Rogue for a Night

Jenna Petersen

Copyright Jesse Petersen, 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission. For information address Jenna Petersen, PO Box 6205, Bloomington, IL 61702

Check out these other books by Jenna Petersen:

Scandalous

From London With Love (Lady Spies Book 1)

Desire Never Dies (Lady Spies Book 2)

Seduction is Forever (Lady Spies Book 3)

Lessons From a Courtesan

Her Notorious Viscount

What the Duke Desires (Billingham Bastards Book 1)

The Unclaimed Duchess (Billingham Bastards Book 2)

And Coming in August 2011…

A Scoundrel’s Surrender (Billingham Bastards Book 3)

Epilogue

June 1816

“Summer in London is always terrible,” Lucinda Stoneworth’s mother-in-law, Marianne, Lady Bledsoe said with a sigh.

Her sister-in-law, Jane nodded. “Indeed. I’m happy that Nicholas and I are leaving for home in a fortnight. I shall not miss that rapidly increasing smell in the air or the stickiness that is beginning to permeate the ballrooms by the end of the evening.”

Lucinda did not respond to these comments since they didn’t seem to be directed toward her and simply sipped her tea. But when the other two women exchanged a meaningful glance and then turned their gazes firmly on her, Lucinda swallowed her tea with a painful gulp and her heart sank. Damn, she should have known this wasn’t a discussion about the weather, even if it seemed to be.

“What will you be doing in July, Lucinda?” Jane asked, ever so innocently.

Lucinda arched a brow. She and Jane had only been sisters-in-law for a year, but they had become close friends in that time.

“You know that answer, my dear,” she said with a tilt of her head. “The children and I will remain in Town.”

“Oh, I cannot think that remaining in Town is good for the children,” Lady Bledsoe said with a shake of her head. “Wouldn’t they rather run through the hills and play in the gardens at a country estate?”

Lucinda stifled a sigh. She wasn’t sure where the pair was going with this line of questioning, but there was no stopping them now. “Come now, it isn’t as if I live in a shack. Beacon House is lovely.”

And it was. She and the children had lived there for the last year, ever since Jane had married her late husband’s brother, Nicholas. Against their wishes, she had then abandoned the London home that went with the title of Viscount Stoneworth and purchased a new home just one street over. It had a beautiful garden, though small, and no painful memories associated with it. In the last two years, she’d come to appreciate a home that had no ghosts haunting its halls, waiting to bring a sharp stab of pain when she remembered that her husband would never again walk there or kiss her here or laugh with their children there.

“It is lovely,” her mother-in-law hastened to agree. “But the lawns at our estate in Blenshire are so much nicer for children.”

Lucinda squeezed her eyes shut. “You want us to join you in Blenshire for the summer?”

“Actually,” Jane said with another quick glance toward their mother-in-law. “We have another plan entirely. You see, Nicholas and I would like you to join us at our estate.”

“Not Windgate,” Lucinda whispered.

Both Jane and Lady Bledsoe flinched. Windgate was the estate in the country associated with her late husband’s title. It was the place where Anthony had died after a terrible riding accident. Lucinda did not think she could bear stepping foot in that place.

“Of course not,” Jane said softly. “No one would be that cruel. We mean to retire to the estate Nicholas purchased after our wedding. Ironfield. It’s beautiful.”

Lucinda hesitated. “I’m certain you don’t want me and my children descending on your new home.”

“I’m sure Nicholas and Jane would like nothing better, but actually Hugh and I would like to take the children for a few weeks while you visit Jane and Nicholas,” Marianne said slowly.

Lucinda straightened up and stared at the two women in surprise. “Y-You wish to separate me from my children?”

Jane reached across the table and covered Lucinda’s hand gently. “My dear, of course not. We would not take your children from you under any circumstances. What Marianne is suggesting is a small break for you. The children will get to play at their grandparents’ estate, be spoilt beyond their wildest dreams and meet new friends in the shire… and you will have your first chance for a respite in as long as I have known you.”

“A respite,” Lucinda repeated blankly as she stared from one woman to the other.

“You are a wonderful mother,” Marianne said softly. “But since Anthony’s death, I have watched you run yourself ragged trying to be both mother and father to those girls. Trying to bury yourself in your motherly duties and never once stopping to draw breath or give yourself a moment of pleasure.”

Lucinda blinked as unexpected tears flooded her field of vision. In the pocket of her pelisse, she found a handkerchief and wiped her eyes before she said, “My children are my pleasure.”

“Of course they are,” Jane said. “But I think having a few weeks to dedicate to yourself would do wonders. You’ll come back to your children refreshed and rested.”

Lucinda sighed. There was no use pretending around women who knew her so well.

“I admit, I have been tired. And perhaps you are correct. The children would love to spend some special time alone with you and Hugh.” Marianne smiled. “If you think it would be better for them and for me, then I…” She hesitated and addressed Jane. “I suppose a few weeks at your new estate could hurt no one.”

Marianne nodded enthusiastically as Jane’s smile grew to a full grin. “Indeed. And I will write you every day with updates about the children’s welfare, so you would never be away from them in spirit.”

Lucinda glanced at Jane and her friend squeezed her hand gently. “So you’ll do it?”

“Yes,” Lucinda whispered. “I’ll join you in July and Marianne, you and Hugh may take the children during that time.”

Jane let out a squeal of pleasure and jumped up to embrace Lucinda tightly. “Oh Lucinda, I’m certain you will not regret this. It will be just what you need, I promise you.”

But as Lucinda pulled back with a forced smile, she couldn’t help but wonder what it was she needed anymore. It had been so long since she thought of such a thing that she didn’t even know anymore.

Chapter One

July 1816

Most of the trappings of a gentleman did not come naturally to Ronan “Rage” Riley. He had watched his best friend Stone… Nicholas, Rage was still working on referring to him as Nicholas or Stoneworth. Whatever he called him, Rage had watched his best friend slowly return to the life of a gentleman over the past year and a half. It had been a slow, painful process and though Stone had found a balance between what Society required and his own personality, Rage still found the entire exercise a bit horrifying.

And yet what was he if not exactly the same? Stone had asked him to take over some of his estate management and assist him with investment opportunities and now Rage found himself in elevated company on a regular basis. Christ, he even wore a cravat when the occasion called for it, though just the thought of the item made his neck itch.

But there were some perks to this whole “gentleman” exercise. For example, the filly he was riding now was a glorious animal, well bred and highly trained and the fastest ride he’d ever owned. And when he and Stone rode through the property Stone had bought just after his wedding to his wife Jane, Rage could almost forget that he wasn’t entirely free anymore.

“You are very quiet,” Stone said, snapping Rage from his thoughts.

He shook his head as the two men slowed their mounts and began a leisurely trot back up to the estate house. “I’m sorry. I was woolgathering.”

“It seems you have done much of that as of late,” Stone said with another quick glance. “Is there something troubling you?”

Rage shrugged. “Not troubling me so much. I’m afraid I just find myself a bit… restless as of late.”

Stone chuckled. “Ah, that I do understand. Much has changed for me in the past two years and I dragged you along on my journey and changed everything for you, as well. But Jane tells me that restlessness is to be expected when one moves from utterly untamed to gentlemanly.”

“And how does wise Jane suggest one handle this state?” Rage asked with a grin.

Despite the fact that the lady had all but turned his world upside down, he greatly liked Jane. Even if she hadn’t been the most lovely, kind and accepting woman he had ever met, Stone loved her with a deep and abiding passion and that was good enough for Rage.

Stone cleared his throat and Rage was certain he saw just the hint of a blush on his cheeks. “Er, well, Jane encourages that I.. er, one, keep a bit of his wild side. At least in appropriate scenarios.”

Rage shook his head. “I can plainly see what those scenarios are, my friend. But I do not have such a charming companion in my bed. One who encourages my wild tendencies. So I suppose I am resigned to this restlessness and dreams of boxing.”

They crested the last hill and finally the house came into view. If Stone was going to say something more to Rage about the profession they had once shared, he didn’t have a chance. He was distracted by the carriage that was now sitting on the circular drive in front of the marble staircase leading up to the house.

“She’s here,” Stone breathed and his entire body and tone changed. He didn’t have to say who she was. It was clear he meant his wife. “I thought she wouldn’t be home for a few more hours.”

“Go,” Rage laughed. “I’ll follow at a far enough distance that you can be entirely inappropriate with Jane in the parlor for a few moments.”

Stone didn’t respond, just urged his horse into a gallop up to the house. Rage’s smile fell as his friend pulled to a stop, tossed the horse’s reins to a footman and hurried into the house like the devil himself was on his heels. Rage had never felt so driven to see a woman as his friend did about his wife. He hadn’t truly believed a woman could inspire such deep feelings in a man like him… but seeing Stone so settled, so happy, so utterly besotted, well he couldn’t help but be a little jealous.

Rage swung into the drive and took his time dismounting from his horse. The same footman waited for him and the two exchanged a knowing smirk.

“His lordship went inside, then?” Rage asked with an innocent tilt of his head.

“He did, sir,” the footman replied with a chuckle. “I believe the Viscountess is home.”

“You don’t say,” Rage said as he headed up the staircase. “Shocking.”

With the servant’s laughter echoing in his ears, he entered the foyer. He expected to stand alone in the hall for a few more moments, then clear his throat very loudly and join his friends in the parlor, but to his surprise, he found the foyer was not empty.

Standing in the hall, staring at a landscape that hung above a sideboard, was a woman Rage had only seen a handful of times. But she was also a woman who had haunted his dreams for years, although she was off limits to him. Not only because of her station, but for the fact that she was the widow of his best friend’s late brother.

Lucinda Stoneworth.

He could almost taste her name on his tongue, sweet and fresh like sunshine and honey. Actually that was a fine way to describe her in general. With her blonde hair and dark blue eyes, she was a fine summer afternoon, one made for making love on a blanket all day.

In that moment, Lucinda turned and those blue eyes fell upon him. They widened in surprise and then softened in what Rage was shocked to see was recognition and delight.

“Mr. Riley?” she said as she moved across the foyer with her hands outstretched toward him.

Rage held perfectly still and simply allowed her to take his hands in hers. She wore gloves, but the warmth of her touch… of her spirit… shot through his fingers, up his arms into his gut where it burned like a fire had been lit inside him.

“I didn’t know you were here,” she continued, completely oblivious to his thoughts or reactions to her.

Rage swallowed past a suddenly swollen throat and managed to croak out, “Nor did I, my lady. When did you arrive?”

She glanced over her shoulder toward the partially shut parlor door and smiled. “Only half an hour before you and Nicholas arrived. I thought to give the couple a moment alone.”

Her smile remained, but there was a flicker of sadness in her eyes. And Rage knew why. Her late husband had been Stone’s twin. The two men shared a face… and when Lucinda looked at Stone, she saw Anthony and all she had lost. Even now, nearly two years later.

“I thought to do the same, not that Stone gave me much choice when he took off at a full run on his horse when he saw Jane’s carriage on the drive.”

Lucinda laughed. “Stone. I always forget you call him that. It reminds me of a different time.”

He shook his head. “It’s an old habit.”

She smiled again and released his hands, but the heat in his belly remained.

“I must admit, I am surprised you remember me,” Rage admitted. “We haven’t seen each other since…”

Lucinda filled in the hesitation with a smile. “Since Jane and Nicholas’s wedding nearly a year ago. But you are a very memorable man, Mr. Riley.”

Rage arched a brow. Her words, which could easily have a double meaning, did nothing to reduce that persistent heat initially caused by her touch. It seemed she recognized that, too, and dark pink color flushed her cheeks.

“I-I mean-” she stammered.

Rage lifted a hand. “I understand, my lady.” She looked ready to turn away in her embarrassment and Rage searched for a topic that would keep her with him a moment longer. “Are your children with you?”

He had found the correct topic for she turned back toward him with a wide and true smile. “No, Lord and Lady Bledsoe asked to take them for a few weeks while I visited with Nicholas and Jane.”

Rage blinked. “So… you are alone for the duration of your time here?”

“I am.”

“And how long will you stay?” he pressed.

“Three weeks and then it is back to London and my real life,” she said and there was a flicker of something in her stare. A darker emotion he couldn’t place, but he didn’t like it. He had witnessed Lucinda’s mourning, albeit from afar, and this expression reminded him of those terrible days. He wanted to take it away. To push the weight of it from her shoulders forever.

Which was a foolish notion that he shook away.

“Then we will see much of each other,” Rage said. “I will be here for the duration of your stay.”

Lucinda stared at him for a moment that seemed to stretch forever, though Rage was certain the true length of it was less than a blink of an eye. Then she smiled. “I-I look forward to that.”

“As do I.”

Lucinda’s full lips parted as she looked up at him, her gaze steady on his in a way that most ladies never stared. She might have been preparing to say something, but Rage never found out. Jane and Stone exited the parlor at that moment and the spell that had suddenly spun up between them faded as Lucinda stepped back and turned to face their friends.

“Rage!” Jane said with a welcoming smile. “I had forgotten you were joining us.”

She took his hands briefly, just as Lucinda had, but there was no heat that burned in his belly at her touch. And when she released him, no disappointment filled him.

“Yes, Lady Stoneworth and I were just speaking about her visit,” Rage said with another brief glance at Lucinda. She stiffened at the use of her old title.

Stone smiled at his sister-in-law. “We are very happy to have her here.”

Lucinda glanced at him and the stiffness of her countenance increased a touch. “Thank you. Now I am a little tired. Would you mind if I retired to my chamber for a short time to freshen up and gather myself?”

“Of course not,” Jane said with a wave of her hand. She caught the eye of a nearby maid and motioned the girl over. “Ingrid will take you up.”

Lucinda nodded her thanks. “I will see you all shortly, then.” She turned slightly and smiled once more at Rage. “Good afternoon Mr. Riley.”

“Good afternoon, my lady,” he said softly.

She moved toward the stairs and Rage should have stopped watching her. But he couldn’t. He kept his gaze on her all the way up the stairs until she turned and disappeared up the hallway.

Chapter Two

Lucinda leaned back against the door in her chamber and drew in a sharp breath. Her hands were shaking and her cheeks burned thanks to the unexpected encounter in the foyer with Rage… Mr. Riley. It was peculiar to feel so discombobulated thanks to him. After all, she had met him several times before, even when she was still married and never felt so… odd. Intrigued, certainly, for he was not like any man in her social circle, even her brother-in-law who had fought in the underground just like his friend.

Rage was tall and seemed impossibly broad and strong, even when dressed in the trappings of a gentleman. His dark brown hair was close-cropped and his eyes were ridiculously pale blue against his tanned skin. He was an animal parading as a man, a wolf who had somehow lost his pack. He always had been.

And yet today the slightest brush of his hand in hers had made her stomach do flips and she felt hot and strange. Perhaps this was a fever brought on by travel?

A knock on the door behind her made her jump and she scurried away so she wouldn’t be caught lurking about the entrance, thinking odd thoughts about a man she hardly knew.

“Come in.”

Jane opened the door and peeked around the edge. “I know you wanted to rest, but may I join you for a moment?”

Lucinda nodded with more gusto than was required. Her friend could surely help her take her mind off Mr. Riley. Or at least help her determine if she needed a doctor for her physical state.

“Of course. Please join me.” She moved toward the bowl of fresh cool water on the dressing table. “Do you mind if I wash my face?”

“No.” Jane sat down in one of the chairs by the fire.

Lucinda could feel her gaze on her back as she took a cloth from beside the basin and wetted it. She was a bit surprised when the water touching her skin didn’t sizzle, but took it as a good sign that she wasn’t about to burst into flame right there in the bedchamber.

“You seemed a little anxious downstairs,” Jane said when Lucinda had set the washcloth aside. “And I wondered if you were having second thoughts about staying here with us for a few weeks?”

Lucinda turned on her with a frown. “Why would you think that?”

Jane shifted. “I-I know it is uncomfortable for you to be around Nicholas because he and Anthony were twins. Seeing him with me must also be… odd. We do try to be discreet, I hope you know neither of us would ever cause you pain on purpose.”

Lucinda blinked at her friend. “Oh no, Jane. If I seemed out of humor, I promise you it wasn’t because of Nicholas, or anything you two did or didn’t do in my presence.” She moved to the sitting area and took a place across from Jane with a shake of her head. “You know, it is odd to be with Nicholas, I admit. Though they were twins, they were very different men, but sometimes Nicholas does turn his head just so or phrases something in a way that makes me catch my breath.”

Jane nodded. “I cannot imagine how difficult that must be.”

“I think there will always be some residual effect like that, but to be honest it has gotten easier over the past few months, especially. Watching you two together was very strange at first, but I think it has actually helped me. Nicholas and you are nothing like Anthony and I were, though both relationships were built on a solid foundation of love. It reminds me that Nicholas is not his brother. And with time marching on, the sting fades every time I see Nicholas.”

Jane almost went limp in the chair and the relief on her face was palpable. “I’m so glad. We both care for you deeply and neither one of us wants to see you pull away from our family because of-”

“I know,” Lucinda said and reached out to take her sister-in-law’s hand. “And slowly, but ever so certainly, I’m realizing I won’t have to. I promise you. They say time is the healer and that may not be completely true, but it does dull pain. It does smooth the edges of a sharp memory.”

Jane nodded and Lucinda could see she was thinking of the brother she had lost. Then her brow wrinkled. “But if it wasn’t Nicholas who caused your strange behavior, then why?”

Lucinda tensed. Was her reaction to Rage’s unexpected presence so obvious? She hadn’t realized she had betrayed herself so fully.

“Wait,” Jane said and her gaze met Lucinda’s. “You were talking to Rage. He didn’t say something that upset you, did he?”

“No!” Lucinda hastened to assure her. “Rage- Mr. Riley has never been anything but proper toward me.”

Except for those meaningful looks and the fact that his touch gave her shivers.

Jane nodded. “And he never would be. At least not purposefully.”

“Hmmm.” Lucinda looked at the edge of her sleeve as if it was the most interesting thing in the world. “It seems Nicholas trusts him greatly, not just as a friend, but by allowing him to handle some of his financial dealings.”

“Yes,” Jane said slowly, as if she were uncertain about the question. Then she tilted her head slightly. “Rage is a very good man, rough around the edges though he may be.”

Lucinda nodded. There was no reason for her to be interested in these things, but she was regardless.

And Jane must have sensed that, for she said, “You have been a widow for nearly two years, Lucinda. Have you ever thought that you might…”

“Might?” Lucinda asked when Jane hesitated.

“Perhaps develop an interest in another man.” Jane shifted uncomfortably.

“No!” Lucinda said as she moved to her feet and paced away. “Yes. No.”

“Very certain of you,” Jane said with a gentle laugh.

Lucinda turned and shot her sister-in-law a look, though she was anything but angry. “There have been men who have expressed an interest in me, after my year of mourning ended, of course. But it is evident they were only interested in either my money or the standing my name and family connections could bring to them. With the girls being so young and with the pickings rather… slim, I haven’t thought about it.”

“But you haven’t ruled it out,” Jane offered.

A shrug was the only answer Lucinda could provide. She hadn’t spoken out loud of such an idea to anyone. At first to do so had seemed like a betrayal of Anthony’s memory. Now… well, now it had been so shocking for so long that she had a hard time not feeling like she was doing something wrong by even considering taking another man into her life. Or her bed.

She was struck by a sudden and strong image of Rage’s angled face moving down toward hers, his mouth claiming her with all the animal possession pent up within him. Shocked by her wayward thoughts, she immediately shook it away.

“Are you well?” Jane asked and got to her own feet. “You sucked in your breath very suddenly.”

Lucinda squeezed her eyes shut. Good Lord, whatever was happening with her, she had to remember herself.

“Jane, the idea of finding some kind of romance or… whatever it is that one would find with a man as a widow is a bewitching one to be sure. But it isn’t realistic. At this time in my life, my concentration must be entirely on my children. They are the most important thing in my life now.”

Jane nodded. “Of course. But-”

“But?”

“The children aren’t here now.” Jane shrugged lightly. “Anything you did while here in our company would have no effect on them.”

Lucinda swallowed hard. She had no idea how to respond to that statement. It seemed her sister-in-law was encouraging her to enter into an affair of some kind. Perhaps even with Rage Riley. And though the idea was utterly inappropriate, out of character and completely preposterous… it didn’t feel wrong. Not as it should.

“I have kept you too long,” Jane said softly. “I’ll leave you to your rest. I apologize if I’ve overstepped with any advice I may have given. It was kindly meant, I hope you know that.”

