It was what he hadn't done, she thought, sniffling, wiping her tears away with her free hand. "You haven't done anything," she lied. "It's just my courses.... I cry easily when I'm ..." Her voice trembled to a stop.

"Let me help. Should we do something ... go somewhere?"

Biting her lip, she shook her head, feeling forsaken when she should know better, when he'd never promised her anything at all.

"You're sure?" His gaze was kindly, perplexed.

She tried to smile but her mouth quivered and he found himself filled with bewildering remorse. Rolling on his side, he drew her back down beside him and holding her close, stroked her hair, her face, the gentle curve of her back, molding her body to his, murmuring words of comfort, sweet, consoling words, his voice gentle. "Everything's going to be fine ... don't cry," he whispered. "Don't cry ... I'm here."

But he wouldn't be for long, she despairingly thought, which only made her cry more uncontrollably, and sobbing, she hiccuped, "I'm ... sor ... sor-ry ... for ... crying."

"Don't be," he murmured, gently brushing her hair away from her temples. He wanted to give her something; it was all he knew about making amends, and racking his brain, he wondered what he could purchase in the middle of the night. "Let me buy you something," he said, thinking a promise might suffice until morning, knowing it wouldn't but at a loss to console her.

"You ... can't." She hiccuped, sobbing harder, distraite, heartsick, no longer caring about discretion or embarrassment or whether she was mortifying herself beyond redemption.

He could buy anything. "Tell me. It's yours."

She looked at him through a blur of tears, his beauty spectacular even veiled by a despairing mist. "I want ... you," she blurted out, the words exploding into the quiet like an artillery blast. As shocked as he at her boldness, she shoved at his chest, breaking his hold, and leaping from the bed, fled the room.

He lay very still listening to her agitated breathing in the adjacent room, his mind riveted on her words, the phrase locked in his brain as if gear wheels had jammed at her demand. As with any demand from a lady, the more cynical of his friends might say.

He blew out his breath.

And then he heaved himself out of bed and searched for his breeches. This was a conversation that would require at least a minimum of clothing.

When he walked into the salon, Serena looked up from the sofa where she sat curled up in one corner and spoke firmly. "There's no excuse; I shouldn't have said it. Feel free to leave-now if you wish."

He sat down in a chair across the room.

Safe, she thought. He's done this before.

"I don't want to go," he murmured. "But I can't stay forever either."

"Whatever you like." Her tears were gone, burned away by her humiliation.

"I like being with you." His voice was deep, rich, sincere.

But he kept his distance, she noticed, wary after too many women crying for him to stay. "I can't believe I said what I did." She pulled her knees up under her chin and gazed at him over her nightgown-clad knees.

He found the openness in her eyes enchanting as he always did. "You're more emotional now with-"

"My monthly cycle," she said, helping him out. She'd had time to bludgeon her emotions into a semblance of normalcy.

"With that." His grin was white in the moonlight.

"We'll pretend this never happened." Following his degage lead, she could even smile with equanimity.

"That'd be damned convenient." He slid down in his chair, relaxing, his legs sprawled out before him.

"And I've appreciated your convenience," she said, the sardonic lightness in her voice familiar. "All ten inches of it."

"When you're feeling better again, we're here for you," he lazily drawled. "In the meantime, let me take you shopping tomorrow."

"Buying off another woman's tears, Rochefort?" The irony was mild, her eyes amused.

"Assuaging my conscience."

"I didn't think you had one."

"I didn't think so either," he softly said.

They went shopping the next day because he convinced her it was useless to resist; she should understand that by now.

She did. He was right.

So for a few days more she'd allow him to mollify his conscience because the futility of continuing to fight against his wishes would soon be moot and her principles and ethics had lost their fine edge last night, inundated in the flood tide of her tears. It was very clear too, after their cordial, nonchalant conversation in the middle of the night, that once he left, he wouldn't be coming back.

He bought her a dozen pair of slippers in a dozen different colors and two lush carpets from Baghdad and the sofas and chairs and mirrors and tables he hadn't dared buy the day he brought home the bed. Then he also purchased the tapestry she admired of the Primavera-a very close approximation, he thought, Botticelli's lithe blond maiden like Serena Blythe from Gloucestershire. And over her protests, because even her disregarded principles took notice of the exorbitant price, Beau bought her a necklace of gold and pearls and a robin's-egg ruby. "Think of me when you wear it," he said.

