A small sound escaped her lips, and she shifted in her sleep, lifting her arm a bit. The curve of her breast came into view, plump and pressed against the bedding. Archer’s c**k twitched impatiently. He wanted to see her ni**les. Nipples that had fulfilled his lewd imagination, deep rose and entirely suckable. He grinned, remembering how she liked that, how she nearly came undone whenever he touched them. That she gave herself fully to him should not have surprised him—Miri never did anything by half—but it did. The tightness in his chest expanded. She was his. Every cell in his body knew her, sang her name, and throbbed with the same thoughts over and over: mine, want, need.

He ought to be satiated. He’d come to her again, and again. It merely had the same effect as throwing brandy on fire. He simply burned hotter. A heat nearly frenetic in its intensity.

His fevered brain drifted back to the early hours of the morning, of sliding against her silky skin, his c**k pushing into her tight heat, gently, oh so gently, for she had been swollen and tender. Yet ready. “Now, Archer. Now…” His loins tightened at the memory of the stiff tips of her br**sts brushing against his chest. His mouth against hers, lips and tongue slip sliding as that tight, slicked heat slowly milked him.

She had been so hot, a living brand in his arms, and the very air around them heated with her, warming the cold within him until he too grew flushed and feverish. Hot lust coursed through his limbs, throbbing in his cock. Her trembling little hands roamed over his back, one long finger tracing a path of fire down his spine, and then lower to slip between his bu**ocks and explore there as well. The molten shock of it. He’d come undone then, plowed her softness without finesse or thought. Simple need that made him come in her like a brushfire.

Afterward, she’d burrowed closer, wrapping her elegant limbs about his. Yet there was a touch of fear in her eyes. “The sheets are steaming.”

Heat surrounded them, a caress of balmy air that caused the little red tendrils about her temples to curl in riotous profusion, as they lay damp and limp in each other’s arms.

“The air as well.” He wasn’t capable of saying more. His heart raced, his breath still coming in quick pants.

Her great eyes had gazed up at him, misted and green like sea glass. “And if the fire within me should break free and consume us both?” she whispered, a tiny line forming between her arched brows.

Then I’d die complete. His fingers sifted through her silken hair. “Then it would have consumed us long before.” He’d smiled then, a tremble of lips for all his exhaustion, and touched her face, his fingers weak yet sure as he traced her succulent mouth and felt her shiver. He understood then. Pleasure, fire, guilt, and destruction, they were inextricably woven together for her. To feel pleasure in the midst of releasing such terrible power, how very well he understood that particular dilemma.

His brow rested against hers. “You think I don’t feel that same thrill when I use what gifts I have?”

Her warm voice cracked like a crust on honey. “You’re not afraid? Of what I am?”

Had she not been so earnestly worried, he would have laughed at the irony. Instead, he looked at her solemnly. “You are getting a good look at me, are you not?”

“That isn’t the same. You’re cursed.”

He’d laughed then, his heart as light as air. “Funny, I don’t feel cursed at the moment.”

A weak smile broke over her lips, fighting with a frown. She was not completely convinced. He kissed her eyelids, her cheeks.

“The fire is your strength, what protects you when I cannot. Do not fear it, but embrace it, for it is part of your soul. You know how to use this gift, Miranda. Inside, you know.” When she released a shuddering sigh and gave a short nod, his hand tightened on the back of her neck and drew her near, need and lust rekindled just by holding her close. “Kiss me.” Set me afire again. And again.

Next to him, Miri gave another soft sigh. Pure lust shot through him as he watched her elegant back lift and fall. Even now, should he roll over and slip his hand down that sweeping curve, over the rounded tightness of her bottom, she would turn to him, her slim arms open, that luscious mouth soft in invitation.

Despite his personal vow to give her some rest, he found himself moving to touch her as he craved when the image of a young urchin knocking on his front door came sharply to mind. The boy handed Gilroy a small white box tied with a silver ribbon. For Lord Archer, guvnor. Cold, dark dread sucked Archer away from Miranda. He swung out of bed and headed for his dressing room, aware of each instance that his feet struck the floor, and of every hard beat of his heart. The world had caught up to them.

Gilroy greeted him with some surprise as Archer trotted down the stairs, his dressing robe snapping around his ankles. From somewhere to his right, he heard a sucked-in breath. One of the footmen. Archer had left off his mask, forgotten it entirely in his haste. Did it even matter anymore?

