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Her gaze flitted to a nearby settee, which seemed to be in motion. Her eyes wouldn’t settle. Everything was a bit vague at the moment. Time had melted into one indeterminate span. She still had yet to see Prestwick return from the gardens with Mrs. Gilpin. Perhaps the two of them had decamped to a bedchamber.

“Oh yes, darling,” cooed a feminine voice. “Don’t stop.”

Ophelia blinked and discovered the settee was indeed moving, or rather, to be more precise, the gentleman upon it was moving and the woman beneath him was making breathy sounds of encouragement.

Oh dear.

It seemed as if they were… Was that the gentleman’s arse bobbing up and down?

It was.

They were copulating on the settee, in plain view of everyone else in the drawing room. How perfectly dreadful. She hoped they didn’t get anything on the upholstery.

Such a scandalous scenario called for more wine.

Ophelia turned away, and the room swirled around her. Hmm. That wasn’t supposed to happen. She felt a bit dizzied. Another step, and she lost her balance, entirely pitching forward into a hard wall.

A warm, hard wall.

One that smelled deliciously of pine and citrus.

“I’ve got you.”

The voice at her ear, the lips grazing against her skin, was instantly as recognizable as his muscled chest and decadent scent.

She tipped her head back and was confronted with the sight of Prestwick’s slashing jaw, now shadowed with the stubble of whiskers. “Hullo.”

A nonsensical response, she knew, but her palms had somehow found their way to the rigid slab of his abdomen, and he felt too wonderful and her head was too muddled.

His sensual mouth turned down at the corners. “Are you in your cups, my lady?”

The disbelief tingeing his voice made her wince. “Is that not what one does at house parties? Aside from walking off into the shadowy gardens with beautiful ladies, that is.”

The instant the words left her, she wished she could recall them. Too late for that, however. The damage had been done.

His lips quirked upward. “Have you been venturing into the gardens with pretty ladies this evening, then?”

His gentle teasing suffused her with heat.

“Of course not. I’m the hostess. I cannot go about having assignations in the rosebushes.”

“Rosebushes strike me as a distinctly uncomfortable place to indulge in a tryst,” he said. “Only think of all those thorns and where they might go.”

Laughter bubbled up within her, and she couldn’t contain her mirth. “It would be quite prickly on the rump, I should think.”

“And elsewhere, too.”

“Where else?” she asked, feeling bold and hoping he would humor her.

He chuckled. “Everywhere, I’m sure.”

“What about here?” She caressed his jaw.

And why should she not? It was the most handsome one she had ever beheld. Not that she had a habit of ogling gentlemen’s jaws, because she most assuredly did not.

“That is a sensitive place, yes,” he agreed, his voice low.

He swallowed, and she was fascinated by the dip of his Adam’s apple. She ran her fingers lightly over it next. Touching him was delightful. It made her feel tender and needy, as if there was a deep ache within her that needed to be assuaged.