"I understand." She paused. "I don't like talking about William, either. But you can tell me now... if you will. I know you don't like to speak of it, but..." Her voice trailed off, and then she added, "Perhaps I should know."

She was right. Nevertheless, sickness churned in his gut. He had to be so careful. Careful not to lie to her, and yet he couldn't reveal the truth. "What would you like to know?"

"Tell me about her."

He was quiet for a long moment. "We were friends," he finally said. "Her father's lands bordered Hambly, my father's estate in Kent. We were of an age-well, she was half a year older than I was. She seemed infinitely older than me when we were young."

He tried to keep the facts on the surface, but as he said them aloud, they dug under his skin and burrowed deep. Anne, with her joyful smile and yellow hair and her snapping cornflower blue eyes. She was a bright, lively daisy.

"Did you love her?" Becky whispered.

He looked down into her ocean-blue eyes. So different from Anne's. She was different all over. Older than Anne ever was.

This one, he wouldn't let go.

"I loved her. Yes."

Becky looked away from him, and he took her jaw in his hand, turning her back to him. "You asked for the truth."

"Sometimes the truth hurts. I know it shouldn't. But it does."

"I won't lie to you, Becky. You don't want to hear my lies."

"True." She clenched her fists in her lap. "It is unfair of me. But I wish you didn't love her."

"I don't love her anymore." He pulled her close and kissed the corners of her eyes, tasting the salt of her unshed tears. "It was a long time ago. I was young. The young love violently."

"Yes, they do."

Jack realized that Becky was only three years older than Anne had been when she'd died. Older, yes, but still so young. And yet she'd eloped four years ago. Before her husband had destroyed her, she must have loved him as he'd loved Anne.

"There's something about love that I always wondered," Becky murmured.

"What is that?"

She licked her lips, stared up at him with eyes that had darkened to indigo. "Once you love someone so powerfully, is it possible to love again?"

He didn't answer her; just stared down at her beautiful oval face.

"I have thought often that I could never love anyone after what happened with William," she murmured. "Then again, there is my brother..."

"What about him?" Jack had heard the basic facts surrounding the divorce of the Duke of Calton and Sophie, the current Viscountess Westcliff, but Jack had only been back in England for a short time, and the complexities of the duke's marriages and offspring had been difficult for him to follow.

"When I was a little girl, Garrett was madly in love with Sophie. He married her when I was six years old. They were very happy together, and when he went away to Waterloo, she was pregnant with his child. He didn't return for eight years. He was presumed dead, and by the time he finally came home, I was eighteen, his daughter was seven years old, and Sophie had married Tristan, his cousin and heir, who had also assumed the title of Duke of Calton."

"Good God," Jack said. "What did he do?"

"He took possession of his title and lands and tried to win Sophie back. In many ways, he still loved her, and she still loved him. But they had both changed too much in all those years away from each other, and Sophie loves Tristan beyond measure. She couldn't let him go. Finally, Garrett understood that Sophie would never fully come back to him. So he gave her up. He divorced her, and they share custody of their child."

"Incredible," Jack murmured.

"You've seen Tristan and Garrett together. On the whole, it is amicable, oddly and uncomfortably so for most. My family is one of the oddest families you shall ever meet, I'm certain of it. Yet they are also the most loving and generous people in the world. Any one of us would sacrifice anything for any one of the others."

Despite their twisted relations, Becky's family sounded far superior to his own. "You should feel proud to be part of such a family."

"I am," she said quietly. "I am very proud." She gazed up at him. "Perhaps you have seen how deeply my brother loves his wife. Kate is my dearest friend, and they fought with such violent passion to be with each other. Yet Garrett is in his thirty-ninth year. He still loves passionately, even though he is no longer young, and even though Kate was not the first woman he loved."

He gazed at Becky, rubbing his thumb back and forth over her plump lower lip. "So your brother has proven it is possible to love again. But I didn't require evidence."

"Can you really love again, Jack? Love as powerfully and as violently as you did the first time?"

"Yes," he murmured as he bent down to kiss her. "Perhaps I already do."

She flung her arms round his neck, kissing him back and thrusting her breasts against his chest with an urgent, brazen need that made his cock flare to life. Lady Rebecca, so reserved, so bookish, so melancholy and quiet, had proven herself to be a vixen in bed. And he loved it.

