Seeking the peace she usually found here, she glanced across the unkempt churchyard. She often took the short walk from the Demarest house to this haven of greenery. More often since she'd become entangled with Lord Ranelaw.

She missed Somerset's rural quiet. This hidden corner of London behind the beautiful little Christopher Wren church had become a refuge. She rarely encountered anyone. Even on a Sunday, the small, mainly artisan congregation wasn't inclined to linger among the memorials. Now she met Nicholas here, this wilderness would no longer offer sanctuary. Hardly important when she left for the country so soon.

Antonia wandered across to sit on a stone bench under a cherry tree. Inevitably she remembered the night Nicholas climbed through her window. She'd never understood why he hadn't seduced her then. Her resistance had been as flimsy as rice paper, they'd both known that. His abstinence made her wonder yet again if he was a better man than he admitted.

The lie a woman always told herself when she surrendered to a Lothario.

"Antonia."

The low rumble of Nicholas's voice behind her made her start. She turned around. He leaned against the tree trunk, watching her under lowered lids with a concentrated regard that shivered awareness across her skin.

"You sound surprised." She rose on unsteady legs.

"You sound nervous."

She realized she twisted her gloved hands. On a shaky breath, she lowered her hands to her sides. "I am."

Beneath the staccato conversation, attraction swirled and eddied. Luring Antonia to hurl herself at him and beg him to show her heaven. She'd long ago recognized something was wrong with her. Safe, good, sensible men never roused her interest. Only dangerous men made her heart beat faster.

Her soul was black with sin.

Sin had never looked so beautiful as it did in the person of Nicholas Challoner, Marquess of Ranelaw. The curling golden hair so striking against his dark skin. The remarkable face that concealed as much as it revealed. The black eyes sparkling with challenge and wickedness. And self-deprecating humor that might just prove his salvation.

He folded his arms across his chest. The curling brim of his hat shadowed his features and he wore a greatcoat that reached his ankles. "You're early."

She nodded jerkily. The continuing distance between them fed her disquiet. She'd imagined he'd lash his arms around her and save her from thinking. When he touched her, she could forget she broke every rule of propriety and morality. And common sense.

"So are you."

A sardonic smile tilted his long mouth. "Blame my eagerness."

He didn't sound eager. He sounded watchful, predatory. She'd taken an uncertain step back before she realized it betrayed her turmoil. The smile deepened, developed an unsettling element of seduction.

"I'm not going to eat you," he murmured. "Or at least not until I get you into bed."

She blushed. Unlike most unmarried women of her class, she knew exactly what he meant. Another of those shivers, half excitement, half terror, rippled through her. She raised a trembling hand to her chest, where her heart drummed so hard, it was as if it wanted to escape her body.

She felt drunk on a heady brew of desire and uncertainty.

He loomed closer, sliding his hands behind her head. Her skin heated under that fiery touch. "No spectacles today?"

Her body yearned toward him. "You know what I look like."

He stared at her as if he'd never seen her. "I know you're beautiful."

"Nicholas . " she whispered, helpless against the possessive light in his eyes. She strained up against his hold, wanting to kiss him more than she wanted to live. "Don't mock me."

"You take my breath away."

"I wish you'd take my breath away," she said with a hint of pique. He was supposed to be crazy for her. Yet he treated her as though she was spun glass.

The fascinating lines beside his eyes deepened with amusement. "You've become very demanding."

She made an irritated sound and stretched to press her mouth to his. For one giddy moment, she tasted the moist warmth of his breath, the satiny firmness of his lips. His tongue flicked out to touch hers. She sighed and leaned into him. Then, incredibly, he withdrew.

She frowned. "I don't understand."

With a wry laugh, he tugged her behind a moss-covered mausoleum, cracked and neglected like most of the monuments. She stumbled as he backed her against the cold, damp marble.

"God damn you, Antonia, I'm trying to act the civilized man."

"Why?" she whispered, curling her hand around one powerful shoulder.

He snatched her hand, bared the pale skin at her wrist, and kissed it. The brush of his mouth made her quiver with need. He spoke in a low, urgent tone. As if someone might overhear. "We're not safe. I've got a carriage waiting. How long can you stay?"

The word stay blazed through her like lightning. Because even if he asked her, she couldn't stay with him. This was one night snatched from the jaws of time.

