Acclaim for the authors of Unlaced by Candlelight:

‘A wild adventure with rich narrative, authentic dialogue and memorable characters.’

—RT Book Reviews on NOT JUST A GOVERNESS by Carole Mortimer

‘Scott pens a deliciously wicked romance.’

—RT Book Reviews on LONDON’S MOST WANTED RAKE by Bronwyn Scott

‘Plenty of tension and dangerous excitement blended with poignancy and passion.’

—RT Book Reviews on FALLING FOR THE HIGHLAND ROGUE by Ann Lethbridge

‘McCabe’s story charms readers.’

—RT Book Reviews on RUNNING FROM SCANDAL by Amanda McCabe

‘Kaye offers up another sexy romp.’

—RT Book Reviews on UNWED AND UNREPENTANT by Marguerite Kaye

CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Harlequin Mills & Boon®. Carole has six sons and is happily married to Peter. They are best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship.

BRONWYN SCOTT is a communications instructor at Pierce College in the United States, and is the proud mother of three wonderful children (one boy and two girls). When she’s not teaching or writing she enjoys playing the piano, travelling, and studying history and foreign languages. Readers can stay in touch on Bronwyn’s website, www.bronwynnscott.com, or at her blog, www.bronwynswriting.blogspot.com—she loves to hear from readers.

ANN LETHBRIDGE grew up roaming Britain with her military father. She now lives in Canada with her husband, two beautiful daughters, and a Maltese terrier named Teaser. Ann visits Britain every year to undertake research and also to visit family members. If you would like to know more about Ann and her research, or to contact her, visit www.annlethbridge.com

AMANDA McCABE’s books have been nominated for many awards, including a RITA® Award and an RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award. She lives in Oklahoma with a menagerie of two cats, a pug and a bossy miniature poodle, and loves dance classes, collecting cheesy travel souvenirs and watching the Food Network—even though she doesn’t cook. Visit her at www.ammandamccabe.com and www.riskyregencies.com

Born and educated in Scotland, MARGUERITE KAYE originally qualified as a lawyer but chose not to practise. Instead, she carved out a career in IT and studied history part-time, gaining first-class honours and a master’s degree. She decided to pursue her lifelong ambition to write, and submitted her first historical romance to Mills & Boon. They accepted it, and she’s been writing ever since. You can contact Marguerite through her website at: www.margueritekaye.com

Unlaced by

Candlelight

Not Just a Seduction

Carole Mortimer

An Officer but no Gentleman

Bronwyn Scott

One Night with the Highlander

Ann Lethbridge

Running Into Temptation

Amanda McCabe

How to Seduce a Sheikh

Marguerite Kaye

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CONTENTS

Cover

Acclaim for the authors of Unlaced by Candlelight

About the Authors

Title Page

Not Just a Seduction

Back Cover Text

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

An Officer But No Gentleman

Back Cover Text

Author’s Note

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

One Night with the Highlander

Back Cover Text

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Running Into Temptation

AUTHOR NOTE

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Epilogue

How to Seduce a Sheikh

Back Cover Text

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Copyright

Not Just a Seduction

Carole Mortimer

London, 1817

The Earl of Chambourne’s scandalous reputation has been well-earned, but he has never forgotten the only woman he has ever loved—nor forgiven her for marrying another man while he was off fighting in France. When Christian discovers she is a widow, he hungers to possess her once again—as his mistress.

Lady Sylviana Moorland, Countess of Ampthill, knows it is only a matter of time before she comes face to face with Christian again. No longer an innocent, she sees no reason not to take the sensual pleasure he offers. But can Sylvie resist falling for the seductive rake?

Part of Carole Mortimer’s A Season of Secrets series.

Chapter One

April, 1817

The London home of Lady Cicely Hawthorne.

“I trust, ladies, that you have not begun to discuss the matter of our grandsons’ future wives without me...?” Edith St. Just, Dowager Duchess of Royston, frowned down the length of her aristocratic nose as she entered the salon where her two closest friends sat on the sofa in cozy conversation together.

“We would not think of doing such a thing, Edith.” Her hostess stood up to cross the room and greet her with a warm kiss on both of her powdered cheeks.

“Of course we would not.” A smiling Lady Jocelyn Ambrose, Dowager Countess of Chambourne, also rose to her feet.

The three women had been firm friends since some fifty years ago when, at the age of eighteen, they had shared a coming-out Season, their friendship continuing after they had all married. After becoming mothers and then grandmothers in the same years, the ladies continued to meet at least once a week while their respective husbands were still alive and sometimes two or three times a week since being widowed.

The dowager duchess nodded her satisfaction with her friends’ replies before turning to the young lady who had accompanied her into the salon. “You may join Miss Thompson and Mrs. Spencer at their sewing, Ellie.”

* * *

Eleanor Rosewood gave a brief curtsy to the lady who was not only her step-great-aunt by marriage but also her benefactress before stepping lightly across the room to join the other companions quietly sewing in the window alcove. The ladies, much older than her nineteen years, nevertheless smiled at her in welcome. As they had for this past year.

If not for the dowager duchess’s kindness, Ellie feared that she might have been forced to offer herself up to the tender mercies of becoming one of the demimonde after the death of her mother and stepfather had revealed she had not only been left penniless but seriously in debt. Edith St. Just, hearing of her nephew’s profligacy, had wasted no time in sweeping into his stepdaughter’s heavily mortgaged home and paying off those debts before gathering Ellie up to her ample bosom and making a place for her in her own household as her companion. This past year in that lady’s employ had revealed to Ellie that Edith St. Just’s outward appearance of stern severity hid a heart of gold.

Unfortunately the same could not be said of her grandson, the arrogant and ruthless Justin St. Just, Duke of Royston, the haughtiness of his own demeanor a reflection of the steel within...

“Are you sure this is altogether wise?” Lady Cicely ventured uncertainly. “Thorne is sure to be most displeased with me if he should discover I have plotted behind his back to secure him a wife.”

“Humph.” The dowager duchess snorted down the length of her aristocratic nose as she took a seat beside the unlit fireplace. “We may plot all we like, Cicely, but it will be our grandsons’ decisions as to whether or not they are equally as enamored of our choices of brides for them. Besides, our grandsons are all past the age of eight and twenty, two of them never having married, the third long a widower, and none of them giving so much as a glance in the direction of the sweet young things paraded before them with the advent of each new Season.”

“And can you blame them?” Lady Cicely frowned. “When those young girls seem to get sillier and sillier each year?”

“That silliness is not exclusive to the present.” The dowager duchess frowned. “My own daughter-in-law, but eighteen when Robert married her, was herself evidence of that very silliness when a year later she chose to name my only grandson Justin—to be coupled with St. Just! Which is why it is our duty to seek out more sensible women to be the future brides of our respective grandsons, and mothers of the future heirs.”

Lady Cicely did not look convinced. “It is only that Thorne has such an icy demeanor when angry...”

Lady Jocelyn gave her friend a consoling grimace. “I am afraid Edith is, as usual, perfectly correct. If we are to see our grandsons suitably married, then I fear we shall have to be the ones to arrange matters. No doubts they will all thank us for it one day. Besides,” she added coyly, “with the advent of my ball tomorrow evening, I do believe that I have already set things in motion regarding Christian’s future.”

“Indeed?” The dowager duchess raised steely brows.

“Oh, do tell!” Lady Cicely encouraged excitedly.

Ellie, listening attentively to the conversation while giving the outward appearance of concentrating upon her own sewing, was also curious to hear how Lady Jocelyn believed she had managed to arrange the securing of a wife for her grandson, the cynical and jaded—frighteningly so, in Ellie’s opinion!—Lord Christian Ambrose, Earl of Chambourne...

Chapter Two

“Tell me, how did you explain your...loss of innocence to your elderly husband on your wedding night?”

Sylvie’s spine stiffened upon hearing that soft and cruelly mocking voice just behind her as she stood alone in the candlelit ballroom in the Dowager Countess of Chambourne’s London home. A voice, and man, standing so near to her that the warmth of his breath slightly ruffled the loose curls at her temple and beside her pearl-adorned earlobe. So near that she could feel the heat of that gentleman’s body through the silk of her gown...

She would have been foolish not to have expected some response from Lord Christian Ambrose, Earl of Chambourne, after arriving at his grandmother’s ball some half an hour earlier and finding the countess’s coldly arrogant grandson at that lady’s side as he acted as host to her hostess.

Yes, Sylvie had known, and expected, when she had accepted the invitation to this ball, some sort of acknowledgment of their previous acquaintance from Christian, but she had not expected it to be quite so cruelly pointed in nature!

She stiffened her spine and drew in a slow and controlled breath before turning to face him, her outward expression one of calm disdain. At the same time, her pulse gave an alarmed leap as she had to look up at least a foot in order to meet familiar moss-green eyes set in a face of such stark male beauty it might have been carved by Michelangelo. Arrogant dark brows above those moss-green eyes, high cheekbones either side of a long and aristocratic nose, chiseled lips above a square and determined jaw, raven-dark locks falling rakishly across the wide and intelligent brow.

She did not need to lower her gaze to know that Christian’s black evening jacket had been tailored to fit like a glove over the wide expanse of his shoulders and muscled chest. His linen snowy white beneath a pale-silver waistcoat, black satin breeches encasing the long and muscled length of his thighs.

No, Sylvie did not need to look to know all of those things, having taken in Christian Ambrose’s appearance fully upon her arrival earlier. And cursed herself for noticing that Christian had only grown more handsome—disturbingly so—rather than less, in the years since she had last seen him.

Four years, to be precise. Years that had seen Sylvie change to the coolly composed woman she presented to Society this evening, rather than that young girl of eighteen summers who had been totally besotted with this gentleman’s rakish good looks.

That same young girl who had so trustingly given this man the innocence which he now dismissed so contemptuously...

* * *

To say that Christian had been disarmed to discover that Lady Sylviana Moorland, widowed Countess of Ampthill, was one of the guests at his grandmother’s ball this evening would have been deeply understating the matter. He could not have been more surprised if that upstart Napoleon, presently and hopefully forever incarcerated on St. Helena, had arrived on his grandmother’s doorstep brandishing an invitation!

Not that he had not been fully aware of Sylviana Moorland’s

return to Society, now that her year of mourning her husband was well and truly over—indeed, it was closer to two years since Colonel Lord Gerald Moorland had been struck down at the battle of Waterloo. And having heard that gentleman’s widow had returned to town at the start of the Season, Christian had taken the steps necessary to ensure that they were never in attendance at the same social function.

Steps that had been shattered this evening by his own grandmother, of all people!

Unintentionally, of course, for surely his grandmother was as much in ignorance of Christian’s previous acquaintance with Sylviana as was the rest of Society.

If anything Sylvie was more beautiful than Christian remembered, no longer that young girl on the brink of womanhood but now fully matured into a beautiful woman. The gold of her hair was arranged in artful curls upon her crown, with several loose tendrils at her temples and nape. Brown eyes surrounded by long dark lashes, and as deep and impenetrable as the golden molasses they resembled in her heart-shaped face; a small and delicate nose, with full and pouting lips above a small and determined chin. Her body was no longer coltishly slender, either, but lush and sensual, the fullness of her creamy breasts spilling over the low neckline of her green silk gown.

