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  Shaken by her reaction, he schooled himself to be gentle, lowering his mouth over hers, determined to coax her, but she nipped at his lower lip with sharp teeth, took his mouth with a raw need that was fueled still by anger, and his own frustration rose to meet hers and the kiss became fierce and rough and she matched him, grazing teeth, thrusting, tongues dueling, pressure and demand, with no yielding, no softness.

  Beneath his weight her body bucked, not to throw him off but seeking the friction of his hardness against her soft core. His hand left her breast to pull at her skirts until his fingers touched her thigh and he could push between their straining bodies, find the hot, wet folds and part them.

  Sarah went still, hanging, waiting for the touch he had taught her to expect, but he slipped one finger past the tight, desperate knot of flesh and slid it into her, gasping against her mouth at the sensation, muffling her own cry of shock and arousal as he added another finger, feeling her tighten around him instinctively.

  Her reaction was so arousing he thought he would come just from that alone, and forced himself to stillness, only his mouth ravishing hers, as though to release her would be to cease to breathe. Then she whimpered against his lips and he began to thrust and she arched under him, clenching, matching his strokes until he felt the quivering desperation building, building, and took pity on her, brushing his thumb against her, one touch sending her over into shuddering collapse.

  Sarah sagged, her head thrown back against the warm stone, only the weight of Jonathan’s body and his grip on her wrists keeping her upright. The anger had burned away. All she knew was that the man she loved had driven her into a mindless inferno of sensation and need and the impossibly wonderful satisfaction of that need.

  ‘Sarah,’ he murmured against her neck. ‘Sweetheart. Are you all right?’ He released her wrists and her hands fell to his shoulders and he stood upright, bringing her with him.

  ‘Mmm,’ she managed to murmur, every inch of her aware of him, his strength and the scent of aroused man and the hardness pressed against her.

  ‘I didn’t hurt you?’ She shook her head, the world gradually stopping spinning. ‘You were angry. I was, too, because you were. I didn’t know you would be here, any more than you knew I would. Listen, sweet—’ he cradled her against himself, rocking her gently ‘—this can’t go on, we have to talk…to resolve this.’

  ‘No, I don’t want…,’ she began, trying to explain, terrified what his sense of honor might compel him to say. One moment she thought herself in love with a man who knew he could never offer for her, even should he wish to, the next she found he was a man who would feel obliged to do so. Which, her spinning brain tried to fathom, was better? Or were they both too bad to bear?

  ‘You don’t want me?’ he asked softly, holding her tenderly now as though that turmoil of exciting, angry passion had never been. ‘I might have something to say to that.’

  ‘You cannot force me,’ Sarah began and felt him stiffen as though she had hit him again. ‘I—’

  ‘Was that a bat?’ an alarmed feminine voice demanded just the other side of the bushes. ‘Because if it is, I am going right back inside, Elinor Ravenhurst. I don’t care how interesting the stars are.’

  Maude? Elinor?

  ‘Don’t be foolish.’ That was Elinor. ‘It is an old wives’ tale that they get into your hair.’

  ‘Lady Maude, Miss Ravenhurst! Have you seen Miss Tatton?’ Mrs. Catchpole sounded breathless. ‘I do not know where she can have got to. I am most alarmed. Lady Dereham must organize a search party.’

  Jonathan appeared to be shaking, then she realized he was laughing. Sarah elbowed him sharply in the ribs.

  ‘Oh, she’s here, Mrs. Catchpole,’ Elinor said blithely. ‘In those bushes. It was the bats, you see. We came out to look at the stars, the three of us, and then the bats swooped down and Sarah screamed and dived into the bush.’

  Jonathan reacted faster than she did, brushing down her skirts, pushing a loose curl behind her ear. ‘We will speak tomorrow,’ he whispered, giving her a little push.

  Sarah stumbled out onto the lawn looking, she was certain, as though she had been pulled through the hedge backward, rather than having merely taken refuge in it.

  ‘Sarah! Look at you,’ Mrs. Catchpole fussed.

  ‘We’ll go to my room and tidy up.’ Maude tucked her hand into Sarah’s arm and whisked her away down the path toward the house, leaving the chaperone trapped by Elinor’s careful explanation of how one could identify the constellation Leo.

  ‘What is going on?’ Sarah demanded as Maude shut the door and stood there beaming at her.

