But she did, she did. She had to get it over with. She would not live her life in fear of this, she would not.

The time had come. She pulled up her nightgown to halfway up her thighs and said, "Then come on, mate with me. Now."

He didn't move for a moment, so she reached out and grasped him again. He needed no second urging. He surged on top of her, spread her legs, and touched her there. She stiffened as she felt his fingers parting her flesh. He stroked her lightly and she started to relax, but then he touched something and a sudden convulsion arced through her. Before she had time to think, his hand moved again, and again a hot spear of sensation roiled through her.

He made a deep masculine sound in his throat and she felt him enter her. He thrust once, twice.

And she went blank.

Harry felt it at once, felt her stiffen, her body freeze. He was sure it wasn't hurting her. She was ready for him, she was warm and wet and slippery, and she'd been so sweetly responsive.

He stopped moving at once. "Nell, what is it? What's the matter?"

She didn't respond. She was stiff, but her whole body shook. And not in a good way.

"Nell? Sweetheart?"

Her eyes were closed, her face set in a grimace.

Harry knew immediately what he'd done. He'd effectively pinned her down so she couldn't move. He cursed himself silently. There was only one thing he could think of to do.

Still deep inside her, he rolled over, taking her with him. Then, though it was just about killing him, he watched her face and waited.

It felt like forever before her stiffness drained away and her eyes cautiously opened. Confused, she stared down at him. "What are you doing? Finish it."

He shook his head. "You finish it. Or not. Your choice."

She stared down at him. "But you're the man."

"And you're the woman," he answered softly. "It takes two."

Her brow furrowed. "How?"

"You can ride, can't you?" He placed his hands on her hips and moved her a little, to give her the idea. "This way you control everything."

Not quite believing him, she moved experimentally and he saw as well as felt her response. Scowling in concentration, she moved again. He groaned and slipped his hand between them. She started as she felt him stroke the tiny nub, then gasped. He felt her body clench around him in response.

It was going to be all right, he thought dazedly as the last of his ragged control dissolved and he surged upward, into her. She gasped and gripped him inside and out, with thighs and inner muscles. He bucked and thrust and she rode him as masterfully as any horse, faster and faster, gasping with each movement even as she urged him on.

At the last moment, when he knew he was about to come, he called her name. "Nell, Nell!" Assertively, needing her to respond.

Her eyes flew open and she stared at him, dazed, preoccupied, riding him furiously.

"Look. At. Me," Harry grated, and her eyes locked with his, and in that moment, joined in mind and body, they arched in a long, shuddering climax. He heard a faint high cry join with his hoarse shout of triumph, then everything splintered around them.

After some time, Harry became aware that she was lying on his naked chest, weeping silently.

Something in his chest clenched. There was nothing a man could do when a woman wept, except to hold her. He'd learned that from Barrow, when he was a young boy and was shocked to see Mrs. Barrow, the strongest woman he'd even known, weeping in Barrow's arms.

"Men chop wood, or punch things," Barrow had told him afterward. "Women weep. There's naught to do, lad, except to hold them and love them until it passes."

So Harry held Nell, soothing her with his hands, stroking her hair, holding her against him, loving her silently.

Loving her?

Oh God. He hadn't expected that. He pushed the thought away. He wasn't ready to think about anything like that.

He eased her down beside him, murmuring meaningless comforting phrases. "There, there . . . it's all right . . ." Not having the least idea of what they meant.

Damp tendrils of hair clung to her cheeks and forehead, and as he smoothed them away, without quite thinking about it, he planted small kisses where each tendril had lain: her cheekbones, her temples, kissing her eyelids and tasting salt.

She looked up at him with tear-drenched eyes and he kissed the corners of her eyes, then down along her jawline to the sensitive spot beneath her ear. She curled against his mouth like a cat. Desire flared again as he tasted, kissed, comforted. And aroused.

This time, he resolved, it would be all about pleasuring her. Not copulation. Making love.

That word again. Love.

He closed his eyes and returned to kissing her.

"No," she said suddenly and pushed him away.

He froze. What had he done?

"Didn't you hear the clock chime just now?" She sat up. "It's quarter to eight. Rafe and Luke will be here any minute.

We need to get dressed and get ready to leave." She slipped out of his arms and out of bed.

Harry sighed and pulled a sheet around him.

Another fruitless day of searching. It had grown very cold, and Nell was huddled into a fur rug. Because of the rain this morning, Harry had hired a chaise, which had come with a driver. The closed chaise provided more privacy as well as protection from the elements. Nell sat beside Harry on the seat with her feet tucked up, leaning against him, tucked into the curve of his arm with her cheek snuggled against his shoulder.

However awkward and fraught with tension this morning's lovemaking had been, the result had been a new physical easiness with each other. Harry was glad of it.

Nell had been silent for most of the last hour.

They couldn't see much; the drizzle fogged up the windows, but the smoother ride told him they were back on main roads again and nearing London. The carriage lamps had been lit a short while before. Their blurry golden glow swung rhythmically in time with the horses' hooves.

