Limited peace. From the angle of the sun, he judged it was late afternoon. Soon he’d have to rise and prepare to dine with Lady Agnes and her friends, and tomorrow he would travel to London. An intimidating thought.

He rolled onto his back, pulling Cassie close against his side. Her eyes blinked sleepily, then opened, blue and hazy and deep with acceptance. She smiled up at him. “Régine was here, so I changed places with her.”

“A good trade.” He tightened his arm around her, grateful that she’d joined him. “It appears that you’re the only person I’m really comfortable with. You, and Régine, and perhaps Lady Agnes. In that order.”

“An interesting list. The only thing we have in common is being female.”

“There’s a reason for that. Females tend to be more forgiving.”

“They certainly are forgiving of handsome men.” She slid her fingers into his hair. “But don’t forget Père Laurent.”

Grey thought of his friend’s infinite acceptance, which was very like Cassie’s, now that he thought about it. Grey needed a lot of acceptance. “It’s a good thing you’re forgiving, my lady fox. I’m asking you to do far too much for me.”

“Never too much,” she said quietly. “London and your old life might seem overwhelming at the moment, but it won’t be long before your wings are fledged and you take flight again.”

He wished he had her confidence. Best to take this reemergence into the world one step at a time. And the present step was to appreciate the woman in his arms.

“I’ve wanted to see you naked in daylight,” he said thoughtfully. “And here we are, nicely private and with late afternoon sunshine pouring in the window. I must take advantage of this situation.” He untied the drawstring at the throat of her ghastly shapeless gown. Opening in front, the garment was intended for a peasant woman who had to be able to dress herself without assistance.

“It isn’t the situation you’re taking advantage of,” she said tartly as she batted away his hand. “It’s me. I rather like being safely blanketed by darkness. Night covers my deficiencies.”

He pulled pins from her hair and combed the thick waves around her shoulders with his fingers. What color was it under the dull gray and brown? A nice glossy brown, he guessed, with a shine reflecting her age and good health. She’d washed the lines of age from her face, revealing a complexion with the transparent purity of porcelain. “You underrate your charms, Cassandra. I may not have been able to see you, but I’ve touched as much of your delicious body as I could, and all of it has been first rate.”

He started on the buttons that closed the front of her bodice. “Your bare skin will certainly be lovelier than this appalling gray gown. An uglier garment I’ve never seen.”

She laughed. “That’s rather the point. No man would look at me twice. Not even once if he could help it.”

“Yet you look astonishingly attractive even so,” he mused. “It’s a great mystery.”

She made a face. “Very well, but you must bare yourself as well.” She tugged at his crumpled cravat. “The only time I’ve seen you with your clothes off was when you were shivering in an icy pond at midnight. I was too afraid you’d freeze to death to admire your manly charms.”

“You don’t really want to see me unclad,” he assured her. “Despite your best efforts to feed me up, I’m still more scarecrow than not.”

She grinned wickedly. “Now you know how I feel about my imperfections. Are you willing to forgo mutual nakedness?”

“I am not,” he said firmly. “It’s worth revealing my bony carcass to see your much more pleasing form.”

“Ah, well,” she said philosophically. “If only beautiful people mated, the human race would have died out long since. We must accept each other’s deficiencies.”

She was opening his shirt when he parted her bodice and chemise, laying bare her lovely breasts. Feeling stronger by the moment, he lapped her nipple with his tongue.

She sucked in her breath, eyes widening. “You intend more than looking?”

“I’m not sure how much more,” he admitted. “I may not have recovered enough for what I would dearly like to do.” He rolled her other nipple between thumb and forefinger. “Shall we see how far I can go? I promise you won’t be left unsatisfied.”

“By all means continue,” she breathed. “But undressing will be easier if we stand.”

“You are a natural leader who always has excellent ideas.” He slid from the bed and took the opportunity to toss more fuel on the fire and kick off his shoes. Then he offered his hand with a courtly gesture. “Join me, my lady, in the prelude to seduction?”

She grasped his hand and alighted from the bed with a smile that made her seem decades younger than her appearance, even younger than he knew her to be. “I look forward to removing your garments one by one, my Lord Wyndham.”

