When she halted, he was waiting to grasp the bit and hold the chestnut steady as she slid down from the high back.

She came around the horse’s head. She was wearing a long full riding skirt over trousers, a matching jacket over a crisp linen blouse; it being high summer, jacket, skirt and trousers were of lightweight twill, dyed a regal blue. As usual, tendrils of her fine coppery-brown hair had worked loose to frame her face.

His eyes traced her features. “I wasn’t sure you’d come.” The confession was on his lips before he’d thought.

She raised her brows. “I asked for this…appointment.” She studied him in return. “Did you think I’d balk?”

“I thought you might think again.” Drawing Crusader around to flank her chestnut, he waved down the path, and started walking.

She gave a soft snort, and kept pace alongside. “Well, here I am. Where are we going?”

He didn’t meet her gaze but pointed ahead, down the steep path.

Madeline looked, and only then remembered the castle’s boathouse. It was almost as old as the castle itself, built of the same rough-hewn stone and set on a ledge, a natural rock platform that extended out from the cliff just above the high-tide line. Unlike most boathouses, this one had two stories. The ground floor had double doors like barn doors facing the sea, with heavy beams and tackle jutting out above to lift and swing boats out over the water, then lower them. The upper level sported a balcony built above the beams from which the tackle hung. There was no outer stair leading up, but unlike the windowless ground floor, the upper story possessed many wood-framed windows opening to the balcony and to either side. The back of the boathouse faced the cliff.

It wasn’t far; they stepped off the path onto the ledge, and tied the horses up in the sheltered space between the building and the cliff. As she turned from securing Artur’s reins, Gervase grasped her hand and led her to a door in the side wall. It was locked, but he had the key on his chain; setting the door swinging wide, he led her through, then closed the door.

The ground floor was dim and deeply shadowed; with all doors shut, the only light came from above via the stairwell. Madeline glanced around, noting four different-sized boats housed on blocks, with various pulleys and ropes dangling from above. Nearest to the sea doors sat two rowing boats.

Gervase saw her studying them. “When I took your brothers out, we used the sailboat-the one with the blue hull.”

She glanced at one of the bigger boats; it carried a mast, currently lowered, and sails.

Gervase tugged her hand and headed for the stairs. “Up here.” He glanced briefly at her, then started up. “This room’s always been a retreat of sorts. My father had it refurbished for my mother-it was hers, her place, for years.”

Ascending the stairs behind him, Madeline stepped up onto well-polished boards and looked around with no little surprise. The room wasn’t what she’d expected. The stairs came up in one rear corner; slipping her fingers free of Gervase’s, she walked slowly up the room, drawn to the wide windows facing the sea.

As if sensing her unvoiced question, he continued, “My mother was an artist-a watercolorist. She loved painting the sea.”

There were expensive jewel-toned rugs on the floor, and the furniture, while not ornate, was of excellent quality, all dark wood chosen to complement the setting. There were chairs, both comfortable armchairs and straightbacked chairs with thick cushions, and a sideboard against one wall with three books haphazardly stacked upon it as if someone had brought them to the retreat to read. In one corner by the seaward windows a folded wooden easel draped in a paint-spotted cloth stood propped against the wall. Yet all that was incidental. Dominating the room, its central focus, set in pride of place with its foot angled to the balcony windows, stood a wide daybed with a thick mattress and many cushions. On a side table stood a bowl of fruit and a stoppered decanter filled with honey-colored wine.

The place was clean and smelled fresh; not a speck of dust lay on the lovingly polished wooden surfaces.

Reaching the windows, Madeline looked out over the waves, then turned and surveyed the room. It was easy to see why an artist would have loved this place; the light was both strong and dramatic, varying with the many moods of the sea.

She let her gaze return to Gervase, let it travel up his length from his boots to his face; he’d paused by the side of the daybed. “Your father must have understood your mother well.”

“He adored her.” His eyes on hers, he continued, “I was fourteen when she died, so I remember them well, seeing them together, especially here…my father loved Sybil, too, but it wasn’t the same. My mother was his sun, moon and stars, and she loved him in the same way.”

She studied him. When he held out one hand and beckoned, she hesitated, then slowly walked back to join him. “It must be…reassuring to have such memories.”

He took her hand as she neared. “You can’t remember your mother?”

She shook her head. “She died when I was three. I’ve a vague recollection of her, but none of my father and her together.” As he drew her to him, she glanced around one last time. “So…” The breathlessness that had hovered, threatening to afflict her since she’d joined him on the cliffs, closed in. “Whose place is this now?”

His arms closed around her; she met his eyes. His lips curved. “Mine.” He drew her against him and lowered his head. “No one comes here but me.”

And now her. Even as his lips brushed hers, then confidently covered them, Madeline noted that-that he’d chosen here, his special place, one in which his parents’ love still lingered, at least for him, as the scene for her seduction.

It was her last coherent thought before the pressure of his lips, the impact of his nearness-of his arms holding her, his hands controlling her, his lips and tongue tempting her-suborned her wits. Lured them, caught them, trapped them in a web of sensation, of kisses that promised, of caresses that hinted, gently yet definitely, of what was to come.

Oddly, she felt no trepidation; contrary to what he’d imagined, she’d had no second thoughts. She’d slept well last night, and woken calm and focused, content to know that this moment, and those to follow, would come.