  ‘It’s him, isn’t it? Your highwayman, only he’s really Jonathan Kirkland, Lord Redcliffe. I’ve known him for years, so I could see he’d had a shock, and then I saw your face and the two of you were having that really splendid tiff, so we thought, Elinor and I, that we had better leave you to it, but keep an eye on you. And then Mrs. Catchpole started flapping about so we came to rescue you.’ She sat down on the bed. ‘But what was he doing pretending to be a highwayman?’

  ‘It was a bet,’ Sarah said as Elinor came in.

  ‘Well, you’ve found each other now,’ she said prosaically. ‘I wonder why lovers so often have such huge rows? It seems most strange.’

  ‘I know why I’m angry,’ Sarah said, sitting down before her knees gave way. ‘But I don’t know what he has to be cross about. He didn’t tell me who he was because he thinks I’d have expected him to offer for me.’

  ‘Did he say so?’ Maude began to brush the back of Sarah’s dress. ‘Tsk! Lichen everywhere.’

  ‘No, but what other reason could there be for not saying, once he knew my name?’

  ‘Have you asked him?’ Elinor inquired, looking up from her notebook.

  ‘Not exactly.’ Sarah bit her lip. ‘I hit him. On the chest with my fists and I shouted at him. He was quite angry.’

  Maude began to giggle. ‘I’m not surprised. Wait until the morning. I am sure you will both be in a better frame of mind by then.’

  The morning, after a night of restless sleep disturbed by quite shocking dreams, hardly seemed more promising. The breakfast parlor was populated by heavy-eyed guests sipping coffee, while many seemed to have decided to stay in their rooms.

  Jonathan was seated at the far end of the table when Sarah entered with Mrs. Catchpole. He rose with the other men, then resumed his seat with a fleeting glance in her direction.

  She was still pushing her omelette listlessly around her plate half an hour later when Lady Dereham appeared at her side. ‘Lord Redcliffe has asked if he might speak with you in my sitting room at your convenience.’

  Sarah stared. Her chaperone sat bolt upright, looking for all the world like a pointer that has sighted game. ‘Sarah, dear! We must—’

  ‘Do not disturb yourself, ma’am. I will escort Sarah.’ Bel had her out of the room before Mrs. Catchpole could react. ‘You look very well, my dear. There is no need to go and primp. Here we are.’ Bel opened the door, gave her a little push and closed it, leaving her alone with the Earl of Redcliffe.

  ‘Oh.’ It was not the most intelligent thing she could have found to say. Sarah bit her lip and regarded his unsmiling face.

  ‘Sarah. I have, this morning, written to your father. I thought I should show it to you before I send it.’ He held out a sheet of paper.

  ‘Written?’ She took it. The words were out of focus.

  ‘Yes. I realize that to call would be more conventional. It was my intention to return to Saint’s Ford Manor and do the thing in style, but now…Sarah, there is no way I can wait.’

  ‘You intended to come back to me?’ She stared at the firm black letters, willing them to make sense.

  ‘Of course. I had to lose the highwayman, speak to my bankers about the settlement, have a haircut—all the things a hopeful suitor needs to do.’

  ‘Suitor? Why?’ She thrust the letter back at him. ‘I cannot seem to focus.’

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nbsp; ‘Sit down then, and I will read to you.’ He guided her to the sofa, then stood before the hearth and cleared his throat.

  ‘“Sir Hugh, I write to inform you of my intention to pay my addresses to your daughter, Miss Sarah Tatton. I cannot pretend that my attachment to her was not sudden. In fact I believe it was, if not love at first sight, then most certainly love from the first moment she allowed me to press a respectful salutation upon her lips.”

  ‘You spoke?’

  Sarah shook her head, dumb with delight. Respectful salutation? That must be the first kiss that he took when they met. He was making it sound as if he had met her for the first time here, when in fact…

  ‘“My standing and circumstances you may ascertain from an inspection of the Peerage. In regard to my intentions as to settlements, I trust the enclosed papers from my lawyer will prove satisfactory…”’ etc., etc.’ Jonathan folded the paper.

  ‘Well, Miss Tatton? You are, I believe, of age, which means that I need not await a response from your father but may do this now.’ He went down on one knee beside her. ‘Sarah.’ His voice was husky and she found she could not breathe, just stare into his eyes, trapped by the intensity in them. ‘I love you. I think I loved you from that first kiss. I knew I loved you when I felt the pain of thinking you had offered me payment for lying with you. My fault, I confess, was to go and leave you without explanation, but I did it intending to return as an entirely respectable suitor. Like an idiot I wanted to surprise you, to have everything in place, perfect. Do you forgive me?’

