Ashton released a disappointed sigh in slow, halting breaths and gave a reluctant nod, turning away. The brown shoulders gleamed as he drew off his shirt, and Lenore stared at the dark expanse, remembering when she could freely stroke her hand over the wide breadth of his shoulders and along his lean, muscular ribs. Becoming aware that she was being affected by the sight, she averted her gaze and reddened profusely. If he only knew how she desired him…!

Staggering around, Ashton dropped into a nearby chair and tugged off his boots, then leaned his elbows on his knees and hung his head in mute dejection. The posture pierced Lenore’s heart, but she curbed the feeling that grew in her, for it was a dangerous longing. Moving with whisper-soft tread, she drew back the bed hangings and folded down the luxurious coverlet. She followed in the same order with the sheets and smoothed the folds with her hands as she pulled them snug, then stood back with a hesitant glance in his direction.

“Come to bed, Ashton,” she softly implored. He looked up with an unspoken inquiry, but she lowered her eyes before his probing gaze. “I’ll sit with you for a while; then I must go back.”

With a sigh Ashton raised himself from the chair and made his way unsteadily around the end of the bed and to the far side. There he turned his back to her and, dropping his trousers, sat down on the bed. He made no further attempt to comply with her wishes, and in curious wonder Lenore went around the bed and found his eyes closed beneath a harsh frown, as if a pain had started throbbing between his brows.

“Ashton?” Her voice was whisper-soft.

The lashes lifted abruptly, and he fixed her with a direct stare; then, releasing his breath, he slowly reclined upon the pillows. Lenore felt a warming in her cheeks and a quickening in her blood as her eyes skimmed over the manly length of him. She had often compared him to a gladiator of olden days, with his long lithe muscles rippling beneath his bronze skin. He was no less impressive lying naked upon the bed. It was not a new sight for her, but one that she realized she had missed viewing during the time they had been separated. In wifely compassion, she bent and, tugging the trousers off his feet, swung his long legs onto the bed. She pulled a sheet over his nakedness and tidied his clothes, wistfully caressing them with her hand as she hung them on his silent valet. Blowing out the lamps, she returned to the bedside across from where he slept, and sat cross-legged upon its softness. Her eyes wandered around the darkened interior, and she felt consumed by its blackness. Carefully she lay back upon the pillows, making a firm resolution not to sleep, and put her mind to the task of remembering….

“Whither will I wander…Thither will I roam…’Round the world, and back again, this way will I go…Marching down the steep hill…Tramping up again…Ever will I ramble…’Til I’m home again….”

The sea breezes whipped the auburn hair with its breath, setting its softly curling length and the long ribbons adorning it into a wild, frenzied dance. Watching her sister frolicking far ahead of her on the beach, she giggled and slipped her small hand inside the much larger one that brushed her arm. The tall man reached down and lifted her high upon his shoulder, much to her squealing delight, and they chortled together as he pretended to be her steed and galloped after her sister. Her thin fingers curled in the mass of dark hair, seeking security at the lofty height, and she knew without looking down that his face was squarish…and his eyes were deep green….

The woods were dense and darkly shaded as the two girls crept forward. Her sister, a young woman barely fifteen, gestured with a finger across the lips, and they stilled. She waited, searching with her eyes; then she saw the deer they had stalked lift its head in alert attention. His ears twitched to catch the sounds around him; then with a start he glanced behind him. His large eyes stared a moment into the shaded coppice, until a faint snap of a twig surprised him, and he bounded away in the opposite direction. Disappointed, the two girls moved together; then a familiar voice called from where the twig had snapped: “Lenore…Lierin…” A man clothed in a brown hunting suit and toting a long gun beneath his arm came tramping through the trees. “Lenore…Lierin…where are you?”

“Lierin?” the voice sighed against her ear before warm lips brushed her cheek. “Lierin…?”

“Yes?” she sighed and, rolling onto her side, snuggled against the warm body.

“Let me love you, Lierin…”

The words seeped into her dreams, and she saw a distant figure, standing near the railing of a steamer.

“Let me love you, Lierin….”

“Yes,” she breathed.

