“Essence of Eleanor,” he whispered. “If I could bottle it, I would become famous.”

Her lips curved into a smile and he kissed her again. He emerged from that kiss dazed, his body on fire, heart pounding.

“I am not trying to seduce you,” Eleanor stated.

All the higher parts of his brain were considering the logistics of making love in the midst of a river, and he barely understood her.

“You aren’t?”

“No.”

“It doesn’t matter because I’m seducing you. Would that be all right with you?”

“You’re seducing me?”

“Yes,” he said calmly. As calmly as he could, given that he felt like a ravening animal. “Don’t pick this moment to become chaste, Eleanor.”

“What if I did?” she said, and there was something in her eyes, some sort of confused hurt.

He kissed her hard, the kind of kiss that stole his breath and made his fingers curl with the wish to touch her. But he didn’t. “I’d seduce you anyway,” he told her, honestly enough. “God, Eleanor, I’ve never felt this way. Ever.”

And then he stood up and wrenched off his neck cloth. Threw his heavy silk jacket over one rock and his fine linen shirt over another.

The woman he meant to seduce laughed at him while sunbeams danced in her hair, turning individual hairs into spun gold and glossy bronze and darker hues, like brewed tea. He didn’t care how she laughed as long as she didn’t leave.

And she didn’t, falling silent when he eased his breeches down over that aching, hot part of himself. He didn’t see fear in her eyes, thank God. Or reluctance, either.

Naked, he walked back through the pool, not even feeling the chilly water on his ankles. She kept her hands at her sides.

“You can’t mean…” she whispered.

Her eyes were very wide and very dark. But not reluctant.

“Yes.” Her body was curves and shadows, pink here, cream there. He wanted to tear her gown off, taste all of her. She had buttons all the way down her dress. It was the work of mere moments to unbutton some two hundred buttons, not counting those that flew off, sinking into the pool with tiny splashes.

“We can’t do this,” she whispered.

He glanced over his shoulder. They were far from the house, and even if someone did come down the path, they were around the curve of the stream, well out of sight.

“No one will come.” He had dispensed with her corset and was inching up her chemise. “We are alone, Eleanor. Do you realize that we are almost never alone? Finchley is always hanging around my bedchamber, and there’s your maid—”

“We can’t make love in the open air. I’ve never heard of anything so scandalous. We are, both of us, promised to others.”

“I am marrying for the sake of my children.” He said it flatly. “I have every expectation that Lisette and I will be quite comfortable together. And I will be faithful to her. But I am not yet married. In fact, I haven’t even proposed.”

“She announced your engagement,” Eleanor pointed out, keeping a tight grip on her chemise so he couldn’t pull it up her legs.

“That surprised me, but not as much as when you announced the same,” he said, giving her a little kiss at the edge of her mouth. He had a hand under the edge of her chemise now, running circles on her smooth skin.

“I should have made you go on one knee,” she said. “Gideon didn’t either; at this rate, I’ll never have a proper proposal.”

Villiers didn’t want to think about Gideon. He didn’t even want to hear the man’s name. He slid his hand higher and then ran his lips over her eyebrow. “You’re beautiful, Eleanor,” he whispered. “At first I thought your eyes were black, but they’re actually blue, the color of the sky just before the sun sets.”

“We can’t do this! Oyster is watching,” she said, pulling the hem of her chemise back down.

Villiers had been alive a few years more than thirty. He knew perfectly well when a woman was truly protesting and when she was offering excuses for the mere sake of it.

The pug was sprawled out on a sunny rock, paws in the air, snoring. In his estimation, Oyster was a pathetic excuse for a dog, so he didn’t even bother answering that protest, just wrestled the fabric out of her hand and swept the whole garment up and over her hair.

And then, there they were. Naked.

Her hair had started to fall from its pins, locks sliding over her breasts. Her stomach was gently rounded and curved into a beautiful shadow, dusted with hair the color of brandy.

He was never at a loss for words. Never. Until now. “You’re so—” He stopped. He’d been wanting to explore her with his mouth for hours, days. And she wanted a man to kneel before her.

So he did, pushing her legs apart slightly so he could run his tongue up a beautiful slender thigh.

“Oh—” she cried, her voice far away and thin.

Her skin was sweet and smooth, and he painted designs on her with his tongue, sliding higher and higher, as if she too were a smooth rock in the sunshine. Her fingers were playing with his hair, twisting, caressing.

“You’re not going to—” Her breathing was growing ragged.

“I am.”

“You can’t do that!” She sounded truly shocked, so he stood up and let his fingers drift over the rounded curve of her inner thigh that he had just kissed.

She had a flush high in her cheeks that made his whole body thrum with pleasure, so much so that he didn’t even realize for a moment how odd it was that her pleasure would be causing his. He didn’t think of that until they were kissing again and he was sipping the sweet darkness of her mouth, one arm around her back to protect her from the hard stone, the other still caressing her thigh, sliding closer, farther away, closer again.

“You aren’t going to touch me there, are you?” she whispered tremulously.

He pulled back and frowned at her. “He didn’t even touch you?”

“I—No. Is that always part of lovemaking?”

The struggle with his conscience took a split second, and his conscience lost, as always. “Absolutely,” he said firmly. “One wouldn’t want to criticize a former lover, but…” He had her trembling, so he slid his fingers just to the edge of the soft curls between her legs. “A man always touches a woman here. Because—” He pulled her closer so he could feel her soft breasts against his chest. “—because that is where a woman is most luscious and most delicate, which in itself sets a man on fire.” He let a finger drop deep, stroke and glide.

Her head dropped back against his arm, so he bent to kiss her throat.

“He touches her like this,” he said, licking her shoulder and letting his fingers wander.

“That’s—lovely,” Eleanor said, the break in her voice sending another jolt down to Villiers’s groin.

“Surely he kissed you here?” He kissed his way down the slope of her breast, ran his teeth gently over her nipple.

“Of—Of course,” she said, her back arching toward him. “That feels so good!” He didn’t think she was talking only about the fact he was suckling her, so he increased the pressure of his fingers a little bit.