Lucinda nodded and smiled as Jane slipped to the door and out into the hallway. But when she was alone, the smile drifted away. She had claimed to want a time alone to rest herself, but it was more than clear now… this visit might be many things, but restful was not one of them. Not if Rage Riley was going to be there.

~~~

The cravat around Rage’s neck felt like a noose and it was growing tighter with every passing moment. That was always the way of these events. Stone invited him out of kindness, he supposed, though sometimes he wondered if it was just to have a partner in his own discomfort at being a “gentleman”. Tonight it had been a mere dinner party, attended by a scant handful of other couples from the shire. A dinner with too many forks, too many courses, too many polite questions about weather and crops and politics that did not interest Rage in the slightest.

But this night had one thing none of the other nights had. Lucinda.

Lucinda sitting down the table from him. Three spots exactly and across a narrow expanse of wood and china. Close enough that he occasionally heard the lilting tones of her voice when she murmured to the people around her. Or the melody of her laugh when she responded to something clever someone said. He’d even caught her glancing his way once, though her gaze had darted away just as quickly.

Now the intimate group had gathered in a parlor, sitting around tables to play whist or gathered in small clusters to continue their supper conversations. Rage stood in the corner of the room, arms folded, just waiting for it all to end so he could stop pretending he was comfortable.

“Mr. Riley?”

He stiffened and slowly turned to find Lucinda at his elbow. He had been trying very hard not to stare at her since the party had moved to the parlor. At supper he could disguise his regard by pretending to be engrossed in the stuffy conversation of the companion on his left, but in the parlor, prying eyes might notice if his gaze found Lucinda too often. That kind of gossip would only embarrass her and he refused to allow that.

And yet here she was.

“Good evening, my lady,” he said softly.

“Would you mind if I stand here with you for a few moments?” Lucinda asked with a sheepish smile. “I am having difficulty finding any good topics of conversation with anyone here and I’m starting to feel quite awkward in the attempt.”

“You, awkward?” Rage chuckled. “I hardly believe that is possible. There is no one with more grace that I have ever met in the ton or outside of it.”

Lucinda’s cheeks darkened at his compliment and the pink traveled lower to disappear into the demure scooped neckline of her dark green gown.

“Thank you for that,” she said softly. “I appreciate it more than you could know. I do feel so out of place, I’m happy to hear that my discomfort is not as noticeable as I feel.”

“And why would you be so uncomfortable?” Rage asked, truly confused by the idea that someone so beautiful and refined could ever feel she didn’t fit into a world tailor-made for her.

She shook her head and little blonde tendrils of hair shivered around her face. “I have been away from Society for almost two years, at least in any real way. I attended events, but no one expected much from me due to my state of mourning. Now they begin to expect me to…” She laughed. “… behave like the woman of my station that I am. It’s very vexing.”

Rage couldn’t help but laugh with her. “At least you know what your station is. No one knows what to expect of me and to be honest, I have no idea how to behave a good portion of the time. I feel as though my every move is being analyzed to prove or disprove the particular watcher’s predetermined opinion of me. And so I stand in the corner like an angry statue and hope to be unnoticed.”

“As if that could happen,” Lucinda said just under her breath, but Rage heard her nonetheless. Then she glanced up at him. “So it seems you and I have circumstances that are the mirror image of each other. Perhaps we should agree to save one another during our time here.”

Rage stared down at her, captivated by her beauty, intrigued by her openness toward him, mired down by a desire for her that he had felt the first moment he saw her, but had always known he could not pursue.

Except now… could he?

“Do you need to be saved?” he asked, his tone low and meaningful.

She was silent for a moment, looking at him with the same intensity with which he stared at her. Her blue eyes had dilated, the pupils almost impossibly large and black. She shivered almost imperceptibly and in that moment, that wild and charged moment, he realized that she was as attracted to him as he was to her. She hadn’t always been, not when she loved her husband, not when she was mired down by mourning and pain… but now, with time lessening her grief and with nothing to tie her down, she could not hide the interest that flickered in her stare and was written on the tense lines of her body.

“Do you?” she finally croaked out.

He stepped toward her, not inappropriately close, but close enough that her breath caught. She swallowed, but did not speak because at that moment one of the men who had been sitting near Rage at supper stepped up.

“Was Mr. Riley speaking to you on his very interesting views on the lower class and education?” the gentleman said with an indulgent smile for Rage.

Rage gripped his hands into fists at his sides. This was another reason why he hated these events. Pompous fools with no real idea of anyone outside their own sphere seemed to view him as a sideshow.

“Lord Blythestone,” Lucinda said with a welcoming smile, though Rage saw that her eyes did not hold the warmth of emotion that her lips did. “How lovely to see you.”

“As it is to see you, Lady Stoneworth,” the gentleman said and he gave a lecherous look at Lucinda that made every hair on Rage’s neck stand up straight. Blythestone looked at Lucinda like she was a sweet made for his pleasure.

Rage wanted to box him into the ground, but that wasn’t his place. Not unless Blythestone decided to take his leering into true action.

“You look beautiful, as always. It is nice to see you out of your mourning colors.”

Lucinda’s lips thinned. “Thank you.” She glanced at Rage briefly. “You two must excuse me. I need to talk to my sister-in-law for a moment.”

“Of course.” Blythestone bowed low as he took her hand and pressed a brief kiss to it. “I hope to speak to you again during your visit.”

“Indeed,” Lucinda said, her tone chilly. Then she smiled at Rage and the coldness was gone. “Mr. Riley.”

He nodded as she slipped away into the crowd toward Jane. The two spoke for a moment and both frowned as they looked toward Blythestone. One more reason to despise the man, for interrupting their conversation and driving Lucinda away.

“Attractive woman, to be certain,” Blythestone said with a knowing look toward Rage. “Hope her lack of widow’s weeds means she’s finally open to a bit of wooing. She’s certainly dragged that out long enough.”

Rage glared down at the “gentleman”. He might be of the same class as Lucinda, but he wasn’t fit to shine her shoes, let alone to “woo” her. The very idea left the taste of bile on Rage’s tongue.

“From what I understand, she loved her husband quite deeply. A longer mourning period is to be expected.”

Blythestone rolled his eyes. “Women and their sentimental ideals. When my wife died, that mourning period was the longest year of my life.” He looked across the room at her and grinned. “Good lord, but she is beautiful. They’ll be fighting over winning her in London this fall, that is for certain. Hope to get a leg up while she’s so close by.”

Rage pulled his arms against his chest all the tighter, mostly because he feared he would take a swipe at this idiot if he didn’t gain some control over himself. “Well, good luck with that, my lord. If you’ll excuse me.”

He didn’t wait for the  answer, but turned on his heel and headed away from the slimy little prick, out of the parlor and up to his own chamber, where he knew his rest would not be steady, or his dreams peaceful.

Chapter Three

Rage had predicted his evening with perfect clarity. He’d spent hours laying in his bed, thinking of Lucinda, just down the hallway, and whatever connection he had felt between them. By the time dawn came, he had found himself wondering if he could have only imagined the spark he’d felt when they touched or talked the day before. After all, he had met her more than a handful of times and never felt anything more from her than a friendly regard for the best friend of her brother-in-law. Perhaps he was only taking his own feelings and laying them over her, pretending there was more there than there really was.

He’d had his horse saddled as the sun came up and had been riding her over the property for almost an hour, trying to clear his head. Trying to figure out how to shake off this strange desire that had seemed to explode within him the moment he saw Lucinda in the foyer.

He urged his filly over the crest of a hill and there, in the distance was a female figure walking through the grass in a slow, steady cadence. As he edged closer, he realized with a start that it was Lucinda, herself, he had stumbled upon.

She hadn’t yet noticed him as she stood with her back toward him, looking over the rolling countryside, so he still had the option to leave her be, ride back to the estate and pretend he hadn’t seen her. But running hadn’t ever been Rage’s mode of operation, even when it was, perhaps, the best option. So instead he knickered at the filly and rode the few hundred yards between them at a trot.

Lucinda half-turned when he was a few lengths away and her face lit up with a smile as she raised her hand in greeting. “Good morning, Mr. Riley.”

“My lady,” he said as he swung off the horse and took her reins to lead her the last few feet. “I thought that was you. What are you doing out so early?”

Lucinda laughed as she stepped up and began to stroke his horse’s nose gently. “You forget, I have two young children. I am always up early in London thanks to their often excitable love for the morning. Rising with the rooster is a harder habit to break than I thought it would be when I pictured myself here in the country, laying languidly in bed until all hours of the late morning.”

Rage swallowed hard. Her vivid description made him think of the very same thing, only he added himself to that image of her in her bed. And languid wasn’t the word he would use to describe their morning activities.

“Indeed,” he croaked. “Well, perhaps your routine will change after a time.”

“Perhaps. Of course once that happens, it shall be time for me to return home and then it will be difficult to rise with the sun.” She smiled. “And what of you? Somehow I always pictured you as a night owl, carousing until all hours and only rising to take your supper and do it all over again. What is your excuse for being out so early in the morning?”

Rage stared at her for a moment. He hadn’t realized his activities had been of such interest to her. The idea that she had such vivid imaginings about them was rather interesting.

“I am not like those aristocratic toffs. I have always liked the night, that is true, but the morning is the best time to ride.”

Lucinda nodded as she looked at his horse. “And you have the prettiest filly to spend that time riding. What is her name?”

“Jezebel,” he admitted.

Lucinda’s lips parted and she let out a light, echoing laugh. “Of course she is.” She patted the filly gently.

Rage smiled even though he felt like he’d been caught doing something particularly naughty by naming the horse something so provocative. “I was sorry our conversation was interrupted last night.”

Lucinda wrinkled of her nose and in that moment she looked as beautiful as she had the first time he saw her, many years ago, when she was barely a wife, when she was not yet a mother.

“As was I. That Lord Blythestone. Ugh, repulsive fool. He has been drooling after me for years.”

Rage’s eyes went wide. “So you know?”

“I am not so naïve not to know what a man wants.” Lucinda sighed as she looked off into the distance. “Ever since Anthony died there have been several men who have sniffed around at my doorstep, hoping to find a way into my bed or my purse. Or both.”

He edged closer, almost against his will and stared down at her. She wore another green gown, this one as light as spring grass and leaves. It gave her blue eyes an even darker color and he swore he could swirl into their depths forever.

“Blythestone is an ass,” he said, then shook his head as he realized how blunt that statement was, especially in the company of a lady. “Excuse my language.”

“No, that sums him up perfectly,” she laughed, though the sound seemed strained. “He is an ass.”

He hesitated. “But perhaps another man might be good for you.”

She blinked up at him, though her expression did not reveal how she felt about that statement. “Now you sound like some of my well-meaning friends who believe I should put myself back on the marriage mart. Are you planning on playing matchmaker on my behalf, too, Mr. Riley? Somehow I cannot picture you running around Society in an effort to find me a new husband.”

He swallowed hard. The very idea of finding another man for her was slightly sickening, even if he knew she was in jest. “I could never do that, no.”

A soft tendril of her blonde hair had fallen from the pretty bun at the nape of her neck and it lay against her cheek. Without thinking, he reached out and caught the lock with his fingertip. It was soft as silk as he brushed it away. Her cheek, which he caught with the side of his fingers, was even softer.

Her lips parted at the inappropriate touch and he waited for her to back away. To tell him not to touch her. To run back to the house like she had surely been trained to do when a woman of her station was faced with a man of his.

Instead, she stood completely still and stared up at him. Her cheeks were flushed, she hardly breathed. She just… stared at him.

He couldn’t help it. Without her resistance to encourage his control, the desire to kiss her was overwhelming. He fanned his fingers against her cheek, cupping the soft curve of her chin with the rough palm of his ungloved hand. A tiny sigh escaped her lips and her hands began to tremble at her sides.

It was too much. Too much.

He leaned down and let his lips just brush ever so slightly against hers. Her breath was soft and sweet against his mouth and he longed to delve as deeply into her as he could. But he didn’t. He merely let his mouth move in a gentle sweep. He was about to pull away when she unfisted her hands at her sides and let her hands move to his upper arms. She lifted up slightly, pressing herself into his kiss and suddenly the world spun out of control.

~~~

It had been so long since Lucinda had been kissed that she hadn’t realized how hungry she had been for that type of  touch. For the taste of a man’s lips, for the feel of his muscles contracting beneath her palms. It was unseemly to want this so much, to part her mouth beneath Rage’s and let him dip his tongue inside to taste her in a far more intimate fashion.

But she did that nonetheless and her knees went weak with his surprisingly gentle exploration. She found herself digging her fingers into his jacket, pulling herself closer, deepening the kiss as a heat came over her that had nothing to do with the rising sun.

She wanted him. To arch beneath him.

That stunning and entirely wrong desire snapped her from her fog and with a gasp of breath, she pulled away. He released her immediately and simply watched her as she stood a few feet away, trying to catch her breath and collect her wild, confusing thoughts.

“Should I apologize?” Rage finally said softly.

She forced herself to look at him and a sizzle of desire flooded her once more, as did more hot blood to her already burning cheeks. “I-no. No, Mr. Riley.”

“I think we’ve moved beyond Mr. Riley, Lucinda,” he whispered.

She blinked at his use of her given name, at how sensual it sounded coming from his gravelly voice and then nodded. “You’re right, of course…” She hesitated.

Everyone who referred to this man by a name that wasn’t proper called him Rage. But she didn’t want to use that harsh, violent nickname with a man who had just awoken every sense she’d all but forgotten. She’d heard his given name before. Nicholas had said it once.

“Ronan,” she whispered.

He stared at her, almost as if he didn’t recognize that name. Then he smiled and she couldn’t help but do the same. Although the situation was still out of control, his smile made her so much more comfortable.

“I-I don’t know what to do now,” she whispered with an uncomfortable shuffle of her feet. “What to say.”

Rage nodded. She wasn’t sure what to think of the serious expression on his face. Did he think her silly or foolish? Or perhaps wanton for allowing the kiss to go so far? Was he disappointed she had pulled away? He was impossible to read. Which had probably served him very well in the underground she knew so little about.

“Neither of us are children, Lucinda,” he said softly and she nearly shut her eyes at her name from his lips this second time. “I think we can be honest with each other, can’t we?”

She swallowed hard. She wasn’t certain what he meant by honest, nor was she certain she was ready for the kind of honesty this rough man could bring. But she found herself more curious than afraid of whatever he wanted to say to her.

“I would like to think that honesty could bring us no harm,” she said.

He smiled almost like he doubted that, but he continued nonetheless. “I want to be honest with you, though I know what I say could offend you and bring to an end the pleasant acquaintance we have shared.”

“That is ominous,” she replied, trying to keep her tone light even as her heart began to pound against her ribs.

“Indeed.” He drew in a long breath. “Lucinda, the first moment I saw you, I was taken by your beauty. When I saw you, I could not help but catch my breath. I even thought of you when you weren’t near.”

Lucinda stared at him. This she had not ever guessed he would say. “Y-You did? I had no idea.”

He nodded once. “You were another man’s wife and I never would have pursued that interest out of a respect not only for your husband and his brother, but for you. But yes, I wanted you. I want you still, Lucinda. Perhaps now more than ever.”

She could hardly breathe at this revelation. What he was saying… it was madness! She ought to be offended, as he had said he feared. She ought to turn away from his blunt admission of desire and tell him never to speak of it again.

But she didn’t. All she did was stand still as stone and drown in the roaring echo of her heartbeat as it pounded in her ears like an ocean tide.

He moved a fraction closer and that tide turned even more violent. All she could see now was him. All she could feel was him… and he wasn’t even touching her.

“But Lucinda, I would never want to be something you regret.” He shook his head. “I am going to go away for a few days. There is a bit of business for me to do in a neighboring shire. When I return, we can pretend this conversation never happened, if that is what you desire. Or…”

He trailed off and held Lucinda’s gaze evenly. She struggled to find her voice and finally squeaked out, “Or?”

“Whatever you like, Lucinda,” he whispered and then he caught her hand and drew her even closer. His lips lowered again and he kissed her a second time.

His mouth was firm against her, his lips cool and surprisingly gentle for a man who had once made his living through violence. He tasted of mint and perhaps a hint of coffee. She parted her lips and hesitated before she touched his mouth with the tip of her tongue. He let out a low, almost pained groan and then his arms tightened around her, drawing her against the hard heat of his chest as he delved into her mouth and tasted her.

She felt the tension in his body, in his shoulders and his arms. He was trying to control himself, even as he ravished his lips. She couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if that control snapped. Would he take her right here on the soft grass?

He groaned again, almost as if he could read her wicked thoughts, and then gently set her away from him.

“I must go,” he murmured. “Or I won’t be able to. Until I return…”

He turned on his heel, swung back onto the pretty filly and rode off toward the estate in the distance. Lucinda watched him go, her hands shaking. It was only when he had gone almost half a mile across the grass that she realized she wasn’t breathing and took a long, deep gasp of air.

In just a moment, everything in her world had changed. And she had no idea how to feel about it.

Chapter Four

“It seems strange that Rage would depart to Littlefield with only a note to inform us of his leaving,” Jane said as she poured tea first for her husband and then for Lucinda. “I had no idea that your business there was so urgent that it required immediate attention.”

Nicholas lifted both his eyebrows and shrugged as he took a scone and held the tray out for Lucinda.

“It wasn’t,” he insisted. “But you know Rage. He takes a notion in his head and he cannot be swayed from it. There is nothing keeping him here and he truly hates the entertainments of a country gathering, so he… ran.” There was a moment’s hesitation and then he added, “Am I to assume you do not want any cakes, Lucinda?”

Lucinda shook her head as she forced her mind, which had been traveling to thoughts of Ronan as Nicholas spoke, back to attention. “I’m sorry?”

He dangled the tray before her by its handle. “I have been offering you sandwiches and cakes for some time. Do you want any?”

Lucinda started and took the tray from her brother-in-law. She set it down with a clatter and pushed a finger sandwich onto her plate without even looking to see what flavor it was. The bread slid off to the side and she forced it back into place.

“I’m sorry. I suppose I was woolgathering. Thank you. The food is delightful.”

Jane arched a brow. “I will pass on the compliment to our cook, but I won’t share with her that you made it without even tasting your sandwich.”

Once again, Lucinda blushed, though she knew Jane was only teasing her in the friendliest of manners. Jane and Nicholas knew nothing of the confusion and turmoil in her heart at present. And she certainly couldn’t tell them. How would that conversation go? She could almost picture Nicholas flying off the handle if she told him she had not only kissed his best friend, but that Ronan had all but offered her an affair.

But, perhaps she could take advantage of the situation in some other way. For instance, by finding out more about the man whose kiss had shocked and titillated her in ways that still made her shiver when she recalled them.

“You and Mr. Riley have been friends for as long as I have ever known you,” Lucinda said and prayed she did not sound overly interested.

Nicholas nodded. “Indeed. He is a good friend, the best I have had in my life.” He looked at her with a frown. “Aside from my brother, of course.”

Lucinda smiled in an attempt to show him that his statement had not hurt her. And was surprised that it did not. Her grief had once made it almost impossible for her to be in the same room as Nicholas, with his face just like Anthony’s. Even when that terrible time had passed, she still flinched whenever someone mentioned her late husband, for good or for ill. But now even that pain was beginning to fade. She wasn’t sure whether to rejoice that grief no longer overwhelmed her, or to miss that intense pain that signaled how close to Anthony she still felt.

“Rage even helped me,” Jane said with a sad smile. “And I will appreciate that for all my life.”

“What kind of a man is he?” Lucinda asked, drawn again to thoughts of Ronan.

Nicholas took a bite of his sandwich and as he chewed, he seemed to contemplate the question. “A complicated one, that is for certain. He was born into poverty in Ireland, but after his mother died he was moved to London and taken in by servants of the Duke of Nordcross.”

“Relatives?” Lucinda asked, setting her plate aside. Her hunger was for information, not food.

Nicholas shrugged. “I don’t think so. He didn’t talk about that time much and I’ve never pried.”

“Whoever they were, they must have had a good relationship with the Duke,” Jane added. “Because for a while Rage was educated in the same schoolroom as the Duke’s own children. He wasn’t sent to Eaton with them, of course, but he was put into another school, Greenlake. That is how he became so well-spoken and educated, at least in worldly matters, though he has never been comfortable with social ones.”

Lucinda blinked. It was odd, she had never really thought of how an underground boxer with a rough past seemed so well-versed and intelligent. That was just Ronan, a man who was part of a world she didn’t understand in the least. But in truth, he was an odd dichotomy of both wild and tamed.

“If he was so well educated, how in the world did he end up fighting in the underground?” she asked. “Was it a situation like your own, Nicholas? A decision to break with the world he knew?”

Nicholas shook his head. “No. I think he never was comfortable in that world of the higher class. He certainly isn’t now. He ran away from his school when he was fifteen and took to the streets for a while. Luckily he’d had to fight his way out of trouble both in the nursery at the Duke’s home and later in his school, so when Easton Hathaway saw him beating the piss out of a boy twice his size, he saw a world of potential. He took Rage in and trained him to fight.”

“Easton Hathaway,” Lucinda said. “A man from the underground?”

Nicholas nodded and she was surprised at how much softer his expression became. There was true affection there. Something that made him look all the more like his brother, who had never had the hard quality that Nicholas did.

“Yes. Hathaway arranged the fights and trained the fighters. He was the reason Rage survived and how the two of us met. Hathaway died a few years ago, but his wife Ruby still runs his pub down by the docks in London. They were hard people, living in a hard world, but there are no better folk in all creation. I’m sure Rage would agree.”

Lucinda stared at her hands, folded in her lap. She had not asked much about Nicholas’s time away from their family. She knew of the toll it had taken on her husband and his family, of course. She had even heard a few of his stories when he came to visit Anthony. But she hadn’t wanted to picture the kind of life he must have led.

Now she couldn’t help but picture Ronan, a teenaged Ronan, on the dirty, dangerous streets of the worst parts of London. How lucky he had been to find someone who would take care of him, rather than exploit him. Someone who had accepted him and molded him into the man he had become.

“Why all the questions about my friend, Lucinda?” Nicholas asked with a laugh before he drained his teacup in one gulp and reminded her that sometimes he was not as tamed as perhaps he pretended to be. “You aren’t thinking of joining up with the underground and learning to fight, are you? Perhaps have Rage teach you a thing or two?”

Lucinda froze and slowly lifted her gaze to her brother-in-law. She knew that look and the sparkle in his eyes well. He was teasing her, he had no idea of how conflicted she truly was about Ronan. But he had struck awfully close to a very raw nerve. A secret she wanted to protect, at any cost.

“Goodness, Nicholas, don’t torment her,” Jane smiled. “Rage is very handsome and perhaps she is just curious about him.”

Again, Lucinda recognized the gentle teasing of her sister-in-law, but she still found herself holding her breath as she awaited Nicholas’s response to that statement. To her surprise, he tilted his head back and let out a long, low laugh.

“I doubt Lucinda has an interest of that kind in my friend.”

She tensed. And what did that mean? That Nicholas didn’t think Ronan was good enough for her… or that she was not the kind of woman who could hold his friend’s interest? Either way, the laughter offended her more than it should.

She stared at him evenly. “It has been two years since I was widowed,” she said softly. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t wonder how you would feel were I to develop an interest in…” She trailed off and then took a coward’s route. “…a man?”

Nicholas’s laughter faded at her question and there was a sudden tension lacing the room. Something that had not hung between them since she had confronted him about his bad behavior over a year before.

He drew in a long breath. “I hope you didn’t think I was implying that you should never have an interest in a man again.”

She pursed her lips to keep herself from blurting out, Only not in Ronan?

He continued without knowing her treacherous thoughts, “You were a good and faithful wife to my brother and he loved you with all his heart. I didn’t understand how much until I met Jane.” He reached out and briefly touched his wife’s hand.

Lucinda turned her face. Her emotions on that subject were so complicated. On any subject that had to do with the heart, it seemed.

“I know that could my brother tell us his wishes, he would tell you that he didn’t want you to spend your life alone.” He sighed. “If you were to find a man to marry, it would probably be difficult for me at first, but I would give you my blessing if you asked for it.”

Lucinda flinched. Marry again. That wasn’t exactly what Ronan had implied when he told her he wanted her. That when he returned to the shire, she could have whatever she liked if she wanted it. He had offered to be her lover, not her husband. And she doubted Nicholas would be as accepting of that idea, even if she had the nerve to confess it.