A gown of the same moss-green color as Christian’s eyes...Deliberately so?

The challenge in her dark gaze as she gazed up at him so

disdainfully would seem to imply so. “How unfortunate, my lord, that the passing of the years appears to have done nothing to improve your manners!”

Christian gave a hard and derisive smile. “Did you expect them to have done so?”

She eyed him coolly. “One might have hoped so, yes...”

“Why did you come here this evening, Sylvie?” He snapped his impatience with that coolness. “Or perhaps you prefer the grander Sylviana now that you are become a countess?” he added contemptuously as he saw the way she stiffened at his familiarity.

“I believe ‘my lady’ and ‘my lord’ are a more fitting address between two people of equal rank.” She had drawn herself up to her full height of just over five feet. “And I am here this evening because your grandmother invited me.”

Christian gave a derisive snort. “And are your invitations into Society so few and far between that you must needs accept this one?”

“On the contrary.” That golden gaze raked over him contemptuously. “Perhaps you have not heard, my lord, but I believe I am considered to be something of a matrimonial catch this Season, and as such in receipt of more invitations than I could ever hope to accept.”

His mouth twisted with disgust. “I had heard that your elderly husband left you a rich widow, yes. Which, no doubt, was your intention when you married a man so much older than yourself.”

Her eyes widened. “How dare you—”

“Oh, I believe, Sylvie, that you will find I dare much where you are concerned!” His eyes glittered dangerously. “A first lover’s privilege, shall we say?”

“No, we will not say!” All the color had now faded from her cheeks.

Christian gave a humorless smile. “What reason did you give your ancient husband when he discovered that there was no maidenhead for him to breach on your wedding night?”

It took every effort of will on Sylvie’s part not to flinch at the

unmistakable disdain in Christian Ambrose’s tone, and the hard censor of his moss-green gaze as it raked over her with slow contempt, from her blond curls down to her green-slippered feet, before shifting, deliberately lingering, on the firm swell of her breasts.

As if she were nothing more than a slab of meat on a butcher’s block that he was considering the merits of purchasing!

As if this man had no recollection of once upon a time slowly removing every article of clothing from her body—much more than once!—before making love to her as if she were the most delicate, precious thing upon this earth...

Once upon a time?

For Sylvie it was a different lifetime!

Certainly she was no longer that innocent young miss who had believed, in her naïveté, that Christian Ambrose, a gentleman six years her senior—in experience as well as years—returned the deep love she had felt for him. That trusting young girl had disappeared long, long ago, upon the realization that she had been nothing more than yet another female conquest to the rakish Christian Ambrose.

In her place was Sylviana Moorland, wealthy widow of Colonel Lord Gerald Moorland, a coolly composed woman of two and twenty, who felt as cynical toward love as the gentleman now standing before her gazing down at her so disdainfully.

Sylvie drew in a deep, controlling breath. “I—”

“I believe it would be best if we were to finish this conversation outside on the terrace,” Christian Ambrose grated harshly even as he grasped Sylvie’s arm and pulled her toward one of the sets of open French doors.

She resisted that painful hold upon her arm. “Unhand me at once, sir—” She broke off her protest abruptly as Christian turned to focus the full fierceness of his icy-cold moss-green eyes upon her, eyes that had once caused her to melt with passion but which she now knew only too well to be wary of. “People are staring at us...” she substituted lamely.

“Let them,” he grated unconcernedly as he continued to pull her effortlessly across the candlelit room, through the open doorway and out onto the dark seclusion of the terrace.

Chapter Three

No sooner had they stepped outside into that shadowed darkness than Sylvie felt the steely strength of Christian’s arms as he pulled her hard against him, the lowering of his head blocking out the brightness of the moon overhead as his lips claimed hers.

Not a gentle or exploratory kiss, but that of an experienced lover, demanding she return that same heat of passion. An experienced lover who knew exactly how to kiss and caress the woman in his arms until she was weak with arousal...

Try as Sylvie might to resist that seduction, and her determination never to fall for this man’s rakish charms ever again, she found she had no defenses against the onslaught. Christian’s tongue parted her lips before plunging possessively inside, his hands moving in a restless caress down the length of her spine before cupping beneath her bottom to pull her in so tight against him Sylvie could feel the hard ridge of his arousal.

Betraying heat flooded between her thighs, her nipples aching beneath the bodice of her gown as Christian deliberately rubbed his chest rhythmically against them, eliciting a want, an unwanted hunger deep inside her—

Christian wrenched his mouth from hers to lower his lips to the swell of her breasts, his tongue rasping, lapping, across that sensitized flesh before he tugged down on the bodice of her gown. One of those swollen orbs spilled out of its confinement to allow him to place his lips about her nipple.

Arousing a heat that none of Sylvie’s late-night imaginings had even come close to replicating as she stroked the nubbin between her thighs, faster and harder until she reached a shuddering climax.

Sylvie felt that same climax rapidly building within her now as Christian continued to caress her nipple, harder, deeper, teeth biting, tongue laving as her back arched to press her breast deeper into that sensual delight.

She had no intention of ever falling in love with this man again, but that was no reason why she should not take the sexual gratification he now offered, in the same way he had once taken sexual gratification from her.

Sylvie parted her thighs and moved up on her toes so that she might rub herself against the hard ridge of Christian’s arousal, perfectly positioning that hardness against herself as she stroked herself against him in a rapidly increasing rhythm—

She gave a groan of protest as Christian wrenched his mouth away from her breast even as he grasped her shoulders to steady her before he stepped back and away from her, his eyes a hard and glittering green. “I do not in the least mind paying for a woman’s...services, but I prefer to know the price of those services before I bed her rather than be apprised of it afterward,” he drawled contemptuously as he straightened the lace at his cuffs.

“Price...?” she repeated sharply.

He gave a mocking inclination of his head. “I have no doubts that a man of Ampthill’s advanced years thought himself truly blessed when he took such a young beauty as his wife. I, however, am in no hurry to contemplate marriage,” Christian drawled contemptuously, at the same time feeling a moment’s regret as Sylvie set the front of her gown to rights. “Especially when I have already sampled your goods—”

He got no further in his insult as the palm of Sylvie’s left hand made loud and painful contact with his right cheek. “I will allow you that one small lapse,” he bit out harshly, a nerve now pulsing in that no doubt rapidly reddening cheek. “But be warned, Sylvie, that the next time I will retaliate in kind.”

“You are as much a bastard as you ever were, I see!” Her eyes flashed.

Christian raised mocking brows. “Because I gladly took what you offered four years ago?”

Her eyes glittered darkly. “Because you took what you wanted before departing to enjoy the licentiousness of London and then returning to your regiment with not a thought for what might become of me!”

Christian studied her flushed face between narrowed lids. “Unless I am mistaken, you became the Countess of Moorland.”

Her hands had clenched into fists at her sides, her breasts quickly rising and falling as she breathed deeply. “And you returned to your life of debauchery with not a thought to the fact that I was ruined. Used goods.”

“Not so ‘used’ you did not marry within months of our parting. And to another earl, no less,” he added. “Although well beyond the flush of youth.” Christian’s mouth twisted derisively at the thought of the gentleman who had been old enough to be Sylvie’s grandfather rather than her husband. “But perhaps he was so grateful to have you in his bed that he chose not to question your lack of virginity?”

There appeared a look of such chilly contempt upon Sylvie’s face that it took every effort on Christian’s part not to flinch from that coldness. “You may insult me all you wish,” she bit out. “But you will never talk of Gerald again in that tone. He was a gentleman. A man of honor. Of integrity. And you—you are not even fit to so much as lick one of his boots!”

Christian scowled his displeasure. Not because Sylvie had just roundly insulted him, but because her words made it very clear that even if she had not loved her aged husband, she had deeply respected and liked him. A respect and liking she made it equally clear she did not feel for Christian...

Did he want Sylvie’s liking and respect?

Before this evening his answer would have been a resounding no. Before he had kissed her again, caressed her, suckled the fullness of her breast and felt the heat of her response to him, he would have said no. But now? How did Christian feel now that he had done all of those things?

Four years ago Sylvie had been the only daughter of the family living on the small estate neighboring his own in Berkshire. A young girl he had seen about the village for most of his life, even if his years away at school, university and latterly the army had meant he had never known her well.

But he had come home on leave from his regiment the summer of 1813, battle-worn and inwardly scarred and sickened from seeing too much blood and the death of many of his friends. And the young and beautiful Sylvie Buchanan, with her ready smile and innocently eager body, had been exactly the distraction Christian had needed to help him forget, if only for a few weeks, that he must soon return to that bloodbath.

Their first meeting had been completely accidental. Christian, strolling about the countryside several days after his arrival, had come upon Sylvie swimming in a curve of the local river.

Even now Christian could remember the warmth of that day and how the sun had turned Sylvie’s long hair to rippling gold as it flowed out to float loosely in the water behind her after she had given a surprised shriek at espying him on the grassy riverbank and dipped below the water to just below her chin.

Far from leaving, as she had begged him to do, Christian had instead made himself comfortable on that grassy riverbank and laughingly dared her to come out of the water. A dare Sylvie had protested, her beautiful face burning hotly with embarrassment. Christian had persisted in his request at the same time as he informed her he was in no hurry to leave, his breath catching in his throat when, almost an hour later, she finally stood up in the water to reveal she wore only a wet and clinging chemise.

The water had rendered that chemise almost completely see-through, revealing all of her charms as she stepped fully from the water—pale and satiny skin, those high and tilting breasts tipped by rosy nipples, the slightly darker-blond curls nestled between her thighs, her legs long and slender—and all causing Christian’s manhood to harden in a way it had not done in the last months of bloody battle, and which he had secretly feared it might never do again.

The relief of knowing that his lack of desire had only been a temporary aberration had allowed Christian to rein in his own needs and only kiss Sylvie lightly that first day, not wanting to frighten her with the depth of the desire he felt for her.

He had so enjoyed her company, her innocence of passion, that he had arranged to meet her at the same place the following day. And the day following that one. And the one after that. And as each day passed, their kisses deepened, became more passionate, needy, quickly advancing to caresses, and then finally the two of them had made love on that grassy knoll beside the river, the sunshine continuing to shine down on them as Christian made love to Sylvie a second time, and then a third, his hunger to possess her, to claim her, seeming never ending.

A hunger that Christian’s response to kissing Sylvie again this evening had now shown him, no matter how he might wish it otherwise, had never completely gone away...

Chapter Four

His mouth twisted disdainfully. “I believe I would far rather lick the honey from between your silken thighs than I would your husband’s boots,” he drawled suggestively. “Something, if my memory serves me correctly, that you would also enjoy?” He quirked one mocking brow.

Her breath caught in her throat. “You are disgusting!”

“Have a care, Sylvie.” His eyes narrowed dangerously.

“And if I choose not to do so?” she dared.

Christian gave an unconcerned shrug. “Then you will suffer the consequences of deliberately challenging me.”

Sylvie gave an involuntary shiver as she heard the steely edge beneath Christian’s tone, knowing she should not have attended the Dowager Countess of Chambourne’s ball this evening.

