“Now . . . I wouldn’t say that.”

“Then perhaps there are hidden depths to his character of which you are unaware.”

Her gaze drifted to Lucien as they passed him. He engaged his companion with singular attention. He’d found his latest conquest. And here she was defending his character like a lovesick ninny.

“You appear flushed, Lady Julienne,” Fontaine murmured.

She was furious with herself, but certainly couldn’t say so. “I’m a little warm.”

With a mischievous smile, he led her neatly out a nearby set of French doors and came to a stop on the balcony. “Better?”

A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. Fontaine was remarkably handsome and charming, if a little on the wrong side of arrogant. She wondered if, given the chance, he could incite her to the heights of passion Lucien had. She felt nothing for him at the moment besides a slight irritation, but perhaps an attraction could grow. In any case, she could not continue to pine for a man who was never meant to be hers. “Will you escort me through the garden, my lord?”

He arched a brow. “Should we find your chaperone before proceeding?”

“Would you prefer that we did?” she asked, knowing she should insist they find Aunt Eugenia, but more concerned about fleeing the sight of Lucien and his lover.

He tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. “I promise to be on my best behavior.”

As they strolled along the nearby gravel paths, she forced herself to relax and to enjoy the slight evening breeze. They found a small bench in viewing distance of the manse and sat down. Fontaine turned to her, taking both of her hands in his. “I would be delighted, Lady Julienne, if you would allow me to escort you to the Derby at Epsom next week.”

Julienne knew that to be seen with the handsome marquess at such a public gathering would solidify his courtship in the eyes of Society. “Lord Fontaine—”

“Justin, please.”

She was stunned. His offer was an intimate gesture. He could probably count on one hand the number of people who called him by his given name rather than his title.

“Very well . . . Justin.” She took a deep breath. She could also offer intimate gestures. Lucien could not be allowed to ruin her for every other man. Certainly she had not ruined him for other women. “I would greatly appreciate it if you would kiss me.”

Fontaine looked understandably surprised, then wary, before grinning with delight. If they were caught, it could be a disaster for her. He would either offer marriage to save her reputation, or he would walk away. As a powerful marquess, Fontaine could not be forced into anything, certainly nothing as drastic as marriage, but at the moment she felt reckless, her stung pride and aching heart goading her to further foolishness.

“With pleasure,” he murmured, drawing her closer.

Julienne closed her eyes and prayed for passion. His mouth brushed across hers, featherlight and fleeting. The exchange was not the least distasteful—it was actually quite pleasant—but it was sadly lacking in any combustible qualities. Her heart didn’t race, her breath didn’t catch. But then she hadn’t really expected otherwise.

She opened her eyes and hid her disappointment with a smile. “I would very much appreciate your escort to the Derby, my lord.”

“Was that a test, Lady Julienne? And if so, might I safely assume I passed?”

Julienne couldn’t tell him the truth, so she simply kept smiling. Thankfully, Fontaine didn’t press her further. He stood and held out his arm, but she demurred. “Go ahead, please. I want a moment to catch my breath before I return to the ballroom.”

“I cannot leave you out here alone,” he said.

But she insisted.

Fontaine stood indecisively for a moment, but in the end his desire to earn her regard won out. He gave a courtly bow and kissed the back of her hand. “I will inform Lady Whitfield of your whereabouts.”

When she was alone, Julienne acknowledged that it was time to abandon her dream of a grand passion. She couldn’t go about kissing men while thinking of Lucien. She needed to marry, and she couldn’t afford to be picky. No one in the ton married for love or any other elevated emotion, and it was futile to long for her marriage to be different.

“You kissed him!”

Standing, she turned her head toward the low, accusatory voice.

Lucien.

Lucien kept his fisted hands behind his back. It was bad enough he’d barely restrained himself from beating a marquess to a bloody pulp, but to allow Julienne to see how much he cared would be the worst sort of folly. She’d obviously moved past their one night together, while he had not. He couldn’t allow her to discover how completely smitten he was.

