She met his dark gaze, sensed the frustration in his words, the longing, the yearning-the need. Felt uncertainty well, undermine her resolution… then she heard Lady Osbaldestone's voice in her head. Dragging in a breath, she lifted her chin, held his gaze. "How much do you want me?"

Martin didn't answer. The group approaching along the path, searching for some pond, cut short the moment-saved him from saying something he would later regret.

Amanda's hand on his sleeve, they headed back to the house, exchanging nods with the group as they passed. He frowned; he hoped her years would preserve her from any whispers. At least they hadn't been discovered…

That would have made life even more complicated than it already was. His understanding with the Bar Cynster would stretch only so far; they fully expected him to use his polished wiles to convince her to accept his suit. They likewise expected him to avoid any scandal.

Seducing a Cynster female, persuading her to yield and accept his offer without the surrender she was determined to wring from him, under the full glare of the ton's chandeliers, all without raising the slightest ripple of scandal… it was the definition of challenge.

One part of him relished the game; another part wished it was all over and she was his, declared and accepted as, in truth, he was hers.

As they went up the terrace steps, he glanced at her face. Her chin was high, her jaw stubbornly set in an expression that had fast become familiar. Yet beneath that facade, he sensed a more fragile, wistful state. Perhaps, with just a little more persuasion…

He stopped her before the door; fingers twining with hers, he raised her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, his eyes steady on hers. "It's your decision."

She held his gaze, searched his eyes, then turned and entered the ballroom.

They remained together through supper and the last waltz, then Martin very correctly took his leave. Amanda watched him climb the ballroom stairs, watched his broad shoulders and burnished head disappear through the ballroom arch.

She wished she was leaving with him. Wished she dared.

Wished in her heart that she could simply give him what he wanted and end this emotional game. Knowing he loved her was important, yet she already knew he did. Was knowing he knew really so vital?

According to Lady Osbaldestone and all her wise mentors, with him, it was. She understood the reasons they'd advanced and accepted them, yet she was starting to suspect there might be even more to it than that. Some reason Lady Osbaldestone, old and shrewd, knew but wouldn't say. No point trying to wheedle it from her; if she hadn't said, she wouldn't, and the Coldstream Guards wouldn't shift her.

The notion that there was more idled through her mind as she waited for Louise and Amelia to make their adieus. Her absentminded gaze drifted around the room, then halted on Edward Ashford. He was waiting, rigidly correct, features pinched with supercilious disdain while his sisters exchanged directions with two other young ladies clearly up from the country.

As she approached, smiling easily, Amanda cast about for some opening gambit to swing the conversation in the direction she wished.

Edward greeted her with a curt nod and a frown. "I'm glad to have the chance to drop a warning in your ear."

"A warning?" She opened her eyes encouragingly.

"About Dexter." Facing the emptying ballroom, Edward raised his quizzing glass and affectedly peered through it. "Distasteful as it is to speak so of a connection, Dexter is a thoroughly untrustworthy individual." Lowering his glass, Edward looked her in the eye. "He killed a man, you know. Pushed him over a cliff, then beat him to death with a rock. An old fellow unable to defend himself. Dexter has a temper and his reputation's scandalous. Indeed, I'm surprised your family haven't taken steps to end his squiring of you-now the Season's at its peak and your cousins and uncles are about, no doubt they'll see and step in."

Amanda wondered what Martin had ever done to deserve such a worm as Edward for cousin. "Edward, St. Ives has given his formal permission for Martin to address me."

Edward's face blanked; the hand holding the quizzing glass fell. "Formal permission. You mean…"

Amanda smiled tightly. "I mean exactly what I said. Good evening, Edward." With a cool nod, she left him, rather proud her temper-her instinct to protect Martin-had not got the better of her.

Luc was strolling toward his sisters and Edward; doubtless, he'd quit the ball after the second dance and was only now returning. Impulse prompted her to place herself in his path. He stopped, looked down at her. Raised a weary brow.

Brazen-determined-she locked her eyes on his. "Dexter has asked for and received permission to address me."

"So I'd supposed."

"What's your opinion of his suit?"

Luc considered her for so long she started to suspect he might be drunk, then he raised both brows. "My opinion, for what it's worth, is that he's insane. I've told him as much."

"Insane?" Amanda stared. "Why?"

Again Luc considered, his dark blue gaze unnervingly steady, then he lowered his voice. "I know about Mellors and Helen Hennessy's. I know Martin hauled you out of danger not once but on numerous occasions. He's come into the ton, an arena he doesn't like, has no reason to like-indeed, has reasons to avoid-all in pursuit of you. He's openly courted you, kept his temper on a leash and done the pretty, all as society dictates, a capitulation that must have cost him dearly. He's called on your cousin and made God knows what arrangements-all to be allowed to aspire to your dainty hand."

Luc paused, his gaze ruthlessly direct. "Tell me, what is it that makes you deserving of all that? What makes you worthy of the sacrifice? Even more to the point, what gives you the right to keep him dangling, like some minor fish you can't bring yourself to cut free?"

She refused to look away, refused to lower her eyes. "That," she quietly stated, "is between him and me."

Luc inclined his head and stepped around her. "Just as long as you know the answer."

Someone was stalking Amanda, someone other than him. Watching her, watching them. Who? And why?

