She'd told Simon she believed that Kitty did not understand or value trust; she'd been speaking of trust between two people, but the performance they'd just witnessed had confirmed her view, albeit in a different context.

They all felt-they'd all reacted-as if Kitty had broken a social trust, that she'd betrayed them by refusing to follow any of the patterns they recognized. The patterns of social commerce, of civility, the underlying structure of how they related one to the other.

Their reaction had been quite profound, the gentlemen's refusal to return to the drawing room a very definite statement.

An emotional statement-indeed, they'd all reacted emotionally, instinctively, deeply disturbed by Kitty's breaking the social code they all held in common.

Portia stopped, stared out at the darkened gardens, but didn't truly see them.

Trust and emotion were closely linked. One led to the other; if one was prodded, the other responded.

Frowning, she sat on the window seat; after a moment, she crossed her forearms on the sill and rested her chin upon them.

Kitty wanted love. In her heart, Portia knew that was so. Kitty was searching for that which so many other ladies looked for, but in Kitty's case, with her unrealistic expectations, love was no doubt highly colored, a passionate, overpowering emotion that rose up and swept one away.

Unless she missed her guess, Kitty subscribed to the idea that passion came first, that highly charged physical intimacy was the path, the gateway to deep and meaningful emotional attachment. Presumably she believed that if the passion was not sufficiently intense, then the love she imagined would ultimately arise from it would not be sufficiently powerful-powerful enough to hold her interest, to satisfy her craving.

That would explain why she did not value Henry's gentle devotion, why she seemed bent on raising an illicit and powerful lust in some other man.

Portia grimaced.

Kitty was wrong.

If only she could explain it to her . . .

Impossible, of course. Kitty would never take advice from an unmarried, virginal, near-apeleader-cum-bluestocking on the subject of love and how to secure it.

A soft breeze wafted through the window, stirring the heavy air. It was silent outside, dark but not black, cooler than indoors.

Portia rose, shook out her skirts, and headed for the door. She couldn't sleep yet; the atmosphere in the house was oppressive, uncertain, not at peace. A walk in the gardens would calm her, let her thoughts settle.

The morning room doors were still open to the terrace; she walked through and out, into the welcome softness of the night. The scents of the summer garden wreathed around her as she strolled toward the lake; night stock, jasmine, and heavier perfumes mingled and teased her senses.

Moving through the shadows, she glimpsed a man-one of the gentlemen-standing on the lawns not far from the house. He was looking out into the darkness, apparently lost in thought. The path to the lake took her nearer; she recognized Ambrose, but he gave no sign of noticing her.

She was in no mood for polite conversation; she was sure Ambrose wasn't either. Keeping to the shadows, she left him to his thoughts.

A little farther on, while crossing one of the many intersecting paths, she glanced to her right, and saw the young gypsy-cum-gardener-Dennis, she'd heard Lady Glossup call him-standing absolutely still in the shadows along the minor path.

She continued on without pause, sure Dennis hadn't seen her. As before when she and Simon had seen him, his attention was focused on the private wing of the house. Presumably, he'd retreated deeper into the gardens because of Ambrose's presence.

Quelling a frown, she pushed the matter from her mind; it left a lingering distaste. She didn't want to dwell on what Dennis's nocturnal vigil might mean.

The idea naturally brought Kitty to mind-she bundled her out of her thoughts, too. What had she been thinking about before?

Trust, emotion, and passion.

And love.

Kitty's goal, and the stepping-stones to it that she was quite sure Kitty had scrambled. Kitty was approaching them in the wrong order, at least to her mind.

So what was the right order?

Letting her feet lead her down the last stretch of lawn to the lake, she considered. Trust and emotion were linked, true enough, but people being people, trust came first.

Once trust was there, emotion could grow-once one felt safe enough to let emotional ties, with their consequent vulnerability, develop.

As for passion-physical intimacy-that, surely, was an expression of emotion, a physical expression of an emotional connectedness; how could it be anything else?

Engrossed, she took the path to the summerhouse without thought.

Her mind led her inexorably onward in characteristically logical fashion. Walking through the deep shadows, her gaze on the ground, she frowned. By her reasoning, with which she could find no glaring fault, the compulsion to physical intimacy arose from an emotional link that, logically therefore, must already exist.

She'd reached the steps of the summerhouse. She looked up-and saw in the dimness within a tall figure uncurl his long legs and slowly come to his feet.

In order to feel the compulsion to intimacy, the emotional link must already be there.

For a long moment, she stood looking into the summerhouse, at Simon, waiting, silent and still in the dark. Then she lifted her skirts, climbed the steps, and went in.

