"I like both," he said, jaw clenched. "And in between, I like them to- "

"I recommend you try to fasten your buttons by yourself at present," she said. "Your trousers are beginning to bunch up in an unsightly way over the tops of your boots."

It was not until this moment that Dain recollected his state of dress- or undress, rather. He now discovered that his shirt cuffs were flapping at his wrists, while the body of the garment billowed in the gusting wind.

While the words "shy" and "modest" did appear in Dain's Dictionary, they had no connection with him. On the other hand, his attire, unlike his character, was always comme il faut. Not to mention that he was marching through the streets of the most sartorially critical city in the world.

Heat crawled up his neck. "Thank you, Miss Trent," he said coolly, "for calling the matter to my attention." Then, just as coolly, and walking at her side all the while, he unbuttoned all the trouser buttons, tucked the shirt inside, and leisurely buttoned up again.

Miss Trent made a small choked sound.

Dain gave her a sharp glance. He could not be sure, given the bonnet and the rapidly deepening darkness, but he thought her color had risen.

"Do you feel faint, Miss Trent?" he asked. "Is that why you have walked straight past what should have been your next turning?"

She stopped. "I walked past it," she said in a muffled voice, "because I didn't know that was it."

He smiled. "You don't know the way home."

She began moving again, toward the street he'd indicated. "I shall figure it out."

He followed her round the corner. "You were going to simply walk back, in the dead of night, to your brother's house- though you haven't the vaguest notion how to get there. You're rather a henwit, aren't you?"

"I agree that it's growing dark, though hardly the dead of night," she said. "In any case, I am certainly not alone, and it hardly seems henwitted to have the most terrifying man in Paris as my escort. It's very chivalrous of you, Dain. Rather sweet, actually." She paused at a narrow street. "Ah, I am getting my bearings. This leads to the Rue de Provence, does it not?"

"What did you say?" he asked in ominously low tones.

"I said, 'This leads- '"

"Sweet," he said, following her round the corner.

"Yes, there it is." She quickened her pace. "I recognize the lamppost."

If she'd been a man, he would have made sure her skull had an intimate acquaintance with that lamppost.

Dain realized he was clenching his fists. He slowed his steps and told himself to go home. Now. He had never in his life raised a hand against a female. That sort of behavior showed not only a contemptible lack of control, but cowardice as well. Only cowards used deadly weapons against the weaponless.

"There seems to be no imminent danger of your endlessly wandering the streets of Paris and agitating the populace into a riot," he said tightly. "I believe I might with clear conscience allow you to complete your journey solo."

She paused and turned and smiled. "I quite understand. The Rue de Provence is usually very crowded at this time, and one of your friends might see you. Best run along. I promise not to breathe a word about your gallantry."

He told himself to laugh and walk away. He'd done it a thousand times before, and knew it was one of the best exits. There was no way to stab and jab when Dain laughed in your face. He'd been more viciously stabbed and jabbed before. This was merely...irritation.

All the same, the laugh wouldn't come, and he couldn't turn his back on her.

She had already disappeared round the corner.

He stormed after her and grabbed her arm, stopping her in her tracks. "Now, you hold your busy tongue and listen," he said levelly. "I am not one of your Society fribbles to be twitted and mocked by a ha'pennyworth of a chit with an exalted opinion of her wit. I don't give a damn what anyone sees, thinks, or says. I am not chivalrous, Miss Trent, and I am not sweet, confound your impertinence!"

"And I am not one of your stupid cows!" she snapped. "I am not paid to do exactly as you like, and no law on earth obliges me to do so. I shall say whatever I please, and at this moment, it pleases me exceedingly to infuriate you. Because that is precisely how I feel. You have ruined my evening. I should like nothing better than to ruin yours, you spoiled, selfish, spiteful brute!"

She kicked him in the ankle.

He was so astonished that he let go of her arm.

