Then again, he hadn't expected her to let him pleasure her in the first place. And he certainly hadn't expected her response to stir something dark and sweet inside him, a kind of longing he'd never felt: to possess a woman fully-not just in body, but in mind and heart and soul.

It scared him, so he beat down the feeling and concentrated on coaxing her into an illicit act.

"I'd dearly love to have your hands on me, bringing me to the peak of pleasure."

Her gaze grew shuttered. "I don't think that's wise."

Remembering the alligator incident, he shrugged. "Well, if you aren't certain you can manage it ..."

"Of course I can manage it," she said stoutly. "How hard can it be?"

He laughed. "Trust me, dearling, hard enough."

When he pressed her hand to the bulge in his trousers, she went beet red. "Oh my."

The words shot straight to his c.o.c.k, stiffening it even more. "Do you mean to leave me in this condition?" he asked, pushing against her hand.

"I suppose that would be ... rude." She rubbed the length of him, and he thought he'd explode.

"Rude," he choked out. "Right." When her fingers brushed the head of his c.o.c.k, he released a strangled breath. "You can take it out, you know."

A minxish smile touched her lips. She swept her hand delicately over the straining cloth. "Can I?"

"Oh, G.o.d, touch me," he rasped, unable to endure much more of her teasing. He began to wonder exactly how inexperienced she was. He'd lay odds that she and Rupert had done a bit more than kiss.

Poor sod, to go off to war with the memory of something like this in his head, and no hope of relief.

"Please, Annabel ..." he rasped.

"All right."

His blood thundered in his ears. Every time she said "all right" in that understated way, it drove him mad.

She unb.u.t.toned his trousers, then released the b.u.t.tons of his drawers. As his c.o.c.k sprang free, he let out a shudder of relief. With another teasing smile, she closed her fingers around him.

And then he began a slow descent into insanity as she stroked him. Somehow she made it all seem perfectly acceptable. Having this fresh-faced country la.s.s doing what no respectable virgin would ever do was arousing as h.e.l.l. If he didn't watch it, he would come too quickly. He hadn't done that since he was a lad, but she was making it d.a.m.ned hard to resist.

He tried not to wonder how she'd learned exactly how to please a man, but it had to be that d.a.m.ned fiance of hers. And ludicrous as it was, the idea of her doing this to another man made him scowl.

She released his c.o.c.k instantly. "I'm hurting you."

"G.o.d, no." She couldn't be too experienced, or she wouldn't look so concerned.

What was wrong with him, to care what she might have done with some stupid soldier? This was merely a dalliance.

Guiding her hand back around his flesh, he murmured, "Men are st.u.r.dier than you'd think." Their bodies were, anyway. He began to wonder about the st.u.r.diness of their minds.

"Even there?" she asked skeptically.

"Even there." He gripped her fingers, forcing her to stroke him harder. "Yes, dearling. Like that."

It felt like heaven. He wouldn't last much longer.

She bent her head, as if concentrating on her caresses, and he brushed the mahogany waves of her hair with his lips. Her honey and orange smell filled his senses, blotting out the other scents of the barn. It was luscious, as luscious as her breast, which he couldn't help fondling, and her temple, which he couldn't stop kissing.

Had any woman ever consumed him like this?

His body galloped toward release, stampeding over anything but the urgent need for fulfillment. As the blood surged in him and he felt the little death overcoming him, he pushed her hand free so he could spend himself into the straw.

His body shook with the sheer power of it. Good G.o.d, he'd never come that fiercely in his life. He already wanted to do it again ... inside her. That was not acceptable.

Lying back onto the straw, he tugged her against his chest. As he came back to earth, reality set in. He shouldn't have gone so far with her, no matter how much they'd enjoyed it. A woman like her only allowed such privileges to serious suitors, and he certainly wasn't that. He couldn't have her thinking that he was.

Never mind that he liked her. He admired her loyalty to her family, her refusal to back down ... the utterly reckless way she came. And she was a b.l.o.o.d.y good card player, besides.