Over breakfast the next morning, Martin examined those questions from every possible angle, the one topic that could distract him from the frustration simmering just beneath his skin.

While motive was unclear, the evidence was too compelling to ignore. That note that had summoned Amanda to a deserted terrace had been the start. He couldn't remember any earlier suspicious incident, but later had come the unexpected arrival of Edward and company on the Fortescues' terrace at a potentially revealing moment, then the mysterious note that had sent Sally Jersey to the Hamiltons' library, and last night, the arrival of a bevy of young ladies intent on exploring the summerhouse at precisely the worst moment.

The young ladies had been sent by "that gentleman"-Martin remembered the comment.

Some gentleman was trying to bring Amanda undone.

A good scandal would do it, or so someone not in the know would reason. Those of their circle, aware of the caliber of those involved, aware that he'd formally sought permission to address her, would know better; in reality, a scandal involving her and him, while irritating everyone, would only see them married that much sooner.

Indeed, a potential scandal that did not become public-such as her falling pregnant-was still a wild card he might yet be dealt.

So… whoever the gentleman was, he had reason to wish Amanda ill, and wasn't well connected with their circle.

The earl of Connor was the only name he had on his list.

An afternoon call on the earl reduced his list to zero. Connor was genuinely gratified to be suspected, but his explanation of his earlier, benignly avuncular interest in Amanda's welfare rang too true to be doubted. He gave his word he harbored no ill-will toward her, and then seized the opportunity to lecture Martin against the evil fate of waiting too long to take a wife and raise a family, of becoming an old man with no real reason for existence.

Connor's parting shot of "Don't risk it" rang in Martin's ears as he returned to his house, his library, to once more ponder what exactly was going on. And who was behind it.

"If not Connor, then who?" Amanda glanced back as Martin followed her into her Aunt Horatia's conservatory. He shut the door, long fingers snibbing the lock apparently absent-mindedly; the sounds of the major ball in progress beyond the doors subsided.

A long-forgotten memory flashed across Amanda's mind-of the time she'd dragged Vane in here to ask him about some gentleman's suggestion. When they'd emerged, they'd surprised Patience at the door; from her expression, she'd been about to fling it open and storm in. Vane had smiled-untrustworthily-and invited Patience inside to admire his mother's palm-filled oasis. As she'd walked off, she remembered hearing the door lock snib.

She could still recall the dreamy expression on Patience's face when she and Vane had emerged, considerably later.

Shaking aside the memory, she refocused on the discussion in progress. "There's no one else who I've crossed."

"Before you appeared at Mellors, or even later, you didn't encourage any gentleman?"

"I never encouraged, not in the way you mean." She glanced up as he took her hand. "That wasn't my aim."

He raised his brows. Met her gaze.

The conservatory was illuminated only by weak moonlight drifting past the fronds of various exotic palms; he couldn't see her blush. "I can't think of any gentleman who would wish me ill, certainly not to the point of…"

When she said nothing more, Martin prompted, "Who?"

His tone left her no option but to admit, "Luc." She met Martin's gaze. "He doesn't approve of me, let alone, as he put it, me leaving you dangling."

"He spoke for me?"

"Most effectively." Amanda wiggled her shoulders. "He's always had a nasty tongue."

Martin suppressed a smile. "Never mind-it won't be him. Aside from anything else, it has to be someone who doesn't know the ropes, and Luc knows every last one."

"Indubitably," she agreed. "And it wouldn't be him, anyway-it's not his style."

Martin glanced at her face as she walked along the path just ahead of him. He couldn't see her features, yet her tone had suggested she was no longer so sure of the wisdom of "keeping him dangling." If Luc's strait words had caused her to rethink her position, he was in his cousin's debt.

Apropos of that, it was clearly time for more persuasion. And this time, they wouldn't be interrupted; he'd taken steps to ensure their privacy, to give him time to reestablish the sensual connection between them, and urge her to yield, tonight and forever.

Vane had suggested his mother's conservatory; as he glanced about assessingly, Martin approved. The air was warm, slightly humid; the light was dim but not gloomy. They came to a clearing where a fountain stood, a statue of a woman in roman halfdress endlessly pouring water from an urn. The fountain stood on a raised dais; Martin considered the possibilities, yet… fingers about her elbow, he guided Amanda, still sunk in thought, on.

The path wended down the long room; it ended in another clearing, an isolated and enclosed half-circle containing exactly what he sought.

Chapter 17

"A swing!" Amanda stopped before a padded bench, two people wide, suspended from a cast-iron stand set in the midst of a jungle of ferns and palms. "What a lovely idea. It must be new."

"We could christen it." Martin halted beside her.

She turned to sit.

"No." Fingers firming about her elbow he stopped her. He was waiting when she lifted her eyes to his. "Not like that."

His tone alerted her; her gaze lowered to his lips, then rose again to his eyes. "The ball-my cousins. What if we're interrupted? Again." By them.

"We won't be. I can assure you your cousins won't be pounding on the door-they're otherwise occupied. The moment's ours to do with as we please." He made the last phrase a challenge, a dare.

She moistened her lips. "How, then?"

He drew her to him and she came, slightly aloof, as if reserving judgment on his expertise. A subtle taunt, an encouragement to impress. Suppressing a smile of anticipation, he lowered his head and covered her lips.