He ran his hands from the flare of her hips up over her narrow waist and pressed between them, insinuating his palms over her breasts, cupping them over her chemise.

He lowered one hand to the hem of her chemise and dragged it up her leg, trailing his fingertips over the smooth skin of her calf and then her thigh. She was all soft, eager woman, panting under his touch. Damned if he didn't want her every second of the day.

He pressed his hand between her legs, sliding through the already slick folds of her sex, and she arched into his hand.

He slid his fingers over her again and again, circling her clitoris and finally burying a finger deep inside her.

"Ahhhh..." She shuddered over his hand, clutched wildly at his shirt. Still in a seated position beside him on the sofa, she twisted restlessly this way and that, her face flushed, her eyes half-lidded and glazed with passion.

He pumped his finger inside her, then added a second finger, grazing along that spot deep inside her that made her shudder and whimper, made her body tighten around him. If he kept stroking, it would bring her to release.

He never took his eyes off her, because every breath, every pant, every cry of pleasure she made added to his own. Made him want her more. Made him love her more.

"Jack," she whispered, her eyes locked on his. "Jack... please..."

Without removing his hand from between her legs, he slid off the sofa and knelt on the floor before her, gently pressing her knees apart and tugging her forward so she sat perched on the edge of the sofa completely exposed to him.

She braced her hands on the cushions at her sides, staring down at him with wide eyes.

"What are you...?"

But her words were cut off when he leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her sex. Then he swiped his tongue over her slick inner lips.

"Jack!"

He backed away, licking her spring-flower taste from his lips and looking up at her.

"Wha-what are you...?"

"Tasting you." He moved his fingers, still lodged deeply inside her, and he could see her struggle to maintain her focus on him.

"Why?"

"Because I want to." He gave her a crooked smile and moved forward again, starting a slow rhythm with his fingers and his tongue, pushing deep into her and stroking along her inner walls while he swiped his tongue over her sex, focusing on the small nub of her clitoris. He circled it, feeling it grow taut beneath his tongue, and then he sucked it gently, bending his fingers inside her so they'd stroke along the spot that drove her to the brink.

She came instantly, surprising him. Her thighs tensed around his ears and her hands fisted in his hair as she called out his name. Her body pulsed over his fingers, against his lips, and her sweet, musky taste flooded his tongue.

He stroked her through it gently, and as soon as it ended, he pulled away. He made short work of his trousers, shoving them down over his hips, and his shirt, yanking it over his head. Then he reached down to adjust her, laying her on her back on the sofa. As soon as she was in place, he moved over her.

He couldn't wait another second. He had to have her.

Positioning himself quickly, he pushed into her hot, wet, willing body. The pleasure hit him with such intensity that white lights blinked behind his eyes. He stopped, lodged deep inside her, his fingers tangled in her hair, while he struggled to regain a semblance of sanity.

She stared up at him, her gaze rapt, filled with pleasure. Her hands slid over his ribs, then smoothed down his back, and she wrapped her legs around him, her heels pushing the area just below his arse.

Gritting his teeth against the urge to pound into her relentlessly, to chase his release at a full run until he conquered it, he began a slow rhythm, each push into her infinitesimally deeper, infinitesimally harder. This connection was something for both of them to savor, a slow ramp up to heaven.

His muscles grew tenser over her. His ballocks drew up taut against his body. His cock grew longer and stiffer, and his jaw clenched so hard it felt close to snapping. She traveled the same path he did, her muscles making a slow transformation from languidness to stiffness. Her hands went from smoothing over his body, to moving restlessly and without direction, to gripping him for all she was worth. Her eyelids sank and then her eyes squeezed tightly shut, and whimpers of pleasure emerged from her mouth even though her lips pressed together in a thin line.

He watched her. His muscles and jaw stiff, his release so close, he kept his eyes pried open and focused on the woman he loved, so beautiful in rapture.

Finally, she let go, shuddering, shaking, pulsing around him. Her lips parted and her body arched in the throes of a magnificent orgasm. Her body clutched him hard, growing tight as a vise all around him.

