His fury quickly tore Antonia from the world and flung her screaming into a fiery heaven. The climax threatened to rend her into tatters. For a long moment, she knew nothing except the dark fire lashing her.

For a blazing eternity, he held her quivering at the extremity of rapture. His hands tightened around her hips, hard enough to bruise, keeping her safe as lightning raged around her. She closed her eyes against blinding light and surrendered.

Through the violent, buffeting storm, she felt Nicholas jerk in uncontrollable release. He groaned and flung his head back, the tendons in his neck standing out as he pumped into her. Hot liquid spurted deep inside her, flooding her womb.

Even as she gradually slipped from the dazzling heights, the radiance remained. When she drifted back to reality, Nicholas was crushing her into the bed, forcing the breath from her lungs. Sticky tears drenched her cheeks and her belly quaked with the aftermath of bliss.

After this, how could she live without him?

Ranelaw buried his head in the curve of Antonia's shoulder. The scent of strenuous sexual fulfillment surrounded him. His blood pulsed in heavy waves. Velvet oblivion beckoned.

In all his life, he'd never felt so good.

Too good to shatter the moment.

He still wandered among the stars, a lost explorer in the wide reaches of sky. He'd always considered himself a connoisseur of the sensual arts. A man who knew all about sex and its pleasures. How wrong he'd been. Hell, before tonight, he'd had no idea.

Eventually he snagged one of the jumbled thoughts drifting through his mind and realized he must be squashing Antonia. She was a tall, strong woman, perfectly formed for a man like him, but even so, he was a dead weight. He braced to slide free of her body, although he loved to rest inside her and feel the soft clasp of her muscles as she descended.

"No," she murmured in drowsy protest when he shifted.

She was rubbing his back in circular movements. His heart skipped a beat every time she stopped and started again. She still had a lamentable ability to affect his pulse. Even now when desire was a slow simmer not a raging forest fire.

"I should move." He didn't budge in case he disrupted those languorous caresses. If he was a cat, he'd purr.

"Not yet."

On a sigh, he decided against arguing. He didn't want to spoil this silent communication flowing like a calm ocean between them.

He knew he surrendered to self-delusion as unrelated to harsh reality as an opium addict's fantasies. But the knowledge couldn't compete with the soft pleasure of lying here with the woman he'd wanted for so long and who at last gave herself to him without demur. Antonia surrounded him. Her hair, her skin, her scent.

Time and necessity blurred into a golden haze. He floated in a pleasurable dream as his body gradually quieted.

He summoned his last ounce of strength to turn his head and place an exhausted kiss on the side of her neck. He clung to the dream a little longer, then forced himself to speak. "I wasn't careful."

Her hands paused in their fiendishly sweet movements and he felt her struggle for breath. Because of his weight or because of what he said?

After a silence, she started to stroke him again. Her voice emerged with a steadiness that surprised him. "There's nothing we can do about it."

He frowned into the soft cushion of lavender-scented hair. That response seemed uncharacteristically fatalistic. He needed to see her face. Her words told him nothing.

At last, reluctantly, stiffly, he rolled off her. As their bodies separated, he stifled a pang of sorrow. For too fleeting an interval, life had been perfect. He wasn't yet ready to relinquish that heaven.

Rising on one elbow, he rested his head on his palm. "In Surrey, I promised to protect you from a child."

With a slight wince, she lifted herself on the pillows and pushed her hair off her face. He imagined she must ache after that untamed mating. He'd used her hard and without mercy. But then he checked more closely and masculine satisfaction swamped any guilt. She looked like a rumpled, well-pleasured goddess.

Her eyes were grave but clear as they leveled upon him. "Neither of us was thinking just now."

Her calmness left him puzzled, mistrustful. He'd expected her to be angry at his carelessness. Hell, he was angry at his carelessness. "There could be repercussions," he said with studied mildness.

A shadow flickered across her face. To his regret, she tugged the sheet up to cover her nakedness. "I . I didn't fall pregnant when I was with Johnny," she said in a faltering voice.

Like that, Benton's name ripped a jagged chasm between them.

Ranelaw struggled to say something. Something that wasn't a furious question about how a woman like her could ever imagine herself infatuated with that sapskull.

After a fraught pause, she spoke. "Maybe I'm barren."

And maybe Benton wasn't man enough to get a child on you.

Of course Ranelaw couldn't say that, however his gut twisted with frustrated rage. What right had he to deride Benton? It was the height of hypocrisy to want to murder the cur just for the crime of touching Antonia.

The silence that descended bristled with difficult questions.

Eventually he could no longer endure his clamoring curiosity. As he couldn't endure not touching her. He caught her hand in his, gripping hard. The contact immediately settled the restless brute inside him in a way he didn't want to examine.

He inhaled and voiced the question that had tormented him since he'd discovered she wasn't a virgin.

"Will you tell me about Benton?"

Antonia had dreaded this moment, even as she'd known it must come.

Old misery flooded her. Whenever she contemplated her youthful sins, shame coiled in her stomach like angry snakes. Tonight was meant to be an occasion of joyous pleasure that she'd remember forever. It wasn't meant to be about her guilty secrets.

