The Five Second Rule For Kissing: The Northumberland Nine Series

by Quince, Dayna

  She seemed then to focus on what she was doing with her hands, flicking the little button back and forth on his shirt and she pulled away.

  “Take all the time you need.”

  He hoped it wouldn’t be too long. He went straight to the library and sat down to wait.

  * * *

  Josie hugged herself as she went to the parlor where her mother waited, joining the handful of her sisters who were already there.

  “Are you all right, mother?” Josie asked.

  “Fine, dear. I have been worried about you all.”

  “I'm fine, we’re all fine. I'm even sure Bernie is well. She probably had a rousing good time.” Except a man had died, and they knew nothing about what had occurred, but she plastered on a smile for her mother.

  “Yes, most likely. Bernadette has always been a trial, and she loves trouble one way or another.”

  “How are you feeling?” She took her mother’s hand.

  “For once, I actually feel this might be the boy. Your father has wanted a boy for so long that Georgie was that boy, just equipped differently.” Her mother laughed lightly.

  “Yes, but this boy will keep Cousin Irving from taking our home. I hope he kicks the cretin in the shin when they first meet,” Luna said.

  Their mother laughed and lightly swatted at her in a halfhearted reprimand.

  She stroked Josie's cheek. “You seem tired.”

  “I haven't been sleeping well,” Josie confessed. She peeked at Luna.

  “Are you not having a good time? None of these men pique your interest?”

  “I'm not sure what piques my interest, Mother, if it doesn't come bound in leather with pages between.”

  Her mother chuckled. “I know romantic advice, as it were, is always led by the heart. You are different, Josie. I think you should let your head lead for you. The man will not sweep you off your feet. He will be the one man who will make you close the book and pay attention to him, not because he demands it but because you will be unable to ignore him.”

  Josie sucked in a breath. And that man was Patrick. That was undeniable.

  “Is that what Father does for you?”

  “Oh, heavens,” her mother said. “My father had always told me I was the daughter with good sense, and your father seems to make me do the exact opposites of the things I should be doing. What a terrible thing to say.” She laughed to herself. “That's what love is, you know. Just when we think we understand ourselves, love shows us who we are underneath that layer, and there are many layers, my dears.”

  She cupped Luna's face. “You will never just be one thing. You were girls, now you’re women. Soon you’ll be wives and then mothers. There are so many layers to those things.”

  Josie leaned in, kissed her mother's cheek, and then stepped back, and more of her sisters gathered around, arriving one by one. She melted away as her mother greeted her other daughters, and she slipped out into the hall. She felt like she could run all the way to the bluffs and leap and take flight. That was what her mother's words did for her.

  Patrick didn't just make her want to put down the book, he damn near knocked it from her hand. She hadn't remembered how to pick one up again because he was the center of all her thoughts, her dreams—she was coming to see now—her future. She didn't just need to believe him when he said that he wanted to make her happy, that she could be who she was.

  She needed to believe in herself. She needed to believe she could choose the right man, who wouldn't diminish her dreams or her goals. But who would help her seek them out. She didn't have to stop. She didn't have to change who she was with Patrick, but her mother was wrong too because her heart was very much involved in this decision. She ached for him. These past two days had been agony. The uncertainty, the doubts, staying away from him, hadn't helped her one bit. But the moment he’d touched her this morning, taking her away from that horrific site and offering her comfort and an escort... It was so simple and so easy for him to do it.

  He was such a caring man, and she had so abused that care from the beginning. He'd been straightforward about what he’d wanted, and she'd given him nothing but her scorn and her skepticism. She owed him so much now.

  The first would be an apology.

  And then… She would tell she’d been so wrong. A person can fall in love within a fortnight.

  She’d done it. She loved him.

  She turned and rounded the corner on her way to the library when she bumped into a young maid carrying a pail of ash. A waterfall of black and gray slithered down her skirts.

  “Cor! I'm so sorry, Miss,” the maid said.

  “It was me,” Josie replied, “I was rushing.” She fought the urge to sneeze, ash vapor tickling her nose.

  “No, ’tis my own fault.” The maid quickly swept up the ash into the pail with a hand broom. “You should hurry out of that dress and ring for Mrs. Kemp. She's a wizard when it comes to removing stains.”

  Josie nodded and she hurried away. She’d have to quickly go to her room to change now and then she'd go to Patrick.

  Chapter 24

  Patrick went to the library and sat at a table, wondering how long it would take Josie to see to her mother. He twiddled his thumbs and then stopped. He hated nervous fidgeting, so he got up and picked up a book.

  Shakespeare.

  Now whenever he thought of Shakespeare, he would think of Josie. And what better way to pass the time than reading a book. He flipped through what happened to be a book of sonnets, and though he was never one for poetry, right now it all spoke to him, pulling him in with its lyrical romance.

  He slowed down and read each word, feeling them like drops of rain on his face and appreciating each one deeper than before. A sound in the hall jolted his heart into his throat, but the woman who entered was not Josie. His heart plummeted back to its normal position.

