“Are you injured?” His quick gaze scanned her from brow to toe.

“Only embarrassed. That was not the grand exit I intended.”

“Grand exits are often tiresome anyway.” He grasped her hand, and she could sit in this puddle forever if he would continue looking at her with such intensity.

“Who would have thought that cow could best me after all?” she mumbled. “I suppose I must now be wary of putting on my shoes and sweeping stoops too.”

He grinned, drew her up, and released her.

“I’d thought rain, mud, and mold were the only indignities this gown would be obliged to suffer.” She laughed a little unevenly because he did not move away. “I was clearly wrong.”

“You were wrong.” His voice was low.

Her gaze shot up. He set his palm on the wall behind her and leaned in.

Diantha’s mouth opened and closed, searching for a response, her throat working to hold back a plea. She would not beg again. She squeezed her eyes shut against the temptation, and snapped them open when she felt his breath upon her cheek, then—oh, God—his lips. He breathed against her skin and her body quivered at his closeness.

He drew back and his gaze traveled over her face, his eyes sparks of light in the darkness. Slowly he bent to her lips.

“Don’t ask for this,” he whispered huskily, “because, God help me, I don’t want to take you home.”

She shook her head. “I w—”

His mouth caught hers not at all gently but with unmistakable possession. He kissed her seriously, deeply. He kissed her weak-kneed and he did it without touching any other part of her body.

Then his hands were cupping her head, sinking into her hair, and he kissed her cheek then her jaw.

“I want you far too much,” he whispered into the tender place beneath her ear. It sounded like a prayer, a supplication brought forth from his soul. He kissed her neck, the caress shimmering through her. “I am not a good man.”

She allowed him to tilt her face up to kiss her throat, and shivered at the sublime pleasure of it. How could it feel this good? “I know you are.” She grabbed his waistcoat and pulled him against her and put her mouth beneath his.

He was hard everywhere. She ran her hands down his arms, and touching him only made her need to feel him even more, especially against the hot crux of her legs. She slipped her palms to his chest and moaned softly at the sensation of his taut muscles, so alien and male and exactly what her body wanted now. Her fingers worked at the top button of his waistcoat until it came loose. She sought the next, the delicious ache growing so fierce between her legs she whimpered.

He grabbed her hands.

“No, Diantha.” His voice was a growl. “Don’t.”

“No more no’s.” She pulled a hand free and unfastened another button.

“If you undress me, I will swiftly lose all remnants of self-control.”

“Thank heaven.” She bit at his lower lip as he had done to her in the inn and slipped the tip of her tongue between her teeth to caress him. He groaned and his hands swept down her back, over her buttocks.

“Where did you learn that?” His breaths were hard. “Don’t say from another man.”

“From you. I’ve told you, you were my first. My only.” The last button came free. Wild with need, she slid her hands across his chest then closed her eyes just to feel him. “Oh, Wyn.” Her entire body seemed wound in a coil of delectable expectancy. “Teach me more. Please.” She pressed into him, seeking him with her hips. His hand slipped down the back of her leg, and as he bent and took her mouth completely, he parted her thighs and met her hunger with his very hard and perfect body.

“Ohh.” She accepted him in her mouth and between her thighs eagerly, aching, dying for whatever came next.

He broke away, grasped her hand and pulled her toward the foyer. She tripped along behind, dripping milk and bleary with pleasure. Halfway up the stairs he halted, snagged her against him and kissed her again.

“I would carry you up,” he said urgently, “but I fear I haven’t the— Blast it.” He seized her up in his arms and ascended the stairs. In his borrowed bedchamber he lowered her to her feet and she clung to him while his hands moved over her back and hips. She pressed herself as close as she could and he bent to claim her lips again.

She heard the door close and tore her mouth away. She stared at her surroundings, the writing table stacked with books, the four-poster bed with the dark curtains open.

“I am in a man’s bedchamber.” His bedchamber.

“You have been here before.” He took her earlobe with his teeth and used his tongue, and she nearly collapsed with the pleasure of it.

“To nurse you. Not to—to—”

“To give me your body.” He grasped her waist in his strong hands and pressed his brow to hers, his breathing rough. “Say it, Diantha, so there is no mistaking it.”

“To give you my body.” She was terrified but she wanted it with everything in her.

