Kitty stared out the window of the Lambton shop and sighed. Somehow Miss Pratt had talked Kitty, Georgiana and Elizabeth all into coming with her to town, and then disappeared without a word. Kitty had not even known she had left until she had turned around to make some comment and there was no Miss Pratt in sight.

Elizabeth and Georgiana were browsing the ribbons in the back room and did not seem concerned at all about Miss Pratt's absence, but Kitty was not interested in joining them; the ribbons had not changed since she had been here last. Besides, the shop was increasingly crowded, and increasingly stuffy, and the more she thought about it, the more she wondered where Miss Pratt had gone. She glanced back at her sisters but when they did not so much as look at her, she decided she'd step outside to see if she could find Miss Pratt on the street.

Outside the air was fresher and there were certainly fewer people, but no Miss Pratt. She walked down the street a little way, although she made sure to stay close to the shop so she wouldn't lose the others. She took a deep breath. This was a little better.

"Miss Bennet?"

She turned and took a couple of steps back, her stomach clenching into complicated knots as her heart leapt. It was Mr. Johns. Why was he here now? She was not prepared to face him. Not as long as her insides betrayed her every time she saw him.

"I am so glad I encountered you," he said. "I had thought, at our last meeting, that you were not best pleased with me—that my apology had not quite accomplished what I wished it to. You are not still angry with me, are you?"

She did not know how to respond to him, but he kept talking without giving her the chance to respond. "Because I know you have a right to. Would to God I had not been so stupid! But you are so easy to talk to—I hardly knew what I was doing. You must understand what I suffer at home; you have met my wife. She does not improve on further acquaintance. It is so refreshing to be in company with a woman who is gentle, and graceful, and everything that Camilla is not. Can you blame me for wishing to spend more time with you?" He stepped closer to her with every sentence, until Kitty was forced to back up a few paces.

"I do not think that excuses you from allowing me to believe you available and interested in me for so long." She did not mention that she, too, would probably have been anxious to forget about Mrs. Johns. But how different things might have turned out if he had really been single!

"I may not be available, but you cannot believe me disinterested!" He moved closer again, and Kitty took another step back. "Never disinterested. Miss Bennet, you are… you are so damned beautiful." He let out a deep, shaking breath. "Your company eases my mind. Even now, when I can see your resentment shining out of those lovely eyes of yours—good God, you do not know what you do to a man, do you? I know I behaved wrongly. But I only wished to delude myself into believing, for a short time, that things could be different. That I could be happy. You must know that if I had not been married already, I would have married you. Yes! If I had any chance to change any part of my wretched life, I would have cast Camilla off—risked death rather than marry her! If only I had known that I should later meet you, and could have married you! It would have given me enough courage to do anything, I believe."

Her heart melted a tiny bit at this confession; how could it not? She stood up a little straighter to hide it. "But there is nothing you can do about it now; you cannot change what you have done, and only control what your behavior must be in the future."

"I know," he whispered. "But all my future holds for me is dreams of what might have been." He lowered his head and stared at his boots. "Do you know, Miss Bennet, what I would have done, if I could? I'd have proposed as soon as Edgepark was complete—nay, before! You and I could move in as soon as the repairs were finished, and you could have full control of decorating every room. I'd have devoted myself to seeing you smile. I would kiss you always." He looked up abruptly, his eyes wide and dark. "Kiss you! What I wouldn't give to kiss you now!"

Every possible objection to this rose up in her mind at once, and the one she voiced was not the strongest of them. "Mr. Johns, we are in a public road!" It was one thing to acknowledge that he wished things had turned out differently. It was quite another to suggest that! She couldn't help blushing at the idea of it and if she had allowed herself to be perfectly honest, she would have seen how much of it was because she was flattered.