He’d been watching her all evening. She bore his mark, although only he knew it. There was a new knowledge in her dark eyes, a subtle swing to her hips, a deeper color to her lips, that said she’d experienced passion. Julienne had always been alluring, but now . . . now he could hardly restrain himself from sweeping her into his arms, carrying her away, and fucking her until neither one of them could move.

He’d heard her defend his honor to Fontaine when they passed by him, and her obvious irritation with the marquess had touched him as few things in his life ever had. Lucien knew he was too bold and aggressive to be accepted in the upper tier of Society, but he was too rich to mingle anywhere else. Men envied his business acumen and enjoyed the comforts of membership in his club. Women liked him for his pretty face and sexual appetite. Somehow between the two genders he was invited everywhere, but fit in nowhere.

Except for those all-too-brief hours he’d spent with Julienne. He’d fit then. Perfectly.

Lucien had followed her out to the garden, wanting desperately to claim her, and instead had watched her kiss Fontaine. And now she sat dreamy-eyed on the bench, while acidic jealousy ate at him.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I kissed him.”

“Why?” He had no right to ask, but he was unable to stop himself.

She smiled—the same sweet, open smile that said she saw things in him worth seeing. “I wanted to know if it would feel the same as when you kissed me.”

He wasn’t certain what he had expected her to say, but it definitely wasn’t that. Satisfaction filled him. She’d been thinking of him, even while kissing another man. His fists unclenched. “And did it?”

She shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. It’s been a sennight since you kissed me. My memory may be faulty.”

He reached for her hand and pulled her into the shadows. Staring down at her upturned face, his heart ached at her beauty and the trust she gave him so readily. His voice was husky when he whispered, “Allow me to remind you.” Lowering his head, Lucien kissed her deeply, making no attempt to hide his desire, determined to erase from her memory any thought of another man’s lips on hers.

Only a week since he’d held her, yet it seemed like an eternity.

Julienne returned his kiss with similar passion, her hands slipping inside his jacket and caressing his back. Her tongue brushed across his, and he tasted her sweetness. Nothing in the world quenched his thirst like the taste of her mouth.

“Did it feel like this when he kissed you?” he asked.

She moaned. “Dear God, no.”

He thrust his thigh between her legs and lifted her against it. Her eyes were closed, her head thrown back, her lips wet and swollen from his kiss. Only a kiss, and she was melting in his arms.

He must have done something in a past life to earn Julienne’s passion, because he certainly had done nothing worthy of her in this life.

“Julienne,” he murmured, hugging her close. “I need to speak with you. I don’t think I’ll be able to talk with you here. You’re too tempting, sweetheart. I can’t resist taking advantage.”

Her smile curved against his cheek. “You are incorrigible.”

“Is there any way I can meet with you? To talk.”

She pulled away, her dark eyes shining with amusement. “Anywhere we meet would have us alone.”

Lucien sighed, hating the class distinctions that would forever keep them apart. “That’s true, but perhaps in the light of day, I’ll be better able to restrain myself.”

Julienne giggled, a wonderful sound that warmed him from the inside. “If you want to speak with me, you will have to call on me. I’ve no intention of dressing up as a man ever again.”

“I quite enjoyed the sight of you in those trousers.”

She laughed. “You are a scoundrel, Lucien Remington.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that,” he said dryly. “You should run in terror when you see me coming.”

“I’m not afraid of you. I know you would never hurt me.”

Her utter confidence in the goodness of his character rattled him to the core. God help him if she ever came to care for him. He would never be able to resist her.

“How can you know that?” he challenged. “My intentions toward you are not honorable.”

“Is that so? Then why do you wish to speak with me in a place where you can’t take advantage?”

“Why don’t you ask me instead what I’d do if you went further into the garden with me?”

Julienne crossed her arms and gave him a chastising look. “Why is it so important to maintain your dissolute image?”

Mocking her, he crossed his arms and raised a sardonic brow. “Why is it so difficult for you to collect that it’s not merely an image?”