Before either she or Nicholas could continue on the awkward subject, the door to the parlor opened and Nicholas’s butler stepped into the room. “I beg your pardon, my lord, but there is a parcel here for you.”

“Ah, excellent,” Nicholas said as he got to his feet. “Excuse me, ladies, I have been waiting for this.”

Jane’s brow wrinkled as she looked at her husband, but she didn’t question what he had received, nor stop him as he left the room.

“That man. I shiver when I think of what he could have ordered for me this time,” Jane laughed.

Lucinda smiled. “He loves you, that is as clear as the color of his eyes or the part of his hair.”

Jane nodded. “And I love him.”

“You are lucky,” Lucinda said softly. “Appreciate every moment you have with him.”

Jane reached out and took Lucinda’s hand gently and the two women looked at each other with a gaze filled with meaning. Lucinda knew she didn’t have to tell Jane about loss. She had experienced it, herself, when her father and brother died.

“Are you well?” Jane asked as she released Lucinda’s hand and the moment passed.

Lucinda blinked. “Of course. Why?”

Jane settled back against the settee and watched Lucinda carefully. “Nothing in particular, you simply seem a bit out of sorts. I want to be certain that nothing has happened.”

Even though she tried to control the reaction, Lucinda felt her eyes go wide at Jane’s question. “Happened? No, of course not. What could have happened? Nothing happened.”

Jane’s gaze narrowed to one that Lucinda knew well after two years of mourning. So many people had given her that look of worry, tinged with pity. She had come to hate it. Hate being treated as if she were a piece of glass that could shatter with even the slightest upset.

“I saw you speaking with Lord Blythestone last night,” Jane said softly.

Lucinda frowned, unable to stop the annoyance that arose in her whenever she thought of Blythestone and his pompous posturing. “Yes.”

“I hope he isn’t the reason you bring up the subject of developing an interest in a new man,” Jane said with a frown of her own.

Lucinda sat back in the chair in utter disbelief and simply stared at Jane.

“If you do give your affections to someone new, I hope that it would be someone worthy,” Jane continued without breaking her gaze at Lucinda.

Lucinda shook her head as a harsh burst of laughter escaped her lips. “Trust me, Jane, I would never give my affections to a man like Blythestone.”

“No?” Jane’s relief was obvious. “Thank goodness. I could hardly believe that would be true, but the timing made me ask.”

“Well, it was certainly not Blythestone who inspired my statement to Nicholas.” Lucinda shuddered. “The very idea of such a union makes my skin crawl.”

Jane nodded her agreement. “But if not him, then who? Was there some other man here at our party, or perhaps one left behind in London who inspired you to think of a future beyond widow’s weeds?”

Lucinda pushed to her feet and paced to the window to look outside. She had never been very good at lying and Jane was a smart woman who would likely recognize the signs if Lucinda wasn’t careful.

“No one,” she said as she looked out into the garden below. “I was only speaking in hypotheticals when I brought up the subject, nothing inspired by any particular person.”

“I see,” Jane said, her tone entirely neutral.

Lucinda looked over her shoulder at her sister-in-law, but she couldn’t tell if Jane believed her statement or not. She shrugged. “I think I shall go upstairs for a bit, if you don’t mind. I feel a touch of a headache coming on, perhaps I am overly tired.”

Jane got up and nodded. “Of course, Lucinda. Please, rest and feel better. This is your time and you should spend it in whatever way pleases you.”

Lucinda jerked her gaze to her sister-in-law, but Jane’s calm expression hadn’t changed. She wasn’t referring to Ronan. She wasn’t referring to the offer he had made to Lucinda that Jane certainly knew nothing about. But as she slipped from the room, Jane’s words haunted Lucinda nonetheless. Without meaning to, she had given Lucinda some kind of permission to pursue… well, whatever she liked while she was residing in the country estate.

And that idea was becoming more and more bewitching with every passing moment.

Chapter Five

In all Rage’s life, three days had never passed so slowly, not been so utterly uncomfortable. His days had been filled with the business he truly had to attend to on Nicholas’s behalf, but even as he fulfilled those duties, he had been distracted with thoughts of Lucinda back in Ironfield. And the nights… well, those had been pure torment, filled with dreams of her kiss, with everything he wanted to do with her and to her that went much further than that kiss.

He shuddered as he pulled Jezebel to a halt in front of the house and climbed down. After a brief exchange of pleasantries with the servant, he entered the foyer and tugged his gloves from his hands. The house was quiet, not that he had expected to be greeted by anyone. Although perhaps in his deepest fantasies, he had pictured Lucinda waiting for him with open arms, but that was beyond foolish.

“Mr. Riley, I was told you had returned.”

He turned to find Gerald Foster entering from the rear of the house, carrying a ledger book under one arm. He ran the day to day operations of the estate in Ironfield and reported to Rage, who oversaw a far wider scope of Nicholas’s business. Although they had come from very different spheres in life, he liked Foster and knew the other man respected him, as well.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Foster. I trust everything ran smoothly in my absence.”

The other man gave a good natured smile. “Indeed. I have a list of the tenants who paid their rents yesterday if you’d like to look over them. Mr. and Mrs. Winston’s home needs a roof repair. If you are amenable, I can get my men on that this afternoon.”

“Of course,” Rage said, settling into the comforts of running the estate. “And while you’re at it-”

“There you are!”

Rage and Foster turned to see Stone coming down the hallway from the direction of his study. He was smiling wide and open and Rage returned the expression.

“Stone.” He extended a hand and his friend shook it. “Was just discussing some estate business with Foster here.”

“That can wait, can’t it Foster?” Stone asked. “I think my friend and I require a stiff drink.”

Foster nodded. “Of course, my lord.”

Rage sighed. Sometimes Stone did remember he was a lord and acted accordingly. “Foster, have the other roofs checked while your men are out. It’s been a while since we did upkeep in that manner and if one is damaged, others may require repair, too. We can speak about the rest later.”

Foster made a quick note, gave a bow to his employer and headed back toward the kitchen exit of the house. Stone clapped an arm around Rage as the two men made their way back to Stone’s study and the promised drinks.

“So,” his friend said as they entered the study and he closed the door behind them. “Should I be worried about my interests in Littlefield?”

Rage blinked. “No. Why?”

“Well, one moment you and I were discussing that at some point in the next six months you would go over there and appraise the property, less than twelve hours later you saddled up your horse and took off to take care of my business there without anything but a note about where you were going.”

“Ah.” Rage shifted uncomfortably. “I apologize if I worried you.”

Stone looked at him for a long moment, then turned to pour the drinks. “I see. Well, I wasn’t worried so much as taken aback by the abrupt nature of your departure. All of us were.”

Rage swallowed. “All?”

Stone nodded as he handed over a whiskey to Rage and then settled behind his desk. Rage took the seat across from him and sipped the drink.

“Yes. Even Lucinda asked after you.” Stone shook his head. “Why in the world did you feel the need to rush off so suddenly?”

Rage shifted in the chair and took another long sip of whiskey as he searched for a good excuse for his hasty actions. “I simply thought this would be an opportune time to make the trip since we are so close by.” He set his drink on the desk across from him. “Did Lucinda – er, Lady Stoneworth say why she was interested?”

Nicholas stared at him. “Why?”

“Just curious,” Rage said with a shrug that he hoped signaled nonchalance. “I’m surprised she noticed my departure at all.”

“Well, she did,” Stone said. “As for why, I couldn’t tell you since she didn’t say specifically. I think she feels a bit distanced from Society since my brother’s death, out of place. Perhaps she sees you as a contemporary in that distance, another outsider.”

Rage blinked. As much as he desired Lucinda, he had no illusions that they were equal in any way. “But she isn’t an outsider.”

Stone laughed. “No, indeed she is not, not in reality. And perhaps she is realizing that again. She spoke of marrying again.”

Rage’s eyes went wide before he caught up his drink and downed it in one slug. The liquid burned as it slipped down his throat and did nothing to ease the sickening ache in his belly. If Lucinda had spoken of marrying again, then that gave him his answer to whether or not she would pursue his confession of desire. And the answer was a no.

“Did she?” he said when it was clear Stone was waiting for him to respond.

“I suppose we all knew this time would come,” Stone said with a small sigh. “After all, she is a beautiful woman, still in the prime of her life. It would be foolish and selfish to assume she would wrap herself in grief forever and remain married to a ghost.”

Rage pursed his lips. He had no response to his friend’s very good points. Only disappointment that he would not have a chance to share even a fleeting moment with Lucinda before she took up some titled man’s offer of marriage and settled back into her life of propriety so far away from his own existence.

There was a light knock on the door and Stone looked up. “Enter.”

Rage was just as happy for the interruption. He wasn’t certain he could maintain his composure if Stone insisted on continuing to discuss Lucinda’s future. At least with an intruder in the room, he could catch his breath. Remember himself.

Except that when he half-turned to look at that intruder, it was Lucinda, herself, who stepped into the chamber. She was smiling, but as her gaze fell on him that smile wavered, then fell and she caught a short breath. God, but she was beautiful. It seemed she grew more so every time he looked at her. Today she wore a yellow gown, cut with a lower bodice and with fine white lace running along the top for modesty. But he could see the slight swell of her breasts before they vanished beneath silk and cotton. And God, how he wanted to taste them. To feel her arch beneath his mouth as he pleasured her.

She blushed like she had read his mind and then gripped the door handle with a white knuckled fist.

“Ron-Mr. Riley,” she said, her voice holding just the faintest tremble. “I did not realize you had returned.”

Stone got to his feet and smiled. “Just a few moments ago, actually. But you aren’t interrupting us. Please, do you need something?”

She stared at Rage a second more and then forced her stare to her brother-in-law’s face. “Yes. No. I mean, I was upstairs with Jane when she received-”

Stone laughed. “Ah, my package.”

“Yes.” Lucinda’s smile returned, gentle and kind. Rage had never seen someone with such a kind smile, a smile that reflected her very soul. “I was coming down anyway and I said I would check for you in your study.”

Stone came around the desk with a broader grin. “Well, then I shall go up and she how she looks in it. Thank you for fetching me.”

“She looks more than well,” Lucinda reassured him.

Stone touched her arm as he departed the room and suddenly Rage and Lucinda were alone. She remained at the door, fiddling with the handle as she stared at him.

“H-He bought her a gown for the ball tonight,” she explained when the silence had stretched between them for what seemed like an eternity, though it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds.

Rage nodded as he finally pushed to his feet, as propriety dictated he should have done the moment Lucinda entered the room. The rules were so easy to forget, especially when he was off kilter. And it seemed that the moment Lucinda Stoneworth came into his field of vision, he was destined to be decidedly off kilter, indeed.

~~~

Why was he just staring at her? Why didn’t he speak?

Lucinda shifted, strumming her fingers against the door handle out of pure nervousness. Ronan was standing now, but he hadn’t spoken in what seemed like half an hour. And his handsome, hard, angular face was impossible to read. She had no idea if he was happy to see her, apathetic or even angry.

“H-hello,” she said and felt stupid the moment the word left her lips.

But at least it elicited the smallest of smiles from Ronan. “We did that part already,” he said softly.

She blushed to her very toes. “Y-Yes. I suppose we did.” She struggled for a new topic since he seemed to be perfectly happy to let her flounder like a fish thrown on the shore. “The ball tonight,” she finally settled on. “Will you attend?”

Ronan let out a heavy, put-upon sigh. “Stone always seems to rope me into these foolish things one way or another, so I would assume yes, I will be in attendance.”

“Good.” She breathed a sigh of relief before she realized she was about to do it and her blush grew hotter. “I mean, I’m glad you came back.”

“I told you I would,” he said.

He hadn’t moved since he stood up. Certainly, he had done nothing to invade her space or push her, but yet he seemed to have grown in size. To fill the chamber with his presence as he always did.

“You did. But when you vanished so suddenly and it seemed to surprise Nicholas so much, I wondered.” She shook her head. “At any rate, I would like to talk to you about-”

Now he did move and the sudden action silenced her as much as his voice when he said, “I’m sorry, my lady, but now is an inopportune time. If you will excuse me, I need to join Mr. Foster to discuss some estate business that Stone distracted me from.”

Lucinda stared in disbelief as Ronan gave her a very proper bow and slid past her into the hall and away toward the kitchen exit of the house. She stepped into the room, where Ronan’s leathery, warm scent still lingered to tease her and sat down hard on one of the chairs near the fire.

What had just happened? When Ronan left, he had made it very clear that she was in control of the next part of their relationship, but then he had cut her off quite rudely. Left her alone without even a hint that he cared what her decision was when it came to how they would proceed during her time here in Ironfield. Had he lost interest so quickly? He had told her he wanted her for quite some time, but perhaps that was a lie? Perhaps he had only said it to… well, she had no idea why he would say something so shocking if he didn’t mean every word of it.

But then, she didn’t really understand the man who had just strode out of the study with not so much as a backwards glance at her. There was really only one thing clear to her from this situation: she wanted to know more. And she wasn’t quite ready to give up yet.

~~~

Rage wanted to punch someone. Hard. He wanted to vent his frustration on another person and feel a little blood, pain and sweat in return just to forget. But he was trapped in “civilized” society and there was no way he could obtain what he desired. In more ways than one.

Music permeated the air around him, but the pianoforte and other instruments sounded harsh and loud to his ears. When he looked across the ballroom and his gaze found Jane and Stone, standing close together, whispering some kind of loving things to each other, he did not feel happiness for his friend, but jealousy.

And when he gazed onto the dance floor and saw Lucinda spinning in the arms of some other man… well, the jealousy boiled to something much harder and more dangerous. He stared without checking himself, memorizing the sway of Lucinda’s gown. Tonight it was blue and matched the darkness of her eyes. He burned into his brain the picture of her smile as she spoke to her partner.

Then the man, whoever he was, Rage didn’t even know, turned her slightly and her gaze slammed into his from across the room. She stared at him, even as she continued the intricate steps. Watching him, focused on him.

He turned away and started toward the terrace doors as the music ended. He didn’t want to see Lucinda take up with her next waiting partner. It was a bit like torture as he wondered which one she might one day take as her next husband. Had she already met him? Was she already plotting the course of some kind of great romance with a man who knew which fork to use at supper or which gentleman was member of which party in parliament?

He shoved the door shut behind him and drew in a harsh breath of the soft summer air. He strode to the terrace wall and leaned against the stone, staring out across the estate in the moonlight. This was ridiculous. He hadn’t ever had Lucinda. She wasn’t his, she had simply allowed his kiss in a moment of weakness. So to be so upset at her “loss” was ridiculous to say the least.

He heard the door to the terrace open behind him and flinched. He didn’t want company, or to be bothered. Without looking back, he started away from the doors and toward the dark corners of the terrace. There were stairs back there, ones that led down to the gardens where he could slip back inside through the back and go up to his chamber. Or perhaps just take a long, hard run by moonlight in the hopes that it would clear his mind.

“Wait, Ronan!”

He froze at the use of his given name. Only one person in the world called him that. Lucinda, and only since he’d kissed her. He’d always hated that name, but when she said it…

“Please,” she said, softer.

He slowly turned to face her. She was standing at the terrace door, which she had closed behind herself, her hands folded in front of her and her gaze locked on him.

“My lady,” he murmured with a proper bow of his head.

In the combined light from inside and from the moon high above, he saw her brow wrinkle in displeasure. “What happened to Lucinda?” she asked softly.

He stood very still and didn’t respond. Honestly, what was there to say? Calling her by her given name was highly inappropriate unless they shared a far more intimate acquaintance than just two people who knew Stone. And apparently that intimate relationship was destined not to be.

His silence, which normally intimidated people of her station, and especially women, seemed to hold no meaning to her. She stepped forward. “I wish to speak to you about what happened between us before you left the shire.”

Rage closed his eyes briefly. This was not the conversation he wished to have. But Lucinda was a lady and he could find no polite reason to refuse her direct request.

“Very well,” he sighed.

She moved closer, close enough that the warm smell of fresh lilacs and summer breeze floated over the night air from her hair and skin. He couldn’t help but take a long breath of her scent… and know that her taste was just as sweet.

“May we walk together?” she asked, hesitation and uncertainty lacing her words. “I don’t want to talk of something so private where so many ears could overhear.”

He stared back at the terrace entrance to the ballroom. She was right that they could, and most likely would, be interrupted if they stayed here. And since she was going to be telling him she regretted their kiss, or that it had set her off on a path to find a respectable man, he didn’t want witnesses to that conversation.

“Yes,” he said. “We can walk down to the garden if you’d like.”

She nodded, but before he could turn away, she reached out and slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. Rage almost rocked back at the electric desire that shot from her hand through his whole body. Suddenly his every nerve fired and all his blood settled quite uncomfortably in his cock. What this woman could do… and yet seemed completely unaware of her power over him.

He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, hoped his erection would not become even more obvious than it already felt and guided her toward the staircase that would take them to the garden. She was quiet as they walked down together, apparently in no hurry to crush his desires with a few pointed words.

And to be honest, even though he knew that crushing blow was just on the horizon, he was enjoying their time together. Lucinda didn’t feel it necessary to fill every moment with endless chatter, as did so many women of her rank. She clearly knew the value of silence, and that made her all the more attractive to Rage, who preferred silence to pointless prattle.

But the silence couldn’t last forever. As they wove their way into the garden grounds, Lucinda glanced up at him. “I-I feel you are upset with me. Angry.”

Rage slowed his stride and shut his eyes briefly. “No, not angry. But I told you after our kiss that we could ignore that it happened.”

She stopped in the path and turned on him. Her face was suddenly unreadable beyond a brief flash of hurt. “Is that what you want?”

Rage pursed his lips. Why did she turn the tables on him? Would it somehow make her feel less… accountable if he were the rejecter? She had nothing to be remorseful about. Whether he liked it or not, her decision to forgo an affair for a more appropriate future was perfectly understandable.

But he wasn’t about to play some kind of game to assuage her misplaced guilt.

He held her gaze. “Lucinda, I know the truth.”

She shook her head. “The truth? What truth?”

Now he pursed his lips. He had not expected this dodging of the facts, this pretending. Not from her.

“You needn’t lie for my benefit,” he said, his tone harsher than perhaps he had intended it to be. “I know that you are interested in finding a new husband from the ton.”

Chapter Six

It took every ounce of control in Lucinda for her not to step away from Ronan in shock at his statement. She wasn’t certain what mystified her most, that he thought she was looking to marry, or that he said such a thing as if it were proven fact.

“Who told you this?” she asked when she could find her voice.

He shrugged and though the action was meant to be nonchalant, she could see, yet again, the anger he was barely controlling. He believed this to be true, and was far from happy about it. A situation that would have to be dealt with in a moment, but first…

“I have a right to know,” she said softly. “Since that person was speaking about me.”

Ronan pursed his lips. “Stone,” he finally said, his tone clipped and lacking all the warmth she normally liked about his voice.

“I never said that,” she insisted with a shake of her head.

“No?” His eyes went wide, though Lucinda wasn’t sure if that was because he was surprised at her denial in general, or that it was Nicholas’s words she denied. She didn’t normally go around calling someone a liar. Especially her brother-in-law.

“No,” she insisted and reached out to touch his arm. There was a shock of awareness that came with that touch, but she needed him to know she wasn’t lying. To connect with him physically, as if that would somehow confirm everything she said.

He stared down at her fingers, clenched on his arm. The tension in his muscles, his tendons almost pulsed beneath her touch, beneath his coat. He was warm, so warm.

“Then where did Stone get such an idea?” Ronan asked after a moment, his voice quiet and nonjudgmental.

She sighed. When she told him the truth, she would be utterly exposed and at his mercy. She wasn’t certain if she was ready for that or not. But she had little choice.

“I did speak to Nicholas,” she admitted. “But I only asked how he would feel if I developed an interest in a new man.”

Both Ronan’s eyebrows lifted slightly.

“I never said marriage,” she whispered. “He did.”

He stared down at her, utterly still and so damned unreadable. But he said nothing. He only looked at her with those bright blue eyes that seemed to see to her very soul. In the moonlight they were even more pale and piercing.

In that moment, a fissure of intense desire rocked her body. She wanted this man so much that it was dizzying. Terrifying. And undeniable.

She eased a little closer. They were out in the garden, in the open where anyone could see how close she was if they came looking for them. But so far away from the house, where she couldn’t see prying eyes, where she couldn’t hear their whispers, she felt protected by the night.

“Ronan,” she whispered. “You told me before you left that I could have anything I desired.”

He caught his breath and then nodded once. “I did. And what do you want?”

His voice was so low, so gravelly and seductive. She felt it drag along her spine, draw heat from her entire being and pool it between her legs. Her knees shook with it and she could barely breathe, couldn’t speak.

So instead, she reached up and gently cupped the back of his neck. She drew him down toward her and pressed her lips to his in the kiss she had been aching for since he left three days before.

If Ronan had been holding back during their walk or while she made her confession, his hesitation was wiped away in an instant. He crushed his arms around her, dragging her body flush to his as his mouth parted over hers. Lucinda parted her lips and allowed him access with a deep, low moan that she hardly recognized as her own, it was so wanton. But she couldn’t help it. This felt so right, so utterly, wickedly, completely right.

She dug her fingers into the lapel of his coat, lifting herself closer, flattening her body to his to be as near to him as possible. In fact, there was only one way they could be closer.

As if he sensed her thought, he drew back and stared down at her. Without a word, he took her hand and guided her backward, further from the house, away from all the light but the moon. He didn’t stop until they had reached a gazebo far at the edge of the garden path.

He backed inside, drawing her with him.

“Tell me you don’t want this,” he murmured. “And I’ll stop.”

She shook her head. “Don’t stop.”

He moved with the crouched power and speed of a jungle cat and suddenly she was in his arms a second time. But this time, there was a desperation to the way he held her, a wild desire-fueled need that she recognized could only be quenched in one way.

And she couldn’t wait.

Desperate, she grabbed for his cravat. The sloppy knot slipped loose with little urging and she tossed it away and worked next on the buttons of his shirt. One by one, she tore them free, revealing more and more tight, muscle rippled, tanned skin. Skin she wanted to feel against her own. Skin she wanted to taste in the most shocking ways.

“Slow down,” he urged as he caught her fingers in his.