He looked around, and Kitty noticed for the first time that they were a little way down a deserted side-alley. "There is no one here to listen or hear me," he said quietly. "I can dream as much as I wish." His eyes slid closed and he lowered his voice even more. "I would be free to love you as I wish, by now. I could hold you whenever I liked; I could kiss you at any point of the night or day; I could look at you whenever I liked… your milky skin… your bright eyes… your beautiful hair…" He groaned, and opened his eyes. "And now I can only stand before you and torment myself with what will never be. When only to hear you say my name is the sweetest gift any woman could bestow!"

He painted the very picture for her that she had painted for herself, back when she had believed that it was possible. Her heart beat wildly with her conflicting emotions. She was angry with him! But no angrier than he was with himself. And she regretted the circumstances as much as he could do. If he had only been single, how happy she could have been with him! She shook her head, but without as much of the conviction that she had displayed before. "Mr. Johns…"

"Call me Gregory," he demanded, and took another step closer to her.

She blinked. "What?"

"Just once… please… I can have nothing. All pleasure is forever denied me. But this—there is no one here—you can give me this one gift—call me by my name. Give me something that I may cherish when I must go back to her."

She did not speak for several moments. What he was asking was nothing, really. Just a name. A name that no one would ever hear, except him. A gift that he might cherish, as he said. So why was she hesitating?

"Gregory," she whispered.

He slid his eyes closed and moaned. "God, yes."

Kitty did not know what to do, so she said it again.

"Kitty. Say it again, Kitty," he whispered, stepping closer to her again. She leaned back and found a wall there.

"Gregory…" She barely got the word out before he crushed his mouth against her, his lips working insistently.

She froze. What on earth was he doing? What should she do? She should push him away. She tried, but he only stepped closer and deepened the kiss. And most confusing of all, there was a part of her that enjoyed it.

"My darling Kitty!" He grabbed her shoulders, kissing her again.

She could not speak, even when his lips weren't on her mouth. His hands started to move, caressing her. Chills ran down her spine and she trembled, half afraid and half thrilled. One of his hands ran up the back of her neck, knocked her bonnet loose, and tangled itself in her hair, and she had to bite back a moan. She liked it! If they could only have married, this could have been hers by right, not stolen in hiding. Curse Camilla Johns!

He grabbed one of her arms and put it on his waist and she put the other one there too; he pressed his body against hers and she leaned heavily against the brick behind her. His mouth left hers and she gasped, and gasped again when he moved to her neck, her jawline, and her ears—her ears! Sparks of delight shot down her neck. Could anything feel better than this! Her entire body was awake at his touch.

Her breath was coming in shorter and shorter gasps, and she could not keep her eyes open, particularly when his hands began to move again, caressing and stroking everywhere they could reach. She hardly noticed when he began to tug at her skirts; her only thought was that anything he could want to do would be delightful; she must help him do it. She fumbled with his hands, hindering as much as she helped.

"Good God! Miss Bennet!"

Everything shattered.

Kitty opened her eyes, the spell quite broken. She was overcome with terror and disgust, at herself and at Mr. Johns. He backed away, his eyes locked on her chest, and all she could do was shake her head. What had he done? What had she done? And who had stopped them? Her body felt dull and slow as she fumbled with the ribbons of her bonnet. She tore her eyes away from Mr. Johns and looked to see who had discovered them.

Mr. Knott stood at the entryway of the alley, looking as though he was the one who had been assaulted, his ears redder than she had ever seen them. Their eyes met, and Kitty could not look away.

In that moment, the clarity for which she had long searched came to her with crushing finality. She loved and wished to marry Mr. Knott and him alone: the man whose heart she had just torn out. And now she never could.

A/N: I know. I'm sorry. But it had to be done.

I'm also sorry about missing last Thursday; I was at a conference and had no chance to upload another chapter. And I wanted to give this a good, thorough edit before I posted it, because it's (obviously) a very important chapter and I wanted it to be as good as I could make it. I'd love to hear whether you think it works. I'm still tweaking it even as I publish it.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. You don't know how much it means to me to see your thoughts as we progress!