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yelling?"
Juliette looked up, and her heart caught. His thick butter-colored hair was loose
on his shoulders, shoulders that were bare, as were his feet. He wore only a pair of very
wrinkled breeches, and bore around his mouth the very distinct look of a man engaged in
sex. Juliette felt weak, indeed, and for the beat of a few seconds, she could not think why
she d come. "Jonathan"
His lips pursed. He bent over the rail and leaned his arms on the railing. "What do
you want, Juliette?"
The posture put his arms into high relief, showing the curve of bicep, the concave
stretch of stomach, the firm round of his hip. "I, er. . . I came..."
She felt dizzy and without breath. With one gloved hand she touched her
forehead, trying to pull herself together.
For one long moment, Jonathan met Juliette s gaze. The sardonic look left his
face. His green eyes were bleak, without joy. Juliette ached to go up the stairs, Her heart
felt thrice its usual size. His gaze wavered.
"What do you want?"
Pride reasserted itself. Juliette lifted her chin. "Do you know where Lucien
Harrow might have taken my daughter?"
He looked at her, as if considering. "You can t save her, Juliette. She s in love
strange as that may be for one of your ilk to understand. And the terrible thing is, Lucien
thinks he loves her."
"I don t care if they love each other as passionately as Romeo and Juliet. She is
marrying the marquess in three weeks." Heat and dizziness enveloped her. "I will not
allow her to ruin her life."
"As you ve ruined yours?"
Juliette refused to be baited. "You left me, Jonathan."
"You deserved it."
"Did I? True love forgives sins made for love," she said, and a sense of peace
filled her. "She is my blood, my only child, and I ll not sacrifice her to the whims of a
rake." She narrowed her eyes. "Do you know where he d take her?"
For a moment, it didn t seem he d answer. She saw the war in his green eyes. At
last he said, "He might have gone to a cottage called Rosewood."
Juliette smiled. "Thank you." For one minute, she allowed herself to inhale the
scent of him that lingered in the foyer, allowed herself to impress the unbearably sexy
sight of him against the railing in her mind. She would not see him again, not even if he
wished it.
Somehow the truth had come clear to her. The nagging cough was not some
ailment brought on by overexertion or any of those other things she d been telling herself.
Like her mother before her, she had contracted consumption. And judging by the feeling
in her chest, there was not much time left to her. Calmly, she said, "I ll never forget you,
Jonathan." She went again into the dark wet day. There was one stop more she had to
make before she sought out this cottage. She would see the earl of Monthart and be
certain he knew what his son had done now: kidnapped the daughter of a peer, in broad
daylight from a dress shop!
For she did not want Lucien Harrow simply destitute now. Nothing would do but
that he be dead or exiled forever. It was the only way Madeline would be safe from him.
Chapter Twenty
For love all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
John Donne
Under the shelter of an overgrown arbor from which dripped yellow roses in
heavy, wet, profusion, Lucien dismounted and held up a hand for Madeline. She allowed
herself to be assisted, then stepped away, an expression of wonder on her face as she
looked at the cottage and the roses surrounding it.
Lucien stared at her hungrily, his eyes as starved for the look of her as his hands
were for her skin, his mouth for her lips, his ears for the sound of her voice.
Her hair clung in long wet tendrils to her neck, and one lock trailed over her
breasts to disappear within her bodice. The magnificent gown was ruined, but the white
silk clung to her body with elegant caress, the beads glinting whenever she took a breath.
Behind her, as if designed to be a backdrop for her dark loveliness, the yellow roses
cascaded over trellises and crept over the drive. Even in the rain their fragrance was
pervasive. She lifted a hand to touch one, and the gesture put her form in perfect outline.
For a tiny protesting voice sounded in his mind what if this action of his ruined
her life? What if she did not marry the marquess after all? What if she could not be
forgiven this second transgression? What if She turned her head and looked up at him.
The dress slipped on her shoulder once again, and Lucien could not breathe for need. He
stepped forward and bent to kiss that naked shoulder, that swell of breast, those perfect
lips. A soft, anguished cry came from her. He carried her inside.
It was warm within, a fire burning well on the hearth. He smelled meat and bread,
but there was only Madeline in his arms, Madeline against his body, Madeline s kiss on
his mouth, Madeline s hair on his hands. He kicked the door shut behind him. "I cannot
breathe for needing you," he said, and put her on the bed.
He shed his shirt and his boots, but waited on his breeches, for Madeline shivered
on the quilts in the wet silk, her wet hair a tangle. With a single gesture, he flipped the
quilt over her, and covered her with himself, holding her quilts and all against him.
He kissed her brow, lingering between her eyebrows, sliding down her nose, at
last claiming her mouth. She worked her arms from the blankets and pulled him closer,
her hands splaying against his back. He shifted, putting himself against her leg, letting
her feel the need he had for her, the need to be deeply embraced. At his movement, she
made a low, longing sound.
He kissed her mouth and her chin and her ear. He tasted the long white column of
her throat and opened his mouth to draw circles on the swell of her breast with his
tongue. The dress, though loose on the shoulders, was too tight to pull down and Lucien
was impatient to wring from her the cry he longed to hear. Bracing himself on his elbows,
he gathered her breasts into his hands and settled his hot mouth over the cold, wet fabric,
the cold beads, and found the flesh already risen to a point below the silk.
He moved his tongue against that rigidness, and the cry he awaited came from her
throat. Low and hungry.
There was no waiting then, not after so many nights of longing, so much time
wanting. Lucien hauled her into his lap so he could reach the laces of her dress. Her
thighs embraced his hips, and he felt the nakedness of her heat against his erection. He
fumbled with the laces. He managed to unknot them and tugged at them expertly, and the
bodice slid down, showing her chemise, which he pulled from her shoulders in a hard tug.
There was a sound of tearing fabric, and a small cry from Madeline, but then her naked
arms were free and she wrapped them around his neck, her tender inner elbow against his
ear. Her breasts brushed his chest, and he lowered his head to suckle there even as he
shoved up the skirts to take her buttocks in his hands.
And somehow, at last, his manhood was free and he was sliding his heat into the
depths of her, and they were joined, truly and completely, her dress bunched around her
waist, her legs sprawled around them, his breeches only nominally out of the way. Her
hair was pinned and not pinned, tumbling halfway on one side.
Nothing mattered but Madeline, staring solemnly into his eyes, her hands on his
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