"Ah, the champion arrives," Iversly uttered. "Barely in time, it seems."

"Peter," Bea breathed. "But Aunt Julia-"

"I have just spoken with her. She is in no danger from Iversly. He told her so. He wants you."

The giant clapper tapped against the iron mass, preparing, the rope hanging from the darkness above beginning to dance.

Iversly laughed from high up in the belfry, the sound rolling along the stone walls like icy water.

"Twelve chimes, my dear, then your fate will be sealed and freedom mine," he called out.

"But-"

"Bea," Tip moved toward her, the lamplight casting him in shadows. "You have no choice now." He halted within reach. "I am sorry I cannot be the man you want, but I am here."

The bell's clang split the torch-lit dark, pounding into Bea's blood and bones. Tip's beautiful eyes were filled with compassion. He looked again like the man she had always loved.

"No," her voice broke. "It is my fault. I am sorry."

"It will be all right." He stepped forward, his body brushing hers, and his hands slid into her hair. The pad of his thumb stroked her trembling lower lip. "Trust me."

Wide-eyed, she nodded. The huge bell chimed mercilessly again and a laugh as deep and horrible as the pit of hell sounded from above. Two.

Tip's gaze shifted swiftly across her features, then locked with hers.

"Do you know what happens when a man and woman make love, Bea?"

"Wh-What do you mean, what happens?" she croaked.

"How it is done."

She nodded. Sylvia had told her, and teased her that she would be lucky if she ever experienced it. The awful iron clang came again, its echo spreading through the tower like evil. Three.

Tip took a fast, deep breath. "There isn't time-" He ran his hand through his hair. "There isn't time for anything."

"For what?" Her words trembled.

"To prepare you."

"Prepare me?"

"There will be pain. Possibly a great deal of it." The bell tolled, as though to emphasize his hurried words, a fourth hated chime.

"All right." She bit her lip, her heart leaping unsteadily, breaths coming short. "Peter," she whispered, "time is running out."

He swallowed hard, the movement clearly visible above his cravat.

"Bea," he spoke quickly, "when I kissed you, did you feel anything? In your body, any stirrings of heat or dampness?"

Oh, God. How could this get worse? She'd felt everything. But how on earth could she say it aloud, to him, now, here? Why did he need to know?

"This cannot be real," she whispered, her voice a mere rasp.

The ghost's hard laughter careened through the blackness above, the bell's thunder following. Five.

Tip's hands tightened. "Did you?"

She nodded. "Yes, a lot of-of stirring."

His eyes seemed to darken. He bent his head and captured her mouth. Without delay his tongue swept across the seam of her lips, urging hers open and filling her with that delectable ache only he roused in her. Her hands found his arms, grasping at hard muscles. Her lips parted and heat flared below her belly, swirling and delicious. His tongue caressed her mouth, urging her to obey, to return his kiss and she did, desperately, her body growing hotter with each throb of her needy heart. She sank into his kiss with a sigh.

The bell clanged and Bea's sigh became a gasp. Six.

"Don't listen to it," Tip ordered against her mouth, his voice low. "Put your arms around my neck, and hold on tight."

Hold on tight? Hold on? The man she had loved without ceasing for years was commanding her to hold on to him tightly?

Bea's last shard of resistance melted. She slipped her hands around his shoulders and clasped them behind his neck. He was wonderfully tall, and her breasts pressed against his firm chest, her nipples taut, shooting delectable sensations in a downward V through her body. Tip's hand left her face, moving between them, against her abdomen, but he kept kissing her, his mouth more urgent now. She gave back eagerly, wanting more and needing to not think about how he must be unfastening his trousers. It was too alarming. Too real. She wanted him. She'd wanted him for years. But her nerves battled between desperate need and thorough fear.

His palm slid over her breast.

Yes. This was what she wanted. Peter Cheriot touching her, intimately caressing her. Wanting her.

Thunder boomed through the tower, or was that the bell? Tip pushed her gently to the wall, and chill air swished around her stockinged calves, then up, slipping across her bare thighs. She pressed her mouth against his as his hands gripped her hips, lifting her onto her tiptoes effortlessly it seemed. His thigh shifted between hers. She knew what came next, but her knees locked together and her hands shook clasping his neck.

"Now, my girl. Don't be afraid." His voice came deep against her cheek beneath the toll of the bell, his breaths moving his chest hard against hers.

