"That's the first time you've sounded like a silly virgin, Antonia. The games have been enjoyable but time has come to pay your forfeit."

"Never," she vowed, curling her fingers into claws and aiming for his face. Trapped between his body and the tree, she didn't have room to slap him although she'd dearly love to.

His soft laugh whispered along her veins like a drug. Like it always did. He caught her hand before it made contact. She wriggled to bring up her knee, but he easily maneuvered her into powerlessness. "No, sweeting. You've done enough damage."

"Obviously not," she hissed through her teeth, hating her helplessness. "I wish I'd killed you when I had the chance."

Crammed so close, she felt the pulsing power of his erection against her belly. Once she'd doubted that he felt genuine interest in her. She doubted no longer.

Although she tried to resist, he lowered her hand to her side and, pinning her with his weight, curled his other hand over her breast. His touch was skillful, quickening her desire. To her humiliation, her nipple hardened against his palm. She bit back a whimper of shamed enjoyment.

"Give it up, Antonia. You know you can't win."

She growled and strove again to wriggle free. No use. He raised her skirt and she felt cool air on her stockinged leg, then on the bare thigh.

Blank unreality paralyzed her.

This couldn't be happening. Lord Ranelaw wasn't about to take her without ceremony against a tree. She wasn't standing acquiescent, letting him tug at her clothing.

"Stop," she gasped, stretching down with a shaking hand to prevent him lifting her skirt higher. "For pity's sake, stop."

"You don't mean that," he murmured, easily evading her. He stroked her leg before slipping his hand between her thighs.

She gasped with shock and unwilling pleasure when those clever fingers penetrated the slit in her drawers and found her wet heat. He released a deep sound of satisfaction, feral in its intensity. Now they both knew she was aroused, however she protested.

She moaned as he stroked her, unerringly finding her center. Sensation shuddered through her and her hands formed fists in his shirt.

"Yes." He spoke the word in a drawn-out hiss of appreciation.

Swirling response rose when he pressed again. She closed her eyes and panted while her faltering sense of survival screamed that she must flee. Now. Before he had her flat on her back and begging.

He rubbed his palm against her breast. Despite everything she knew about him and about what this reckless act would cost her, she nudged her hips closer to his seeking fingers.

Again he kissed her. Eager kisses that demolished resistance. Kisses that weighted her belly with impossible longing. Kisses that seemed designed to wipe out any memory of the betraying kiss that had so angered him. For a fleeting moment, he'd treated her like the one woman in a million. Now he was completely the rake, interested merely in losing himself in hot female flesh for an instant's pleasure he'd forget just as quickly.

Even recognizing that, she couldn't stop herself responding to his mouth. Kissing him back with a passion so scorching, flames ignited behind her closed eyes. The merciless onslaught of desire left her giddy and disoriented. She'd never wanted a man the way she wanted Ranelaw. Her body wept to have him inside her, filling the emptiness.

She felt like she was falling and only realized he edged her toward the ground when her back met cushioning grass. He straddled her and tore at her bodice with urgent hands. The ruthless efficiency of his actions pierced her daze.

She grabbed his hand. "Ranelaw, we can't."

He bent to nuzzle the side of her neck. "Of course we can."

"This won't help you get to Cassie," she forced herself to say. Speaking her cousin's name seemed sacrilege when Antonia sprawled beneath him.

He released a gasp of laughter. "Cassie who?"

"Ranelaw . "

"Nicholas."

What point pretending any formality existed between them? "Nicholas."

"Now say, 'Yes, Nicholas.' " He stroked her throat, lingering where her pulse fluttered against her skin. His touch was hot and stoked her need.

"No, Nicholas."

He rose on his arms and stared at her. He'd never looked so handsome. His golden hair was ruffled and one lock tumbled across his high forehead, softening features that could seem austere for all their beauty. His eyes gleamed under heavy eyelids and his nostrils flared as if he lived by her scent.