Recently returned to Society, and having only seen Christian Ambrose occasionally from a great distance, Sylvie had known that it was only a matter of time before the two of them were introduced by a hostesses at one function or another. That being so, Sylvie had decided that she would prefer to be in control of when and how that meeting took place, her years of being married to the gentlemanly Gerald having led her to believe she was now immune to Christian Ambrose’s dangerous brand of sensuality.

Instead she had found herself in his arms within minutes of their having met again, telling her that if anything, her response to Christian’s lovemaking was even more intense, more immediate, than it had been four years ago.

Because she was also four years older? And as such her physical desires had become that much more mature too?

Whatever the reason, Sylvie knew she should not have come here this evening. Should never have risked drawing Christian’s attention to her. And she most certainly should never have allowed herself to respond to him on even a physical level! He—

“Why did you not wait for me, as I asked you to?”

Sylvie blinked up at him. “I beg your pardon?”

Christian’s jaw tightened. “Four years ago. I told you I loved you and asked you to wait for me.” And only thoughts of this woman waiting for him in England had kept him alive.

Her chin rose defensively as she recalled how his own household in the country, unaware of Sylvie’s previous involvement with Christian, had been indulgently abuzz with the rumors of his return to his rakish behavior during his week’s stay in London prior to returning to his regiment. Rumors that had put Sylvie’s own importance in his life in its proper context.

She lifted her chin. “And when, after two months, you had not so much as written me a single letter, I had no choice but to accept that our affair was over.”

He scowled. “There was a reason I did not write to you—”

“None that are acceptable to me, I assure you.” Sylvie gave him a contemptuous smile.

Christian’s jaw tightened as he remembered those weeks he lay suffering, when only thoughts of Sylvie, waiting for him at home, had prevented him from succumbing to the fatality of his infected wound. “And how long after I left did you wait before accepting Ampthill’s offer of marriage?” His top lip curled back in disgust. “A week? Two? On the basis, no doubt, that an earl ‘in the hand’ was better than the uncertainty of the return of the one who had so recently gone back to the war!”

Sylvie gave a rueful shake of her head. “How dare you stand there and accuse me of inconstancy when you were the one who left without so much as a single glance back at the girl you had used to fill your hours of boredom whilst in the country!”

“I told you I loved you and asked you to wait for me, damn it!” His eyes glittered.

Sylvie forced herself not to wilt under the barrage of Christian’s accusing tone, distrustful of that anger as she had good reason to be distrustful of the man himself. “I was eighteen years old, Christian, with all of the impatience of youth.”

“So impatient you could not even have waited a few months?” Christian frowned as he recalled finally returning to England three months after he and Sylvie had last seen each other, only to be informed by her proud parents, when he rode over to their estate to pay his respects, that Sylviana no longer lived on their estate with them, but was now residing in Bedfordshire with her husband, Colonel Lord Gerald Moorland, Earl of Ampthill.

Christian had no recollection of the rest of his conversation that day with Henry and Jessica Buchanan, or of taking his leave some half an hour or so later. He had felt as if someone had punched him in the chest, rendering him both speechless and numb. He’d had no choice but to accept that Sylvie was now another man’s wife, and as such, was far beyond his reach.

That numbness had lasted for several days, only to be replaced by anger and disillusionment. He had believed Sylvie was different from all those other marriage-minded chits he so frequently met in Society, that she actually cared about him, Christian the man, rather than his title. The fact that she had married an ancient earl in the few months of his absence showed Christian that had not been the case, that the title was everything to her.

And so had begun the months and years of debauchery he had embarked upon following his disillusionment. Those same years that had quickly earned him the reputation for being a rake and a dissolute, a man who cared naught for the softer emotions and everything for the pleasure of the moment.

“Obviously you could not,” Christian answered his own question contemptuously. “And as luck would have it, you only had to suffer an old man’s pawing for a year or two before you were conveniently left his widow and in possession of all his fortune.”

Sylvie felt the color leech from her cheeks at Christian’s deliberately insulting tone. An insult she did not deserve from this particular man. Not now, and certainly not four years ago.

She had been deeply in love with Christian. Even when she had been told of his behavior in London after he left her, she had tried to dismiss it as just rumors, malicious gossip that could not possibly be true. The months of silence that had followed those rumors had left her with no choice but to accept she had merely been a diversion for him during the weeks he spent in the country attending to estate matters.

“You know absolutely nothing of my marriage to Gerald—”

“I know enough to realize that an old man of sixty could not possibly have hoped to satisfy the physical demands of a young girl of eighteen!” His top lip curled back with distaste. “I know you, Sylvie,” he added softly. “How to touch and arouse every silken inch of your body.” He reached out to run his fingers lightly across the firm swell of her breasts revealed by the low neckline of her gown. “I have watched you, enjoyed you, time and time again, as you experienced climax after shattering climax. Did Moorland do that for you, Sylvie? Did he touch you in all the intimate places that I know give you such pleasure—”

“Stop it!” she protested, knowing and regretting that the heated flush to her cheeks and breasts revealed how much Christian’s words had aroused her. Aroused her, but never again would she allow her heart to be broken by this man. “All this talk of the past achieves nothing—”

“And if it does not have to be the past?” Those long and caressing fingers dipped beneath the bodice of her gown to pluck unerringly at one roused nipple. “It so happens I am currently without a mistress—”

“And I am not so desperate for a man’s intimate touch that I would ever consider accepting such an offer from you!” Sylvie glared up at him. Not on his terms, at least. Not on any terms that would endanger her heart or the independent life she now lived.

Those sculpted lips curved into a humorless smile. “All evidence to the contrary, my dear.” He squeezed that roused nipple between thumb and finger, looking down at her dispassionately as she drew her breath in sharply. “Are you damp and ready for me between your thighs, Sylvie? Perhaps I should touch you there too and see for myself—”

“Leave me be!” Sylvie could stand it no more, slapping his hand away before stepping back.

“You are,” Christian murmured with quiet satisfaction as he continued to regard her flushed cheeks dispassionately. “You will give me the name of the gentleman—or gentlemen?—currently sharing the pleasure of your body and your bed,” he said.

“And why would I wish to do that...?” She eyed him contemptuously.

“So that I may dispense with his, or their, services, of course.” He shrugged those broad shoulders. “I may be considered an out-and-out rake by all of Society, but I draw the line at sharing my woman with another man!”

Sylvie gave an indignant gasp. “I have no intention of ever

becoming your woman!”

“Oh, but you will, Sylvie,” Christian assured her confidently. “In fact, I intend calling upon you tomorrow so that we might...discuss the terms of that agreement.”

Sylvie stared up at him for several long moments, knowing by the cold implacability of Christian’s pale-green gaze that he meant exactly what he said. “I do believe that your arrogance has now become as large as your overinflated ego!” she finally snapped dismissively. “Now, if you will excuse me, I have a headache, and wish to go and make my excuses to your grandmother before taking my leave.” She turned briskly on one satin slipper before marching away.

Christian watched between narrowed lids as Sylvie walked the length of the terrace before stepping lightly back into the ballroom, knowing he needed to delay his own return several more minutes if he was not to appear before his grandmother with an indecent erection tenting the front of his silk breeches.

And despite her protests to the contrary, he had every intention of having Sylvie satisfied on the morrow...

* * *

Once safely returned to her home in Berkeley Square, Sylvie went straight up the stairs, moving quietly into the candlelit bedchamber before nodding dismissal of the nurse and taking that lady’s place in the chair beside the small bed, the tension leaving her expression as she gazed down at her sleeping daughter.

Sylvie felt a deep outpouring of love as she reached out to gently touch the abundance of dark curls framing those baby cheeks and small rosebud of a mouth, and knowing that if Christianna’s eyes were open, they would be a beautiful, warm, moss green.

The exact same shade as her father’s...

Chapter Five

“What are you doing here?” Christian scowled darkly at Sylvie when he entered the drawing room of his London home the morning following his grandmother’s ball, accepting that he owed his butler an apology for disbelieving him when that gentleman had entered Christian’s darkened bedchamber a few minutes ago and informed him that Lady Sylviana Moorland, Countess of Ampthill, was waiting downstairs to speak with him.

Christian’s mood was taciturn at best this morning, after the hours he had necessarily spent at his grandmother’s ball following Sylvie’s early departure, most of that time spent in fending off his grandmother’s less-than-subtle determination to see him in the company of Lady Vanessa Styles, a young lady of one and twenty whom his grandmother had obviously decided would make him a suitable countess.

Having finally managed to escape those machinations shortly after midnight, Christian had spent the hours until daybreak at one of the more disreputable clubs, rebuffing the obvious attentions of the willing ladies there in favor of drinking copious amounts of brandy and winning at the gaming tables.

As a consequence he had not been best pleased to be awakened, only hours after falling fully clothed into his bed, and informed by his butler of Sylvie’s presence downstairs in his drawing room. So certain had Christian been of the butler’s error that he had not even bothered to tidy his appearance before coming downstairs, let alone change his clothes.

An oversight he deeply regretted as he saw the way Sylvie’s tiny nose wrinkled with distaste as she took in his disreputable appearance—the crumpled clothes he had been wearing the evening before, the darkness of his curls in disarray, a growth of beard darkening his jaw. That jaw now tightened. “I asked—”

“I heard you,” Sylvie spoke quietly, her own appearance immaculate as she perched, ladylike, upon the edge of her chair, several loose gold curls peeking out from beneath the yellow silk bonnet that was an exact match in color for her gown, her hands and arms covered by cream lace gloves.

Christian gave a wince as the brightness of those colors hurt his eyes. “And yet you did not answer,” he bit out.

In truth, Sylvie regretted the need for her having to come here at all, let alone finding herself faced with Christian’s disreputable appearance. His evening clothes were crumpled, as if he had slept in them. At the same time, the dark shadows below his eyes and the stubble on his arrogant chin gave the impression he had not been to bed at all. To sleep, at least...

She stiffened her spine. “Perhaps you would like to return upstairs and...see to your appearance before we commence our conversation...?”

He raised mocking brows as he threw himself down in the chair facing her own. “I am perfectly comfortable as I am, thank you,” he drawled dismissively as he leaned his elbows on the arms of the chair and steepled his fingers in front of him. “And I believe we are already in conversation...?”

Sylvie drew her breath in sharply, having known the moment she saw Christian’s rumpled appearance that she should not have come here today without first making an appointment. She had thought to put Christian at a disadvantage by doing so, and instead she once again found herself the one who was wrong-footed. “You put forward a suggestion to me yesterday evening—”

“If you are referring to becoming my mistress, that was not a suggestion but a statement of intent,” he cut in, eyes gleaming through narrowed lids as he looked at her above those long, steepled fingers.

Sylvie was well aware of that. Just as she knew she had no intention of allowing this man to call at her home. The home where Christianna also resided...

“Perhaps your...other activities last night have now rendered that conversation obsolete?”

Those chiseled lips tilted in a humorless smile. “If you wish to know if I bedded another woman last night then just ask, Sylvie,” he mocked. “I promise I will not lie to you.”

“That will certainly be a novelty!”

Christian’s eyes narrowed in warning. “To my knowledge I have never lied to you. Nor will I lie to you now.”

