He unb.u.t.toned the line of seed pearls that marched down the front of the garment. A piece of her came undone along with each b.u.t.ton. Then he parted the fabric with deliberate slowness, drawing his fingertips along her collarbones as he exposed more of her skin to view. Pleasure sparked in the wake of his touch.

"You see? Smooth, silky, beautiful," he murmured into her hair.

Her breath ran shallow as he pushed the nightrail off one shoulder and let it slide down her arm. One breast was bared in the light of the fire, its tip a hardened nub. When she caught him looking at it in their shared reflection, her nipple actually throbbed.

She pressed a palm against it to still the strange ache.

"No, you don't," he said, gently moving her hand from her breast. "No hiding from yourself."

"But it...I..." She could find no words for what she was feeling. It had happened before when he kissed her, and now that dull throb between her legs returned. All he had to do was look at her and the low drumbeat started.

"It's all right," he said. "What you're feeling is perfectly natural."

"How could you know what I'm feeling?"

"Because I'm feeling the same sorts of things, only from a male perspective," he said, meeting her gaze in the mirror. "Every sensation is heightened, every touch potent with meaning." He ran his palm from her shoulder down her arm to engulf her hand in his. The sleeve of her nightrail fell away so her ribs and the indentation of her waist on one side were visible in the looking gla.s.s. He reached around and cupped her exposed breast.

Her breath hissed in over her teeth.

"I love holding you like this," he murmured and pressed a string of soft kisses to her nape. His hand was so warm, almost feverish on her skin. His thumb circled her nipple, making the ache even stronger.

She leaned back, reveling in the hard maleness of him. She'd always thought of herself as all angles and elbows, but in comparison to him, she felt soft. Feminine. Even her small breast seemed perfectly large enough, cradled as it was in his sheltering palm.

His kisses strayed to the side of her neck and up to her earlobe. He took the bit of flesh between his lips and sucked. All the air fled from her lungs in a whoosh. While he distracted her with that torrent of sensation, he pushed the nightrail off her other shoulder. The garment slid down and would have slipped past her hips to the floor if she hadn't caught it and clutched it to her waist.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He straightened to his full height and eyed her reflection. The crown of her head fit neatly beneath his chin. "Showing you that you're beautiful. All of you. Don't you want to see that you are?"

All of her. Surely he didn't mean that.

"I've heard that even some husbands and wives might not ever see each other in the altogether," she said. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but completely disrobing is not required in order to do the necessary, is it?"

"Do the necessary? Why on earth would you make something so pleasurable sound like a ch.o.r.e? From whom have you been taking s.e.xual advice?"

Some of her information had come from giggled conversations with other girls who were likely as ignorant as she. Knowledge of the basic mechanics of the act came from her close a.s.sociation with horse breeding.

Then there was Mrs. Noddlingham's Practical Advice for Young Ladies of Quality, a book her mother had given her in lieu of actually talking to her about what pa.s.ses between a man and a woman in the marriage bed. The book was light on specifics, but according to Mrs. Noddlingham, disrobing wasn't actually required for taking a bath either.

"A chaste girl might do very well to bathe in her shift," Mrs. Noddlingham advised, "in order to avoid seeing her own body and thereby entertaining any lewd thoughts that unwholesome sight might engender."

The sight of her bare body in the mirror didn't seem particularly unwholesome, and Olivia wouldn't cla.s.s any of her thoughts as lewd. She was more bewildered than anything else. Olivia wished now that she'd asked Babette about it. Surely one who'd been a lady's maid for a courtesan would be a fount of sensual information.

"It might surprise you to learn that I do know something about the subject," she said, hoping to sound worldly while trying to ignore the way he continued to ma.s.sage her breast. "Because, ah..." He gave her nipple a little flick and the shock of it resonated to her toes. "Er...you see, I've...I've read a bit about marital urges."

"Marital urges. Lord spare me. Something that could be called 'doing the necessary' with your clothes on is not my idea of how to satisfy any sort of urge, marital or otherwise." He cupped her other breast as well. "There's nothing about what you and I are doing that's 'necessary,' but you can't deny it's fun."