  ‘Oh yes. I love you, too, you see. I don’t need everything to be perfect, I just need you.’ She had found her tongue, and her eyes focused clearly on his face and she reached out and cupped his cheek with a hand that was steady.

  ‘And you will marry me?’

  And instead of answering, she simply leaned forward and kissed him and never noticed until afterward that her cheeks were wet.

  ‘Lady Redcliffe, you are blushing.’ Her new husband set Sarah on her feet beside the wide bed and bent to kiss her. ‘Now what, after all the things we have enjoyed together, can be making you shy now?’

  ‘This is different,’ she confessed, reaching up to undo his neckcloth.

  ‘Yes,’ Jonathan agreed, leaving her fully clothed while she undressed him and then slowly, gently, unveiling her body until they stood facing each other in the twilit room, naked. ‘I love you and now you are mine.’

  ‘I know. And you are my husband and we no longer have to be careful. Will you show me how to love you?’

  And without answering with words he lifted her onto the bed and began to woo her with lips and tongue and gentle, wicked fingers until the familiar, insistent throb took over and her head began to turn, restless on the pillow, and her own hands stopped caressing and could only hold him and he shifted his weight and lay between her thighs.

  ‘Don’t be frightened.’ He moved slowly, nudging, and she smiled, heady with pleasure, tingling with anticipation.

  ‘I’m not frightened. I just want you so much. Want you inside me, to be around you, to hold you in every way I can.’ It felt strange and powerful, the inexorable, heavy pressure, but her body seemed to know what to do and was accepting him. She shifted, searching for the best position, and then he smiled and surged against her and she gasped, pain flickering past to be replaced by an overwhelming sense of completion.

  Jonathan stilled above her, his eyes intense on her face. They were so closely joined that she could feel the pressure of his hipbones, the tantalizing brush and weight of his testicles, the friction of his body hair. And then, as she dared to breathe again, to relax, she could feel him inside her and realized that she could tighten around him and that when she did he groaned and closed his eyes and thrust.

  She could match the surging, deep rhythm, tightening, caressing, and his eyes opened again and the look in them took her breath and she held on and let herself fly until he thrust deeper than ever with a hoarse cry and she felt him convulse inside her, spilling life and heat into her, and she let go and joined him in the velvet darkness.

  Sarah came to herself to find they were wrapped together, her head on his breast, their legs twined. ‘In August,’ Jonathan said, his hand stroking possessively down her body, ‘I asked you for the most precious thing you possessed. Thank you for giving it to me.’

  ‘My virginity?’ Sarah queried, raising herself on her elbow to smile at him.

  ‘No.’ The deep green eyes smiled back. ‘Your heart, my darling.’

  ‘How could I help it?’ She bent and kissed him. ‘A highwayman stole it quite away.’

  Hungry for more? Discover more sensational Regency Romance in Louise Allen’s Those Scandalous Ravenhursts series from Harlequin Historical available now in eBook format:

  The Dangerous Mr. Ryder

  The Outrageous Lady Felsham

  The Shocking Lord Standon

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  The Disgraceful Mr. Ravenhurst (July 2009)

  The Notorious Mr. Hurst (August 2009)

  The Piratical Miss Ravenhurst (September 2009)

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  A Most Unconventional Courtship

  Virgin Slave, Barbarian King

  No Place For a Lady

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  THE UNLACING OF MISS LEIGH by Diane Gaston

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  NOTORIOUS LORD, COMPROMISED MISS by Annie Burrows

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  LIBERTINE LORD, PICKPOCKET MISS by Bronwyn Scott

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  Louise Allen has been immersing herself in history, real and fictional, for as long as she can remember, and finds landscapes and places evoke powerful images of the past. Louise divides her time between Bedfordshire and the north Norfolk coast where she spends as much time as possible with her husband at the cottage they are renovating. With any excuse she’ll take a research trip abroad-Venice, Burgundy and the Greek islands are favorite atmospheric destinations. Please visit Louise’s website – www.louiseallenregency.co.uk – for the latest news!

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-3321-2

  Disrobed and Dishonored

  Copyright © 2009 by Melanie Hilton

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