She would think of him every minute of the day with or without the necklace, she knew. He could have saved his money.

He stayed almost two weeks more in her lavishly furnished apartment and then one afternoon, he turned from the window where he'd been contemplating the view of the river for some time and said, "There may be messages for me at Palermo, which I have to bring back to England."

"I understand."

"I'd like to stay longer."

"I know."

"If Sir Hamilton has no news, I could come back."

He wouldn't. "I'd like that," she said.

"Are you going to be all right until the Castellis return?"

"I'm going to start painting. Then I'll have some work to show when I enter an atelier." She wouldn't cry; if she didn't think of him leaving, she could keep her feelings in check.

"You have plenty of paints?"

He'd bought out two stores for her. "Thank you, yes."

"What are we going to do tonight?" He tried to speak casually, but he found it difficult.

"I thought I'd fuck you to death."

He laughed and felt better. "A woman after my own heart."

If you had one, my dear Glory, she thought, understanding beneath her derision why a man like Beau St. Jules had never acquired one. "We're a good match then, because I like your cock."

He covered the short distance between them in three swift strides, and grabbing her shoulders, half lifted her from her chair, bending down to kiss her, his mouth harsh, his fingers biting into her flesh. A second later he pulled her completely to her feet, spilling the prints in her lap to the floor and jerking her hard against his body, forced her mouth open with his, drove his tongue deep into her throat, anger and frustration eating at his brain. He couldn't bear to think of her saying that to another man. She was his.

Or at least tonight she was, cooler reason reminded him, and suppressing his rankled territorial emotions, he lifted her into his arms and walked into the bedroom.

They stayed up all night, neither wanting to waste a moment of their last hours together. They made love with tenderness, with exquisite slowness, and at the last when dawn was breaking, they burned flame hot, stung by the searing finality, by the inexorable end of their affair.

He said he didn't want breakfast when she asked.

He was packing swiftly, tossing his clothes into his portmanteau, and his gaze when it lifted to hers was startlingly blank. "If I reach Leghorn by dinnertime I can catch the evening tide." His voice too was without emotion.

"Would you like me to make you a lunch?"

He smiled then-a flash of the man she knew. "If you could, I'd say yes." She'd not yet mastered the most rudimentary cooking. "But thank you for asking."

"I could help you pack."

"I'm almost finished. Have you seen my watch?"

"It's in the parlor; I'll get it."

When she returned to the bedroom, his portmanteau was strapped shut and he was slipping on his bottle green coat.

He took the watch from her, threaded the chain through his waistcoat buttonhole, and slid the timepiece into his pocket. "Thank you for everything," he said, standing a foot away but his voice already distant.

"You're very welcome. But you've been infinitely more generous than I. I'm in your debt." She spoke in an even, level tone, as capable as he of politesse.

"Certainly not." His tone was clipped, curt. Then his eyes held hers for a moment. "I wish you well," he softly added, and reaching for her hand, he pulled her close. "Kiss me," he murmured, "although I hate good-bye kisses."

"No more than I," she whispered, lifting her mouth to his, willing herself not to cry.

And for that warm, tender moment as their lips met, the world was filled again with wonder.

She was the only women he'd ever left with regret, he thought, the scent of her sweet, redolent of lush passion-and yet he had no intention of tying himself to one woman, however tantalizing.

His mouth lifted away.

"I'll probably see you next as the toast of the Royal Society. You paint like an angel."

"I'll send you an invitation to my first exhibition." She hoped she sounded as casual as he. But she wanted him to leave before she humiliated herself by begging him to stay. "Pleasant voyage," she said.

He looked at her for a moment more, his expression masked, and then he turned away to pick up his valise.

Straightening, he smiled, dipped his head in a faint bow, and a second later he was gone.

"Look in the top dresser drawer," he called back before shutting the apartment door. And she heard his footsteps racing down the stairs.

