The descent from ecstasy was slow, a swirl of tranquility and light. As her fragmented consciousness slowly returned, she found that Rafe was shaking as badly as she. She stroked his sweaty back until her breathing steadied. "How did you know that I felt so alone?" she murmured.

Rafe lifted himself on his elbows and studied her face, his strained expression revealing how much her emotional cataclysm had cost him. "Recognition, I suppose. When I looked back, I realized that fear of loss had made me withdraw from the hazards of deep emotion. Yet what I found was not safety, but loneliness. I guessed that it was the same for you."

"That's it exactly," she said slowly. "I never forgot what happened, yet I never let myself fully feel it, either. To survive, I had to retreat from the terror. By doing so, I cut myself off from everything-and everyone."

"You speak as if that's in the past."

"It is, because you wouldn't let me retreat this time. Thank you, Rafe." As she looked into his clear gray eyes, her mouth curved into a smile. "In case I didn't make myself clear earlier, I love you."

He returned the smile with entrancing warmth. "As I believe I mentioned forty or fifty times, I love you, too."

She laughed a little. "It appears that for once we are in agreement."

A shadow touched his face. "I'm sorry that I forgot myself so entirely that I didn't withdraw." He hesitated, then said, "I hope that… there won't be any unwanted consequences."

Joy blossomed within her, and a pleasing sense of female power. "Such consequences would not be unwelcome to me," she said serenely. "And surely you would like an heir."

He looked startled. Then, with dazzling suddenness, his face lit up, as radiant as the sun above them. "Does that mean you'll marry me?"

Tenderly she ran her fingers through his tousled hair. "If you're sure that you want a lady with a shady past, there is nothing I would like more than to be your wife."

"If I'm sure!" Laughing, he caught her in his arms and rolled onto his back so that she was sprawled on top of him. "I've never been more certain of anything in my life."

"You were right, Rafe. Love is stronger than fear, and it feels a whole lot better." She rubbed her cheek against his. "Bless you for being braver than I."

"It was a risk worth taking." He stroked her bare backside lovingly. "You were concerned that I would be unable to resist the charms of other women, but remember, it's said that a reformed rake makes the best husband."

She hesitated, then decided that there must be complete honesty between them. "Frankly, I've never believed that. I know that you meant what you said-but leopards and unchangeable spots come to mind."

"I have always liked women in direct proportion to how much they reminded me of you, but no one else has ever held a candle to the original Margot." He grinned. "Will you find it easier to believe me if I say that I have grazed in enough fields to know that the grass is not greener?"

"You've just convinced me." Laughing, she laid her head on his shoulder. "Why is it that an ignoble assertion is so much more persuasive than a noble one?"

"Human nature, I'm afraid."

As they lay languidly together, it occurred to Rafe that he'd better protect Margot from the sun, for her fair complexion would burn much more easily than his dark hide. Gently he deposited her on the luxuriant grass, then propped himself on one elbow so that she was shaded by his body.

"You were lovely by candlelight, and you're even lovelier in the sun." Delicately he touched one of the fading bruises on her ribs. In the last several days, it had gone from blue-black to yellow-olive. "I'll be glad when these have faded away." His voice tightened. "You're a miracle, Margot. What you survived would have destroyed anyone with less strength."

She caught his hand and clasped it to her heart. "Nothing is without value, love. From the day my father died until ten minutes ago, fear was a constant companion, as close as my own shadow. Yet curiously, I was not afraid of small things, because the worst that I could imagine had already happened. In most ways I became stronger, capable of actions that would have been unthinkable earlier. That's why I could be an effective spy."

He kissed her forehead. "My indomitable countess and soon-to-be-duchess."

Hesitantly she said, "I have a request."

"Anything," he said simply.

She considered a dozen ways to express what she meant before saying, "Robin is my family. He always will be."

Rafe gave her a wry smile. "And you don't want me to act like a jealous, possessive idiot of a husband. Fair enough. I like and respect Robin enormously. If I work on it a bit, I think I'll be able to convince myself that he's your brother. He will always be welcome in our home, and I genuinely hope that he is a frequent visitor. Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Yes, my love." A silky object pressed sensually along her side, and she looked down to see that Rex had decided that it was safe to sprawl along her bare flank. With a grin, she asked, "How about Rex?"

Rafe laughed. "He's welcome, too. Every household needs a tomcat, and now that I've reformed…"

Her joyous laughter chimed through the garden as she lifted her face to Rafe's, running her fingers through his black hair, molding her body against him in the sheer delight of closeness.

As their lips joined again, she had a fleeting moment of gratitude that this garden was so very private. They had a lot of years to make up for.

Historical Note

Though the Congress of Vienna is well known, the Paris peace conference of 1815 is relatively obscure. Nonetheless, it was a vital event that finally concluded the Napoleonic Wars.

Though I have taken some liberties, the background events of the story are true. Paris in the summer and autumn of 1815 was a hotbed of conspiracies, assassination plots, and political crosscurrents. Lord Castlereagh was indeed kicked by a horse in mid-September, and for some days after, the important meetings took place in his bedchamber at the British embassy.

Both art and Bonapartist political prisoners became topics of great controversy, and the events at the Louvre and the Place du Carrousel are accurately depicted. The French, however, had the last laugh on this; while the final treaty sent the stolen art treasures in Paris home, no one thought to include the many fine works that had been sent to provincial museums.

Some of the top Bonapartist military men were executed, causing outrage throughout Europe. Marshal Michel Ney, "the bravest of the brave," died with great courage before a firing squad. With the aid of three British subjects, another high-ranking officer escaped from prison dressed in his wife's clothes, proving once again that art has nothing over life when it comes to farce.

The Congress of Vienna and the peace settlement of 1815 are sometimes called reactionary because the tsar's nonbinding Holy Alliance is confused with the Quadruple Alliance, which was the actual peace treaty signed on November 20th. It was the Holy Alliance that came to be used as a tool of reactionary forces, while the Quadruple Alliance had one splendid new idea: that in times of future trouble, the great powers would gather together and discuss the situation. This was the seed that flowered into the League of Nations and the United Nations in this century.

The statesmen who engineered the settlement were tough, pragmatic men who sought to have peace in their time, and who had to work with the materials available on a shattered continent. They succeeded better than any of them dreamed of: Europe did not experience another continent-wide conflagration until 1914.

Meanwhile, the British embassy is still housed in the mansion that Wellington bought from Pauline Bonaparte, the Princess Borghese, and I'm told that on great occasions her plate still graces the table.