Hard to believe she, the great expert on carnality, had known nothing at all. What she'd just experienced revealed her previous encounters as pale imitations of something rare and real.

She felt like laughing with joy. She felt like crying her heart out over what she'd missed. What she hadn't even guessed existed.

She closed her eyes, remembering her stunned flash of recognition when his body had finally joined hers.

For the first time in her life, she'd felt complete. The ignorant country girl. Ben and Maria's careful provider. The frightened servant. Eldreth's mistress, as much daughter as lover, especially after the onset of his illness. James's worldly tutor. Kylemore's obsession. Then his angry resentful captive.

Daughter. Sister. Mistress. Prisoner. Lover. United in the woman who loved Kylemore. In the wake of all the painful storms, she basked now in a peace unlike anything she'd ever known.

The wordsI love you trembled on her lips.

But she could never tell him. Not for her sake-she'd never stop loving him. But for his.

The last few days had revealed he was far from the unfeeling monolith he strove so diligently to present. He already carried so much pain. She wouldn't allow herself to add to it.

Kylemore stirred. His breathing was steadier, and his heart no longer thundered against her.

As he raised his head and looked down into her eyes, she saw he too had changed. His gaze was clear and sure. The cynicism that had always veiled his features had vanished. For the first time, he truly looked like a man a year younger than she.

Her heart was so full, she reached up to touch his cheek. His shadow beard bristled beneath her fingers.

"I've got a bear in my bed." She sought relief in lightness.

Under her fingers, she felt his cheek crease into a smile. "I should have shaved."

"Mmm."

"I'm too heavy for you."

"Maybe a little."

She trailed her fingers upward and brushed his tangled, dark hair back from his temple. She'd never before permitted herself the tentative explorations of a new lover. She knew his body so well, yet these simple gestures of affection were utterly unfamiliar.

He pushed into her touch, reminding her of a kitten she'd had as a child. The memory was innocent, harking back to a time she'd almost forgotten.

She laughed softly. "You'll start purring soon."

"Ah, mo cridhe . I'm already purring. Surely you hear me." His voice even sounded different, softer, hinting at a Highland lilt.

She could fall in love with a man with a voice like that.

"What do you call me?" she asked idly, continuing to stroke the lean planes of his face, his arrogant nose, his ears, his eyebrows.

Even more catlike under her ministrations, he closed his eyes. "Oh, it's only a local term for a woman."

When he raised his eyelids and glanced at her, she caught the blue glitter of amusement. Plainly, there was more to the soft endearment than he meant to tell her.

What did it matter in such a perfect moment? Her hands slid down to his back, tracing muscle and bone.

She could touch him like this forever. And still ask for more.

Who knew a man's body offered such delights? Certainly not London's most infamous courtesan.

He bent his head to kiss her-short, playful nips and pecks that soon had her giggling and wrestling with him in an ecstatic tangle of naked limbs.

She felt like a child again. A child with her very best friend in the world.

A child soon engulfed in distinctly adult desire when the game became more purposeful. His mouth touched her everywhere, her neck, her back, her buttocks, her breasts, between her legs. It was as if he staked his possession with kisses. Kisses that built heat a degree at a time until she burned with need.

This time, the climax was cataclysmic. Her world fragmented in a burst of molten white. Gasping, she clung to Kylemore as the only solid object in her fracturing universe. But a more lasting radiance lingered beneath the violent explosion of pleasure. And when she floated back to reality, it was the radiance she remembered.

Afterward, they slept briefly.

She woke to find Kylemore raised on one elbow, watching her with a slumberous expression in his indigo eyes. Indigo eyes that for the first time since she'd known him were tranquil, like a calm sea at sunset. He must have gotten up while she'd dozed, because a forest of candles lit the room to gold.

His expression was tender as he shaped her breast. He brushed his thumb against the plump nipple, and it hardened in immediate response.

"This is what I wanted in London," he murmured, bending to place a kiss where his thumb teased. His lips were hot on her tender skin, and she shifted under a renewed surge of desire.

"Why did you make me wait so long, Verity?"

She didn't pretend to misunderstand. "You seemed...you seemed more than I could handle. I preferred easier men." How did he expect her to concentrate on his questions when he touched her?

"So you took Mallory as your lover."

Her last protector's name crashed into the harmony between them with the force of a knife thrown at a door. Her pleasurable stirrings of arousal vanished in an instant.

"I can't help what I was," she snapped. She tried to draw away, but he caught her shoulder and stopped her.

"I'm just trying to understand. I know why you owed Eldreth loyalty. But Mallory was a joke."

"He was sweet. I thought I could help him." She smiled, then wished she hadn't as a frown darkened Kylemore's face.

"You loved him," he growled.

She bit back a vehement denial as she looked more closely at Kylemore. He wasn't furious. Instead, he appeared uncomfortable, shamefaced, annoyed.

Jealous.

Heavens, how marvelous. He was jealous. Because of her!

His liaison with her wasn't at all the unequal match she'd always believed it. When he mentioned James, he didn't taunt her about her wicked past. He sought reassurance that she wanted no one but him.

Her resistance seeped away. She lay back beside him.

"No. I wasn't capable of loving anybody then."

With horror, she realized just what she'd said. Dear heaven, don't let her astute lover pick up on the telling use of the past tense.

But he still fretted about the man who had occupied her bed so briefly. "He loved you. He must have."

He seemed unduly concerned with the notion of love.