She studied his face, seeking some hint of the man who had kissed her so sweetly. None existed. Appetite gripped him. And beneath the arousal, he was still angry. She felt it in his hands and his mouth, even through the pleasure, even through the seductive words.

He wanted her. But he also set out to prove something. Something that required her debasement while he maintained his distance.

Was he troubled beneath that perfect facade? Was she mistaken to imagine a better man wandered lost in the murk of Lord Ranelaw's soul? Or did she romanticize him the way Cassie romanticized him? The way she'd romanticized hopelessly weak Johnny Benton?

Nonetheless as she stared into his blazing eyes, her heart contracted with longing. She sensed Ranelaw needed her. Beyond the gratification of a sexual itch, he demanded something essential and profound from her. Something even he didn't recognize.

Stop it, Antonia. You know a rake's tricks. Yet you fall for them as easily now as you did ten years ago.

"Admit it, Antonia. You've lost the battle."

"Have I really?" She couldn't resist smoothing the wayward lock that flopped across his forehead.

"Yes," he snapped, the seductive mask shattering. Like that, the quivering moment that promised more than mere physical satisfaction vanished.

He jerked his head away from her soothing touch as if she burned him. For all the hostility bristling between them, his rejection stung. This time, his mouth was hard when he kissed her. He ripped at her jacket and roughly cupped her breast through the thin shirt.

"Wait," she gasped, shoving at his shoulders.

To her surprise, he heard. He raised his head and stared unseeing at her. Before the unemotional shell descended, she caught something in the black eyes that might have been shame.

"I don't want to wait." He jerked his hips against hers to emphasize his readiness.

The moisture dried from her mouth as she imagined that powerful weight thrusting into her. Even in his current temper, she ached to feel him inside her.

"Let me go." She struggled for words to persuade him to stop. "It shouldn't be like this."

He bared his teeth in a snarl and for the first time, she realized his anger went far beyond a momentary impatience or irritation. It stemmed from deep within. "How the hell should it be?"

With love .

Dear God, she hadn't really thought that, had she? What existed between her and Lord Ranelaw was animal lust. She was a fool if she imagined anything else.

"Get up, Ranelaw," she said in a decisive voice. "This isn't going to happen."

For a moment, Ranelaw poised above her, his legs trapping hers. She couldn't read his expression although threat was implicit in his vibrating tension. Her muscles tautened as she waited for him to assail her again. This time, she was grimly aware that he'd win.

Then with a grunt indicating endless masculine irritation, he rolled away. He sat with his back to her, his head bowed over his raised knees.

Shocked that this final appeal worked, bewildered that it had, Antonia remained lying where she was, sucking air into starved lungs. She struggled to calm the primitive surge of her blood.

The sullen hunch of Ranelaw's shoulders, the silence charged with so much she didn't comprehend, pierced her. Usually he seemed impervious to human vulnerability. Right now he looked like the loneliest man in England.

Perhaps he was.

He'd sounded so cold when he delivered that terse, unadorned description of his childhood. His parents clearly hadn't known the meaning of fidelity and he'd apparently formed no close attachment to any of his many siblings. His impassive recounting had touched her, stirred reluctant compassion. All those people. Yet somehow Ranelaw struck her as completely isolated in the center.

"Ranelaw, look at me," she whispered, wondering why she cared after the way he'd treated her.

In a wordless gesture of comfort, she laid a trembling hand between his shoulder blades. Something told her he was utterly desolate.

He flinched away from her reluctant tenderness as he'd flinched when she stroked his hair.

All right. She might be slow to learn, but now she understood. Humiliation was a bitter taste in her mouth. She jerked her hand away. He wanted raw passion from her. Nothing else.

Perhaps after this morning, he didn't even want that.

She bit her lip and told herself it was ridiculous to let him upset her. He was a worthless, wicked rake. If he ignored her, that was to her benefit. She should be grateful he'd sampled her charms and decided she wasn't worth pursuing.

As her heart cramped with misery, that's not how it felt.