The crucial question, of course, was what emotion was it that was growing between her and Simon. Was it lust, desire, or something deeper?

Whatever it was, she could feel it rising like heat between them as she walked across the bare boards-straight into his arms.

They closed around her; she lifted her face and their lips met.

In a kiss that acknowledged the power shimmering through them, yet held it at bay.

She drew back, looked into his face. "How did you know I'd come out here?"

"I didn't." His lips twisted, perhaps wrily-she couldn't tell in the shadows. "James and Charlie decamped to the tavern in Ashmore. I wasn't in the mood for ale and darts-I cried off, and came here."

Simon drew her closer until her thighs met his. There was no resistance in her, yet she was watching, thinking . . .

He bent his head and took her lips, toyed with them until she threw aside her distance and answered him, kissed him back, taunted him. Then surrendered her mouth when he responded, wrapped her arms about his neck, and clung as he devoured.

And they were there, once again, at the center of a rising storm. Desire and pure passion licked about them, sending heat across their skins, feeding a yearning in their souls.

They broke from the kiss only to gauge the other's commitment, eyes meeting briefly from under heavy lids. Neither could truly see in the darkness, yet the touch of a gaze was enough. To reassure, to have her pressing closer, to have his arms tightening before he angled his head and their lips met again.

Together, they stepped into the furnace. Knowingly. He didn't need to urge her; her hand metaphorically in his, she stepped over the threshold at his side. They both welcomed the fire, the flames that caressed, that flared and grew.

Until they were both heated, burning, hungry for more.

He stepped back, taking her with him. The edge of the sofa met the back of his legs; he sat, sweeping her onto his lap, their lips parting for only a second before coming together again.

Her hand touched his cheek, caressed, cradled as she pressed a blatant invitation upon him. Where others might be reticent, she was bold, direct. Definite.

Sure. She sighed with satisfaction when he slid her loosened gown from her shoulders and laid her breasts bare, urged him on when he bent his head, set lips and hands to the swollen mounds, and feasted.

Her skin was unbelievably fine, so white it almost glowed, so delicate his fingertips tingled as they traced. Tightly puckered, her nipples beckoned; he took one in his mouth and suckled deeply, deeply, until she cried out, her fingers clenching tight on his skull.

Her breathing was rapid, fractured, when he lifted his head. Their lips met, brushed. From under heavy lids, their gazes met in a fleeting touch; their breaths mingled; heat lapped and wrapped about them.

"More." Her whisper was like a waft of flame against his lips, through his mind.

His body was already tight, muscles rigid with desire, locked by his will against the all but overpowering need to seize, to take. To claim.

But not yet.

He didn't bother asking if she was sure. Setting his lips to hers, he drew her back into his arms, sank back into the sofa, drawing her with him, across his lap. Her knees were curled alongside his thigh; lying back, holding her to their kiss, he sent one hand stroking down her back, over the swell of her hip, tracing down the long line of her legs.

Drew her down into the heated darkness, step by small step drawing her deeper into the realm where passion and primitive wants held sway. Where the need to be touched grew and swelled to a compulsion, where the compulsion to be intimately known became an overriding need.

When he drew her skirts up and slipped his hand beneath, the only murmur she made was one of encouragement. He fought the urge to send her wits spinning, to befuddle her until he had captured her; with her, he was following a different script, one designed to capture more than just her body. He wanted her mind and her soul as well.

So he kept their kiss light, enough for her to be aware, to know, not just what he was doing, but every touch, every caress, every intimate liberty. And to know he knew it, too.

She was wearing silk stockings. His fingertips traced her calf, then trailed upward; he cupped the back of her knee, then slowly stroked higher, finding her garter, circling it with his fingers.

He felt the shudder that went through her when he reached higher and touched her bare skin. Like her breasts, fine, delicate, warm with desire. He traced, and knew she was with him, that her awareness was focused on the shifting connection between his hand and her thigh.

The edge of her chemise trapped his fingers; he flicked them free, slid his hand beneath the fine silk, cruising over the bare skin of her hip, over her bare bottom, over skin that heated and dewed at his touch.

She shuddered and clung to the kiss, for one moment shaken; he soothed with his lips, with his tongue, with his hand slowly, possessively, stroking, then, when she eased, more explicitly exploring.

She shivered, but stayed with him-followed and felt as he wished. Experienced the thrills, both his and her own, as they took the next step into intimacy.

When they'd both had their fill, he traced forward, over her hip, splayed his fingers over her bare stomach. Felt again the shudder of pure awareness that racked her, sensed her sudden tensing.