He was right. It was fun. Her skin was glowing. Her insides were a riot of excitement. She'd never felt more alive.

Or more guilty.

"It's also wicked."

He grinned at her. "That, my dear, is part of its charm." Then the grin faded. "But the truth is you are still as pure as when we began this lesson, are you not?"

"If you want to split hairs, I suppose-"

"A simple yes will suffice. In fact, 'yes' is all I want to hear from you for a while." Rhys smoothed his palms down her ribs, the calluses at the bases of his fingers nicking her skin with p.r.i.c.kles of pleasure. He settled them on her hip bones where the nightrail neckline was still perched. "May I show you how beautiful you are all over?"

Yes, please. I know I'm not plump and pretty like Miss Amanda Pinkerton. I know my hips are too narrow and my legs too thin. I know my- "Olivia?"

She swallowed hard. "Yes," she whispered. "Show me."

Rhys drew a deep breath. Wanting had left him hard put to keep his voice from going ragged. As well as hard in another way. Now it would take all his self-control not to go too far with this first lesson. He'd meet Mr. Alc.o.c.k's expectations eventually. There was no need to rush matters.

Olivia trusted him. He wasn't about to betray her tonight. Not when he needed her trust in order to keep her safe.

Gently, he eased her nightrail down, over her hips, past her lovely heart-shaped b.u.m, and let it drop to the floor. He purposely didn't look in the mirror. He wanted her to watch him as he took in the exquisite lines of her back, her b.u.t.tocks, and legs. He wanted her to see the glow of masculine approval in his face, because he was sure he was fairly lighting the room with it.

Rhys ran his fingertips across her shoulders and down her spine. He dallied at the small of her back and then traced the crease under each b.u.m cheek.

"Oh!" she squeaked out.

"Like that, did you?"

"It was...enlightening."

"In what way?" He met her eyes in the mirror now.

She dropped her gaze. "I'm learning that certain parts of my body seem to be linked to other parts in ways I'd hitherto not suspected."

He reached around and slipped a finger under her chin. "Look at me."

When she looked up at his reflection, the whites showed beneath her dark irises, making her eyes seem even larger than usual. Her mouth parted softly. She looked so vulnerable, as if she hung upon his next words.

"You are beautiful, Olivia," he said softly. "In every part." He let his gaze sweep down the mirror past her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her slender waist, her tight little belly b.u.t.ton, to the sleek triangle of light brown curls at the apex of her thighs. "Especially there."

He looked back up at her face and smiled.

She caught her bottom lip with her teeth for a moment, and then a smile stole over her, luminous enough to brighten the whole room. Rhys knew he should feel guilty over what he was doing with this innocent, but if he helped her believe in how lovely she really was, surely that wasn't a bad thing, was it?

Of course, he'd be the first to admit he was a bit fuzzy on the whole concept of good versus bad of late.

Once, his sense of "ought-ness" had been as well-honed as a preacher. One ought to do this. One ought not to do that. Even if his actions often placed him on the outside of the fence of propriety, at least he knew where the fence was.

Now he wasn't so sure.

He shook off his niggling conscience and pressed a kiss to her temple. "Do you feel beautiful?"

"When you look at me like that, I do."

"Then you should let me be your mirror all the time." He rested his hands on her shoulders and was pleased to find she was only trembling a little. She wasn't afraid of him.

Perhaps she should have been.

"You said parts of your body seem to be connected in unexpected ways. When I touch you here-" he circled her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with his hands, teasing her skin and reveling in the way her nipples responded to his touch, "where else do you feel it?"

Her eyelids fluttered closed for a moment, and a look of pure ecstasy made her brows pull toward each other. When he rolled one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger, her eyes popped open again.

"There, of course," she said. "But also in...well, it's rather like the zing of a bowstring inside me."

"And let me guess, the zing ends right here." He slid his hand over her flat belly and covered her s.e.x.

Her ribs shuddered and her jaw dropped.

Don't scream, he thought furiously. Please don't scream.

Chapter 11.

A soft "oh" escaped her lips. Olivia pulsed under his hand, and it seemed for a moment as if all the heat in her body centered itself in that small triangle between her legs. To be held so tenderly. Especially to be held so tenderly there was a gift she'd never expected to receive.

