Married: The Virgin Widow by Deborah Hale

echoed his words, the ripe color that had flamed in hercheeks and the provocative parting of her lips had aroused him beyond prudence and far beyond propriety. When he caught her in his arms to keep her from falling, primal urges overwhelmed his reason.
    The dewy fullness of her lips yielded beneath his fervid kiss. His tongue sought to plunder her soft mouth of all its sweet secrets. There had been an element of desire in the feelings he’d had for Laura once upon a time, but nothing so hot and reckless as the hunger that now possessed him.
    The sound of approaching footsteps and voices jolted him back to his senses. He released his hold on Laura, but not soon enough. A gasp and a giggle told him her sisters had seen them.
    “Don’t stop on our account!” Susannah sounded delighted to catch her sister in such a compromising situation. “I was just telling Binny how much more interesting life has become at Hawkesbourne since Ford got home.”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Sukie.” Belinda’s quavering voice belied her words. “Ford and Laura must have come to pick a nosegay of bluebells for Mama.”
    Ford bit back a burst of derisive laughter. So Belinda meant to protect her sister’s reputation by pretending not to have seen them kissing? He was not about to let Laura off so easily. “As admirable an endeavour as that would be, I must own I had more selfish intentions in bringing your sister here. I have just asked her to marry me.”
    He ventured a glance at Laura to find her glaring at him. Was it the kiss she resented or the fact that he’d informed her sisters of his proposal? Both, perhaps. And yet, he was certain she’d responded to his kiss.
    He had no time to ponder that riddle for Laura’s sisters let out piercing squeals of joy and flew toward them.
    “Proposed?” Belinda threw her arms around Laura’s shoulders. “How romantic!”
    “Congratulations!” Susannah seized Ford’s hand and shook it vigorously. “No wonder you made such a success in the Indies. You don’t waste any time going after what you want. I so admire a decisive man.”
    “Save your congratulations.” Laura’s voice slashed through her sisters’hearty good wishes. “His lordship may have proposed, but I have not yet given him my answer.”
    Susannah refused to be cowed by her sister’s stern tone. “Not in words, perhaps. But I saw what you were doing just now, even if Binny pretends to be blind. Are widows permitted to accept passionate kisses from gentlemen they don’t mean to wed, without losing their reputations?”
    The audacity of her sister’s charge seemed to strike Laura dumb. Her lips parted in the very way that had compelled Ford to take liberties with her a few moments before. They were even more tempting now—infused with deeper color and slightly swollen from the intensity of his kiss. If her sisters had not been present, Ford might have seized her in his arms again to take up where he’d left off.
    “Of course Laura means to accept him!” Belinda grabbed her sister by the hand and pulled her back down the path. “But you mustn’t spoil it by speaking for her.” She called to Ford and Laura, “Forgive us for interrupting. We didn’t mean to, truly.”
    As Ford spun about to confront Laura, she rushed past him after her sisters.
    Caught off guard, he barely had wit enough to seizeher wrist. “Hold on a moment. You did not answer my question. Will you marry me?”
    It was a far cry from his first proposal to her, all those years ago. He’s held her hands gently in his then, and looked deep into her eyes, sealing their pledge with a soft kiss once she accepted. How could he ever have been so blindly trusting and hopeful?
    “You gave me no opportunity to answer.” Laura tried to wrench her arm away, but Ford held fast. “Your proposal was quite unexpected. I need time to think it over.”
    Time to seek dear Crawford ’s advice, hoping he might make her a better matrimonial