Sylvie’s cheeks warmed even as she berated herself for caring one way or the other whether or not Christian had gone to another woman’s bed last night. In truth, it would be preferable if he had done so, would give her the perfect excuse to turn down his scandalous offer to her the previous evening. “Very well. Did you bed another woman last night?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“Do not look so disappointed, Sylvie.” He gave a hard laugh. “Why would I even consider the idea of bedding another woman after making love to you earlier in the evening?”

Her mouth firmed at his mockery. “You must know that you are not known for your constancy in regard to any particular woman.”

He raised dark brows. “And is that to be a condition of our own arrangement? That, for the time of our...affair, I will occupy only your bed?”

“We do not have an arrangement—”

“As yet,” Christian bit out decisively. “But that is your reason for being here today, is it not? So that we might thrash out the terms and conditions of such a relationship between the two of us?” The alcoholic fog and lack of sleep had now cleared enough from Christian’s head for him to have considered all of the reasons Sylvie had chosen to call on him this morning.

She wished to reiterate that there would be no affair between them, now, or in the future? Something she could far more easily have told him in a note, or when he called upon her later in the day.

That she had decided to take another man as her lover? He was sure Sylvie knew him well enough to know that he would never accept such a decision.

Which only left the more obvious reason: that Sylvie had decided to accept his offer after all, but on her own terms.

And Christian was very interested in knowing what those terms might be.

“Well?” he prompted at her continued silence. “Is that not the reason you are here, Sylvie?”

Chapter Six

Damn him!

Damn, damn, damn Lord Christian Matthew Faulkner Ambrose, the Earl of Chambourne, to the hell he deserved!

Because, having considered all of the options during the long and sleepless night, and out of a need to protect Christianna, that was precisely the reason Sylvie had called upon him this morning.

Christian had made it abundantly clear the evening before that, the two of them now having met again, he had no intention of quietly absenting himself from her life a second time. Not, at least, until he had taken what he wanted from her. As clear as he had made it that what he wanted was her, in his bed, for as long as it took him to tire of her again. None of which would have—should have—mattered in the least to Sylvie after Christian’s despicable treatment of her four years ago.

And it would not have done.

If not for Christianna.

The man Sylvie had met yesterday evening was even less the man she had thought him to be four years ago, the Christian from the past having at least given the appearance of warmth and caring. Last night he had been every inch the cold and arrogant Lord Christian Ambrose, the Earl of Chambourne, a known rake and a man who cared for no one—except a possible affection for his grandmother?—and neither expected nor wanted anyone to care for him. Even so, Sylvie had no doubts that he would care about his daughter if he ever learned of her existence. As he must surely do, if he were ever to actually see Christianna.

Which was precisely the reason Sylvie had decided to accept, and put her own limitations—some control—on the...relationship, Christian stated, no, demanded, there now be between the two of them.

That, and the fact that—despite everything that had once passed between them—Sylvie still responded physically to this man. Her heart, she was sure, was in no further danger from this man; how could it be when he had used her so shamefully in the past?

She rose briskly to her feet. “Being a young and wealthy widow, I have received several such offers as yours these past few months—”

“A young, wealthy and beautiful widow,” Christian corrected softly.

Sylvie refused to allow herself to be moved by his compliment; Christian Ambrose was a silver-tongued devil bent on seduction, nothing more. A seduction that would take place under Sylvie’s rules or not at all. “I obviously cannot vouch as to that—”

“I can,” he bit out tersely. “If anything, Sylvie, you are more beautiful now than you were four years ago.” And it was true, Christian acknowledged with a frown. There was a confidence to Sylvie now that had not been present four years earlier, an elegance in her carriage and demeanor that implied a coolness to her nature that Christian knew to be only skin deep; her responses to him yesterday evening had been every bit as fiery as he remembered from the past.

“Yes. Well.” She gave him a scathing glance. “Several of these gentleman have been...pressing, in their attentions—”

Christian’s eyes were narrowed. “Tell me the names of these other gentlemen and I will consign them to the devil.”

She gave a shake of her head. “I only mentioned them at all in order to explain why I have decided to accept an offer of...protection, from one gentleman, a gentleman of my own choice, rather than continue to be plagued by many.”

“And I am to be that gentleman...?”

Sylvie looked at him coolly. “Only if you are willing to accept the relationship under my terms.”

His eyes narrowed. “And those terms are...?”

She drew in a deep breath. “One—there will be no other lovers in your life for as long as this...arrangement between us lasts, the arrangement becoming null and void if that should ever be the case.”

“I believe I have already stated there will be no other women.”

“No, you stated I should not be allowed other lovers but you,” she recalled dryly.

He frowned grimly. “I give you my word there will be no other women for me, either, for the time of our own affair.”

Her mouth thinned. “Two—we will meet a maximum of two nights a week—”

“Two?” Christian repeated, astounded. “I had it more in mind to spend every night together until we had sated our desire for each other.”

“A maximum of two,” Sylvie repeated firmly.

“Three,” he stated stubbornly. “And let us hope that you will succeed in so satiating my appetite during those times that I have no strength left to so much as think of bedding another woman the other four nights of the week!”

Sylvie looked at him searchingly for several long minutes before nodding slowly. “Very well, three.”

“Beginning with this one,” he added softly.

Sylvie’s eyes widened in alarm. Tonight? Christian wished to start bedding her this very night?

Somehow, in all her thinking the evening before, Sylvie had avoided actually dwelling on when Christian would require her to start sharing his bed. Just the thought of it being this night, in several hours’ time, was enough to make her tremble. In trepidation, she hoped...

“Very well,” she agreed. “Three—our times together will be spent here rather than in my own home—”

“Why?”

Sylvie avoided directly meeting that piercing green gaze. “It is enough that I prefer it should be so.”

Christian’s lids narrowed as he looked at her searchingly for several long seconds before murmuring. “It is not the usual way of things...”

“I am aware of that.”

“The fact that you are here this morning, calling at the home of a single gentleman without so much as your maid in attendance, would be cause for gossip among the ton if any were to learn of it, let alone the knowledge that you are spending three nights a week here in my bed.”

“Then we will have to endeavor to ensure that none of the ton learn the terms of our arrangement,” Sylvie dismissed. “And I will not be spending the whole night here, merely a few hours.”

His brow rose. “You intend sneaking out of my house like a thief in the middle of the night?”

Her jaw tensed. “Gentlemen do it all the time, so why should I not do the same!”

“Why would you even risk such a thing?” Christian pondered.

Sylvie’s eyes flashed darkly as she looked at him with contempt. “Perhaps because I have no intention of sharing a bed with you in the home I shared with my husband until his death?”

Christian felt a harsh shard of jealousy rip through him at the thought of Sylvie sharing the home—and the bed—of another man. Especially that of the husband she had thrown him over for four years ago.

He rose slowly to his feet, his mouth curving into a hard smile as he saw the way Sylvie instantly took a step back and away from him. “Did you love him after all, then?”

She looked startled for a moment, and then that coolness settled on her face once more. “As I told you yesterday evening, Gerald was a man it was all too easy to respect and admire.”

“I asked if you loved him!” Christian reached out to grasp the tops of her arms, his glittering gaze easily holding her own captive.

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “I have already told you—”

“That you respected and admired Gerald Moorland.” A nerve pulsed in Christian’s clenched jaw as he continued to glare down at her. “They are the emotions one feels for a favorite uncle, not a husband!”

Possibly because that was how Sylvie had always regarded Gerald, who had been a friend of her father’s. That affection had grown exponentially when Gerald, finding her alone and sobbing in the garden during one of his visits, had demanded she tell him what ailed her, only to then offer her the respectability of marriage to him and legitimacy for her unborn babe rather than scandal for her whole family.

Sylvie had initially refused Gerald’s offer, of course, claiming that a marriage between the two of them would be unfair to him, when she was still in love with the father of her baby, when a part of her had still hoped—prayed—that the rumors she had heard about Christian were untrue, and that he would either write to her or appear in person and that the two of them would then marry.

But Gerald had been tenacious, repeating his offer several more times during the next few weeks until, tired and heartsick at Christian’s continued silence, Sylvie knew she had no choice but to acknowledge she had merely been a passing fancy for him, someone for him to make love to and with during the weeks of his leave from the army.

She looked up to meet Christian’s gaze unflinchingly. “Any discussion of my feelings for my husband will not be a part of our arrangement.”

Christian frowned down at her in frustration for several minutes, annoyed with Sylvie’s stubbornness, but even more annoyed with himself for still desiring her so much he was willing to allow her to dictate the terms of their future relationship. Up to a point!

“I believe it is usual for gentlemen to shake hands at the successful conclusion of a deal,” he murmured gruffly. “And for men and women to kiss,” he added before his head swooped down and he claimed her lips with his own.

She tasted of honey, and smelt of violets, the fullness of her curves fitting perfectly against Christian as his arms tightened about her and he deepened the kiss, his erection rising to press against her as his tongue swept between the parted softness of her lips—

Sylvie wrenched her mouth from his, her cheeks flushed as she pushed away from him, her eyes bright as she looked up at him, her nose wrinkling with distaste. “You smell of cheap liquor and even cheaper perfume!”

Christian scowled his frustration. At eighteen Sylvie had seemed like an open book to him, her brightness and enthusiasm for life attracting him as nothing else could have done after so many months of battle and death. A brightness and innocence that had been deliberately designed to entice, Christian had realized after he returned to England and learned that she had married another man, another earl, in the three short months of his absence.

He found the confident woman who now stood before him, her every thought a mystery to him, totally frustrating and yet no less intriguing.

His mouth firmed. “What time will you come to me tonight?”

Her throat moved as she swallowed before answering. “Does eleven o’clock suit?”

Christian’s brows rose. “You do not intend to join me for dinner first?”

She eyed him coolly. “For what purpose?”

He scowled. “So that we might engage in conversation before the bedding.”

“Again, for what purpose?” She eyed him disdainfully. “The rakish life you have led these past four years holds no more interest for me than I am sure my own more sedate one does for you.”

“Very well.” Christian breathed his irritation with her coolness. “I will expect you here at eleven o’clock this evening. And I will endeavor to ensure there is no lingering odor of ‘cheap liquor or even cheaper perfume’!” he taunted as she straightened her appearance in preparation for leaving.

Christian remained where he was for several more minutes after Sylvie’s departure, knowing there was something about her acquiescence to becoming his mistress that was...not quite right. Oh, there was no denying her physical response to him the previous evening, or his own determination that Sylvie would become his mistress. But she had fought her own attraction to him last night, been determined that she would not give in to him, that she had no intention of ever becoming ‘his woman’. Even under her own terms.

Something had happened to change her mind in those intervening hours, and despite what Sylvie said to the contrary, Christian did not believe for one moment that it had anything to do with those other gentlemen ‘pressing’ for her attention.

Chapter Seven

“Would you care to join me in a glass of port?” Christian indicated the decanter on the table beside him as he remained seated in an armchair beside the unlit fireplace, looking across the room to where Sylvie stood hesitantly beside the door Smith had recently closed behind her, and looking ethereally beautiful in a gown of deep gold. “Or perhaps you would prefer a glass of wine?”

Sylvie was more than a little disconcerted to find herself in a room that was so obviously Christian Ambrose’s private domain, serving as both a library and his study, if the book-lined walls and the cluttered desk in front of the window were any indication.