She started with his coat, then attacked his shirt. He knew he was showing too many bones, but there was admiration in her eyes and sensuality in her touch as she skimmed her palm over his bare chest.

“My turn now,” he said with a catch in his breath as she pressed her lips to the hollow at the base of his throat. “That gray gown must go.”

“Resist the temptation to burn it,” she warned. “It’s all I have till I return to London.”

He tugged the coarse garment over her head, making a silent vow to buy her silk in the city. She emerged from the gray folds laughing and luscious in her stays and chemise. The more she removed, the lovelier she became.

Garment by garment, they peeled off each other’s clothing with kisses and laughter. When he removed the worn white chemise, leaving her bare and golden in the late afternoon light, he said huskily, “You are even more beautiful than I realized.”

She tugged his drawers down from his hips with a passing caress that temporarily paralyzed his simple male brain. “Lust is warping your judgment.” Wistfully she added, “Though it’s a lovely lie to hear.”

“I can’t deny the lust, but it’s not warping my judgment.” He removed his drawers entirely. “At least, not about how desirable you are.”

“I’m boringly average,” she protested.

“Not average. Quintessential.” He cupped her breasts in his hands, caressing the warm weight. He moved his hands in a slow circle, feeling her nipples harden against his palms. “Every part of you is exactly right. Your breasts are neither too large nor too small, but a perfect handful.”

He kissed the shadowed cleft between them. “Your skin is remarkable. Smooth and almost luminescent, like a sun-touched marble statue by Michelangelo.”

“You … look … better than you claimed, also. Too thin, but such splendid shoulders!” She ran her hands across them to demonstrate.

She was being kind. He knew his ribs were showing and he’d picked up some ugly scars after his capture in Paris. He wished they’d met when he was young and at his best, but as she said, one didn’t have to be perfect to mate. Fortunately.

“You really are perfect,” he said as he skimmed his palms over her hips and thighs. “Like Botticelli’s Venus born of the sea, your proportions are exactly right. Slim but round in all the right places. Beautifully fit and strong.” He kissed his way down the gentle curve of her belly, becoming more aroused than he would have thought possible. She was deliciously feminine and edible.

She gasped as he swirled his tongue around her navel. “Time to go from vertical to horizontal,” he said in a thick voice. Catching her up in his arms, he laid her onto the bed and came down beside her, resuming his kisses down toward the tantalizing mysteries between her thighs.

She cried out and her fingernails bit into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood when his lips and tongue reached her most sensitive, secret places. Her responsiveness was intoxicating, sending fire through his blood.

She shattered around him, her ecstasy driving him to urgent need. He moved between her legs and joined their bodies, merging them so they were as close as man and woman could be. She gasped. “I see you’ve recovered fully, my lord.”

“You are better than any surgeon for healing, my sweet vixen,” he said breathlessly as he rocked into her.

Laughing, she drew him down as they moved together into bliss. This was even better than his first fierce coupling when he was mad for the solace of her female flesh. This was a joining of spirit as well as bodies beyond anything he’d ever known. “Cassandra,” he gasped. “Catherine …”

Perfection.

Even though that evening’s dinner was in the small family dining room, it was the most watchful meal Cassie had ever consumed. Lady Agnes, General Rawlings, and Miss Emily watched Wyndham, the two women also watched Cassie, and Kirkland watched everyone. Grey was worth watching. Golden haired and with the ability to make his borrowed clothing look custom tailored, he was the model of an English gentleman. He spoke little but was effortlessly magnetic.

No one watched Régine, who’d slipped into the dining room and was resting under the table with her muzzle on Grey’s foot. As long as no one took official notice of the dog, she didn’t have to be ejected. She’d fattened up noticeably since they found her.

The tightness around Grey’s eyes made it clear that he wasn’t comfortable with all the attention, but he bore up under it well. Cassie thought she deserved some credit for having relaxed him so thoroughly that afternoon. Her gaze dropped to the braised beef at the thought. If she’d relaxed him, he’d made her feel desirable.

At the end of the meal, Lady Agnes rose. “Miss Fox, Emily, let us withdraw to the morning room and leave the gentlemen to their port.”

Seeing Cassie’s expression, Lady Agnes said, “You’re surprised that I’m so conventional?”