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Chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE

L eda laid her selection of evening gowns on the bed and studied them. Her cache of possessions was small, but each was dear. If he made her run, she would lose all this: the beautiful things, the small trinkets that held meaning, this pretty room with its walls of robin's-egg blue. A life she had built for herself—on Lady Plume's generosity, that was true, but hers , the way nothing had been hers in her early life, nor her married life, either.

She didn't want to run. She wanted to stay.

It had been grueling, keeping her mask on today. Lady Plume wanted Brancaster with them as they paid calls on Lady Plume's extensive acquaintance and new arrivals. Very often a host or another guest, or sometimes a servant, pulled Leda aside for a small conference. Lady Plume smiled beneficently upon these exchanges; it pleased her to see her companion in demand, to know her resources were of benefit to her friends. Lady Plume was born to be chatelaine of a medieval keep or some rich Dark Age abbey, save that she never could have borne the absence of basic hygiene.

Brancaster observed these conferrals with a blend of curiosity and suspicion. Were he at all possible to ignore, Leda would have done so. But there was little choice to pretend he did not exist when her ladyship paraded her nephew as if he were a prime stud she had won at auction, determined to display his fine form and bloodlines to full advantage. Her ladyship regaled her friends at length with the prosperous and colorful history of the Burnham family, which Leda had never before heard her praise; she itemized the honors her ancestors had achieved at court; and she spoke of Holme Hall, perched upon its carrstone cliffs far away, as a veritable Hampton Court of Norfolk.

Brancaster listened to these recitations with his features bland of expression but a curious muscle ticking below his jaw. This only drew attention to the truly splendid lines of his face and neck, representative of his well-knit form altogether, and since not one female missed an opportunity to commend him or attempt to draw his approval toward herself, Leda soon grew irritated by the unfailing praise.

She chided herself now for her jealousy. Had she set herself to the effort, Leda could have had a governess for him lined up in the first hour of their day, and at least three eager candidates for his wife by the time their calls were concluded. Two further candidates appeared as they strolled around the Bath Vauxhall Gardens, Lady Plume in her chair, Leda on Jack's arm as if she were any friend of the family and not a paid employee. Regrettably, Leda could not in good conscience recommend any of these eager young girls pursue Brancaster, despite their charms of person and manner, for who knew but that she would be sending some unsuspecting maid like a lamb to slaughter.

Brancaster was not in the least unpleasant to be around, and his daughter did not seem to be difficult. From the few words he had spoken of Muriel, Leda gathered she was an imaginative but deeply sensitive child at a point in her life where she crucially needed the guidance of a sensible female.

Still, Leda thought as she made her selection for the evening, she would not send any female into the clutches of a man who was dangerous, no matter how poetically his castle on the cliffside was described.

A woman would require a staunch set of morals to be cast daily in the company of such a well-proportioned, appealing man and not begin to harbor untoward fantasies. She must be too wise to fall under the spell of gray eyes and a beautiful mouth that twitched in the most beguiling way when he was amused. She must not be too entertained by the sly, wicked sense of humor in his comments after they departed a particularly silly company. And she must not, on any account, be the melting sort who would be unduly conscious of the many small, kind attentions a gentleman might pay a lady, especially when one had gone without such attentions before.

The way he might, for instance, steer her around a soft spot in the path, warning her not to soil her shoe. The way he might lean too close to comment that a friend's feathered hat, fluttering in the breeze, appeared about to take flight. The way he might buy treats for all of them, but give the first to the companion, rather than his aunt, the knight's lady.

And she must not mark, and thereafter recall at inopportune moments, the way his eyes widened and his face brightened with luxurious appreciation as he experienced for the first time the divine revelation of sugary dough that was the famous and unrivaled Sally Lunn bun.

No, Leda could not in good conscience put any woman in his company who might lose her admirable self-control at that look of sensual joy. The man was a pit of crumbling rock, and a woman could fall in, unsuspecting.

