Julia shrugged a slim shoulder and replied, "If something should happen to one of the children-G.o.d forbid- someone needs to know where I am."

He shuffled the missives to read the address on the other. It was to her staff. Knowing there was a better explanation than the one she'd given him so far, he asked, "And your butler or your housekeeper wouldn't do?"

As a smile played havoc with the corners of her mouth, she walked past him and out the bedroom door, saying ever so blithely, "Neither of them dared me to live boldly."

Oh, this was interesting. Rennick turned and went after her. "And Anne did?" he pressed, falling into step beside her as they made their way down the hall toward the stairs.

"She also dared me to court gossip."

"Well, bless her heart," he drawled, grinning. "I take back every horrible thing I've ever said about her."

Julia stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to face him. Her arms akimbo and laughter rippling through her voice, she demanded, "What has Anne ever done to you?"

"She fancies herself a matchmaker," he supplied, adoring Julia's spirit, reveling in the enticing challenge of her. "You have no idea how many women she's planted in my path over the years."

"And just what was it about that that you didn't like?"

Rennick leaned closer and softly countered, "She did it to keep me away from you."

"Oh," she said, sobering slightly. "I had no idea." Then she grinned, shrugged, and started down the stairs, saying, "Well, apparently she's had a significant change of heart."

He stared after her, his jaw sagging. Anne was now attempting to put them together? Had h.e.l.l frozen? "She actually suggested that you court gossip with me?" he said doubtfully, bounding down the stairs after her. "She actually suggested that?"

Reaching the foyer, Julia stopped, turned back and waited for him. "You know Anne as well as I do," she answered, looking up at him, her blue eyes sparkling. "You know she never suggests. She says things plainly. And her recommendation was that I put you on your back as quickly and as efficiently as I could."

Jesus. The image playing in his mind was wicked. And so thoroughly inspirational that he either had to walk away or ask her if she'd be willing to lay him down right there in the foyer. Unfortunately, the latter wasn't a viable course since he could hear the jangle of his housekeeper's keys coming from the next room. He silently swore and opted to exercise common sense and far more restraint than was comfortable.

"I'm going to send Anne-that wonderful woman-a bottle of my best champagne," he declared, moving off toward the parlor doorway. Jesus, who would have thought Anne Michaels would suddenly decide to help him get Julia into his bed? And to think the church said that miracles didn't happen anymore.

"Anne doesn't drink."

Another inspiration flitted through his mind. "Then we'll drink the champagne and toast her incredible wisdom."

His housekeeper looked up from the task list she was making. "Please see that these are delivered before noon today," he instructed, placing Julia's messages on the buffet just inside the door. "And if you'd be so kind as to have a bottle of champagne chilled by mid-afternoon, I'd be most appreciative."

She nodded and he went back to Julia, slipping his arms around her waist. She wasn't wearing a corset, he realized, his heart leaping and the blood surging hot and hard into his loins. Sweet Jesus, she felt so good in his arms.

"You're not planning to make an entire day of the festival?" she asked, smiling up at him.

"If we do, we do," he supplied with a quick shrug, knowing even as he did that it wasn't likely. Not if he had any luck at all. "If we don't," he added, "it'll be because we've thought of other things we'd rather do. And the champagne will be chilled and waiting for us."

Chuckling softly and smoothing his coat lapels, she said, "You are the most perpetually hopeful man I've ever met, Rennick St. James."

Well, yes. He knew from long experience that persistence, when combined with just the right amount of charm, usually won the game. He grinned. "I just don't want Anne to be disappointed with you. You've buoyed her spirits with that note, you know. I just can't imagine how you could, in good conscience, crush them."

Her smile said she knew what he was about. Her laugh said she was willing to play along. "So I should sacrifice myself for the sake of friendship?" she posed.

Not for Anne's. And not, he realized, for theirs, either. "For love would be better," he countered, trying, and largely failing, to sound cavalier about it all.

"Yes, it would."