  Jeanie appeared. “I'm not Josie,” she said.

  He bit his cheek. The sisters all looked alike but none of them had Josie’s inquisitive curiosity, the sparkle in her eye as she analyzed and dissected everything before her with her scalpel-sharp mind.

  “Is there something I can help you with?” he asked.

  She hesitated at the door and then she entered. “I need to find Lord Luckfeld's room.

  He raised both brows. “I beg your pardon?”

  What could Miss Jeanette be up to now? They'd already been caught once. Then again, whatever the nature of this relationship was, if she was willing to take such a risk it must be perilously close to love, and who was he to stand in love’s way? He looked down at the book of poems in front of him. Shakespeare's sonnet number one hundred and sixteen.

  “It is very important I speak with him,” she said.

  “In his room?” He could see her jaw tensing as she ground her teeth. “Are you certain you should do this?” The Marsdens were plagued with enough scandal as it was. He could at least try to be a voice of reason.

  “I will owe you an immense favor if you could show me where his room is—discreetly—unless he isn’t there. Do you know where he might be?”

  He sighed. “You Marsdens are wildly out of hand.”

  She folded her arms in indignation. “I beg your pardon?”

  He bit back the urge to smile. “He is in his room. I believe he's packing his belongings.” At least that's what Kroger had mentioned to him before. He glanced down at the book again, his chest tightening. Something in these words rang true. They echoed the song that was Josie.

  Let me not to the marriage of true minds

  Admit impediments. Love is not love

  Which alters when it alteration finds,

  Or bends with the remover to remove.

  O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

  That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

  It is the star to every wand'ring bark,

  Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

  Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

  Within
his bending sickle's compass come;

  Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

  But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

  If this be error and upon me prov'd,

  I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

  Patrick ripped up the page and folded it. He came to his feet and stood before her. “I will show you to his room in exchange for a favor.”

  She lifted her chin defiantly. She was definitely related to Josie.

  “Give this to Josie.”

  She blinked. “That's all?” She took the note from his hand slowly.

  “You can read it if you wish, only Josie will understand its intent.” He moved toward the door, and he heard her follow him. He led her to the bachelor corridor and stopped outside Luckfeld’s door.

  He held her gaze. “My door’s that one, should… I don't know… Anyone inquire to the location of my chamber.”

  She raised a brow at him.

  “Just in case,” he said and then he strolled away. He paused before he entered the back stair. “Don't do anything you may regret,” he said and then he returned to the library and his table.

  Josie had not appeared or had she and he was not there? He cursed under his breath. There was nothing for him to do but wait still and hope she might appear. Or he could rescind his favor in exchange for Miss Jeanette leading him to Josie's room but he didn't think she'd be willing to do that.

  He stood and leaned on the table, staring down at that book and the remnants of the page he’d torn from his heart.

  “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments,” he said aloud, his heart drumming, the hairs on his arms standing up.

  He loved her. He could not deny it. These feelings had only grown stronger.

  “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove.”

  They would never leave him. He was doomed to exist in this state, tortured by her if she did not return his love.

  “O no,” he said.

  “It is an ever fixed mark.”

  He turned, his heart lurching with joy, and there she stood in a different dress—this one cream with little rosettes embroidered on the bottom of the hem, the single red satin ribbon caught up under the bust.

  She was achingly beautiful.

  She drifted toward him. “That looks on tempests and is never shaken. It is the star to every wand’ring bark… Sonnet one sixteen. My favorite of Shakespeare’s works. How did you know?”

  He hadn’t known. He’d just felt it.

  He couldn't tell if time had slowed or if he even breathed. He was on the verge of losing consciousness. But then she was in his arms. Her arms went around his neck and her lips touched his, and he didn't care if he was dead or alive. He just never wanted to move again from this moment in time.

  * * *

  Josie counted slowly in her mind. One… Two… Three… Four… Five… There. Five seconds and she wasn't done. She wanted more. So she took more because she was certain he would give it. He would do anything she wanted, and she might need to do the same just to keep him.

  She might have to change her mind about everything she thought she knew—about herself, about him, about the life he'd come from, just to be with him.

  So this is love.

  A consuming fever that hadn't let up since the moment they first kissed. She wasn't going to find anyone who could make her feel this way. The realization made her weak knees buckle, but his arms came around her and he held her up.

  He broke the kiss, staring down at her, his eyes so deep and blue, an unknown ocean waiting to be explored. She wanted to look into his eyes forever. She untangled her arms from around his neck and cradled his face, lightly brushing her thumbs over his firm cheekbones.

  “I think I…would like to marry you,” she whispered.

  His eyes widened. The black orbs of his pupils flexing. She felt him and heard him release a surprised breath.

  “You don't sound convinced or happy,” he replied.

  “I’m terrified, Patrick.”

  “You shouldn't be scared, Josie, not with me.”

  “But you're not a book I can read. I can't open you and close you and put you back when I'm frustrated or confused.”