In the event this was her last night with him and she might indeed be on the run tomorrow, Leda wore her newest evening gown to dinner, a delicate red silk gauze draped over a silk chemise. Jet beads decorated the bodice, which was modest by most standards, and the small puff sleeves left her arms bare. Beaded embroidery around the hem made the skirt flare about her as she walked, and she chose her black silk fan for a dramatic accent.

"Good heavens, are we at a Venetian masque?" Lady Plume remarked when Leda came down to join them in the parlor. "I expect any moment a harlequin will cartwheel into the room and breathe fire."

"Are you telling me I look ridiculous?"

Her ladyship had sent her own lady's maid to curl and dress Leda's hair, a boon which was not uncommon, and another mark of how Lady Plume confused the issue of Leda's status, far too often treating her as a friend or relative in the Crescent for an extended stay instead of an employee who earned a generous quarterly wage.

"I say you look delectable," Lady Plume announced, loudly enough that all her guests could hear the proclamation. There were ten of them in all: Mr. and Mrs. Warren, newly arrived in town with their two unmarried daughters; Lord and Lady Oxmantown, Lady Plume's cronies and a fixture at her table; and Mr. Ravelli, who was attempting to set up a small conservatory where he taught art, music, and the Italian language to any who would pay tuition.

It was soon clear from the vein of conversation that the Misses Warren were there to tempt Brancaster, and Mr. Ravelli there to flatter Leda. He eagerly took a seat beside her at table and monopolized her through both courses, leaving Leda very little time to grill the Misses Warren on their accomplishments and determine whether either was suitable to be sent off to the wild fringes of Norfolk as a bride.

"Norfolk!" Lord Oxmantown boomed when Brancaster was introduced. "Must admit I've never been. What's the business, then? Fishing? Can't imagine you raise cattle there."

"We can and do," Brancaster replied. "And there's a deal of effort to try to fence and drain parts of the coastline to turn the salt marshes into cropland. I believe there's better luck with the fisheries on the eastern seaboard, Yarmouth side."

"Farming," Mr. Warren scoffed. "No man's going to advance himself by farming these days, no matter how many acres he can enclose. It's industry will run this country in the next century, mark my words."

"And that we have in Norfolk as well," Brancaster said. "There's a cordwainer in Norwich, I heard, who has set up a factory for making shoes. Can you fancy? Machines punching and sewing your leather, just like the wool industry, which your Midlands have learned from Norfolk. Miss Warren," he turned to the eldest, "have you an item of clothing of worsted wool?"

Miss Warren blushed from her neckline to the knot of beads and flowers holding her curls. "I am sure I cannot say."

"I have a shawl and a nice thick pair of worsted stockings for muddy days." Leda spooned up her white soup.

Brancaster smiled at her, gratified that Leda, at least, was not too bashful to speak of lady's attire. "First made in Worstead, Norfolk."

"How marvelous."

"But you're not into wool-making, man."

Lord Oxmantown had only been made baron a few years ago due to his service in the Irish Parliament, but he had been created Viscount Oxmantown shortly thereafter, which elevated him above Brancaster's mere barony. He made no secret that he had his eye on reviving the title of Earl of Rosse, which had died with a male relative of his earlier in the century. "Parliament's the place for a man to advance," Oxmantown announced. "All the more opportunity now with Union upon us. Plenty of matters to be settled and doled out yet." He smacked his lips as a footman placed a dish of larded rabbit before him.

"I confess I've been kept by business and other family matters from taking my seat." Brancaster selected a roasted partridge for his plate. "Been voting by proxy."

"Eh? What business is that, then?"

"Our area is good for flint mining and, in the past, brickworks. Brick making's a touchy trade, however, and I've found it difficult to achieve the correct formula for a brick that is durable and will keep its shape. I've spent several years performing various experiments on my lands, which no doubt have led some of my neighbors to believe I'm a mad chemist of some sort."