"Papa brought him to Firmin Court," she said, as if continuing a conversation. "He'd been playing cards with him at some house party and he invited him home. For me, I suppose. Papa wanted me to get married, and Firmin Court was a tempting dowry."

She was tempting enough as she was, Harry thought, but he didn't interrupt. He'd known at once who she was talking about. He didn't know what had prompted her to talk about it now-perhaps the intimacy of the closed carriage with the rain falling outside, the swish of the wheels, and the clip-clop of the horses' hooves.

"I disliked him on sight," she said. "You know how sometimes you meet someone for whom you have an instant, unreasonable antipathy?"

"Yes."

"It wasn't that I knew the kind of man he was," she qualified. "I just disliked him. He was good-looking, I suppose, but his eyes were too close-set and he had a mean mouth. He smiled too hard at me and gave me all sorts of compliments but he never actually looked at me. All the time he was looking around the house, summing up its value." She paused. "I could see he was disappointed. Papa always did put things in the best possible light. I was a beauty and the estate rich and full of priceless treasures."

"You are a beauty," Harry said. "And the estate will become rich, just you wait and see."

She smiled. "Sir-he couldn't see it."

Damn, she'd almost let the name slip. Harry was determined to learn it.

She was silent for a while, then said, "He was the sort of man who chased the housemaids. Even when they're not willing." Her fingers tightened around his arm. "Especially when they're not willing. Our housemaids were good girls. Both were betrothed to men on the estate. He didn't care."

"What happened?" Harry prompted.

"I caught him trying to rape one of them. I hit him over the head with a wet mop. He was furious. The mop was a bit smelly, but I didn't care. I was furious, too. I berated him in front of her and all the other servants. I ripped into him, calling him all manner of unflattering epithets." She grimaced.

"I made an enemy of him at that moment. It was too late for him to leave that night, but I told him he was to leave in the morning."

She took a shaky breath and continued, "I didn't trust him. I posted two footmen at the foot of the stairs to the maids' quarters." She shuddered. "It never occurred to me that he would come after me-a gentleman's daughter in her own home."

Harry hugged her tight, saying nothing.

"B-but he did," she finished shakily. "And I brought it on myself."

"Nonsense," he growled fiercely. "It was not your fault in the least. You protected those girls and it was the right thing to do. Your father should have thrown him out then and there."

She sighed. "Papa had lost the game, he was drunk, insensible. Besides, he never would have suspected a gentleman would . . . do that."

The way she always defended her father irritated him. The man was useless. He'd let her down in every possible way, and yet she loved him still. "He should have done it to protect his servants. It was his responsibility as their employer."

"Y-yes, but it was I who humiliated him-"

"By stopping his nasty habits?"

"By insulting him in front of the servants."

He snorted. "You heaped insults on my head at the top of your voice in front of the whole of Bath and it didn't bother me in the least."

She frowned at him and said slowly, "Yes, but you're different."

"Exactly. I'm not a filthy rapist who preys on women. I'm a man."

She stared at him for a moment, her lips trembling. "Yes, you are a man-a wonderful man." And she flung her arms around him and hugged him convulsively.

He gathered her against him. "It was not your fault, not in the least."

"No, no, it wasn't," she mumbled into his neck. Slowly he felt the tension drain out of her.

After a long silence she sighed and rubbed her cheek against the fabric of his coat. "I feel so much better now that we've talked about it," she told him. "There's just one more thing I need to tell you, and then it's done and I will never have to speak of it again."

Harry tensed. His name. He wanted the bastard's name. He'd sworn to avenge her.

"It was over very quickly," she told him. "I was asleep and it was half done before I knew it." She shivered. "So that's it. Now you know everything."

"Not quite everything."

"I won't tell you his name," she said firmly. "He knows nothing about Torie and I want it to stay that way. A father has rights over a child, you know. He could take her from me and the law would allow it."

"Nonsense. You'll be married to me," Harry told her. "And I would never allow such a thing to happen."

She shook her head. "No, I won't risk it." And that was her final word.

Harry brooded over the story that night, as he waited for her to undress. She was still too shy to let him help her disrobe and he wasn't going to push it. He would sleep with her tonight and not wait for her to start sleepwalking.

He fetched a sheet of paper, a pen, and ink and sat down to write to Ethan. Someone at Firmin Court would know who that bastard was. That old woman, Aggie-she'd know. A few discreet questions would be all it took.

Ethan knew how to be discreet. He didn't need to know any details, just find out who the visitor was who'd gone sniffing around the housemaids and been told off by Lady Nell.

When he'd finished the letter, sealed it, and sent it off to be posted, he knocked on Nell's door.

"Come in." She was sitting bolt upright in bed, that blasted nightgown buttoned to her chin.

"There's not much point in starting the night separate," he told her. "We both know where we'll end up, so with your permission . . ." He waited for her assent.

She thought for a moment, then nodded and blushing rosily, flipped the covers back in a wordless invitation.

Harry stripped quickly and slid into bed beside her. "Now kiss me," he murmured. She needed no further encouragement.