But oh—she was not sorry.

Not yet. And why anticipate sorrow and guilt?

She must have drifted again. She awoke to the touch of his hand moving featherlight up her body, between her breasts, over one of them, beneath it. He set the pad of his thumb over her nipple and rubbed so lightly that she felt the effect more than the touch. Desire stabbed down inside her and upward so that both her womb and her throat ached.

She turned her head on his arm and saw the hard, austere, cynical, silver-templed Mr. Lamarr, with whom no woman of sense would allow herself to become personally involved. But almost in the same moment she saw Marcel, the lover in whom she had found escape and delight and no peril at all. Except that there was the certain knowledge of a bleaker-than-ever future.

And the rest of tonight.

She realized suddenly that the inn had fallen silent and there was no further sound of music coming from outside. She must have dozed for longer than she thought. Time was passing. This night was passing.

He kissed her.

And again she marveled that kisses and touches could be so light, so seemingly lazy and yet so purposeful too. For there was no doubt in her mind that every touch of his—of palm and fingertips and lips and tongue—was knowledgeable and deliberate and designed to bring her to full readiness again. Not that that was going to be a hard task. She turned onto her side and touched him, one of her hands spreading over his chest with its light dusting of hair, while the other moved over him, feeling the hardness of muscles, the pulsing warmth within. She had never touched a man’s body . . .

“Viola,” he murmured against her lips, and he took her hand by the wrist and moved it low between them. She first balked at the very idea, then touched him lightly, and then closed her hand about him. Long, thick, hard. But she had known that. She had had him inside her. It was different to touch him with her hand, though. With her thumb she stroked the tip, and he inhaled slowly and audibly and moved his mouth to her throat and slid his hand between her thighs to work magic with his fingers there.

He lifted her on top of him this time and slid his hands down her thighs to grasp her behind the knees and bring them up to hug his hips. She knelt above him and spread her hands over his chest and looked down at him. The candle was still burning on the dresser. He gazed back at her, his eyes dark and hooded, and she was fully aware for the first time that she was naked and unembarrassed. She ought to be. She hated to be seen naked, even by her maid. Indeed, no one else had seen her unclothed since she was a child. And she was no longer young.

He was perfect physically. It seemed unfair. But she was unembarrassed by her own imperfections. After tomorrow she would probably never see him again, and she doubted he would remember this or her for long. She had no illusions about that. Unlike her. She would always remember. It did not matter. She had made her decision quite knowingly and without any coercion on his part. Quite the contrary.

And she was not sorry. She would not be sorry.

“Mount me,” he said softly. “Ride me, Viola. Ride me to a standstill.”

Even the words were deliberately chosen, deliberately spoken. For desire, already roiling in her, surged. Her nipples tightened and so did her inner muscles against the ache of wanting. And it did not matter that she was sore so soon after the last time, or that it had never occurred to her that the woman could take the lead in a sexual encounter. She lowered herself until she could feel him, and she circled about him until he was there at her opening, and she lowered herself onto him, slowly, savoring every moment, every sensation, until she was filled. She clenched her muscles about him, reveling in the hiss of his inward breath.

“Witch,” he whispered.

And she rode while he lay quite still. And rode and rode, her eyes closed, her hands braced on his chest, all her concentration there where exquisite pleasure built to exquisite pain. She made circular motions with her hips, grinding about him as she rode, until she thought she must surely go mad and it seemed he must be made of granite—

Until it was clear he was not. His hands came to her hips and pulled hard downward, holding her still while he pressed deeper than it seemed possible to come and the pain burst into something that would surely be unbearable until . . . it was not. Her mind had a vivid image of a rose bursting open in the sunlight to reveal all the glory of its inner beauty, and then the image was gone with every other coherent thought.

He relaxed beneath her, his chest damp with sweat, his breathing ragged and audible. He was looking up at her with lazy eyes. “The magnificent Lady Riverdale,” he murmured.

The dangerous Mr. Lamarr. But she did not speak the words aloud or correct him for wrongly naming her. She stretched out on him, turning her head on his shoulder while he hooked the bedcovers with one foot and brought them back up over them. They were still coupled.

How strange that life could be this way and she had never known it. Not really. She had imagined, perhaps, what passion must be like, but imagination was inadequate. One had to experience it. Did some people live all their lives like this? Alive? Did he? A night like this one must, of course, be not very different for him. There must be nothing so very unusual about it. It was just a part of his normal way of being.

But she did not want to dwell upon that. It was not as if she had not known. There was no point now in lamenting the fact that she had got herself involved with a man who would never be involved with her.

But she would never forget. Even when she wanted to, she never would.

* * *

• • •

They loved the night away. She tested his stamina, as he did hers, but they both lived up to the challenge. Tomorrow was moving inexorably toward them, however. Indeed, tomorrow was already today. Hardly had he noticed that the candle had burned itself out than he was aware of dawn graying the window behind the curtains and then of daylight illumining the room.

It was a damnable apology for an inn room. The wallpaper was faded almost to extinction, and there were indeed cracks on the ceiling—cracks involving only the paint up there and not the structure, he hoped. The room smelled faintly of oldness. And less faintly of sex.

It had been good. Very good indeed. Perhaps the best. He had had no more than a couple of winks of sleep. Why waste a night that had offered—and delivered—such pleasure? She was inexperienced, he had discovered early. There was no real surprise there. She was also without inhibition. That had been a bit more of a surprise when he had sometimes thought of her—after her rejection and rather spitefully, he had to confess—as an ice queen. But of course he had often wondered if her unfailingly cool dignity was a mere veil over a powder keg of passion.

It was.

She was curled onto her side, facing away from him, and he turned too and curled about her, spoon fashion, with one arm over her waist. She had slept more than he had.

Today they would go their separate ways. And next spring, more than likely, he was going to have Estelle in town with him making her come-out during the Season. And if Estelle was going to be there, then so—perish the thought—was Jane Morrow as her official sponsor and chaperon. He was going to have to be far more circumspect about his own behavior. He would not be able to continue his accustomed way of living when it might affect his daughter’s chances of making a good marriage.

Viola would not even be in town next spring. Through no fault of her own she had fallen out of favor with some members of the ton and was no longer accepted as unconditionally as the Countess of Riverdale had been. She had not been seen in town since soon after the death of Riverdale, or, if she had, he had not heard of it. She was unlikely to return.