"Oh, that would explain the rumors, then," the younger Warren girl was surprised into saying, upon which she immediately blushed a hue rivaling that sported by her elder sister.

"Speaking of rumors." Lady Oxmantown laid down her spoon. "I heard the most dreadful news of Mr. Crutch. A dear, charming man, acquaintance of mine, can always be counted upon to make up a table or cut a fine leg." She addressed this to Mrs. Warren, who nodded as if to agree that these were fine qualities in a man. "He has been disappointed in love, I hear. Had his heart and fortunes set on a young widow, and she spurned him on the poor advice of a friend." She glared at Leda.

"That his fortunes are disappointed I do not doubt." Leda watched Mr. Ravelli place a slender veal cutlet on her plate, along with three dainty olives. He must assume she was delicate, and could not know she adored olives. "I imagine a man may hold ambitions to be elevated in marriage every bit as much as a woman might."

"Oh, I don't think—?" Miss Warren faltered.

"That women endeavor to advance themselves through marriage?" Leda raised a brow. "If not they, then I assure you their friends and family have that aim."

Brancaster regarded her from his place as Lady Plume's guest of honor. "You do not believe in marrying for love, Mrs. Wroth?"

"I believe it is a fine aim for a heroine in a romantic story," Leda replied. "But I suspect that most of us are swayed by practical considerations, from the Earl of Howth's daughters down to Sally in the scullery, who is counting coins until she can marry her Tom."

Gibbs, standing behind Brancaster, reared and blinked at Leda as if surprised she knew this.

"I assure you I am only thinking of my daughters' happiness," Mrs. Warren said freezingly.

"My Dunlap cut a fine leg," Lady Plume said thoughtfully. "Awfully smart in his uniform. But in the end I chose him because I thought I could help him to a knighthood, and so I did."

"Let us consider Brancaster as an example," Leda said.

"Must we?" Brancaster murmured, carving a leg of lamb for his aunt.

"He is on the hunt for a wife, and no doubt he will narrow his choices to maids of pleasing demeanor and aspect," Leda barreled on. "But in the end, he must have a governess for his daughter and a chatelaine for his castle, and can he depend that his affections alone will land on a suitable woman for this task? Or ought he be guided by practical considerations?"

"You must have been terribly disappointed in your marriage. I do pity you, Mrs. Wroth," Miss Warren ventured.

"Well you might. In my example, my parents married me to the highest man they could find to offer, and we were completely unsuited in temperament or our hopes."

"I imagine you made his life a living torment as a result." Lady Oxmantown sniffed.

Leda decided not to tell her the entire truth. Lady Oxmantown had never much liked her, but the matter of Mr. Crutch had sealed Leda's villainy in her eyes.

"Agnes, I do find myself surprised at the liberties you afford your servants," Lady Oxmantown went on. "Why, here is milord with his glass nearly empty, and your butler has not yet stirred himself to pour more wine."

Gibbs, following Lady Plume's nod, hastened to his lordship's elbow with the bottle of Madeira. Her ladyship abhorred drunkenness at her table and had given Gibbs very specific instructions about fortifying Oxmantown, who would not on his own exhibit the least restraint.

Brancaster, Leda noted, enjoyed small sips from his cup, but at the same slow pace demonstrated by Mr. Warren, whom Leda suspected had not strayed far from his former merchant's shop and more temperate bourgeois values.

"As for your companion, as you call her." Lady Oxmantown was not finished with her diatribe. "Why, here she is in a splendid gown, sitting at your table enjoying your largesse, and telling your friends how they ought to go on. Do you suppose any other lady in town would afford her the same license?"

"No, which is how I have allowed no one else in town to lure her away from me," Lady Plume answered. "Including yourself when you asked, Jane. Leda keeps me very comfortable, and I like to reward her for it."