She'd said it lightly and her smile was still in place, but the light in her eyes had changed. It was bright but somehow darker, too. His heart raced and he struggled against an intense temptation to lay her down on the foyer floor. And in that mental image he grasped the means of his salvation.

"So are you?" he asked, summoning a c.o.c.ked brow and a rakish smile. "Going to put me on my back?"

Her eyes widened and her mouth formed the most delectable little O.

"Quickly's rather moot at this point," he went on, his pulse racing. "My idea of quick would have been in the Wellses' garden last night. But if you're considering efficiency, I'd be more than happy to show you a few useful techniques."

Julia saw the possibility and happily seized it. "That would, purely in the name of instruction, happen to put me on my back?"

The devil sparkled in his eyes as he countered, "I promise that I wouldn't take undue advantage of the situation."

"Then why," she asked, "would I be at all interested in letting you tumble me over?"

He blinked, tilted his head to consider her, and then slowly moistened his lower lip. "Darling," he drawled, "do you have any idea of how closely you're dancing to the edge?"

"Yes."

He blinked again and shifted his stance. "Do you care if you fall?"

"I'm rather hoping to, actually."

"Would your heart be broken if you didn't get into the village today?"

Julia shook her head. "Or tomorrow, either. Or the day after."

His smile slowly faded as he broadened his stance another degree. "Think before you leap, my love," he admonished quietly. "If you're not absolutely sure .. . This is your last chance to back away from it. I've wanted you for far too long to be a gentleman at the last moment."

There was no going back. From the day she'd met him, they'd been moving inexorably toward this moment. What lay beyond this time they had together didn't matter. She'd face it when she had to. For now her heart was singing and her soul was br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the delight of having finally reached the end of the struggle.

"I think thirteen years is quite long enough, Rennick," she murmured, slipping her arms around his neck and twining her fingers through the hair at his nape. "Please don't turn into a gentleman. I'm so very tired of being a lady."

His joy was boundless, his world on the verge of complete. Sweeping her up and cradling her in his arms, Rennick headed for the stairs. He'd love her tenderly, slowly, he promised himself. He'd control the desperate fire consuming him. He'd tease and kiss and take the time to banish any niggling doubts she might still possess.

Halfway up the stairs, she untied the stock at his neck and threw it away. Then stripped away his collar and tossed it away, as well. At the top of the stairs, the uppermost b.u.t.ton of his shirt parted with its hole, slamming his heart hard against the wall of his chest and sending his blood racing hot through his veins. And when she turned her head and kissed the hollow at the base of his throat, what he could remember of his good intentions was turned to instant ash.

"Your room or mine?" he rasped, striding down the hall as she opened another b.u.t.ton on his shirtfront.

"Mine."

He grinned, remembering that he hadn't thought to close the door behind himself when he'd raced off after her. Fumbling about trying to open a door was such an amateurish thing to do. And it took time, too. Time he wasn't inclined to spend fondling a crystal doork.n.o.b. Not when he had so many other delightful tactile possibilities.

He carried her across the threshold, paused just long enough to kick the door closed, and then hauled his shirt-unb.u.t.toning temptress to the side of her still unmade bed. Had they managed to discard more than a stock and a collar along the way, he'd have dropped her into the rumpled linens and not wasted a single moment in rumpling them even further.

Resolved to be about that pleasant pastime as soon as he could, he set his darling Julia on her feet and turned her to face him squarely. Whether he actually drew her to him or she stepped into his arms of her own accord, he didn't know and he certainly didn't care. She was there, her fingers tangling in his hair, her body warm against his, her kisses fervent and mind-reeling.

He kissed her in hard and deep prelude, then reluctantly drew away, just far enough to look into the sapphire depths of her eyes as he unb.u.t.toned her weskit and slipped it off her shoulders and down her arms. It fell to the floor at their feet in the same heartbeat that the ribbon of the simple gathered neckline of her gown opened at his slight tug. Just as he'd asked the modiste to insure that it would. And, just as he'd planned to do from the moment he'd laid the garment on the foot of her bed, he used the palms of his hands to deliberately smooth the cream-colored silk off her shoulders.