She pursed her lips.

He growled low in his throat. “Damn you, Julienne! Your girlish fantasies about me are just that—fantasies. I’ve ruined dukes and then tumbled their wives. I’ve—” His voice choked into silence, his throat refusing to form the sounds that would drive her away.

Be frightened, Lucien thought desperately. Run from me before it’s too late for both of us.

Her gaze narrowed. “Because if you were really as wicked as you say, you would have divested me of my virginity that night in your club. But you didn’t. I’d wager I could lift up my skirts for you now and beg you to take me, and you wouldn’t. You couldn’t!”

“You innocent fool,” he bit out, suddenly furious that she would torture him so. “Never challenge a man’s virility. You force him to defend himself in the only way possible.”

Fuming and frustrated, wishing she would disdain him instead of entice him, Lucien wrapped his fingers around her elbow and dragged her away from the manse, descending the wide grassy steps into the darkened lower gardens. Julienne followed him easily, making no protest, and her acquiesce only inflamed him further. Finding a yew-enclosed alcove occupied by a marble statue, he pressed her against the cold stone with his aroused body and reclaimed her mouth.

His hands moved urgently over her curves, desperate for the feel of her satin skin. He tugged down the bodice of her gown, exposing her lush breasts. Pushing them up with his hands, Lucien licked a tender nipple, watching it pucker as the cool air drifted across the wet peak. “God, your taste . . .” he groaned. “It intoxicates me . . .”

She whimpered, her hands drifting into his hair, holding him close. “Lucien.” Her voice, so husky and full of longing, urged him to greater heights of lust, but he held himself ruthlessly in check, gentling his touch even as he suckled voraciously at her breasts. His body shook with the force of his passion, but her pleasure was paramount, more important at this moment than his next breath.

Julienne pushed him away, presenting a tempting picture of wantonness with her breasts pressed upward by her gown, her nipples wet from his mouth. With challenge in her eyes, she lifted her skirts with a courtesan’s grace, slowly exposing her long, graceful legs. Then her thighs. And then the honeyed curls of her sex. She widened her stance in open invitation.

“Lucien,” she whispered, a blush suffusing the delicate skin of her chest before moving up her throat to her cheeks. “You will drive me to madness before you are finished with me.”

He wanted to reassure her and promise her things he never thought he could promise anyone. But he knew it would be wrong to say such things, to offer hope for a future that could never be. Desperate with need, and angry with her for being the cause of that need, he tore open the placket of his breeches and allowed his engorged cock to spring free.

He would show her what kind of man he was and ruin her for any other. She would hate him when he was through, but that was for the best. “I’m going to fuck you,” he promised with savage intent, knowing the act with her could never be so base. “I’m going to keep you pinned against that statue, filled with my cock, until you scream from the pleasure.”

With one hand under her thigh, Lucien lifted her leg, opening her wider. The head of his shaft found her, and bending his knees, he pressed for entry. She was so tight, but so hot and wet. She felt wonderful, and her helpless moan as he slid deeper into her made him mindless. His entire body was wracked with shudders as he forced himself to press slowly, carefully. He was generously sized, and Julienne was so small. He couldn’t bear to hurt her.

He watched her face as he took her, her features pale in the moonlight, like the statue behind her. Her eyes gazed luminously into his, their depths burning with desire and undeserved affection. She should be frightened, but instead she trusted him implicitly. The way she looked at him made it impossible to breathe. He stilled, held rigid by the moment.

Julienne was correct. He couldn’t take her like this, like a whore in someone’s garden. And he couldn’t make her hate him. It ripped at him to even think of it. With a tortured curse, Lucien pulled away, the heavy weight of his erection slipping from her body. She sobbed in protest, and the sound broke the heart he’d forgotten he had.

With his eyes squeezed shut, blocking out the sight of her, Lucien turned blindly away. His chest heaved with his breathing, his body hard, his blood hot. His cock ached with the pressure of unspent desire, every muscle burning with tension.