The full, disastrous story remained locked in her heart. She'd never really spoken about what had happened when she was a girl. The last person she should ever confide in was a man notorious from one end of the kingdom to the other for his profligate appetites.

She prepared to tell Nicholas to mind his own affairs. To insist she owed him no explanation. To point out such a libertine was in no position to demand an accounting of a lover's past liaisons.

Antonia opened her mouth to give Nicholas the setdown he deserved. Different words emerged. "Johnny was at Oxford with my brother. He came to stay with my family the summer I turned seventeen."

"Benton recognized your beauty from the first, didn't he?" Nicholas's tone was edged with anger-for her or her lover?-but his grasp on her hand conveyed more of that damned tenderness. The tenderness she resented because it made her yearn so fiercely for more.

"He certainly flattered me," she said expressionlessly.

Nicholas withdrew his hand. Immediately she missed his touch. Poor, pathetic Antonia.

He rolled to his side again and took up his watchful pose with his head resting on one hand. Displeasure lengthened his mouth. "I'll wager the bastard wrote sonnets enough to paper the Houses of Parliament."

Sour humor edged her voice. "And Brighton Pavilion besides, I should think. He immortalized every inch of me in verse. His villanelle upon my left eyebrow was my favorite."

Her feeble joke didn't lighten Nicholas's expression. "He might be a fool but I can't fault his taste. You're a pearl beyond price. What I find so bizarre is that a woman like you fell for the puling milksop."

A pearl beyond price? She stifled her astonished reaction to the description. She was less capable of stifling her reaction when he brushed his lips across hers. The fleeting kiss somehow conveyed boundless faith in her. She knew it was illogical-after all, Nicholas hardly provided an example of morality-but she'd been sick with terror that he'd despise her for giving herself to Johnny.

Her hands clenched in the sheet as a tide of longing swamped her. Physically she was helpless against Nicholas, but that was to be expected. He was beautiful and glittering, and no woman with blood in her veins could stay immune. With every moment, she succumbed to a more dangerous craving for the man beneath the spectacular facade. For the erratic gentleness and the humor and what she deceived herself was a profound loneliness hidden even from himself.

The sweetness of his kiss bolstered her to continue her difficult confession. Her voice was somber as she struggled to contain the dark memories. "It was exciting to have such a handsome young man in the house. My life had been secluded and very dull up until then. Johnny was the first gentleman to pay me any attention."

"Benton always set female hearts aflutter." Nicholas's eyes narrowed to an angry ebony gleam. "And of course you imagine you still love the blackguard."

His voice was rough with disapproval. And certainty.

Chapter Twenty-one.

"Don't be absurd." Outrage made Antonia stiffen against the elaborately carved headboard. With unsteady hands, she clutched the sheet to her bare breasts. Talking about Johnny left her feeling naked, both physically and emotionally, and she hated the vulnerability.

Nicholas shot her a disbelieving look from under his lowered dark brows. "You must have thought you loved him at the time."

"At the time, I was insane," she said flatly.

"Is that your excuse?" He watched her with such concentration, she felt he counted the pores in her skin.

The silence extended, became uncomfortable. Nicholas lay beside her, his gaze fixed on her and his long body tense with displeasure. If he were any man other than the Marquess of Ranelaw, she'd imagine he was jealous. But she was bleakly aware that he didn't care enough about her to feel possessive.

Mustering her courage, she told herself without conviction that she'd survive a confession of her sins. Biting her lip, she stared down to where one hand pleated and smoothed the sheet. She sucked in a shaky breath and made herself continue.

"I was bored, and curious about a wider world I was afraid I'd never see. Johnny descended like a visitation from a god, which given what he's really like contains more than a touch of irony. I was sure a man who wrote reams of poetry must have a great soul." Her tone soured with self-denigration. "I dreamed of loving someone with a great soul. The people in my immediate vicinity only talked about farming and foxhunting."

"You were a romantic."

She winced, although Nicholas hadn't sounded critical. "That was knocked out of me, at least."

Except tragically that was far from the truth.

In spite of the ensuing misery, her dreams hadn't changed much since she was a girl. She still cherished fantasies of everlasting love, even if no respectable man would ever consider marrying her. In the depths of night, she dreamed of a knight in shining armor rescuing her from her barren existence and showing her all the excitement she'd imagined life with Johnny offered.

"Surely someone as smart as you saw through Benton." Nicholas snapped Johnny's name between his sharp white teeth as though it tasted rotten. "Once you get past how the bugger looks, he's not that interesting."

Nicholas's anger reminded her she had good reason to loathe Johnny Benton. But her hatred seemed unimportant compared to the disgrace she'd brought on herself and the pain she'd caused her family.

"He swept me off my feet. He promised to show me the Colosseum by moonlight, the Bay of Naples at sunrise, the temple at Delphi."

"His bed," Nicholas said harshly, his brows drawing together in a frown.

Her lips twisted with acid humor. "He was vague about his physical demands. He kissed me before we eloped, but he was careful not to frighten me until he had me to himself."