"Go away, Antonia," he said in a low voice, still without glancing at her.

"Ranelaw . " She sat up and slid back to lean against the tree. She felt shaky, on the verge of tears.

His shoulders tensed until they were as rigid as planks. Still he wouldn't look at her. "For God's sake, take your reprieve and go." He sounded savage, like a man at the limit of his endurance.

Confused, afraid, dizzy with unsatisfied desire, Antonia scrambled to her feet. Her legs were still frighteningly unsteady. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders. She glanced down at herself, and horror squeezed her lungs. Her neck cloth was gone, her jacket hung open, half the buttons were missing. Her shirt was crushed and tugged out of line.

Anyone seeing her would know exactly what she'd been doing. Would imagine more had happened than actually had. She could hardly believe more hadn't happened. Given her foolishness, she should be flat on her back with Lord Ranelaw's seed inside her.

On a tremulous inhalation, she scooped up her hat and stumbled to her horse. With difficulty, she dragged herself into the saddle. Ranelaw still didn't turn to look at her.

On an inarticulate cry, she urged the horse into an ungainly gallop through the trees.

Chapter Nine.

Ranelaw remained still while Antonia rose and paused. Although she didn't speak, the confused babble of her questions was loud as thunder. Then as if his sullen silence provided an answer, she scuttled across the clearing and rode away.

Still he didn't move. Only when the pounding hoofbeats faded to nothing and he was finally alone did he drop his head into his hands and release a deep groan.

Bloody, bloody, bloody, misbegotten, thrice-cursed idiot.

He dug his fingers into his skull so hard, it hurt. Nothing stanched his self-disgust.

What the hell was wrong with him?

He'd schemed assiduously to suborn Antonia Smith. He'd bribed servants. He'd climbed a damned cherry tree to seduce her. He'd braved assault by fire iron. He'd pursued her to Surrey.

He'd manipulated and maneuvered to get her on her own. He'd kissed her into breathless malleability. Success had loomed so close. The possession of her body, leverage to promote the Demarest chit's ruin, a short-lived but memorable pleasure.

Nothing terrifically complicated.

Then she'd stared at him with those radiant blue eyes and asked him to let her go.

And bugger, bugger, bugger, he'd suddenly imagined he was sodding Sir Galahad.

He hadn't felt pity for a woman since he was a boy. The women he fucked were perfectly willing when he took them, however much they might repent their behavior later.

Yet he'd pitied Antonia Smith. Although pity seemed too weak a description for the emotion that had closed his throat and made him suddenly long to be an honorable man.

He'd grieved to think he disappointed her.

Hurt her.

He was a rake. Hurting and disappointing women were the mainstays of his existence.

That kiss had been a bedamned mistake.

Not the kisses that commanded her response. That other kiss. The poignant, heartbreaking one.

The kiss that had flung him into a different world, that had promised a clean start. Salvation. Kindness. Something beyond the forgettable parade of women.

He already knew Antonia Smith wouldn't join that parade. He'd remember her forever.

Blast her to Hades.

How dare she remind him.

Remind him of what? His essential solitude? His lack of direction, beyond this quest for revenge, which ended any day now? His longing for something better than he deserved?

His longing for a woman like Antonia Smith?

If he'd had any breakfast, he'd be casting it up over his boots. What inspired this sentimental pap?

Just in case she misunderstood exactly who he was, he'd set out to frighten her, convince her he was a heartless beast. He'd never treated a lover so. Shame was a foreign emotion, but he recognized shame as he remembered those rough kisses he'd forced upon her.

Kisses she'd repaid with a piercing tenderness that made him sick to the gut at the bastard he was.

He'd stared into her eyes, dark with confusion and unwilling passion, and for one stark, horrible instant, he'd wished to be that different man. He'd wished to be worthy of her.

Hell, no. He was perfectly happy with who he was. He had more freedom than anyone he knew. He took what he wanted and discarded it when he'd had his fill. His world held no limits.