  He grinned. “No, I'm not, but you love books so I don't mind being compared to one, but you can always ask me for what you want to know, Josie. When it comes to you, I can be patient. I’m not going to make you into someone you don't want to be. We want the same things. I want you…”

  “And I want you.”

  “Then we will marry. Please don’t refuse me again. I want to give you the world, Josie. I… I love you. Every day I woke at this party, every moment I spent in your company, whether you wanted me or not, I fell a little more in love with you. I love everything about you, your hopes, your dreams, your convictions…your mind.” He cupped her head in his hands. “Let me help you do the great things you want to do. It would be my honor.”

  “What if I want to change the world?” she asked, tears pooling in her eyes.

  “Then just tell me what to do to help you. I will never stand in your way. I only beg to stand beside you.”

  She sucked in a breath. “I… I love you too, Patrick.”

  His heart quite possibly exploded in his chest, and it was a wondrous feeling, like drinking pure sunlight or touching the moon. He closed his eyes and absorbed the moment. Their foreheads touched.

  “Will you marry me?” he asked again.

  “Yes,” she whispered back.

  He might ask a hundred more times just to hear that word.

  Their mouths came together, lips, arms, hands, bodies locking. Patrick didn’t know where he ended and she began as they melted to the floor.

  Her hands fumbled with his clothing, and he held himself above her, looking down at her beautiful face, her raven-wing hair spread over the carpet, her eyes the color of tiger eye, deep brown with ribbons of gold and shining with her tears.

  Tears of joy, he prayed, tears of relief and happiness.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I locked both doors. I’m sure.”

  His poor battered heart must still be whole somewhere in his body, for it sprouted wings and spread them wide.

  “I’m going to compromise you here in the library.”

  “Again,” she said with a watery smile.

  He lifted her skirts, and unbuttoned his breeches, seating himself in the open cradle of her thighs. “My library is much bigger than this.”

  She dragged her teeth over her lip. “Is it?”

  He nudged into her molten heat, and her eyes widened.

  “It’s enormous. You might not be able to take it all in.” He sank into her slowly, and though she tensed, her tight sheath gripping him, he slid to the hilt, and they both released a breath of relief.

  Her head tipped back and her hands fisted in his jacket as she tucked her hips. Her eyes were mere slits now, but her gaze held his. “Frighteningly big?”

  Bravo, Josie.

  She was as wild as she was clever. “Some might say,” he said breathlessly, hanging on to his control by a thread. But he was enjoying this moment too much to let it go and have it end too quickly.

  She slipped her hands under his shirt, her nails lightly scoring his skin. “Is it…long and wide or short and narrow?”

  That challenge could not go unanswered. He drew back and thrust slowly so she could feel every inch of him. “You’ll have to see for yourself. Go do a bit of exploring. For research purposes.”

  And then they were lost, all innuendo and thought flew from their heads as their hearts and bodies took over.

  Thank You

  Thank you for reading The Five Second Rule For Kissing! Please take a moment to leave a review for this book.

  Ready for more Marsden sisters? Turn the page for an excerpt of The Secrets of the Sixth Night!

  Lunette Marsden is a gifted healer but falling f
or a spy could leave her with a broken heart.

  The Earl of Densmore and his younger brother, Mr. Denham, are guests of Selbourne Castle for a house party honoring Luna and her sisters. But the brothers are up to something mysterious. When Luna discovers the earl is injured, she insists on treating his wound. She secretly tends to him in his room masking her attraction to him as best as she can. But the more she comes to know him, the more her scientific mind gives way to the desires of her heart.

  All his life Callen has tried to do the right thing—usually because his brother was always doing the wrong thing. As the future Earl of Densmore, his parents relied on him to be the leader, the good influence, which put him at odds with his brother and caused no shortage of animosity between them. But now Callen is preparing to make the biggest sacrifice of all by leaving his home, his country, and his one chance at love to save Theo from the hangman.

  And he doesn’t want to do it.

  Luna Marsden not only healed the bullet wound in his side with her tender mercy, she awoke something in him that made leaving her, and the growing desire between them, impossible. Choosing between his damned brother and Luna should be easy, but he’d spent his life protecting his brother and turning his back now meant Theo’s death.

  Luna doesn’t want to stand between two brothers who need each other more than they realize. But Mr. Denham threatens everything she holds dear. She must find a way to save a man who doesn’t want to be saved or lose the love of her life.

  Turn the page to read the excerpt!

  Excerpt

  The Secrets of the Sixth Night

  Luna slipped out of the kitchen door of the castle and into the small kitchen garden, clutching a basket tightly in her ungloved hand.

  The only witness to her little excursion was one of the cats tasked with keeping vermin from infiltrating the kitchen. In the shifting moonlight, the little black cat’s eyes glowed in the silvery blue as it watched her. She paused outside the door, closing it quietly, making sure the latch hooked but did not lock so she could return. She adjusted her cloak around her neck, the tie digging into her skin, and then she moved on, through the garden and out through a waist-high picket gate to the path beyond.