Longing would mean acknowledging that she wished that her mother hadn’t died, that her father cared about her more, that she had never met Dugald, that people had believed her . . . It meant the heartbreak and desperation of knowing that she wanted children, that she wanted a husband, that she . . .

Her panic was as chilling and as overwhelming as an ice-cold wave breaking over her head. She pulled back. “I can’t do this,” she said, her voice rising to a squeak when she looked up at Byron and understood that longing wasn’t strong enough to describe what she was feeling. She seemed to have succumbed to a kind of madness, though she hardly knew him.

In an impulse for self-preservation, she reached out, put her hands on his chest, and pushed at him. She felt hard planes of muscle under her fingers as she pushed, which merely increased her alarm. He didn’t even fall back a step.

“I’m not like this,” she said, her breath sounding harsh in her ears. “I don’t do this. I know I have a terrible reputation, but I’m not . . . I’m not a whore.”

“I would never think that!” he said, quick and fast, and some errant part of her saw his chest rising and falling as fast as hers and was triumphant and glad. He wasn’t unmoved by her, by plain Fiona Chisholm.

Even so, she fell back another step. She would not allow herself to want him. He wasn’t hers. He could never be hers.

“No,” she repeated. But there was something uncertain in her voice, and his eyes flared, hot and feverish.

It didn’t matter that he couldn’t be hers; clearly, he was thinking that she could be . . .

“No,” she said with a gasp, and she almost spoke aloud, but it was too foolish to even think that the Earl of Oakley would consider a mere Scottish lass to be his. The possessiveness in his eyes probably meant he was considering making her his mistress. “I am not a strumpet,” she said, stronger now. “I’m not. Even if I am Scottish, and . . . and not beautiful.”

“You are beautiful.”

She stared at him blankly for a second, because she had always trusted herself and her judgment. All her life. She had been a mere six years old when she discovered that her father was weak. All of ten years old when she realized that Marilla was always angry—too angry to be a loving sister. Sixteen when she learned that Dugald was a bully. And what she saw in this man’s face, this almost-stranger’s face, was trust, desire, and longing. For her.

“No,” she whispered. “You mustn’t.”

He reached out for her again. “I already do.” His voice was sure and confident.

Fiona struggled free before his lips could again touch hers and make her fall into that pool of hot, wild desperation. “This is madness,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “You, sir, should have better control of yourself than to exert your seductive wiles on a—a maiden like myself.” Because she was a maiden, even if no one believed her. “I am not available to slake your lust,” she added.

“Slake?” Laughter shone in his eyes along with that deeply unsettling gleam that spoke of lust.

She waved her hand impatiently. “Whatever you wish to call it. I am not a strumpet whom one can tumble just because the door is locked. You are not the first to try to take advantage of me, you know. And you shall not succeed!”

It was all different from Dugald trying to climb in her window, but it felt good to shout at him.

The startled look on his face was worth it, too.

“I would not have taken advantage of you,” he said, his brow darkening.

“Then why is the door locked?” she challenged.

“To keep your bloody sister out,” he snapped back. “It had nothing to do with the two of us being inside.” He walked over to the door and unlocked it.

But when he turned around, he wasn’t irritated any longer. He looked like a gleeful boy. “Thanks to that lock, I’ve just realized that I have ruined your reputation,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “We’ve been locked in a room together. We’ll have to marry. It’s what a gentleman would do.” He walked toward her, his eyes intent.

“Oh!” she cried in frustration, stepping backward. “Why have you changed like this? I don’t understand you!”

“I decided this afternoon that I wish to make a woman fall in love with me.”

Fiona glared at him. “So I am the subject of an experiment? Are you planning to accost young ladies on a regular basis?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Then what on earth are you doing?” she cried, exasperated. “I don’t believe for a moment that you plan to ruin my reputation and marry me, if only because it’s already ruined. It’s very unkind of you to make jokes of this sort to a woman like myself, who has no prospect of marriage.”

“I suspect I have gone a little mad.” Byron lunged and scooped her into his arms. “Whenever I touch you,” he whispered against her lips, “I feel as if you are the woman I have been looking for my whole life, though I have denied, even to myself, that I was looking.”

Despite herself, her lips softened and he took her invitation, embroiling her in a kiss that made her feel soft and feminine, all those things that she wasn’t.

More than anything, it was a possessive kiss, the kind of kiss a man gives a woman whom he is determined to make his, to have and to hold . . . Madness or no, her every instinct told her that Byron was telling the truth: he wanted to marry her. And he wanted to bed her. Craving swept her body like a drug, making her sway against him. He groaned deep in his chest, and pulled her still closer.

“We can’t,” she said, the words emerging in a little sob. “I haven’t told you . . .”

“You will be a wonderful countess.” His hands stroked slowly down her back, leaving her feeling as if her skin woke only after he touched it.

“No, no, I will not,” she gasped, unable to believe that they were having this discussion. “We don’t know each other.”

“I didn’t know Opal, either, as is manifestly clear,” he offered, his eyes hot with desire. His hands—

“You shouldn’t touch me there,” Fiona managed.

His hands tightened on her bottom, and then slid upward to her hips. “I love your curves,” he said thickly. “I promise to spend at least forty years getting to know you.”

“I know why you are saying this,” she said, trying to ignore his touch, though she couldn’t make herself move away from him.

“Because you are delectable?”

“Because you have decided that Lady Opal only staged her affection for the dancing master. You could tolerate her betrayal when you thought she was in love with another man, but now you feel bruised.”

“You taste like apples,” he said, ignoring her comment and taking her mouth again.

She allowed the pure pleasure of his kiss to sweep her under. It was bliss, this kissing, the way their tongues played together, the way he held her, as if she were shy and precious and beautiful, when she was none of those things.

This time it was he who pulled back. “I know enough about you, Fiona.”

“You know nothing,” she said shakily.

“You are very intelligent and you love to read.” He dropped a kiss on her left eyebrow. “You are extremely kind, even to your sister, who would strain anyone’s generosity. You love deeply and you’re very loyal. You don’t suffer fools gladly, but you are instinctively polite.”

He kissed her right eyebrow, and his hands tightened on her hips. “You have beautiful curves,” he said, his voice darkening a trifle. “Your hair has red tones that look like the most precious jewel in the world. I want to drape you in rubies. I want to see you lying on my bed, wearing nothing but a ruby necklace.”

Fiona felt as if she were caught in some sort of dream. Byron’s eyes were fervent. He meant every word. And he had no idea, none at all, of what had happened to her.

She squared her shoulders, summoning the courage to crack open the little enchantment that had bewitched them both, when the library door suddenly opened.

They swung about to find Mr. Garvie standing on the threshold. “Supper is in an hour,” he told them in his usual surly tone. “So if you two mean to dress, you’d better get at it.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Fiona said, and like the coward she was, she fled. She could feel tears coming as she ran up the stairs. It was so—so unfair. Byron was undoubtedly suffering from some sort of temporary madness. But he looked at her in such a way . . . and said those things . . . things she never thought she’d hear from anyone.

It was cruel that she couldn’t marry him. She caught herself thinking a hateful thought about Dugald before she pulled herself together.

Her chest felt hollow, as if there was a physical reason for the ache there. It was absurd. She didn’t even know Byron. He may have decided that he knew her, but all she knew was that he was an absurdly beautiful man, an English earl who’d been thrown over by his fiancée, and for some fairly inexplicable reason had decided on her as a replacement, even though she’d told him at least three times that her reputation was ruined.