But he wasn't going to marry her, for G.o.d's sake. He'd already escaped Gran's plans for him. Marrying a brewster with an ailing brewery would be like sticking his head right back into Gran's noose. Gran would own him body and soul.

Annabel would own him body and soul ... until the day something took her from him. And that would be far worse if he came to care for her. So he had to figure out how to explain why he couldn't marry her without hurting her feelings.

After a moment, she said, "Well, at least I got my answer."

"About what?"

"How you look when you reach the peak of your pleasure."

At the teasing note in her voice, he turned his head to stare at her. "Oh? How do I look?"

She grinned. "Like every man looks when he gets what he wants. As smug and self-satisfied as a sultan."

He lifted an eyebrow at her. "A sultan?"

"All men look like sultans in bed," she said.

Something in the way she said it arrested him. "So you've seen that many men in bed, have you?"

She glanced away, clearly embarra.s.sed. "Certainly not. I ... just read that somewhere."

It figured. "You have rather risque tastes in literature."

A blush touched her cheeks. "Even a spinster can be curious, you know."

He shifted to his side so he could circle her nipple with his finger. Their discussion could wait a few more moments. "Feel free to indulge your curiosity as much as you please."

But when he bent his head toward her breast, she pushed him away. "I think I've indulged it quite enough, don't you?"

"You could never indulge it too much for me." He watched as she sat up and began to straighten her clothing. Above them the rain on the roof beat a steady counterpoint to his still pounding heart.

"You have to stop saying things like that," she warned. "And you have to stop ... kissing me."

He plucked a piece of straw from her hair, then tickled her neck with it. "And if I don't want to stop?" Good G.o.d, what he had to stop was this deplorable habit of letting his c.o.c.k speak for him.

"You must," she said firmly. "I shan't risk Geordie's catching us again. He already thinks you want to marry me, and I can't have that. And when I tell him that there's nothing between us he has to believe me. a.s.suming that he hasn't yet told Sissy about seeing us kiss, I can probably convince him to stay quiet. But if he finds us together again, he'll tattle for sure. And if Sissy tells my brother, he might-"

"Try to force a marriage on me."

"On us. And I won't be forced. Nor will I have any of them getting their hopes up about us marrying, when there's no chance of that happening under any circ.u.mstances."

The conviction in her voice irritated him. "You sound awfully sure of that."

She eyed him askance. "Come now, you know perfectly well you don't want to marry me."

Never mind that he'd had that exact thought only two minutes before; to have her state it so casually was rather off-putting. "I suppose that's true, but-"

"And I certainly have no intention of marrying you."

He sat up to glare at her. "Why the h.e.l.l not?"

"No offense, but you aren't what a sensible woman looks for in a husband."

"That's putting it a bit strongly." Now peeved, he rose to his knees to b.u.t.ton his drawers and trousers. "And what exactly does a 'sensible woman' look for?" he asked sarcastically.

She looked bewildered. "Well, for one thing, a man who has some sense of duty. Not an irresponsible scapegrace who gambles his way through London to avoid doing anything constructive with his time. And your friends did say you're only helping your grandmother with Plumtree Brewery to avoid having to meet her requirement that you marry-"

"I know what they said," he snapped. He didn't know why he found her observations so annoying; everything she was telling him was true.

But she wasn't supposed to be saying it. He was. She was supposed to be wheedling him into marrying her, now that he'd taken liberties with her. He was a marquess's son, after all.

Granted, he was only a second son and there was a great deal of scandal attached to the family name, but why would she care? She was a brewer's daughter, for G.o.d's sake, from provincial little Burton-upon-Trent. And a spinster, too! Didn't they all want to catch a man?

"Are you saying that your friends were lying?" she asked, clearly perplexed.

"No. Just omitting a few very important details." He stuffed his shirttails into his trousers. "Like the fact that I'll inherit Plumtree Brewery one day. Gran is leaving it to me." G.o.d, now he sounded like a pompous idiot. "That should be enough to please any 'sensible woman.'"

She blinked. "But you said that running it is temporary-"

"It is, for now. I agreed to run it for a year. Then she'll go back to running it until she dies, while I ..."

