Despite the marquess’s coat, the boy was wet and cold, yet Nell felt like a huge fire burned inside her. A fire bright enough to light her whole life. Watching Leath unhesitatingly risk his life in a raging river to save a lad with more spirit than sense, she’d recognized all her havering as the victory of fear over desire. Nobody would ever compare to James Fairbrother. Despite Dorothy’s example, despite her stepfather’s moral strictures, despite her own sense of self-preservation, she couldn’t relinquish the chance to know this extraordinary man in every way possible. Eleanor Trim was about to become a marquess’s mistress. And she couldn’t summon a shred of regret. Instead, that fluttery, new sensation under her ribs felt like happiness. She’d meant to wait, to tell Leath her decision when they were alone, but she’d looked into his exhausted, austere, beautiful face and found herself unable to hold back. As she’d expected from a man so perceptive, one word was enough.