She was even more disturbed by Christian, his appearance impeccable and stylish this evening, in a dark-green superfine worn over a paler-green waistcoat and snowy-white linen, buff pantaloons outlining the muscled strength of his legs above shiny black Hessians. His dark curls looked slightly damp, as if he had recently bathed, the squareness of his jaw showing no evidence of this morning’s stubble.

A pity his manners did not match that gentlemanly appearance. But no doubt his neglecting to stand up when she had entered the room was an indication of their arrangement.

“Sylvie?” he prompted softly at her continued silence.

Her spine stiffened. “Thank you, but no, I do not require any refreshment. I would much prefer that we just retire to your bedchamber and get this business over and done with.”

Christian’s eyes widened before narrowing. “You earlier refused conversation, and now you are also refusing to share a glass of wine with me?”

She nodded. “Because I do not believe either of those things to be a requirement of our arrangement.”

Christian frowned. “You would prefer, perhaps, that I dispense with the niceties altogether and simply toss your skirts up now and take you where you stand?”

She gasped. “There is no need for crudeness!”

Christian sighed as he placed his glass of port down on the table beside him. “I freely admit I do not quite know what to make of the woman you are now, Sylvie...”

He had been angry with Sylvie four years ago for not waiting for him as he had asked her to do, but he’d had every intention of her enjoying their lovemaking tonight. Of perhaps realizing all she had given up in her youthful eagerness to become Gerald Moorland’s countess...But he found her continued coolness, despite having agreed to become his mistress, completely baffling.

“There is nothing to know,” she dismissed flatly. “We have an arrangement, I am simply making it clear that I am...willing to begin that arrangement.”

Christian looked at her through narrowed lids for several moments before giving a rueful shake of his head. “I am used to receiving a little more enthusiasm from my lovers.”

“No doubt. But I should perhaps tell you—warn you—that there have only been two men in my life, Christian.” Her cheeks were flushed. “You. And my husband. I am not—I ask that you not expect me to have the physical expertise of your previous mistresses.”

Christian drew his breath in sharply at her hesitant admission. “I do not believe I found you in the least wanting four years ago, Sylvie.” The opposite, in fact—Sylvie’s enthusiasm for enjoying all things physical had been its own aphrodisiac to his battle-numbed senses. “And it pleases me to know you have taken no other lovers since your husband died,” he added.

She blinked. “It does?”

“Yes.” Christian nodded. “Whatever thoughts you may have of this arrangement, Sylvie, I assure you it is not my intention to ever hurt you. On the contrary, it is my hope that we both enjoy our times together.”

Sylvie’s fear was that she might enjoy Christian’s lovemaking too much, that she might fall in love with him all over again.

If she had ever stopped loving him...

She might only have been eighteen when the two of them were last together, but her love for Christian had been that of a woman, deep and true. Much as she had liked and respected Gerald, she had never felt a romantic love for him. Or for any other man. Mere hours after meeting Christian again, being in his company, she found herself here in his home, having agreed to become his mistress.

Oh, she had told herself earlier today that she acted out of a need to protect Christianna, to ensure that Christian never learned of the existence of his daughter, with all the accompanying complications that knowledge was sure to create.

But that excuse did not explain the excitement that had thrummed through Sylvie’s veins earlier this evening—that still thrummed through her veins!—as she had dressed to meet her lover, deliberately choosing a gold gown that she knew flattered her fair coloring, its low neckline revealing the full swell of her breasts. Breasts which Christian had caressed and suckled the evening before...

And which Sylvie knew she had longed, ached, for him to caress again ever since.

“Will you join me here, Sylvie?” Christian held his hand out to her invitingly.

Her cheeks felt flushed, her heart beating wildly in her chest as she took a step toward him, and then another, and another, until she placed her gloved hand in his as she now stood beside his chair. “I—Should we not go upstairs to your bedchamber...?” Her heart skipped a beat as Christian instead pulled her in to stand between his thighs, holding her gaze with his as he slowly began to peel her lace glove down the length of her arm.

He smiled slightly as he glanced up at her. “There is no need for us to rush, Sylvie.” He slowly, leisurely, pulled the lace from each of her fingers before pulling the glove off completely and allowing it to drift softly to the carpeted floor as he raised her hand to his lips, his gaze holding hers captive as his tongue became a silky-soft caress against her fingertips before he sucked the length of one of those fingers into the heat of his mouth.

Sylvie’s breath caught in her throat as she watched that steady and erotic in and out pull on the dampness of her finger, her breasts full and aching beneath her gown, her body aching.

“I have waited too long for this to be in any hurry,” Christian murmured softly as he reached back and unfastened the buttons at the back of her gown before allowing it to fall down the slender length of her arms to the carpeted floor, revealing that she wore only a thin chemise beneath, golden curls visible between her thighs, swollen nipples tipping the fullness of her breasts. Christian slipped the ribbon strap of her chemise down her arms and allowed that to fall too.

“Christian...!”

“Let me look, love,” he groaned as he caught both her hands in one of his as she would have covered those bared breasts. “You are bigger here than I remember, Sylvie.” He watched as his fingertips skimmed her rounded breasts. “And your nipples are darker.” He ran the soft pad of his thumb across her before lowering his head to suck first one, and then the other, into the moistness of his mouth, laving those tight buds with his tongue, gently biting with his teeth as he continued to caress, causing her nipples to swell and elongate in the heat of his mouth.

He ran his hand along the silky length of Sylvie’s thigh, feeling the throb of her hidden nubbin against his palm as he cupped those silky gold curls to stroke her before entering her with first one finger and then two. He heard the catch in Sylvie’s ragged breathing. She cried out in pleasure as she exploded in climax before collapsing against him weakly.

Christian rested his head against the fullness of Sylvie’s breasts, feeling completely at peace as he enjoyed the feel of her fingers lightly caressing his hair. She continued to tremble and cling to him in the aftershocks of that climax.

A peace and completion he had not felt since last making love to Sylvie four years ago...

Chapter Eight

“Where are you taking me?” Sylvie gasped as Christian stood up and swung her up into his arms to carry her over to the door, the darkness of his hair tousled from her caressing fingers.

“Upstairs to my bedchamber—”

“But my clothes...? The servants...?” she protested weakly.

“We can collect your clothes later, and I instructed Smith to dismiss the household for the rest of the night once you arrived,” Christian assured her with satisfaction. “Open the door, Sylvie,” he encouraged.

Sylvie knew that Christian did not love her, that he had never loved her, but she appreciated that he had made love to her just now with tenderness as well as passion rather than the disrespect she had expected. A tenderness and passion that were irresistible to her...

“Good girl.” He murmured his approval as she bent to open the door to allow him to step out into the deserted, candlelit hallway before striding purposefully toward the stairs, carrying her in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all.

A single candle burned in his bedchamber, the green-and-cream brocade curtains at the windows and about the four-poster bed suiting him perfectly, as did the heavy oak furniture.

Not that Sylvie spared too much time in appreciation of her surroundings once Christian had placed her in the middle of the bed, a mute shaking of his head halting her as she would have pulled the bedcovers over her nakedness, the steadiness of his gaze holding hers as he straightened to begin removing his own clothes.

Sylvie forgot her own nakedness as he peeled off his fashionably tight jacket and waistcoat. Followed by his neck cloth, and then he unfastened the four buttons at his throat before pulling his shirt over his head, leaving the darkness of his hair even more tousled as he sat facing her on the stool before the dressing table in order to remove his boots.

Sylvie’s breath caught in her throat as his hands moved to his pantaloons, the unfastening of those six buttons revealing that he wore no undergarments. Christian removed his pantaloons completely to stand before her completely naked.

Sylvie’s fingers curled into the bedcovers beneath her, her throat moving convulsively as she swallowed. She had forgotten just how beautiful he was, shoulders and chest wide and muscled, waist tapered above that proudly thrusting erection, his legs all long and muscled elegance.

“Do I still meet with your approval, Sylvie?” he prompted.

“Oh, yes,” she breathed as she finally managed to uncurl her fingers from the bedcovers before moving up onto her knees and moving to the side of the bed where he stood, gaze heated as she gazed down at his proudly jutting manhood before reaching out to curl her fingers about that hardness encased in velvet. “Oh, yes,” she repeated achingly.

Christian groaned low in his throat as he thrust slowly into her caresses. “Sylvie...!” he gasped achingly, his hands moving up to cradle each side of her face as her head lowered and her little pink tongue darted out to continue the seduction.

Satisfaction gleamed in her eyes as she glanced up at him briefly before parting her lips wide and taking him fully into the heat of her mouth. Christian caressed and plucked at her breasts even as he thrust into that moist heat, until he knew he was about to explode as the pleasure became too much even for his rigid self-control.

“No more!” he groaned before reluctantly pulling free of her, his cock a throbbing ache. “I want to be inside you when I come, Sylvie,” he breathed raggedly. “But not quite yet,” he murmured as he laid her back against the bedcovers before kneeling between her parted her thighs to gaze down in appreciation at those moist and swollen lips. He lowered his head, fingers lightly caressing her opening as his tongue rasped moistly around that pulsing nubbin without ever quite touching it.

“Christian!” Sylvie cried out, back arching restlessly even as her hands moved up to grip his shoulders tightly.

“Tell me, Sylvie. Tell me what you want.” His hands cupped beneath the globes of her bottom as he breathed lightly on that throbbing nubbin, eyes gleaming with satisfaction as her nether lips pulsed and parted against the caress of his fingers.

“I need you to touch me there—” She broke off with a gasp as Christian gave her the lightest of caresses with his tongue. “More, Christian. Oh please, more...!” She raised her hips in restless invitation.

His hands tightened on her bottom as he lifted her into the rasping stroke of his tongue, holding her captive as he stroked time and time again until he felt her exploding beneath him in a trembling, shuddering climax.

Christian reared up onto his knees, taking his weight onto his elbows as he positioned his erection at her entrance before thrusting deeply into that hot and welcoming channel, paying great attention to one nipple to prolong Sylvie’s orgasm even as the rhythmic convulsing of her inner muscles took him crashing over the edge of his own pleasure and he released, long and satisfying, inside her.

* * *

“Christian...?”

“Am I too heavy for you?” he murmured against the warmth of her throat, his body stretched out above hers.

He was a little heavy, but Sylvie was loath to relinquish their closeness just yet. “No,” she denied even as she reached up to caress the heat of his shoulders, fingers lightly caressing down his muscled back. “I merely wondered—Christian?” Her voice sharpened in alarm as she felt and then traced the hard ridge of a scar running from his left shoulder across his back and down to his right side. “What happened to your back...?” she gasped as she attempted to sit up so that she might see his back for herself, only to find that Christian’s weight pressing down on her made that impossible. “Christian?”

“It is an old scar,” he dismissed lightly as his lips skimmed across her collarbone.

“But—” She stilled suddenly, eyes wide. “How old...?”

“Do we have to discuss this now, Sylvie?” he murmured indulgently as his lips continued that caressing assault on the creaminess of her throat. “I do not recall your having this need for conversation after our lovemaking in the past,” he added teasingly.

“Christian, please...!” she pressed, needing to know—exactly—when he had received the wound that had left such a terrible and lasting scar upon his back.