Wandering through the depths of fantasy, she welcomed his embrace and lay back. The roaming hand moved upward from her waist, and her eyes blinked as she heard the sound of rending cloth. Her heart took flight as the kisses came upon her breast, and she realized this was no illusion. This was reality at its boldest. She shook her head in a mute denial, but the movement was lost in darkness; then it seemed not to matter anymore. She was where she wanted to be…home!

She trembled beneath the warmth and fervor of his bold caresses, and her breath mingled with his as their lips touched and their tongues played a rousing game. They were two beings in love with one another, consumed by their emotions, driven by their desires. He pressed eager kisses upon her throat and savored the honeyed sweetness of her breasts, making her gasp at the scalding heat of his mouth. He freed her from the last shreds of her gown, and they rolled in leisured slowness upon the bed, turning as their mouths slanted and twisted in ravenous hunger. Her arms held him close, while her fingers kneaded the firm muscles of his back, slipping admiringly over his lean waist, then spreading over the taut buttocks. They tumbled again in languid motion, bound by the length of her hair, and she rose above him, arching backward as his mouth caressed her bosom. The slender limbs came astride him, and she shivered as her questing hand brought him home. The burning heat pulsed through her, flicking every fiber of her being awake. She leaned forward, raking her fingers through the crisp matting covering his chest, and teased him with a provocative kiss, touching her tongue to his. He taunted her with his body, and she luxuriated in the feelings he aroused in her. She gave in return, and the smooth strokes of her body made Ashton catch his breath. They played on, and time ceased to be as they slipped beyond the present into the heady world of bliss.

Afterward, she slept in his arms, her head resting on his sturdy shoulder and her auburn hair tumbling loose across his pillow. Ashton inhaled her sweet fragrance and dared not move lest he wake her, but his swelling heart seemed unable to contain the bountiful measure of his joy.

A raging snarl brought him fully awake three hours later. The sun had made an entry into the day, shining through the open flap of his tent, and his eyes came open as a large shadow blocked its light. The dark form bent slightly as it swept through the opening, and in two long strides Malcolm was beside the bed. His face contorted with dark fury as he stared down upon the beauty who slumbered peacefully in the arms of the other man; then he turned a glare upon that one who calmly watched him.

“You…bastard!” Malcolm’s lips twisted in loathing contempt, and he stretched out a hand to whip away the sheet, but he promptly found his wrist seized by the iron grip of those long, lean fingers.

“My wife is not properly dressed to receive company at the moment, Malcolm,” Ashton informed him curtly.

“Your wife!” Malcolm wrenched his arm away with a snarl, and his eyes burned as he met the bemused, sleepy gaze of the one he woke with his outburst. Fear came quickly to the lovely visage, and jeering, he gave her an insulting perusal, slowly sweeping the length of her. The muslin sheet covered her, but the dips and swells were very much apparent beneath the clinging cloth. The sheet seemed to taunt him with its display of her, and there was no denying that she was naked under its light covering. The evidence was there for him to take full note of, and he did, pausing on the soft peaks of her bosom, the narrow curve of her waist, and the shapely limb that was tucked beneath the other’s. The intruding knee filled the sway in the sheet between her thighs, bespeaking the man’s claim to her. Evaluating every last detail, Malcolm considered the results and thought he had never seen her looking more beautiful. It maddened him that it had been the other man who had so affected her, and his lip turned in a caustic sneer: “Did you sleep well, madam?”

Lenore found no reply to give him and averted her face, meeting the tender regard of the heavily lashed eyes above her own.

“Now that you’ve had your little fun, Mister Wingate, I want you to leave here,” Malcolm declared with venom. “You’ve done enough harm to me. Now I’ll have to live in hell until I see if anything sprouts from your seed.”

A darkening scarlet stained Lenore’s cheeks as she murmured a reply: “You might as well know, Malcolm. Come the winter I shall be giving birth to Ashton’s child.”

“Nooooo!” Malcolm leaped forward to seize her from the bed, making her cringe away in terror, but suddenly his eyes widened as he found himself staring into the muzzle of a large pistol, which was pointed directly toward his nose. He did not know where the weapon had come from, but it was there now, and the sweat popped out on his brow as Ashton pulled back the hammer with his thumb.

“I told you if you ever touched her, I’d kill you, and I mean it.” Ashton allowed the threat to sink in before he waved the man away with the pistol. “Now back off.”