Had he been in love with her fourteen years ago? It seemed highly improbable and quite unlike him. His pride had been hurt, though. There was no denying that. Perhaps that would explain today—and tonight. Perhaps he wanted the satisfaction of having his way with her without exerting any sort of coercion. If the door was unlocked, she would have made the decision herself with the cool head half an hour alone would have induced.

But was it unlocked?

He turned the knob slowly and—he hoped—silently. He had no desire to wake her and alarm her if she had fallen asleep. Or to make an idiot of himself. He pushed gently inward. It was not locked. She was not in bed either. She was standing facing the window, though it was pitch-dark out there. Clouds must have moved over the moon and stars. There was a candle burning on the dresser behind her. She was looking back over her shoulder at him.

She was wearing a white nightgown, very little different from any dress she might have worn except that it fell loose from the bosom. It was modestly scooped at the neckline. The sleeves were short. She had unpinned and brushed her hair so that it fell in honey-colored waves over her shoulders and halfway to her waist.

Lust, which he had kept in check lest the door be locked, surged. He closed the door and locked it before strolling toward her and reaching beyond her to draw the curtains across the window. He dipped his head and kissed her.

She took a step toward him, as she had out on the riverbank, and twined her arms about his waist as she held the kiss and deepened it. It was different this time. There were no stays beneath her nightgown to mask the soft curves of waist and hip or to push up her breasts. And he had no layers of garments beneath the thin silk of his dressing gown. He savored the embrace, the warmth of her body, the slightly fragrant smell of her, the feel of her thighs and abdomen and bosom pressed to his as one of his hands twined in her hair to hold the back of her head and the other moved down her back and drew her closer. His lips teased hers. His tongue explored her mouth and found the pleasure spots. She sucked gently on it.

He was in no hurry. This was not about release. It rarely was. He had promised her a night of pleasure she would not regret, and he would give her just that. Not five minutes, ten, or half an hour, but a whole night. He had rarely looked forward to a night of sex with such anticipation. Perhaps because he suspected she was not vastly experienced, as most of his women were. Strange thought when she must have been married for more than twenty years. He wondered if there had ever been anyone else in addition to Riverdale, but doubted it. Which led to the question, Why him? Just because of this strange set of circumstances? Because she saw this as a sort of time away from reality, outside the normal realm of her moral standards?

It was not that she was unaware of his reputation, of the fact that he had few scruples and no heart. He had nothing to give, in fact, except his body and his expertise in bed. Was that enough for her? But if it was not, that was her problem, not his. He had given her enough chance, after all, to choose differently.

He drew back his head and looked into her eyes—dreamy with desire and blue even in the shadows cast by the candle. “You are sure, Viola?” he asked. What the devil was this?

“Yes,” she said.

They were the only words they spoke in the first hour of that night, apart from some indecipherable murmurings as they coupled. They were on the bed by then, the bedcovers pushed to the foot, the candle still burning, her nightgown and his dressing gown in a heap on the floor.

She was hot. Eager and uninhibited. Having made her decision, she gave herself with abandon and demanded pleasure in return. He slowed her down, showing her that the pleasure given and taken with hands and fingertips and mouth and tongue and even teeth was as sexual as the final feast. And seeking out pleasure points on her body and guiding her to pleasure points on his.

When he finally mounted her, turning her onto her back first and coming between her thighs as he covered her, she was slick and ready and he was hard and eager. But even then he slowed them, thrusting with measured strokes, avoiding too great a depth until the final moments, sliding his hands beneath her as she lifted herself toward him and matched his rhythm.

And then the final drive toward the shared and ultimate pleasure of release and the little oblivion that always followed upon the best of couplings.

This was surely the very best.

He lay on her for several moments, his weight pressing her to the mattress while his heartbeat slowed and consciousness returned. She was warm and relaxed and sweaty beneath him. He moved off her and reached down for the covers before settling beside her and sliding an arm beneath her neck.

The Countess of Riverdale. Viola Kingsley. He still could not quite believe it. She had been worth the fourteen-year wait. Not that he would have had her this way back then even if she had been willing. She had been a married lady—apparently married, that was.

She was asleep. Her hair was untidy, her face flushed, her lips slightly parted. She had drawn the sheet up to cover her breasts in a belated nod to modesty. Beneath the covers her naked body touched his from bosom to ankles. She was beautiful in every way it was possible for a woman to be beautiful. Fourteen years had not robbed her of any of her allure. They had merely added to it.

What strange fate had thrown them together here, one of his hired horses having acquired a loose shoe, her hired carriage having developed a cracked axle? He still did not know the name of either the village or the inn. But he did not believe in fate or coincidence. It had happened and they had made the most of it—were making. The night was far from over. It was probably not even midnight yet.

There was still much pleasure to be had.

The noisy revelries were still continuing downstairs.

And there was no hurry.

* * *

• • •

Viola did not sleep deeply, though she did perhaps drift for a few minutes, exhausted and satiated. It had been so very long, and never like this. Oh, never even close. It would be laughable even to try comparing.

She knew beyond a doubt that she had made a grave mistake. For she had allowed something vivid into her life, something . . . joyful, and she would never, ever be able to forget. For a while perhaps she would not want to, but eventually she surely would. For vivid living and joy were not for her. Any possibility of either had been killed in her when she was seventeen and married Humphrey, and there was no changing the world and the persona she had created for herself since then.

Her life would become dull and decorous and blameless again tomorrow and for all her tomorrows after that. She had run from Bath in a sort of panicked attempt to escape all that had happened during the past two years, when it had all accumulated in her spirit and become too much for her. Perhaps she had wanted to escape everything that had happened before that too. Perhaps she had wanted to escape from the whole of her life, even from herself. And something—call it fate?—had arranged all this. She had run far from her usual reality this afternoon when she went to the village fair with a known libertine and enjoyed every single vivid moment of it. She had run further yet tonight when she had waltzed with him on the village green and kissed him on the riverbank and left her door unlocked. But if it was fate that had set up today, she was not at all sure it had been kind to her. Perhaps it had not intended to be. Perhaps it had intended to teach her a harsh lesson. For there was no permanent escape. Ultimately she must take herself with her wherever she went, and there was no changing herself except during brief, wistful, defiant moments.