A scar that she knew had not been there four years ago...

Chapter Nine

Christian moved up onto his elbow to withdraw gently from Sylvie before moving to lie down beside her, satiated and satisfied in a way he had not been since they had last made love together. “Does the thought of my scar repulse you?”

“Of course it does not,” she dismissed impatiently, her face pale as she sat up and turned him slightly so that she might look at the scar for herself. “How—how did this happen?”

Christian shrugged. “A French saber.”

Her face became paler. “When?”

Christian fell back onto the pillows. “What does it matter—”

“It matters to me!” she assured him fiercely. “Tell me, Christian. Please!”

He frowned. “It happened four years ago, two weeks after I left you and two days after I returned to my regiment.” He smiled bitterly. “The wound incapacitated me, became infected, and I was out of my head with a fever for almost a week, and then weakened for many more.” He shrugged. “It is the reason I was unable to write to you. The reason for my delay in returning to you.”

That is what Sylvie had thought he might say. What she had dreaded hearing. “You were coming back to me?”

“Of course I was coming back to you!” He frowned. “How many times do I have to tell you that before you believe me? I had told you that I loved you and that I would come back to you as soon as I was able!”

Yes, he had. And, despite the rumors of his behavior in London after he had left her, Sylvie had waited and waited for his return, until the babe she carried meant she could wait no longer and she had accepted the offer of marriage made to her by another man.

And all the time she waited, Christian had been ill and fevered, cut down by a French saber. It was the reason he had not returned to England until it was too late; Sylvie had already been another man’s wife, and the babe she carried accepted as a child of that marriage.

What had she done?

* * *

Christian frowned as Sylvie moved abruptly away to sit on the side of the bed, before standing up to cross the room and pull on his black brocade bathrobe he had draped across the chair beside the window.

“Are you leaving already?” He kept his tone deliberately neutral as he sat up, knowing he had agreed, accepted, Sylvie’s decree that she would only stay with him for a few hours, but he had hoped, after the enjoyment of their lovemaking—Whatever he might have hoped, it was obviously not to be. “When will I see you again?”

She finished fastening the belt of the robe before looking up at him with dark and guarded eyes. “I—I will send you a note tomorrow.”

His brows rose. “A note...?”

“Yes.” She turned away. “I will leave your robe downstairs in the library after I have dressed, and then let myself out—”

“Give me a minute and I will come down with you.” Christian swung his legs to the side of the bed.

“No! No,” she repeated more calmly, the dullness of her eyes appearing like dark bruises in the pallor of her face as she refused to so much as look at him. “I—We will talk again tomorrow.”

“Talk?” he repeated sharply.

“Yes,” she sighed. “We will talk. I—There is something—I must

go!” She hurried to the door, wrenching it open before turning back to him briefly, her expression anguished. “Please believe that I—that I am sorry.”

Christian tensed, stomach churning. “You are not ending our association already?”

“No! I—” She gave a shake of her head, tears now glistening in the darkness of her eyes.

Relief flooded him. “Then what are you sorry for?”

“For everything!” she choked. “I am sorry for everything,” she repeated shakily.

“I do not understand, Sylvie...” He gave a pained frown. “You are not ending our association and yet you are sorry. What—”

“Tomorrow, Christian. I will explain all tomorrow,” she assured him dully. “Do not follow me now. I—It is for the best—Tomorrow,” she repeated before stepping out into the hallway, the door to the bedchamber closing quietly behind her.

Christian had no idea what had just happened. One minute he and Sylvie had been lying satiated in each other’s arms after the most satisfying lovemaking Christian had ever known, and the next she had run from him as if the hounds of hell were at her heels.

Tomorrow.

Sylvie had said she would explain all tomorrow.

And he hoped that explanation did not include the ending of their relationship, because having now made love with Sylvie again, that possibility was even less acceptable to Christian than it had been four years ago...

“The Earl of Chambourne to see you, my lady,” Sylvie’s butler announced from the doorway of her private parlor.

Sylvie ceased her restless pacing as she turned to him, the deep-brown gown she wore only emphasizing the pallor of her face. “Please show him in, Bellows.”

After a sleepless and troubled night, Sylvie had written a note and had it delivered to Christian only an hour ago, requesting that he call upon her at his earliest convenience. She should have known, after the manner in which she had fled his home the night before, that Christian’s ‘earliest convenience’ would be almost immediately.

Quite what she was to say to him, how to explain, was still not exactly clear to her. She only knew that she owed Christian an explanation. For her behavior both the previous night and four years ago...

* * *

Christian gave the standing and unsmiling Sylvie a searching glance after the butler left the two of them alone. Her golden curls were fashionably styled, her brown silk gown also the height of fashion, and yet—and yet there was an air of fragility about her, a translucence to the creaminess of her skin, and a haunted look in the dark depths of her eyes. “Tell me,” he demanded without preamble.

She gave a shake of her head, not of denial, but as if she was at a loss to know quite how to proceed. She closed her lids briefly before opening them again, her chin rising as if for a blow. “There is something that I wish—no, something I must tell you.” She moistened her rosy-pink lips. “I have thought about this for most of the night, have considered all the consequences of—of my admission, but I can see no other way. No other honorable way,” she added huskily.

Christian frowned darkly. “You are making me nervous, Sylvie.”

She swallowed. “I assure you, that is not my intention. I—You see—”

“Mama? Mama, Nurse says I may not visit with you just yet, that you are too busy this morning!”

Christian had turned at the first sound of that trilling little voice as it preceded the opening of the door and the entrance of a little green whirlwind that launched itself into Sylvie’s arms before turning to look at him curiously.

His eyes narrowed as he found himself looking down at a beautiful little girl of possibly three years old, dressed in a green gown, with dark curls and—and moss-green eyes...

His own dark curls and moss-green eyes?

Chapter Ten

“Please say something, Christian,” Sylvie choked, having just returned from taking a reluctant Christianna back to the nursery and her flustered and scolding nurse. The tears streamed unchecked down Sylvie’s cheeks as she saw that Christian’s face still bore an expression of shocked disbelief. “Anything!”

His throat moved convulsively as he swallowed. “What do you call her...?”

Sylvie gave a pained frown. “I—Her name is Christianna.”

His breath left him in a hiss. “You named her for me?”

“Yes. Christian—”

“Dear God, Sylvie, she is so beautiful!” The tension leached from his body and he dropped down into one of the armchairs, his face pale, his expression tortured as he stared up at her. “Is she—Can she be the reason you accepted Gerald Moorland’s offer of marriage four years ago?”

“Yes.”

Christian gave a pained wince. “And did he know—”

“Yes, he knew. Oh, not who the father of my babe was, but I never tried to deceive him into believing the child was his,” Sylvie assured huskily. “Please believe—I did not know what to do when I realized I carried your child, and although Gerald’s life had been dedicated to the army, and he had never shown any inclination to marry, he nevertheless offered—Gerald was a friend of my father’s—”

Christian looked at her sharply. “Your parents know—”

“No.” She gave a sad shake of her head. “They have always believed that Christianna was a seven-month babe.” Sylvie twisted her fingers together in her agitation. “Only Gerald knew she was not. And he was too much of a gentleman to ever reveal the truth to anyone.”

“And—and did you grow to love him...?”

She gave a slow shake of her head. “Not in a romantic way. But he became my closest friend.”

“You were not—It was not a physical marriage?” Christian prompted sharply.

Sylvie smiled slightly. “Gerald did not think of me in that way. He did not think of anyone in that way,” she added softly as she saw Christian’s incredulous expression. “He really was married to the army. Although I never had any doubts that he cared for both Christianna and me. For the short time he was alive after Christianna’s birth, he was a wonderful father to her.”

“I am glad of it.” Christian nodded.

“You do not really mean that!” Sylvie groaned.

“Of course I do.”

“How could you? Because of my lack of faith in you, in myself, I have denied you the first three years of your daughter’s life!” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “And I am so sorry for that, Christian.”

“Why did you not write to me?”

Sylvie closed her eyes briefly. “After you left me, there were rumors on your estate of the women you had been seen with in London before you rejoined your regiment—”

“They were untrue.” He looked at her bleakly. “I did not so much as look at another woman. Why would I, when it was you I wanted? You I intended to return to? You whom I loved?”

Sylvie looked at him searchingly, seeing the truth in the bleakness of his expression. As she heard the past tense in his last statement. “I am so sorry, Christian. So very sorry that I ever doubted you.” She turned away to stare sightlessly out of the window overlooking the garden. “I cannot bear to think of how much you must now hate and despise me!”

Christian rose abruptly to his feet to cross the room in three long strides before grasping Sylvie’s shoulders and turning her to face him. “I could never hate or despise you, Sylvie,” he assured her gruffly as he cupped either side of her face to brush his thumbs across her cheek and erase the tears. “How could I when I fell in love with you the moment I saw you swimming half-naked in that river four years ago? And it is a love that never died, Sylvie. Never,” he assured her fiercely as her eyes widened incredulously, hopefully. “Yes, I felt angry and betrayed when I returned to England and found you had married another man. And I behaved abominably for the next four years—”

“So I believe.” She smiled sadly.

“I am not proud of those years, Sylvie,” he acknowledged. “How could I be? But I did not know how else to get through the pain of loving you and knowing you were so far out of my reach, that you belonged with another man. And all this time!” He gave a self-disgusted shake of his head. “Was the reason you agreed to become my mistress, but with that proviso that we meet in my home and not yours, because you wished to protect Christianna from me?”

“Partly,” she acknowledged.

Christian looked at her closely. “And the other part?”

Sylvie released her breath in a sigh. “The other part was that I only had to see you again, to be with you again, to know, despite denying it to myself, wishing it to be the contrary, that I still had feelings for you.”

He stilled. “As I only had to see you again the night of my grandmother’s ball to know that I have never stopped loving you.”

She gasped. “You believed I had married Gerald for his money and title—”

“And it made no difference to the love I still feel for you!” he admitted fiercely. “I knew that night that I wanted you back in my life—that I had to have you back in my life, in any way that you would allow!” He drew in a ragged breath. “How you must now hate and despise me because I tried to force you into my bed!”

Sylvie huskily gave a self-derisive laugh. “Did it seem last night as if I felt forced into responding to your lovemaking?”

“No...” Christian looked down at her searchingly. “And it was lovemaking, Sylvie. No matter how I might have behaved the night of my grandmother’s ball, how much I tried to continue to despise you for believing you had married an old man for his title and fortune, once I held you in my arms again, kissed you, I could never do less than make love with you.”

Yes, for all of those things, Sylvie knew that Christian’s lovemaking the previous night had been every bit as tender and caring for her own needs as it had ever been in the past. “You did not know of Christianna’s existence then...”

His hands moved to tightly grip her shoulders. “If anything, that only makes me love you more,” he assured her fiercely. “You did what you believed you had to do to in order to protect our daughter when you accepted Ampthill’s offer, what was necessary to protect both Christianna and yourself!”

“And by my doing so, you have missed the first three years of your daughter’s life,” she repeated sadly.

“But God willing I will not miss any more. Or that of any other children we might be blessed with?” He looked down at her uncertainly.

