The Countess of Churzy had been in love three times. First, when she was simply Letty Price, barely eight years old and blissfully unaware of the realities of life, she dearly loved her best friend, Joey Purser. They played together every day, until Joey's mother needed him to start working in the Price Timber Mill. And then, as the daughter of the owner, she wasn't allowed to play with Joey anymore.
The second time she was in love, she was Miss Leticia Price, sister to Lady Widcoate, and shunned by every good member of the ton. As she was only a timber miller's daughter, her father's fortune was enough to buy her sister a country bumpkin with a title, but for Leticia to think her beauty and grace would do her any good with real society was too presumptuous to endure. Then, Konrad Herzog, the Count of Churzy, crossed the room to where she was sitting and asked her to dance. He was an Austrian aristocrat, enjoying London while the last vestiges of the war trickled to an end, and Leticia fell in love the moment he winked at her during the quadrille.
The third and final time Leticia—now widowed, desperate, and needing to secure her future—knew she was in love, she had just thrown open her bedroom door to find the Earl of Ashby standing on the threshold.
“Oh . . . hello, Letty,” he whispered, his hand still in midair.
“Good evening,” she replied, a half smile painting her lips. “You seem surprised to see me.”
“I thought you might be asleep.”
“Then why knock?” Her dressing gown was by no means immodest—unfortunately. But she worked with what she had, rolling her shoulders back and showing her bosom to best advantage.
The corner of his mouth ticked up as his eyes flicked appreciatively down. He must know what she was doing. They’d been playing this game for weeks now.
The anticipation made her heart flip over. It made her blood soar.
And it wasn’t the first time that evening the Earl of Ashby made her feel this way.
“Because I can’t sleep. And I thought you might not be able to either,” he answered.
“I was making a valiant attempt. It is well past midnight, my lord.”
“Then it is lucky I caught you, my lady.” Something shuttered over his eyes. Something honest and difficult. He took one deep breath, then two, before he spoke. “I wanted to make certain you were all right. I . . . I acted rashly this evening.”
“Oh really?” she asked, all innocence. “How so?”
“Tonight, at the Summer Ball when I . . .” He cleared his throat.
“When you kissed me,” she supplied.
Oh yes, he had kissed her. She had been standing across the room, talking to someone—it could have been her sister, Fanny, but she could no longer remember, because at that moment her breath caught and her heart started pounding out of her chest as she watched the Earl of Ashby cross the floor, stalking his prey.
Stalking her.
Before she could so much as exhale, he’d swept her into his embrace and kissed her, right there on the floor at a public ball, in front of everyone.
It was, after a lifetime of disappointment, her moment of triumph.
Even for such an alarmingly public display, it hadn’t come out of the blue. She and the Earl of Ashby had been growing close over the last fortnight. He and his man of business, Mr. Turner, had come to stay at her sister’s estate while he sorted out some difficulty about a property he owned nearby. That she just happened to be visiting her sister at the same time as an arguably handsome and extremely wealthy gentleman of note was neither here nor there.
That they had been inseparable almost from the moment he arrived was far more pertinent.
She hadn’t expected it to be so easy. She’d been certain that to charm the Earl of Ashby, she would have to summon her most enthusiastic fawning, her best display of wit and vivacity. Walk the tightrope of being fascinating, approachable, and unobtainable all at once.
Instead, it had been like sliding into a bed after a long day. Each little look, every time he offered her his arm, all the conversations about nothing and everything . . . it all felt so, so right.
It was astonishing.
It was frightening.