Rennick blinked as the sensation rippled up his arms to fully register in his desire-clouded brain. He looked down, his breath caught low and painfully in the center of his chest. There wasn't another layer under the dress. There were no chemise straps over her shoulders. No chemise. No corset.

In the deepest, farthest recesses of his brain he was aware that he'd stopped breathing. It didn't matter. Not like the satin-smooth creamy expanse of bare skin appearing as the gown slipped away. In the vaguest sort of way, he felt it fall from his fingertips. His heart thundering, he drank in the sight of her standing in front of him wearing only a pair of sheer silk stockings. Tied at mid-thigh with lacy, pink beribboned garters.

"Oh, G.o.d," he moaned, hardening another impossible degree. "Oh, my darling, wicked Julia."

Her smile was unholy, wanton, and supremely satisfied. He dragged a breath into his lungs and fumbled at the b.u.t.tons of his shirt, desperate to be rid of his clothes, aching to hold her, to feel bare flesh against heated bare flesh. And the G.o.dd.a.m.ned b.u.t.tons wouldn't part!

Julia arched a brow and stepped forward to brush his hands aside and undertake the task herself. His breathing ragged, he slipped his hands to her waist to keep his knees from giving way, closed his eyes to better endure the long torture.

The tug was sudden and so deliberate and forceful that he rocked back on his heels. He gasped and opened his eyes just as he heard the b.u.t.tons clattering over the floor. He looked down at his torn shirt in amazement. She gave him no time to collect his wits, to seize control of the seduction again. No, Julia slipped her hands to the front of his trousers, nimbly undid the b.u.t.tons, pushed the fabric aside, and took the hardened length of him in her hands.

Rennick threw his head back, sucking a breath through his teeth. Her possession was certain, knowing, and provocative beyond his dreams.

And if he didn't stop the magnificent friction, he was going to finish way too soon. It required that desperation and every bit of his staggering concentration to take her wrists in hand and step out of her caress.

In the absence of immediate, compelling physical sensation, his vision cleared enough to recognize the amus.e.m.e.nt that danced with desire in her eyes. She knew that she'd rattled his composure to the core. And she was delighted by it. She was also, in his experienced opinion, far too in control of herself. But not for long, he silently vowed, releasing her hands and setting about stripping away what remained of his clothes.

She watched him, her eyes bright, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s rising as her breath caught, falling as she sighed. And when he was finally naked and she reached for him again, he caught her hands and placed them on his hips, saying softly, "My turn to touch. Don't move."

Her eyes widened and a brilliant spark flashed to life in them as he brushed his fingertips over the dark crests of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. They instantly hardened and it was everything he could do not to moan at the exquisite sensation. He cupped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in the palm of his hands and, with his thumb teasing their pebbled crests, bent down to lay a trail of branding kisses from the corners of her mouth to the tip of her chin and then down the long, slender column of her throat. Her fingers wound through the hair at his nape. She made a tiny strangled sound and arched upward, pressing herself against his lips, against his hand, fanning the flames of his desire.

She felt the intensity of his heartbeat, the strength in the corded muscles and heated flesh beneath her palms. Her heart matched the cadence of his as an unrelenting desire swept through her body, through her senses, and consumed her very soul. She gasped before the power of the undeniable need, moaned in a wordless plea for swift deliverance.

He wanted more, and patience and finesse be d.a.m.ned. She'd asked him not to be a gentleman, said that she didn't want to be a lady. He'd have to take her at her word. If she hadn't meant it, he'd apologize later. Much later.

His tongue boldly claiming her mouth, he slipped his hands down and cupped the perfectly shaped mounds of her bottom. She moaned in wordless sanction and silent demand as she closed the distance between them, as he drew her hips firmly against the heat and hardness of his desire, and arched her back to lay her gently down on the bed.

