"When are you going?" she wanted to know.

"Tomorrow night," Aaron said.

"Have fun on Capri," she told him.

Aaron Fischer chuckled. "Ciao, bella!" he told her, and rang off.

Emily put down the phone. She had heard from Devlin this morning and Aaron this afternoon. In just a few hours the Channel would be up and running. She had a very passionate scene she wanted her duchess to play out with the duke. He has suddenly discovered her secret absences from Malincourt, and is suspicious. She must lull him into a sense of security, but he will not be soothed. And Caro uses her sexual wiles to distract her husband from learning about her secret life. Yes. Her character of the duchess had grown from a vengeful and determined girl into a powerful woman who would control her own life at any cost. It was up to Justin Trahern to save Caro from herself.

Emily had been going over some rather interesting pictures in one of her sexual research books. It offered a variety of positions she considered downright acrobatic, but some of them were quite conducive to the year 1793. Especially the one using the elegant tapestried wing chair, and another where a small silk cushioned side chair was utilized. The footstool she considered boring and a bit acrobatic. There had also been pictures of threesomes, which fascinated her, but there was no way to fit that kind of play into The Defiant Duchess. She giggled. But she would have to consider it for another book. Wouldn't J. P. Woods be surprised!

After their lovely lunch at the club she really wasn't hungry for the supper that Essie had left in the fridge for her to heat up. Instead Emily made herself a bacon-and-tomato sandwich with lots of mayo. Nothing tasted better than bacon and tomato when the tomatoes were in season. She had a basket of them on the kitchen table, courtesy of Essie's garden. She sat eating slowly, sipping her iced tea, waiting for eight o'clock to come so she could get to work. Well, maybe work wasn't quite the word she wanted.

The phone rang, and she picked it up. "Hello?"

"Just forty-eight more hours, and I'll be with you again," Michael Devlin's voice purred in her ear. "I miss you much too much, angel face."

"I already talked to you today," Emily teased him.

"Am I to be rationed then?" he demanded to know.

"I'll think about it." she answered.

"Are you working?" he wanted to know. "I can forgive you if I disturbed the muse, angel face." His voice was warm, and the very sound of it sent ripples of excitement down her spine.

"I just took a break to make a sandwich," she told him. God, she wanted him here! Wanted his strong arms around her, kissing the side of her neck, her shoulder, his breath warm and moist on her skin. She shouldn't love him, but she did.

"Can you spend the weekend at the cottage with me?" he asked her. "I'll stop at Leonardo's in town and pick up a pizza."

"A garbage pizza?" she said. "I can only be bribed for a garbage pizza."

"Your wish is my command, lady," he told her.

"Then I'll bring the salad and a bottle of wine," she promised.

"And your little toy," he said. "I'm going to show you something new on Friday night, okay?" He rubbed himself, because just hearing her voice made him hard. No woman had ever had such a strong effect on him as Emily Shanski did. He didn't want their affair to end. He didn't want any other man fucking her. He wasn't quite ready to commit himself to her entirely, but he wasn't a fool. Michael Devlin knew it was just a matter of time before he asked Emily Shanski to marry him.

"Ohh, are we going to be bad, Devlin?" she teased, her voice suddenly very sexy.

"We are going to be very bad," he promised her. "Good night, angel face. Don't work too hard, okay?"

"I'll have some good stuff for you to read on Friday," she promised.

"Saturday morning," he said. "Friday night is already spoken for, angel face."

The phone clicked off.

Emily smiled happily. Although Devlin would never know it, she loved him, and always would. But just maybe the passion they shared didn't have to end when the book was finished. Yet it was business between them. But did it have to be all business? Could either of them be that cold-blooded? Emily knew she wasn't. Yet how was she ever to find out if there was something there besides a mutual desire to keep their careers? Didn't romance authors get to have a happy ending too? Rina said Devlin was in love with her, but was he? Really? Or was Rina just being a wonderfully romantic fool?

The big tall clock in the front hall began to chime the hour. Emily got up from the table, stuck her plate and glass in the dishwasher, locked her kitchen and front doors for the night, then headed upstairs. Undressing, she slipped on one of her comfortable sleep shirts, washed her face and hands, and brushed her teeth. Climbing into bed, she took up the channel changer and clicked her television set on. She punched in the Channel's number, and when the grand entry hall of the duke's home came into view Emily pushed the enter button firmly.

The duchess was standing in the foyer, shaking the rain from her long cape. She turned, startled, at the sound of his voice.

"Where the hell have you been for the last five days, madam?" Justin Trahern demanded of his wife.

"In London," the duchess answered.

"You detest London, and especially in season," he replied.

"Yes, I do," the duchess said. "But my uncle's valet sent for me. The earl was ill, and he feared for him."

"You detest your uncle too," the duke said.

"Detest, milord, is perhaps too strong a word. I neither like nor dislike him. But he is my late father's younger brother. He has no one else but me, and I have an obligation as his blood relation to help him where I can," the duchess said coolly.

"And what illness did he have? Something brought on by too much wine, bad companions, and the riotous living he pursues, I have not a doubt," Justin Trahern sneered. "The man is a lost cause. The title will die with him, for no decent woman will wed him, nor would any decent father give his daughter to Eddis Thornton, despite his ancient title. Not even a rich merchant attempting to vault his family into the nobility with a nubile and well-dowered daughter would have him."

