Free Unforgiven (The Horsemen Trilogy) by Mary Balogh Page A

into the cove. She did not look back to see which.
    She had the uncomfortable and quite mistaken feeling that something intimate had passed between them, that it had been a guilty and clandestine meeting, something to be kept from SirEdwin—and even her mother—at all costs. He had looked at her mouth and she had looked at his. . . .
    *   *   *
    THERE were just too many kissing boughs at Dunbarton. Or to be more accurate, since kissing boughs were at least clearly visible and therefore possible to avoid half of the time, there were too many sprigs of mistletoe stuck up in all sorts of unexpected places, and too many females lying in wait for unsuspecting gentlemen to alight beneath them. Though one or two of the ladies—the younger, prettier ones—were volubly and quite insincerely complaining of the reverse.
    Kenneth had kissed every female in the house, with the exception of the servants, at least once before Christmas Day was out. He had kissed giggling cousins and simpering aunts and coy great-aunts. He had kissed his puckering niece. He had kissed a blushing Miss Juliana Wishart. He had kissed her three times in all, in fact, though not once by his own designing.
    She was extremely pretty, with hair as blond as his own, with wide blue eyes, and trembling rosebud lips. She was enticingly rounded and fashionably and expensively clad. She was good-natured and smiled frequently. She was compliant and eligible—and her parents, Baron and Lady Hockingsford, were downright eager. The pursuit was on, and everyone at Dunbarton, from his mother on down, appeared to be aiding and abetting the courtship.
    She was seventeen years old. She was the veriest infant. He could not force his eyes to see her as anything more. Kissing her was very like kissing his niece—but potentially far moredangerous. One did not kiss a seventeen-year-old young miss three times, even beneath the mistletoe, without raising expectations and arousing speculation.
    Having kissed Miss Wishart three times, Kenneth felt uneasily as if some declaration had been made—or should be made. The girl had sat beside him in the earl’s pew at church and had ridden home in his carriage with his mother and hers, and with him, of course. She had been seated beside him for Christmas dinner and had been his partner at cards afterward before being a member of his team at charades. One of his aunts had even referred to her as “your Miss Wishart, Kenneth, dear.”
    His
Miss Wishart?
    He had been quite prepared to look the girl over, to consider her as a possible candidate for wife. But having looked, he had rejected. He could not imagine living with the girl for the rest of a lifetime, making a companion of her. And he could no more think of having marital relations with her than he could think of doing so with his niece or any other child. His mother had suggested that the Christmas ball might be a suitable occasion on which to announce his betrothal. Most of his family members and most of his neighbors would be in attendance. Spring would be a wonderful time for the wedding. He should suggest spending an hour of the afternoon before the ball with Lord Hockingsford, she had added.
    “Lady Hockingsford has been my close friend since we made our comeout together,” she said. “This is something we have hoped for and even dared plan ever since Juliana was born. You can make us both very happy and proud.”
    He had been thirteen when Juliana Wishart was born, Kenneth thought—only four years younger than she was now. He had been at school already. He felt horribly trapped and pressured, but he would not marry merely to please his mother and her particular friend. He would not marry at all—yet. He was not ready for such a step. At the ball, he decided, he was going to have to steer clear of Miss Wishart after the opening set, which somehow, he had discovered, he was to dance with her. He must dance with all his female guests and with all his female neighbors.