Accepting the inevitable with true grace, Lady Glossup called for the tea trolley. They all remained just long enough to do justice to one cup, then rose and retired.

After seeing Lady O to her room, Portia retreated to her own chamber, high in the east wing. The window overlooked the gardens; she paced before it, frowning at the floor, oblivious of the silvered view.

She’d told Simon she believed that Kitty did not understand or value trust; she’d been speaking of trust between two people, but the performance they’d just witnessed had confirmed her view, albeit in a different context.

They all felt-they’d all reacted-as if Kitty had broken a social trust, that she’d betrayed them by refusing to follow any of the patterns they recognized. The patterns of social commerce, of civility, the underlying structure of how they related one to the other.

Their reaction had been quite profound, the gentlemen’s refusal to return to the drawing room a very definite statement.

An emotional statement-indeed, they’d all reacted emotionally, instinctively, deeply disturbed by Kitty’s breaking the social code they all held in common.

Portia stopped, stared out at the darkened gardens, but didn’t truly see them.

Trust and emotion were closely linked. One led to the other; if one was prodded, the other responded.

Frowning, she sat on the window seat; after a moment, she crossed her forearms on the sill and rested her chin upon them.

Kitty wanted love. In her heart, Portia knew that was so. Kitty was searching for that which so many other ladies looked for, but in Kitty’s case, with her unrealistic expectations, love was no doubt highly colored, a passionate, overpowering emotion that rose up and swept one away.

Unless she missed her guess, Kitty subscribed to the idea that passion came first, that highly charged physical intimacy was the path, the gateway to deep and meaningful emotional attachment. Presumably she believed that if the passion was not sufficiently intense, then the love she imagined would ultimately arise from it would not be sufficiently powerful-powerful enough to hold her interest, to satisfy her craving.

That would explain why she did not value Henry’s gentle devotion, why she seemed bent on raising an illicit and powerful lust in some other man.

Portia grimaced.

Kitty was wrong.

If only she could explain it to her…

Impossible, of course. Kitty would never take advice from an unmarried, virginal, near-apeleader-cum-bluestocking on the subject of love and how to secure it.

A soft breeze wafted through the window, stirring the heavy air. It was silent outside, dark but not black, cooler than indoors.

Portia rose, shook out her skirts, and headed for the door. She couldn’t sleep yet; the atmosphere in the house was oppressive, uncertain, not at peace. A walk in the gardens would calm her, let her thoughts settle.

The morning room doors were still open to the terrace; she walked through and out, into the welcome softness of the night. The scents of the summer garden wreathed around her as she strolled toward the lake; night stock, jasmine, and heavier perfumes mingled and teased her senses.

Moving through the shadows, she glimpsed a man-one of the gentlemen-standing on the lawns not far from the house. He was looking out into the darkness, apparently lost in thought. The path to the lake took her nearer; she recognized Ambrose, but he gave no sign of noticing her.

She was in no mood for polite conversation; she was sure Ambrose wasn’t either. Keeping to the shadows, she left him to his thoughts.

A little farther on, while crossing one of the many intersecting paths, she glanced to her right, and saw the young gypsy-cum-gardener-Dennis, she’d heard Lady Glossup call him-standing absolutely still in the shadows along the minor path.

She continued on without pause, sure Dennis hadn’t seen her. As before when she and Simon had seen him, his attention was focused on the private wing of the house. Presumably, he’d retreated deeper into the gardens because of Ambrose’s presence.

Quelling a frown, she pushed the matter from her mind; it left a lingering distaste. She didn’t want to dwell on what Dennis’s nocturnal vigil might mean.

The idea naturally brought Kitty to mind-she bundled her out of her thoughts, too. What had she been thinking about before?

Trust, emotion, and passion.

And love.

Kitty’s goal, and the stepping-stones to it that she was quite sure Kitty had scrambled. Kitty was approaching them in the wrong order, at least to her mind.

So what was the right order?

Letting her feet lead her down the last stretch of lawn to the lake, she considered. Trust and emotion were linked, true enough, but people being people, trust came first.

Once trust was there, emotion could grow-once one felt safe enough to let emotional ties, with their consequent vulnerability, develop.

As for passion-physical intimacy-that, surely, was an expression of emotion, a physical expression of an emotional connectedness; how could it be anything else?

Engrossed, she took the path to the summerhouse without thought.

Her mind led her inexorably onward in characteristically logical fashion. Walking through the deep shadows, her gaze on the ground, she frowned. By her reasoning, with which she could find no glaring fault, the compulsion to physical intimacy arose from an emotional link that, logically therefore, must already exist.

She’d reached the steps of the summerhouse. She looked up-and saw in the dimness within a tall figure uncurl his long legs and slowly come to his feet.

In order to feel the compulsion to intimacy, the emotional link must already be there.

For a long moment, she stood looking into the summerhouse, at Simon, waiting, silent and still in the dark. Then she lifted her skirts, climbed the steps, and went in.

8

The crucial question, of course, was what emotion was it that was growing between her and Simon. Was it lust, desire, or something deeper?

Whatever it was, she could feel it rising like heat between them as she walked across the bare boards-straight into his arms.

They closed around her; she lifted her face and their lips met.

In a kiss that acknowledged the power shimmering through them, yet held it at bay.

She drew back, looked into his face. “How did you know I’d come out here?”

“I didn’t.” His lips twisted, perhaps wrily-she couldn’t tell in the shadows. “James and Charlie decamped to the tavern in Ashmore. I wasn’t in the mood for ale and darts-I cried off, and came here.”

Simon drew her closer until her thighs met his. There was no resistance in her, yet she was watching, thinking…

He bent his head and took her lips, toyed with them until she threw aside her distance and answered him, kissed him back, taunted him. Then surrendered her mouth when he responded, wrapped her arms about his neck, and clung as he devoured.

And they were there, once again, at the center of a rising storm. Desire and pure passion licked about them, sending heat across their skins, feeding a yearning in their souls.

They broke from the kiss only to gauge the other’s commitment, eyes meeting briefly from under heavy lids. Neither could truly see in the darkness, yet the touch of a gaze was enough. To reassure, to have her pressing closer, to have his arms tightening before he angled his head and their lips met again.

Together, they stepped into the furnace. Knowingly. He didn’t need to urge her; her hand metaphorically in his, she stepped over the threshold at his side. They both welcomed the fire, the flames that caressed, that flared and grew.

Until they were both heated, burning, hungry for more.

He stepped back, taking her with him. The edge of the sofa met the back of his legs; he sat, sweeping her onto his lap, their lips parting for only a second before coming together again.

Her hand touched his cheek, caressed, cradled as she pressed a blatant invitation upon him. Where others might be reticent, she was bold, direct. Definite.

Sure. She sighed with satisfaction when he slid her loosened gown from her shoulders and laid her breasts bare, urged him on when he bent his head, set lips and hands to the swollen mounds, and feasted.