He stared at her tiny, booted foot. "Good gad, did you actually think you could hurt me with that?" He laughed. "Are you mad, Jess?"

"You great drunken jackass!" she cried. "How dare you?" She tore off her bonnet and whacked him in the chest with it.

"I did not give you leave to use my Christian name." She whacked him again. "And I am not a ha'pennyworth of a chit, you thickheaded ox!" Whack, whack, whack.

Dain gazed down in profound puzzlement. He saw a flimsy wisp of a female attempting, apparently, to do him an injury with a bit of millinery.

She seemed to be in a perfect fury. While tickling his chest with her ridiculous hat, she was ranting about some party and somebody's picture and Mrs. Beaumont and how he had spoiled everything and he would be very sorry, because she no longer gave a damn about Bertie, who was no use on earth to anybody, and she was going straight back to England and open a shop and auction the icon herself and get ten thousand for it, and she hoped Dain choked on it.

Dain was not certain what he was supposed to choke on, except perhaps laughter, because he was certain he'd never seen anything so vastly amusing in all his life as Miss Jessica Trent in a temper fit.

Her cheeks were pink, her eyes flashed silver sparks, and her sleek black hair was tumbling about her shoulders.

It was very black, the same pure jet as his own. But different. His was thick and coarse and curly. Hers was a rippling veil of silk.

A few tresses shaken loose from their pins dangled teasingly against her bodice.

And that was when he became distracted.

Her apple green pelisse fastened all the way to her white throat. It was fastened very snugly, outlining the curve of her breasts.

Measured against, say, Denise's generous endowments, Miss Trent's were negligible. In proportion to a slim, fine-boned frame and a whisper of a waist, however, the feminine curves abruptly became more than ample.

Lord Dain's fingers began to itch, and a snake of heat stirred and writhed in the pit of his belly.

The tickling bonnet became an irritation. He grabbed it and crushed it in his hand and threw it down. "That's enough," he said. "You're beginning to bother me."

"Bother you?" she cried. "Bother? I'll bother you, you conceited clodpole." Then she drew back, made a fist, and struck him square in the solar plexus.

It was a good, solid blow, and had she directed it at a man less formidably built, that man would have staggered.

Dain scarcely felt it. The lazy raindrops plopping on his head had about as much physical impact.

But he saw her wince as she jerked her hand away, and realized she'd hurt herself, and that made him want to howl. He grabbed her hand, then hastily dropped it, terrified he'd crush it by accident.

"Damn and blast and confound you to hell!" he roared. "Why won't you leave me in peace, you plague and pestilence of a female!"

A stray mongrel, sniffing at the lamppost, yelped and scurried away.

Miss Trent did not even blink. She only stood gazing with a sulkily obstinate expression at the place she'd hit, as though she were waiting for something.

He didn't know what it was. All he knew- and he didn't know how he knew, but it was a certainty as ineluctable as the storm swelling and roaring toward them- was that she hadn't got it yet and she would not go away until she did.

"What the devil do you want?" he shouted. "What in blazes is the matter with you?"

She didn't answer.

The desultory plops of rain were building to a steady patter upon the trottoir. Droplets glistened on her hair and shimmered on her pink-washed cheeks. One drop skittered along the side of her nose and down to the corner of her mouth.

"Damnation," he said.

And then he didn't care what he crushed or broke. He reached out and wrapped his monster hands about her waist and lifted her straight up until her wet, sulky face was even with his own.

And in the same heartbeat, before she could scream, he clamped his hard, dissolute mouth over hers.

The heavens opened up then, loosing a torrent.

Rain beat down upon his head, and a pair of small, gloved fists beat upon his shoulders and chest.

These matters troubled him not a whit. He was Dain, Lord Beelzebub himself.

He feared neither Nature's wrath nor that of civilized society. He most certainly was not troubled by Miss Trent's indignation.

