"Very good, sir." The chef was going to burst into tears.

"I wonder if I might be a little hungry," Isabella apologetically said; the smells of dinner were wafting up the dumbwaiter in the hall.

"Something light?" Dermott suggested.

"That would be wonderful. I think I smell chicken."

"A little of everything," Dermott ordered.

"Now, sir?"

Dermott looked at Isabella, then back at Pomeroy. "Now," he said.

"I do apologize," Isabella remarked as they began ascending the stairs.

"No need. Pomeroy will take care of it. That's what he does."

"Our household was rather small-compared to yours. And not so formal. I confess, I'm quite intimidated."

"By Pomeroy? Don't give it another thought. If you're hungry, you can eat. It's as simple as that. What else do they have to do? Hell, I'm hardly ever home."

"Don't you like your home?"

He glanced around the cavernous staircase and entrance hall, a multitude of ancestors staring down on them from the walls, the cupola fifty feet above them. "I suppose I do. Never thought about it."

"And yet you're never home."

"Too quiet."

"You require stimulation?"

He laughed. "You might say that, darling. Come, this way." Tugging on her hand, he led her down the corridor toward a huge painting of a man in Elizabethan dress with a hunting dog.

He'd called her darling. The word strummed through her brain, warming her senses even while she told herself to discount charming words from charming men.

He stopped before two massive carved doors just short of the huge painting, and tucking the champagne bottle under his arm, opened them. "Welcome to my wing, Miss Leslie," he said, ushering her into an enormous drawing room.

"This can't be your bedroom."

He nodded toward another set of double doors. "It's in there. The earls of Bathurst apparently used this room for-" He grinned, interrupting himself. "I haven't the foggiest idea. Come, I'll show you my bedroom. It's built on a slightly more intimate scale."

Only slightly, she realized as he opened the doors into the bedroom. The idea of intimacy must have been in terms of royal levees. The bed was mounted on a dais, crowned with a gilt coronet draped in crimson brocade. Enormous gilt chairs covered in a similar brocade were placed along the walls, as though courtiers had watched their master sleep. Windows ten feet high were draped in swags and tassels and more of the crimson brocade. A large desk sat in the middle of a Persian carpet off to one side. Obviously a working desk, papers were strewn over its surface. The ceiling must have been twenty feet high, the mural adorning it that of a bacchanal.

"Do you actually sleep here?"

"Cozy, isn't it?"

"For two hundred people maybe."

"Let me show you my dressing room." Taking her hand again, he led her across the carpet custom-woven for the dimensions of the room and opened a normal-sized door into a normal-sized room.

His stamp was revealed on every detail of the room, from the riding boots on a stand at the end of the bed to his watch fobs tossed on a tray atop his bureau to the portrait of him as a child tucked away in a corner of the room. The bed was small, made for a single person, and covered in a blue Indian cotton. There was a desk here as well, more cluttered than the one in the imposing bedroom outside. And books. Everywhere. On shelves, on chairs, stacked in piles on the floor.

"Forgive the mess," he apologized. "I don't let the staff move my things. If they clean up too much, I never can find anything."

"You read."

He smiled. "Is that all right?"

"Forgive me. I was surprised, that's all. May I look?"

"Certainly." He offered her entree with a small bow and then took himself to a liquor table, where he set down the bottle of champagne, poured himself a brandy, spilled an inch or two of champagne into a glass for her, and sat down to observe her tour of his room.

"Fielding," she said with a smile, holding out a small volume to him. "I love him."

"He observes the realities with a charming sense of the absurd."

"Yes, does he not? And Richardson. You like him too?"

"When I wish to pass the time. He has less humor and his heroines often meet disastrous ends." He shrugged.

She picked up another book. "I love Gibbon too."

"You are enamored of reading, then," he said with a smile, taking pleasure in watching her excitement.

"Oh, yes, very much. It was my access to a world I'd never know otherwise."

"You lived with your grandfather, Molly said."

"Yes, we had a cozy life but not an exciting one. Business and books, books and business. I'm sure you'd find it very boring."

"I contend with my share of business as well, although my secretary, Shelby-I forgot to introduce you downstairs." His smile reappeared. "You turned my head completely and my manners went calling."

"I love when I turn your head."

"like you love books."

She turned around to face him, her eyes wide. "Not in the least, my lord Bathurst. In a completely tumultuous, tremulous way that defies description."

"I know."

"You do?"

"It's most odd."

"But lovely," she softly intoned, "like a cozy fire on a cold night…"

"Not exactly." There was nothing cozy about the lust drumming through his brain. "Molly's told you what to expect tonight, hasn't she?"

"For an entire week, my lord. Oh, dear, have I kept you waiting with all my talk of books?"

"You needn't call me my lord. And you haven't kept me waiting," he politely lied, discounting his week-long wait at Alworth with cavalier disregard.

"I suppose you'd rather do something else than listen to me prattle on about books, but I confess, I'm not exactly sure how to-begin. It's all well and good," she nervously noted, "to be schooled in seduction, but when one actually is onstage, as it were…"

"Come, sit and have your champagne. We'll decide how to begin later."

"Yes, sir."

"Please, my name is Dermott."

"Yes, sir"-she fluttered her hands-"I mean Dermott."

He'd not had a lover say Yes, sir to him before, and while Miss Leslie might be experiencing a degree of trepidation, he wasn't exactly on familiar ground either. "Drink some champagne," he noted, handing her the glass, "and tell me about your map library."