She ran to the window and watched him enter the carriage, waited until it disappeared from sight. Walking back into the bedroom, she pulled open the dresser drawer. The red leather boxes were nestled among her silk stockings and a note lay atop the largest.

Every lady needs diamonds, he'd written in a loose, open scrawl. And he'd signed it, "Fondly, Beau."

She opened the elegant cases one by one, the dazzling collection of diamonds enough to buy her years of security-the necklace, earrings, bracelet ablaze with hundreds of enormous diamonds. Beau St. Jules couldn't give his heart, but in all else he was the most generous of men.

She cried all morning, then slept for two days, escaping from her pain and unhappiness in the cocoon of the bed Beau had bought for her and when, finally, toward evening two days later, she decided to reenter the world, she began to paint. She worked as though her life depended on it and perhaps it did in those first days; she hardly took time to eat or sleep. She painted with fury and passion, with fervor and rage; she painted tall, handsome, dark-haired men in every conceivable pose and genre and mood. She cried at times as she splashed paint across the canvas, impatient with the unfairness of life. And then on other days she felt such overwhelming love from her joyful memories, she smiled while she worked and hummed light-hearted tunes.

But it was the very worst at night and often she painted through those melancholy hours when she wanted desperately to be held in his arms. And on those nights when she was defenseless against the pain of her loss, she hoped against hope this time she might be carrying his child. But her cycle came again the following month, the stark crimson blood mocking her dreams, and she couldn't even paint for a week afterward so deep was her despondency.

He'd forgotten her by now, she knew.

While Serena was painting her way through her melancholy, Beau was drinking himself numb in a futile attempt to suppress the heated images flooding his mind, of pale blond hair and blue-green eyes, of passion and desire. He'd called for a bottle of brandy when he boarded the Siren and hadn't stopped drinking since, sitting on deck their first night out, not speaking to anyone, brushing away Remy's offers of food.

He washed and shaved the next morning and put on fresh clothing but he was changed inside, consumed. No one knew how to respond to their employer's new subtle acidity. His voice was different when he spoke, his observations cynical, a rueful disillusion investing each word.

He was drunk as a lord when they reached Palermo and when he returned from his visit to Lord Hamilton and the court a day later, Countess Niollo was on his arm. Francesca's estate, Baccate, bordered on St. John land; she'd invited herself along ostensibly to check on her properties. "Fine," Beau had said when she'd approached him, his gaze gently sardonic. "I'll save you from the republicans and you can save me from boredom."

Both properties were distant enough from Naples to have escaped the destruction of the city's defense and when they reached Beau's villa, Di Cavalli, the bucolic green countryside lay untouched by armies and revolution.

"There's no need for you to go on to Baccate immediately, is there?" Beau said as he helped Francesca dismount in the courtyard of his villa.

"Would you like me to stay?" she flirtatiously asked.

"I'd like to fuck you, Francesca, for a week or so," he drawled. "Are you interested?"

"A charming proposal, Rochefort," she pettishly retorted.

"Do you or don't you?"

"I'm not sure, you graceless man."

He was looking for oblivion, not romance, and he'd never led Francesca down anything remotely resembling a garden path. "Suit yourself. I need a drink."

"You have to pay attention to me," she said, "not just your brandy." A direct, self-indulgent woman, she always knew what she wanted.

"Don't worry, darling, you'll have all the attention you want." In his current black mood, the thought of fucking himself to death held real merit. "I hope you can keep up."

"That sounds intriguing...." Her gaze took on a heated glow.

"I intend to intrigue the hell out of you, darling," he said, his voice low-pitched, bland.

He did.

She was.

And neither noticed that a week had gone by.

He drank from the moment he woke in the morning, a liquor bottle always conveniently within reach on his bedside table. But he maintained a preoccupied kind of sobriety despite his intemperance as if his acid thoughts burned away the alcohol, as if his all-consuming need for Serena allayed the brandy's potency. And Francesca de Bruni, Countess Niollo, enjoyed the passionate rewards of Beau's rage and discontent.

He found a servant girl to warm his bed when the countess left for a time to see to her estates and when she returned to find a pretty housemaid in his arms, being a woman of sophisticated tastes, she joined them.