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Ja noise and Theo turned around, only to find a group of fascinated spectators that included the Prince of Wales, Lord Geoffrey Trevelyan, and the despised Claribel, who for once was not ogling Geoffrey but had a look of stark envy on her face

Theo looked at James and saw confusion in his face at the same moment that she realized that her lips felt puffy and her hair was falling around her shoulders She must look like one of those ravished"I-- We were just--"

Jaer sounded tipsy "I love Daisy I alaring at hera little "You want to marry her to another man, but she’s mine, she’s always beento her "Do you remember when I had an eye inflammation when I elve and you were ten? And you read to me all that summer in a darkened roo up at hinore the down at her alo," she whispered, her words falling into the utterly still drawing rooht"

"I thought you were just dancing," he said, his voice ragged "I didn’t think about it seriously But if you are going to marry anyone, Daisy, it will be me I don’t want you to even think about other men" He shot a virulent look at Geoffrey, who fell back a step

James turned back to Theo A flash of uncertainty crossed his eyes "I know you have other"

"I do not knohat I was thinking," Theo said slowly, feeling a trehtness settle about her shoulders like a warm blanket She reached out and took his hand in hers--his faht You are the only one"

"Well," her mother said firree that that was a ht"

Theo didn’t one Instead there was a desirable, powerfuldown at her And the look in his eye h," Jarowled, his eyes fixed on hers "She has not accepted Daisy?"

"Yes," she said, her voice breathless and treirls used it "Yes, I will"

"I suppose that’s settled," the Duke of Ashbrook said fro the my ward Keeps it all in the family, so to speak Mind you, it wouldn’t be proper unless it was a real love ree with you"

"But it looks as if we haven’t much to say about it," the duke continued

James met his father’s eyes, and his heart dropped into his shoes He had lost his head, and what’s more, he lost it in service to the devil

He had never experienced a kiss like that, never thought to feel such a searing wave of possessive passion in his life But he had done it only because his bo father had demanded it That kissthat kiss happened because he had been ordered to do it

He felt like the dirt under his own shoe And the aching pain in his heart said so even worse: that he had warped what could have been--would have been--one of theto have entered into that kiss with a pure heart and a clean conscience

Mrs Saxby drew Theo away, and his father came up to slap him on the back with a stream of inconsequential, patently false re at the in that direction," he told the prince "I suppose parents are always the last to know But Son"--this with a tone of genial disapproval--"I hope I’ve trained you better than to snatch a lady and kiss her in public A gentle himself in that sort of manner"