He rose to the top of the wave, cresting it. With a groan and a deep thrust, he toppled over into the churning water below. His shuddering in time to hers, pumping his seed, his heart, his soul, deep into her.

"Becky," he whispered as her body milked him of the remaining drops.

He squeezed himself between her and the sofa back, turning toward the fire, wrapping his arms around her chest and resting his chin on the top of her head. She snuggled against him. Even in this position, they fit together perfectly.

He stared into the fire, his eyes half-lidded, comfortable in silence.

A while later, she murmured, "Do you really think it will work?"

"Do I think what will work?"

"Us."

"Yes." He said the word with a definitive finality. Despite how differently they'd spent the past years, they were far more compatible than he had ever guessed. Long ago, they had traveled the same path, but each of them had taken a fork onto a divergent course-Jack when he'd been accused of murder and Becky when her husband had died. Yet something had thrown them together, and now they traveled as one again. On a path of healing, leading toward a far brighter future than the dull purgatory in which both of them had subsisted.

She pressed her body more firmly against him, her hand reaching back to stroke his hip. "Me, too."

"Marry me, Becky."

She hesitated, and under his arm her torso rose and fell as she took deep breaths. Finally, she whispered, "Yes, Jack. I'll marry you."

Jack's whole body resonated with the force of those few words. He squeezed his eyes shut as emotion poured through him. Holding her tightly, he vowed to himself that no matter what, he'd do right by her.

Chapter Fifteen.

Sometime later, Jack shifted behind her, adjusting his body to a more comfortable position.

"Do you want to go upstairs?" Her voice sounded loud in the quiet of the room. Even the fire was almost silent, just a quiet whisper in the hearth. The wood had apparently exhausted its supply of crackling sap.

"In a while."

She nodded.

"Will you tell me about William Fisk?" he asked. "I should know exactly what happened between you and him."

She drew in a slow breath. "I was eighteen. A very young eighteen, too. I'd come into Town for my first Season and for my presentation to the king. Neither ever happened."

"What did happen?"

"I met William."

"Who was he? Where did he come from?"

"He'd returned from the Continent with Garrett. They were good friends-or so my brother thought." She closed her eyes. "I was taken by him instantly. He was so kind, so handsome. It was a very difficult time for Garrett, and William was the only person who could manage my brother. Garrett trusted him when he trusted no one else, so I did, too.

"He was a guest at our house, and he began to secretly visit my room at night. At first we only talked, but then he would kiss me. Caress me." She sighed. "He so easily fooled me. I was utterly besotted."

Behind her, Jack was silent. His arms remained banded over her chest, and she slid her fingers over his hand.

"He asked me to be his wife, and by then-only a few weeks had passed since I first met him, mind-I was so enamored of him I said yes, of course. Nothing in the world could bring me more happiness." She gave a bitter laugh. "He asked my brother, who was thrilled with the match, but Sophie never liked him."

"Why?" Jack asked.

"She didn't trust him. Out of all of us, she was the first to see through him. She and Tristan."

"I see," Jack murmured.

"One night, William came into my room. He said Garrett and Sophie wanted to delay the wedding, but he loved me and couldn't wait another moment to make me his. He said he wanted to marry me as soon as possible. He wanted us to run to Gretna so we could be joined right away."

Jack made a noncommittal noise behind her.

"I agreed, and we left in the middle of the night. Sophie, Garrett, and Tristan pursued us and tried to stop us, but we escaped from them. We married the moment we arrived at Gretna."

She paused. "It grew bad after that, Jack. It is difficult to speak of it."

"It's all right, sweetheart." His breath was a low murmur against her ear. "It's over."

Sometimes it seemed that it was still happening, that she was still mired in that misery-the loneliness of those first days of her marriage descending over her like a shroud. But not with Jack. When she was with Jack, loneliness was the farthest thing from her mind.

"He grew distant. We moved from place to place until we ended at Kenilworth in Warwickshire. He grew even colder there. I knew something was wrong, and I was beginning to realize I'd made a horrible mistake.

"One night I woke and he was gone. I wanted so desperately to win back his love-I thought I would go downstairs and search for him, and if I found him I might offer to make him a drink or rub his feet, show him I could still be a good wife. All I wanted was to make him happy."