She shook her head. “Everything in my life has been slow,” she whispered. “For two years, I’ve been walking through water, wanting to move and being held back by expectation and pain and grief. I don’t want to be slow now.” She blinked, for she had never said these things to anyone else. She had hardly allowed herself to feel them. “I want to be free. I want to be alive.”

She pushed his jacket off his shoulders and it hit the ground with a soft crumple of heavy fabric. “Make me alive.”

He growled low in his throat and then his mouth was on hers, hard and heavy. He pushed her back further into the gazebo until her backside hit the low wall. He lifted her onto the narrow expanse of wood and cradled her back with one hand as he cupped her neck with the other. He wasn’t wearing gloves and she realized, through her fog, that this was the first time she had been touched so intimately, a man’s bare skin on her bare skin, in a very long time.

She arched into the touch with a keening moan of pleasure that turned to a cry as he dragged that same hand lower, over her bare collarbone, down to the sloping neckline of her silken ballgown. She thought he might stop there, but he didn’t. His fingers dipped under the hem of the fine fabric and he found one rigid nipple with his rough knuckles.

Lucinda shivered, her knees shaking as he pinched and plucked the nub of sensitive flesh. And held her gaze with every wicked touch, almost daring her to be as bold as he was. All propriety told her to look away from him as he did these things to her, but she tossed that propriety aside and held his gaze, lost in the intensity of his stare and his hot, skilled touch.

“I want to see you,” he whispered. “In the moonlight.”

She swallowed. She had born two children and while Anthony had always complimented her body, she wasn’t sure a stranger, one without the feelings that had blinded her husband to her faults, would look at her with the same eyes. But she had moved onto this path. There was no going back.

She stepped away and turned her back to him. “Will you unbutton me?” she whispered, her voice shaking with the question.

He leaned forward, his body curving around hers from behind until his hot breath tickled her ear and she lifted herself into him without even thinking of the action. She felt the hard ridge of his erection against her bottom and shivered at the feel of it. He groaned against her skin and then his fingers came up to the tiny, pearl buttons that ran along the back of her delicate gown. One by one, he freed them, taking his time, pressing the fabric aside with each button… and finally leaning down to press a hot, wet kiss along the skin he revealed there.

She gasped as the tension built in her, rising to a level of heat that was close to painful. She needed… well, she wasn’t quite sure how to articulate it in language that would convey the intensity of her desire. Words a man of his dangerous past would take seriously. But she wanted him. In every way.

Now.

Her dress gaped in the back and she stepped away from his teasing fingers and turned to face him. Slowly, she pulled the gown down her arms, pulling her flimsy chemise away in the same action. Inch by inch, she revealed herself until the gown dangled uselessly around her waist and her breasts naked in the moonlight.

The cool air brushed her bare flesh and it was a sobering reminder of their precarious position. If she listened closely enough, she could actually hear the light sounds of the orchestra inside the ballroom. Anyone could find them. Anyone could see.

And yet that idea of being caught didn’t discourage Lucinda from this course. If anything, it thrilled her all the more.

“My God, you are more beautiful than in any of my dreams,” Ronan murmured.

Lucinda stared. “Your dreams?”

“Oh yes. I have dreamed of you since we kissed, sweet,” he purred as he inched closer. He reached out and tugged at the dress still tangled at her hips. “Like this.”

The gown fell away and she was suddenly utterly naked beyond a silken pair of stockings and a pair of high heeled slippers.

She lifted her hand to cover herself out of instinct, but Ronan caught her fingers and kept her from her modest impulse. Instead, he lifted her hand and slid it into the opening in his shirt that she had created. To her surprise, she felt the pounding throb of his heart against her fingertips, and it beat as wildly as her own.

He smiled, then his head dipped and he pressed his mouth to her throat. His tongue burned her sensitive flesh, branding her in a way she feared she would never recover from, even after this… affair, she supposed one would call it, had ended. In some way, though, she welcomed the branding touch. So she wouldn’t forget it.

His mouth moved lower and all thoughts emptied from her mind.

Rage was having a hard time controlling himself. Everything in him screamed that doing this outside, in a gazebo, was not how he had pictured making love to Lucinda the first time. Though they were away from the house, they weren’t so far that someone couldn’t stumble upon them if they came deep into the garden. They should have been in a soft bed, with a locked door.

He should have been protecting her more.

But once she groaned, once she told him to make her feel alive, all semblance of the gentleman he had been trying to be fled. He was pure animal instinct now, and that instinct drove him to take, claim, brand, taste… to do it all before Lucinda returned to her senses and told him to stop.

He sucked her nipple between his lips and stroked his tongue over the turgid tip. Lucinda’s cry echoed in the night and she arched toward him, her nails combing over his scalp as she held him closer to her. He obliged her silent request… or was it an order? Either way, he sucked harder, tasting her, responding to her responsiveness and knowing that with every stroke of his tongue, he was driving her past a point of no return. And closer to the moment when he would drive his body into hers and claim her for once and for all.

But that moment was still some time away. It had been a long time for Lucinda and he wanted her to be completely ready, on the edge, trembling with anticipation.

He dragged his mouth lower, pressing hot kissing to the side of her breast and then to her belly. As he did so, he moved her once again. There was a low bench in the gazebo and that would be the perfect place for what he had in mind.

He urged her to sit, and she did so without argument. She even left him room to sit beside her, but that wasn’t what he had in mind. He stripped his shirt off, reveling in the way she caught her breath. The way she stared up at him like she had never seen a man before.

“Great God,” she whispered, more to herself than for his ears. “You are unlike anyone I’ve ever seen before.”

Rage knew she meant that reverent whisper as a compliment, but there was some part of him that was still self-conscious. Of course she hadn’t seen anyone like him. He had scars from fights, both fair and decidedly unfair. He had a tattoo on the bicep of his right arm, which only the lowest of men possessed. It meant something to him, but it had to be quite shocking to a lady like her. He was rough in every way that she was refined. He didn’t belong with her, but he was here.

And he was going to take full advantage.

He dropped the shirt in front of her and dropped to his knees on the soft fabric. With her seated and him on his knees they were eye to eye and as he slipped his arms around her and dragged her forward on the bench, the intensity of their gaze was almost unbearably intimate.

“Ronan,” she whispered, and her voice trembled.

“Are you afraid?” he murmured.

She blinked. “I-I suppose I am. I almost feel like I’ve never done this before. Like I might fall if I’m not careful.”

“I won’t let you,” he whispered and in that moment he meant that promise like none he had ever uttered. “I’ll catch you. Just trust in me.”

She swallowed and both of them knew what he was asking. Trust him, a man unlike any she’d ever known. A man who until a few days before had been little more than a vague acquaintance with a scandalous past. And yet she nodded regardless of those facts.

“I trust you.”

Rage’s heart swelled, but he tamped emotion aside. Emotion only complicated these things, it was best to go by desire and touch… those things were more reliable.

He broke the far-too-intense gaze and returned his lips to her breast. Immediately she relaxed back on the bench with a broken sigh. Her body went limp and he actually felt her surrender.

Lucinda was weightless, boneless, as Ronan dragged his mouth down her body. He seemed intent on tasting every inch of her flesh and the very thought of that made her weak with anticipation. She wanted to open herself to him, to drag him inside her waiting flesh, but there was too much propriety ingrained in her to do something so wild and uncharacteristic. She could only hope that he would feel her unspoken needs and tend to them.

And he did. Lower and lower, he tasted her until his lips brushed her thigh. Lucinda caught her breath. He wouldn’t…. not here in the night? Not the first time they were together? Would he?

He answered her unspoken question by parting her legs further and gliding his fingers up the inside f her thigh. He looked up at her, holding her gaze as he stroked the entrance to her sex gently.

“I want to taste you,” he whispered.

Lucinda felt the hot blood flood her cheeks, both from embarrassment at his bluntness and pure arousal at the same. “Yes,” she said, opening herself without hesitation.

He smiled and then his attention returned to her slick entrance. He parted her outer folds with his thumbs and swept a finger across the wetness there. Lucinda jolted with the pure, focused pleasure at that act. But that was nothing compared to when he adjusted himself on the shirt he was using as a cushion and pressed his hot mouth to her sex.

Almost immediately, her body pulsed with long-denied sensations, pleasure so pure and focused that it bordered on pain, relief that she would have this experience. With this man. On this night.

And Ronan gave her no quarter to think about what was happening. His skilled mouth and tongue went to work, tasting her every fold, sucking and licking until she trembled. And finally, slowly, he swirled his mouth around the hidden pearl of her pleasure.

She exploded without warning, trembling, crying out, fisting her fingers against the edge of the bench she sat on as the pleasure rolled over her in wave after wave after wave, until she felt she was to be swept away by it and lost forever in this sea of sensation.

Rage looked up. In the moonlight, Lucinda’s expression was one of shattered pleasure. Her chest heaved, her eyes were glazed, her cheeks pink. She looked ravished and he wanted to take that ravishment even further.

He stood and she whimpered as his body stopped touching hers.

“Don’t worry,” he said as he shed his trousers at some kind of record speed. “We’re not finished.”

He moved toward her, but she held up a hand.

“Stop,” she said, her voice tense.

He froze. Stop. He hadn’t even considered she would say such a thing, not when she was dewy with sweat and flushed with release. But she had said it, and he had enough of a gentleman in him to obey that command.

“I-I’m sorry-” he began.

Her dark blue gaze came up to his face and she shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. I’m-”

She dropped her stare and Rage realized she was staring at his erection, jutted proudly against his abdomen, waiting to claim her as she had been born to be claimed.

“You are… amazing,” she breathed and reached out to him.

He stared as her fingers closed around him and let out a long, low groan at the feel of her soft fist clenching around his hard cock. She looked up as she stroked him once, twice.

“Much more of that and I’ll be unmanned,” he growled, reaching down to catch her wrist and slow the movement of her wicked hand. “And I want to feel you around me before that happens.”

He pulled and brought her to her feet. He kissed her, letting her taste the remnants of her own pleasure on his lips. She murmured incoherent sound of pleasure and need against his tongue between the hard, heavy kisses she met him with.

It was too much. Control shattered and he lifted her, wrapping her legs around his waist as he pressed her back against one of the thick, wooden support beams that held the gazebo roof above them. She hissed out pleasure as he readjusted himself against her slick and welcoming entrance and then pushed.

She opened to him, welcoming him into her heat as he took her in one long stroke. And then he held perfectly still, enjoying the clenching sweetness of her channel around his hard cock, breathing in long, hard breaths that matched her own pants of anticipation and pleasure.

“Please,” she whispered as she pressed her lips to his bare throat. “Please.”

He thrust again, again, harder, faster, driving himself into her, taking her in every sense of the word. But she was no shrinking flower. She rode at the same pace that he set, meeting his strokes with her own. Their mouths merged, warring and surrendering in equal measure. Her breasts rubbed his bare chest, her thighs clenched around his hips. Finally, she dipped her head back, her body tensing and quivering around his and let out a keening cry that cut through his body, through his soul. With great reluctance, he pulled free of her and his seed splashed between them as he gave an animal grunt of release.

Chapter Seven

For a long moment, the only sounds around them were the soft chirps of crickets and the even fainter remnants of the music at the main house. Then Lucinda looked at him and Rage realized he still had her pinned against the support beam of the gazebo. She blushed, turning her face as he set her on her feet and steadied her before he released her and took a reluctant step away.

She was even more beautiful in this moment than she had been before. Her blonde hair was disheveled and fell around her face in loose bouncing curls, her skin was flushed with self-awareness and the remnants of release and she remained naked. Perfect. And she had just been his, if only for a brief moment. His.

“Here.” He dug a handkerchief from his discarded jacket pocket and handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she said as she took the item and wiped away the evidence of his release from her bare skin.

With another blush, she bent and picked up her discarded gown, freeing the chemise and shaking away the dust and twigs the fabric had gathered from the gazebo floor before she held it up to herself as some kind of shield.

He picked up his own pants and pulled them on. When he was covered, she seemed more relaxed and set her gown aside to pull her chemise over her head. The dress was next, a wrinkled bit of proof of what they had just done.

“Let me,” he said as she struggled to button herself. He turned her and refastened her gown as deftly as he had unbuttoned it just a short time before. When he was finished, she turned back toward him with another blush.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “Y-You are very good at that. Certainly more experienced than I am.”

Rage tilted his head. Was that her fear?

“My life has been markedly different than yours, Lucinda.” He shrugged. “But trust that what we just shared is nothing like anything else I’ve ever experienced.”

She smiled but then the expression faded. Rage wrinkled his brow with worry.

“Do you have regrets?” he asked, almost fearing the answer. “About what happened between us?”

She was quiet for a moment, long enough that Rage’s chest tightened. Then she shook her head. “Not regret,” she said softly. “There was too much passion and pleasure for regret, and you certainly gave me enough time to consider this by leaving, so it wasn’t as if I was completely swept away from my senses.”

“Thank you,” he teased.

She laughed. “You know what I meant. Only that I made the decision to be with you with a fully functioning mind. Knowing the consequences. I just hadn’t thought…”

She trailed off and Rage moved forward. “Thought?”

One delicate shoulder lifted slightly. “I have never been with another man beyond my husband.”

Rage flinched and hoped she hadn’t seen the reaction.

“I see.”

She looked at him. “No, I do not think that you do. It isn’t that I compared you. That would be dreadfully unfair to both you and to his memory. But it is a very odd thing, to have thought for so long that I would share my body with only one man and then to… find another.”

Rage tilted his head. “Odd, but not bad?”

“Not bad,” she reassured him in that gentle tone he’d heard her gift to so many others. “And I believe the next time I will not even have these tangled thoughts.”

Rage took a long step back at her surprisingly bold statement. “Next time,” he repeated as he tried to recall exactly how one breathed. Was it in and out, for the action seemed very foreign to him in that moment.

She nodded. “Yes. Unless you do not wish to continue this… what would you call it? This affair with me.”

Rage’s chest all but puffed up with the idea that he could have her again. That this time he could make love to her slowly, on his bed, for example. That he could study her every reaction and sigh in order to exploit those things to give her more pleasure.

“I do not feel the need to label what we share,” he said softly. “Only to tell you that it can be whatever you like. Last as long as you wish for it to last. You get to choose, Lucinda.”

Lucinda’s eyes went wide and she blinked a few times before her wide smile thrilled him. “What a novel concept.”

“Then enjoy it.”

Her smile fell, replaced by a sensual expression that would have impressed even the most experienced courtesan. She nodded. “Oh, I intend to do just that. To the fullest.”

She touched her hair and laughed. “But at this moment, I think the best thing for me to do is to sneak back into the house before anyone sees me looking like a wanton.”

“Would you like me to escort you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No. The house is but a short way away. And if I were to be caught in your company, certainly no one could be persuaded that we weren’t… well, doing exactly what we did do together. No, you go back up to the party since you look none the worse for our encounter. And I will see you tomorrow?”

He stepped forward and took her hand. Gently, he drew her forward to kiss her one last time… at least for this night. She melted into his embrace. It was different than before. Now that they had made love, she fit differently into his arms. She responded quicker, she relaxed more. It took everything in him not to just sweep her into his arms and have her again, either here or back in his chamber in the house.

In fact, it was Lucinda, who stepped away, slightly off kilter, pink with exertion and pleasure.

“Good night, Ronan,” she murmured before she scurried from the gazebo back up the path toward the kitchen entrance to the manor house.

He watched her make her escape, memorizing each foot fall, the way she held her skirt. And he didn’t look away until she had disappeared around a corner. Only then did he turn and brace himself on the gazebo wall with both hands.

Normally he was a man who planned his every move. A fighter by heart, not just by action. He wanted to plan for his next attack, his next defense. But as much as he had driven this affair with Lucinda, already it had spiraled into something out of his control.