"For which I am very grateful," the duchess replied calmly, "for I mean to have the earldom of Chetwyn for a second son one day, milord. As I am the last of the Thorntons, and you have a good relationship with both the king and the prince, we should be able to manage it once Uncle has drunk himself into his grave."

"So that is why you cosset the man," Justin Trahern remarked with not just a hint of admiration in his voice.

"Yes," the duchess answered in a cold voice.

"Do you give him money?" the duke demanded to know.

"Of course," she said. "God knows I have enough, thanks to my father. His investments in the East India Company paid off quite well. I do not give my uncle a great deal. I pay his valet, his wine bill, and just enough of his gambling debts to allow him to keep gambling."

"Thereby continuing to make him unattractive as husband material, and gently hastening his path to the grave," the duke murmured. "Very clever, my dear. You say you want your family's title for a second son, but we have not even a first son. Or daughter, Caro. And you were not in London, my dear. At least, not at your uncle's."

"How can you possibly know that, milord?" She began to ascend the stairs.

"Because I had you followed," Justin Trahern responded, keeping pace with her. "Do you think I am a fool, Caro? We haven't even been married for a year, and you are always disappearing from Malincourt. You do not take your coach, but ride out alone."

They had reached the top of the stairs, and the duchess almost ran to her rooms.

"Where do you go? Have you a lover? Someone you took when my uncle lay dying?" he wanted to know.

"I think you can have no doubt that I was a virgin when we married," the duchess said coldly. "And I am not a woman to betray her marriage vows. How dare you impugn my honor, milord?" She had reached her chamber door. "Leave me now! I am tired and cold and wet. I wish a hot bath, a tray, and my bed." She looked at him imperiously.

"You may have your hot bath and your tray, madam," he said. "But I will share your bed tonight, for I have lacked your company for many nights."

"You are intolerable!" the duchess said, and she stepped into her chamber, slamming the door in his face behind her.

Behind her the door sprang open, and the duke entered the room. "Get out!" he said sharply to his wife's maid. "Her ladyship will call you when she needs you." He almost shoved the girl from the room. Turning, he said in a deceptively quiet tone, "Now, Caroline, you will tell me exactly where you have been, and with whom you have been consorting. If you do not I shall lock you in this room until you do."

"You wouldn't!" She gasped.

"But I would, madam. Oh, yes, I would," he responded.

"You would not understand, Justin," she said, actually using his name in her despair. "How could you? What could you know of the horror I have seen?"

"I cannot if you do not tell me," he replied in a gentler tone.

She flung herself into his arms, pulling his head down to hers and kissing him passionately. "Make love to me," she begged him. "Oh, please make love to me!"

Their clothing seemed to evaporate as they pulled the garments from each other. Naked, he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the large wing chair by the fire. And all the while they kept kissing each other again and again until both their mouths were bruised and sore from a mixture of both passion and sweetness. They cuddled together, slowly exploring each other's bodies. His big hands cupped her small, perfect breasts, kissing the nipples until they were tightly puckered, like small frostbitten rosebuds. His teeth tenderly scored the sensitive flesh of her bosom.

The duchess sighed with her pleasure as he lifted her to sit facing him and his mouth traveled across her torso. Her fingers entwined themselves in his dark hair, kneading his scalp with her rising desire to be possessed by him. Her slender legs rested on his shoulders. But as eager for her as he was, he was not quite ready to consummate their mutual passion. He licked her body, tasting the saltiness of the sea on her skin. Then, lifting her up, he impaled her onto his engorged lover's lance. She sighed again.

"Now, madam," he said in measured tones, "you will answer my questions or you will gain no further pleasure from me."

Her blue eyes widened with her shock. She could feel his thickness throbbing within her love passage. "Justin," she whimpered. "Please!" She attempted to ride him, but he held her firmly about her narrow waist, his fingers digging cruelly into her flesh. "Please!"

"Where were you?" he demanded once again. "Where?!"

"France." She gasped. "I was in France!"

"You will tell me the rest afterward," he told her, standing. "Put your legs about me, Caro." He walked across the room to her bed and, laying her down, stood over her, fucking her at first slowly, and then with more rapid strokes until she was sobbing for release. A release he was not yet ready to give her. He quickly took his own pleasure, and then withdrew from her heated body. Moving to a table with a basin and pitcher he bathed his satisfied member.

"Bastard!" she hissed at him. She was aching and unsatisfied.

"When you have told me all," the duke said, "I will scratch that naughty itch of yours, my dear. But not until then. Do you understand me?" He climbed into bed, taking his wife into his arms. "Now, why were you in France?"

"Have you heard of Lady Lavender, Justin?"

"The person who rescued the Duchesse d'Almay and her children? Of course. It was the talk of the ton several months ago. Why?"

"I am Lavender, milord. It is I and the women who work with me both here and in France who have been rescuing the victims of tyranny and injustice. Not just the nobility, but decent working people who have been denounced to the Committee for Public Safety. All one need do is drop a paper with a name on it in those boxes they now have in Paris and every small town in France. Today we brought back a vineyard owner, his wife, his old mother, her elderly maid, and three children. On our last trip it was the Comtesse d'Islay, her maid, and the old seamstress who had sewn for the comtesse for years. And Justin, there are so many more who need our help."