That she would be with him here and now, that she would lie with him through the golden afternoon and learn what he would show her, teach her, and so experience what she’d thought she never would, all the forbidden glory that with him she could.

The kiss whirled her into a familiar landscape; she readily followed where he led. For long moments as their mouths melded and their tongues boldly caressed, she sensed that he needed to reassure not her but himself-to confirm that she truly was not just there, physically in his arms, but that she remained committed to their mutual plan.

If she could have, she would have smiled; instead, she reached up, speared her fingers slowly through his hair, letting her senses revel in the silky texture of the short curls, then she gripped his head and kissed him back.

A simple, unadorned demand he understood perfectly well.

She felt his breath hitch as her meaning washed over him, felt the change in him-the hardening of muscles, the tension that flowed into them-as he responded, reacted, as helpless as she, it seemed, in the face of the heat that flared between them.

He drew back from the kiss, lifted his head. His eyes caught hers; between them his clever fingers swiftly undid the buttons closing her jacket. The instant the last was undone, she shrugged the jacket off, letting it fall where it would.

His lips, set in a line she now recognized, curved just a fraction up at the ends, then his eyes dipped; he worked at slipping the smaller buttons of her blouse free.

She said nothing, just watched his face, sensed how the moment held him; he opened the blouse, paused, his eyes on what he’d revealed, then he drew a breath, tighter than she’d expected, and eased the blouse from her shoulders, his palms shaping her upper arms, then tracing down to her wrists. While she dealt with the tiny buttons at her cuffs, his hands roved her breasts, screened but in no way shielded by the fine silk of her chemise; his hands warmed her, lightly cupping, each caress tantalizing, too light to satisfy.

Her lungs were locked when, both cuffs undone, she drew her arms free. The blouse fell behind her. Lifting her arms, she reached for him; his lips curved as he gathered her in, and kissed her-took her mouth in a long, slow kiss that made her shudder.

With rising need.

She felt the tug at her waist as he undid the laces of her skirt; he held her to the kiss, immersing her in a cauldron of heating desire that swirled and swelled and steadily grew as he eased the laces free. Then she felt them release and he pushed the skirt down over her hips; it sank to the floor, crumpling in a pool about her feet.

His fingers immediately searched for and found the laces anchoring her riding trousers, equally expertly dealt with them. Then he drew back from the kiss. Eased half a step back, then he dipped his head and placed a kiss on one silk-clad nipple before going to his knees before her.

He drew her trousers down, revealing…His lips curved. “You do wear drawers. I’d wondered.”

The unexpected comment surprised a small laugh from her, but she was more intent on him, on watching him as he undressed-no, unwrapped her. There was a suggestion of long-anticipated discovery in his usually impassive face, his features no longer quite so unreadable when invested with desire and its concordant emotions.

He stripped her trousers to her ankles, then rolled down her garters and stockings and held her boots as she, needing no direction, lifted first one foot, then the other, free. He swept her clothing aside, so she stood barefoot on the polished boards. Then he sat back and looked up-all the way to her face.

Despite her height, he was so tall himself that his face was level with her midriff. She looked down at him and arched a brow, wondering what he intended next.

His gaze lowered, slowly, to her breasts, then descended further to her waist.

Then he smiled.

And reached for the silk ties anchoring her drawers.

She would, she thought, remember that smile always. Raising one hand, she threaded her fingers through his hair-and watched, waited. Breath bated. Nerves tightening, flickering, skin flushing, heating. Her heart beating just a little faster, just a little harder.

Gervase felt her fingers lightly riffling his hair, understood the unspoken encouragement. She was with him, unquestioningly, unconditionally, even though he was perfectly certain she was following him blind. She didn’t know what he would do; no matter how great her theoretical knowledge, he doubted she could guess. Quite aside from all else, he hadn’t scripted this encounter; he’d thought of it often enough, but had been unable to see her and how she would affect him, unable to predict his responses let alone hers well enough to make planning at any level worthwhile.

So he was operating on instinct, pure and unfettered, following some inner guide he wasn’t sure he fully understood.

The knot he was coaxing at last came undone; letting out the breath trapped in his lungs, replacing it with one even more shallow, he hooked his fingers in the waistband, releasing the gathers, then drew the soft garment down.

And simultaneously rose to his feet, one palm cupping the back of her knee, then sliding upward as he stood and stepped toward her-a long, evocative caress that swept with deliberation up the back of her thigh, sliding beneath the edge of her chemise and rising further until he closed his hand over one globe of her derriere, skin to bare skin, and held her to him as with his other hand he framed her face, and kissed her.

As he’d been wanting to kiss her-waiting to kiss her-for days.

Possessively.

There was no longer any need to disguise what he felt-what she evoked in him; she was here and she would be his-of that he no longer had the slightest doubt.

So he kissed her ravenously, let his beast have its fill, then, when she trembled and gasped, he drew back. Lifting his head, he released his grip on her bottom only to band his arm about her waist; his gaze locking on her heaving breasts, he eased back enough to jerk the ribbon tie of her chemise undone, hook his fingers beneath the gathered band and draw it wide, then he lifted it free of the ruched peaks of her breasts and drew the fine silk down.

To her waist, then he shifted his arm and drew it past, further, until it slipped from his fingers and floated to the floor, the sound a whisper of surrender.