“And you will follow my advice?” he asked.

“Quite possibly not,” she said. “But I will listen anyway.”

“I am honored,” he said.

“And I am full,” she announced. “You will give your chef my compliments, Mr. Huxtable?”

“I will,” he said. “He will be vastly relieved to know that he is not to be dismissed tomorrow morning. Do you not want cheese or coffee? Or tea?”

She did not. She had been trying all evening to distract herself with conversation. And she had been trying to pretend to herself that she was hungry—which she ought to be since she really had not eaten since the garden party, when he had filled a plate with dainties for her from the table on the upper terrace.

She rested one elbow on the table, set her chin in her hand, and gazed at him between the two candles.

“Only dessert, Mr. Huxtable,” she said and felt all the delicious anticipation of what she had dreamed about through the second half of her year of mourning and planned during the months since Christmas.

Anticipation and trepidation too. She must certainly not show the latter. It would seem quite out of character.

She was so glad it was him. She would have been disappointed if he had not been in town this year. Not devastated. She had had other, perfectly eligible alternatives in mind. But none quite to match Constantine Huxtable.

She thought he might be an extraordinary lover. In fact, she was quite confident that he would be.

And she was about to find out if she was right. He had stood up, pushing his chair out of the way with the backs of his legs, and he was coming the short distance around the table to offer her his hand.

It was warm and firm, she discovered as she set her own in it. And he seemed somehow taller and broader when she got to her feet. His cologne, the same as she had noticed before, wrapped about her senses again.

“Let us go and have it, then,” he said, “without further ado.”

She looked up at him through her eyelashes.

“I do hope this chef does not disappoint,” she said.

“If he does, Duchess,” he said, “I shall not only dismiss him in the morning, I shall also take him out to some remote spot and shoot him.”

“Drastic measures indeed,” she said. “And what a waste it would be of all that Greek beauty. But doubtless it will be quite unnecessary. For he will not disappoint. I will not allow it.”

He tucked her arm through his and led her from the room.

***

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE was sometimes quite inadequate to express one’s thoughts, Constantine had been realizing all evening. What words were there to describe something that was more beautiful than beautiful and more perfect than perfect?

He had always thought of the Duchess of Dunbarton as a perfectly beautiful woman even when he had not felt particularly drawn to her.

Tonight she exceeded those superlatives.

He could not remember ever seeing her in any color but white. He had always thought it remarkably clever of her to make that single color her signature, so to speak. But of course, this departure from the norm was equally clever—and stunning.

She looked … Well, she looked those words that did not exist. Stunning was perhaps the only word that was even remotely adequate.

His cook might have served them leather and gravel for all the attention he had paid to his meal. And all the while he had had to concentrate hard upon not gawking.

The color of her gown and jewels transformed her from an ice queen into some sort of fertility goddess. And her hair, which every male member of the ton had probably dreamed of seeing tumble about her shoulders, was in a billow of riotous waves down her back while it hugged her head in shining smoothness.

The décolletage of her gown left little to the imagination and yet teased it nevertheless. Just one inch lower …

Monty had called her dangerous that afternoon in Hyde Park.

She was more dangerous than the Sirens of mythology.

And she had carried on a conversation that contained almost none of the innuendo that usually characterized their verbal exchanges. Indeed, when she had got to talking about her home in Kent, she had sounded … warm. As if she genuinely liked the place.

She was very, very clever. He was going to have to be very careful, he thought as he led her in silence up the stairs in the direction of his bedchamber. Though he did not know quite over what he needed to exercise care. They were about to become lovers, after all. And they would remain lovers, probably, for the whole Season.

Not any longer than that, of course. And if she wished to make it not so long, well then, that was her choice. He was not going to be heartbroken, was he?

There was a single branch of candles burning on the low chest in the corner of his room. The bedcovers had been turned back, the curtains drawn across the window, a wine decanter and glasses left on a tray beside the bed. Everything was ready.

He closed the door behind them.

The Duchess of Dunbarton sighed audibly as she slipped her arm from his and turned toward him. It sounded almost like the purr of a contented cat.

“There is nothing quite like the pleasure of anticipation, is there?” she said. “It has been humming through my blood since this afternoon, I must confess. I am not at all sorry I decided to cancel my earlier appointment and come here instead.”

She set the tip of her finger lightly against the point of his chin and moved it slowly back and forth. Her eyes followed her finger.

“I am not altogether sorry either,” he admitted.

“You will savor every moment, I trust,” she said. “I do hope you are not one of those men who feel they must demonstrate their masculinity by the speed with which they run the race.”

Her eyes came up to his though she did not raise her head.

“Alas, Duchess,” he said, “I do plan to run a race. A marathon. Do you know your Greek history?”

“Many miles?” she said. “Many hours? Almost superhuman endurance?”

“You do know it,” he said.

Her hand slipped downward to rest on his shoulder. Her other hand came up to rest on the other.

“You had better not expend any more energy on talk, then, Mr. Huxtable,” she said. “You had better begin this endurance race, this marathon, without further delay.”

And her glorious blue bedroom eyes gazed dreamily into his.

He lowered his head and set his lips to hers.

He rested his hands on either side of her small waist while she slid her hands about his neck and pressed her lips back against his own.

She was hot, already very much aroused despite her clear warning to him not to forget the importance of foreplay.

He had not expected a passionate woman, and perhaps he would be proved right once they got fully launched into this encounter. Perhaps after all she would be the skilled, experienced, sensual, controlled lover he had thought she would be. And perhaps she was clever enough, confident enough, to throw passion into the mix as well.

He enjoyed passion, though he rarely got it with any of his mistresses, he realized. Passion involved some feeling, some emotion, a little bit of risk. Most of the women he had bedded had been looking for some companionship and a lot of vigorous sex. And that had always suited him too. Better no passion at all than too much of the wrong sort.

Passion could lead to an unwelcome emotional attachment. He did not want any woman attached to him that way. It had never been his wish to hurt any woman.

But the objective thoughts were only fleeting. She had pressed her bosom against his chest, her abdomen and thighs against his, and her mouth had angled and opened over his.

He felt a flaring of intense desire.

At last!

It was many months since he had had a woman. He had not realized quite how famished he was.

He lifted his hands to cup her face, to hold it a few inches from his own. And he slid his hands around the base of her head to the jeweled clasp that kept her hair confined. He unclasped it and let it fall to the carpet. He took her hair in both hands to rearrange it. It needed no encouragement but spread across her back and over her shoulders in a gleaming cloud of soft waves.

He almost hissed in an audible breath.

She looked ten years younger. She looked … innocent. With bedroom eyes that even in the dim candlelight looked very blue. An innocent Siren—an enticing oxymoron.

“I cannot do the like for you,” she said, “though some might say your hair is a little overlong for fashion. You must not cut it, though. I forbid it.”

“I am to be your love slave and ever obedient?” he asked, dipping his head to kiss her behind one earlobe, holding her hair back with one finger as he did so. He flicked his tongue over the soft flesh there at the last moment, and had the satisfaction of feeling a slight tremor run through her.

“Not at all,” she said, “but you will do what pleases me because it pleases you. I shall remove your coat since you wear no hair clasp.”

It was not easy. His valet had a hard enough time getting him into his coats so that they fit him, as fashion dictated, like a second skin. But her fingers fluttered over his chest beneath it and up over his shoulders and down along his arms, and his coat obediently followed the path her hands took and soon fell to the floor behind him.

It was not, he thought, the first time she had done that.

Her eyes moved over his shirt and cravat, and then her hands moved up to the latter and deftly removed it. She undid the buttons at his throat and opened the top of his shirt.