Chapter 16

When the door to the drawing room finally opened, Dominic lifted his head quickly from Torie's mouth and looked around, thinking

to see Sir William.

"His lordship has taken ill," the butler said without preamble. "Dinner is served."

Torie grimaced.

"Does this happen often?" Dominic asked, reaching down to entwine her fingers in his. After all, they were betrothed. They

could be improper, especially when the only audience was a butler walking so unsteadily that he might crash into the wall.

"More often than one would wish," Torie replied.

In the dining room, Dominic moved to sit beside her rather than at the far end. He waited until they'd been served before

he jerked his head, sending the boozy butler out of the room.

"Did you tell the twins about our engagement?" Torie asked him, poking her fork at an anemic pile of green beans on her plate.

"They are wildly happy," Dominic said, taking a bite of greasy duck. Sir William's cook was as inept as his butler. "I received

extravagant and surprised congratulations. They had no faith that I'd be able to persuade you."

Torie raised an eyebrow.

"I had been advised to wear a codpiece and offer poems in praise of your skin, to be written by Valentine."

She laughed.

"You do know what a codpiece is," Dominic said with satisfaction. "I am never sure about items on the Prohibited List."

"Codpieces feature largely in portraits of Henry VIII," Torie told him. "The king had endless creativity in that respect.

His codpieces were not merely embroidered, but tasseled, tinseled, and bejeweled."

"Perhaps I've underestimated your knowledge of the male physique," Dominic said, thinking of ancient sculpture.

"Greeks were fond of depicting men in their entirety," Torie said, turning a rosy color. "I understand." She waved her hand

in the vague direction of his waistline as she took a swallow of wine.

Dominic had been dragged in front of a few ancient statues back when he was at Eton; amongst him and his lustily minded classmates,

the primary fascination was why gods would be portrayed with such insufficient private parts. "That part of a man changes

when he is aroused."

Torie looked blank.

"Private parts look like unhoused snails in Greek statues," he said.

She nodded. "I know just what you mean."

Dominic stood, walked to the door, and told the footman leaning against a wall to bring a pencil and paper. When he returned

to the table, he sat down and made a rough sketch. "Unlike you, I have no skill, but I have tried to draw an adult man, aroused.

There. I did my best." He gave her the paper.

Torie looked down, and her mouth fell open.

"I hope you're not offended," Dominic said, squinting at his lamentable drawing. "I simply thought that if I were you, I'd rather know more about the male body than can be gleaned from ancient art."

His future wife was staring down wide-eyed at his illustration. "This is a man?" she asked with uncomplimentary doubt.

Dominic cleared his throat. "Schoolboys draw these diagrams all the time."

"They do?" Torie's finger landed in the middle of the sheet. "He appears to have a clothes-peg where a Greek statue might

have a fig leaf. Or an unhoused snail."

"As I said, statues are notably deficient with respect to the male organ."

"Interesting," Torie said. "I don't always see line drawings very clearly," she added, folding up the sheet as the butler

returned with a second course. "I shall look again tonight."

"My drawing skills are extremely poor."

"Your motive is generous," she said, smiling. "People say that you are uncaring and unkind, but that isn't true, is it?"

Personally, Dominic thought that judgment wasn't incorrect, so he changed the subject. "I also have this." He pulled an emerald

ring from his breast coat pocket and placed it on the table before her.

"Was it your mother's?" Torie asked, picking it up.

He couldn't tell from her expression whether she hated it. "No. I bought it this morning."

She pushed it on her finger and held it up to catch the light. Dominic had a surge of pure male satisfaction. She was his,

and now everyone would know it.

"Did you give your mother's ring to Leonora?"

"My mother didn't wear a betrothal ring, since my parents' marriage was arranged when they were still in the cradle." It occurred to him that she might be comparing the rings— of course she was comparing the rings. "I bought Leonora a diamond, but I found you an emerald because I thought you'd love the color.

It's not just green. There's blue as well."

"And a touch of purple," she said. Then she leaned over and initiated a kiss of her own volition for the first time.

"We picked it together," he said, reining in a wave of lust. "Valentine and Florence and I."

Her smile was like sunshine, warm and blessed.

Dominic Kelbourne rarely did anything without a plan. He didn't trust things like instinct. In his experience, people used instinct to explain ill-thought-out impulses with the potential to harm others.

But pulling his fiancée onto his lap? Kissing her in between bites of food, and sending the butler away because privacy was

all the dessert they could ask for?

Instinct.

Pure instinct.