His deliberate effort to put her at her ease was successful, and within moments she was conversing in a completely natural way. He asked questions, she answered, and before long, he was refilling her glass and she was leaning back comfortably in her chair and smiling at him in a deliciously sweet way. It unnerved him transiently, sweetness having never been a trait that attracted him, but she was exceedingly sensual as well-Molly's choice of gown the merest wisp of fabric.

"So you see, if Magellan had had better maps, he might have survived."

"Would you like to see those in my library?"

"Now?"

"We've plenty of time." He had no intention of making love to a trembling virgin. In fact, on more than one occasion since meeting Miss Leslie, he'd tried to talk himself out of making love to her at all.

Taking their drinks with them, Dermott guided Isabella to a secret door concealed in the masonry of the fireplace surround, and holding her hand, preceded her down a narrow, curving staircase that opened into the library below. His maps were arranged in large, shallow drawers, and after Isabella had exclaimed over the rarest of his collection, he showed her the maps of India he was updating.

"I could help you," she excitedly said, lightly touching some mountain elevations he'd added to a section of northern India. "I've some very good inks that will last forever-well," she added with a small grimace, "when I return home, I'll be able to give them to you. Grandpapa had them specially mixed in Paris."

Although she had no way of knowing, taking out the maps of India had been a watershed he'd not been able to cross since returning to England. Gazing down at her head bent low over the table, her golden hair shining in the lamplight, he felt an affection he'd not experienced since he'd lost his family. How could this slight young woman so touch his feelings when none of the scores of women he'd made love to since his return had so much as engaged his interest?

He moved away, not wishing to feel what he felt when the only woman he'd ever loved was dead. Replenishing his glass, he walked to the windows overlooking the terrace and stared out into the starry night.

"I've bored you again," Isabella remarked, putting the maps away, the small sound of the drawer sliding shut forcing him to speak.

"I'm tired, I think."

"I've said something wrong," she said, coming up to him. "I apologize."

"It's nothing you said. Molly tells me I'm moody."

"Then I shall entertain you," she declared brightly.

"Surely, you're not thinking of singing." A smile creased his face.

"I don't see a piano in sight."

"Lucidly."

"You don't like female entertainments?"

"Not of the cultural kind."

"Ah… perhaps, then, I should show you how these bows open." She reached up to her shoulders.

"Not yet." Quickly placing his hands over hers, he arrested her action, not sure he was ready, not sure an artless virgin could fill the void in his black mood.

"Yes, sir… er-Dermott," she softly corrected, the warmth of his hands on her shoulders, the weight of them, his closeness, making her tremble, her wanting him no longer casual, if it ever had been, no longer a practical decision, but deep, specific, and defenseless. "When?"

Never, he should say, her virginity a vast deterrent, his own troubled memories disquieting.

"I want you… ever so much," she whispered, gazing up at him with wistful blue eyes, taking a half step forward so her body brushed his.

"This could be a mistake." Irresolute, skittish, he hesitated.

"You promised," she pleaded.

The innocent longing in her eyes, the lush feel of her body against his, weakened his already equivocal resolve, his body automatically responding to her nearness, his erection rising between them.

"You do want me," she breathed, moving her hips against his rigid length. "I can tell…"

She was temptation incarnate, the look, the feel of her, and gripping her shoulders, he reluctantly pulled her closer. Her sweet scent filled his senses, her soft breasts pressed into his chest whetted his appetite for more, her hips brushing against his throbbing erection fed his lustful cravings.

She slid her hands from beneath his and, reaching up, placed them on his shoulders. "I'm going to kiss you now, my lord," she murmured as though she had a schedule to keep. And when she rose on tiptoe to reach his mouth, it was impossible to resist. His hands drifted lower, sliding down her back, cupping her bottom, and pulling her hard against his body. He growled softly, "You'd better be sure." His voice took on a faint drollery. "Then at least one of us will be."

"I'm sure." Her eyes were clear blue, untouched by doubt, her mouth only inches away.

Wanting to be kissed.

He dropped his head slowly, as though she were dangerous.

"Kiss me," she whispered, tightening her grip on his shoulders, drawing closer.

And he impetuously obliged, covering her mouth in a restless hotspur kiss that didn't charm or take heed of her innocence but fed his own rash urgency after a week of waiting-a greedy, incautious kiss that ravished and roused and tantalized.

She sighed into his mouth, unafraid, audacious in her wanting, reveling in his need. Melting against him she ate at his mouth, tasted him deeply, as though he were hers to savor and relish and he was the reason she'd waited so long for her first kiss.

It was half a lifetime away from Dermott's first kiss, and heated or not, flame hot or blazing, it wasn't enough.

He wanted more. When he shouldn't, when she might regret what she was doing, when he didn't want the burden of her guilt.

Chafing with indecision, he abruptly pushed her away.

Shocked, trembling, she gazed at him.

"I can't do this."

"You agreed!" Flushed, overwrought with desire, she cried, "You can't refuse!"

He was standing very still. "I can do anything I want."

"You're rude!" she exclaimed. "To do this to me… to make me feel this way and then-"

He took a deep breath. "Sorry, I changed my mind."

"Well, change it back," she heatedly retorted, "because I'm deeply frustrated and you invited me here tonight!"

"I'll send you back."

"I won't go!"

They stood mere inches apart, hot-blooded, resentful.