Felt forced to breathe against her swollen lips, "You're sure?"

She dragged in a breath, her breasts swelling against his chest. "Touch me-touch me there."

He didn't wait for further direction, needed no detailed instruction. Taking her lips again, taking her mouth, he waited only until he sensed her awareness join with his again before sliding his hand lower, tracing the sweet curve of her stomach down to the profusion of soft curls between her thighs.

Stroking slowly, deliberately, through them, he touched her, set his fingers to her softest flesh and traced, explored, learned. And still she was with him, sharing every sensual moment, every single tactile impression . . . never before had he been so aware of a woman beneath his hands.

The knowledge of what that would translate to once he had her beneath him, body to body, skin to naked skin, sent a shaft of pure heat to his groin. He was aching, had been since she'd walked so confidently into his arms; pure torment was only a heartbeat away.

Yet the moment held the power to command him-for once helped in holding the raging need at bay. This-she-was too important, this conquest above all others meant life and death to him.

Fingertips throbbing, acutely sensitive, he eased her thighs wider, parted her soft folds, traced, teased, tantalized, until she moved against his hand, deliberately, wantonly-with her usual decision demanding more.

Her fingers were lost in his hair, blindly clinging; he opened her and eased one finger into her scalding sheath. Her slickness burned him, seared through him, tempted beyond belief. He could barely breathe-couldn't think beyond the all but blinding surge of passion, the welling need to bury himself in the sweet feminine flesh his fingers so artfully teased.

Grimly, he held on, held the primitive urge back, ruthlessly contained. It didn't fade but simply hardened, solidified into a brutally painful reality that would not leave him.

It was enough to let him go on, to continue along the path he'd mapped unmindful of the price he would later pay.

Caught in the coils of passion, deeper than she'd imagined might be, Portia was only dimly aware of that fractional hiatus-the momentary shifting of his attention-before it returned, in full force, to her. To where he was touching her, caressing her, repetitively teasing in some way she didn't understand.

Her body seemed to know, to recognize some pattern that was beyond her conscious mind. She had to let it lead her, had to follow mentally behind, learning, seeing, realizing.

Feeling. She'd never imagined that physical sensation could be this acute, this consuming. His lips never left hers, his arm around her supported her, the hard wall of his chest was close, reassuring in the face of the whirlpool of sensations swirling through her, buffeting her mind, dragging at her senses.

The fact that his hand lay between her thighs, that he'd eased them apart and was stroking her there, her flesh slick and wet, swollen and hot, should have overwhelmed her, but did not. She could sense the heat, the furnace her own body had become, the deeper heat that flared within when he probed, then opened her and penetrated more deeply.

Her breath caught, her nerves, until then sensitized and alive, started to curl. Tight. Then tighter. Her muscles started to tense, but in some new and novel way.

Lungs locked, she gasped through their kiss, clung to him as between her thighs, deep inside her, sensation built.

He was stoking it deliberately; she knew that much. Knew this was what she'd asked for, what she needed to know, wanted to know.

She let go, let slide the last vestiges of inhibition, and let the tide welling inside sweep her up. Sweep her on.

Into a landscape of sensation. Up to some pinnacle of cataclysmic feeling.

Her senses expanded until they filled her mind; her body felt aflame. He reached deeper within her; a rush of rapture flowed down her veins, under her skin, tightening her nerves, driving her senses . . .

Until they fractured. Shattered.

Sharp, almost biting delight gripped her, held her in a vise, poured radiant pleasure through her.

The wave swept on, past, through her, leaving in its wake a sense of earthly bliss. A sense of floating in tactile glory, lapped by waves of delight.

Gradually, the waves subsided; sensation diminished, the feelings ebbed. His hand left her.

To her surprise, she felt empty. Incomplete.

Unfulfilled.

As her wits returned fully, she made the connection. Realized this was a two-act play and he'd stopped at the intermission.

And had no intention of going any further.

She knew without asking; his decision was there, solid and real in his heavily locked muscles, in the brutual tension riding him.

In confirmation, like a curtain falling, he flipped down her skirts and locked his hand over her hip.

She had absolute confidence in his self-mastery. Drawing back from the kiss, she boldly reached between them, traced the hard line of his erection, the solid weight she could feel riding against her thigh.

Closed her hand as well as she could; felt him shift, heard the hiss of his indrawn breath.

Leaned close and whispered against his lips. "You want me."

The sound he made was guttural, a strangled laugh. "You can hardly doubt it."

She couldn't, not with the evidence burning her palm, yet the degree of that want, the sheer power of his desire was a surprise-a shock.