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hope he’d not known he carried that she’d come to him had died. She’d returned to London and chosen another. Again.
    He had little doubt she’d come to regret that decision. An ugly laugh rumbled up from his chest. He closed his folio.

Chapter 5
    S eated on the comfortable ivory cushion of the parlor windowseat, Phoebe studied the street below. Her books on Captain Cook’s explorations lay scattered at her feet, untouched since her world had been thrown into upheaval. Lords and ladies walked arm-in-arm while carriages rattled by. She absently played with the cashmere textured dupioni curtains thinking of another slip of cashmere—an object retrieved by a mysterious gentleman. The same gentleman who’d kissed her. Her first kiss. Quick, because she’d ended it. Hot, because, even now, warmth swirled in her belly in remembrance of it. And she’d insulted him. Because for as much as he’d insisted on being captivated by her beauty, she knew what she was and what she looked like and was quite comfortable in that. A gentleman who possessed such luxuriant, chestnut hair with tones of black, and brown eyes the color of warmed chocolate did not…well…he did not go about kissing ladies such as she.
    And ladies such as she, who’d taken care to protect her name, virtue, and respectability since she’d learned the extent of her father’s vile ways and the words whispered about him, and their entire family. She had pledged to never be so enticed by a gentleman who might go about kissing her. She dropped her head back against the wall.
    “What has you so quiet, my dear?”
    A startled shriek escaped her at the sudden, unexpected appearance of her oft-smiling mother. “Mother,” she greeted the gentle-spirited woman who’d been all things good and loving to her children, when their father had been absent and, oftentimes, vicious with his words. She swung her legs over the edge of her seat and made to rise, but her mother waved her off.
    “Do not bother yourself. Not on my account,” she said softly and slid into the seat beside her.” She glanced down at the books Phoebe had abandoned reading a long while ago. “You’re not reading,” she said it with a faint accusatory edge underscoring her words. She bent and retrieved one of the books and held it up, as though there might be a question as to what books she referred to.
    “No. I’m…just… thinking.” About a gentleman, a stranger, who stole into the gardens and has since captured my thoughts.
    Her mother lowered the book of travels onto her lap. “You?” she scoffed. “Unable to think of traveling?” Yes, for as horrid and uncaring and all things unfeeling as Papa was, her mother had long been devoted to each of her children’s interests. When other mothers would have burned the pages of works that documented the journeys of powerful, brave, and bold explorers, her mother had given Phoebe her own pin money so she could read more and learn more. “What, nothing to say?” her mother prodded, bringing her back to the moment. A twinkle lit her kindly blue eyes. “Only one thing can account for this sudden, inexplicable inability to read, as you are wont to do.”
    Please do not say it.
    “You’ve met a gentleman.”
    She’d said it.
    Phoebe glanced away from the smiling question in her mother’s eye. “No.” Even as the word left her mouth, she realized how halfhearted the belated response was. “Yes,” she amended. Her mother’s eyebrows shot to her hairline. “Not in a way that was inappropriate.” Except, as soon as those words left her mouth, she recognized how damning they truly sounded. “Er…I dropped something and he retrieved it and…” She fell silent. Her mother continued to sit there, eying her in that knowing way. “But there’s not more there.” Other than her first kiss, which would be memorable to any lady regardless of whom the kissing gentleman was, or ever would be. “It was just a fortuitous meeting in which he