“Very well,” she said. “What shall we do?”

“Do?”

“Or hadn’t you thought that far ahead?”

“Apparently not,” he said, flashing her what he hoped was a winning grin.

“We can’t just stand here all day in the old buttery.”

For the first time, Bret paused to take a look about. They were in a pass-through room, with one door that opened to the great hall, and another that was presently shut but probably led to the kitchens. There were a couple of tables, but other than that, the small chamber was mostly empty, save for a few ancient barrels in the corner. “Is that where we are?” he remarked.

She gave him a look of mild disdain. “You do know what a buttery is, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I live in a castle.”

“An English castle,” she said with a sniff.

“It’s a castle,” he ground out. Not as ancient as Finovair, of course, but the Brettons predated the Tudors by at least two hundred years.

“You do know that we don’t make butter in a buttery?” Miss Burns said.

“We don’t make anything in the buttery,” he shot back. And then, when her face still did not release its expression of skepticism, he said, “The buttery was where one got a beer. From wooden butts.” He raised a brow. “Satisfied?”

“This was hardly a test.”

“Wasn’t it, though?” he countered. But he felt a smile approaching. It was a little frightening how much he was enjoying himself.

“We Scots are proud of our history,” she admitted.

He gazed longingly at the dried-up old barrel. “I could use a beer right now.”

“Beer? A duke?”

“Bait to which I shall not rise,” he said archly.

She smiled at that.

“I suppose you’ll say it’s too early for spirits of any kind,” he grumbled.

“Not this morning I won’t,” she said with feeling.

He regarded her with curiosity. And admiration.

“Well, let’s see,” she said, ticking off her fingers. “I was kidnapped . . .”

“So was I,” he pointed out.

“. . . thrown into a carriage . . .”

“You have me there,” he acknowledged.

“. . . groped . . .”

“By whom?” he demanded.

“You,” she said, seemingly without ire, “but don’t worry, I got away very quickly.”

“Now see here,” Bret sputtered. He had never claimed to understand the female mind, but he did understand the female body, and there was no way she hadn’t enjoyed the previous night’s kiss every bit as much as he did. “When I kissed you . . .”

“I’m not talking about the kiss,” she said.

He stared at her, flummoxed.

She cleared her throat. “It was when . . . ah . . . Never mind.”

“Oh no, you don’t,” he warned. “You cannot introduce such a topic and then not follow through.”

“In the carriage,” she mumbled. And then: “Why were you in the carriage?”

“It was my carriage,” he reminded her.

“Yes, but the rest of us were in the ballroom.”

He shrugged. “I was tired.” It was true. And bored, too, although he would not tell her that. The Maycotts’ Icicle Ball had been pleasant enough, but he’d really wanted to be home.

“I suppose it was late—” Miss Burns started to say.

“Don’t change the subject,” he cut in.

She didn’t even try to look innocent.

“The groping,” he reminded her.

Her cheeks went every bit as pink as they should. “You were asleep,” she mumbled.

He had groped her while he was asleep? “I’m sure you must be mistaken.”

That got her goat. “You called me Delilah,” she ground out.

“Oh.” He had a sinking suspicion that his cheeks were also going every bit as pink as they should. Which was to say, quite a lot.

“Who’s Delilah?” she asked.

“No one whom you would ever have cause to meet.”

“Who’s Delilah?”

This could not end well. “Surely this is not an appropriate—”

“Who’s Delilah?”

He paused, taking a good look at her face. Miss Burns was lovely with her color high and eyes flashing. His eyes dropped to her lips, and there it was again, that amazing, overwhelming desire to kiss her. It wasn’t an urge so much as a need. He could stop himself if he had to, but oh, what a sad and colorless place the world would be if he did.

“What are you looking at?” she asked suspiciously.

“Are you jealous?” he asked with a slow smile.

“Of course not. We just got through—”

“You’re jealous,” he declared.

“I said I’m not— What are you doing?”

“Kicking the door shut,” he said, just as he did so. It was a small room, and only three steps were required to bring him back to her side. “About that kiss,” he said, pulling her into his arms.

Her lips parted, just in time for his to brush gently against them.

“I said I would do my best,” he murmured.

“Your best not to kiss me,” she reminded him, her voice trembling softly into a whisper.

He nibbled at her lower lip, then gently explored the corner of her mouth. “My best, apparently, has nothing to do with not kissing you.”

She made some sort of inarticulate sound. But it wasn’t a no. It definitely wasn’t a no.

Bret deepened the kiss, nearly shuddering with desire when he felt her body relax against his. He didn’t know what it was about this woman, what mystery she possessed that made him want to possess her. But he did. He wanted her with an intensity that should have terrified him. He’d never dallied with gently bred women, and he wasn’t angling for a bride. Catriona Burns was all wrong for him, in almost every possible way.

Almost.

Because the thing was, when she was in his arms . . . No, even when she was merely in the room with him . . .

He was happy.

Not content, not pleased. Happy. Joyful.

Good God, he sounded like a hymn.

But that was what it felt like, as if a chorus of angels were singing through him, infusing him with such pleasure that he could not contain it. It spilled out through his smile, through his kiss and his hands, and he had to share it with her. He had to make her feel it, too.

“Please tell me you’re enjoying this,” he begged.

“I shouldn’t,” she said raggedly.

“But you do.”

“I do,” she admitted, moaning as his hands cupped her bottom.

“You don’t lie,” he said, hearing his smile in his words.

“Not about this.”

“Catriona,” he murmured, then drew back a few inches. “Do people call you Cat?”

“Never.”

He gazed down at her for a moment, his first inclination to declare that he would call her that. He wanted something special for her, something all his own. But it didn’t fit, he realized. She would never be Cat. Her eyes were too round, too open and honest. There was nothing slinky about her, nothing cunning or calculated.

Which wasn’t to say she wasn’t enormously clever.

And witty.

And sensible.

“Who is Delilah?” she whispered. While she was kissing him.

And stubborn, apparently.

He pulled back, just far enough to settle his nose against hers. “She was my mistress,” he said, unable to be anything but honest with her.

“Was?”

If his life had been written by Shakespeare, he might have said that Delilah had entered the past tense of his story when he first laid eyes on Catriona. That he had been so squarely struck by Cupid’s arrow that all other women were made insubstantial and colorless.

But the truth was, Bret had broken it off with “Delicious Delilah” some weeks earlier. It was exhausting keeping company with London’s most renowned opera singer. Forget her temperament, which was full of drama, both on and off the stage. It was the other men who were driving him to the edge. He couldn’t get a quiet drink at White’s without a pack of young bucks edging over to his table with winks and leers and drunken elbows jabbing in his shoulder.

Even at the Icicle Ball he’d been accosted by a pack of young men dying to talk to him about the legendary lady. To say nothing of the rude and raunchy gestures, as if the young dandies could approximate Delilah’s curves by cupping their hands in front of them.