His hands slipped up her back, working at the sash tying her gown closed. “We will have to marry after this.”

Have to? As in be obliged to. He could do this to her without actually caring deeply for her. But now that she was in his bedchamber poised to give her virginity to him, it came to her with remarkable clarity that whenever she’d imagined the intimate things men and women did together she had always imagined doing them with him. Always.

The circumstances were clearly not reciprocal.

“I cannot marry you, or—or Mr. H, or anybody until I find my mother.”

The sash fell away.

“He will not have you after I have.”

“I will not tell him you have had me.” She shivered as he drew the sleeves of her gown down her arms.

“A man has other ways of knowing a woman is a maiden than her word alone.” His voice was hoarse, his gaze upon her breasts. Covered now only by the fine linen of her shift, her tight nipples poked out, dark beneath the thin fabric.

She felt light-headed and she wanted to cover herself again. “Then I will discover a method of making it appear otherwise. Women are cleverer than most men.”

“Yet few have your determination and courage.”

“You are not referring to my maidenhood now, are you?”

He smiled, but there was fever in his gaze. Hunger for her. She thought that if she were ever to drown, it would be in his eyes. His hand came around her face, strong and purposeful.

She couldn’t seem to breathe. “Suddenly I am excessively nervous. Or, perhaps not suddenly, simply again. And don’t tell me I do not look excessively nervous like you did that night at Sir Henry’s, because I would know this time it was a flat-out lie.”

“You look . . .” He swallowed, his gaze dipping to her breasts again, and the movement of his throat made her insides flutter. “ . . . perfect.”

She felt like butter must when it melted. She probably smelled like it too, covered in milk. But he didn’t seem to mind it. Circling an arm about her, he pulled her close. Their bodies brushed. He bent his mouth to her neck again, then nuzzled her earlobe.

“We needn’t do this.” His hand was drawing her shift up her legs, sliding it over her behind. “We can stop now, if you wish. At any moment.”

“If you think I’ve been throwing myself at you for over a fortnight so that I will demand that we stop now, I will have to reconsider my opinion of your intelligence. And—” Her breaths hitched. “How on earth could you imagine I would want you to stop just when you are doing that?” His hand covered her buttock and caressed. Her joints went liquid.

“God, you are so soft.”

She went onto her tiptoes and put her lips against his cheek. “Rule Number Five: ‘Always respect a lady’s wishes.’ ” She was a wanton. She didn’t care, not now in his arms.

“I was thinking about that.”

“About what, exactly?”

“About being a gentleman.” His hands left her and he drew off his waistcoat. “It would be ungentlemanly to expect a lady to remove her clothing while everyone else remains dressed.”

She watched, mesmerized, as he unwound his cravat, revealing taut male perfection.

“E-Everyone?”

“Whoever happens to be around at the time.” His eyes sparkled as he drew the tail of his shirt from his trousers and pulled it off.

“Uh.” She stared. “I . . .”

His hands came around her face, fingers threading through her hair, and he brought their mouths together. “Now, minx,” he murmured against her lips. “As a gentleman, I must beg the lady to precede me.”

Her heart was a drumstick beating against the wall of her throat. “Pr-Precede you?” It sounded like a croak. “I cannot seem to stop stuttering. It is very embarrassing.”

“Yet, to be expected.” He kissed her again, a coaxing caress. “Precede me in touching.”

Heat enveloped her, cheeks to toes but especially in her feminine areas. She had never imagined touching his naked body. Clearly she had been tragically naïve.

“Touching?”

Golden sparks from the fire illuminated his eyes, and the corner of his delicious mouth tilted up. “Come now. Will Lady Intrepid be timid in this?”

“No!” He was large and beautiful and so very male, all lean muscle in his arms and wide shoulders and gorgeous chest tapering to his waist bathed in amber firelight. The line of dark hair extending from his navel beneath his trousers made her achy again. She lifted a hand and set two fingertips to the depression at the base of his throat that made her mouth water. He drew in a slow breath, his chest rising. She laid all five fingertips down and slid them across his skin.

Her eyelashes fluttered of their own accord, the place between her legs as damp as her mouth now. His skin was hot, firm, and with only her fingertips she could feel the pounding of his heart. She traced her fingers to one flat brown nipple. He closed his eyes, pulled in a hard breath and drew her closer.