The Taste of Innocence by Stephanie Laurens

yes, but him, too; despite his experience he wasn’t immune to the moment. Wasn’t above feeling a shiver of excitement as she oh-so-tentatively returned the caress.
    Sarah’s head was spinning, her wits waltzing to a luxurious, decadent beat, one built on plea sure. It swelled and burgeoned and grew more demanding as the kiss lengthened, deepened, as he and his seductive magic slid under her skin and stroked.
    Her senses purred.
    The taste of him spread through her, intoxicatingly male, dangerous yet tempting. Her lips felt warm as she returned his kisses, increasingly bold, increasingly sure.
    Increasingly convinced that through this, she would find her answer.
    She was hovering on the brink of stretching her arms up, twining them about his neck and stepping into him, wanting to touch, oddly urgent to feel the hard length of him against her, when he broke the kiss.
    Not as if he wished to; when she lifted her strangely weighted lids, she sensed as much as saw his sudden alertness as he looked over her head out of the window.
    Then his lovely, mobile lips tightened. Under his breath, he swore.
    He looked at her, met her eyes. “Our sisters.”
    Disgust dripped from the words. She glanced toward the lake, and grimaced, her emotions matching his. Having circumnavigated the lake, the three girls were marching steadily nearer—heading for the terrace alongside the library. Any minute one of them would look ahead…
    “Come.” Charlie lowered his arms.
    She felt oddly bereft.
    His hand at her elbow, he turned her deeper into the library. “We’ll have to go back.”
    He guided her to the door to the corridor; for one instant she considered suggesting they adjourn to some less visible room, but…she sighed. “You’re right. If we don’t, they’ll come searching.”
     
    3
     
    Neatly garbed in her apple-green riding habit, Sarah trotted down the manor drive on the back of her chestnut, Blacktail, so named because of the glorious appendage that swished in expectation as she passed through the gates and turned north along the road.
    The day was fine, the sun shining weakly, the air cool but still. She was about to urge Blacktail into a canter when the sound of hoofbeats approaching from the south reached her.
    Along with a hail. “Sarah!”
    Reining in, she turned in the saddle; she smiled as Charlie cantered up. He was once again on his raking gray hunter; the horse’s deep chest and heavy hindquarters made Blacktail, an average-sized hack, look delicate. As always, Charlie managed the powerful gray with absentminded ease; he drew up alongside her.
    His gaze swept her face, lingered on her lips for an instant, then rose to her eyes. “Perfect—I was thinking of riding to the bridge over the falls. I was wondering if you’d like to come with me.”
    To spend some time alone with me. Sarah understood his intention; the bridge over the falls that spilled from Will’s Neck, the highest point in the Quantocks, was a local lookout. She grimaced ruefully. “I can ride with you a little way, but Monday’s the day I spend at the orphanage. I’m on my way there. We have a committee meeting at ten o’clock that I have to attend.”
    She tapped her heel to Blacktail’s side. He started to walk. Charlie’s gray kept pace while his master frowned.
    “The orphanage above Crowcombe?” Charlie recalled the discussion he’d overheard between Mrs. Duncliffe and Sarah outside the church. He dragged the name from his memory. “Quilley Farm.” He glanced at Sarah. “Is that the one?”
    She nodded. “Yes. I own it—the farm house and the land.”
    Inwardly he frowned harder. He should have paid more attention to local happenings over the years. “I thought…wasn’t it Lady Cricklade’s?”
    Sarah’s lips curved. “Yes. She was my godmother. She died three years ago and left the orphanage, house and land, as well as some funds, to me, along with the responsibility of keeping it functioning as she’d intended it