"And yet you proposed, just this morning, loaning me to Brancaster to set his affairs in order and find him a wife," Leda could not help remarking.

"But who says an excursion to Norfolk would not be a reward," Lady Plume replied, cutting a French bean. "It's lovely this time of year, and Holme Hall is quite charming."

Brancaster took a bracing draught of wine.

Leda could not go to Norfolk, because she had to figure out how to keep her character but leave her very comfortable position with Lady Plume if the ghost she had seen this morning were indeed real, not the dead man but the dead man's heir, here in town, meaning to stay long enough that his path might cross with Leda's. She had changed a great deal in ten years, at least on the inside; she was wiser, calmer, and would not be commanded. She must take a moment to think, not blindly rush into the cold and the darkness when she felt she was under threat.

But if older and grown she still possessed the same dark brown hair and unusual eyes, the same shape to her face and form, the scar her husband had left in the hairline at her left temple. She, too, would look a ghost come alive to the interloper, since for the last six years he had thought her dead.

She had left the express command that he be told this.

And she would die in truth did he make her go back.

The beads decorating Leda's gown grew constricting, though she had worn her most comfortable stays. They lay against her skin like so many small needles, and the swoop on her bodice that had in the shop looked so beguiling now seemed to outline exactly where a man might plunge a knife to best pierce her heart.

Brancaster watched her curiously. Damn the man and his all too perceptive eyes. Why could he not be preoccupied with food, wine, and his own importance, like Oxmantown?

She had been safe in Bath, or if not safe, at least hidden. But Lady Oxmantown reminded her how precarious her position was. Lady Plume had petted Leda because Leda's skills at managing and fixing—oh, all right, some would call it meddling—kept Lady Plume at the center of interesting schemes and the best gossip. Her ladyship could, and would, turn Leda off in a moment if Leda were no longer a credit to her establishment or in any way brought discord into the luxurious comfort that Lady Plume enjoyed.

What poetic justice that it should be Brancaster—the man who drove women mad—who had stirred up this hornet's nest for her. If she had to give up the life she'd built and leave once again with nothing, Leda might go mad in truth.

Lady Plume did not fancy herself a literary sort, but she housed a few shelves of books in the smaller drawing room on the second floor. It was here Leda repaired after the guests at last departed, Mr. Ravelli far overstaying his welcome to persuade Leda to perform one more duet with him, and then one more. She was only a passable musician at best, no compare to Mr. Ravelli's truly fine tenor, but if he were not attempting to recruit her as a music teacher for his school, then he was doing a creditable job of showing her what life as his wife would be like.

If Leda married again, she could not fall into the clutches of the ghost. By law she was free to marry, she thought. Or at least, she was no longer bound to a husband. She was not entirely apprised of the finer points of law when it came to marrying a woman who had been locked away for being mad.

The library might offer her ideas, so she stole there with her chamber candle after she hung up the delicate red gauze, wondering when she might have occasion to wear such a beautiful gown again. Certainly she couldn't take her fine things on the run, and the goal of her foray into Lady Plume's tiny library was to find a map to tell her where in the world she might go.

Wales? She'd heard it was an uncharted place, filled with trolls and wild men in caves. The farthest reaches of Cornwall, where land dropped into the rocky sea? She might be trapped like a fox at bay there. Perhaps she ought to consider going north, to the untamed Highlands, to hide herself among the craggy mountains and misty moors and vast tracts of unpeopled land. Toplady would never look for her there.

A light shone in the drawing room around the deep upholstered chair. Brancaster sat within it, ankle crossed over one knee. In what was no doubt a nod to Lady Plume's sense of propriety he had worn knee breeches with silk stockings and black pumps to dinner, and the fabric stretched over his muscular legs. She oughtn't look at his thighs.

