Now it seemed his tradition would be broken by Taran Ferguson, the improbable uncle of both Oakley and Rocheforte.

Oakley and Rocheforte. He’d nearly fallen over when he saw them. He’d known Oakley since . . . well, since he’d punched him in the eye their first week at Eton and gotten a bloody lip in return. But it had all been good since then.

As for Rocheforte, Bret didn’t know him well, but he’d always seemed an amiable, devil-may-care sort of fellow.

Bret glanced out the window, not that he could see anything. “When you said it was going to snow tonight,” he said to Miss Burns, “had you any thoughts as to the amount? Or duration?”

She turned to him with frank dark eyes. “Are you asking me when we might be able to leave?”

He liked a woman who got to the point. “Precisely that.”

She grimaced. “It may well be three days, Your Grace. Or more.”

“Good Lord,” he heard himself say.

“My thoughts exactly.”

He cleared his throat. “Has Mr. Ferguson ever done . . . this before?”

Her lips pressed together with what he thought might be amusement. “Do you mean kidnap a duke?”

“Kidnap anyone,” he clarified.

“Not to my knowledge, but he did run bare-arsed through the village last May Day.”

Bret blinked. Had she just used the word “arse”? He tried to recall the last time he’d heard a gentlewoman do so. He was fairly certain the answer was never. Then, as he watched the firelight flickering across her skin, he decided he didn’t care.

Miss Burns wasn’t beautiful, not in the way Lady Cecily was, with her rosebud mouth and heart-shaped face. But she had something. Her eyes, he decided. Dark as night, and blazingly direct. You couldn’t see what she was thinking, not with eyes so dark.

But you could feel it.

“Your Grace?” she murmured, and he realized he’d been staring.

“I’m sorry,” he said automatically. “You were saying?”

Her brows rose a fraction of an inch. “Do you mean,” she asked with careful disbelief, “for me to continue the story about Taran Ferguson going bare-arsed through the village?”

“Precisely,” he clipped, since if he spoke in any other tone of voice, he might have to admit to himself that he was blushing.

Which he was quite certain he did not do.

She paused. “Well,” she said, clearing her throat, “there was a wager.”

This he found interesting. “Do many Scottish wagers involve racing about unattired?”

“Not at all, Your Grace.” And then, just when he thought he might have offended her, the corners of her lips made the slightest indentation of a smile, and she added, “The air is far too chilly for that.”

He smothered a laugh.

“I believe the wager had something to do with making the vicar’s wife faint. There was no requirement for nudity.” Her eyes gave a slight heavenward tilt of exasperation. “That was Taran’s invention entirely.”

“Did he win?”

“Of course not,” Miss Burns scoffed. “It would take more than his scrawny backside to make a Scotswoman faint.”

“Scrawny, eh?” Bret murmured. “Then you looked?”

“I could scarcely not. He ran down the lane whooping like a banshee.”

For a moment he stared. She looked so lovely standing there by the fire, her thick hair just starting to come loose from its pins. Everything about her looked prim and proper and perfectly appropriate.

Except her expression. She’d rolled her eyes, and scrunched her nose, and he thought she might have just snorted at him.

Snorted. He tried to remember the last time he’d heard a gentlewoman do that in his presence. Probably the last time one had said “arse.”

And then the laugh that had been fizzing within him finally broke free. It started small, with just a silent shake, and then before he knew it, he was roaring, bent over from the strength of it, rolling and rumbling in his belly, coming out in great, big, beary guffaws.

He tried to remember the last time he’d laughed like this.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, he looked over at Miss Burns, who, while not doubled over, was laughing right along with him. She was clearly trying to maintain some dignity, keeping her lips pressed together, but her shoulders were shaking, and finally, she sagged against the wall and gasped for breath.

“Oh my,” she said, waving a hand in front of her face for no apparent reason. “Oh my.” She looked at him, her eyes meeting his with a direct gaze that he suspected was as much a part of her as her arms and legs. “I don’t even know what we’re laughing about,” she said with a helpless smile.

“Nor I,” he admitted.

The laughter fell softly away.

“We must be hungry,” she said quietly.

“Or cold.”

“Insensible,” she whispered.

He stepped toward her. He couldn’t not. “Completely.”

And then he kissed her. Right there in front of the fire in Taran Ferguson’s sitting room, he did the one thing he shouldn’t do.

He kissed her.

When the duke stepped away, Catriona felt cold. Colder than when she’d been in the carriage. Colder than when she’d been standing in the snow. Even with the fire burning brightly at her back, she was cold.

This wasn’t the cold of temperature. It was the cold of loss.

His lips had been on hers. His arms had been around her. And then they weren’t.

It was as simple as that.

She looked up at him. His eyes—good heavens, they were blue. How had she not noticed it? They were like a loch in summer, except a loch didn’t have little flecks of midnight, and it couldn’t stare straight into her soul.

“I should apologize,” he murmured, staring at her with something approaching wonder.

“But you won’t?”

He shook his head. “It would be a lie.”

“And you never lie.” It wasn’t a question. She knew it was true.

“Not about something like this.”

She felt her tongue dart out to moisten her lips. “Have you done this before?”

A small smile played across his features. “Kissed a woman?”

“Kissed a stranger.”

He paused, but for only a moment. “No.”

She shouldn’t ask, she knew she shouldn’t. But she did, anyway. “Why not?”

His head tilted to the side, just an inch or so, and he was peering at her face with the most remarkable expression. He was studying her, Catriona realized. No, he was memorizing her.

Then his smile turned sheepish, and she knew. She simply knew that his was not a face that often turned sheepish. He was as befuddled by the moment as she was.

It was amazing how much better that made her feel.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever met a stranger I wanted to kiss,” he murmured.

“Nor have I,” she said quietly.

He moved his head slightly, acknowledging her comment and waiting. Waiting for . . .

“Until now,” she whispered. Because it wouldn’t be fair not to say it.

His hand touched her cheek, and then he was kissing her again, and for the first time in her life, Catriona considered believing in magic and fairies and all those other fey creatures. Because surely there could be no other explanation. Something was raging within her body, rushing through her veins, and she just wanted . . .

Him.

She wanted him in every possible way.

Dear God above.

With a gasp she broke away, stumbling back, away from the fire and away from the duke.

She would have stumbled away from herself if she could have figured out how to do it.

“Well,” she said, brushing at her skirts as if everything were normal, and she hadn’t just thrown herself at a man who probably took tea with the king. “Well,” she said again.

“Well,” he repeated.

She looked up sharply. Was he mocking her?

But his eyes were warm. No, they were hot. And they made her feel things in parts of her she was quite sure she wasn’t supposed to know about until she was in her marriage bed. “Stop that,” she said.