And as uncomfortable as that made him… he also embraced it. And the knowledge that tomorrow he would see her again.

~~~

When would she see him again?

Lucinda shifted in her chair and tried not to look at the parlor door for what seemed like the twentieth time since joining Jane for tea just half an hour before.

“Are you well?” her sister-in-law asked her.

The question dragged Lucinda back to reality… and made her wonder at the answer herself. Was she well? In the way Jane meant it, of course. She was healthy, and aside from missing her daughters, more relaxed than she had been in years.

But then there were the other ways one could be well. Last night she had hardly slept. When she did sleep, she had dreamed of Ronan and making love to him again and again. She had woken alone, frustrated and desperate to see him, almost to verify that what they had done was real and not just some vivid fantasy or dream.

Only Ronan and Nicholas had not joined them thus far today. Something about a long-planned excursion shooting or riding or some equally manly diversion.

“Lucinda?” Jane said and now there was increased concern to her tone.

Lucinda shook away her thoughts. “I’m sorry. Yes, I’m well, thank you.”

Jane arched a brow and slowly sipped her tea. “You simply seem very distracted.”

Lucinda nearly sucked her tea into her lungs. Oh dear, she was not good at clandestine affairs, that was certain. Not if everyone in her immediate vicinity could so easily see that her mind flitted about restlessly. She looked at Jane. Over time, she had come to see her sister-in-law as a good friend, and perhaps under other circumstances she might have confessed the reason for her “distraction”. But there was a very strong sticking point.

Jane was married to Nicholas, and she would certainly tell him if Lucinda confessed to making love to Ronan in their garden. Revealing that to his best friend was not her place.

So instead of lightening her soul with confession, Lucinda shrugged and hoped she seemed calm and unaffected. “Oh no, not distracted. Just enjoying the quiet, though I do miss my girls.”

Jane nodded slowly and Lucinda could only hope she would accept her half-truth without question. It was certainly a very reasonable explanation.

“Very good,” Jane finally said after what seemed like an eternity of contemplation. “We were quite worried when you vanished from the ball last night.”

Heat flooded Lucinda’s cheeks and she cursed her body for its betrayal. “Well, as I said this morning when you asked me about it, I only had a touch of a headache. I didn’t want to trouble anyone, so I just took to my bed. I feel perfectly fine now.”

There was a long pause and then Jane leaned forward to pour herself a second cup of tea.

“You know, Rage disappeared for some time last night, as well.” Jane lifted her gaze to Lucinda and held her stare evenly. “I wonder if headaches are contagious.”

Lucinda swallowed and struggled to keep her face neutral. She had never been a very good liar.

“Hmm,” she croaked out past a suddenly dry throat that even a huge gulp of tea didn’t soothe. “Well, I wouldn’t know. Did Mr. Riley also say he was suffering a headache?”

Jane shook her head. “No. I mentioned his absence when he returned to our company but you know Rage. He only replied with a shrug. And Nicholas didn’t see it as odd. Rage doesn’t like these events. I just thought it odd that you two would vanish at the same time.”

Now Lucinda’s hands trembled slightly and she gripped her tea cup even tighter. “And did Nicholas also comment on the coincidence?”

Jane laughed. “Nicholas is the man to turn to if you want someone to notice a nefarious character in a crowded room or to find the best horse at an auction… but my dear husband rarely notices little Societal, er, coincidences. And if he does, he sees nothing meaningful in them.”

Lucinda barely contained her sigh of relief. “Well, perhaps that is how we should all be. A coincidence is sometimes just that.”

Jane tilted her head and her stare seemed to pierce Lucinda’s skin and go all the way to her very soul. She didn’t appear judgmental, just curious, as if she were trying to solve a riddle. Her intense scrutiny made Lucinda shift in her chair and her heart beat all the faster.

Finally, Jane shrugged. “You may be correct in that, my dear. In our Society, too often there are coincidences turned to damaging rumor. But you know, Rage is a very handsome man. Many a woman in your station has commented to me on his finer qualities.”

Perhaps Jane meant that comment as a comfort, and Lucinda knew she should be more concerned that Jane was aware that she had an interest in Ronan… but instead she felt… jealous. “Other woman have spoken to you about him?”

Jane nodded. “Many, actually. He has a quality about him that is so different from many of the men they know. I think he is a fascination.”

Lucinda pursed her lips. “I see.”

At her tone, Jane’s brow wrinkled. “I only say that because I think no one could blame you if you felt an attraction to him.”

“Oh, some could,” Lucinda murmured, then blushed. “If I were to feel such an attraction, I mean.”

Jane stared at her. “Lucinda-”

“There would be consequences to such a thing,” Lucinda interrupted. “And it isn’t as if I know the man that well. Handsome or not, attraction or not, there are other things to consider.”

Jane nodded. “Yes, I suppose that is true, especially since you have children. But I have learned from very personal experience that what others think or do or say really doesn’t matter when it comes to matters of the heart.”

The heart. Lucinda shut her eyes. In all honesty, she wasn’t certain if what was happening between her and Ronan had to do with the heart, or just the lusty demands of a long-denied body.

“And as for knowing him,” Jane said with a shrug. “Any time I have seen you two together since your arrival, you two seem to have an easy rapport. Since you’ll be here for a while longer, it seems the perfect time to become better acquainted.”

Lucinda set her tea cup down and got to her feet. “Goodness Jane, you are creating a situation where there is none. I do like Mr. Riley, I admit. He is an interesting companion, but I-”

Jane raised her hand. “You needn’t say more. I pried and it was not my business.” She stood and reached her hands out to take Lucinda’s. “I only want you to be happy, however you find that emotion. And I hope that if you need a friend to listen to you, you will think of me.”

Lucinda drew a long breath. Jane was only trying to be helpful. There was no reason to behave otherwise. She squeezed her sister-in-law’s fingers gently.

“I know you are a great friend to me,” she reassured Jane. “And I do appreciate your kindness and your concern on my behalf. But I’m afraid I must find my own way.”

Jane nodded but she didn’t seem reassured. “Of course.”

“Now I believe I will retire to my room for a bit. I find myself tired and perhaps a nap will help.”

“Whatever you wish, Lucinda,” Jane said as Lucinda made her way to the parlor door.

Lucinda smiled, but the expression fell as she stepped into the hall. Jane’s words mirrored Ronan’s. Whatever she wished… well, what if she didn’t know what she wished?

She moved up the stairs, her mind racing with each step. Thoughts of Anthony, thoughts of Ronan, thoughts of Nicholas’s reaction if he knew what she had done…. Thoughts of disappointing others, of bringing harm to her children, of becoming too entangled with a man who had and could only offer her brief pleasure. These were thoughts she had debated before she made love to Ronan, but now they all seemed much louder, more intense.

So intense that she did not notice a person come up behind her, follow her into her chamber. Not until she turned to close her door and found herself face to face with the one man who would only confuse all the issues she was currently pondering.

It was Ronan, himself. If he had ever worn a jacket, he had discarded it before coming to her chamber. His cravat had gone with it and his crisp, white shirt was open at the throat, revealing tanned skin. He had rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, leaving his muscular forearms fascinatingly bare.

She wanted to say something. She knew there was probably some appropriate response to his sudden appearance in her room. But she couldn’t think of it. Even if she could have when she first turned, all words and thoughts and rationality left her when he reached back to shut and lock her door.

Chapter Eight

Rage stared at Lucinda for what felt like an eternity before either of them spoke. He had spent a night dreaming of her and a day fantasizing about her, but now that she stood before him, all he could do was memorize each line of her face and wonder at the fact that she had given herself to him so freely and so sweetly.

“Ronan,” she finally whispered and her hand stirred at her side like she wanted to touch his cheek, but forced herself not to do so. “I-I thought you were out with Nicholas for the day.”

He nodded. “We were meant to be, but I managed to convince Stone that he should enjoy having his wife back at home.”

Lucinda smiled, and though it was a smaller version of the bright expression that always so moved him, his heart still stuttered at it.

“Did it take so much convincing?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. When it comes to Jane, Stone needs little convincing of anything. I suppose I never understood that until…”

He stopped. No, he could not compare the desire he felt toward Lucinda to the deep love that Jane and Stone felt. It wasn’t fair, not to them and not to himself.

“Well, I wanted to see you,” he said instead. “I needed to see you and be certain that what happened between us last night was real.”

Lucinda gasped and took a step toward him. “That is exactly how I felt all day. There were times when I wondered if I had only dreamed what happened in the garden.”

Once the words left her lips, she immediately blushed and turned her face.

He reached out and cupped her chin, lifting until she had to look at him.

“It was no dream,” he reassured her as he drew her closer. “And I have longed to repeat it today, only this time in a bed where I can take my time and pleasure you as you deserve to be pleasured.”

Her lips parted and a tiny sound escaped them, a combination of a sigh and a groan. Then she reached up, cupped his cheeks and kissed him. Her ardor surprised him for the briefest of moments, but then he surrendered to it, slanting his mouth over hers and drinking in her flavor like a man who had been deprived sustenance for days. It was as good an analogy as any, for he felt starved for her, hungry and out of control.

If she sensed that animal nature in him, though, she didn’t seem to mind. She returned his kiss with equal passion, intense desperation that gave him a sense of primal male pride. He had done this to her. He had made her needy and weak. And he could pleasure her until she wept and begged and shattered with relief and release.

He spun her around until he pressed her back to the door and broke the kiss. He stared deeply into her eyes as he ground against her, letting her feel the hard ridge of his erection, tormenting himself even as she gurgled out an incoherent sound of needy desire. Holding her steady with his hip, he reached up and popped the little buttons that ran along the front of her gown. They fell open and he tugged, pulling her dress away in one sweep and leaving her only in her chemise.

Last night they hadn’t had time, he’d had to rush to keep their clandestine activities from being discovered. This afternoon they had hours. Stone had been as anxious to reach Jane as Rage was to find Lucinda. He doubted either couple would find a reason to seek out the other.

He intended to take full, wicked advantage of that privacy.

He stepped back and simply stared at her, drinking in her loveliness as she leaned against the door and drew in short breath after breath.

“Why do you look at me that way?” she whispered.

He shook his head. “Because I’ve never been with a woman so beautiful, so desirable. So seductive.”

Her cheeks tinged pink. “I do not try to be seductive, I wouldn’t know how.”

He grinned as he reached out to take her hand. “And that is why it drives me wild. You seduce me by simply standing there. By saying my name.”

Her lips parted and then she whispered, “Ronan.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. How could she not know what that sound meant to him? Not his nickname, not his formal name… but his real name had hardly been spoken and the last people who had called him by it had done so with no kindness. But Lucinda whispered it and he wanted to be Ronan. Not Rage the boxer, not Mr. Riley the estate manager… but Ronan, a man he hardly knew, but who could make a woman like Lucinda Stoneworth desire him.

“Ronan,” she repeated, this time stronger.

He opened his eyes and watched as her trembling hand reached for him. She cupped his cheek gently before she drew him down and kissed him. Rage dragged her toward him, holding her against him as their mouths merged in a preview of what their bodies would soon do.

It was Lucinda who pulled away and for a brief moment Rage was filled with worry that she would tell him they couldn’t do this again. But then she smiled. She reached out to take his hand and guided him through her sitting room and into her bedroom. She pushed the secondary door shut behind them with a slight nudge of her shoulder and continued on to the bed. There she stopped and looked up at him with wide eyes.

“May I still have whatever I desire?” she asked.

Rage nodded slowly, mesmerized by her expression, a combination of nervousness and bold sensuality.

“Good.”

She smiled and then lifted her trembling fingers to the opening in his shirt. She let her knuckles brush his bare skin and they let out a sigh in unison. Her smile grew, mischievous and tempting, before she found the first button on his shirt and slipped it free. With each button, the rate of her breath increased and her eyes grew softer with desire and surrender.

It took everything in Rage not to throw her on the bed, lift the edge of her flimsy chemise and simply rut with her like an animal. He wanted to enjoy her seduction, and to enjoy seducing her in return. So he clenched his fists at his sides and allowed her to slip her hands beneath his shirt and slide it away from his shoulders.

She gasped and stepped away from him to stare.

“The moonlight did not do you justice,” she whispered as she lifted her gaze to his.

Rage smiled, though he came as close to blushing as he had in his entire life. Her stare was focused that it seemed she could see right through him to anything he wanted to hide.

But he forgot that discomfort when she edged closer and pressed her soft lips to his chest. Rage groaned and his fingers slipped into her hair, scattering pins across the floor at her feet as she gently suckled and tasted his bare flesh.

Lucinda could only go by instinct when it came to temptation. By what she liked, how she wanted to be touched. But judging by Ronan’s low moans and how his fingers fisted in her hair, she was on the correct path to pleasuring him. Her lips closed over one flat nipple and he swore.

She smiled against his flesh. So, she was stealing his control. Good. After all, he had more than done the same to her the night before.

He fisted her hair in his palm and very gently tilted her face up toward him.

“Be very careful, my lady,” he whispered, his tone rough and low. “You will soon pass a point of no return.”

A wicked thrill rushed through Lucinda. Perhaps he had meant that statement as a warning, but she took it as a challenge. How far could she go before his control would snap and he would just… take her? How much could she make him squirm as he fought to keep himself in check?

“You make that sound like a bad thing,” she said with a light laugh as she took the hand she had rested on his bare chest and began a soft, teasing trail down his stomach until she reached the waistband of his trousers.

His teeth ground as she slipped her fingers back and forth along the spot where fabric met flesh, then she slowly slid lower until she felt the ridge of his erection through the fine wool of his pants.

“Lucinda,” he managed past clenched teeth.

“So this is the point of no return?” she teased, full of disbelief at her own boldness. She cupped him, trembling at his hardness, then slid her fist from the base of his member to the head. “Or this?”

“Enough,” he growled before he swept her from her feet and deposited her on the bed.

In one smooth motion, he stripped from his trousers and then his heavy, hard body was on her, his mouth taking hers with hungry, wild passion that stole her breath, her words, her thoughts, her everything. She arched beneath him, rubbing her still cloth-covered breasts against his hard chest, clinging to his shoulders as she spiraled further and further away from anything resembling control or calm.

And then his hand was on her outer thigh, massaging her tender flesh, parting her legs with just the slightest encouragement. She felt the hard length of him at her entrance and held her breath as she waited for him to slam inside of her and set her free from a torment of her own making.

But he didn’t claim with violence or speed. Instead, he pulled away from her, watching her face as he glided into a perfect joining, inch by inch, slow and steady. Lucinda cried out as her body adjusted around his thickness, and lifted her hips to force him to fit himself into her completely, but he would not be forced or moved.

He chuckled, a low sound that tingled in her ears and made her nipples harden against the soft cotton fabric of her chemise.

“You started this game, Lucinda,” he murmured. “You toyed and teased and now you pay.”

Her eyes widened as she realized what a dangerous position she was truly in. She had played with fire, seduced with a master of seduction. And his revenge was clearly to be this slow, heated pleasure that tore through her veins and made her long to beg for more… more of him, more of this, more feeling.

“Please…” she began and her breath caught when he eased even further into her waiting body.

He laughed again and his bright blue eyes danced. “Very nice. I like Lucinda who begs. Say it again.”

She swallowed hard and he gently, slowly, swirled his hips. Pure pleasure rocked her entire body with just that small motion and the word he had demanded was torn from her lips.

“Please!”

“Interesting,” he drawled as he pressed his palms into the bed on either side of her head and lifted himself slightly. “I am learning so much about you, Lucinda. And trust that I am storing that knowledge away to use against you.”

He arched into her again and Lucinda cried out a second time. But of course he stilled, and her aching body burned for him to continue.

“You are terrible,” she gasped with a smile of her own. “Too cruel.”

“Indeed,” he said before he leaned down to kiss her mouth far too chastely for her taste. “Did no one tell you that I am a very…” he punctuated the word with another kiss. “…bad…” again he kissed her “…man?”

Despite her trembling body, Lucinda laughed. “A villain of the truest order. And you hold all but my life in your hands. So how may I bargain to obtain what I desire… what I need?”

Rage arched a brow. This playful Lucinda, seductive and spirited, was a new side to her and he liked it, probably more than he should have. It also drove him to keep her this way, to never let her frown or her tears return.

And that he could not promise, even if she wanted such a thing.

But he had her now.

“You wish to bargain with me?” he teased. “To obtain this?”

He punctuated the question with another painfully gentle thrust. Her body clenched around him like a hot vice and his cock already felt close to explosion from pleasure. But he liked tormenting her and teasing her and taking his time with her.

“God, yes,” she gasped as she arched into him.

He smiled. “There are so many interesting demands I could make, but you are too pretty to torture, especially since I, in turn, torture myself with every moment I do not move within you. So I will ask one boon of you. Ask me very nicely.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “All this and all you want is to hear me ask you… again… to make me yours?”

He nodded. When she put it like that, yes, that was exactly what he wanted her to ask of him.

“Please, Ronan,” She emphasized his name and he shuddered. “Please make me yours. Claim me now. Please.”

He could have responded, kept teasing her, told her to phrase her plea a little differently, but there was something so pure in her request, so real that he couldn’t hold back anymore. He drew back and then drove into her, not hard but steadily. She quivered beneath him as he took her, rising to meet his every thrust, clinging to his shoulders as he claimed her body with each slippery stroke.

Lucinda never took her eyes from his face and he could see the strain in her delicate throat, in the flush of her cheeks. She was close to the brink of shattering with pleasure. To help her along in her crisis, he began a few short grinding thrusts, letting his pelvis stroke her clit even as he moved deep within her.

He felt her orgasm before she let out the keening cry that accompanied it. Her entire body tensed, quivers massaging his cock with delicious tiny earthquakes. She dug her fingers into his back, stiffening up into his chest as tears of relief and release rolled down her hot, pink cheeks.

Her crisis cued his own and with a grunt, he withdrew and spent with his own primal cry that merged like music with hers.

When their panting breaths had blended to one, Lucinda wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close to her for a kiss that was filled with sleepy, satisfied passion and warmth. He melted into it and into her as he rolled to his side and tucked her against him on the bed.

For a long time, they were both silent and Rage let his eyes come closed so he could simply enjoy this moment of peace and pleasure. They had been so few and far between in his life that they still shocked him when they occurred. He glanced down at the woman in his arms and wondered for a fleeting moment how many more of these moments they could share if only…

Luckily she cut off that dangerous thought by letting go a soft sigh. She lifted her hand to his chest and gently smoothed her fingers along his pectoral muscle. That light touch was enough to begin his blood pumping again.

“I have heard of tattoos before,” she said softly and she moved her fingers from his chest to his exposed right arm where she traced the character there. “But I’ve never seen one before. Does it have some significance?”

Rage nodded as he watched her fingers glide across his marked skin. “Stone and I trained with a man from the Orient when we fought in the Underground. He was from China and this is a character from their language.”

“A letter?” Lucinda asked as she slid her hand back to his chest.

“No. Their language is different from ours. The characters are more like words themselves.”

She glanced up at him. “And what does this one mean?”

“It means anger.” He swallowed. “Rage.”

She shivered and he was fairly certain that the reaction had nothing to do with pleasure this time. A genteel lady was not exposed to that kind of intense emotion very often, or at least she should not be. The concept of that kind of passionate fury that was the very definition of his name could very well be too overwhelming to her. He expected her to turn away, but instead she rolled over on her stomach and leaned her arms on his chest. She stared at him.

“May I ask you a question?”

He laughed as he looked down at their naked and intertwined bodies. “I am surprised you must ask, we have shared a great deal by now.”

She shrugged. “Physically, but my question is personal. And you may not feel comfortable in answering it, even if you have known my body as well as the most intimate of…” She blushed. “…friends would.”

He hesitated. Personal questions had never been comfortable for him. Even Stone, who had been his best friend for years did not pry too deeply into his private life.

“Ask your question,” he finally said, though he let his gaze slip from her face. “And I will decide if I wish to answer it.”

“That is fair.” She tilted her head. “I have known you… or at least known of you… for many years. I have never seen you in a ‘rage’ and yet that emotion is how you identified yourself as a fighter, as a man… you even felt so strongly that you permanently marked it on your skin. How did you come to be called Rage?”

Rage stared at her. Over the years, he had been with many women, but he had never told any of his lovers about his past. That was too close, too personal. His life was private, closed off from those around him. And it certainly wasn’t for the ears of a lady, but looking at her he almost wanted to reveal the truth to her. To say the things he had kept in his heart for years.

“You may be offended by what you hear,” he warned her. “And perhaps you will never want to touch me again. Perhaps you will be sorry you did so in the first place.”

She stared at him in wonder, then leaned up on her arms to bring herself closer.

“Is that what you think of me, Ronan Riley?” She shook her head. “I am not so fragile a flower as you believe. I want to know you because I have touched you, because I have every intention of doing the very same thing again and again. If you don’t want to tell me about your past, I wouldn’t dream of pressing you to do so. But don’t hide your thoughts because you think me too weak to handle them. I wouldn’t have asked if I thought I could not.”

There was a brightness in her stare, a hardness that reminded Rage that this woman had certainly experienced loss and heartbreak. She might not have been from his world, but perhaps she was correct when she believed she could handle his past. If not, then he supposed she would flee and that would be the end of it. Better for her, perhaps, and at least he would have his memories of their brief time together.

“Very well,” he said. “I was born in Ireland, the son of a woman who was once a maid in London before she was disgraced and sent packing. I only have a few memories of her, she died when I was but a child of four. What I do remember is her sadness… and also the fact that she seemed to love me despite the fact that I was a result of her shame.”

Lucinda reached out and intertwined her fingers with his in a silent gesture of comfort. To his surprise, the action did soothe him and he continued.

“Her father, my grandfather, thought less of me. He was an ugly drunk, mean to a fault. I learned to dodge his fists and sometimes his glass when he had too much spirit in him.”

She flinched. “Even at so young an age?”

“I killed his bonny lass, as he took every opportunity to tell me.” A sour taste filled Rage’s mouth at the thought of his grandfather’s bile-filled words and hard, heavy fists.  “Although he didn’t often spare her from his wrath when she lived. I think he was looking for an excuse to kick a dog that was weaker than he was. At any rate, I probably would have ended up dead but then one day a carriage arrived and I was shuttled into it and hustled off to London. The man who took me told me nothing about why or by whom he had been sent. I was taken to a home I did not know and handed over to a maid and the butler in the home of the Duke of Nordcross. They were married and had no children of their own.”

“Were they relatives of your family?” she asked.

He laughed. “The servants? No, not exactly. And I’m fairly certain they had decided to forgo children of their own choice. They certainly did not seem to want me. They were never cruel, though, at least not physically. And there were a few other servants who seemed to take more pity on a child with no place where he belonged. Eventually I surrendered to the fact that I would be living there and that was that.”

She shook her head. “Did you ever hear from your grandfather  in Ireland again? Did he know you were taken?”

Rage shrugged, though as a boy he had questioned that, himself. “He may have made the bargain to send me away himself, he may have simply woken from a stupor to find his whipping boy gone. I have no idea. I made no attempt to reach out to him and he never tried to find me as far as I know. Soon, I had other problems, though. You see, for reasons I didn’t understand at the time, I was sent to the schoolroom to be taught alongside the children of the Duke.”

Lucinda’s eyes went wide. “Forgive me if this sounds insensitive, but that is very uncommon. I highly encourage education for the children of my servants, of course, and am happy to provide an allowance to that end, but I have never heard of a child of a maid or butler being educated alongside the child of a Duke.”

He laughed, though the sound was bitter, indeed, and he feared it revealed more about his thoughts on that matter than he wished to show. “Yes, it was not a usual circumstance, which the Duke’s brats reminded me of on a regular basis. And the Duchess despised it. She made certain I suffered for my involuntary insolence whenever she could manage to punish me.”

“But this does explain why you are so well-spoken,” Lucinda said softly, almost more to herself.

“Yes, my only escape was that I truly loved what I learned in those days. And when the Duke’s children were sent out of the home for their advancing education, I was also sent away. Thank God, it was not to Eaton or some other highbrow school, but it was to a very nice school meant for the sons of merchants and the new rich. So my time there was no better. I drank in the knowledge and fought my way out of scrapes every day after the lessons were over. By the time I was fifteen, I’d had enough. I jumped the wall and was off for London, never to return.”

Lucinda gasped and there was true pain and empathy in her stare. “You were little more than a boy.”

He smiled despite himself. “But certainly not the youngest urchin on the street, my lady. I fought there as easily and as often as I fought anywhere else. After about a year, I was in the middle of a terrible scrape with three other lads. After trouncing them soundly, I turned to find a man watching me. I figured he was there to take me to the law… or worse, and was ready to fight him, too. But for once I had stumbled upon a man who was actually interested in helping me.”

“Easton Hathaway,” Lucinda murmured beneath her breath.

Rage stared at her. “How do you know that name?”

She blushed. “I-I did ask a little about you from Jane and Nicholas. He mentioned Hathaway was the man who took you both in over the years, taught you to fight and got you off the street.”

Rage nodded, though he felt a bit exposed knowing she’d had that information about him without his permission.

“Easton and Ruby took me in, despite how much I wanted to fight any kindness. It was Ruby who first gave me the nickname. One day after pulling me off a patron of their bar who I thought was going to stiff them for his drinks, she said, ‘You’re all rage, are you?’ Easton started calling me Rage after that. And it stuck.”

Lucinda dipped her chin and stared at the bed instead of him. Rage flinched although he didn’t blame her. What he had told her was only a scratch of the surface of his past, but it was more than enough to shock a refined lady. To remind her that she never should have lowered herself to speak to, let alone share herself with, a man so far beneath her in every way.

But when she glanced back up at him, there was neither censure in her stare, nor regret. Only the sparkle of tears.

“Oh Ronan,” she whispered. “Your life was so hard from almost the very start. I hate to hear of a child suffering, of pain turning to anger as a means to survive.”

He shook his head. “But that anger has faded over time. Thanks to Easton, God rest his rough, old soul and Ruby. And Nicholas. And… you.”

She blushed from her cheeks to the swell of her breasts. “I cannot imagine how I could have ever helped you. Not in such a short time.”

He shrugged. “I don’t just mean now, in the time we have grown close since you came here. Lucinda, you have lost so much, suffered so much pain… and yet you have never let that embitter you. You’ve never turned to the easy route of anger like I did. For years I have watched you quietly bear more than you ever deserved to carry and you did it with grace. More grace than I ever did, that is for certain.”

She swallowed. “When you said you desired me over the years… I never thought you were watching me so intently.”

“Of course.” He stared at her. “How could I not? You are like light that pierces the darkness. Not looking at you would be an impossible task.”

Lucinda blinked and one of the tears that sparkled in the dark blue sea of her stare slipped free, trailing down her cheek. She sat up and swiped it away as she scooted closer to him. Gently, she cupped his cheeks and then her soft mouth swept over his. Gentle at first, but then with more pressure and purpose. Rage groaned against her lips as his hands moved to cradle her naked hip.

Lucinda shifted without breaking the kiss. She straddled Ronan’s lap, positioning herself over him before she glided in one smooth motion down over his renewed erection. She didn’t know how to say how much his words about her meant, how much his honesty about himself meant, but she knew how to show him. And actions meant more to a man like him than any clumsy words ever could.

She flexed above him, setting a slow, steady rhythm as she rode him while she kissed him and kissed him. She was lost in the sensations of his mouth, of their bodies meeting and merging. Without warning the warm flood of her release washed over her. She tensed, riding faster as her cries of passion were lost against his lips. But they didn’t make Ronan stop. Instead he gripped her hips harder, thrusting up with steady flexes that pushed her farther and farther into release until she feared she would never return to normal again. That somehow she would be lost in his web of pleasure for the rest of her life.

The veins in Ronan’s neck throbbed and he let out a groan of pleasure.

“Lucinda, I must-” he began, then gently set her aside and the evidence that she swept him away as much as he did the same to her became clear as he pumped out his release with a gasping sigh of pleasure.

He glanced at her. “I apologize. I only want to protect you from any… unwanted consequences of this affair.”

She nodded, for she knew rationally that to have a child result from this union would be disastrous. But there was some small part of her, the part that still wanted more children, that took pleasure in the idea of having a son or daughter who she could look at and see this man, just as she looked at her daughters, Margaret and Georgiana and saw a man she had loved and lost far too young.

But the moment she realized what she was thinking, she shook her head.

Ronan was staring at her intently, so intently, in fact that she feared he might be able to read her shocking thoughts, no matter how ridiculous that was. She shifted with discomfort and felt her blush deepen.

“I-I should probably ready myself for supper,” she whispered.

When she dared to glance at him, he was nodding. “Yes, of course. But Lucinda,”

She forced herself to look him in the eye. “Yes?”

“Thank you for this,” he murmured before he leaned forward to kiss her. “For today.”

Then he pushed himself from her bed and dressed with such quickness that it stunned her. She was still stunned as he moved to the inner door of her chamber. As he opened it, she found her voice and called out, “Ronan?”

He stopped there and turned back, bright eyes focused on her face like a hawk on the hunt.

“Thank you,” she said with a shaky voice. “For your honesty and for… well, for everything else.”

He nodded once and then he was gone. Lucinda sank back against her pillows and stared up at the canopy above her bed. When she was alone, when she was honest, she could tell herself that making love to Ronan was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. She had expected him to be a powerful, passionate lover.

What she hadn’t expected, however, was how deeply connected she felt to him with every touch they exchanged and every moment they shared. In the end, it was a connection she feared, for she knew it couldn’t last.

Chapter Nine

The next few days flew by in a whirlwind for Lucinda. During the day, Ronan was busy with his duties as Nicholas’s estate manager. She rarely saw him, though when she did, he always made a point to come to her side with a greeting, a smile and even a knee-melting kiss, if he could manage to give her one without being seen by those who came and went at Nicholas and Jane’s country estate.

But at night, that was when she greedily wished for more time. Ronan had begun to join her in her chamber after everyone else in the house had retired. They made love and afterward they lay together and talked in the firelight about their lives, about her children, even about the mundane activities of the day.

“Lucinda?”

She shook away her thoughts with a smile and turned her attention to Jane.  The two women were sharing a mid-morning cup of tea, as had become their custom.

“Yes?”

Jane laughed. “I swear, this time in the country has made you the worst at distraction. I was asking for the cream.”

Lucinda blinked and then handed over the little container with a laugh. “Well, you told me to be utterly relaxed during my visit here. You never realized what a monster that would create.”

Jane took her hand gently and squeezed. “Preoccupied or not, I am very pleased to see you at such peace. Truly, it is a pleasure.”

“Jane, I wanted you to know how dear a friend you have become to me since my arrival,” Lucinda said, covering Jane’s hand with her own. “I have always liked you, of course, but now… well, I am very happy to call you my sister.”

Jane’s eyes sparkled with tears and she smiled. “Thank you, Lucinda. I know seeing me with Nicholas was not always easy.”

Lucinda swiped at her own tears. “Was I so obvious? I hope you know it was only because he and Anthony were twins, it had nothing to do with you.”

Jane nodded. “I cannot imagine how difficult it must have been to see Nicholas, with a face so like the man you loved, falling in love with another woman. I confess, there were times I feared you might not be able to overcome that hurtle, and that we might never be able to be as close as I desired. But I’m glad that time has eased your discomfort.”

Lucinda nodded, but there was a tiny twinge in her chest, one that said she wasn’t being truly honest. Yes, time had something to do with her healing, but there was more to it than that.

And in that moment, the “more to it” entered the room behind Nicholas. Ronan smiled at her while her stomach did flips and her hand shook until she set her cup down.

Jane smiled as she got to her feet and greeted Nicholas with a kiss on the cheek.

“What are you doing here? I thought you two were going to be out doing a tour of the tenant repairs all day!”

Nicholas slipped an arm around her waist without hesitation or awkwardness. “The repairs are coming along quite well and I trust the crew that has been hired to finish up without any interference from me. So we returned home.”

Lucinda watched as Nicholas settled his hand in the small of his wife’s back and leaned down to briefly kiss her. She turned her face as a surge of the jealousy Jane thought she’d overcome washed over her, but she found herself looking at Ronan instead. That actually made the darker emotion even worse. She would love to stand up, walk into his arms and welcome him home. But she couldn’t. Their relationship could see no light, could have no public airing. This was an affair… and when she returned to London, it would be over.

Nicholas smiled as he and his wife parted. “Why don’t we go for a picnic since we have the day free?”

“Oh what a lovely idea,” Jane agreed. “The weather is perfect for such an outing.”

Ronan glanced once more at Lucinda and then gave a short bow. “Have a good time.”

He moved to step from the room, but Nicholas stopped him. “Great God, man, I meant all of us.”

Ronan turned back with surprise on his face. “All of us?”

“Of course, you oaf,” Nicholas said as he crossed the room and clapped his friend on the back. “Why in the world wouldn’t you be invited? Poor Lucinda would be bored out of her mind if it were only Jane and me. You must save her.”

Lucinda swallowed hard. Oh, if only Nicholas knew what was really happening with them, she doubted he would feel she was being saved. Even though in so many ways, she was.

“Do come,” she said softly. “Not because I am bored by Jane and Nicholas, but because I would enjoy your company.”

Ronan stared at her for a long moment and then he nodded with a small smile twitching up the corners of his lips. “How could I refuse when asked by a lady? Of course I will attend.”

“Wonderful,” Jane said as she patted Nicholas on the arm and moved for the door. “I shall make the arrangements for a luncheon to be packed for us.”

As Jane departed the room, Lucinda gave the two men what she hoped was not a nervous smile. “While Jane arranges for the food, I shall take a moment to prepare myself. I’ll meet you all in the foyer in a few moments.”

Nicholas nodded and began to talk to Ronan about… something. Lucinda should have been aware of what, but when Ronan stared at her, his bright gaze snagging hers and holding it with an intensity that was highly inappropriate, everything in the room faded but him. She found herself holding her breath as she moved for the door, almost tripped over the edge of the carpeting and then staggered into the hallway.

Only when she was halfway up the stairs did she find her breath again. She walked to her room and closed the door behind her, leaning against it as she sucked air into her lungs. Her heart was throbbing as she waited for calm to come. But every time she thought of spending a whole day with Ronan… a day where they could almost pretend to be a normal couple, courting like any other couple, her breath slipped away again.

She stepped forward and took a seat at her dressing table. She looked at her pale reflection.

“Stop it,” she murmured out loud to the image of herself in the mirror. “You are being utterly foolish. We are not courting. Ronan is not the man to court. This is merely a day out with friends. Do not pretend it is anything else.”

There was a light knock on her door and Lucinda jumped. She lifted her hands to her chest, drew a deep, heavy breath and then said, “Yes?”

The door cracked behind her and Jane put her head into the room.

“Jane,” she said, her voice strained as she got to her feet and turned to look at her sister-in-law. “Are you ready?”

“Yes, Mrs. Pottington is putting the finishing touches on what is sure to be a magnificent feast and the gentlemen are waiting for us on the drive.” Jane tilted her head. “Are you certain you are well? You are very pale.”

“Oh yes,” Lucinda said with a dismissive wave of her hand that she hoped would end the line of questioning. “Let us be off, then.”

Jane opened her mouth as though she was going to ask more, but then shut it again and smiled as she took Lucinda’s arm and the two women walked back downstairs and out the front door to the drive where the two best friends waited for them.

Lucinda forced a bright smile on her face as they began to walk, she and Jane behind Ronan and Nicholas. Jane chattered at her side, but all Lucinda could do was stare at the man in front of her. At his broad shoulders, his muscled back… his very handsome backside.

She blushed as Nicholas peeked over his shoulder and smiled at the two women. At her side, Lucinda felt Jane become lighter, as if just her husband’s smile could lift her.

“You two should walk together,” Lucinda said as she released Jane.

Ronan nodded in silent agreement and he fell back to Lucinda’s side. The couple did not argue, but Jane took Nicholas’s hand with a soft smile and they fell into step before Ronan and Lucinda. Lucinda let out what she hoped was an imperceptible sigh and gave him a side glance. His hand stirred at his side, almost as if he wanted to mimic the couple in front of them, but instead he motioned for her to walk and shortened his stride to match hers.

For a while, they were quiet, but despite the awkwardness of the situation, the quiet was anything but uncomfortable. After a few moments, Lucinda settled into the walk and began to appreciate the green of the rolling hills, the sound of the birds in the trees around them.

Ronan cleared his throat gently. “Have you enjoyed your time here?”

She shot him a side glance to see if he was being serious or not. After all, they shared a daring secret about her ‘time here’. But he looked perfectly sincere, though not exactly comfortable.

She nodded. “I admit, I resisted the idea of coming to the country, but it has been exactly what I needed. In many ways.”

He looked at her and a spark of desire lit in his stare. Lucinda stifled a wicked little smile. She actually liked the idea that she could cause such a strong and experienced man to want her. It made her feel womanly and desirable in a way she hadn’t for a long time.

Nicholas and Jane turned back to look at them and Lucinda’s cheeks heated with embarrassed color. Luckily neither of them seemed to notice the emotion snapping between Ronan and herself.

“Here is a good spot,” Nicholas said, motioning to a lake that now spread out before them at the bottom of the hill. A few tall trees shaded areas of the grass and once they had moved down the hill together, Nicholas and Ronan spread the blanket out beneath one of them.

Jane sank down on her knees on the blanket and Lucinda joined her, helping her remove the items of food and drink from the basket Jane and Nicholas’s cook had prepared for them. There were a variety of sandwiches, cold chicken, biscuits and a carafe of tea, as well as a bottle of wine and glasses.

“A feast, indeed,” Nicholas said as she took a place beside Jane on the blanket.

Ronan hesitated, then knelt beside Lucinda. She felt his presence next to her even as she tried not to stare at him like a besotted girl in her debut year.

Plates were filled, wine was poured and after the group had settled into their lunch, Jane smiled at Lucinda.

“I saw you had a letter from our mother-in-law this morning. How are the girls?”

Lucinda’s discomfort at sitting beside her lover faded with the mention of her children.

“I think very well. Marianne writes of many activities. Margaret even wrote a few words and someone gave Georgiana a pencil and let her scribble all over the paper.” She laughed. “I do miss them terribly. I have never been away from them since-”

She brought her words to a sudden halt, for everyone in the small group knew exactly the event of which she spoke. Nicholas’s smile faltered slightly but he nodded.

“I’m pleased to hear they are doing well. I think taking care of them is as good for my mother as it is for them and for you.”

She laughed. “They are being utterly spoiled by toys and cakes, though. Surely I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Ronan glanced at her. “They are only eighteen months and four years old, yes?”

Lucinda blinked and couldn’t help but stare at Ronan. She had no idea he had kept such track of her life. It was rather thrilling to know that her girls, who were the most important things in her life, meant enough to him that he knew their ages.

“Y-yes, that is correct.”

He smiled, a very gentle expression. “Don’t worry, Lucinda, I don’t believe they can be spoiled so young.”

Lucinda nodded, knowing they were both thinking about the troubled childhood Ronan had suffered. The very idea of her girls being treated so callously made her heart break.

“You are right, and if anyone deserves to be spoiled it is those girls,” she said with a gentle smile.

He leaned a fraction closer. “As does their mother.”

Lucinda felt the blush pinken her cheeks and a thrill moved through her body.

Until she remembered that Nicholas and Jane were sitting inches away and had just seen that intimate exchange. She slowly let her gaze move to them and found they were both staring, concern and perhaps a touch of confusion in their eyes.

She slid away from Ronan and fidgeted with the food that was left on her plate. He stiffened at her reaction and pushed to his feet in one smooth motion.

“I think I’ll take a walk around the lake,” he said.

His voice was tight and rough. Lucinda wished she didn’t hear the touch of hurt and anger in the tone, but she knew him well enough by now to recognize both. He nodded to the very quiet group and started off toward the water’s edge. His shoulders were stiff and his gait was not as smooth and comfortable as usual.

Lucinda wanted to fling herself from the blanket, run to him, hold him and try to fix whatever pain she’d caused by flinching away. But Jane was staring at her. Focused and intense and with far too much knowledge in her eyes. And Nicholas was giving a very similar look in Ronan’s direction.

Yes, this was trouble.

Lucinda cleared her throat and searched desperately for a new topic of conversation. Something, anything that would distract her friends from the embarrassing exchange they’d just witnessed. Of course, nothing would come to her mind. All she could think of was Ronan, Ronan, Ronan.

She glanced in his direction again. He was walking along the water’s edge and now his body revealed no hint of any distress. She wasn’t certain whether to be pleased with that or not.

“Lucinda-” Nicholas began.

She pivoted her head back to her brother-in-law. His lips were a thin line of displeasure and his eyes were narrowed. She held her breath as she waited for his questions and judgments to come, but Jane prevented that by interrupting him.

“Lucinda, do you think you might want to go to the village tomorrow to shop for a new hat? There’s a very nice milliner with lovely things.”

Lucinda gave a grateful smile to Jane. “Yes, I would like that very much.”

“But-” Nicholas began.

Jane reached out and gently touched his arm. “Dearest, you know you do not want to interrupt a woman when she’s discussing something as important as a hat. Why don’t you follow Rage’s lead and take a walk?”

His lips pursed and he gave Lucinda one more intense look before he got to his feet and strolled to the lake with his friend. Lucinda shuddered to think of the conversation they were about to have, but when he caught up with Ronan, they did not exchange any words.

She turned her attention back to Jane. Her sister-in-law was watching her and unlike Nicholas, who had been very grave, she only looked concerned.

“Should I ask you anything?” Jane asked softly.

Lucinda shook her head. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Then I won’t.” Jane glanced down to the lake. “But perhaps you’d walk with me back to the house.”

“You think they should be left alone?” Lucinda bit her lip as she stared at the two men. They still weren’t talking.

Jane arched a brow. “What do you think they’ll do?”

“I shudder to think of what they could do. They boxed in the underground.”

“If they were going to kill each other, I think they would have done so already.” Jane got to her feet and offered a hand to Lucinda. She took it and stood up. With a final look toward the two men, she followed Jane up the hill and back toward the house.

And hoped that her brother-in-law and her lover would both survive whatever conversation would eventually happen between them.