He accepted her. He found her fair. Everywhere.

Her chest was full to bursting.

"Every touch is potent with meaning," she whispered, repeating what he'd said earlier. Now the words sang in her heart. More than her body stood naked before him. Her soul shivered in ecstasy over the way his hand cupped her. The tip of one of his fingers slipped into her intimate crevice and she nearly unraveled. "What meaning?"

"Hmm?" He didn't stop the string of kisses he was lavishing on her neck.

She covered his hand with hers, stilling his questing fingers. "What does this touch mean?" she said with more emphasis.

"It means I find you desirable. It means I want to give you pleasure."

"That's all?"

"Isn't that enough?" He brushed a sensitive spot between her legs and her breath hitched in gasps over the delight of his touch. "I don't want to take from you, Olivia. I want only to give."

It ought to have been enough, but it wasn't. Not for this level of soul nakedness. He ought to at least care for her a little as well.

Stop.

His fingers moved with tantalizing slowness, teasing that swollen spot. She sagged against him, unsure her legs would support her.

Hadn't she asked him to stop? She thought she had. Or maybe she only thought it. It was hard to tell. The way her body bloomed under Rhys's gentle caress crowded out impulses from her brain.

"Please, Rhys," she managed.

"Hush now. No need to plead. Just be patient. I promise every knot will be untied."

Knots. That was it exactly. How did he know how tangled up her insides felt?

Oh, that's right, she reminded herself. The man's a rake, a libertine, a...his fingers found that spot again and bliss washed over her...a G.o.d in human form.

He sucked the tender skin at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. One hand smoothed over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, teasing and ma.s.saging her nipples.

And his other hand undid her completely.

Tightness gathered, her insides folding back on themselves like a Gordian knot. Then like Alexander in one clever stroke, Rhys loosed her and she came untied.

Her limbs shuddered and she would have collapsed, but he scooped her up in his arms, holding her close while an ever-expanding circle of bliss radiated outward in concentric rings. She pressed her cheek against his chest, gratified to hear his heart galloping beneath her ear. If his rapid heartbeat was any indication, she wasn't the only one who felt as if she'd just run a marathon. And won.

Still carrying her, Rhys strode across the room and gently laid her down on her bed. Then he stretched out beside her as she tugged up the sheet and tucked it under her armpits. She might be naked under the linens, but as long as they were both in the bed, it felt marginally safer to have that thin shield of fabric between them.

Rhys propped himself up on an elbow, leaned down, and dropped a kiss on the tip of her nose. "How was that for a first lesson?"

"Illuminating," she said as her heart rate began to return to normal. And with it came the burning desire to know how the act they'd just performed changed matters between them. She willed her voice to sound even and measured. "Everything has a purpose, and we were discussing meaning before we were pulled off-topic. What we just did, I know what it meant to me. What did it mean to you, Rhys?"

He frowned. "I don't understand the question. Why does it have to mean anything?"

"Because we are not beasts. Because what we do with our bodies also involves our higher selves."

"What if I don't have a higher self?" Surely one who plotted to deflower a virgin in order to foil a royal succession must have very little soul left.

"Nonsense. Every human being, no matter how mean their station, is more than mere flesh." She looked at him so intently, he was forced to look away lest she see the duplicity in him. "So I ask again, what did that mean to you?"

Rhys shifted uncomfortably. Meaning, emotions, these were all things he'd avoided since returning from Maubeuge. He couldn't afford the luxury of feelings. If he gave in to one, he suspected a flood of them would burst over the carefully crafted dam in his soul and he'd be swamped beyond reckoning.

"It meant satisfaction for us both."

She arched a brow at him and chuckled. "I rather think I was the only one of us who was satisfied."

"On the contrary, it pleases me to give you pleasure," he said. Not as much as if the delectable pleasure was reciprocated, but that was another lesson altogether. "I hope by now I've convinced you that your body is beautiful."

She smiled shyly. "It seems you found me so."

"Any man would," he a.s.sured her.

"Perhaps it's enough that you do," she said, cupping his cheek in her palm. "It's not as if this is a theory I care to test with all and sundry."