Her voice shook. "Cassie's staying with the Merriweathers so she can attend Lady Northam's musicale tonight and the Parrys' Venetian breakfast tomorrow." Luckily Cassie had become fast friends with Suzannah Merriweather. Mrs. Merriweather had agreed to supervise Cassie's outings when Antonia claimed illness prevented her from fulfilling her duties.

"The servants?"

"Cassie's maid went with her. I gave the others the evening off. They're used to me fending for myself." She knew she took a crazy risk, that an overzealous maid might still check on her or some emergency with Cassie could require her presence. But even after weighing the dangers, the lure of one final taste of Nicholas's magic was too strong to resist.

His lips curved in a delighted smile. "So I have you until tomorrow?"

Banked fire lit his eyes. Antonia battled to cling to reality. She told herself this affair meant nothing to him, beyond transitory hunger. And perhaps the urge to dominate a woman who defied him. She was nothing special.

Her stupid, foolish heart refused to believe it.

Her stupid, foolish heart believed the next hours were as significant for him as for her. When he'd saved her from disaster at the ball, every barrier against him splintered. She hated her defenselessness even as she yielded. Because along with ruin, he promised limitless sensual satisfaction.

She wanted him as she'd never wanted another man. She was fatalistically aware that she'd never want another man this way again. Tonight would scar her soul. More deeply than her childish capitulation to Johnny's flattery and good looks. More deeply even than that titanic encounter at Pelham Place.

"Antonia?" His thumb stroked the back of her gloved hand with a rhythmic insistence that made her restless. "If you've changed your mind, I'll let you go. I shouldn't have pushed you last night."

His eyes were soft as they studied her face. She bit back a surge of shame at what this man knew of her. But she read no condemnation in his expression, only concern for the woman who had cried in his arms. Concern and desire.

She was free to go, free to stay. Doubt and self-hatred receded. They'd return to savage her, she knew, but she wouldn't allow them to spoil her last night with Nicholas.

"You aren't forcing me to anything," she said softly.

He shot her a glittering, obsidian glance. "So I don't have to carry you away like a demon stealing your soul?"

She didn't smile. "Would you?"

He shook his head, suddenly somber. "No. I've had you willing. I want you willing again."

"I'm willing." She tried to sound teasing, amused. But it was impossible. Every breath she drew spelled the end of the world.

"Thank God," he said equally softly and pressed his mouth to hers again. She tasted yearning and arousal. He paused, and another shadow crossed his face. She tried to interpret the expression but it vanished too fast. "You ran away in Surrey."

With anyone except Nicholas, she'd imagine her precipitate departure from the summerhouse had hurt him. But of course no woman could hurt the Marquess of Ranelaw. Even so, she touched his angular jaw. "I ran like a startled rabbit. I was frightened."

He lifted one hand to press her palm against his face. "Not you. Nothing frightens you."

She gave a hollow laugh. "Everything frightens me." She swallowed and risked honesty. "You most of all."

He frowned. "I don't want you afraid of me."

"I'm afraid of what you make me feel. I'm a woman with better reasons than most to tread the straight and narrow."

"You're a woman made for love." For an electric moment, his final word hovered between them like a drawn sword.

"I'm a woman made for ruin," she said bitterly.

When they'd met, she'd believed him a man without a shred of empathy. Now she couldn't mistake the compassion darkening his face. "Oh, my dear," he said softly. "Your sin wasn't so great."

"You don't know," she whispered.

"Actually I think I do." He leaned forward to brush a piercingly sweet kiss across her lips. "We must go."

He released her and arranged her hood to shadow her face. The action conveyed a care that made her heart constrict.

She didn't deceive herself. He'd never place another person's needs above his own. She doubted he'd ever loved anyone. He certainly hadn't revealed any affection when speaking of his family. Were her occasional glimpses of a better man the result of her wishes outstripping her common sense?

Catching her hand, he led her toward the gate through the tangle of cow parsley and buttercups choking the graves. In the alley a nondescript carriage waited. She credited Nicholas's discretion. Again she struggled for an ounce of detachment. She reminded herself he was the veteran of years of intrigues, and discretion was second nature. Poignant emotion stifled the cynical thought.

It was like her lover was two separate men. The notorious rake Ranelaw. And Nicholas, who paused to adjust her hood so she wasn't exposed as the wanton she was.

