Page 25 of In With a Chance

The marquess’s eyebrows jerked up. “I beg your pardon?”

“Kiss,” Gwen said promptly. Ah, there was that heat she had expected.

Strange. She had rather thought it would appear below her neck, not above it.

Her betrothed was looking just as pink as she felt. “Where?”

Desperate and dark thoughts Gwen had not permitted herself to dwell on soared through her mind, throwing up a whole heap of suggestions about where the Marquess of Ravenshurst could kiss her—and strangely enough, a great deal of them were below her neck too.

“On the lips,” she said a mite regretfully.

Well. First things first.

Despite the prosaic approach she was taking, the marquess looked even more hunted. “What, now?”

“Now,” Gwen said firmly.

“In the street?” Lord Ravenshurst stumbled backward, clearly horrified. “Where anyone could see us?”

Gwen removed her hands from his chest. Well, it felt a tad ridiculous to have her palms splayed against his greatcoat when the man so clearly wished to take a step back. “No one is here, my lord.”

She was right. The driver was on the other side of the carriage, examining the wheel, last she knew. The street was utterly deserted, and though her front door was slightly ajar, no person was visible in the hallway.

For perhaps the first time in their entire courtship, they were alone.

Now, Gwen was no expert in these matters. None of her family members were, to tell the truth. As far as she could make out, Jessy had been proposed to by accident, Reeny had fallen into the arms of her best friend, and Michael had had to beg Captain Seaton to marry him, which was precisely as it should have been.

As for her parents… Well, Gwen was not sure she had been told the whole story, but there had definitely been something scandalous in that tale.

From what Gwen had learned as she’d moved through Society, ladies and gentlemen were prevented from being alone together because the sheer lack of chaperones would force them to catapult toward each other, lips first.

But that did not appear to be happening here.

“Do you want to kiss me, my lord?” Gwen asked directly.

Perhaps a little too directly. Without saying a word, the marquess stepped away, turned, and hastened into his barouche.

“Another time perhaps, Miss Chance!” he yelled from the comfort of his carriage. “Such a lovely afternoon, must go—up, up, Smith, take your seat. Drive on, man!”

Gwen watched helplessly as the man to whom she was engaged disappeared off in a screeching carriage that appeared to have gone from a standing start to a gallop in a matter of moments.

Right. Well. That was hardly encouraging.

It was difficult to prevent the dejection dropping her shoulders as Gwen looked along the street to where, just seconds ago, Lord Ravenshurst’s carriage had been visible.

It could not have been her, could it? Gwen was not one to flatter herself, but she was almost certain she was pretty. She certainly wasn’t hideous.

Ah, well. The man’s manners and self-restraint did him credit, she was sure. Such a shame he did not allow himself even the most mediocre of rebellions.

Turning, Gwen strode forward and reached out to push the front door fully open just as it did so without a single touch.

Then she barreled into a warm body.

“Oh!”

“I do beg your—Miss Gwendoline.”

Gwen swallowed as she looked up at the man she had walked into.