His tongue struggled to find words.

A tear spilled over the cusp of her dark eye, slipping down her cheek in a silvery trail and catching at the edge of her lips. Tip stared at those lips, sensuous and ripe, and desire gripped him so hard and fast he rocked on his feet. Wild with it, he gulped in air, every mote of his being focused on her beautiful mouth.

He grabbed her and covered it with his.

Her lips were as warm and supple as when he'd kissed her before. But this time they did not remain motionless. Instead, they moved against his as though created to do so, gently parting and tasting his with soft, tentative touches that sent Tip's pulse careening against his neckcloth.

He gripped her beneath the arms and pulled her to him. She grasped his coat sleeves and released a little sigh of pleasure.

Tip's world spun. His thumbs brushed the sides of her breasts, and he delved deeper into her sweet, hot mouth, caressing with the tip of his tongue until her hold on his arms tightened and she leaned into him. Sweeping his hands around her waist, he flattened her body to his. Her curves tucked cozily against him, her breasts and graceful hips yielding, firing his need. Her hands moved to his back and her lips opened wider.

He needed to touch her everywhere, to feel her closer. He slipped a hand over her soft behind and cupped.

"Peter," she sighed against his lips.

He pressed into her, letting her feel his desire. Dear God, she was an innocent, but he needed her. He had needed her for years and she responded to him so eagerly.

"You want this, Bea," he murmured, nipping at her bewitching lower lip, filling his hands with her. "You want me. Admit it."

"I do," she breathed brokenly, sliding her arms around his shoulders.

He kissed her deep and hard, and she responded with hunger, her tongue venturing to touch his, awkward but intoxicating, her hands clutching his neck. He trailed caresses along her jaw to the fragrant tenderness just beneath her ear, weaving his fingers through her hair. She tilted her head, allowing him freedom on the silken skin of her throat where her pulse came heavy and fast.

He couldn't get enough of her-her eager mouth, her captivating scent of roses and honeysuckle, her clinging hands and perfect, shell-like ears. Why hadn't he ever noticed before how perfect her ears were? How slender her wrists? How delicate her collarbone? He had adored her and still remained blind. But now he saw her with perfect clarity, and he was ravenous.

His hand sought her breast. Bea stiffened, then relaxed into his touch. The fabric of her gown was fine and thin, the satin swell of her breasts teetering at the edge of her bodice with each deep breath she drew. So beautiful. Such temptation.

He reveled in the shape of her, and her warmth, his cock surging harder against her when a light moan escaped her lips. He took her mouth again, drinking in her flavor, and slid his thumb up and across her skin. Then he dipped it beneath the fabric.

She gasped, a sound of complete pleasure and he felt her-supple, velvety skin and the rough, intoxicating texture of her taut nipple-and satisfaction rumbled from his chest. She breathed hard against his mouth, her fingers gripping to hold him near as he caressed. Her knees parted and he spread his hand on her behind and thrust against her. She moaned, this time fully. He pressed his mouth to her neck, tasting her, adoring her, aching with need he had controlled for far too long.

He must have more of her.

He freed her breasts of the bodice.

"Dear God." His voice was hoarse.

Sublime beauty. All pink and white perfection. With absolute reverence he touched her breast, the full curve of woman. Bea sighed. Drawing upward, he passed his fingertip ever so lightly over her peaked nipple and she gasped.

Tip couldn't breathe. He stroked, gently at first, then more firmly until she whimpered her pleasure. Forever he had longed to touch her like this, to feast his senses upon her. The reality flew far beyond his fantasies.

He bent and ran his tongue along the column of her throat, into the tender gully of her collar, then beyond, licking the valley between her breasts, her soft fullness brushing his cheek. Her tight, rosy nipples begged to be tasted. Savored. In his mouth.

She gripped the back of his neck, her breaths coming hard and fast.

"Peter?" She whispered her plea. An invitation he could not refuse.