Sweet, was he? He was a gross, disgusting pig of a debauchee, and if she thought she'd get off with merely one repellent peck of his polluted lips, she had another think coming.

There was nothing sweet or chivalrous about his kiss. It was a hard, brazen, take-no-prisoners assault that drove her head back.

For one terrifying moment, he wondered if he'd broken her neck.

But she couldn't be dead, because she was still flailing at him and squirming. He wrapped one arm tightly about her waist and brought the other hand up to hold her head firmly in place.

Instantly she stopped squirming and flailing. And in that instant her tightly compressed lips yielded to his assault with a suddenness that made him stagger backward, into the lamppost.

Her arms lashed about his neck in a strangle-hold.

Madonna in cielo.

Sweet mother of Jesus, the demented female was kissing him back.

Her mouth pressed eagerly against his, and that mouth was warm and soft and fresh as spring rain. She smelled of soap- chamomile soap- and wet wool and Woman.

His legs wobbled.

He leaned back against the lamppost and his crushing grasp loosened because his muscles were turning to rubber. Yet she clung to him, her slim, sweetly curved body sliding slowly down his length until her toes touched the pavement. And still she didn't let go of his neck. Still she didn't pull her mouth away from his. Her kiss was as sweet and innocently ardent as his had been bold and lustily demanding.

He melted under that maidenly ardor as though it were rain and he a pillar of salt.

In all the years since his father had packed him off to Eton, no woman had ever done anything to or for him until he'd put money in her hand. Or- as in the case of the one respectable female he'd been so misguided as to pursue nearly eight years ago- unless he signed papers putting his body, soul, and fortune into said hands.

Miss Jessica Trent was holding on to him as though her life depended upon it and kissing him as though the world would come to an end if she stopped, and there was no "unless" or "until" about it.

Bewildered and heated at once, he moved his big hands unsteadily over her back and shaped his trembling fingers to her deliciously dainty waist. He had never before held anything like her- so sweetly slim and supple and curved to delicate perfection. His chest tightened and ached and he wanted to weep.

Sognavo di te.

I've dreamed of you.

Ti desideravo nelle mia braccia dal primo momento che ti vedi.

I've wanted you in my arms since the moment I met you.

He stood, helpless in the driving rain, unable to rule his needy mouth, his restless hands, while, within, his heart beat out the mortifying truth.

Ho bisogno di te.

I need you.

As though that last were an outrage so monstrous that even the generally negligent Almighty could not let it pass, a blast of light rent the darkness, followed immediately by a violent crash that shook the pavement.

She jerked away and stumbled back, her hand clapped to her mouth.

"Jess," he said, reaching out to bring her back. "Cara, I- "

"No. Oh, God." She shoved her wet hair out of her face. "Damn you, Dain." Then she turned and fled.

Jessica Trent was a young woman who faced facts, and as she mounted, dripping, the stairs to her brother's appartement, she faced them.

First, she had leapt at the first excuse to hunt down Lord Dain.

Second, she had sunk into a profound depression, succeeded almost instantly by jealous rage, because she'd found two women sitting in his lap.

Third, she had very nearly wept when he'd spoken slightingly of her attractions and called her "a ha'pennyworth of a chit."

Fourth, she had goaded him into assaulting her.

Fifth, she had very nearly choked him to death, demanding the assault continue.

Sixth, it had taken a bolt of lightning to knock her loose.

By the time she came to the appartement door, she was strongly tempted to dash her brains out against it.

"Idiot, idiot, idiot," she muttered, pounding on the portal.

Withers opened it. His mouth fell open.

"Withers," she said, "I have failed you." She marched into the apartment. "Where is Flora?"

"Oh, dear." Withers looked helplessly about him.

"Ah, then she hasn't returned. Not that I am the least surprised." Jessica headed for her grandmother's room. "In fact, if my poor maid makes the driver take her direct to Calais and row her across the Channel, I should not blame her a whit." She rapped at Genevieve's door.