Julia softly whimpered with pleasure as he laid a trail of searing, nipping kisses along the length of her throat and downward. Her eyes shut, her breathing ragged, she held his head to her breast, straining to endure the spiraling, desperate need for release. Teasing her nipples with his tongue, his teeth, his masterful fingers, he rewarded her pleas and sent bolt after breathtaking bolt of heat through her body and into the molten core of her womb.

Her fingers tangled in his dark hair, and holding him close, she cried out as a sudden current rippled intensely, exquisitely through her senses. Hunger, primitive and fierce, swept her past patience and endurance.

"Rennick," she gasped, drawing his head gently up from her breast. "Please, Rennick."

She moved against him, her hips pressing urgently, and he couldn't deny her, couldn't deny himself. He kissed her in acceptance, in deep promise, his hands quickly lifting her hips and drawing her to the very edge of the mattress as he fitted himself between her parted thighs.

His pulse thundered as he skimmed his palms over the edges of her gartered stockings, up the soft satin of her inner thighs to brush his fingers over her dampened curls. She moaned and arched up to stroke them along the length of his manhood.

Need and desire became one, burning bright and consuming every fiber of his being. Closing his eyes, he surrendered to the exquisite prelude, to the power she had over his heart and soul. And then, as though she knew he couldn't bear any more, she slowly eased back and looked up at him, her eyes dark and yearning.

He couldn't deny her, couldn't endure the depth of his wanting any longer. His gaze holding hers, he joined them, deliberately and fully, savoring the wonder of her readiness, the fluttering tightness of her welcome.

Julia gasped in sweet triumph and closed her eyes, surrendering all that she was to the heady potency and heated perfection of their union. Only Rennick. Only with him. She tightened about him as he drew back; whispered in a.s.sent when he filled her again. Her legs wrapped around him, she moved to the rhythm of the ancient dance, arching up to meet him, the unbearable need deepening and intensifying with every beat of her heart.

Agitated, desperate for release, Julia mindlessly cast herself into the swelling storm. The rhythm of their dance quickened, hardened, and she rode the growing waves of ecstasy, crying out in grat.i.tude as they bore her ever up, as her body trembled and quaked and she was cast over and into a universe of glittering light and bone-melting satisfaction.

Rennick drew a sharp breath as the intensity of her culmination invoked his own. Surrendering himself to the irresistible wave, he pulled her hips closer and higher and with a triumphant moan filled her with every measure of his heart and his soul and his seed.

She was fading away with the fading stars, gently easing back to earth. Sated. So incredibly, deliciously, luxuriously sated. Julia sighed, lazily moistened her lips, and opened her eyes to meet Rennick's smoldering gaze. His breathing as quick and winded as her own, he skimmed his hands up her hips, over her waist, and then slowly moved them inward to caress her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She drew a shuddering breath as the new pleasure arced into the lingering embers of desire and rekindled the fire.

"I love you, Julia," he whispered, his pulse hammering in the deep hollow at the base of his throat. "With all my heart."

"As I love you. As I always have," she replied, wrapping her arms around his neck and moving her hips to hold him close, to keep him within her.

"Julia," he murmured, smiling as he hardened again. He planted his hands in the bedding on either side of her head and leaned down to kiss her tenderly, thoroughly.

He released her lips slowly and she whimpered in protest as she tightened her arms around his neck and frowned up at him. Grinning, he shifted his position and deepened their union. Her eyes widened as her lips curved upward and parted with a soundless gasp of pleasure.

He moved down, taking a taunting nipple into his mouth, suckling until she moved against him and moaned his name. Releasing his prize, he gazed down into her brilliant blue eyes. "Let's try it more slowly this time," he murmured.

"Let's try you on your back," she countered, her grin lusciously wicked.

With a knowing smile, Rennick eased down beside her, rolled her atop him and took her hips back in his hands. G.o.d, he was the happiest man who had ever lived, he realized as she settled astride him. The waiting was done. And the prize was worth all the years it had taken to earn it. Julia was his. All that was left was to hand Lawrence Morris a handkerchief.

CHAPTER 5.