"The bastard raped you?" Furious horror darkened Nicholas's expression and his question emerged cutting as a whiplash.

"Good God, no." She grabbed his hand, which had fisted in the sheets as if to pound Johnny to a pulp. "No, Nicholas. No."

"Not far off," he snarled, his black eyes flashing with savagery.

For all Johnny's legion of sins against her, he'd never forced her. "I always knew Johnny wanted me. I wasn't that green, even as a seventeen-year-old virgin. He didn't hurt me. Or not that way. The most shocking part of it all was that I was sure he'd marry me before he took my maidenhead. I was at least that conventional. And innocent. It's just that the . the promise of seeing those places was more of a lure than becoming his lover. He made them sound so marvelous."

"He told you what you wanted to hear," Ranelaw said grimly. The hand under hers was taut with anger.

"Yes, he did. I didn't look beneath the surface. Someone that handsome had to be beautiful inside and out, surely." Derision for young Antonia's stupidity edged her words.

"You're too hard on yourself," Nicholas bit out. "I can guess how the cur pursued you."

She released his hand and resumed playing with the sheet. "Of course you can guess. You're another rake."

He bared his teeth. "I doubt anyone believes I have a beautiful soul."

Once she might have agreed. After the last days, she wasn't so sure. The man who saved her from scandal, who took the care to show her such ecstasy, who fumed on her behalf now, was more heroic than he realized.

"I was a naive little fool." Her voice frayed with regret. "I thought I'd return in triumph from my adventures, the wife and inspiration to a literary lion."

"I still don't understand why he didn't marry you." Nicholas reached to still her fidgeting. More kindness although she knew he'd scoff if she expressed any gratitude. His touch soothed her restless movements even as rage sharpened his features. "Ten years ago, he wasn't much more than a boy himself, although that's no excuse for what he did. I still wouldn't say that Benton's hardened in evil." Nicholas paused and she knew he struggled against adding, "Like I m."

Again her foolish heart insisted Nicholas was a better man than he acknowledged. "No, Johnny's not deliberately evil. He's just selfish and weak and convinced the world owes him everything he wants because he's beautiful."

She paused. After all these years, she still cringed to revisit her greatest shame. She drew strength from the clasp of Nicholas's hand. Longstanding humiliation roughened her voice. "He didn't marry me because he retained at least that much honor. He was married already."

Nicholas jerked upright. His grip clenched painfully hard. "The devil, you say. I had no idea."

"Nor did anyone else." She struggled to keep her voice even, although Nicholas must guess she hated revealing this final evidence of her gullibility. "He'd kept an actress as his mistress before going up to Oxford and he'd got a child on her. I'm surprised the woman got him to marry her-coercion must have been involved. Johnny wasn't exactly brave when someone threatened his famous profile."

She paused and moistened a dry mouth. Her idiocy when it came to Johnny's lies still made her want to cringe away from the light. "I don't know what happened to the child. Johnny always claimed ignorance."

Nicholas growled low in his throat. Abruptly he released her and rolled out of bed. Even through her distress, she couldn't help admiring his complete lack of self-consciousness. There was something breathtakingly animal about the marquess.

She watched him prowl in naked magnificence toward the mahogany chest of drawers. Excitement shivered through her when she noticed the bloody marks her nails had left on his back. For ten lonely years passion had been lost to her. For good or ill, she'd rediscovered passion with Nicholas. The experience was so rich, she couldn't regret what they'd shared.

"When did you find out?" With restrained violence, he lifted a decanter of claret from the tray.

She tugged the sheet higher over her breasts and told herself she'd come this far, she was strong enough to complete her sordid story. However painful the last part of her confession.

"My father tracked us to Vicenza within about four weeks. We were living in utter penury." Old humiliation choked her. Through a haze, she watched Nicholas pour two glasses of wine. She drew a shuddering breath and forced herself to go on. "I didn't see Rome by moonlight or the Bay of Naples. The idea that he needed funds before he eloped with his best friend's sister never occurred to Johnny."

Nicholas left his wine on the sideboard while he carried a glass across to her. Sightlessly she stared at it until he took one hand and curled it around the stem. She trembled so badly, the claret threatened to spill. She inhaled and strove for control as Nicholas returned for his glass.

"Useless clodpole." Nicholas's mouth thinned with anger even as she read unstinting compassion for her plight in his black eyes.

Her heart lurched against her chest. She didn't deserve sympathy, but it was sinfully sweet to know he comprehended her grief and anger. She'd never imagined anyone would take her side, least of all this spectacular, profligate man. It was terrifying what his lack of condemnation meant to her.

"Johnny was more disappointed at the collapse of his romantical notions than I." Again she tried to inject a note of sardonic humor into her voice. Again it rang completely false. "I was always a practical creature, or so I discovered when I had to exist on a pittance in a foreign country. I was lucky Johnny didn't whore me to the highest bidder. Although it could have come to that if my father hadn't settled our debts."

Nicholas stood beside the bed and took a mouthful of his wine. Antonia feared she'd gag if she drank. She stared up at Nicholas. A muscle jerked in his cheek and he studied her with unfathomable black eyes.

"Your father wanted you back?"