His finger tapped the rim of his glass silently. She watched that tapping finger, feeling the anxiousness of that gesture inside her.

“Cleo, where did you disappear today?” Marguerite asked, her voice light, belying the concern in her eyes. Natural, she supposed, considering their last encounter.

“Just explored the castle a bit . . . and then I fell asleep in the library while I was reading.”

“I spent the day studying Latin.” Josephine pouted and stabbed at her dinner. “Latin! A dead language. What use is it, I would like to know?”

Logan glanced at his sister. “Cruel of me, I know, to see that you receive an education.”

Josephine scowled. “Well, I doubt it will serve me on the dance floors of London.”

Cleo’s lips twitched. The interplay reminded her of her own siblings. She frowned, missing them and wondering how long before she could put her plan in place to bring them here. The oldest of her brothers and sisters might be better served in a school that would provide them the education and polish they’d missed thus far. She’d have to investigate the matter. But the rest, the little ones—she was eager for them to join her here. She wouldn’t feel easy until she had them safely in her care. A pain stabbed the area surrounding her heart to know she couldn’t save her mother.

After dinner they all moved into the drawing room. Logan escorted her. Leading them at a creeping pace, she quickly grasped that he was deliberately positioning them last. Just as they were about to cross the threshold into the room, he pulled her back and pressed her against the wall outside the drawing-room doors, trapping her with his body.

“Logan? What—”

He smothered her words with a long, rough kiss that turned her knees to liquid. It went on and on. If not for the warm press of his body, she was certain she would slide to the floor in a boneless heap. Which she probably wouldn’t even mind as long as he joined her there.

“There.” He broke away, breathing fiercely, his broad chest rising and falling. “I’ve wanted to do that all night.”

“I-I . . .” she stammered uselessly as he grabbed her hand and led her back into the drawing room.

She tried to appear composed, unaffected—not as though she’d been kissed senseless seconds ago.

He sat beside her on the chaise, his leg so close that it brushed the skirt of her dress. Heat seemed to reach her from that trouser-clad leg. It drew her gaze again and again, distracting her from everything and everyone.

Her lips tingled. Bruised and sensitive, she brushed her fingers to her mouth, testing the surface, the shape of lips that she had lived with all her life but suddenly felt different.

At one point, she looked up to find Marguerite staring at her with a knowing lift of her eyebrow. The sight of which annoyed her to no end. Cleo dropped her hand from her face and lifted her chin at a defiant angle. Almost to prove that point, she scooted herself as far as possible down the chaise without falling off.

She didn’t have long to endure her sister’s smug gaze, however. Ash unfolded his long frame and helped his wife to her feet. “Excuse us. It’s been a long day, and I’m not entirely certain Marguerite has recovered from the journey.”

Marguerite cast her husband a sardonic look, and Cleo well understood that he wasn’t concerned with his wife’s need for rest. Her cheeks burned knowing precisely the nature of what it was they were retiring for the night to do.

As Jack swept Logan into a conversation on matters of whiskey and agriculture, she stood abruptly. Too abruptly, evidently. Everyone looked at her with sudden curiosity.

“I’m tired, as well.”

“Even after your nap?” Josephine asked.

Cleo’s cheeks prickled with heat.

Logan started to rise. She held out a hand. “No, no. That’s quite all right. I don’t want to take you away from everyone. Stay. Enjoy yourself.”

His eyes glittered darkly, and she read the message there quite clearly. He was agreeable to leaving everyone and joining her. He wished to enjoy her.

With an awkward curtsylike dip, she turned and fled the room, overhearing Logan’s sister as she departed the room. “She likes to sleep a lot.”

She practically raced up the stairs. Holding her skirts high to make certain she didn’t trip, she rushed down the corridor, desperate to be in bed asleep—or rather feigning sleep—before he joined her. Cowardly, she knew, but she could not help herself.

Behind the screen in her chamber, she stripped off her clothes, heedless of the loud rip behind her back. Blasted buttons. She kicked her skirts free, pulled off her undergarments and slid her nightgown over her head, freezing, her heart beating like a wild bird in her chest at the sound of the bedchamber door opening and shutting.

Chapter Twenty-six

She hadn’t been quick enough. He’d followed her. She waited a long moment, listening closely as if he might announce himself . . . as if she might somehow disappear altogether and appear somewhere else far from this room.

The silence grew thick and cloying. She squared her shoulders and stepped from behind the screen. She was no coward. She was in absolute control of herself. She needn’t fear him . . . or herself. Marguerite’s prediction needn’t become reality.

He’d yet to move far into the room, but stood just a few feet from the door, still looking crisp and fresh and startlingly attractive in his evening attire. She doubted there would ever be a time when she would see him without feeling a sense of astonishment over his appeal. His utter masculinity, his dangerous beauty. And he was hers. If she would only allow herself to have him.

He pushed off from the door and started toward her, his stride cutting a hard line.

Her heart leapt to her throat. Blood rushed in her ears. She should move. Run! And yet her feet remained planted, rooted to the carpet, her bare toes curling with anticipation.

And then he was reaching for her. Taking her. His hand slid around her neck in one smooth move, pulling her in as his head ducked for her mouth, crashing their lips together.