The innocent-looking box lay in Gilroy’s white-gloved hand. A silver ribbon wrapped round it. Christ.

His pulse pounded at the base of his neck as he drew near. “The box, if you please, Gilroy.”

His stomach lurched at the light weight of it, and the faint feeling of something sliding about within. A smell drifted up. Death and rot. Archer thought he might be sick.

He headed for his library, only vaguely aware that Gilroy followed. The ribbon slipped from his fingers twice. Finally, the lid lifted, and with it, the floor seemed to slide beneath him. Miranda’s fragile butterfly mask, spotted with dark blood, fluttered in his hand as he lifted it from the box, and then he spied what lay beneath. Shriveled and brown, one might think it a withered bloom. Merryweather’s ear. Pain sliced through him, white-hot like a brand to his heart. He stood for several moments simply trying to breathe through it, Gilroy’s knobby hand upon his shoulder, holding him steady. But the pain would not abate, nor the terror that made him want to scream. Because his time was up. He’d have to part from her. Miri. He sank to his knees, away from the box, and the card that fluttered to the floor, its message written in a simple scrawl.

—Cavern Hall. On the new moon

Chapter Thirty

Tender and sore and very nearly exhausted, Miranda stretched luxuriantly along Archer’s bedroom couch with a sigh. She’d never felt better. Her skin tingled, her chest felt both tight and filled with a sense of largess, as though the world might fit inside her. Like a girl she giggled, turning her head toward the leather backing to feel its cool smoothness.

Archer had gone out with a newly hired security specialist. They were to survey the grounds for points of possible weakness, he claimed. Rather a bit of overkill at any rate, Miranda thought, as she and Archer were a far greater threat than any fence. For the first time in memory, she felt truly grateful for her power—her gift, as Archer called it. Her strength would protect them, and the rest they would solve together.

“It will be only a short while,” he had promised with a kiss.

“Well, this is a fine kettle of fish,” said a familiar, sharp voice.

Miranda whirled around to find Eula scowling at her.

“Here you are, stretched out like the cat that ate the cream, and His Majesty is sauntering about the house mask-less and whistling like a kettle.” Her mouth puckered as though filled with lemons.

“That is quite the number of eloquent metaphors, Eula,” Miranda retorted, too happy to spar even with her. “Have you more to heap upon my head? Or may I help you with something?”

Eula’s wrinkled face turned puce. “I have been taking care of him for the whole of my life. The whole of it. Seen the suffering that curse has caused him. And you two think one night of passion will solve everything.” Miranda sat up, surprise and outrage warring within her, but Eula’s puckered mouth broke into a wide grin, and she spoke over Miranda’s sputtered protest. “Package for you, madam.”

A rectangular package sailed from Eula’s hand and slapped lightly upon Miranda’s thighs. The knowing look upon Eula’s face as she left the room caused Miranda’s heart to trip as she curled her legs up before her and ripped open the box.

A calling card slipped out. One that she recognized with a flush of irritation. He’d left a note on the back, scrawled in his slanted hand.

Every woman deserves to enter a marriage fully armed. One day Archer will thank me. Even if he’ll never admit it

—I

That Mckinnon seemed oddly concerned for Archer’s welfare left her cold and confused. With a shaking hand, she tossed the card aside and reached inside the box. A gilt frame slipped onto her palm. She pulled the tissues back and her ears began to buzz. There, in precise and masterful brushstrokes, lay a face well-loved and unmistakable. The same ironic brows, gently curved tip of the nose, fine gray eyes full of humor. Archer. A mad snort left her lips as she spied a tiny dot of black just above his left eyebrow. Archer’s beauty mark—mole, rather. Men, he had insisted, do not have marks of beauty. Debatable issues aside, it was he. Unmistakably. And dressed in a double-breasted waistcoat, frock coat with tails, and a high, swaddling collar. A man of an earlier time.

Even if she could invent a reason for his antiquated dress, she could not overlook the painted date upon the portrait: 1810. Nor the engraved plaque that read, LORD BENJAMIN ARCHER, THIRD BARON ARCHER OF UMBERSLADE. It might all be tricks. But her heart knew it was not. She had let herself be lied to. Because it was easier.