Leda moved her gaze up and lost track of her breathing for a moment. He'd set aside his coat and cravat and sat in his shirtsleeves, which ended in a small ruffled cuff at his wrist, and a beautifully embroidered brocade waistcoat. She hadn't had an opportunity to appreciate it at dinner, but she took a moment now to admire the delicate swirls of thread, and the masculine strength in his broad shoulders and chest.

He looked up from his book. His hair was slightly mussed, the waves not as smooth as they'd been over dinner, and a small shadow of stubble cloaked his jaw, making him seem a bit rakish. She hadn't seen a man in undress in years, and never a man who appealed so completely to her sense of aesthetics. Sally the kitchen maid would call him a prime article and no mistake, and she would not be wrong.

"I've interrupted you."

He didn't speak, so she did, needing to break the spell his steady gaze cast over her. She was undressed as well, having pulled over her undergown the morning gown she would never actually wear in the morning, because it was likely Lady Plume would receive callers or want to go out. The loose neckline revealed more of her decolletage than she was accustomed to showing in company and, while the voluminous folds concealed the outlines of her body, the sheer fabric showed the form beneath despite herself.

The candlelight shivered and danced, much as Leda's pulse was doing.

"You are welcome to interrupt me."

The low rasp of his voice raised the hair on her arms and shoulders, a thrill of alarm.

She had never encountered this before, an imposing man in her private spaces. She hadn't realized they could take up so much space in a chair, in a room, even when sitting still, emanating a sense of strength leashed and waiting beneath that touchable fabric. She'd forgotten, or pushed aside, the memory of the ways of men, their big hands, their scents of spice and tobacco, their deep voices.

She'd never been around a man who made her so aware , as if her nerves had been tapped alive.

A scent of sulfur wafted from her candle, promising her that moving forward was a step toward temptation, one step toward hell.

"Come in," he said, and she did, temptation be damned.

"Your aunt has persuaded you to trade your poky lodgings for one of her soft beds?" She drifted along the bookcases, pretending to look at titles. She already knew what was here.

"I hadn't wished to impose on her, but she offers several amenities that the rooms I found did not." He rested his gaze on Leda as if she figured among these amenities. Heat rippled across her collarbone.

"At the price of your bachelor's independence. She will mark all your comings and goings, you know."

"I have found that the pleasures of the bachelor life, whatever they may be, have lost their appeal."

"Thus the wish to marry again. Did neither of the Misses Warren show promise? It cannot be there is not a single lady you met today who has piqued your interest."

He closed his book but put a finger in it to mark his place. "I've met one."

She studied a row of leather-bound titles, conscious of how she held her candle, how her body moved in this space. She was accustomed to being looked at, but the weight of his regard was different. It lay on her skin like a touch.

"Do you mean to make an offer?"

"I am not certain she would encourage my suit. She has not spoken highly of marriage."

He stood, his body unfolding from the chair, and she was treated to a full view of the powerful swell of his shoulders, the strong square of his chest. The waistcoat hugged a flat stomach, and she suspected he did not rely on stays. The stretch of the fabric suggested that what lay beneath was pure muscle and virile blood.

Now why was she having notions that he was virile .

She turned to glance at him over one shoulder, arching a brow. "Is she the type to consider an association outside of marriage?"

That was very daring of her. Leda hadn't once contemplated having an affair, though she knew widows like herself could take such liberties, if they stayed discreet. Leda herself looked the other way, and occupied herself in her room, when Lady Plume now and again entertained a male caller late into the night.

"I do not know if she could encourage those attentions, either. And at any rate, I ought to occupy my time with finding a companion for my daughter. Not for myself."

"Yet the right wife would fulfill both of those functions, and so admirably," Leda murmured.

Heat teased her senses first, sending a tingle down her spine. Then the scent of tobacco and warm male curled beneath her nose as he drew close. A spicy undertone came with it, a scent unfamiliar but which conjured images of the dark undergrowth of forests, wild animals, hunter and prey. She shivered as he spoke, and his breath wafted over the part of her shoulder left open by the loose neckline of her gown.