His mouth tasted of man and heat and the slight flavor of whiskey. Hunger surged inside her, dark and dangerous, as ravenous as a beast released to hunt. She couldn’t remember ever feeling this . . . a desire so enveloping it made her forget all her fears.

Cleo clenched her hands and shoved them between their bodies, determined to stop this. It took everything in her to resist flattening her palms against his hard chest and simply feel him, savor the hard press of muscles surrounding her.

She willed her lips to still, willed her body not to respond to the wonder of his mouth on hers, coaxing forth feelings and emotions long denied. New feelings. Terrifying, exciting feelings she had been so careful to kill. Freed from a dark hidden place, they spiraled through her like warmed wine, dizzying, invigorating, feeding her courage—or idiocy. Either way, she was a new woman, drinking from his mouth as though his lips were some intoxicating elixir she could not resist.

His hands slid into her hair, scattering the pins. Her scalp shivered with sensation. Her trembling fingers unfolded, caressing and exploring his unyielding warmth.

With a choking cry, the last of her resistance slid away. She parted her mouth wider, meeting the slick glide of his tongue with her own.

She clenched fistfuls of his shirt and mimicked his kiss, returning it with eagerness, pulling him down over her, sinking back onto the bed.

He growled low in his throat, dragging his mouth over her jaw and down her sensitive neck. Cleo opened her eyes and shut them again, afraid that she would wake from this dream and put a stop to it all.

His hand moved down her nightgown, fumbling for the hem. She set to work on his clothing, shedding him of his jacket and vest, pulling his shirt over his head. Leaning up, she rained kisses over his jaw and neck, skimming her palms over him, scoring her nails lightly over the smooth, muscled chest, stopping to test the small dusky circles of his ni**les with her fingertips.

He moaned, breaking away and flinging her nightgown over her head. Then his hands were everywhere, the feverish caressing of his palms exciting her only more.

Naked beside him, not a moment of hesitation seized her. It was as if she were someone else entirely, someone unafraid, someone willing to trust, to give herself over to his strength and virility. To him.

His hand wandered her thighs, the callused fingers and palms rasping the tender flesh. His gray eyes flashed darkly in the firelight as he stared down at her.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, and she believed it—believed that he meant it and wasn’t just saying it.

“So are you.” Propping herself up on her elbows, her hands sought him. He watched her, his eyes intense and burning, his large body unmoving, still as stone as she unfastened his breeches and shoved them down his lean hips.

Biting her lower lip, she feasted her gaze on that familiar part of him. Heat swirled through her, pooling low in her stomach and she knew this time she wouldn’t just touch and taste him there. She had to have him. All of him. Inside her.

Her belly contracted and she fidgeted restlessly in an attempt to ease the throbbing ache between her legs. Her hand reached and closed over him. A tremor rushed over him as she wrapped her fingers around the hard length of him, luxuriating in the feel of him, silk on steel in her hand. Encouraged by the sound of his rough approving growl, knowing what it meant, what he wanted, she stroked him, her fingers gliding over his length, her breath increasing, matching the harsh sound of his that filled her ears.

She watched him, relishing the sight. He swallowed visibly, his throat muscles working. Aroused beyond endurance, every nerve in her body screaming with a desperate urgency, she parted her legs, leaving herself exposed before his searing gaze. She didn’t care.

Cool air rushed over her, caressing that most vulnerable part of her. With one hand still holding his throbbing member, she urged him closer, guiding him to her entrance as her thumb rolled leisurely over the velvet tip of him.

Her eyes never strayed from the taut lines of his face, and want twisted deep inside her. She rubbed him against her opening and the ache inside her grew, increased and twisted to a painful need.

“What are you doing to me?” he groaned.

His body pressed closer, beautiful in the firelight. His h*ps nudged her thighs wider, splaying her open for him.

He eased his member inside her, stretching her slowly. Her breath caught on a gasp. She watched his face hungrily, his eyes dilated with desire.

His chest lifted on a ragged breath. “God,” he gasped, eyes burning gray fire. His arms fell on each side of her, caging her in. His gaze held hers, dark and dangerous, feral as a wolf cornering its prey. He pushed his hard heat just the barest amount deeper.

She whimpered and lifted her hips, angling for more. With a cry, he thrust himself deep. A sharp pain tore through her. She lurched against him, shocked at the sudden invasion that stretched her and filled her to capacity. She dug her fingers into his bare shoulder, stunned at the heat of him pulsing deep within her core.

He murmured nonsense, soothing words against her hair as he held himself motionless inside her. Gradually her body acclimated to the feel of him and that ache returned. Deeper. Hotter than before. She wiggled—adjusted to the searing pressure. A sharp gasp ripped from her lips as the lancing pleasure spiked between her legs.

Instinctively her hands smoothed down his back and she seized the tight mounds of his buttocks, urging him to move, needing more.

It was all the encouragement needed.

He began moving, thrusting and pumping inside her until she couldn’t catch her breath. She scored his back with her hands and angled her hips, meeting his every plunge, taking him deeper.

“More. Harder,” she gasped in his ear and he increased his thrusts, burying her deeper into the soft bed. She cried out, feeling herself unraveling, coming apart inside from his each and every stroke.

She writhed beneath him, desperate for more, for an end to the torment, an end to the aching emptiness . . .