She'd have thought love an alien concept to the Duke of Kylemore. Clearly, she was mistaken.

"Very flattering, Your Grace," she said dryly. "But in truth, he didn't know what to do with me once he'd won me. He was a home-and-hearth sort. I taught him social polish, gave him advice about wooing his Sarah and waved him good-bye happily enough when it ended. He's a kind, dear man who married his sweetheart. He's not worth your hatred."

"Except he had you when you should have been mine." His powerful arm tightened around her. "You've driven me mad for years, you know. Tell me about the others."

"What others?"

He tugged a long strand of her hair in gentle rebuke. "Don't play me for a fool, Verity. You were the most notorious woman in London. You've had more paramours than just an elderly baronet and a parvenu milksop."

"Yes," she said on a growl, trying once more to free herself from his embrace. "There was a presumptuous Scotsman who should have had his ears boxed."

Kylemore lifted himself above her, his face white with shock. "Three lovers?" he asked in patent disbelief.

"There's no need to sound so smug," she said with genuine displeasure.

"Shh," he whispered and began to kiss her. She wanted to resist, but as always, it was impossible.

When he'd subdued her into a bundle of quivering pleasure, he laughed wryly. "You've led us on, mo cridhe . The kingdom's most scandalous woman is pure as the driven snow."

"Don't mock me, Kylemore," she protested, nettled anew.

"I'm not. But you need to reconsider your role as a scarlet woman. You'd put most ladies of the ton to the blush."

"You forget I drove all those men to suicide with my wiles when I first came to London," she said bitterly. The old wound still festered.

"Their deaths weren't your fault, Verity," he said softly. She searched his face for censure, anger or disgust, but the deep blue eyes were grave and held no condemnation.

He sounded so sure. But her regret had bitten too deeply for mere words to offer absolution. She dragged in a sobbing breath. "On my soul, I didn't encourage them. Yet they blew their brains out because of me. Why?"

Ignoring her quivering stiffness, Kylemore settled himself higher until she lay across his bare chest. Her naked skin slid against his as he tucked her head under his chin.

He understood futile guilt better than most. He knew how it ate at the soul. Hadn't he suffered because he couldn't stop his mother gutting the estates to fund her political ambitions?

Verity had endured years of hatred and sly talk over her supposedly fatal charms. Gossip had condemned her coldness and accused her of luxuriating in her power over the unsuspecting and gullible male sex.

The ton had known nothing about the real woman.

"They suffered a kind of madness. You were only the excuse," he said slowly, searching for the right words to soothe her pain. "There was something feverish in the air that season. I remember the wildness, the ever more profligate gambling, the unfettered womanizing, the duels to the death. Soraya, with her beauty and her mystery, formed part of it. But nothing she did drove those men to take their lives."

"They died because of me," she whispered, hiding her face in his shoulder. "Because of what I was and what I did."

Kylemore's covetous soul exulted that he was the one she turned to for comfort.

Then he felt her hot tears against his throat. His greed to be the eternal center of her world faded as bone-deep pity overwhelmed him.

His hold on her tightened. "It's time to forgive yourself as I'm sure the ghosts of those troubled young men have long ago forgiven you. The suicides were a tragedy and a cruel waste, but they were never your fault."

"Do you really mean that?" Her hesitant question was a murmur against his chest.

"More than I can say."

She lay calm and exhausted upon him, fragile in his arms, yet stronger than anyone he knew. He yearned to make extravagant promises, swear eternal fealty, go on his knees and offer her the world on a gold platter.

But he settled for a simple, "Sleep now, mo cridhe . I'll keep you safe."

Chapter 20.

Verity was still wallowing in a daze of bliss and newly awakened love the next afternoon when she and Kylemore ate a belated meal in the parlor. Giving herself-all of herself-to him had been extraordinarily liberating.

Beneath the lethargy lingering after a night of passion, new self-confidence flowered. For the moment, this extraordinary man's ardor, intelligence, courage, beauty were utterly hers.

Whatever the future held, nothing could alter what had happened between them. She'd never be the same. Nor would Kylemore.

Eventually, he'd leave to take his rightful place in the great world. But he'd never be free of her.

Never.

The day had started with rain, providing the ideal excuse to detain the duke in bed. Now she contemplated the outrages she meant to perpetrate upon his body when they returned to her room. Which would be soon, she hoped.

She was definitely hungry, but not necessarily for food.

"What is it?" He lifted his hand from where it lay near his plate and reached over the table to play with her fingers.

All morning, he'd touched her like this. The tiny gestures of connection surprised her. He'd always been a vigorous lover, but she'd never otherwise regarded him as a demonstrative man.

He looked across the remains of their luncheon at her. "You're blushing," he said smugly.

Smugness was one of his abiding characteristics today. She must be in a bad way indeed to find it charming rather than irritating.

But he wasn't having everything his own way. "I was thinking how it felt to take you in my mouth this morning," she said lightly, glancing at him under her lashes. She smiled her own satisfaction as he choked on a mouthful of claret.

Soraya retained her uses, not the least of which was keeping her temperamental lover from complacency.

Still smiling, she took a sip of her own wine and studied the room. A particularly fierce stag glaring at her from the wall captured her attention. "You know," she said absently, "these decorations always seem out of character. I never pictured you as quite such the swaggering huntsman."

Although he'd hunted her effectively enough, she admitted, for once without a trace of resentment.

He set his glass down, brought his napkin to his lips and glanced at the funereal decor without interest. "The trophies were my grandfather's."