Awkwardly, she sat up. She felt ill at ease, at a disadvantage, sluggish with sleep. She swiped a shaking hand across her
cheeks to hide her humiliating tears. She forced her lips into an uncertain smile of greeting.
“Matthew…”
Why did he have to find her like this? Unprepared. Vulnerable. Yearning.
Taloned dragons carved into each door reared up like heraldic bearers to frame him. But Matthew was the one who
looked ready to breathe fire. His face was hard and expressionless and his eyes were dark as burned toffee. A line of color
marked his cheekbones and his body vibrated tension.
He didn’t return her smile. Foreboding shivered through her. What on earth was wrong? He looked angry. Aggressive.
And utterly in command.
“Matthew?” she said even more tentatively. Her smile faltered and faded. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t act like a man on the verge of a marriage proposal.Of course he didn’t. She was a fool to imagine he still
wanted her. He’d had a year to discover that Grace Paget’s charms were tawdry currency.
Had he come to tell her he’d formed another attachment? If so, she owed him a calm reception and a generous farewell.
Even while her heart shattered into a thousand jagged shards.
She’d braced herself for this, known it must come. But nothing primed her for the chill that crept through her blood as
though she died from the inside out.
She’d avidly followed his progress in the newspapers and from letters her mother received from the London friends with
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whom she’d recently resumed correspondence. Ever since Matthew’s triumphant return to society, rumors had flown of
his engagement to any number of well-bred beauties.
He must have finally made his choice. What other reason could bring him here in such obvious disquiet?
Oh, lucky, lucky girl.Grace couldn’t stifle a surge of bitter envy as she thought of the unknown woman Matthew decided
to make his marchioness.
She raised her chin and met his eyes squarely. Dear God, let him say it fast and put her out of her misery.
For a taut instant, they stared at each other like combatants.
“Grace.”
He drew out the word so it became a long, deep, guttural growl. A sound as primitive as a lion’s roar for its mate. Her
skin prickled with animal awareness and the breath caught in her throat. Every drop of moisture evaporated from her
mouth. Low in her belly, blood began to beat slow and hard with anticipation.
Her face must have betrayed her unfurling arousal. Or perhaps, like her, he reacted to the sudden charge in the air, as
electric as the pause before a lightning strike.
Still without shifting his fierce focus, he set down the box he carried. Then he reached to close the doors and slide the
bolt across.
Any doubt as to his purpose fled. A delicious thrill rippled through her. The summerhouse was raised on a platform so the
windows opened above eye height. With the doors locked, it was a bower designed for private sin.
Sin was clearly his aim.
Now she looked more closely, she realized it wasn’t anger that tightened the skin over the bones of his face. It was
incendiary hunger.
She should protest. Question. Demand he tell her why he was here. But overwhelming need kept her silent and pinned to
the window seat.
Her pulse pitched into a drunken race as she watched him lift his hands to untie his neckcloth. Carelessly, he discarded
the length of linen. The soft drift of the white strip to the parquetry floor made her shift restively on the silk cushions. She
was already ripe for him. Her sensual dream had left her moist and ready. A year’s frustrated desire crawled through her
veins.
The angles of his face sharpened. His glance flickered to where her thighs clenched together under her pale blue muslin
skirts, twisted revealingly tight after her disturbed sleep. Molten gold flared between his luxuriant black eyelashes.
Oh, yes, she knew that look. She knew what that look promised.
Delight. Surrender.Love?
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With a smooth movement that stirred her volatile senses, he shrugged out of his beautiful dark blue coat and flung it
down near his crumpled neckcloth. All the time, his eyes seared her with such heat, she felt greedy flames licking at her
skin. She shivered with another surge of wicked excitement.
He now wore only a cream brocade waistcoat, a fine white shirt, and buff breeches tucked into high black boots. Now
he’d discarded his coat, she could see he’d filled out during the year. For the first time he didn’t seem too thin for his
height, although he’d always be a lean streak of a man.
Her eyes traveled over his broad shoulders, across his powerful chest and down to his narrow hips. Her already heated
cheeks burned as her attention finally settled on the bulge in his breeches.
No question he wanted her.
Her head jerked up as he muffled a groan. Her wanton focus on where his sex swelled and hardened had broken some
barrier in him. Swifter than a hunting lion, he crossed the polished floor, casting off his waistcoat on the way.
Keeping one foot on the floor, he rested a bent knee on the garish gold cushions patterned with willow trees and scarlet
peonies. This close, his radiating heat lured her. The hoarse susurration of his breath was harsh in her ears. His face was
stark with longing. He looked like a man at the end of his endurance.
She didn’t know who reached out first but in an instant, she was in his arms. Shamelessly she rose on her knees to press
herself against him. For a fraught moment, he stared down into her face as if it offered the answer to every question. Then
his mouth crashed onto hers. She tasted passion and hunger and power. His arms crushed her as the blazing open-mouthed
kiss sent her spinning into dazzling passion.
He tasted wonderful, nourishment for her soul. She’d pined for this for a year. Frantically, she arched up. She only lived
when he was near. Without him, her world was gray, cold oblivion.
She curled her tongue around his in ardent welcome. His teeth scraped over her lips. His breath filled her lungs. She lost
herself in his savage heat. This was more war than seduction. She didn’t care. He touched her. She wanted nothing else.
“Christ, I’ve missed you,” he grated out, lifting his head and staring at her out of glazed eyes.
“And I’ve missed you. So much.”
