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“Yes,” he said, tightening his hold on her and tucking her head against his chest. “Try to relax. Try not to resist.”

He was talking about the cold, she knew, but she pretended he wasn’t.

What if the thing she didn’t resist was … him? Them. This.

She squirmed in his tight embrace, slithering up his body. It caused him to issue a terse, cautionary “Diantha.”

She was not in the mood to receive any warning, or admonishment. She was cold and hot at the same time, and she was so tired of never getting to have what she wanted.

She kissed him. She would have assumed she didn’t know how to do it, but it turned out she did.

“Diantha.”

She would have assumed his second utterance of her name, this time with a kind of tortured resignation, would have been a signal that she should stop, but it turned out it wasn’t.

She wondered how much of her life she’d spent assuming things that weren’t true.

After a few more moments of hesitation on his part, he began kissing her back. His lips were so soft. But also hard, or perhaps more accurately, insistent. They were working hers with an intensity that made her dizzy. And then, oh dear, he opened his mouth. She got the sense that she was meant to do the same, so she did.

She heard her own gasp as his tongue slid into her mouth.

She’d had no idea. Thea had told her that the coming together of a lady and a gentleman could have many moods. That the lady could enjoy herself.

Enjoy had not been a strong enough word.

She followed the cues of her body, and she took what she wanted. She wanted to touch his chest, so she did. And when he made a noise that seemed to indicate that he enjoyed it, she did it some more. When they broke their kiss, panting, she wanted to tip her head back, because she wanted him to kiss her neck. So she did, and he did. It was so easy, here, with him, to take what she wanted. To receive what she wanted, for he was giving as much as she was taking. He had one hand on the back of her neck and one hand on her arse, both kneading, and she thought back with delight to their evening meal the first night, when she had discovered his ambidexterity. He had informed her that he was equally adept or equally incompetent with both hands.

He was very good at this.

As he lavished attention on her neck, it was as if he were opening a new frontier. She had been so focused on his mouth on hers, and then on the idea of his mouth on her neck. But now she wanted it lower. Her breasts felt heavy; her nipples ached. She reached up and untied the string at the top of her shift and pushed the wet fabric off one shoulder.

“Oh,” he groaned, and though she was almost certain it was a groan of pleasure, it seemed the sight of a bare breast had had the opposite effect of what she’d been aiming for. He removed himself from her. Not from the bed, but from her person. He put a good six inches between them. She started to protest, but he pressed his fingers against her lips. “Shh.”

“But—”

“You must go.”

“I don’t—”

“Think of poor Polly.” He got out of bed.

An unwelcome thought arose. She had been so sure of herself just then, confident that she could be guided by the sensations arising in her body, that it was permissible—nay, right—to take what she wanted. But now it felt as if he were trying to shuffle her off. Perhaps it hadn’t been as enjoyable for him as it had for her.

She sat up, covering herself with the bed linens. “Lord Marsden, I am sorry. I didn’t mean … Was that …?”

“Simon,” he corrected vehemently. And then, more gently: “That was the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.”

Relief flooded in, and she tried to speak, but he talked over her, which was notable as it was the first time he’d ever done that. “But now I am going to go outside and find your dress and stays. And you are going to dress and go to the main house and go to bed.”

She put herself together as best she could while he was gone, and when he returned, he helped her with her dress.

When he was done, he spun her around, picked up the candle so he could better regard her, and said, “Well, at least Polly knows you have a fondness for taking the waters at night.”

“Do I look a fright?”

“No.” She rather thought his expression had turned fond. “You look whatever is the opposite of fright.”

“What is the opposite of fright?” she asked.