Julia sat in the window seat of Rennick's room and watched him survey the damaged gardens at the rear of the house. The afternoon had turned to night as the storm had settled over the countryside, but they'd pa.s.sed it in his room, coc.o.o.ned in his bed and each other's arms, and let it rage on without them. A time or two, in sated lulls, they'd been aware of the howling wind and the heavy rain, the lightning and the thunder. But most of the time it had been a part of the world beyond their lovemaking, beyond their laughter. They'd heard the limb from the oak tree explode, though. And in the next flash of lightning they'd peered from the window to see the garden wall-and much of the garden itself-lying crushed beneath it.

When the storm had finally rolled on, Rennick had dressed, kissed her, and promised not to be overly long at his duties as master of his realm, as the comforter of his elderly gardener. And then he'd left her alone in his bed with only her thoughts for diversion.

Julia glanced at the sun and sighed. Their time together had come to its end. Part of her wished that she could simply pen a brief thank-you note, place it on his pillow, and then slip away while he dealt with the damage from the storm. It would be easier that way. She smiled wryly, knowing that "easier" wouldn't last one second longer than the time it took for him to find and read the note. After that it would be a matter of which of them could move faster and how well and how long she could hide from him. Which wouldn't be long at all since, thanks to the publishing of her banns, he knew that he could find her at the altar of the Westland Mews Chapel at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning. The certainty of facing Rennick's anger and disappointment in the center aisle and in front of a hundred gaping, wide-eyed guests ...

No, it was far better to deal with their reality now and privately. She sighed again and smoothed the skirt of the day dress he'd had made for her. The color matched her eyes and if she continued to eat as much as he'd been feeding her the last three days, it would soon fit perfectly. And shortly after that, she added with a tiny smile, she'd be bursting the seams.

A movement at the edge of her vision called her from her musing and she looked out the window to see Rennick striding toward the rear of the house. Cold dread filled her, turning her stomach to lead and her hands to ice. She turned on the seat and squarely faced the bedroom door, knowing that the hour of bittersweet reckoning had come and that there was no way to escape it.

* * * Rennick stripped off his jacket as he made his way down the upstairs hall, thinking that having to step outside the house for a while had been something of a G.o.dsend. He'd looked past his mangled garden and his gardener's distress and noticed, seemingly for the first time, the lake and the island that rose up in the center of it. And that had jogged a memory; that just the month before he'd had to flee the country, he'd ordered the construction of a cozy little hideaway deep in the shadows of its trees.

a.s.suming that it had been completed and furnished in his absence, and that the dinghy would just happen to slip free and float away, it would be the perfect place to ensconce Julia for the next twenty-four hours or so. Not that he thought he really needed to take such drastic measures, but Julia did tend to have a strident conscience and where that was concerned it was better to be safe than sorry.

"I have an idea," he announced happily as he strode into his room. He stopped dead in his tracks, his heart lurching at the set of her shoulders, the resolute angle of her chin. "Let's take the boat out on the lake," he went on, desperately hoping he was wrong, "and watch the sun set from the island."

"I think I should be home by sunset," she said quietly, slowly rising to her feet, confirming his fear. "Lawrence is due back this evening and it wouldn't do to not be there should he come by the house."

His stomach knotted and his blood ran cold. "Julia . . ." he began, tossing his jacket down on the bed as he moved toward her.

"I told you before we began this that I wasn't going to call off the wedding."

Well, at least her voice was quavering. It suggested that the line wasn't drawn as firmly and finally as she wanted him to believe. He still had time and the room to maneuver her. "Julia," he said, reaching for her, intending to wrap her in his arms. "I love you."

"And I love you," she admitted, her smile tremulous as she deliberately stepped away from his touch.

Pride kept him from pursuing her and forcing himself on her. Love made his heart ache with desperation. But it was a burgeoning frustration that prompted him to c.o.c.k a brow and ask, "Then why the h.e.l.l are you bent on marrying Lawrence Morris? Do you love him more?"