More papers drifted from the box, her eyes picking up the relevant details as though pinpoints of light touched upon them in illumination: BENJAMIN ARCHER, BROTHER OF RACHEL, KARINA, CLAIRE, AND ELIZABETH. SON OF KATORINA AND WILLIAM. LORD BENJAMIN ARCHER TO RETURN FROM ITALY. LORD ARCHER TO ATTEND SISTER ELIZABETH’S FUNERAL. And the final nail: LORD BENJAMIN ARCHER, DEPARTING FOR AMERICA, OCTOBER 20, 1815.

Archer’s family. Archer’s loss. Archer’s lie. Of course it was.

Numbly, she picked up the papers, tucking them away. One thought revolved sickly around in her head. Benjamin Archer had drifted through life, unchanged, since 1815. She knew him too well not to know that he’d been searching for a cure all that time—and had failed. Even more distressing—what did it mean to Archer physically should he find a cure?

He came home shortly after three. She heard his light greeting to Gilroy in the hall, followed by the rapid tread of his boots up the stairs. Her heart pounded overloud in her breast at the thought of confronting him. She had sat like a statue for the rest of the day, barely able to think or to breathe, only to wait. Now he was here.

Sliding to the foot of the bed, she set her feet on the floor. Determination to have her say steeled her spine. The connecting door to their rooms opened a moment later. His eyes went immediately to her, and a smile broke over his face. “That,” he said shutting the door behind him, “took inordinately long.”

He tore the silk mask from his head as he came near. Miranda’s resolve softened as she saw the joy in his eyes in doing so. It was the first time he’d taken the mask off in front of her. Black kohl encircled his eyes, and her lips twitched.

“You look like a bandit,” she said as he bent to kiss her.

Archer paused, caught between a grin and a grimace. “Right.” He brushed a kiss over her nose and then strode toward her bathing room, impatiently pulling off his suit coat as he went. Her heart stayed locked in her throat as she stared after him.

He emerged not a minute later, freshly scrubbed and wearing only his drawers and shirtsleeves. “Is it unmanly to say that I prefer your face cream to mine?” he asked, unbuttoning his shirt with a deftness and speed that entranced her.

“No.” Nothing about him could ever be considered unmanly. Again the flash came, of him not changed but whole and unaffected. Golden skinned. His hair not shorn but with glossy raven locks. Ben.

The shirt fell to the floor, and her breath hitched. He was simply beautiful. From the corded muscles of his shoulders and arms, to the little hollow between his collarbones, and the flat, matched ridges running down his abdomen like paving bricks, all of it was beautiful, and enough to make words fail her.

He read her look and grinned wide enough for small lines to dimple his cheeks. “Hello,” he whispered before catching her up. She could not think. It was like a drug taking hold of her when they kissed. She pressed against him, her lips throbbing under his ministrations. Could a man be an addiction?

His quick fingers made short work of her laces. Her bodice fell free, and his thumb ran under the curve of her breast. Hot shivers fanned out along her belly. She pulled away, her hands going to his shoulders to hold him off. “No,” she said. “Stop.”

Her tone froze him. Slowly he moved off the bed and sat back on his heels. His gray eyes searched her face and, reading what was so plainly there, he set his chin firm—a fully guilt-ridden gesture if ever Miranda saw one.

“Were you going to tell me?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” The pulse at the base of his throat throbbed as he sat watching her, his body still as stone, and the ache in Miranda’s chest turned to pain.

“Well, that is heartening,” she snapped, her fingers digging into the covers. “Honesty above all, is it?”

“Who was it?” he said, still frozen in place. “Eula? Mckinnon?” A hot wash of color rose up over his left cheek, and he jumped to his feet. “Son of a bitch.”

Miranda jumped up too. “What does it matter who told me? It should have been you!”

“Tell you?” he snapped, his color rising. “You, who professed the possibility of what I was a nightmare?”

She winced at that, but her anger flared higher. “God! How stupid I’ve been.” She paced in a helpless fury. “I asked you flat out. And what do you say to me? ‘Lord Benjamin Archer died in eighteen-fifteen!’ ” Her voice rose as she punched the air. “When really it was you all along! Lord Benjamin Aldo Fitzwilliam Wallace Archer, third Baron Archer of Umberslade.”