~~~

“They’re gone,” Rage said without even looking over his shoulder or at his friend. “So what is it you want to say?”

Stone folded his arms and Rage almost laughed. He knew that look well. It was his friend’s motion of intimidation and it worked on most men.

“Do you want to tell me what that comment was about?” Stone asked. He was clenching his teeth.

Rage did the same. “Comment?”

Stone glared at him. “What you said to Lucinda. About her needing to be spoiled. It was very… intimate.”

Rage stared across the water as he tried to control his emotions. “Perhaps,” he finally growled.

“And inappropriate,” Stone added, as if somehow Rage didn’t understand that. Like he was a child who needed training by some kind of older brother.

“You know that, do you?”

“Of course!” Stone shook his head.

“You know what she needs. What she wants.”

Now his friend fisted his hands at his sides and the gesture was threatening.

“Rage-”

“No.” He spun on Stone. “It isn’t your place to be her watchdog.”

“Like hell it isn’t.” His friend stepped closer. “She is my brother’s wife.”

“His widow,” Rage said as calmly as he could muster. “She is his widow and a grown woman who can make her own decisions.”

He expected Stone to swing on him at that point. He welcomed it, actually, for at least with the physical pain would come some peace from these other unwelcome feelings.

Instead, his friend stepped back a long step and stared at him. With disbelief. With shock. With pity.

“You… you have a tendre for her.”

Rage stared at him. “No. No, of course not.”

But his friend’s headshake told Rage that he hadn’t been convincing enough. “You do. Why didn’t I see it before? Is this why you left in such a rush last week?”

Rage folded his arms. What his friend was saying was crazy. He desired Lucinda, he even liked her… but a tendre? That was pure madness. He refused to give it any weight by arguing it.

“My life is my affair,” he snapped. “You own my time as estate manager, no more.”

Stone rubbed his eyes and for a long time he was quiet. “You know that under any other circumstances, I would agree with your statement. But Lucinda is my family. Her girls are my family. If you have some kind of interest in her, I have a right to an opinion on that matter.”

Rage’s teeth had begun to hurt from clenching his jaw so tightly. “Because I’m so utterly beneath her?”

Stone glared at him. “No. I couldn’t judge the world you come from. I lived there, too, for many years.”

Rage stared at his friend in disbelief. Surely Stone could not be so naïve as his statement implied. “You weren’t from my world. You visited there, but you could have gone home any time you liked. Jesus, Stone, you combed your hair, curbed your language and everyone wanted to invite you to every party again.”

His friend pursed his lips. “That isn’t true. I had to change on a far deeper level to have even the smallest type of acceptance. Even now, there are many who won’t even speak to me and who cut my wife because of who I am and what I did. And I have a family of influence.”

Rage flinched. “Unlike me.”

Stone didn’t respond, but the flicker in his stare told Rage that was exactly what he meant.

“Lucinda is a genteel lady. She comes from a very important family and has never faced the kind of censure that might come if you had feelings for her and she returned them. She might not be happy-”

“In a secondhand life with me,” Rage said softly. He had heard enough. “Yes. I know you are correct, my friend. I’m not about to ruin anything for you or for your family. I know my place. I always have.”

Stone opened his mouth, but Rage lifted a hand to silence him. “Go back to the house, Stone. I think I’ll walk a while.”

He turned on his heel and walked away from his friend, away from the house that was just over the hill in the distance. He felt Stone watching him as he moved. He even heard his best friend say his name.

But he didn’t turn back.

Chapter Ten

Lucinda paced the length of the parlor, pausing each time she was about to turn as she listened for Ronan’s footfalls. It had been nearly two hours since the picnic, which had been such a lovely idea, had broken up. Nicholas had returned just a quarter of an hour after she and Jane arrived home… but Ronan…

Well, he was still gone. And she wanted to speak to him about what had happened, not Jane, not her brother-in-law.

In the hallway, she heard the front door close and rushed out into the foyer. She caught her breath as she saw Ronan standing in the open space. His face was hard. So hard that she saw a glimpse of what he must have been like as a jaded boy, as a rage-filled boxer who took his pain to the boxing ring and spent it with his fists.

That hardness on his face made tears come to her eyes and the desire to speak to him, comfort him, was stronger than ever.

“Ronan,” she said softly.

He froze and slowly his stare came to her face. “What are you doing?”

She flinched at the icy tone. “Waiting for you.”

He laughed, but there was no humor or lightness in his tone. “That is a waste of your time, my lady.”

She swallowed at his reversion to the proper address. “I want to talk to you.”

He shook his head. “Not now.”

She stared at him and realized that there was only now. It was clear by his expression that if she waited until some undefined “later” that he would push her away for once and for all. He would be lost to her. And she wasn’t prepared for that. Not without at least discussing it.

“Please,” she said, taking a few steps toward him and reaching for him. She settled her hand on his arm. The muscles contracted beneath her palm and his jaw tightened even further. “Please, I’m asking you to come to the parlor with me and talk to me. Nothing else.”

“Very well,” he said, then pulled his arm away and motioned to the parlor she had come from. “Lead the way.”

Lucinda hesitated. Part of her wanted to take his arm and force him to escort her, but there was something so… fragile about his acquiescence that she feared she would lose it, and him, if she pushed. So she turned and walked into the room, feeling his stare on her with every step.

Inside the parlor, he walked past her and directly to the window where he stared out across the lawn with a flat, emotionless expression on his face. Lucinda glanced behind her to be certain no one had seen them enter the room together, then gently closed the door to give them some privacy.

The sound of the door shutting had Ronan stiffening, though he didn’t turn away from his view.

Lucinda stared at him, waiting for him to look at her. To say something, anything to her, even just her name. But he stayed where he was.

So it was to be left to her.

“Ronan,” she said softly.

His shoulders tensed and finally he turned toward her and looked at her evenly.

“I’m sorry about what happened today,” she said and moved toward him a few steps. “I feel as though I hurt you and I never wanted to do such a thing.”

His brow arched. “You didn’t hurt me.”

She blushed at the dismissive words. “Oh. Good.”

Another long silence parted them, stretching out like a cavern she couldn’t dare cross. Except she did, pushing even closer to him. His eyes widened slightly, but he didn’t back away.

“Ronan, you may say I didn’t hurt you, but clearly you are upset or angry. I want to talk to you about this. Please, don’t push me away.”

Those words were the first that showed any visible affect on him. His expression softened slightly and he looked at her face for the first time. “Lucinda,” he whispered and her eyes fluttered shut when he said her name instead of addressing her formally. “Look at me.”

She opened her eyes and did as he had asked. He reached for her, touching her upper arms gently. “You should let me push you away. To protect you.”

Her lips parted. “You don’t mean that,” she breathed when she managed to find her voice.

He stared at her for a long time and then released her arms and backed away. Terror sluiced through her, fear of loss, fear of never feeling again the way she felt when she was with him. Out of instinct, she caught his hands before he could escape her reach. He sucked in a breath at the touch of her skin and she took the opportunity. She lifted to her tiptoes and pressed her mouth to his.

He was tense beneath her lips for a fraction of a second, but then his arms came around her, his mouth slanted and parted. She tasted his desire, his need and her body grew heavy and wet with anticipation of joining her body with his. And perhaps that was the only way she could bring back the man who smiled more easily, who looked at her with eyes filled with warmth. The man who had trusted her with his secrets and his past, even though she knew that trust wasn’t easily given.

He moved as if he was planning to pull away, but Lucinda clung to him, desperate to tell him with her body what she couldn’t fully say with words, and what she feared he did not wish to hear even if she found those elusive words and the bravery to say them.

She tugged at his buttons, freeing them until her fingers found the warmth of his skin instead of cotton and linen. He growled low in his chest, a sound of possession and pleasure and made her body tingle. It also emboldened her. He might try to resist, but she could force his hand with her body, with her touch. She slid her hand lower, down his stomach and found him hard and ready when her hand closed around the thrust of his erection.

“Lucinda,” he gasped, his mouth jerking from hers.

“Shhh,” she soothed as she fumbled with his trousers. She parted the buttons and freed him into her palm. He was hot and smooth and she wanted him inside of her. Somehow, some way. She wanted to weaken him with pleasure the way he had done to her so many times since they’d begun this affair.

She kissed his throat, then dragged her mouth downward, tasting his skin as she dipped lower. He had pleasured her with his mouth numerous times and now she wanted to do the same to him. She dropped to her knees and stroked her hand over him once, twice.

His back arched and he hissed out a breath. A breath that turned to a low grunt when she darted out her tongue to lick just the tip of his erection.

“Lucinda-” he began again, but she didn’t respond with words.

Instead she took him into her mouth.

“Christ,” he cried out and his hands came into her hair as she began to slowly glide him in and out of her mouth, sucking and tasting, swirling her tongue around him.

The feeling of him in her mouth, hard and at her mercy made her feel powerful, womanly, ripe and passionate. Her troubles and worries faded, replaced by focus on Ronan his pleasure.

“Lucinda-” This time his voice was a gasp. “I can’t wait-”

She knew what he meant, but she didn’t want to stop. She wanted to bring him to that ultimate pleasure, to feel him lose control inside her for once in their time together. Such an idea was foreign to her, but not unpleasant.

She continued to suck him, stroking his shaft with her fist as she swirled her tongue around him.

