She turned her head aside, unable to look. “What are you doing?”

“A hardly know.” He spoke low, hushed beneath the winter canopy.

“That is not very encouraging.”

“A’m making luve tae a fair lass.”

“You should not.”

“Aye.”

“You don’t understand,” that something was slipping away from her, the control she had held to so tightly since she vowed to wound a man. Now she knew where she had lied to herself. She had always hoped. Not for Lambert. For something more. Something she should not truly hope for because she had nursed revenge for so long by mimicking attachment, she did not deserve real attachment. She was ruined in her soul.

“Leam.” Her voice was a whisper, a plea or a denial, she knew not.

“Kitty, luve?” His hands cupped her buttocks, covering her in warmth amid the cold.

“Why wouldn’t you play Madame Roche’s game? Why wouldn’t you pretend for Emily’s sake?”

He lifted his face to her, starkly planed in the moonlight.

“Whit kind of a man ye must think me.” His whisper was rough. He slid his hands down the outside of her thighs, possessing with his touch. “How coud A?”

“Do you mean, how could you pretend such a thing with my friend when we had been lovers? But we weren’t any longer.”

At her back, he gripped the fabric of her gown into fists.

“For a day, for God sakes.”

“But—”

“Lass, nae all men are scoundrels.”

But she did not understand any longer what made a man a scoundrel. Was it a man who offered marriage because he must, or one who offered it as his final cruelty?

“Lord Poole offered for my hand.” Her words fell like snowflakes onto the soft, cold ground in the shelter of the boughs. “He had never offered before that night at the masquerade ball when I finally told him to leave me alone. That night three years ago, when you and I met.”

He rose to his feet. He touched her face and drew her gaze to his.

“Whit did ye tell him, lass?”

“I told him that if I had wanted marriage I could have had it before many times. That I had not been waiting for him.”

“Had ye?”

She couldn’t breathe. She wanted him to make this feeling in her breast real. She shook her head.

His warm hand curved around her face, beneath the fall of her hair.

“Leam?”

His gaze scanned her face, her cheeks, and brow. “Lass?”

“I think you should go away now, quickly, because if you remain I may cast myself at you again.”

He scooped her into his arms like a child, but his kiss was a man’s. Kitty surrounded his beautiful face with her hands, warming her chilled blood.

“Where can we go?” she uttered when he kissed her neck and she wrapped her arms about his shoulders, his hold so strong and secure. But he covered her mouth once more, his kiss ravenous now, seeking and making her hot so swiftly. She pressed against him and slipped her tongue into his mouth.

“Kitty.”

He went to his knees with her in his arms, cradling her on his lap and kissing her like he would consume her now. She shifted to feel his arousal beneath her behind, he groaned, and his hand sought her bodice. Without warning he shoved his palm beneath her gown and surrounded her breast. She gasped, the cold of his touch shivering through her.

“Forgie me,” he rasped, caressing her tight nipple and taking her lips with his, one at a time to tease.

“I will not.” She pushed herself into his touch, twisting her knee up, but her skirts impeded her.

“Than forgie me for this?” He pulled her garments down from her breast and set his mouth to the sensitive peak. His tongue stroked, dragging her into pleasure.

“Yes, I will.” She moaned, grasping his shoulders and trying to fit her throbbing center to his arousal through their clothing. Frustration drove her hands to his hips, then to her skirts, tugging as he sucked on her and the sweet need built. “But you mus—” She choked upon the pleasure. “You must continue doing that or I shall withdraw my forgiveness.”

He lifted his head, a smile of pure delight curving his dampened lips, moonlight glimmering in his eyes.

She shook her head. “Didn’t you just hear me?”

“Aye. But yer a beautiful woman, Kitty Savege, wi’ a tongue fit for laughter.” His voice was deliciously husky, the frigid air coalescing in misty veils between them. “Why dinna ye laugh mair aften?”

“Why don’t you mean it when you do?”

They stared at each other for a long moment, the dampness prickling her breast with cold. The boughs of the willow sparkled, moonlight dappling the carpet of soft dried leaves. Everything was soft brown and silver.

He drew her close and his voice came roughly at her ear. “‘I’ve had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was.’”