He pressed his mouth to hers again. Eager. Ruthless. He shook with unfettered desperation. She ran her hands up his
flanks, feeling the shirt bunch under her touch. Beneath the material, the muscles of his back flexed as he kissed her face,
her eyes, her neck in a fever of caresses. Soon, soon, he’d slide her skirts up and part her legs and take her. She couldn’t
wait.
She shivered with delight as he nipped at her throat. She made a low sound and rubbed herself against his erection. He
seemed larger, hotter, more powerful than ever.
His hand slid across the slope of her chest, tormenting her with its slow progress. The delay built her need until she
trembled with sensual anticipation. He teased the embroidered edge of her bodice. Then he slipped under the loose curve
of the neckline to palm one nipple. The crest immediately tightened.
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She hissed with pleasure as he rolled the nub in his fingers, pulled it, squeezed it. Each touch sent a spike of arousal to
her loins. By the time his attention moved to her other breast, she writhed on the silk like a trapped animal.
Leaning over her, he parted her thighs with his knees. His arms supported his weight, encasing her in a space of his
making. He was close enough for her to see the wild gold kaleidoscope of his eyes.
Familiar scents of lemon and Matthew surrounded her, made her dizzy with desire. Then she was dizzy indeed as he
tumbled her back against the slippery cushions and came down between her legs.
He shoved her skirts to her waist and placed his hand firmly on her center. She bucked under the pressure, flooding with
heat and moisture. Within seconds, her drawers were on the ground. Shaking with urgency, he released himself from his
breeches.
He was seconds away from taking her. In her father’s summerhouse. The reality of who she was and where she was
squeaked vaguely from the back of her passion-soaked mind.
“We shouldn’t,” she forced out, even while she raised her knees to bring him closer to where she wanted him.
“We should,” he said gruffly. He braced his arms on either side of her. “I’ve locked the door. Nobody can see us.”
Then even such few words as those deserted them when he nudged her entrance. For a delicious second, her passage
resisted his intrusion. She was slick with arousal but it had been over a year since she’d taken a man into her body and her
intimate muscles defied the incursion. He pushed again with a confidence that took her breath away, flexed his hips, and
settled into her full length.
She gasped at the joining, so much richer and more intense than her vivid lonely dreams. He groaned her name and
buried his head in her shoulder.
Her body took time to adjust to his size and weight after so long without him. He stretched her inner passage and her
muscles clenched around him.
Tears sprang to her eyes at the incredible feeling. He was hers again. Even if just for now.
Tentatively, she reached up to stroke his damp hair, pressing his face closer. All the love she didn’t dare speak invested
her touch.
Oh, Matthew, never leave me. I love you.
She bit back the pathetic cry before it escaped.
The sweet stasis couldn’t endure. His back tightened, then he began to move deeply, surely, possessively. She moaned
and lifted herself to meet him as the glorious rhythm reigned.
She was so ready, the friction quickly pushed her over the edge. Without warning, her body convulsed on a sun-bright
peak. For a small eternity, rapture blasted her, turned the air around her incandescent with pleasure.
She tasted the salt of her tears on her lips. Aftershocks still quivered through her. Tenderly, she ran her hands down his
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lean hips to knead his firm buttocks. Part of her clung to the ecstasy even as the blaze subsided to a gentle glow.
The physical delight hadn’t faded. If anything, it was sharper, deeper, more profound. Matured through suffering and loss
and deprivation.
She expected him to finish but he wasn’t satisfied yet. Implacably, he tilted her hips and continued to ravish her. Shocked,
she realized he hadn’t found release in that shivering culmination. She’d been too lost in her own pleasure to register his
responses.
Before her last climax subsided, another more shattering crisis ripped through her. She raised her hand to her mouth and
bit down hard to muffle a scream. Uncontrollable ecstasy gripped her in claws of flame. It was as though the dragons on
the doors had breathed their fire into her lover.
Still he didn’t relent. Almost roughly, he reached down to stroke the swollen folds between her legs and this time she did
scream. She arched up to kiss him using teeth and tongue. Her touch held no tenderness. Although in her heart, she felt an
endless lake of tenderness for this man she loved so dearly.
Another wave hit her and she shuddered, blind with the violent onslaught of sensation. Time itself was suspended as she
lost herself in ultimate pleasure.
Matthew groaned from deep in his throat as he at last gave himself up. While liquid heat spilled into her womb, she
clutched his shaking body.
Slowly, inevitably, she made the dazzling descent from heaven. She closed her eyes and let pleasure ebb through velvety,
electric darkness. He lay on top of her, heavy, beloved, welcome.
For a long breathless time, they stayed linked in the aftermath. Then through her boneless exhaustion, she felt him shift
and withdraw.
He lifted himself until he sat with his back against the wall. Painted Chinese bridges and gardens framed the pure male
beauty of his face. He dragged her up to rest against him. Under her cheek, his heart pounded wildly and his chest heaved
as he struggled for breath.
He’d taken her as if the world ended today. She’d loved every moment of it. She raised her head and studied him. His
mobile mouth was curled in a smile. He looked calm, satisfied. His frantic need was banked, although bright embers still
glowed in his eyes.
She lay back and waited for her heart to steady. She felt as though he’d wrung every ounce of passion from her. Her
womb quivered with the force of his volcanic possession. She felt stretched, well used, replete.
She might have dozed. Matthew did, propped up against the wall with his legs stretched out along the bench.
Gradually she became aware of the outside world. The faint creak of the elaborately carved shutters in the breeze. The
warmth of sunlight. The distant honk of a graylag goose on the lake. Her mind slowly returned from its dazed journey to
ecstasy.
Just what was Matthew doing here? Why had he left London for the wilds of Yorkshire?
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