A Perfect Groom by Samantha James Page B

very great distance away.
    Arabella pasted a bright smile on her features. “Yes, Aunt?”
    Aunt Grace gestured grandly to her plate. “My dear, first you scooped oodles of orange marmalade on your toast. You then followed with berry jam — which Cook does quite wonderfully, I daresay — but you then smothered the whole of it with marmalade again.”
    Arabella looked down at her plate. The sight almost made her gag. Her toast was a mound of mush…
    Which was exactly how she’d felt when Justin kissed her.
    “Furthermore, I do believe you’ve put a dozen lumps of sugar in your chocolate.”
    “Oh, Aunt, surely not.” Arabella took a sip and nearly choked. It was sickeningly sweet.
    They were in the morning room for breakfast. Even Uncle Joseph, who usually resided behind his Times throughout the morning repast, had lowered it to regard her with one shaggy brow upraised.
    “Arabella,” he asked, “is something amiss?”
    “Nay, Uncle,” she denied quickly. “I didn’t sleep terribly well last night, I’m afraid.”
    That, at least, was the truth.
    She’d spent the entire night tossing and turning. Half a dozen times she’d bolted upright, unable to believe it had really happened.
    Her first kiss, and it had not come from the man who would be her husband. That wondrous occasion that every girl dreamed of had come from the most notorious rake in London .
    How on earth had it happened? She should have been mortified. She should have been horrified. Saints above, she should have had the presence of mind to stop it. She shouldn’t have allowed it to happen in the first place! And indeed, it galled her to admit that it was not her willpower that prevailed in the end, but Justin’s. Why, if it had been up to her, she’d have let him go on kissing her forever.
    Oh, and if he only knew the scandalous, wanton thoughts that even now ran through her brain…The exquisite warmth of his mouth sealed upon hers was almost sinfully delicious…
    Miss Vicar indeed.
    Her mind revived the memory with a clarity that was all too vivid. Her cheeks flooded with heat. He’d bewitched her. Bedazzled her. After all, the moon was full last night. Why, if she believed in such nonsense, she would have seized on it as the perfect explanation for her scandalous behavior.
    Instead, she thought glumly, she had only one. She had liked kissing Justin. The feel of his mouth on hers — the feel of him! — so hard and warm and purely male, was compellingly seductive. She hadn’t known that a mere kiss could be so intoxicating. Almost addictive. She had liked it so much that she wished he would kiss her just once more…
    Her fingers crushed her napkin in her lap. That would never happen, she told herself almost bitterly. He’d only kissed her because he’d been foxed.
    Foxed or no, she did not relish the prospect of facing him again. No doubt he would see it as some sort of victory. Would he taunt her? Mock her weakness in that arrogant, infuriating manner that irritated her to no end?
    She had succumbed. She, who had fancied herself above those giggling ninnies who batted their eyelashes and practically cast themselves in his path!
    And he would delight in reminding her.
    To him, it was nothing. Justin Sterling was a man who had doubtless kissed a hundred women in his lifetime. But to Arabella…she had felt his kiss in the very marrow of her bones. Indeed, now, the morning after, she remembered every subtle nuance. The startling width of his chest, the way his breath swirled in the back of her throat as her lips parted beneath his.
    And indeed, that train of thought was proving treacherous. Uncle Joseph had resumed reading his paper, but Aunt Grace was still looking at her with eagle-eyed sharpness. “Arabella,” she said sternly, “were you out in the garden again without your bonnet?”
    No! But I’ve been out in the garden with Justin.
    She had an almost hysterical desire to blurt out the truth. Instead she said primly, “No,