He covered a peak. She shuddered, her body trembling. He circled her exquisite arousal with his tongue, then his teeth, and stroked across it gently. She gasped, the sound growing to a desperate moan as he caressed more deeply. His cock throbbed with heat. He needed her. His hand slid down her waist to the intoxicating junction of her thighs, seeking.

No.

A frisson of sanity wound through him.

He could not do this.

He wanted her more than air, more than life and breath. But after so many years of waiting, he refused to make her his in a dining room.

He thrust her to arm's length and dragged in a gulp of clarifying, chill control.

"You will marry me as soon as the banns can be read, Bea. I'll be damned if you don't."

Her hair was in disarray, lips swollen from his kisses, eyes hazy with desire. She was more beautiful than he had ever imagined.

The dining table would do well enough.

Good God.

He locked his elbows.

She released a shaky sigh. "From nonchalant to insistent. You have never insisted before."

"Of course I am insisting." With enormous effort he released her, and raked his fingers through his hair. "I have any number of inestimable reasons for doing so, only one of which is currently at the fore."

"That being?" Her voice was thick.

"Blast it, Beatrice Sinclaire, are you a simpleton not to know it? I want you in my bed."

He hadn't thought it possible, but her dark lashes spread yet further, and her eyes grew wider than he had ever seen them. A pink flush rushed from the edge of the gown he had nearly divested her of, across her breasts and up her delectable neck, filling her cheeks with flame.

Tip's throat caught.

"Good Lord, Bea. I didn't mean to say that, at least not in that manner." He reached forward with one hand, dropping it again sharply. "Say you will marry me."

Her eyes flooded with emotion. "I-I am so confused," she said in barely a whisper, blinking rapidly. She turned her face away, clutching her hands across her bodice protectively.

Tip sucked in a choking breath. Dear God, she really didn't want him. Her body might, but the rest of her fought it.

The reason she had refused him so many times now seemed crystal clear. His parents were not to blame, at least not entirely. She simply did not want him. Lady Harriet was always saying how he was like a brother to her daughter. Perhaps Bea considered him in that light too? Or perhaps there was another man, someone she wanted as much as Tip wanted her.

What an asinine fool he'd been.

But now he had compromised her. She must feel trapped, as though she hadn't a choice. He had never wanted that. Above all else, above even his own desires, he wanted her happiness.

"I will not force you to it, Bea." He steadied his voice imperfectly. "No one need know of this." He sounded like a complete scoundrel. Felt like one too.

Her gaze returned to his, stunned. Her hand went to her throat and her lips parted. But she did not speak. Clearly, he was not alone in thinking he was a scoundrel.

Tip stepped back, shutting out the voice in his head shouting that he was making the greatest mistake of his life to retreat now.

"I will not renew my suit. When we return to England, I promise you won't see me again in York." He turned and strode from the chamber swiftly. To go throw himself off a parapet.

September 9, 1819 Mr. Cheriot-Lord Cheriot, now-renewed his suit yesterday.

He was in the area advising Lord Marke on a purchase for his stables, still wearing mourning for his father, of course. He came only for tea, seemed distracted, then begged my company on the terrace, remarkable in such inclement weather, although I understood afterward why he desired privacy.

He said that when the year of mourning is out he wishes to marry. He understood that a year ago he had perhaps taken me by surprise with his addresses, but, although we had seen little of each other in the intervening months due to responsibilities that held him in Derbyshire, he now wished to restate his case. He hoped I would reconsider. He then departed so that I might have time to think it over before responding.

This morning he returned, and I refused him. He did not inquire as to the reason.

As he took his leave, Mama asked why his visit was so brief. He bowed over her hand, spoke a few gallantries, and said that as his business was complete in Yorkshire, Cheriot Manor required his presence at once-the harvest, etc. After he left, Mama criticized me for displeasing him. If she only knew. But I will never tell her, and he clearly never requested her permission or my father's to pay his addresses to me.

Business. His business was complete.

