He shook his head. "On my honor, no. I swear you'll leave as pure as you are now."

"What's your reward?" she asked with a hint of grimness.

"My reward is your pleasure." He shrugged. "I won't lie and say I don't want more. But I'm not an impulsive boy. I can control myself. You're safe, Marianne."

"Am I?" She stared at him as if weighing his soul.

"You have my word. I've watched you so closely. You devote your life to making other people happy. Tonight I offer you a gift-an hour of pure self-indulgence."

She swallowed, her white throat working. "And you promise that n.o.body will know?"

"n.o.body."

"It's...tempting."

Defying his impulse to seize her, he stepped away to allow her s.p.a.ce to decide. Although he knew that in letting her go, he risked losing her. "An interval of selfish enjoyment. I can guess n.o.body has ever offered you that."

"No."

The word was a mere filament of sound. The house settled around them in slumbering silence. It was like they were the sole two people awake on earth.

He'd hesitated to mention anything beyond this encounter because reminding her of his hopes was the surest way to drive her off. Now he dared. "Accept this, even if you'll accept nothing else from me."

She stood regarding him for so long that he became convinced she meant to deny him. And herself.

Then she straightened and gave a stiff nod, as if accepting a challenge to a duel.

He supposed in her own way, she was.

"Very well," she whispered. "Show me pleasure."

Chapter Nine.

Marianne braced for smugness. But she couldn't mistake the joy transfiguring Elias's face. The sheer brilliance of his male beauty enthralled her. And soothed the tigers of uncertainty clawing at her stomach.

"Oh, my darling," he murmured, and encircled her in his arms. "I swear you'll never be sorry."

After all those kisses, she should be familiar with his touch. Still her unruly heart leaped. His embrace felt like coming home after a long and dangerous journey. Which was lunatic when giving herself over to his caresses was the riskiest step she'd ever taken.

When he'd described her as a self-sacrificing cipher, something in her soul had rebelled. He'd asked her about secrets. Well, tonight would become her secret. Every woman should have something to dream on when she was old.

Tomorrow commonplace reality would set in. She'd play the dutiful daughter and obey her father and marry Desborough. She'd go to Desborough's bed a virgin and set her face toward finding purpose as his wife and the mother of his children.

But first, first she'd accept Elias's gift. Fate gave her this chance. She'd never before been free. A greater gift than pleasure was the gift of freedom.

She closed her eyes against a mist of tears and hid her face in Elias's chest. His strength gave her a temporary haven from the world's endless demands.

Gradually her heart's race calmed. Her blood started to pump sluggish and heavy.

When she'd consented, she'd expected Elias to jump on her. He knew as well as she did that they had one night and the hour was already late. But he held her as if they had all the time in the world. She'd never felt so cherished.

Every night, alone in her chaste bed, when she didn't need to feign control to herself or anyone else, she'd pretended she was with him. The actuality of Elias Thorne was so much more arousing than her most feverish imaginings.

Eventually she became conscious of things outside the sweet comfort. The crackle of the fire. The edge of cold beneath the flames' heat. The more alluring heat of Elias's body. The slap of raindrops against the cas.e.m.e.nt windows. The soft music of his breathing.

All the busy, ceaseless, exhausting requirements of pleasing her father, pleasing the world, faded. Instead, she found peace. Peace that descended like a soft fall of dark feathers.

Gradually her tension flowed away. When his hands began to glide over her body, she stood too spellbound to be afraid. She felt connected to this man in a way she'd never felt connected to anyone. He'd called pleasure his gift to her. She counted the quiet as another gift.

Gently, he stroked her back and arms and shoulders. She leaned into his body. n.o.body had touched her like this. Beyond politeness, n.o.body ever touched her at all.

Elias was right. That seemed a miserable waste.

Was this slow seduction a ploy to force her consent? She couldn't believe that. His music had created a covenant of honesty. At least for this forbidden interval. She might be making the biggest mistake of her life, but he couldn't sacrifice this opportunity to discover the touch of the one man she'd ever wanted.