“Shakespeare.” A smile of pure hopeful happiness crept onto her lips. “In A Midsummer Night’s Dream he also wrote, ‘Out of this wood do not desire to go.’”

“A made a vow tae behave as a gentleman wi’ ye, lass,” he said with glorious huskiness.

“Don’t.” She pressed her lips to his and wrapped her arms about his neck. He pulled her to him.

Her fingers plucked at his waistcoat and the shirt beneath. “Make love to me right here. Now.”

He swept her skirts from her legs and together they managed to get her sitting astride him. She fumbled with his trousers fastenings.

“I don’t know what I am doing here,” she whimpered, her fingers icy.

“Kitty, ma darling, yer doing everything juist fine.” He covered her hand and curved it about his arousal. Through the fabric his stiff heat throbbed. She struggled to breathe. He took her mouth with his and his hand guided hers over his hard shaft, back and forth, as his tongue explored. It made her heady to touch him so, and needy. A sound of pleasure rumbled in his chest. His hand stole beneath her skirts, cold against her skin but she didn’t care. She wanted his hands everywhere. He stroked her and she moaned against his mouth.

“Kitty, A want tae taste ye.” His voice was so deep, rough and beautiful.

She didn’t know what he meant. She would allow him anything.

“Yes.”

He swept off his greatcoat, draped it on the ground behind her, and laid her back. But when she thought he would move atop her he pushed her skirts up over her knees and pressed her thigh aside with a firm hand. He bent to her.

“Leam? Wh— Oh! ”

His tongue was upon her, soft, hot, wet, a fantasy.

“Yes,” she whispered.

It must be wrong, so wrong, yet her body opened for him, seeking his kiss. If she had not been made for this, she knew not what purpose her woman’s flesh had. It felt right, sublime, a little overwhelming. She thrust to him for more, unable to hold her hips still, her back curving with the pleasure of it. He dipped inside her and she made sounds she had never before made. He caressed, a torment of his mouth on her, and she lost her breath, her will for anything but this, the hot, quick stroking and probing, the fluid rushing of need. She ached and he answered it and she knew there was no mercy on this earth. When she came she cried in silence, throat parched in fulfillment, choked with sobs and laughter.

He released her and she dragged air into her lungs. Her limbs were weak. His hands slid down her thighs, then calves, the cold following, returning her to reality.

“Wickedness,” she whispered, a claw of shame scratching at her. “Is that what men do with their mistresses?”

“Nae. That’s whit a skellum daes wi’ a wumman he canna get out o his blood.” His voice was taut, slicing through the chill peace. “Kitty—”

“It’s all right.” She sat up and pushed her skirts over her legs and her voice quavered. “More than all right. I should thank you.”

He grasped her shoulders and pulled her close and spoke over her brow.

“Kitty, A canna make love tae ye as A wish. A dinna ken why ye believe yer yeld, but A winna take the chance agin. A shoudna the first time.”

“I believe that was my choice to make.” She should not tremble. She should not despair that his desire to avoid getting her with child and being obliged to marry her was stronger than his desire for her. “But I thank you for the consideration, again.” The achy shadow of pleasure in her body tangled with the ache elsewhere. Everywhere.

He wrapped an arm around her waist and tugged her hard against him.

“Dinna thank a man for using ye withoot honor, lass.” He spoke harshly, entirely unlike the poetry-

reciting lover in the stable. Here was intensity she had only glimpsed before. It thrilled her, and alarmed.

“I probably should not.” She searched his glittering eyes, but there was nothing she understood there now. “Still, part of me feels grateful. And since one of us should probably tell the truth, I suppose it will have to be me.”

His hand tightened on her. He bent, captured her lips, and kissed her. He kissed her and the world halted except for his mouth on hers that seemed to urge her to give him everything she wanted to give him anyway, this stranger she knew so little of except that he had not ever truly seemed a stranger to her. There was a tension in his body that did not match the sweet lingering pleasure in hers. But she wanted to meet him where he needed her. For the first time in years she wanted to serve a man’s desires no matter what it meant to her.

He broke away abruptly and wrapped his hand about the side of her face, forcing her gaze to his.

“Was it anely Poole?” His voice grated. “How many men hae ye been wi’? Tell me.”