and pushed gently against his chest.
He got the deep, thrilling, breathtakingly intimate shock of awareness that he always got when she touched him. He knew the sensation was a product of his overheated imagination but it felt very, very good, nonetheless.
“Do you think you might be feeling somewhat unsteady on your feet?” she asked, smiling her mysterious smile.
“When I am near you I always find it hard to keep my balance,” he said. It was the simple truth, he thought.
She put her hand on his shoulder. “Then perhaps you should hold on to me, sir. I would not want you to fall.”
He raised his free hand and touched her hair. The silky stuff was irresistible. He twisted his fingers in it. “I do not think I have any other choice.”
He tightened his grip on the cane and wrapped his free arm around her. He pulled her slowly, deliberately against him. She was so light and so soft. She put her other hand on his shoulder and looked at him with her incredible eyes. He knew she must have felt the shudder of need that went through him.
He breathed in her scent and then he took her mouth.
He tried to use the kiss to ignite a slow-burning fire. He would go slowly, he vowed to himself. It had been a very long year in the country—a long time without a woman. But he could control himself. He wanted to seduce Beatrice, to please her, to make her want him as much as he wanted her.
She responded as she had last night, with curiosity and a sweet passion that set fire to his blood.
She sighed and pressed closer. Her fingers tightened around his shoulders. He realized that she was shivering a little. He moved his mouth to her ear.
“Are you cold?” he asked softly.
She rested her forehead against his shoulder. When she answered, her voice was a tight little whisper.
“No, I am not cold,” she said.
He lifted her hair and kissed the curve of her neck. “Are you frightened of me?”
“Of you? Never.”
“You’re shivering.”
She raised her head and gave him an uncertain smile. “I have heard that passion can generate a sort of fever but I have never truly believed it. I have always assumed such claims were so much romantic nonsense. Poetic license at best.”
“I have always assumed that as well,” he said. “But now I know the poets are right. There is a great deal of fire involved.”
“I do hope you are not going to stop now to analyze the sensation in a logical manner.”
“The only force on the face of the earth that could make me stop now is you, my sweet Beatrice.”
She wound her arms around his neck. This time her smile was less shaky. It held, instead, the glowing wonder of a woman who has made the decision to abandon herself to passion.
“I have no intention of stopping you, Mr. Gage. Indeed, I have been waiting a lifetime to experience a passion such as this. I had begun to fear that I might never know such fierce emotions. If I were to stop you now, I know I would regret it for the rest of my life.”
He smiled. “I assure you, I would regret it even more and for just as long, Miss Lockwood.”
Sensual laughter and heated excitement illuminated her eyes. When he drew her to the bed, she came willingly.
He set the cane aside, braced his good leg against the edge of the four-poster and began to unfasten the small hooks that closed the front of her gown. The process of opening the bodice proved to be a challenge. It was not that he had not had some experience, he thought, amused by his own awkwardness. The problem was that this time was different. Beatrice was different.
He eventually got the gown undone. He eased the sleeves down her arms. The skirts crumpled around her ankles, leaving her in her chemise, petticoats and stockings.
She untied her petticoats and they, too, fell away. In the dim glow of the early light he could see her flushed face. Her small, firm breasts were tight and full beneath the thin chemise.
“You are so perfect,” he whispered. He drew his hands down her sides to her hips and then slid them upward to cup her breasts. “As if you were made for me.”
“You make me feel beautiful,” she said.
Her blush deepened. He could have sworn that there was a radiance in her eyes. A trick of the light, he thought. But