Sylvie gazed up at him searchingly, seeing only love burning in Christian’s beautiful moss-green eyes. “What are you saying?”

“Asking,” he corrected huskily. “I am asking what I should have asked you before I left four years ago. What, in my arrogance, I believed could wait until the next time I returned to England.” He gave a self-disgusted shake of his head.

Sylvie swallowed. “And what is that?”

“That you do me the honor of marrying me,” Christian pressed softly. “I had never loved until I met you that summer, Sylvie. Nor have I loved again since. I loved you then, and I love you still, and if you will consent to become my wife, I swear to you that I will tell you, show you, every day for the rest of our lives together how very much I love and cherish you!”

Tears welled in her eyes once more, but this time they were tears of happiness. “I realized last night that I have never stopped loving you either, Christian. I loved you then, I love you now. I will always love and cherish you.”

He looked down at her searchingly for several long, disbelieving seconds, his expression turning to one of wonder as he saw that love shining in the darkness of her eyes. He fell to his knees in front of her. “Sylviana Moorland, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife? Allow me to love and cherish you for the rest of your life?”

“Oh, yes, Christian!” She threw herself into his arms. “Oh, yes, yes, and a thousand times yes!”

“You have made me the happiest of men,” Christian choked as he stood up to take her gently in his arms and kiss her with all of the tenderness of a man deeply in and forever in love.

And ensuring that Sylvie became the happiest of women.

At last...

Chapter Eleven

The London home of Lady Jocelyn Ambrose, Dowager Countess of Chambourne.

* * *

“—and the wedding is to be next month,” Lady Jocelyn concluded gleefully to her two closest friends.

“But Chambourne is not marrying the woman you had chosen to become his future wife?” Lady Cicely Hawthorne said doubtfully.

“Well. No.” Some of Lady Jocelyn’s glee abated. “He did not care for Lady Vanessa at all. But he is to marry. Which, after all, is what we had all decided upon, is it not?” Both ladies turned to the silent Dowager Duchess of Royston for confirmation.

“Yes. Yes,” Edith St. Just acknowledged briskly. “Although I agree with Cicely, in that it would be more of a triumph if Chambourne had decided upon the lady you had chosen for him.”

Lady Jocelyn looked suitably deflated. “Perhaps one of you will be more success in that regard than I.”

“I am not at all sure of any degree of success in regard to Thorne,” Lady Cicely admitted heavily. “Since his first wife died four years ago, he has shown a decided aversion to the very idea of remarrying.”

“And yet he must, for he is in need of an heir, the same as our own two grandsons,” the dowager duchess dismissed briskly.

Lady Jocelyn looked at her curiously. “How go your own efforts in regard to Royston?”

“Nicely, thank you.” Edith St. Just nodded regally.

“You believe he will marry the woman of your choice?” Lady Cicely looked suitably impressed.

“I am sure of it, yes.”

“How confident are you of that?” Lady Jocelyn challenged daringly, still feeling slightly stung in regard to her friends’ reaction to her news of Chambourne’s forthcoming marriage to Lady Sylviana Moorland, the Countess of Ampthill.

“So confident,” the dowager duchess assured haughtily, “that I am willing to write that lady’s name on a piece of paper this very minute and leave it in the safekeeping of your butler, only to be returned and read by all of us when Royston announces his intention of marrying.”

“Is that not rather presumptuous of you, Edith?” Lady Cicely raised skeptical brows.

“Not in the least,” the dowager duchess dismissed briskly. “In fact, call for Edwards and we shall do it now. This very minute.”

Ellie, sitting in her usual place in the window beside Miss Thompson and Mrs. Spencer, could only watch with a sinking heart as Edith St. Just did exactly as she had said she would.

Could only wonder as to the name of the lady—and secretly envy her—written on that innocuous piece of paper, which was taken away by Lady Jocelyn’s butler some minutes later...

As she knew beyond a doubt that it would not be her own name.

Despite the fact she had fallen in love with the arrogantly disdainful Justin St. Just several months ago...

* * * * *

An Officer But No Gentleman

Bronwyn Scott

London, 1839

Former cavalry officer Captain Grahame Westmore is restless for change, but escorting a diplomat’s spoiled daughter to Vienna isn’t what he had in mind—though for once he hasn’t been hired for his skills in pleasuring women! Independent, fiery and strong willed, Elowyn Bagshaw is not the simpering lady he expected. Used to getting her own way and giving the orders, Elowyn will not be controlled so easily. Grahame soon realizes that he’s got a fight on his hands—and it’s one they’re both going to enjoy!

Rakes Who Make Husbands Jealous

Only London’s best lovers need apply!

Author’s Note

Meet our next gentleman escort, Captain Grahame Westmore—or perhaps you remember him from before? Grahame made an appearance in Nick’s story, Secrets of A Gentleman Escort, at the house party. Now he’s back in a story of his own.

He’s off to Vienna to take up a position at the Spanish Riding School, but on the way he has to escort a diplomat’s daughter to her father’s latest posting. He thinks he knows all there is to know about diplomats’ daughters, but nothing has prepared him for Elowyn. She’s strong, determined and passionate. She’s a woman who takes what she wants, and she wants him! Grahame has met his match when he least expected it.

The story is a sexy road-trip romp but, underneath it all, a reminder that love can find you when you least expect it, and sometimes making the choice to love is the toughest decision of all.

Enjoy!

I’ll see you on my blog at bronwynswriting.blogspot.com.

Dedication

For my friends Leslie and Jim. Just because.

Chapter One

London, Fall 1839

Some men thrived in peacetime. Captain Grahame Westmore definitely wasn’t one of them. His army, the Queen’s army, didn’t need him anymore and four years of London life had left him restless for a change. That restlessness caused him to eye the file on Channing Deveril’s desk with a mixture of suspicion and anticipation as he paced the league’s office. Would the next assignment be the adventure he was looking for? He doubted it. His work for the league was starting to pale, not that he’d ever tell Channing. He probably didn’t have to. Channing likely already knew.

“Go ahead, open it.” Channing grinned and sat back in his chair, hands steepled in supreme confidence. Someone who didn’t know Channing well would take that grin as a sign of complete unawareness to the restlessness plaguing him. But Grahame knew better. Channing was not given to obliviousness. It would be a mistake to assume otherwise. As the founder of the League of Discreet Gentlemen, an underground organization dedicated to the pursuit of women’s pleasure, Channing prided himself on perfectly matching his men to their missions. As a result, Grahame’s senses were on high alert. What was he about to be matched with? Or more appropriate, to whom?

Grahame picked up the folder with healthy skepticism. Something was definitely afoot. Channing was far too smug this morning. He opened the folder and scanned the brief for pertinent information. Details could come later. He saw all he needed to make his decision. He slid the folder back across the desk and gave Channing his one-word answer. “No.”

“No?” Channing arched a blond eyebrow. “Care to have a seat and tell me why? You’ll wear me out with all that pacing.”

Grahame took the chair. He could humor Channing in that respect, at least. He was not taking this assignment. “I’m a cavalry officer not a nursemaid.”

“Ex-cavalry officer,” Channing corrected. “And I think your skills in that regard make you the ideal candidate. I admit it’s not our usual. We’re escorts, not bodyguards, but when this opportunity came up in conversation I immediately thought of you.”

Grahame sat up a little straighter, instantly wary. Now they were getting somewhere. “You didn’t already commit me without my approval?” It was one of the rules of the league that no one be forced into an assignment. In their line of work, where assignments ranged anywhere from providing an innocuous escort to an opera or ball to more physically intimate engagements, consent was essential.

Channing gave an easy shrug. “I simply told the people in question I might have a man for them.”

“Then you can tell them you were mistaken. I am qualified to lead men in battle, not play governess to a diplomat’s spoiled daughter,” Grahame replied firmly. Squiring a diplomat’s daughter to her father’s new post was not his idea of anything remotely positive. He knew the sort. He’d seen how diplomats traveled during his time in the military. He wouldn’t just be moving a daughter. He’d be shepherding a household. She’d come with wagons of luggage, carriages of servants and an attitude to match. These daughters were the children of second and third sons, often raised with an eye toward privilege as granddaughters of earls and viscounts. As such, Grahame found them to be usually unsuited for the difficulties of travel.

“I must respectfully disagree with your assessment.” Channing remained unfazed by his firm response. “You are not giving yourself enough credit. If you can organize a troop of men on horseback in the melee of battle, I would think moving one woman and her luggage would be easily done. Additionally, you’re competent with a variety of arms and could defend her little cavalcade if necessary.”

Now that pricked. “Competent? I am more than competent with pistols and saber.” It was a point of pride that he was known in high military circles for his skill with weapons on horseback. He’d worked hard for that reputation, learning early on that without a title, perfection was his only route to respect.

Channing just smiled. “Exactly. As I said, you’re perfect. Don’t you even want to know where she’s going?”

“It won’t make a difference.” There was only one place Grahame wanted to go, only one place that had any need for his unique skills, but it was a continent away and it would mean leaving Channing, something he was reluctant to do. It would leave Channing shorthanded at the agency. Channing had always been loyal to him. Now he had a chance to return the favor by staying.

“I think it will,” Channing said quietly. Grahame tried not to shift in his seat. Channing’s incessant smiling was making him nervous. He liked Channing Deveril immensely but Channing had an unnerving talent to literally read people like books, which was a good thing, Grahame reasoned, because Channing didn’t read. It wasn’t that he couldn’t read, the man was certainly literate, he simply didn’t. But that talent was deuced awkward when it was turned on him. It meant Channing knew something he did not and that made Grahame uneasy, indeed.

“All right then, tell me.” The room had suddenly become fraught with an invisible air of anticipation. Grahame far preferred the foe he could see.

Channing pulled out another file from his desk. He pushed it toward him and spoke one word into the tense silence. “Vienna.”

Of all the words Channing could have spoken, this was the one he couldn’t resist. Vienna, home of the Spanish riding school, the very place that had written two weeks ago and asked him to come for an interview on the eighteenth of the month. They thought perhaps they could use an instructor of his caliber on horseback and with his distinct specialty in sabrage, a gentleman’s art to be sure.

Vienna represented everything he’d been chasing since he’d known what it was he hungered for—the chance to belong, the type of belonging that came with a sense of permanence and respect, not because of birth but because of skill.

Grahame blew out a breath and gave in to the urge to shift in his seat. He crossed and recrossed his legs. He wasn’t like the others here: not like Channing, an earl’s second son, or Jocelyn Eisley, heir to an earldom, or even the recently married and retired Nicholas D’Arcy who was at least the son of gentry. He, Grahame Westmore, was nothing. He’d earned his commission, not bought it. He’d fought for his leg up in the world every step of the way. To have been an English officer and to now be invited to the Spanish riding school in Vienna, was the best he could hope for, a dream, really, for a boy of his humbling beginnings.

“You know very well what that means to me,” Grahame said slowly. “I would escort the devil himself in order to get to Vienna.”

Channing nodded. “Then I’ll take that as a yes. But you’re cutting it pretty fine. They’ll expect you to arrive on time if you’re serious.”

Grahame gave a tight grimace. He knew what it meant to escort the devil. There’d be hell to pay.