"Go back to gambling and drinking and wenching," she said dryly. "That sounds like quite the appealing life for any prospective wife."

He bristled. How the h.e.l.l had this conversation turned into an indictment of his perfectly acceptable way of living? "I'll have you know that hundreds of women would kill to have that life."

Amus.e.m.e.nt glinted in her eyes. "I'm sure that's true. You should definitely go find one of them to marry. Once you decide that you're ready for a wife, that is."

With a pat on his arm that was almost sisterly, she started to rise, but he pulled her down again. Anger riding him, he kissed her fiercely, deeply. Only when he had her melting in his arms did he draw back to murmur, "I daresay any 'sensible woman' would find advantages to being married to such an 'irresponsible scapegrace.'"

She brushed her thumb over his lips. "I daresay she would. But such advantages would hardly compensate for worrying about when the debt collectors would come to cart away her furniture because her husband had lost it in a card game."

"I'll have you know I'm an excellent gambler," he ground out. "I make an excellent living at it."

"When you're winning."

He had no answer for that. It was true.

With a sudden glint of remorse, she slipped from his arms and rose to brush straw from her skirts. "I'm sorry, Jarret, I wasn't trying to insult you. I only said those things because you'd made it quite clear that you have no desire to marry. I'm sure any number of women would be happy to marry you."

He rose, too. "Just not you."

She c.o.c.ked her head. "Why do you care? Are you offering marriage?" When he glanced away, she said, "I didn't think so."

As she headed for the ladder, he caught her by the arm. "That doesn't mean we can't-"

"Have more fun in the hay?" she said, a sad look on her face. "I'm afraid it does. I shan't risk embarra.s.sing my family just so you can have a little fun."

He stood there motionless as she climbed down from the loft. She was right. That's essentially what he was asking her to do-take enormous risks for a few wild moments of pa.s.sion. Risks he wasn't willing to take himself.

He hadn't thought beyond his own pleasure. He had never needed to before. He'd cut himself off from anyone who might expect it of him.

Had she sensed that he wanted no part of being responsible for her well-being? If she had, that was galling. The only thing he hated more than being forced into dicey situations was being predictable.

He'd always seen himself as clever for not investing his heart and soul in anything, thus avoiding the pain of having things he cared about ripped away from him. But what he saw as clever, she saw as a willful selfishness that mocked the feelings of others.

It was a sobering realization-and one he wasn't sure he liked. d.a.m.n her for that.

THAT EVENING IN the inn was strained for all of them, but especially Annabel. It had taken every ounce of her self-control to walk away from Jarret that afternoon. Part of her had said she should seize the chance to have a torrid love affair without any guilt.

But the sensible part of her knew that was insanity. Aside from the possibility that they could be found out, there was the even more worrisome possibility of his putting a child in her belly. She seemed to have bad luck in such matters.

She glanced over at the table across the room to where Jarret played cards with some other men in the inn. Her throat tightened. The greatest danger was that he'd make her care too much about him, that he would go back to London with a piece of her heart clutched in his fist. She didn't dare risk it.

"If you're not interested in marrying him," a small voice grumbled beside her, "you ought not to look at him that way."

Her gaze shot to Geordie. She'd thought he was asleep in the chair. Earlier, she'd taken him aside and explained that she and Jarret had decided they wouldn't suit, and that he must not tell his mother about the kiss he'd witnessed. Though Geordie had promised not to, he hadn't taken her speech well at all.

"What way am I looking at him?" she asked.

"Like he's marzipan, and you want a bite."

Geordie was slumped in the chair wearing that sullen expression he wore more and more lately. But behind the belligerence lay a little boy with hurt feelings.

"You're angry with me because I said I don't want to marry him," she said.

"It's no concern of mine," he muttered. "I just don't think it's right of you to ... you know ... look at him like that and let him kiss you, if you don't mean anything by it."

"I already explained about that."

"Right. It was a moment's impulse. You were thanking him for helping us." He rolled his eyes. "He told me the same thing, only he said he wanted to marry you."