From the corner of her eye, Patience watched Vane retreat, watched the door close slowly behind him. As the latch clicked shut, she closed her eyes. And fought, unsuccessfully, to quell the shudder that racked her-of anticipation. And need.

The tension between them had turned raw. Taut as a wire, heightened to excruciating sensitivity.

Vane felt it the instant Patience appeared in the drawing room that evening; the glance she threw him made it clear she felt it, too. But they had to play their parts, fill their expected roles, hiding the passion that shimmered, white-hot, between them.

And pray that no one else noticed.

Touching in any way, however innocuous, was out of the question; they artfully avoided it-until, in accepting a platter from Vane, Patience's fingers brushed his.

She nearly dropped the platter; Vane only just stifled his curse.

Jaw locked, he endured, as did she.

At last they were back in the drawing room. Tea had been drunk and Minnie, wreathed in shawls, was about to retire. Vane's mind was a blank; he had not a single clue as to what topics had been discussed over the past two hours. He did, however, recognize opportunity when he saw it.

Strolling to the chaise, he raised a brow at Minnie. "I'll carry you up."

"An excellent idea!" Timms declared.

"Humph!" Minnie sniffed, but, worn down by her cold, reluctantly acquiesced. "Very well." As Vane gathered her, shawls and all, into his arms, she grudgingly admitted: "Tonight, I feel old."

Vane chuckled and set himself to tease her into her usual, ebullient frame of mind. By the time they reached her room, he'd succeeded well enough to have her commenting on his arrogance.

"Far too sure of yourselves, you Cynsters."

Grinning, Vane lowered her into her usual chair by the hearth. Timms bustled up-she'd followed close on his heels.

So had Patience.

As Vane stood back, Minnie waved dismissively. "I don't need anyone but Timms-you two can go back to the drawing room."

Patience exchanged a fleeting glance with Vane, then looked at Minnie. "If you're sure...?"

"I'm sure. Off you go."

They went-but not back to the drawing room. It was already late-neither felt any desire for aimless chat.

They did, however, feel desire. It flowed restlessly about them, between them, fell, an ensorcelling web, over them. As he strolled by Patience's side, by unspoken agreement escorting her to her chamber, Vane accepted that dealing with that desire, with what now shimmered between them, would fall to him, would be his responsiblity.

Patience, despite her propensity to grab the reins, was an innocent.

He reminded himself of that fact as they halted outside her door. She looked up at him-inwardly Vane sternly reiterated the conclusion he'd reached after the debacle of the stillroom. Until he'd said the words society dictated he should say, he and she should not meet alone except in the most formal of settings.

Outside her bedchamber door in the cool beginning of the night did not qualify; inside her bedchamber-where his baser self wished to be-was even less suitable.

Jaw setting, he reminded himself of that.

She searched his eyes, his face. Then, slowly but not hesitantly, she lifted a hand to his cheek^ lightly tracing downward to his chin. Her gaze dropped to his lips.

Beyond his volition, Vane's gaze lowered to her lips, to the soft rose-tinted curves he now knew so well. Their shape was etched in his mind, their taste imprinted on his senses.

Patience's lids fluttered down. She stretched upward on her toes.

Vane couldn't have drawn back from the kiss-couldn't have avoided it-had his life depended on it.

Their lips touched, without the heat, without the driving compulsion that remained surging in their souls. Both held it back, denying it, content for one timeless moment simply to touch and be touched. To let the beauty of the fragile moment stretch, to let the magic of their heightened awareness wash over them.

It left them quivering. Yearning. Curiously breathless, as if they'd been running for hours, curiously weak, as if they'd been battling for too long and nearly lost.

It was an effort to lift his heavy lids. Having done so, Vane watched as Patience, even more slowly, opened her eyes.

Their gazes met; words were superfluous. Their eyes said all they needed to say; reading the message in hers, Vane forced himself to straighten from the doorframe which at some point he'd leaned against. Ruthlessly relocating his impassive mask, he raised one brow. "Tomorrow?" He needed to see her in a suitably formal setting.

Patience lightly grimaced. "That will depend on Minnie."

Vane's lips twisted, but he nodded. And forced himself to step away. "I'll see you at breakfast."

He swung on his heel and walked back up the corridor. Patience stood at her door and watched him leave.

Fifteen minutes later, a woolen shawl wrapped about her shoulders, Patience curled up in the old wing chair by her hearth and stared moodily into the flames. After a moment, she tucked her feet higher, beneath the hem of her nightgown, and, propping one elbow on the chair's arm, sank her chin into her palm.

Myst appeared, and, after surveying the possibilities, jumped up and took possession of her lap. Absentmindedly, Patience stroked her, gaze locked on the flames as her fingers slid over the pert grey ears and down the curving spine.

For long minutes, the only sounds in the room were the soft crackling of the flames and Myst's contented purr. Neither distracted Patience from her thoughts, from the realization she could not escape.

She was twenty-six. She might have lived in Derbyshire, but that wasn't quite the same as a nunnery. She'd met gentlemen aplenty, many of them of similar ilk to Vane Cynster. Many of those gentlemen had had some thoughts of her. She, however, had never had thoughts of them. Never before had she spent hours-not even minutes-thinking about any particular gentleman. One and all, they'd failed to fix her interest.

Vane commanded her attention at all times. When they were in the same room, he commanded her awareness, effortlessly held her senses. Even when apart, he remained the focus of some part of her mind. His face was easy to conjure; he appeared regularly in her dreams.

Patience sighed, and stared at the flames.

She wasn't imagining it-imagining that her reaction to him was different, special, that he engaged her emotions at some deeper level. That wasn't imagination, it was fact.

And there was no point whatever in refusing to face facts-that trait was alien to her character. No point in pretense, in avoiding the thought of what would have occurred if he had not been so honorable and had asked, by word or deed, to enter this room tonight.

She would have welcomed him in, without fluster or hesitation. Her nerves might have turned skittish, but that would have been due to excitement, to anticipation, not uncertainty.

Country-bred, she was fully cognizant of the mechanism of mating; she was not ignorant on that front. But what caught her, held her-commanded her curiosity-was the emotions that, in this case, with Vane, had, in her mind, become entangled with the act. Or was it the act that had become entangled with the emotions?

Whatever, she'd been seduced-entirely and utterly, beyond recall-not by him, but by her desire for him. It was, she knew in her heart, in the depths of her soul, a most pertinent distinction.

This desire had to be what her mother had felt, what had driven her to accept Reginald Debbington in marriage and trapped her in a loveless union for all her days. She had every reason to distrust the emotion-to avoid it, reject it.

She couldn't. Patience knew that for fact, the emotion ran too strong, too compulsively within her, for her to ever be free of it.

But it, of itself, brought no pain, no sadness. Indeed, if she'd been given the choice, even now she would admit that she'd rather have the experience, the excitement, the knowledge, than live the rest of her life in ignorance.

There was, invested within that rogue emotion, power and joy and boundless excitement-all things she craved. She was already addicted; she wouldn't let it go. There was, after all, no need.