His release came with a guttural cry and then the hot splash of his seed filled her mouth. She swallowed and was surprised that the salty flavor did not bother her, in fact she liked the power she derived from it and the pleasure she had given even more.

She pulled away from him and looked up his body with a tiny wicked smile. But it fell the moment she saw his face. Though he was panting from his release, he did not look happy. He caught her elbows and pulled her to her feet, but then he immediately released her and turned away.

“Why did you do that?” he asked as he closed his trousers and buttoned his shirt.

Lucinda stared at his tense back. “Because I wanted you. And I wanted to show you that I do care for you. That I-”

He spun toward her and lifted his hand. “Stop,” he snapped. “Don’t say it. Don’t.”

She closed her mouth and stepped back.

He shook his head. “We can’t do this anymore. I never should have…”

He stopped and turned away again. Lucinda sucked in a breath. “You shouldn’t have made love to me? You shouldn’t have touched me or told me you wanted me? I’m glad you did. I don’t know why-”

“You don’t know why?” he asked in disbelief. “Damn it, Lucinda, that should be obvious. We are not the same kind of people. We never were. This was an affair, one I thought would help you. But it was nothing more and it never could be.”

Lucinda blinked as all those words settled into her mind. An affair, nothing more. And worse, one he thought would help her. As if he pitied her, as so many other people in her life did.

“You can’t mean that,” she whispered.

He faced her squarely and she saw no emotion or warmth in his face or his eyes. “I mean every word.”

She blinked. Now the hurt was washing over her. The anger followed closely behind.

With as much dignity as she could muster, she straightened her shoulders and stepped away from him. “Well, thank you for that honesty. And thank you, apparently, for taking pity on me and gifting me with your-your-”

She waved in the general direction of his body. She knew what his member was called, but she had never used such a frank, vulgar word before. But then, that proved exactly what Ronan said.

“Your cock,” she finished and wished she didn’t blush when she said it. “Goodbye.”

Without waiting for his response,  she turned on her heel and exited the room. She didn’t see anything around her as she staggered up the stairs, down the hallway and found her room somehow. She slammed the door behind her and locked it, then she sank to her knees and began to sob as she hadn’t allowed herself to do in at least a year.

It was in that moment that she recognized what a loss she had just suffered. Perhaps not of a death as when Anthony had been snatched from her. But a loss of love nonetheless. She loved Ronan Riley… but he had made it more than clear that he did not feel the same. Nor would he ever.

So she would have her cry and then she had to find a way to pick up the pieces. But not here. Not with him.

~~~

Lucinda drew a deep breath before she stepped out on the drive and watched her driver pull her carriage around. Behind her Nicholas and Jane joined her and she felt their eyes on her. Felt their pity and their worry and their questions.

She drew a deep breath before she faced them.

“Thank you again for this opportunity to join you here,” she said. Her voice cracked and she swallowed hard before she continued. “I’m sorry to be such a rude guest and depart before the appointed time.”

“Are you certain we cannot convince you to stay?” Nicholas asked softly, his sharp eyes never leaving her face.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I miss my girls.”

Which was true, but not why she was leaving.

Jane slipped her hand into her husband’s arm and smiled at Lucinda gently. “We would be happy to have them join us if we could change your mind. Marianne and Hugh could be here with them in just a few days.”

Lucinda shut her eyes. The girls would love to see their uncle and aunt, she knew that to be true. But she couldn’t pretend not to care about Ronan. They would see, Jane and Nicholas would see. Her humiliation would know no bounds at that point. And neither would her heartbreak.

The last of the bags were loaded and the footman took his place beside the door to allow her access when she was ready.

“You are too kind,” she managed past dry lips. “But I must decline. My life in London awaits. But I’ll see you both there in just a short time.”

Nicholas nodded. “Yes, we’ll be back in just a week.”

“Good.”

She breathed a sigh of relief that the attempt at convincing her to stay seemed to have passed and she hadn’t burst into tears or confessed her feelings for Ronan. Now she just had to get into the vehicle with her dignity intact and then she could cry all the way to the first inn she would stay in for the night if she desired.

Jane stepped forward and her arms came around Lucinda for a tight hug. Lucinda clung to her friend, blinking at those tears she did not want to shed and whispered, “Thank you.”

Jane nodded against her shoulder. “I fear we might not have done you much of a service by bringing you here. At least not as much as we wished. But I do love you, Lucinda. And when we return to London, perhaps we can take that trip to a milliner there and talk.”

Lucinda pulled away and nodded. Jane would want to press her on whatever she thought was happening with Ronan. And perhaps by that time the sting would have faded and she could have some kind of reasonable discussion.

Perhaps not.

Nicholas moved toward her and took both her hands in his. He rarely instigated any kind of contact with her, out of respect for her pain over Anthony, but she welcomed the warm comfort of his rough hands.

“Give my nieces my love,” he said softly.

She nodded.

He hesitated and for a moment she feared he would ask or say something else. But then he shook his head. “We’ll see you soon.”

He motioned to her footman and the young man opened the door to her carriage. She gave them each a final smile, then stepped into her vehicle. The door closed behind her and she stared out the window as they began to roll toward the gate.

And Ronan never came out. She never saw him in a window watching her leave. She had to give him respect… he had told her this was over, and obviously he meant it. So instead of crying, she settled back against the leather seat and contemplated how to carry on with her “normal” life now that everything had changed.

Chapter Eleven

Rage flung open the door to Stone’s study and let it hit the wall with a bang. “I want to fight.”

Slowly, Stone looked up from the paperwork on a stack on his desk and stared at his friend. “I beg your pardon.”

“You heard me,” he snapped. “I want to fight.”

Stone rose to his feet and gave Rage a contemplative stare. Rage shifted because the expression on his friend’s face was one of pity, not anger. Were his raw emotions so obvious? Lucinda had been gone for three days. He hadn’t seen her off, hadn’t even watched her go, no matter how much he wanted to. He’d hoped his desire for her would fade as the days passed, that he’d think of her less.

It wasn’t to be. Every moment of every day was an exercise in self-torture as thoughts of her taunted him. And the nights were filled with dreams that shattered when he woke alone and frustrated.

There was only one way he knew to expel that frustration.

“So you think punching me… or more likely allowing me to punch you will help you?” Stone asked softly.

Rage clenched his teeth. Stone was certainly making the idea of hitting him a more and more attractive one. “Are we going to do this?”

He stepped around the desk and shrugged out of his coat. “Very well.”

Rage shed his own jacket and threw it on the floor without a care as to where it landed. He tore the first three buttons from his shirt and yanked it over his head. Normally the two of them would wrap their hands, but he didn’t want to take the time. Bare knuckled brawling was what he desired.

Stone sighed and took his own shirt off, but unlike Rage, he folded the item carefully and laid it across his desk. Then he lifted his hands and the two men began to circle in the large, empty section of the room.

“I assume this is about Lucinda,” Stone said.

Rage threw a wild, swiping shot that Stone evaded without any effort.

“Fuck,” he grunted.

Stone shook his head. “I see. Do you want to know what her demeanor was the day she left? I have waited for you to ask, but you have been very silent on the matter.”

Rage swung again and Stone sidestepped the shot as easily as the first. He remained silent.

A silence his friend took as agreement. “We were sorry to see her go so suddenly and so prematurely.”

This time Stone threw a punch and Rage couldn’t quite dodge it. It swiped his ribs, not hard enough to cause any real pain, but to be a warning that he should be aware of the skill his friend still possessed.

“She was out of sorts, clearly suffering from a great deal of upset.”

Rage grunted and swung. This time he hit, but only Stone’s arm.

“As are you, apparently,” his friend said. He circled slowly. “Jane has a theory.”

“Oh yes?” Rage asked, his tone as hard as the looping punch he threw. Finally he connected against Stone’s ribs and he let out a gasp of air.

“She thinks something happened between you,” he choked.

Rage hesitated long enough that Stone saw an opening and swung. Rage barely stepped out of the way and he glared at his friend.

“It did.”

Stone’s stance changed immediately. He had been in a sparring state, but now he straightened up, more serious. More angry. Good. Rage wanted to fight, not play at sparring.

“What do you mean, it did?” Stone asked.

“What do you think I mean?” Rage replied, his stare meeting Stone’s so that there would be no mistake what he was saying.

Stone threw a hard punch and Rage let it land against his stomach. It blew the air from his lungs and shot a burst of pain through his body. And he welcomed it. The physical pain was what he wanted right now.

“You slept with her?” Stone sputtered.

Rage chuckled and hated how ugly the sound was. “Well, there wasn’t much sleep involved.”

This time he let his fists fly and Stone blocked each punch as his face turned red and his eyes lit with fury.

“You son of a bitch!” Stone shouted and after that there were no more words.

Rage set his feet and the punches started flying. They hadn’t fought like this, truly fought and not sparred, since he was in his early twenties and he had thought of Stone as a spoiled rich bastard like the ones who had made his life a living hell. Punch and block, circling left, then right, it was a true battle.

Stone threw a hard left, right combination and Rage wasn’t quick enough to block it. He staggered back and hit a small table against the wall. It shattered beneath his weight, sending broken dishes and trinkets across the shiny wooden floor. He shoved off the wall and charged forward, hitting Stone in the gut with all his weight. They grappled around the room, shoving liquor tumblers off the desk, books from the shelves and breaking chair legs.

But Rage didn’t care about the destruction, and Stone didn’t seem to either. All that mattered were fists and forearms, sweat and pain. And the fight was growing more serious with every blow.

Only before it could progress to its ultimate end of blood and possibly unconsciousness, the door to Stone’s office flew open and Jane rushed in. Both the men stopped, midfight. Rage had Stone’s shoulders and Stone’s fist was cocked for a blow but they stared toward Jane in tandem.

“What are you two doing?” she cried out.

“Teaching this bastard a lesson,” Stone growled.

Rage pressed his hands into Stone’s chest and shoved. “Go to hell.”

Jane sighed and stomped across the room, putting herself between them. “Gentlemen, corners!” she snapped.

Rage stepped back and so did Stone and without taking their eyes from each other, they backed into opposite sides of the room.

Jane folded her arms and stared at them like an angry governess. Rage couldn’t help but smile as he realized this very look had made Nicholas fall in love with her.

“Now what is going on?” she asked.

Stone glared at Rage. “He slept with her. Rage went to bed with Lucinda.”

Rage flinched as he awaited Jane’s response. He wanted to fight, but he didn’t want her to hate him. For some reason, that was worse than Stone punching him. But she only stared at him with a contemplative expression. Then she nodded.

“I thought that might be the case.”

Stone’s jaw dropped and he stared at his wife in utter shock. “What? And you said nothing to me?”

She smiled gently. “Well, I wasn’t certain and considering this reaction you’ve had to the news, can you blame me for saying nothing?”

Stone blinked. “This reaction? My reaction is completely reasonable. Rage took advantage of her.”

Now Rage couldn’t be silent. He moved from the corner with folded arms. “You act as if she’s a trembling virgin. She has been a widow for two years. She is a grown woman and she’s the most intelligent person I’ve ever met. I give her a bit more credit than you do, I think.”

Jane tilted her head and a knowing smile broke over her face. “Very well said, Rage. But if you give her so much credit than why did she leave in such a manner?”

He tore his stare away from his friend and looked at Jane. Admitting he had taken Lucinda to his bed was one thing, but telling them how he had broken with her was another. When he thought of it, his stomach turned.

“I told her we were finished. That what we had was nothing more than an affair that should never have begun,” he admitted so quietly that he wasn’t certain she could even hear him.

Until she stomped across the chamber, anger and disbelief in her eyes. “How could you do such a thing?”

To his surprise, Nicholas also moved forward, but the anger that had been on his face was now muted. “He did it because it was the honorable thing to do.”

Jane gasped and looked at her husband as if he had sprung a second head right there in the study. “How is that honorable when he obviously cares for her and she for him?”

Stone looked at him, not her when he answered, “They are not equals in the eyes of Society-”

She folded her arms. “When we met I was hardly more than a servant, whatever my birth might have been. By your logic, you and I shouldn’t be together, either.”

Her statement stopped Stone immediately. He glanced at his wife and everything about his rough friend’s expression softened. Rage couldn’t help but stare. It was amazing his friend could find a woman who was capable of doing that.

“That isn’t what I meant.” Stone reached out to her and took her hand. “You are my savior and my love.”

She smiled, then turned her attention back to Rage. “Do you care for Lucinda, or was this truly just a brief liaison as you said to her?”

Rage rubbed his face. That was the question that had been tormenting him since she left the parlor and then the estate. He’d tried to tell himself that he didn’t care. But he didn’t believe it.

“I don’t know,” he muttered.

She tilted her head. “You do, but I think that it frightens you, and you aren’t accustomed to that sort of emotion.”

Rage clenched his teeth. He didn’t like being exposed, even to friends he knew he could trust. But that was what he was, laid out for anyone to see or read.

“I do care for her,” he admitted. The moment the words left his lips, the power of them rocked him. He more than cared for Lucinda, but he refused to name the complex emotions that flowed through his body.

Jane smiled. “Good.”

He shrugged, though the words were anything but meaningless. “I think I’ve cared for her since the first moment I saw her.”

Stone’s eyes went wide. “But she was married to my brother then.”

Rage nodded. “Yes. And I knew she was out of my reach, of course. I would never have betrayed you, your family or her in that manner. I made peace with the knowledge that I could never do anything but say hello to her in passing. But when the opportunity came to me here to have a moment with her… just a moment… I couldn’t resist it. Even though I knew it couldn’t last.”

Stone shook his head. “So you have wanted her, even cared for her, for so many years… and yet you’re so willing to give her up?”

Rage blinked. “There’s no other choice, you said it yourself.”

Stone looked at his wife for a long time. Then he reached out to take her hand. “There is always a choice. Sometimes it isn’t easy.”

“You act as though I believe life is easy, or should be,” Rage snapped.

“Apparently you do.” Stone shrugged. “You came here to fight me… but you don’t want to fight for a woman you claim to have loved… I’m sorry, cared for, for years. In truth, it makes me doubt your feelings.”

Rage clenched his jaw. “Doubt what you wish, call it what you desire. It matters very little to me.”

Stone shrugged, but Rage had known his friend long enough to see he didn’t believe him.

“If that is true, then what I’m about to say should matter little, too.” He smiled. “Jane and I return to London in two days. And I think I’ll need you to come with us, to assist me in some business in Town.”

Jane reacted first, a light little laugh and a squeeze of her husband’s hand.

Rage was slower, and far less happy. London meant Lucinda… he could see that Stone would ensure that. It was too soon to see her. It had been hell to pretend to be stoic when he broke things off with her, he wasn’t certain he could repeat that when he saw her again.

“No,” he ground out past clenched teeth. “I won’t go to London. You have other resources there, you can use them to attend to your business.”

“I want you there,” Stone said with a shrug.

“Don’t ask this of me,” Rage said as he turned away and paced the length of the room.

Stone stared at him. “Do it or quit.”

Rage spun on him. “You cannot be serious. You would terminate me for not coming to London?”

“You pointed out to me not long ago that I own your time as my estate manager. I’m collecting on my investment.”

“Fuck!” Rage stormed, then gave Jane an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry, Jane, but you must admit that my friend deserves some vulgarity. He hates me for ‘taking advantage’ of Lucinda, and now he is doing everything in his power to be certain I’ll encounter her? Tell him that he must make up his mind.”

Jane laughed. “Dear heart, Rage believes you should make up your mind.”

Stone never took his eyes from Rage. And he didn’t smile. “It seems you must take your own advice and soon.”

Rage pursed his lips. With a growl of displeasure, he grabbed for his discarded shirt and stomped to the door. There he paused. “You give me no choice. It is London or nothing, yes?”

He moved into the hall and slammed the door behind him. But as he strode down the hall toward the quiet of his quarters, he couldn’t help the thrill that worked through him. In a few days, he would see Lucinda again. And even though he knew he shouldn’t… the idea of being close to her was electrifying indeed.

Chapter Twelve

Lucinda laughed as her oldest daughter spun in a circle in the garden, clinging to her younger sister’s hands as the two girls squealed with pleasure.

“Be careful, Margaret!” Lucinda said between hard breaths of pleasure. “She is not as steady as you are.”

But Georgiana didn’t seem to care, unsteady or not.

“More Margette!” she screamed as she staggered around on the lawn in dizzy ecstasy. “More!”

Margaret giggled and was about to start her spin a second time when something behind Lucinda caught her eye.

“Uncle Nicholas!” she said, letting go of her sister and sending her backward onto her backside on the grass. Of course Georgiana only laughed.

Lucinda’s heart leapt as she turned to see Nicholas and Jane entering the yard behind her butler. The servant looked at Lucinda, as if to ask whether or not to announce the pair, but she waved him off. There was no need for the formality. But she found herself looking, nonetheless, to see if anyone else was behind her family members.

And even if she never said it out loud, the person she was looking for was Ronan.

But of course he wasn’t there and the ache she had felt since leaving the country increased. She shook off the reaction and watched as Margaret threw herself into her uncle’s arms. Lucinda couldn’t help but smile. At first, seeing Nicholas had been confusing to her eldest daughter. He looked so much like her father that she had wailed for Anthony. But time and age had helped. Margaret was beginning to understand that her father was gone and that Nicholas was his own person.

Nicholas spun her around as Jane opened her arms to Georgiana, who was toddling toward the group with a giggle. But as her sister-in-law stood, the eighteen month old in her arms, Lucinda felt Jane’s stare not on the children, but on her.

She moved toward them and forced a sunny smile. “Hello! We didn’t expect you until tea at Marianne and Hugh’s house later today!”

Nicholas nodded. “That was the original plan, but we arrived early and decided to come and see our beautiful nieces. And bring them their presents.”

“Presents!” Margaret squealed.

Nicholas swung the older girl under one arm and took the younger from his wife. “Come, I’ll take you inside and spoil you before your mother can stop me.”

As the three entered the house, Lucinda laughed. “They will be happy to have you two in Town for a while.”

“I hope so. We do love seeing them.” Jane looked at her. “Why don’t you sit with me in the garden for a few moments? I want to speak to you about something.”

Lucinda looked at her sister-in-law with wariness. Jane appeared so serious, Lucinda was suddenly uncertain she wanted to have some kind of deep talk that she might not like. But there was no polite way to decline, so she motioned to the bench in the middle of the garden and they walked to it together.  She took her time in finding her seat, but she could only delay the inevitable for so long.

“I don’t want you to be surprised by anything that occurs now that we’re all back in London.” Jane patted her hand. “Rage has returned with us.”

Lucinda swallowed past a suddenly bone dry throat. She had not expected that. Not so soon.

“Ronan came to London?”

Jane nodded. “Also, I think you should know that Nicholas and I… we know what happened between you two.”

The world shrank at that simple sentence and suddenly all Lucinda could hear was the rushing of blood to her ears. She wanted to sink into the bench and disappear. Her private life brought out for her family to see? The very idea was enough to make her cheeks burn and her hands shake.

Jane tilted her head in sympathy. “ I don’t tell you this to embarrass you or make you uncomfortable. And I understand why you didn’t tell me while we were in the country, but if you need to talk-”

Lucinda pushed to her feet and took a long step away. She rubbed her arms though she was anything but cold. “Thank you, but it’s over now. Talking won’t help. I must simply forget.”

Jane was quiet long enough that Lucinda turned to face her. Her sister-in-law was staring at her intently. “Is that possible?”

“It must be,” she said with a shrug, even though she had no idea if what she proposed was truly possible. Certainly she had not forgotten even a moment of the time she shared with Ronan. She hadn’t lost a fraction of her feelings for him.

Jane nodded. “Well, you will be forced to test that theory later this afternoon. You see, Marianne has asked Rage to join us for tea.”

Once again the rush of blood was all Lucinda could hear. Everything else seemed far away and wavy. Seeing Ronan again so soon was something she had hoped to avoid. At least until she regained some dignity, until she forgot how much she wanted and cared for him. To see him now… it thrilled her and made her stomach turn all at once.

“Do you think I can escape the invitation?” she whispered.

Jane shook her head. “You know Marianne. If you cancel suddenly, she will only wonder why and prod you until she uncovers the truth.”

Damn, Jane was correct. And it was one thing to have Jane and Nicholas know her secret, but Marianne was another story. She wouldn’t want her mother-in-law to think less of her, or to feel she was disrespecting the memory of her beloved son.

“Then I suppose now is as good a time as ever to face my fears.” She shook her head. “And perhaps when I see him again I’ll feel fine. I’ll feel nothing.”

But as the two women started for the house to check on the girls, Lucinda knew one thing for certain: there was no way she could ever feel nothing when faced with Ronan. Not now. Not ever.

~~~

Rage didn’t attend teas. He didn’t like to sit like a gentleman and hold his tiny little cup in this too-big hands and make small talk. It was only because Stone’s mother had asked him, herself that he had bothered to come at all. And even though she had been nothing but kind and accommodating, he still felt completely out of place as he stood beside the fireplace in the parlor and watched from a distance as Jane and Nicholas chatted with the Countess.

Jane broke from the group and joined him at the fireplace.

“You look very stern over here,” she teased him gently.

“I’m afraid I’m going to break something,” he admitted through clenched teeth. “I do not belong here.”

Her face softened. “You are amongst friends. You will always belong here.”

He glanced at the clock on the mantle. “When will she be here?”

She. Lucinda. He wasn’t certain whether to be thrilled that he’d be afforded the opportunity to see her in such an intimate setting, or horrified. Either way, the thought had distracted him since their arrival in London and the invitation to tea had been thrust upon him.

“In a few moments,” Jane said softly. “She is a little late, probably because of the children.”

The children. Stone stiffened. He had never spent any time with Lucinda’s girls, aside from a brief glimpse of them here and there.

A footman stepped into the room in that moment and Rage’s heart stopped. Lucinda was behind the servant and she held the smaller girl, Georgiana, against one hip, while the older one, Margaret, clung to her mother’s hand. Margaret giggled.

“Announcing my Mama!” she said to the room at large.

If the servant was annoyed by her stealing his duty, he did not show it. He merely bowed to the group and took his leave.

Rage stood back as there was a flurry of the children hugging their grandmother and aunt and uncle. Lucinda greeted the group, too, but he felt her awareness of him. Her stiffness as she kept her gaze firmly away from his.

He wasn’t sure how long that would have gone on, except that her daughter, Margaret noticed him. She pointed.

“Who is that man?”