"What are you searching for?"

Safety. Like all cornered creatures, she wanted safety: a burrow in which to hide. A companion to protect her.

She turned her head away, scanning the titles without reading them. "Something to lull me to sleep. My imagination is overactive tonight."

He held out the volume in his hands, gilt tooled on the green leather. "My aunt had a copy of the Lyrical Ballads . I was curious about it."

"Appropriately soporific?"

"Not so. The first poem is about an ancient mariner going barking mad. Lack of water, I gather, and something about having to wear a dead bird about his neck."

Leda scrunched up her face. "Then by comparison, you must feel quite mundane. The utterly normal, average baron. Nothing like what they say."

"The accusation is not that I am mad, so much as I drove my wife to madness."

"I am sure that is not true."

He lifted a brow. The hairs were dark, like his lashes, startling against the pale color of his eyes, which caught the shadows in the room. "No? Yet you said almost as much over breakfast."

"That you drove your wife mad? Did you?"

He turned away. "She died believing I did. Of a certain, I did nothing to help her."

"Surely you tried."

"Perhaps I did. But if a man cannot change his situation, or his nature—what could I have done?"

"If you were not cruel to her, but made attempts to secure her happiness, then you did as much as any could expect. The rest is on her to come to peace with her situation."

He lifted his head. "Did you? Come to peace with your situation?"

Leda refrained from giving an answer. She had murdered her husband and run away. That was how she made her peace.

He moved along the bookshelf with her, casting a penumbra of sensation about her, as when moon swam before the sun.

"Would you come to Norfolk if I asked?"

She breathed in the scent of him and again had a notion of wild creatures on the run, damp forest leaves, spicy pine, an earth rich with dark secrets.

Yes . She wanted nothing more than to burrow against him, wrap herself in his warmth. Let herself be safe in his powerful shadow.

"No."

For how could she trust herself? She had her own strain of madness. She woke one day holding a knife tipped in blood, with the body of a dead man in the parlor. She couldn't trust herself in a house with a man, and certainly not an innocent child.

Women were safe. Lady Plume was safe. And if Bath was no longer her bolt hole, if the nephew of the man she'd slain might recognize or, worse yet, had come to find her, then she would not be going to Norfolk or any known land. She would have to disappear.

"There is nothing that would persuade you?"

He was too close. His nearness disordered her brain, sent her thoughts jumping like wood mice. She wanted to anchor him right here next to her, never let him leave, so she might stand indefinitely in this state of awakening, her entire body coming alive.

"I have no experience as a governess. I have no interest in being a wife. Anything else, as you say, is a distraction."

"Sometimes I think our distractions keep us alive. Keep us from truly going mad at the state of things."

She cast her eyes about anywhere, to keep from closing her eyelids and losing herself to the seductive spell he cast. She didn't know what this was, this glow of heat that moved along her skin, as if she were bread set into an oven. She'd never known this. A hollow ache appeared in her core, the longing for something she'd never possessed.

"Ah—found it."

"An answer?"

"A book of interest." She couldn't tell him she needed maps to find a port where she could sail away to far lands. She set the candle on a small table and reached for the title she'd deciphered in the shifting dark, but it sat on a shelf above her head, just beyond her fingertips.

He stepped toward her and lifted his arm. The action brought her face close to his neck, bare without the cravat, a smooth column of skin. If she leaned forward but half an inch, she could bury her nose in the dip between his collarbones. Press her lips to his skin, breathe deeply.

He froze, arm in the air, as if he sensed her thought. The scent of him was maddening, awaking the sly animal that lived inside her, the little fox that had been sleeping for going on ten years.

He stood there, waiting, a hitch in his breath, the weight of his gaze burning into the side of her face. Leda surrendered to the madness. She darted out her tongue and touched it to that skin waiting just beyond her lips, like a delectable trifle served up only for her. His neck was smooth and warm and salty.

