The Wedding Cake (The Wedding Series) by Christine Dorsey Page A

pressure to turn her to face him. “And yer eyes and yer mouth.” He leaned closer.
    “We really shouldn’t.” Her body zinged with anticipation.
    “Aye, ye’ve the right of it there.”
    “I’m promised to another.”
    “I’m all too aware of that.”
    “Please don’t.”
    “ ’Tis only a kiss.”
    “Only a kiss,” she repeated, as his lips pressed hers. But somehow as her body melted against his, as her arms wound about his neck, she couldn’t think of what was happening as “only” anything.
    His tongue touched hers and the earth seemed to tilt. His large hands molded across her back and she thought she might swoon. He whispered her name against her freshly kissed lips and she forgot all reason.

Seven

    E ggs.
    A cake needed eggs.
    Cinnamon stared at the pans of flat, gloppy goo and her shoulders drooped. Why couldn’t she get this right?
    Lord Westfield was expected tomorrow afternoon. She’d spent the entire morning in the kitchen, working hard, only to pull from the oven another failure. Was it too much to expect that she could bake a simple cake?
    Her gaze was drawn to the basket of eggs on the table. They were right there. Why hadn’t she added them to the batter?
    “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered, whipping off her apron and tossing it to the brick floor. This was becoming ridiculous. She had an idea that she knew what the problem was—or at least what she’d been thinking about while she should have been beating eggs. Ian McGregger.
    She stomped out of the kitchen. She couldn’t keep him out of her mind, and she couldn’t stop thinking of the kiss. But there was more. She hadn’t followed through on what she said she’d do.
    He’d asked for her help, her advice, and she’d agreed. She’d even decided to tell him she thought her father very clever to have picked him to run the business. Captain McGregger was perfect.
    Then came that kiss. The second kiss. And because of her silly female foolishness, which she had always prided herself on not having, she had been unable to do what was best for Murphy Import and Export. For a week now she had vacillated, unable even to face the captain.
    Now in her room, she sighed, then sank onto the bench in front of her dressing table. Her elbows on the polished surface, she cupped her cheeks, staring into the looking glass.
    After dinner tonight she would tell the captain that he must accept her father’s offer, and this would be the last time she saw him before Lord Westfield’s arrival.
    ~ ~ ~
    Her mother’s excitement at the duke’s imminent arrival dulled her temper toward the unwanted guest at the dinner table. She had been tolerably polite when Captain McGregger arrived, Cinnamon noted, and she hadn’t even raised an eyebrow when Lucretia asked him if he had received the invitation to the ball for Lord Westfield.
    When he told her he had, Lucretia batted her dark lashes at him. “Then, you will come, won’t you, Captain?”
    “Aye,” he, answered, his gaze momentarily snagging Cinnamon’s. “ ’Tis my intent.”
    “How wonderful.”
    “Have you ever been to Italy, Captain? The region around Florence?”
    Cinnamon paused, her fork midway to her mouth, as the captain answered. Her brother-in-law had asked him the same question the first time they’d dined together and the captain’s response had brought the same long dissertation on the count’s illustrious family.
    Was that all he spoke of? Since he had been in residence in the Murphys’ Beacon Hill house, Cinnamon had heard little else from the count. Her eyes strayed to her older sister, wondering if she too had noticed this particularly boring habit and found Eugenia’s attention directed elsewhere.
    Did all her sisters find Captain McGregger so appealing? Somehow the idea did not sit well with her at all.
    Thankfully, no one mentioned the wedding cake, or lack there of, as the dessert of pastries and custard was served. She’d mentioned it to the captain in her