He’d said he’d show her. She wanted to know, to learn of it. Now.

She drew back from the kiss, found it required real effort; when their lips finally, reluctantly, parted, she didn’t move back, only lifted her suddenly heavy lids enough to meet his gaze from beneath her lashes.

“What’s the next stage?”

His eyes met hers; his seemed darker, a more intense blue. Then he answered. “This.”

His hands shifted, leaving her back to slide forward to her sides. His thumbs cruised, brushing the sides of her breasts.

Sensation streaked through her; her senses abruptly focused-followed, hungrily, greedily, as he stroked deliberately again. Her knees quaked; she suddenly found a use for the column behind her, leaned back against it. He followed her lips with his, brushed them as his wicked thumbs circled lightly, tantalizingly-just enough for her to understand…

He lifted his head, met her eyes. “Yes? Or no?”

His thumbs circled again, too lightly… if she’d had the strength she’d have told him what a stupid question it was. “Yes,” she breathed. Before he could ask if she was sure, she drew his lips back to hers, certain she would need that much anchor to the world.

She felt his lips curve, but then his hands shifted again and she forgot-stopped thinking-about anything else bar the delicious delight that flowed from his touch, from the languid, repetitive caresses, alternately firm then teasingly insubstantial. Increasingly explicit, more openly sensual, more overtly possessive.

Until he closed his hands, slowly, firmly about her breasts, until he took her tightly budded nipples between his thumbs and fingers, and squeezed.

Fire lanced through her.

Gasping, she broke from the kiss. The pressure about her nipples eased.

“No! Don’t stop.”

Her voice surprised her-a sultry command. She cracked open her lids, glanced at his face. His eyes met hers. There was something-some expression-she’d never seen in them before. His face was hard, very angular. His lips, thin yet mobile, were not quite straight.

Obediently, he squeezed again; once again, sensation speared, spread and tingled beneath her skin. Warmth followed, rushing through her, washing her inhibitions away.

She let her lids fall on a pleasured sigh.

“Do you like it?”

She tightened her arms and drew his lips back to hers. “You know I do.”

He did, of course, but he hadn’t wanted to miss hearing her admission. It pleased him-a consolation prize given the limitations of their present engagement.

The severe limitations-the open ardor of her response more than warmed him; it was a spur to which he couldn’t react.

Yet.

She was warm and alive beneath his hands; her breasts filled them, hot, firm, swollen. Her delight, her pleasure, was there in her kiss, in the eagerness investing her supple frame.

When he closed his hands more definitely and kneaded, she made a sound deep in her throat and kissed him back, flagrantly demanding…

It was suddenly a battle to stay exactly where he was and not press closer, not trap her against the column, mold her to him, ease his pain against her softness. He drew breath, felt his chest swell, grappled, and hung on to his control-

Clang! Clang!

The sound was off-key, sufficiently grating to distract them both.

They broke the kiss; he hauled in a breath, hands sliding to her waist as he turned.

Clang! Clang!

“It’s the luncheon gong.” Portia blinked, slightly dazed, up at him. “They’re ringing it outside. There must be others wandering the gardens, too.”

He hoped so, hoped it wasn’t just they being so specifically summoned. He stepped back, reached for her hand. “We’d better get back.”

She met his gaze briefly, then nodded. Let him take her hand and lead her down the steps.

As they walked quickly back up the lawns, he made a mental note to reinforce his reins before her next lesson. To prepare himself for the temptation, the better to resist it.

He glanced at her, walking steadily beside him, her stride longer than most women’s. She was absorbed, thinking-he knew about what. If he made a mistake, let his true intent show, he couldn’t rely on her naïveté to blind her to it. She might not see the truth immediately, but later, she would. She would analyze and dissect everything that passed between them, all in the name of learning.

Looking ahead, he inwardly grimaced. He was going to have to ensure she didn’t learn more than was good for her.

Such as the truth of why he was teaching her.

6

Portia sat at the luncheon table and let the conversations flow past her. She was sufficiently adept to nod here, murmur there; no one realized her mind was elsewhere.

She longed to discuss what she’d learned, but there was no one present suitable for the role of confidante. If Penelope had been here… then again, given her younger sister’s views on men and marriage, perhaps it was as well she was not.

Assessing the other ladies, she mentally ticked them off on her fingers. Not Winifred-she didn’t want to shock her-and certainly not Lucy or the Hammond girls. As for Drusilla…

Kitty, brittlely vivacious as she teased Ambrose and James, seemed the only possibility-a lowering thought.