He groaned at the contact, as if some sleeping animal were rousing to life within him as well. She lifted her head and he stared into her eyes, his gaze a swirl of shadows. Then he bent his head and she didn't flinch but met him, took his mouth as it clamped across hers, met his force and heat and instant, hungry need.

She didn't know what possessed her but it roared life in an instant, flames leaping out from banked coals, and this, this , his mouth on hers, was the thing she'd been craving since that moment she saw him leaning so carelessly on that pillar, as if he held up the room, and she wanted him to hold her up, too.

His lips were firm and sure of their mission, nothing like other lips she'd known. She grasped the lapels of his waistcoat so she didn't fall over or dissolve at the onslaught of heat. Desire poured through her like mix into a cake mold, thick and sweet and languid, sinking to every corner of her body. The warmth crept to that deep, secret crevice between her legs and she felt a sharp awareness there, like a mouth opening, the way her mouth opened beneath his as he tilted back her head and coaxed apart her lips and plunged his tongue against hers. The room spun and lifted away.

She clung to him, awash in heat, drowning in it, aware of nothing but the press of his mouth, the heat of his body, the delirium of plunder as he sipped from her essence and she felt every part of her body rising to meet him, as if she might crash and melt against him like a wave breaking on a dock.

He broke away first, lifting his head and hauling in air. "Leda."

He sounded dazed, like a man who'd taken a blow. She felt no less shocked.

"Dear heavens," she whispered.

He stared into her eyes, his gaze searching out every line of her face, and she feared what she revealed in the light of the flickering candles. Her need and hunger, immodest, insistent. The way he'd spun her like a child's top and she could scarcely stand on her feet.

He dropped his forehead to her shoulder and she reveled in the weight of him, in the sign that he too was overset. His hands rested on the backs of her shoulders but he slid them down her back, gathering her close, an embrace and a caress. She molded herself to his body, to his hard chest and powerful thighs, then felt it between them—his man's part, thick and hard. She froze.

"Leda." His fingers curled into her soft skin, his voice a ragged gasp. "Will you?—"

" No ."

She wrenched away. He was attractively built, indeed beautifully sculpted, but she had fallen under his ensorcelling spell and forgotten: he was a man, possessed of the traditional parts of a man, and the ways to inflict pain on a woman.

"Forgive me. I forgot myself," she whispered.

He drew back. He didn't scold, or rage, or beg. How unusual. He merely sucked in air, his nostrils flaring, and squared his shoulders.

"I forgot myself as well. I beg your pardon."

"Don't," she said swiftly, then held her fingers to her lips, abashed.

"Don't what?"

"Don't regret this." This kiss. This magic that had fallen over both of them for a moment. The pleasure that danced in her veins even now, waltzing with her horror and fear.

"My only regret, Mrs. Wroth, is that you are not leading me directly to your bed."

Insolent man, to leave her with the images that conjured. Of him leaning back in her widow's bed, his body gleaming as she peeled off those gorgeous fabrics to inspect the muscle and warm skin beneath. More of those drugging kisses, and what he might taste like if she put her mouth elsewhere upon him.

But she knew what came after, and it wasn't worth the rest.

He held out her candlestick and the book, and she took them. His brow lifted.

" The Blazing World, by the Duchess of Newcastle? I am not familiar with that title."

"It is a strange fantasy, written over a hundred years ago, about a woman kidnapped to another world where she is made an empress. Written by a woman, Margaret Cavendish. She called it one part romance, one part philosophy, and one part fantastic." Exactly what Leda wished her life could be, in that same balance.

His other brow rose to meet the first. He was being so blasted calm.

"I am not sure you are in for a quiet sleep," he said.

"I never am." Leda curled the book to her chest, where her heart still raced like a runaway colt, and left the room before she did something utterly mad. Like pull his mouth to hers again and beg him to kiss her senseless, or worse yet, bring him to her room.

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