But he would not change the rhythm yet. There was too much pleasure in anticipating pleasure, and she was a gorgeous, responsive, passionate bedmate. After the first minute she had begun to move with him, and her inner muscles had caught and complemented the rhythm of his thrusts. Her hips circled slowly, creating a pleasure so exquisite that it bordered on pain.

He had had experienced courtesans who were less skilled.

And then finally her control slipped, and she moaned softly to each stroke and contracted her muscles convulsively and off-rhythm. He could feel her increased body heat and the slickness of her sweat. He could hear the raggedness of her breathing. Her arms and thighs strained him closer.

He thrust faster and deeper.

It was impossible for a virgin to reach climax the first time. It was rare for a woman to reach climax at all. He had heard both pronouncements—from other men, of course. Frances Allard proved them all wrong.

She came to a sudden and shattering climax, every muscle in her body tensing before she cried out and shuddered in his arms while he stopped moving. It was a strangely wondrous gift, her cresting of the wave of passion, her shuddering descent down the other side. It had rarely happened to him before, though he had known many women who went to valiant lengths to pretend.

He waited until she was quiet and still beneath him, and then he completed his own pleasure, plunging into her over and over again until he reached the blessed moment of release.

He sighed against the side of her face and relaxed his weight down onto her warm, yielding body.

It had been and was, he thought as he rolled off her a few moments later and gathered her close in his arms, a fitting ending to an adventure—to use her word—that had been strange and unpredictable from the first moment.

Though his mind shied away from dwelling upon the realization that this was the end.

He would think about that tomorrow morning.

Frances was, she discovered, totally head over ears in love with Lucius Marshall. With yesterday’s nasty, bad-tempered gentleman, of all men. She smiled against his shoulder. She almost chuckled aloud.

With her intellect, of course, she knew that she was not in love at all. Not really. Not in the way of those great, enduring romances one occasionally heard or read about anyway. She had only just met him, after all, and she really did not know him. Even though he had somehow managed to learn several details of her life, he had said remarkably little about his own. What they had shared and were sharing tonight was entirely physical. It was lust pure and simple. She was under no illusions about that. And she was not ashamed of the admission. Perhaps she would be later, but not now. For now she was quite happy to accept the situation for what it was.

As she lay in the narrow bed with him, their limbs all tangled together, and he slept while she tried hard not to, she did her thinking with her emotions rather than with her intellect.

And she tried—she desperately tried to cling to the moment, to revel in the sensation of being in love and of having been physically loved in a manner more glorious than anything she could possibly have imagined.

She had expected lovemaking to be painful. It had been when he first came inside her and for a minute or two after he had started moving in her. She had also expected it to be horribly embarrassing. How could it not be when one considered what actually happened? But ultimately it had been neither.

It had been by far the most wonderful experience of her life.

And it was still wonderful. She was warm and cozy. She could feel his strong arms about her and one powerful leg pushed between her own. She could feel his hard-muscled body against hers, her breasts pressed to his chest with its light dusting of hair. She could smell his cologne, his sweat, his maleness, and thought that no perfume could ever smell half so enticing.

Strange thought!

It was a good thing, she thought, nestling closer to him and butting her head into a warm spot beneath his chin, prompting a sleepy grunt of protest from him, that she would never have anyone with whom to compare him. Marriage opportunities—or even opportunities for casual amours, for that matter—did not come the way of lady schoolteachers with any great frequency. Once she had had chances to make a good marriage, even a happy one, but those days were long gone.

She was trying to stay awake, not because she was not tired but because tonight was something that was going to have to last her for all the rest of her life. Whenever her mind touched upon the thought that tomorrow she would be back in her own bed on

Daniel Street

in Bath, she felt twinges of panic somewhere in the region of the bottom of her stomach.

If she did not sleep, perhaps the night would never end.

What foolishness!

But tragedy—the certain knowledge of a dreadful, desolate pain to come—loomed just beneath the surface of her drowsy happiness.

She would think about it tomorrow when she would have no choice.

“Cold?” a low, sleepy voice asked her.

The fire had burned itself out sometime before, but she was as cozy as she could possibly be where she was.

“No,” she said.

“Too bad,” he said. “I might have thought of a way of warming you up if you were.”

“I am frozen,” she assured him, chuckling softly.

“You lie through your teeth, ma’am,” he said, “but I like your spirit. Now, I suppose I need to think of some way of warming you—and myself. Doubtless you can tell that I am shivering too. Any suggestions?”

She drew her head back from its warm burrow and kissed him on the mouth. He had a lovely mouth, wide and firm, with the promise of all sorts of delights within.

“Mmm,” he murmured. “Keep thinking.”

It was not just his physical appeal, she thought, though there was tons and tons of that. But today she had discovered wit and humor and intelligence in him with the result that she had been able to rather like him as a person as well as to admire him as a man. They could perhaps be friends under different circumstances, if only there were more time. But time was something they did not have. Not much time anyway—only the rest of tonight.

She lifted herself on one elbow in order to kiss him more thoroughly, but suddenly two strong hands grasped her by the waist and lifted her bodily upward while he turned over onto his back and into the middle of the bed, and then deposited her right on top of him.

“That is better,” he said. “You make a nice warm blanket.” He pulled the rest of the covers right up over their heads and kissed her with lingering thoroughness, his tongue circling hers, exploring the inside of her mouth and then simulating the sexual act.

Ah, yes, there was still the rest of tonight.

She drew her head free and nuzzled the side of his neck with her lips and teeth and splayed her hands over his shoulders so that she could lift herself sufficiently to rub her breasts and nipples over his chest.

“Mmm,” she said.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” he told her.

She spread her legs wide so that she could kneel astride his body and thus have greater freedom to move, to touch him, to caress him, to explore his body with palms and fingers and nails and lips and teeth and tongue. He lay still and let her do it, responding for a while only with low, appreciative little grunts. And then she felt him grow large and hard against her abdomen and rubbed against him until she felt that someone must have lit a dozen fires in the room.

It was marvelously exciting to feel her power over him, to know that they would make love again, that she led the way.

But finally he took charge, spreading his hands over her hips, drawing her into position over his hard erection, and pulling downward. Though that last was not necessary. She pressed down onto him until once more she was filled with him.

Gloriously, wondrously filled.

She leaned over him, her hair falling about them both, and gazed into his eyes, just visible in the faint light coming through the window. She lifted some of her weight onto her knees again, spread her hands over his chest once more, and moved, lifting and pressing, creating again the heady rhythm of love.

“Ah, yes,” he murmured to her, “ride me, then, Frances.”

It was a startling and erotic image. But she did indeed ride him over and over again until she could ride no more but only surrender to his hands that came back to her hips to hold her steady as he pressed up hard into her and held there while something at the core of her burst open and blossomed into perfect pleasure—and then perfect peace.

She knelt where she was until he had finished, and then she lay down on him, her legs stretched on either side of his, while he drew the covers warmly over her again and wrapped his arms about her.

They were still joined.

This, she thought drowsily, was what happiness felt like. Not contentment, but happiness.

And tomorrow . . .

But mercifully she slept.

Peters and Thomas had both gone out by the time Lucius appeared downstairs the following morning, even though it was still well before dawn. They returned soon after he had gone out to the stables himself, bringing with them the news that the snow had melted considerably and that the road was already passable, provided one proceeded with extreme caution. Miss Allard’s carriage, though, was still firmly stuck in its snowbank. It would take assistance and the best part of the day to haul it out and dry it off and look it over to ensure that it was roadworthy.