Still without speaking, he opened the door for her to step inside. Her heart crashed against her chest as she climbed into the carriage. She entered Nicholas's dominion. She'd emerge a different woman. Already she knew that.

He followed and knocked on the ceiling. The carriage rolled into motion as he joined her on the cushioned bench. The seat was cramped and his thigh brushed hers. A wave of arousal made her head swim.

She waited for him to seize her.

He didn't move.

Eventually she slid back her hood and turned to him. He studied her with an unreadable expression. It wasn't his usual lazy sensuality or even the rapacious light she'd seen in the summerhouse.

For a long, breathless moment, they stared at each other. As if they sized up an enemy.

She didn't consciously move and she didn't notice him shift. Suddenly they clung to each other and his mouth crashed down on hers with a passion so powerful, it rattled the doors of heaven.

Chapter Eighteen.

Rain beat down, pounding on the roof with a thunder that vied with the thunder in Ranelaw's heart. The world shrank to the shadowy, lurching carriage and the hunger raging between him and this remarkable woman. Moments flowed into a shimmering continuity. He struggled to linger but it was impossible. Time slipped from his eager hands even as he entered eternity.

Eventually, reluctantly, he raised his head and stared at Antonia. In the dimness, she was flushed and her lips were red and full. Breathless tension twisted between them.

Very slowly she opened her eyes. She looked as dazed as he felt. As if that kiss swept her into a new world.

His breathing ragged, he shoved her cape aside and slipped his hand inside her bodice. She wore something wispy and pale with a blessedly low-cut bodice. Undressing her would be like opening a wonderful present. As his hand curled around her breast, she released a constricted moan.

His thumb flicked her beaded nipple. Her eyelids fluttered and her lips parted, giving him a glimpse of white teeth and the honeyed darkness within.

"I want you," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the vehicle's creak.

He firmed his hold on her breast and nipped at her lips, teasing her with his tongue. She growled and grabbed his head with an abandon that knocked his hat into the well between the seats. He dived into another devouring kiss, then pressed feverish kisses to her neck.

Clumsily she pushed aside his greatcoat and tugged at his clothes. Pleasure shuddered through him as she stroked his bare back. She must have removed her gloves after entering the carriage. In his urgency, he hadn't noticed.

Groaning, he grabbed her wandering hand and pressed it to the front of his trousers. As his cock swelled hard and greedy against her palm, she gasped. Closing his eyes, he drowned in hot sensation. Since Surrey, every cell had ached for her. Tonight finally he'd sate that excruciating craving.

"Yes," he hissed as her fingers curled to caress him.

He hooked one hand under her buttocks, squeezing her through her skirts. It was torture to venture so close to her center, but he recognized the limits of his control. If he touched her sex, he'd take her here, now, in this carriage.

After last time, he'd sworn he wouldn't fall on her like a starving lion. He'd explore paradise inch by inch, not in one headlong rush. Everything in Surrey had been so mad and passionate, he couldn't separate details from the explosive whole. Tonight he wanted to store away each shining second.

"Nicholas," she whispered, trailing her lips down his throat. She stroked his cock, building the pressure. His resolution faded.

"Mmm?"

She kissed along his jaw and up to his ear. Butterfly kisses. He'd insist she kissed him properly, if the phantom touch of her mouth wasn't so incendiary.

"Nicholas, we have to stop." Her words held a lovely hint of laughter. "The carriage isn't moving."

"I'm in no fit state to pay attention to carriages," he growled, grabbing her by the waist and tipping her against the bench.

She watched him with a sweet confusion that made his blood swirl with desire. "If your coachman opens the door, he'll blush."

"He knows better than to open the door." Ranelaw nuzzled her throat. She was delectable, rich and female, with that fresh scent he'd never identified. Except as essence of Antonia. "What's that perfume you're wearing?"

"I like it when you do that." She arched like a cat seeking a petting. He had a sudden vivid memory of the dragon chaperone. Who knew this wealth of sensuality lay concealed under that starchy exterior?

"Perfume?"

"I'm not wearing perfume." She insinuated her hands under his shirt once more and ran them up and down his back.

"Don't be absurd. You always wear it."

She released a breathless laugh. "Soap? Surely lavender is too prosaic to get you excited." She bumped her hips against his to confirm his excitement.