My heart is a useless organ, Diary. I must be the most foolish woman in England, perhaps in all of Great Britain. I could live quite comfortably as Lady Cheriot, with no Mama throwing barbs at me upon the hour and no Papa forgetting that I exist.

But I could not bear to love him every day so greatly and not be loved in return. I have become accustomed to it with Mama and Papa. With him, I never could.

I am foolish beyond reckoning.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Bea did not appear for breakfast. Tip surprised himself with his surge of anger over her unusual show of cowardice. For years she had silently accepted her lot as unpaid companion to her demanding mother, but she had never been a milksop.

Thomas was absent as well. Lady Bronwyn nibbled at a piece of toast, her cheeks glowing, as usual. She dimpled when she greeted Tip. She was a taking little thing, and thoroughly aware of it. Exactly the sort of girl a young man with porridge-for-brains would admire.

Lady Marstowe rose from the table. "Well, are we to do this or not, Lord Cheriot?"

"I am at your disposal, ma'am."

"Peter dear," Miss Dews said to her muffin and jam, "I will remain here while you and Grace visit Miss Minturn."

Lady Marstowe cast her sister a low look before leaving the dining room.

The village was no more than a dozen or so buildings, dwellings above shop fronts mostly. The former governess's cottage stood slightly apart from the rest, unremarkable in gray stone and wattle. They knocked and were admitted.

In her youth Miss Minturn might have been comely. Intelligence winked in a pair of fine pale eyes set in an oval face. Now, however, those eyes shifted restlessly back and forth between him and Lady Marstowe, and her thin fingers twitched on her gray bombazine lap.

"We are here to get to the bottom of this curse," Lady Marstowe began without preamble. "Speak up, woman, and tell us what we must know to depress Iversly's intentions toward Lady Bronwyn."

At the sound of the ghost's name, the woman's wan cheeks went chalky.

Tip leaned forward. "Miss Minturn, are you unwell?"

She flinched back from him. "I cannot help you. I know nothing."

"You must know something," the dowager stated. "You appear as though you are looking at a ghost this very moment."

Distress churned in Miss Minturn's eyes. "I cannot see him. I cannot."

"Well of course you cannot," Lady Marstowe said. "He is at the castle. But you may tell us what you know of him and the curse, and we will manage it after that."

"I cannot see him."

Lady Marstowe's lips pinched, her eyes narrowing. "Apparently."

They left the cottage shortly.

"She is not a simpleton, that much is clear," the dowager said as Tip handed her up into the carriage.

"No."

"There is a history there. He did something to her."

Tip nodded, admiration of the old termagant getting the better of his frustration. "It seems so."

Her uncompromising ice-blue gaze fixed in his. "You must not allow him to harm our Beatrice."

Tip returned her regard steadily. "I will not."

When they arrived at the castle, Bea had not yet arisen. Miss Dews and Lady Marstowe took their young hostess to stroll in the garden. Tip stood in the middle of the courtyard, watching them pass beneath the open portcullis. Lady Bronwyn smiled and laughed. For a girl anticipating a horrible fate, she seemed peculiarly high-spirited.

A frisson of unease passed along Tip's shoulders.

He needed his horse. His brain functioned best from the saddle. He headed toward the stable.

He was sliding the headpiece over his stallion's ears when Thomas appeared in the stall door.

"No groom, I suppose?"

"Nor stable boy. But I am not so high on the instep that I cannot saddle my own mount, Tom. You know that." He stroked the horse's dark neck, the precise shade of Beatrice Sinclaire's hair. Foolish. He was an equine expert, yet he'd bought the damned beast for that feature alone. That the stallion turned out to be a prime goer was only Tip's luck.

"You probably prefer it." Thomas's voice seemed edgy.

Tip laid his arm across his mount's back and studied the younger man.

Thomas's face was oddly flushed. "Aunt Grace said that the governess would not give you the time of day."

"She was unforthcoming, it's true."