against her face, and it made no sense!

This was just Baron Frasemere: just a tall, handsome man with a jawline to kill for and kind eyes.

“Wh-What?” was all she managed.

“Shhh,” murmured the man, causing even more fireworks to be let off and her throat to go dry. “You have some dirt on your face. Thrown up by the carriage, no doubt.”

Dirt? On her face?

Was that the reason this man was crowding out all sense of time and place, why her body was leaning into his, why Gwen was being not merely visited but harangued by the desire to mirror him and feel the curve of his jaw in her hand?

Lord Frasemere smiled. “I’ll get it off in just a moment.”

His thumb was gentle, brushing delicately across her cheek, and Gwen had to swallow down a moan of longing for…she knew not what…as he did so.

Oh, this was—this was too much. How did anyone stand such intimacy? How could the world keep on spinning while she stood here, utterly transfixed by a man she had not known a week ago?

And the thought that kept pushing aside all others, the thought that Gwen tried to bury but eventually could not ignore, was this.

I have never felt anything—anything—like this with the Marquess of Ravenshurst.

“You are very beautiful, Miss Gwendoline,” murmured Lord Frasemere.

Gwen was not going to respond. That was not the sort of thing one responded—“So are you,” she whispered, staring into the man’s deep-blue eyes.

His brows lifted for just a moment, then a smile, radiant and joyful and firing in her very toes, spread across Baron Frasemere. And that was when she realized that seeing this man smile, making this man smile, was the only thing she wanted to do for the rest of her life. She would be honored indeed to merely stand in the sun of that smile and see it every day, cause it every moment, for seeing Ernest Quintrell happy was unlike anything she had ever—

“What are you two up to?”

Gwen sprang backward, almost falling down all three steps that led up to her house before she managed to right herself and turn to glare at the interloper. “None of your business!”

She would probably have responded so no matter who had interrupted such a moment, but the fact that it was her idiotic brother only added a fresh layer of vehemence to the moment.

“I just asked,” said Michael with a shrug as he walked up the small walkway from the pavement. “I came to call on old Quintrell—sorry, Frasemere. It’s going to take a little time to get accustomed to all these changes in titles, isn’t it? Are you free this afternoon, man? I thought I’d finally show you the Dreamer.”

She should not, Gwen reminded herself, have been disappointed. She should not have been irritated with her brother for interrupting them, nor for taking Lord Frasemere away. It was a good thing. They had needed to be interrupted.

Whatever had been about to happen if there had been no interruption, I dread to think.

She dreaded to think about it all afternoon, as her mother and Teddy chattered about their embroidery projects.

She dreaded to think about it as her father offered her a glass of ginger wine before dinner.

She dreaded to think about it throughout dinner, her gaze continuously dragged over to the empty seat where Baron Frasemere should have been sitting, but he had obviously received a better invitation.

And she dreaded to think about it when she went to bed, burning and aching for something Gwen did not quite understand.

Chapter Six

September 14, 1841