"I'm not afraid," she uttered. "It's only-"

He covered her mouth again, hungrily, needy too it seemed, urging away all hesitation, all doubt. She had wanted him since before she was even a woman, and she would have him now, as she had dreamed. Not in a dungeon tower, flickering lamplight casting his handsome features into sharp relief. But in her body where she yearned for him.

She unlocked her knees, and his hands swept beneath her thighs, parting her so he could move close. Fingers twining through his hair, she held his mouth to hers, on tenterhooks but suddenly never so sure of anything in her life.

The tower erupted in sound. Nine.

"I'm ready now," she whispered against his mouth, and he pressed intimately to her, hard and hot against her flesh. She ached, wildly, deeply. But he didn't move, only kissed her again and again, his hands tight around her hips.

Ten.

He stretched her open and pushed inside. She gasped, then she only felt, his unyielding hardness, her body's resistance. He was so big, much bigger than she would have imagined. And thick. Too thick? He pressed forward and she gulped in breath, gripping his shoulders. She tried to focus on his mouth, the thrilling friction of his chest against her breasts, and ignore the odd, not comfortable stretching of her body.

The bell exploded above and all around them. Eleven.

"Dear God, Bea," Tip moaned, and thrust deep into her.

"Ow!" The cry erupted from the very bottom of her lungs. "Ouch! Oh-" she gasped. "I-ouch!"

He held her tight, his brow pressed to hers, his warm body surrounding her, perfectly still now. The tower shook with the bell's final ring, the ghost's cry of anger and misery careening through the rafters, ululating with abandoned hope. A shout of eternal despair.

Abruptly, the tower fell silent except for the lash of rain against the walls without and Bea's own labored breathing.

"Are you all right?" Tip's voice was low and strangely taut.

Bea could not speak. She could hardly breathe. Her body had closed around his somehow, and it throbbed incessantly, seeming to want more. But the act was complete, successful. She was no longer a virgin and she was safe. It would end now.

It was too soon.

She tilted her head and pressed her lips to his. They were so delicious, soft and firm at once, tasting of ale and heat and something ineffably male and entirely him. He opened them over hers, then took her lower lip between his and traced it, lingering, then nipped lightly. It felt good. So good. She never would have thought having her lip bitten by a man could feel good. But this was Peter Cheriot, her love. Now, her lover.

She curved her arms more fully around his shoulders, breathing in his scent. As an experiment, she shifted her hips.

A low rumble sounded in his chest. He pressed her more securely against the wall and his hand slipped between them, beneath the bunched up fabric of her skirt. Before she understood what he meant to do, he touched her there.

"Oh!" she gasped. "What are you-?"

"Hush," he murmured against her cheek as his fingertips began a thoroughly improper exploration of her most sensitive parts. "Let yourself feel me touching you."

She could do nothing but feel. She was drunk with it. In an instant the pulsing inside her turned to need. Then desperation. His caress centered, gentle yet with such perfect rhythm Bea could not remain still. She pressed her hips forward, gasping as sweet, hot sensation scurried through her. Gripping his shoulders, she opened her mouth to his kiss and pushed tighter to him.

A sound of pleasure rose from Tip's chest, and she moved on him again, his fingers and his rigidness inside her driving the tight pleasure higher, harder. Soft cries she couldn't prevent rent the silence of the tower. The pleasure was so intense, so pure. It felt so right. But she needed more.

Tip gripped her hips and pulled her to him hard, driving up into her. She cried aloud, gasping as he thrust into her again, then again, dragging her closer each time, and she struggled against him, to him, needing something-anything-more.

More came, hard and shocking, sweet, scandalous and everywhere, pleasure from him and pleasure within. She couldn't breathe. She was weak in a fabulous ecstasy that shimmered through her and entirely alive at once.

"Peter," she whispered.

Beneath her hands his neck grew taut, then inside her, mingled with her, he seemed to change. He pressed into her, hard, and groaned.

He went still.

In the silence of the cold tower, their fast, rough breaths were louder now than the diminished storm on the other side of the massive walls. Beneath her hands his shoulders rose and fell heavily.

Bea trembled, her limbs and insides like jelly, and wonderfully sated. She slid her cheek against Tip's, adoring the touch of his skin, holding on to him for a few precious seconds more. A mischievous sprite inside her insisted that if she did not let go of this fantasy moment, perhaps it would never end.

