She’d died when he was twenty, just a week before her husband. They’d been taken by the same lung fever.

It had been a terrible, violent way to go, their bodies wracked by coughs, their eyes glazed with exhaustion and pain. The doctor, never one to speak delicately, said they were drowning in their own fluids. Thomas had always thought it bitterly ironic that his parents, who spent their lives avoiding each other, had died, es-sentially, together.

And his father had one last thing to blame her for.

His final words, in fact, were, “She did this.”

“It is why we are here now,” he said suddenly, offering Amelia a dry smile. “Together.”

“I beg your pardon?”

He shrugged, as if none of it mattered. “Your mother was supposed to marry Charles Cavendish, did you know that?”

She nodded.

“He died four months before the wedding,” he said softly and without emotion, almost as if recounting a bit of news from the newspaper. “My father always felt that your mother should have been his wife.”

Amelia started with surprise. “Your father loved my mother?”

Thomas chuckled bitterly. “My father loved no one.

But your mother’s family was as old and noble as his own.”

“Older,” Amelia said with a smile, “but not as noble.”

“If my father had known he was to be duke, he would

never have married my mother.” He looked at her with an unreadable expression. “He would have married yours.”

Amelia’s lips parted, and she started to say something utterly deep and incisive, like, “Oh,” but he continued with:

“At any rate, it was why he was so quick to arrange my betrothal to you.”

“It would have been Elizabeth,” Amelia said softly,

“except that my father wished his eldest to marry the son of his closest friend. He died, though, so Elizabeth had to go to London to look for a match.”

“My father was determined to join the families in the next generation.” Thomas laughed then, but there was an uncomfortable, exasperated note to it. “To rectify the unfortunate mongrelization caused by my mother’s entrance into the bloodlines.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Amelia said, even though she had a feeling he was not being silly at all. Still, she ached for the boy he must have been, growing up in such an unhappy household.

“Oh, no,” he assured her, “he said it quite often. I must marry a noble bride, and I must make certain my sons did the same. It was going to take generations to get the bloodlines back to where they should be.” He grinned at her then, but it was an utterly awful expression. “You, my dear, were meant to be our savior, even at the ripe old age of six months.”

Amelia looked away from him, trying to take this all in. No wonder he had been so uneager to set a date for the marriage. Who would want to marry her, when it was put in such terms?

“Don’t look so somber,” he said, and when she turned back to face him, he reached out and touched her cheek.

“It isn’t your fault.”

“It isn’t yours, either,” she said, trying to resist the urge to turn and nuzzle his hand.

“No,” he murmured. “It isn’t.”

And then he leaned forward, and she leaned forward

. . . because she couldn’t not lean forward, and even then, as the carriage rocked gently beneath them, he brushed his lips against hers.

She tingled. She sighed. And she would have gladly melted into another kiss, except that they hit an excep-tionally vicious rut in the road, which sent both of them back to their respective seats.

Amelia let out a frustrated snort. Next time she’d figure out how to adjust her balance so she’d land on his seat. It would be so lovely, and even if she happened to find herself in a scandalous position, she’d be (almost) completely blameless.

Except that Thomas looked dreadful. Quite beyond green. The poor man was puce.

“Are you all right?” she asked, very carefully scoot-ing across the carriage so she was not sitting directly across from him.

He said something, but she must have misheard, because it sounded like, “I need a radish.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’d kiss you again,” he said, sounding very droll and

perhaps a bit queasy at the same time, “except that I’m quite certain you would not appreciate it.”

While she was trying to formulate a reply to that, he added, “The next kiss—”

(Brief moment of silence, followed by a grunt, both brought on by another rut.)

He cleared his throat. “The next kiss, you will appreciate. That, Amelia, is a vow.”

She was quite sure he was right, because the statement alone made her shiver.

Hugging her arms to her chest, she peered out the window. She’d noticed they were slowing down, and indeed, the carriage had wound into the small court-yard in front of the posting inn. The Happy Hare dated from Tudor times, and its black and white exterior was well-kept and inviting, each window adorned with a flower box, blooming all shades of red and gold. From the jettied upper story hung a rectangular sign featur-ing a toothsome rabbit, standing upright in his Elizabe-than doublet and ruff.

Amelia found it all rather charming and intended to comment, but Thomas was already making for the door.

“Shouldn’t you wait for the carriage to come to a complete stop?” she asked mildly.

His hand went still upon the door handle, and he did not say a word until they had halted completely.

“I’ll be but a moment,” he said, barely looking at her.