When his hands spanned her waist and slid down to shape her hips, she squirmed. He pressed her against a hard male need that set her instincts jangling.

"Shh," he whispered without releasing her.

Immediately she quieted, his voice smoothing her p.r.i.c.kling timidity. No danger could compare to the promise of his desire, the cessation of bitter loneliness.

Once she left this room, more loneliness waited. Viewed from the circle of Elias's arms, that prospect was unendurable.

She gasped when he swept her up in his arms. "Elias."

He smiled at her, teeth white in his tanned face. "I won't drop you."

"Actually," she admitted shyly, "I think if you let me go, I might float."

"I'll never let you go."

Marianne was so lost that not even that sounded threatening. She curved to fit him and hooked her hand around his neck. His hair was a fraction too long and it tickled her fingers, soft and warm from his skin.

He sat in a large leather chair before the fire and arranged her on his lap so that her purple skirts frothed over the arm toward the floor.

"What should I do?" she asked, nerves stirring, although if she had an ounce of sense, she'd be nervous long before this. She slid away, placing her palm flat on his chest to keep her balance.

He smiled with the kindness she remembered so poignantly from that day they'd walked together through the snow. That day she'd fallen in love with him.

"My lovely Marianne, you don't need to do anything."

"That seems a little unfair."

"Let me do this. If I frighten you, I'll stop. I ask only for your trust."

"Trust is a lot."

His eyes were serious. "I know."

Strangely, she believed he did.

Elias placed one elegant hand against her cheek and pressed her head onto his shoulder. For a long while she lay, slipping back into that deep well of unconditional comfort.

She'd expected something more dynamic. More...overtly l.u.s.tful. This was like being a child, except that her father had never been a man to let his motherless daughter crawl onto his knee.

Gradually uncertainty ebbed, replaced with lazy pleasure. Her blood matched the slow pace of Elias's. Her breath eased to his deep rhythm. Her eyelids fluttered down. She glided into a radiant s.p.a.ce she'd never inhabited before.

When Elias began to ma.s.sage the back of her neck, at first she barely noticed. He tilted her chin and turned her face to his-with more of that calm sureness-and she realized he'd been caressing her for a long time. The thought of protest or resistance didn't arise as he feathered a kiss across her lips.

Automatically she arched closer, even as he broke the contact, leaving her lips tingling.

He placed his hand under her chin, one thumb lazily stroking her lower lip. The touch felt like another kiss. "Open for me, sweeting."

She let him kiss her intimately, the way he had before. What had seemed outlandish now set her heart racing with excitement. Before tonight she'd never known the hot, salty taste of a man. Now she thought she'd starve without Elias's kisses to feed her.

At her quick response, he caught her head between his hands, tangling his fingers in her hair and holding her still for his mouth. His earlier gentleness had lured her past caution into a fiery new world where pa.s.sion ruled. In this new world, she welcomed the languid slide of his hand down her throat and lower, until his hand slipped beneath her bodice to her breast.

Marianne made a m.u.f.fled sound of shock against his lips. His touch burned like a brand through her lawn shift. Painful yearning hardened her nipples. A painful yearning that ignited into stark pleasure when he sc.r.a.ped his nail over one peak.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed a shallow breath. "That's...strange."

"Nice strange or awful strange?"

She abandoned reticence. "Nice strange."

"I'm glad," he said with another of those incandescent smiles. He kissed her and she closed her eyes, yielding to his mouth and the play of his fingers on her nipple. The onslaught of sensation was so overwhelming, she only realized that he'd unlaced the back of her gown and tugged it down when his hand closed upon her naked breast.

With shaming reluctance, she pulled away. She stared down at the white flesh overflowing her drooping bodice and tried to summon a ladylike horror. What was most horrifying was how natural it seemed to allow Elias the freedom of her body. She'd never felt so alive.

"Please, Marianne, don't stop me," he groaned, his arm firming around her back. "You're so d.a.m.n beautiful, it breaks my heart."