The family turned toward him in unison and Rage shifted under the power of their unified gaze. Finally, Lucinda took her daughter’s hand and led her closer.

“You know it is impolite to point,” she admonished her softly. She didn’t look at Rage as she added, “This is Mr. Riley. He is a good friend of your uncle.”

Rage flinched. Yes, that was his only relationship to this family anymore. But the reminder still stung, for some reason.

“Hello, Mr. Riley,” Margaret said and she clung to her mother’s skirt as she said it.

He crouched down and smiled at her. “Hello, Lady Margaret,” he said, extending his hand solemnly. “I have heard a great deal about you.”

She giggled as her tiny hand was utterly enveloped in his. It was warm and wiggly and he fought the urge to laugh as he shook it.

“You are big,” she declared. “That’s my sister, Georgie. She’s little. Not even two.”

The younger girl was now standing beside her aunt, staring at him with wide eyes that were the same dark blue as her mother’s.  Then she smiled a baby grin and said, “Misser Riley.”

Lucinda smiled as Margaret toddled off to her younger sister. But Rage only watched her. She was so at peace with being a mother. So natural in the way she interacted with them. A brief image of another baby in her arms pierced his mind. His son.

He shook it off and stammered, “Th-they are beautiful children, Luc- my lady.”

She flinched at the formality and turned her face on him, looking at him for the first time since her arrival. “Thank you, Mr. Riley.”

“I-” he began, though he had no idea what he would say to her.

She gave him no opportunity. “I must get them settled in the nursery now.”

He shook his head. “They will not join us for tea?”

She stared at him for a moment and her surprise was clear on her face. “You would want to share tea with two boisterous children?”

“If they were yours, yes,” he admitted.

Her mouth pinched. “Well, they are too young. I only brought them in to greet their grandmother. But they will be brought to the garden later to play.”

He nodded. “I look forward to that.”

She said nothing, but slipped away to gather the girls up and move them toward the doorway where a female servant, he could only assume a governess, waited to take them to the nursery in their grandmother’s home. He watched as Lucinda bent to kiss each girl’s cheek and smiled as she said a few soft words to them.

The emotions Rage had been trying to suppress rushed over him in an undeniable wave. And this time he couldn’t deny exactly what they were. He loved her. He loved her in every way that was good and pure and passionate and everlasting. He wanted to be free to hold her, protect her, partner her in life.

But as she straightened up and returned to the room without even so much as a side glance for him, he felt nothing but pain. Pain for what he could never have, and pain for what he had given away in an attempt to protect Lucinda.

And even though he still knew that what had been done was for the best, the pain was something that would never fade. Because she would never be his again.

Chapter Thirteen

Although Lucinda was at a crowded ball, chatting with old friends and having a perfectly lovely time, her mind kept returning to one thing and one thing only: Ronan. The previous day at tea had been so hard. She’d wanted to go to him, touch him, treat him as a lover and a love. And when he had joined her children in the garden afterward and given them pony rides all over the yard… well, it had taken everything in her not to kiss him in front of the entire family.

But he’d made it clear that he was not hers. He never would be.

“Lucinda.”

She smiled and refocused as one of her friends approached her small group. Lady Wineland had a knowing little smile on her face as she slipped her arm into Lucinda’s and laughed.

“What is that look for?” Lucinda asked and tried to put thoughts of Ronan from her mind once and for all.

Lady Wineland shrugged and gave the others in the group a brief smile. “Oh nothing in particular. Just that I’ve heard you have a very special admirer. One who wishes to be introduced to you. And since I know him a little from his dealings with my husband, I am to be the one who makes that introduction.”

The women in the group let out a little squeal in unison and all eyes were suddenly on Lucinda. She blushed. Up until now no one had thought to matchmake for her. But her mourning was over and more than one friend had mentioned that the heaviness she’d carried around with her since Anthony’s death seemed to have lifted.

None of them knew why.

“And who is this gentleman?” Lucinda asked in wonder.

“The Marquis Wintermaine.” The other woman nodded like this was great news.

Lucinda shook her head. “Wintermaine… I’m sure I’ve heard the name, but I do not know the man, nor do I know why he would have an interest in me.”

One of the other ladies laughed. “Because you are beautiful, of course.”

“And of course you know Wintermaine,”  Lady Wineland said with a wave of her hand. “He will one day be the Duke of Nordcross when his father dies.”

At that statement, Lucinda’s heart all but stopped. Nordcross was a name she did recall. It was the name of the Duke whose servants had taken Rage in as a child. Which meant this Marquis was one of the children who had tormented him in the schoolroom.

“I do not think I’d like to meet this man,” she said softly.

The women in her circle gasped as one and stared at her.

“You cannot refuse to meet him,” Lady Wineland said as she lifted her hand to her chest. “It would be abominably rude. Aside from which, he is handsome, rich and looking for a wife. You couldn’t turn away from becoming a Duchess!”

Lucinda pursed her lips. If she refused to meet this… person… her refusal would only cause questions and rumor. So she was going to be forced to speak to someone who had once hurt a man she loved.

“Very well,” she said softly. “I shall meet him if he is insistent.”

Lady Wineland clapped her hands together. “Good, I shall fetch him.”

The other women in the group all began to buzz in excitement, but all Lucinda could do was watch as her friend approached a man standing with his back to their group. They spoke for a moment and when he turned, Lucinda caught her breath. He and Rage had the same pale, sharp eyes.

And suddenly everything began to come clear. Why Rage would be taken in by people he didn’t know. Why he would be brought into the schoolroom of a Duke’s children when he was nothing close to their rank. Why the Duchess and her children would despise him so fully.

He was Nordcross’s illegitimate son.

She held her breath as the Marquis was led to her. He gave a courtly bow and a smile as Lady Wineland said, “My lord, may I present Lady Stoneworth. Lady Stoneworth, the Marquis of Wintermaine.”

“My lady,” he said as he took her gloved hand and lifted it to his lips briefly. “I have heard much about you. I had hoped perhaps we could share the next dance.”

Lucinda withdrew her hand slowly. “I believe my card has the next dance taken,” she said without looking at it. She did not want to speak to this man. Not knowing what she knew, and what she’d guessed.

One of her friends stepped up helpfully. “No, it isn’t, Lucinda. The man who was to have partnered with you took ill. So your next dance is free.”

Lucinda pursed her lips. “What a happy coincidence,” she said with difficulty. “Then I would be happy to dance with you, my lord.”

He offered an arm to her and led her to the floor. As the music lifted and they began to move together, Wintermaine looked down at her with an expression that could only be described as a smirk.

“I must say, my lady, I have heard some interesting stories about you lately.”

Lucinda pressed her lips together. Why could this not have been a country dance where she would have the pleasure of changing partners a few times?

“Oh yes?” she managed past her tight lips. “I cannot imagine what you might have heard. I am afraid my life is quite boring.”

“A cousin of mine was in attendance at a country party hosted by your brother-in-law and he said he saw you with a man who was once in my acquaintance.”

Lucinda took a breath as she made a few of the intricate steps of the dance. She looked up into the Marquis’ face and saw the hardness there. The dislike.

“I assume you are speaking of Mr. Riley, who is a great friend to the new Viscount,” she said, her own tone just as chilly.

He nodded, but there was no mistaking the disgust on his face. “Yes.”

“I am surprised you would worry yourself over Mr. Riley,” Lucinda said softly. “My understanding is that you and he did not have a pleasant relationship as children.”

The Marquis’ eyes narrowed. “Told you that, did he? I have always wondered if he dragged my family name through the mud as he tried to elevate himself in Society.”

Now it was Lucinda who glared. “Is this why you asked me to dance, my lord? So you could interrogate me on the conduct of my friend?”

Wintermaine laughed and the sound was ugly. “Your friend? Goodness, Riley really is trying to elevate himself.” He sneered. “No, my lady. Actually I asked you to dance in order to give you some sound advice. I see what Riley is doing, trying to make himself more than he is. I only wished to ensure that you know he might try to use you to improve himself even further. You see, my cousin mentioned the two of you looked close in the country. I would hate to see you make a mistake that could have far reaching implications for you and your family.”

Lucinda yanked from his arms, and luckily the music ended at the same moment, so her motion did not look as violent as she had feared. She glared at the man who had invaded her space and spoken so coldly of a man he had once tormented.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said, her tone as cold as she could make it. “I’m certain your advice comes with the best of intentions behind it. But I’m afraid you know very little about Mr. Riley. And even less about me.”

“Are you saying you don’t care that aligning yourself with this man could lead to gossip and a reduction of your own status?” Wintermaine sputtered in disbelief.

“I don’t care,” Lucinda snapped back and heard the words as she spoke them. Of course she didn’t care. She had never cared much for the ridiculous values of rank.

“Then you’ll suffer for it,” the other man said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “And I hope you will recall that I tried to warn you.”

Lucinda turned on her heel and stalked away, leaving the Marquis on the dancefloor. She knew others were staring at her, that what she had just done would be spoken about for the rest of the night and probably most of tomorrow. But she didn’t care. In that moment, all she cared about was one thing: finding Ronan.

She saw Jane and Nicholas on the other side of the room and hurried to them.

“May I take your carriage?” she asked, breathless.

Nicholas stared at her. “I-Why?”

“Please don’t ask me silly questions,” Lucinda laughed. “I have something I need to do. I will send it back for you as soon as I have arrived where I plan to go.”

Nicholas blinked. “We can escort you-”

“No!” Lucinda said. “I need to do this on my own. You stay.”

“Of course,” Jane said and she could see from the expression on her friend’s face that perhaps Jane had guessed at her important errand. “But be careful.”

“I will,” she called over her shoulder as she rushed for the door. “Good night!”

She reached the carriage, told the driver where to go and settled into the seat as he hurried the horses through the darkened streets of London. Everything she had felt and tried to suppress bubbled inside of her as the horses turned through the twisting lanes and avenues. She had no idea what she would say once she reached Ronan. Or how he would respond.

~~~

The knock on the door was not expected and Rage glanced up from his book in surprise. There was a pause and then another knock, this time with greater urgency. Setting the novel aside he left the small parlor and went to the door. When he opened it, he staggered back a step.

Lucinda was on his step, wearing a beautiful ball gown made of dark blue satin that matched her eyes, a lighter version of the same blue comprised the wrap loose at her shoulders. Her blonde hair was bound up in ringlets around her face. Was this a dream?

“Lucinda?” he said, unable to keep his disbelief from his voice. “What are you doing here?”

She shifted. “I needed to see you.”

He looked behind her at the empty street. “How did you get here?”

“I took Nicholas and Jane’s carriage and sent it back to the ball for them once I had arrived.”

Rage blinked. “But this neighborhood is not as safe as your own. What if I had not been home?”

She blushed. “Well, I did consider that once I knocked and you didn’t answer immediately. But you are here.” She hesitated and then looked at him evenly. “May I come in or I should try to hail a hack?”

The very idea of Lucinda entering the street and calling for a hired vehicle made Rage’s stomach turn. This was a reasonable neighborhood and the safest he’d probably ever lived in, but that didn’t mean that there weren’t dangerous people lurking about. And Lucinda would make a very tempting target in more ways than one.

“Come in,” he said, ushering her inside and closing the door behind him.

She shed her wrap, revealing a vast expanse of bare skin along her shoulders and back. Rage barely contained a groan and kept himself from dragging his fingers along her exposed skin.

She looked around. “This is a cozy home.”

He stared at her. “It is nothing like yours, I realize.”

She turned on him with her mouth a thin line. “I like it.”

He did not know what to say to that statement. “Would you like something to drink?”

She hesitated as if considering the prudence of a drink, then shook her head. “No, I had best be clearheaded when we talk.”

He shifted. “What is there to say, Lucinda? We were both very clear in the country.”

“No, we were not. But that is not what I came here to talk about… yet.” She tilted her head and there was so much empathy in her face. “Ronan, why didn’t you tell me that you were the Duke of Nordcross’s son?”

Rage took a long step away from her and stared. He had never spoken that secret to anyone in his life.

“How did you know?”

“I saw your brother tonight, the dreadful Marquis Wintermaine.” She made a face. “The only thing attractive about his face were his eyes, which I realized were exactly the same as yours. Everything became so clear in that instant: why you were brought to London, why you were allowed to study with the children of the house…”

He motioned to the parlor and she followed him into the room. Once there, he sank into the settee near the fire and rubbed his face.

“You did know, didn’t you?” Lucinda burst out and he could see the distress on her face at the idea that she had somehow revealed a secret he might not have been privy to.

He looked up at her. “Yes. Yes, I was aware. Actually, it was Wintermaine, himself, who revealed it as a taunt one day in the schoolroom. I suppose once he said it, I saw some of the similarities that you have described. I decided to talk to the Duke about it, to ask him if I was his son.”

She took a seat herself and leaned forward on the edge. “And what did he say?”

Raw images of that terrible day loomed in his mind, but he shoved them aside as he had been for so many years.

“He struck me and told me to never speak of such a scandal again. A few days later I was shipped away to school and never saw any of them again.” He frowned.

After a long pause, Lucinda spoke again, softly, “Well, you have not missed much by being separated from that family. Wintermaine was a rude, arrogant ass. Apparently some cousin of his was attending one of the events at Jane and Nicholas’s home and reported to Wintermaine that you and I were talking together. The Marquis dared to, well, I suppose what he offered was a warning to me about affiliating myself with you.”

Rage pushed to his feet and clenched his fists at his sides. “He threatened you?”

She shook her head. “No, not exactly a threat. He simply said that aligning myself with you could have consequences.”

Rage shut his eyes. This was exactly what Nicholas had talked about at the lake the day Rage had broken things off with Lucinda.

“Damn it,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “This is why I knew I never should have started this. Why I should have been more careful. If I loved you, I should have protected you and your children.”

Lucinda let out a sharp gasp and leapt to her feet. She stared at him, tears in her eyes and hands shaking as she lifted them to her lips.

“You love me?” she finally whispered when she had found her voice.

Rage held back a curse. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud. That betrayal of his inner soul could do neither of them any good in the long run. But now that she had heard those dangerous words, he couldn’t deny them.

“Yes,” he admitted softly.

She didn’t respond with words. Instead, she crossed the narrow expanse that separated them and flung her arms around his neck. Then her lips were on his. For her own good, he should have pushed her away, but she tasted faintly of sweet wine and desire and the combination was just too irresistible.

He tilted his head to grant her greater access and crushed his arms around her. She felt so soft in his arms, so perfectly fitted.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he admitted, despite the imprudence of the confession.

She smiled against his lips. “Show me.”

He drew back and stared at her for a long moment. “Lucinda-” he began.

She reached up and loosened the buttons of his shirt. “Show me or I will show you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut. There was no arguing with her seduction. Well, there was, but he wasn’t strong enough to attempt it. In the end, he wanted her and whether he argued with her first, or simply surrendered, this night would end the same: their bodies joined together, their sighs of pleasure merging.

He growled out a low sound of possession and popped the buttons on her bodice free in one snap of his wrist. One of them tore free and bounced away on the wooden floor, but Lucinda didn’t admonish him. Instead she lifted up on her tiptoes and ground her mouth to his.

The next few moments were a heated blur or warring tongues, tearing clothes and panting desperation. Rage could not have recited what had happened in them if he were paid a million pounds for the repetition. But when he stepped back and looked at Lucinda, standing naked in his parlor, her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders and breasts… nothing else mattered.

She opened her arms to him and he stepped forward, his hesitation silenced, if not forgotten. He lifted her hips and she wrapped her arms around his waist as they fell back against the settee he had abandoned when she kissed him. She shifted her weight and he felt the heated wetness of her sex open to his invasion. And it was coming home.

Lucinda let out a guttural moan as Ronan slid inside her body all the way to the hilt. Had it only been a few days since she last felt this sensation? It seemed like an eternity. She gripped his shoulders and flexed her hips, grinding her pelvis against his. Her breath caught with the pleasure while she repeated the action again and again. Ronan cupped the back of her skull and drew her down so that their mouths met as she rode him. He drove his tongue into her mouth as she drove their bodies together, the rhythm matching, the pleasure building until it was an out of control fire. And in that moment, in the peak of emotion and desire, she exploded with a powerful orgasm.

Her hips jolted out of control and she clung to him as she rode out the pleasure, as he lifted his lips to torment and please her. And when the waves of her release had finally eased, he rolled her to her back and pounded hard and deep into her body until he grunted and withdrew to spend between them.

Lucinda shifted slightly so she could rest her head against Ronan’s shoulder. Despite being precariously perched on the edge of the couch, she felt safe. She felt like she’d come home. With a contented sigh, she looked up at him.

Only to find his expression to be faraway and worried. She reached up to cup his chin and force him to look at her.

“Please don’t tell me you regret what just happened.”

He shook his head. “No. I don’t regret it. But we both know-”

With effort, Lucinda sat up and looked at him. “Stop. Ronan, I love you.”

He blinked and all words died on his lips. “You love me?” he repeated after a long moment.

She nodded. “I love you and I want to be with you. Always.”

He swallowed and she could see him running all the scenarios in his mind that made this wrong. That made it impossible.

“But your daughters-”

She shook her head. “My daughters need the kind of affection you showed them yesterday. Margaret couldn’t stop talking about you all last night and into today. And they need a happy mother. The only way I will be happy is if I can love you and have you love me in return.”

He sat up slowly and cupped her cheeks in his big, rough hands. “What about being lovers? We could be lovers. Meet in secret.”

She shook away his touch in frustration. “No! That won’t be good enough. Don’t you understand? I have learned the hard way that love is fleeting. In a moment, it can be snatched away and leave only pain and heartache. But it is worth the risk, worth any risk. So I won’t hide it or lie about it. I want to celebrate it and feel it and share it and proudly declare it any time I desire to do so. Otherwise I’ll lead only a half-life.”

He stared at her, his face completely unreadable in the firelight. Finally, he sighed.

“Then you leave me no choice.”

She stared as he got to his feet. Was he leaving? Refusing her, despite the fact that he loved her? Lucinda’s hand stirred to grab for him and demand he not take a coward’s form of protection, but instead of leaving, Ronan dropped to his knees before her and took her hand.

“A half-life is no way to live, Lucinda. Not for you. Not for me. So will you take the ultimate risk and marry me? Despite what some in Society will say?”

She covered his hand with hers as happy tears swelled in her eyes and overflowed onto her cheeks.

“I will,” she whispered as she pressed her mouth to his. “I will.”

Epilogue

“Stop pacing,” Stone said with a laugh. “You’ll only run a hole in the carpet and the baby won’t come any faster. Trust me, I know from experience.”

Rage watched as his friend cast a quick, loving glance at the basinet that was in the corner of the room. It would soon hold his own son or daughter, but for the moment it held Anthony, Nicholas and Jane’s first child, born just a few months before.

“Is this length of time normal?” Rage asked, glancing at the bedroom door with anxious worry. “And why has it gotten so quiet?”

As if in answer to his question, behind the door he heard Lucinda let loose with a long cry and then, like music on the air, came the squall of a child drawing his or her first breath. He could wait no longer. He shoved into the chamber just in time to see the midwife covering his wife and Jane placing a wiggling, red baby across Lucinda’s chest.

She lifted her gaze as he came into the room and smiled. “A boy,” she whispered.

He crossed the room. He could hear Jane saying something, the midwife also speaking, but he was too focused on his wife and his son to know what words were coming from their mouths. He sank onto the bed beside Lucinda and reached down to smooth a tangle of hair away from her forehead.

“Are you… well?” he asked, suddenly awkward as he stared at the baby boy who was snuggled into his wife’s chest.

She nodded with tears coming down her face. “I’m perfect.”

He smiled. “You are.”

Jane touched his shoulder and he finally looked at his sister-in-law. “Should I bring in Margaret and Georgiana?”

Lucinda was the one who answered. “Yes, I know they’ve been waiting.”

Jane stepped away and Lucinda adjusted herself up higher on the pillows. With a smile, she held out the baby to him. “Take your son.”

He nodded and let her place him into his arms. “He is so small. I fear I’ll break him.”

She laughed. “You won’t. You haven’t broken any of us yet.”

He glanced at her with a smile of his own, though they both knew full-well that she meant more by that comment than she might say. After two years together, over a year and a half married, life had taken on a deeper meaning. And Rage had never been happier. All his fears about shunning and consequences had proven to be unfounded. A few people whispered, of course, but most of the women seemed to admire Lucinda for picking a “wild, untamed beast” as her second husband.

Of course she was kind enough not to reveal that he was utterly tamed thanks to her. His anger was gone. His emptiness filled.

All thanks to her.

Behind him the door opened and Margaret put her blonde head through the entrance. “Mama?”

Lucinda smiled at her daughter. “Come in, darling. Meet your brother.”

Margaret came into the chamber, her younger sister at her side. While Margaret looked like Lucinda, Rage could see so much of Nicholas, and thus Anthony, in the younger girl. Once Stone had asked him if the resemblance troubled him, but that was something he had never even considered. He actually liked that Georgie favored her father. It kept him alive in the girls’ lives, as did the stories Nicholas and Lucinda told. He would never steal that from the children.

Margaret hesitated at the end of the bed and Rage tilted the baby down so the girls could see him. Immediately, Margaret’s worry seemed to fade. “Oh, he’s so small. Like my dolly.”

“Oh dear,” Lucinda laughed from behind him. “I see a round of dress up in my poor son’s future.”

Margaret and Georgie both laughed before Georgie reached up and touched the  baby’s hand gently. “I like him,” she declared.

“Good,” Rage said, and though he laughed he felt true relief. He had never expected the girls to be anything but accepting, but he was so glad that his son would be accepted by his family, welcomed as he had never been as a child. That was a gift. “Then we’ll keep him.”

“Give me a kiss now,” Lucinda said. “And then see if Auntie Jane needs any help before you two go to bed.”

The girls did as they had been asked, first kissing Lucinda and then Rage. Margaret led her sister to the door, but there she stopped. She turned back and looked at him with contemplation in her little girl eyes.

“I love you,” she said, frank and matter of fact. “I’m glad we are a family.”

With that, she and Georgie skipped from the room, their giggling voices echoing in the outer chamber as they found Aunt Jane.

When Rage turned back to his wife, he found renewed tears on her cheeks. And to be honest, he felt them in his own eyes.

“I think Margaret said best what I feel in my heart,” Lucinda whispered. “I love you. And I’m so glad we are a family.”

“Yes,” Rage said as he leaned forward to kiss his wife gently. “As am I.”