Half and Half. Georgia Jones E.

in eligible females this season.”

      Robin’s left hand, visible to Pen where she sat opposite, had been idly tapping on the outermost edge of the carriage door. At Pru’s question, the tapping ceased abruptly, hand poised as if to take flight. It then came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I’m twenty-nine,” he averred, “I have time.”

      “Twenty-nine!” Pru barked. “Many are dead by forty. You may have less time than you know, and do think of your poor mother. She’s not twenty-nine.”

      Penelope took pity on Robin, though she was not sure he deserved it. “Lady Dalrymple.” She leaned over with a light touch on Pru’s arm. “Did you not wish to stop in at the apothecary’s on the way home?”

      “Oh, dear, yes. Thank you for reminding me, Penelope. Would you mind?” she asked Meredith. “I require a tonic for the indigestion.” Robin’s wishes were apparently not paramount; he was not consulted. “Hadley’s? No. Doctor Spencer on Pudding Lane.” Pru and Meredith lapsed into a comparison of Hadley versus Spencer, and Robin’s duty, dropped like a stone into the sea, disappeared instantly from view.

      He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her anyway, but for distracting Pru he wanted to kiss her especially. His forthcoming nuptials were a topic of conversation he viewed with dread. Why, in particular, so much dread was a question he would have had to actually contemplate to answer, thus he had attained little clarity on the subject. If pressed, he would have deemed it in no way necessary, the problem of the heir notwithstanding. And if unnecessary, why undertaken? He abandoned the subject in favor of a far more interesting preoccupation: how to get this woman naked and beneath him at the first opportunity.

      At the apothecary’s, Meredith and Pru descended, leaving Pen in the carriage with Robin. The lengthening silence failed to seem awkward, possibly because the burgeoning pain in her head precluded it. “What ails you?” he asked.

      Pen blinked in surprise and answered without evasion. “My head aches.” Robin motioned for the footman to raise the calèche. “Thank you.” Pen sighed with relief as the sun, on its downward path to set, gave way to shade. “Does it show?”

      “In your eyes,” he confirmed, lightly touching her forehead. “Where does it hurt?” She jerked away, then winced. His questing fingers made delicate tracings on her face. The privacy of the raised calèche allowed him the liberty to do what he could not in an open conveyance.

      “Please do not,” Pen said. “It isn’t proper. They’ll see.”

      This amused him. “They won’t see. We’ll hear them coming.” This truth was so evident that Pen smiled in spite of the pain.

      Robin needed to touch her. Preferably sexually, but if not then in this way. He moved to sit near her, pulling her back against his chest. “Don’t,” she said again, but her tone lacked conviction and he ignored it.

      “Close your eyes,” he instructed softly, and when she obeyed without demur he raised his hands to her face. He touched her gently, but with no sexual intent, and thus Pen found it comforting. He caressed her cheeks and smoothed her temples and cradled her forehead in one hand and massaged her nape with the other. Her spine, stiff at first, softened and curled until it pressed into his belly, an agreeable, if limited, sensation.