She bit her lip, unable to look away from that large brown hand splayed over her skin. She'd never felt beautiful, but something in the wanton abandon of the sight struck her as unutterably lovely. She looked up and met eyes bright with excitement. "You shouldn't say such things if you don't mean them."

"On my life, I mean it," he grated, lifting and turning her toward him so he could draw a hard rosy nipple into his mouth. His touch had been like lightning. The hot, powerful suction of his lips was...more. Marianne pressed her wrist across her mouth to m.u.f.fle her cries as every muscle tensed on a shuddering thrill.

By the time he suckled her other breast, she was squirming on his lap. A powerful pulse throbbed between her legs and she whimpered for relief. He kissed and bit at her, each caress making the madness boil and sizzle until she felt ready to explode. She clawed blindly at the black superfine of his coat.

"Elias," she choked out. Each beat of her blood slammed through her like a cannon. He'd promised pleasure, but the power of her response terrified her.

He raised his head and let her slump back against his legs. Only his arm at her back kept her from dissolving to the floor.

"Shall I stop?" His rough tone told her how grudgingly he posed the question. She read pa.s.sion in his face, although pa.s.sion was new to her.

"No," she said, because when she looked closely, she saw more than pa.s.sion in his eyes. Elias had vowed that she could trust him and staring into that striking, austere face, she believed it. Odd to feel so safe with a man who held her breast in his hand, his thumb teasing the nipple as if he couldn't resist pleasuring her.

Regret dulled his beautiful black eyes. His hands fell away from her. "It's your right to deny me."

Oh, no, he'd misunderstood her. She'd been running from him so long, using coldness to keep him at a distance. No wonder he doubted her capitulation.

Forgetting inhibitions, she pressed closer, relishing his shirt's soft friction against her skin. Her arms slid up to circle his neck.

"I'm not," she choked out. She hardly remembered why she'd ever held herself apart from him. In case her consent wasn't clear, she went on. "I'm not denying you, Elias."

He gripped her hard around the waist. "You looked frightened."

The last of her mistrust evaporated. He'd told her she was safe and it seemed she was.

"All this is so new." She swallowed. "I like this. I like...you."

"I like you, too," he said with a quick change of mood. "Very much. If only you'd thrust your bosom into my hands earlier, I'd have told you that long before tonight."

Ridiculous to blush when she lay so brazenly in his arms. Ridiculous to recall a time when he'd said he loved her. But she refused to let painful memories spoil this moment. "If I'd known what you could do with those hands, I might have."

His soft laugh brushed across her skin like velvet. "I don't believe it."

How unexpected that humor built her pleasure. She was still laughing when he kissed her with a giddy mixture of elation and pa.s.sion. This time Marianne let herself tumble headlong into the deep lake of sensation that waited. At last, she felt bold enough to initiate her own exploration.

Tentatively, she ran her hands over his chest. He made a low sound of enjoyment. Encouraged, she tugged at his neck cloth to reveal the hot male skin beneath. Under her depredations, his shirt fell open. She discovered the fine black hair that covered Elias's chest. Her hand brushed his nipple and he started.

"Elias?"

He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. "You tempt me beyond reason."

She very much liked that he couldn't resist her. "I need to touch you."

She'd never imagined she'd caress a man, not even her husband, like this. And she'd barely started. Greed to know all of him, to see him without concealing clothes, rose like a wave. Control had been the guiding principle of her life. Control had no place in her ferocious need to follow this desire where it led.

Ruthlessness edged Elias's touch. Until she'd tugged at his clothing, he'd been gentle. Now he revealed unabashed hunger. And a possessiveness that should send her scrambling for safety, but instead set her blood rushing. With sudden impatience, he tossed her skirts up and cupped her between the legs where need pounded most insistently.

Her body turned liquid. She bucked under this invasion and made a wordless complaint. This was like suffering a deathly fever. She shook with excitement and fear.

"Trust me," he said in a guttural whisper, stroking her through her thin drawers.

"I can't..." She hardly knew what she said. His hand felt hot and dangerous, even as her secret muscles clamped painfully on emptiness.