"Bea." His breath stirred the tendrils of hair at her ear. "I am going to release you now."

The words came like a dash of icy water. She didn't know what she had hoped he would say. Certainly not immediate dismissal. Somehow her no-longer-maidenly imagination had conjured the possibility that he might kiss her again. It was ridiculous, of course.

She nodded and he drew out of her. Bea's heels met the stone floor, an empty sensation of loss shivering through her, and her trembling increased. She had dropped her slippers at some point, but she tried not to feel foolish about that and hastily rearranged her skirts. The gown and her sheer nightrail beneath were barely thick enough to merit smoothing. She stared at the damp, hopelessly wrinkled fabric.

Tip bent and retrieved her slippers, then her shawl. She flinched when his hand slid around hers, warm and large. He went still, then dropped to one knee. Her heart leapt into her throat.

"Come. Sit and put these back on," he said, pulling her to his knee.

Hot prickles jumped behind her eyes. He was not going to propose to her again. How silly of her. Nothing had changed.

Except now she knew how it felt to love him with her body as well as her heart. Her entire world had changed.

She balanced on his makeshift seat and tugged on her slippers, then stood. He followed, drawing her shawl around her shoulders. She remained perfectly immobile, trying to rein in her raucously beating heart. Tip stepped back, away from her, and the air seemed colder yet.

"You will marry me now, Beatrice Sinclaire."

Her gaze shot up. He looked rigid, like earlier in the stairwell, severe and grim.

"What?" she uttered like the fool she was, the pleasure she had just experienced dashed to pieces despite the warm aftermath still simmering in her body.

"Which word didn't you understand? They ought to be familiar enough to you; I've said the same so many times, albeit not in the imperative until yesterday. But this time you will agree to it."

Bea's entire body shook; he must see it. But his hard gaze was locked in hers. He could not possibly appear less like a man pleased with his prospects.

"You cannot mean to marry me simply because of this." She could barely get the words past her throat.

"There is no 'simply' about it. And yes, of course I can and I mean to. What sort of cad do you think I am?"

"But you were forced into it. You didn't have any choice."

"You are perfectly correct. Making love to a beautiful woman rather than allowing her to die does not constitute a choice."

She drew in a deep breath. "And now I am the one without the choice in the matter."

Tip's eyes shone flinty in the flickering gold light. "That is not precisely what a man wishes to hear at a moment like this."

"There are no moments like this!" Tears thickened her voice. "At least there should not be."

"What's done is done."

An invisible fist tightened around Bea's heart. How could the warm, laughing man she had known be looking at her this way now, sounding like this?

She had done it to him. She had brought him here and got him into this mess. She should have insisted more forcefully that he not come. She should have left Thomas to fend for himself. Now Tip would suffer for a lifetime, unable to find another woman he could love as much as he had loved Georgie because he would be trapped with her.

"Very well," she said. "I will go tell Aunt Grace and Aunt Julia."

"As you wish."

Bea longed to reach up and smooth out the lines in his brow. Perhaps someday she could. Wives did that sort of thing if their husbands allowed it. Would he ever welcome such a touch from her? Would it always be with benign tolerance, or at best easy natured grace? Or would she sometimes spy that glint in his eyes she had seen yesterday before he kissed her? Would he at least want her in his bed as he'd said?

"Thank you for saving my life, Peter. I am sorry it had to be like this."

"You are sorry," he repeated, no expression in his eyes or voice. "Good night, Bea." He left without another word.

December 21, 1816 Despite the chilly weather, Mr. Cheriot invited me to ride in the Park this morning. It is the first invitation he has formally proffered me. We went out at an unfashionably early hour with my maid. He arrived at the house at quarter past ten, helped me to mount, and gave me a pat on the back of my glove once I was in the saddle.

His mount is quite magnificent. Everyone says he is a noted horseman. He told me he will complete his final term at university next spring. I replied that by then I will have had my second season and be thoroughly replete with Town Bronze. He grinned and said that when he is finished he will have a great deal more time to court me properly.

Naturally, I had no rational response to that. Sylvia would have batted her lashes and encouraged him to pursue the matter. Georgie would have said something clever, which no doubt he expected of me too. But my mind became a whitewashed wall.