her hand on his chest, feeling the rhythm of his heart, and for a moment she imagined that her own heart beat in perfect unison with his. A sense of wonder lit within her as she realized there was still so much about him she had yet to discover. Still so much they had to share and plan.
“You were right,” she murmured.
“Was I?” His voice was deep, lazy with satisfaction. “About what?”
“There’s a story written by Mrs. Mary Shelley.” Lydia shifted to look at him, propping her head on her hand. “It’s about an alchemist who drinks a potion that will grant him immortality. But he drinks only half the bottle and then wonders what is one-half of infinity?”
“A question for the ages,” Alexander mused.
Lydia gave him a light tap on the nose. “But the question,” she continued, “is meaningless. Infinity isn’t a number. It can’t be measured or multiplied or halved by some mathematical calculation. It’s a concept, an idea of something that goes on forever. Without end. Without boundaries.”
She pressed her lips to his cheek and stroked a hand down his chest.
“That’s what you were right about,” she said. “I’ve tried to quantify attraction and desire, to develop differential equations to explain the relationships between men and women. But it’s impossible. Life and love are immeasurable. They cannot be quantified or calculated. Life extends beyond death in ways that we will never comprehend. And love… love is as complex, as boundless, as infinity itself.”
“Mmm. You are brilliant indeed, Lady Northwood.” He slipped his hand up her back. “Brilliant and beautiful. You’ll cause a sensation in St. Petersburg. Though I will never let you forget that you said I was right.”
Lydia smiled. “I’d expect no less of you.”
Alexander’s thumb moved to caress her neck, sliding back and forth in an echo of the way he had touched her that first time in his drawing room.
“And I love you infinitely,” he said, cupping her nape as he drew her closer. “Forever.”
As their lips met again, Lydia’s heart filled with a love powerful enough to banish all regrets. She knew then that her future had begun during that first midnight encounter. Warmth, light, and hope had bloomed within the shadows and flourished into this lovely place of here and now.
A place where infinity was as real and substantial as her husband’s touch. A place where, in moments of extraordinary beauty and good fortune, one plus one could equal… one.
The Earl of Rushton has given his rakish son Sebastian an ultimatum: marry a suitable woman or lose his inheritance.
Sebastian has every intention of ignoring his father’s request—until one woman’s innocent beauty changes everything…
Please turn this page for a preview of
A Passion for Pleasure.
Chapter One
She was carrying a head.
Sebastian Hall squinted and rubbed his gritty eyes. He blinked and looked again. Definitely a head. Cradled in one arm like a baby. A woman’s head with coiffed brown hair, though at this distance he couldn’t see her expression. He imagined it to be rather distressed.
He watched as the young woman crossed the empty ballroom to the stage, her steps both quick and measured, her posture straight in spite of her gruesome possession.
Sebastian pushed himself away from the piano. The room swayed a little as he rose, as if he were on the deck of a ship. A hum, seasick-yellow, droned in his ears. He dragged a hand over his face and scrubbed at his rough jaw as he crossed the room.
The woman didn’t appear to see him, her path set unswervingly on her destination. A basket dangled over her left arm.
Sebastian cleared his throat. The guttural noise echoed in the vast room like the growl of a bear.
“Miss.” His voice sounded coarse, rusted with disuse.
The woman startled, jerking back and losing her grip on the head, which fell to the floor with a thump and then rolled. A cry of surprise sounded, though in his befuddled state, Sebastian couldn’t tell from whom it had emerged. He looked down as the head rolled to a stop near his feet like the victim of an executioner’s ax.
A perfect waxen face stared up at him, wide, unblinking blue eyes, pink mouth, her hair beginning to escape a smooth chignon.
After a moment of processing this turn of events, Sebastian bent to retrieve the head. The woman reached it before he did, scooping it back into her arms and stepping away from him.
“Sir! If you would please—Oh.”
Sebastian looked up into a pair of rather extraordinary eyes—a combination of blue