Chapter Two

What the devil was going on down there? The sound of barked orders and the hurried march of booted feet on hardwood floors brought Elowyn Bagshaw to the balustrade overlooking the townhouse foyer. Below her, footmen carried boxes and trunks out the door, maids scurried to and fro with last-minute packing supplies. Everyone was organized and purposeful in their tasks, the chaos of moving minimized with efficiency and it was all wrong, every last bit of it, starting with the fact that they weren’t moving.

At least not today. She should know. She’d been moving her father’s household since she was fifteen. Boxes and trunks weren’t scheduled to be loaded until Thursday and by all accounts, today was Tuesday. She knew exactly where to place the blame—Captain Grahame Westmore, a man she’d met only by letter. More like by note. The two lines he’d sent over yesterday hardly qualified as a letter.

The culprit stood with his back—his very wide, broad-shouldered back—to her, directing it all, looking for all intents as a man on a mission. There was a bridled urgency to the way he ordered the staff, as if it mattered how quickly this task could be done.

It had not been hard to pick him out. Her eyes had found him with little effort. Elowyn suspected he would be easy to spot in any room. His physical presence reeked of command. Captain Westmore was taller than most men, his hair longer, his shoulders broader and his stance wider. Attributes which were all emphasized by the absence of his coat. There were other attributes emphasized, too, like the firm, muscled contours of his buttocks encased in snug riding breeches. She’d always had a weakness for horsemen. There was nothing sexier than a well-made man in tight breeches.

Still, a delicious derriere and the fact the hall was emptying at an impressive pace didn’t excuse his arrogance. It would have been nice if he’d seen fit to consult her before he started carting up her mother’s china without so much as a by your leave. She was in charge here. He took orders, he didn’t give them.

Elowyn started down the staircase, ready to do battle. It was not her first choice of introduction but he’d left her no option with his unorthodox barging in. It would be a long trip to Vienna if she didn’t put him in his place. One should always begin as one meant to go on; it was the essential rule of establishing control in any relationship. If Westmore thought he could just walk into her home and start moving her things without permission, who knew what other presumptions he’d make?

A bit of naughty excitement trilled through her. There were presumptions and then there were presumptions. He looked like a man who didn’t let the difference stop him. Dear Lord, she hadn’t even officially met him and her imagination was already running away with her. Now was not the time. There was business to take care of. When he’d written to say he’d call in the morning, she’d never equated that two-line statement with this.

Elowyn raised her voice to be heard over the noise. “What do you think you’re doing, Captain?” The foyer fell silent, all activity freezing in motion at the sound of her challenge. Captain Westmore pivoted toward her and advanced, hands on lean hips, drawing her eyes to the core of his swagger—hips, pelvis and the place in between.

What had been impressive physicality at a distance was imposing masculinity up close. Elowyn took an involuntary step up the staircase to establish an equality of heights and tried to focus her gaze on the rugged features of his face instead of that one place a well-bred lady never looked on a man. It would have certainly helped if he’d been wearing a coat. Then again, the man fairly exuded raw sexuality. It was likely to find its way out regardless of how many coats he put on. Well, this was just fabulous. Her father had managed to hire the most dashing guard in London.

“What does it look like I’m doing, princess?” Westmore planted a booted foot on the bottom stair and gave her a gray-eyed perusal that suggested the answer to his question was less about moving boxes and more about something else altogether, something that sent a slow trail of heat straight to her stomach.

Elowyn met his gaze evenly. “It’s hard to say, since what it appears you’re doing isn’t scheduled for another two days.”

“There’s been a change of plan.”

That was it? There was no attempt at an apology, no effort to be conciliatory. Not even an explanation. This was not the attitude of a model employee.

Elowyn crossed her arms and stood her ground. Leave it to her father to also hire the most arrogant escort available. She was beginning to wonder if her father had even met Westmore. He wasn’t really her father’s type. “Since when do you make the plans, Captain?”

“Since the weather changed.” Again, the unrepentant stare. “My sources on the Channel coast say there’s a storm moving in. Unless you want to be holed up in an inn with your wagons stuck in a stable yard for a few days, we leave now and hope we can beat the weather.”

She hated being cornered. The captain had to know very well she wouldn’t want the wagons exposed to the elements and possible theft any more than they had to be.

Captain Westmore gestured to the room behind him, now empty of boxes. “I believe we’re packed. We’re just waiting on you, miss.”

She wanted to wipe that self-satisfied smile off his face. There was winning and then there was gloating. He was gloating. He thought he had the upper hand. The captain was about to get his comeuppance. “I believe you are mistaken. There are still the trunks in my room. I always have them loaded last so they’ll be first off.”

He raised a dark eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“I’m afraid it is.” Elowyn gave him a sweet smile and moved past him, unable to resist a parting shot. “You would have known if you’d asked first.” Round one to her. Elowyn stopped in the foyer to claim her victor’s prize. She got to watch that derriere of his go up the stairs five times. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d enjoyed moving quite so much.

Chapter Three

Grahame couldn’t recall the last time he’d enjoyed ruffling someone’s feathers quite so much. He whistled a little tune atop his big bay stallion, Aramis, as London disappeared behind them. Miss Bagshaw had shown a surprising amount of fire this morning when faced with his dictatorial orders regarding an early departure.

True, it would have been easier if she’d meekly acquiesced. Meek acquiescence was always easier but a lot less fun. It was also true that she lived up to his expectations, or down, depending on how one looked at them. She was a diplomat’s daughter, haughty and used to getting her own way. When she’d stared him down with green eyes, hard as emerald shards, he knew he’d been right on that account. But she’d done more than stare in anger. She’d also stared in interest.

He’d not been oblivious to the gaze that had followed him up the stairs. Over the years, he’d come to know when a woman wanted him. He’d also come to know when things could be allowed to progress that far. This was not one of those jobs. This was not escorting a notorious widow to a ball or accompanying a lonely woman to the opera while her husband was out of town. Elowyn Bagshaw fit into neither of the usual categories. She was a diplomat’s daughter.

It was a pity, really. Her demeanor suggested she was a passionate woman by nature, a woman who had not reached her mid-twenties without some experimentation. The realization wasn’t all that surprising considering her extensive travel and the fact other countries had more lenient outlooks on female sexual purity—outlooks he personally favored. He could well imagine all that carefully coiffed chestnut hair of hers falling over naked shoulders, candlelight limning her curves in provocative shadows as she sat astride her lover. Of course, her lover would have to be a man who could take that attitude of hers in hand or she’d never respect him. Respect was just as essential in bed as it was elsewhere.

Grahame shifted uncomfortably in the saddle against the pressure of a growing arousal. His little fantasy had brought on a rather awkward erection. It was not a pleasant way to ride. He turned in his saddle and surveyed the road behind him for distraction, anything to keep his mind off more prurient subjects. The five wagons of goods stretched out at decent intervals and were keeping up but the going was slow. Caravans were always slow. At this rate it would take two days to reach Dover. It would put their arrival on Thursday night. They could sail on Friday, just ahead of the reported storm front.

Grahame drummed an impatient hand on his thigh. When he had thought of all the inconveniences that would manifest themselves on the journey to Vienna, he’d not counted celibacy among them. He’d been hired for her safety, not her seduction. Never mind that she had a siren’s own body and a caramel cascade of Rapunzel-esque hair that would drive any man mad. She was not in the job description and he’d do well to remember it. A woman like her never would be. Single women of her background had expectations of their men like titles, wealth, social standing, none of which he had to offer. Elowyn Bagshaw was off-limits.

The captain was technically off-limits but that didn’t stop her eye, or her maid’s, she noted, from wandering to the coach window on frequent occasion to view the masculine scenery. Elowyn had come to the conclusion long ago that she was a woman who liked men and there was no point in pretending otherwise. However, there was always a point in being judicious with one’s behavior. Her first lover, a French vicomte of incomparable charm, had chosen her, but she had chosen the other two—an Italian count and a Russian prince, both of whom had understood the discretion and sophistication required of a successful physical affair. They’d also understood the need for brevity in such circumstances. Nothing lasted forever. She preferred it that way. Control was essential. Brevity was essential. Possession, however, was not. In fact, possession, in most cases, had a tendency to undermine the other two.

Elowyn glanced back out the window. Would the captain understand that? He was a man of the world. He’d seen much of Europe with the military. With his rank, he’d have been invited to balls and parties. He would have met women who would have welcomed a short dalliance with a strong, attractive officer. Yet she did not have the impression it was a world to which he’d been born.

Outside, the captain kicked his horse into a trot. Elowyn bit the knuckle of her thumb. If he was half as good in bed as he was on that horse, he’d be magnificent. “Do you think the captain is out of bounds, Annie?”

Her maid looked up from her knitting with a knowing smile. “He’s a fine figure of a man, miss. The way he hauled those trunks downstairs this morning drew more than a couple of eyes.”

“That wasn’t my question.” Elowyn grinned and nudged Annie’s toe playfully with her boot. “Do you think he’s open to a little sport?”

“Of course. He’s a man, isn’t he? Which of them isn’t?” Annie laughed. “The question is who with? I don’t think you can expect him to make any opening overtures if he’s a man of honor and if he’s not, then you’re better off without him, no matter how well he rides.”

Elowyn tapped her index finger against her lips in thought. That had been her assessment, too. “Then it’s up to me to make the first move.” That suited her just fine. Making the first move gave one a certain modicum of control from the very start, the power to define the course of the relationship and set the rules. Although, she supposed that hot stare he’d given her on the steps could have counted as his opening salvo.

She was already mentally choosing possible gowns. Tonight at supper would be the perfect opportunity to make her intentions known, but not before she had a little payback for the upheaval he’d caused this morning. She didn’t want to reward him for usurping her authority. If she was too easy he’d never respect her and she’d give away the control she valued so much in a relationship. By her estimate, they had two more hours before they’d stop for the evening. Just enough time to plan a perfect welcome reception for the captain.

She was all regal authority when she descended from the coach into the noisy yard at the inn. Elowyn had taken great efforts to appear as perfectly pressed and coiffed as she had that morning. She and Annie had put her traveling case to good use those last two hours to ensure she captured the captain’s eye. A tired and mussed appearance drew no one’s eye. He was over by the horses, holding their heads and talking with the driver. Ah, good, he saw her. She had his attention now. It was time for step two, a little harmless revenge.

Elowyn marshaled her troops with a gesture of her hand, the merest tilt of her head, issuing orders that left no misunderstanding as to who was in charge of this little expedition. “I’ll need those two trunks. Annie, follow them up so I know the trunks get to my room. Then I’ll need a bath set up right away and my sheets on the bed.” She turned to the driver, “Christopher, see that the horses are rubbed down and have an extra ration tonight. We want to leave early in the morning.”

That did the trick. Orders about the horses had infringed on his territory directly. The captain was by her side immediately. His hand took up proprietary residence at the small of her back, sending hot spears of excitement through her, his quick-silver eyes glinting with displeasure, but not entirely. Not too far off limits then, Elowyn thought smugly. He could be swayed with the right inducements.

He propelled her toward the common room, his head bent toward her, his mouth close to her ear in a way that suggested familiarity and intimacy to onlookers, a lover’s gesture, his words for her alone. But his words were not lover’s words. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Elowyn gave him a coy smile. “That is the burning question of the day, isn’t it?”

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