The Rake of Hollowhurst Castle. Elizabeth Beacon

as if he was talking to himself; suddenly he was very close.

      It was so dark now she could only gauge his intentions by the tension in his silence and a hint of something new and unsettling in the outline of his powerful body. Then he lowered his head and captured her lips with his and only that contact sparked between them like lightning, but such a contact that she felt half-scorched and half-terrified. She was free, she told herself with little effect; she could disengage from the searing touch of mouth on mouth and be in sight of sanity in a mere breath. Yet the clamour of emotions and curiosity that took over her reeling senses wouldn’t let her move.

      His mouth was surprisingly soft on hers; deliberately unthreatening, a cynical voice informed her sternly, but she blocked her inner ear to it. The sensual reality of Charles Afforde’s kiss on her eager lips at last overcame her defences with no effort at all and she felt him deepen the pressure of his kiss with such a warm welcome, she bitterly decided when she reviewed events later, that she might as well have offered him everything he hadn’t already taken from her and let joy be totally unconfined. Not that joy made much of an effort to restrict itself as her mouth opened under his in a wanton response to his more insistent caress. She felt such a lift of her silly heart that he might be excused for thinking her an experienced flirt, if not a full-blown sensualist.

      But wouldn’t he know the feel of one of those abandoned women when he met one, for it would only be the sort of welcome he was used to? That hated, warning voice was at it again, even as the sound of his breath hitched just a second or two quicker than usual. She struggled between the heady notion that he wasn’t used to such fire flaring between him and his lovers and the cold voice of common sense. Then he opened his sinfully tempting mouth on hers and silently asked for something even more intimate. Gasping in breath they could only share, so close as they were, she succumbed to heat and pleasure and curiosity and opened for him as he silently demanded.

      Now she was done for, even at the moment when he’d proved himself a rake, after all. His tongue first probed the swollen wetness of lips that finally knew what they’d been made for, then delved within, as if exploring the most exquisitely delicious sensation he’d ever encountered. He gave an unconscious hum of satisfaction in his throat that woke her sensual self from its silly daydreams and showed her just how potent a kiss could be. A flush of heat threatened to melt her as he openly revelled in the chaos he’d wrought, the feel of him seducing and plundering with her absolute consent warming her primly covered bosom and suddenly rosy cheeks in a sharp flush of need that warned what untold, forbidden pleasures he still had left to teach her.

      Breathing fast and shallow, she forced herself to jump back from him as if he’d scalded her. He might well have done just that, she decided, and she wouldn’t know the full extent of the damage until she had privacy and calm enough to assess it. Yet her mouth felt bereft as his kiss cooled on the chill evening air, and suddenly she felt the cold of the October night and noted the diamond wink of stars emerging in an almost frosty sky.

      ‘Oh, what have you done now?’ she heard herself gasp out, as if protesting something crucially important, but also impossible.

      ‘I hardly know,’ he replied and his deep voice was hoarse with something that sounded like bemusement and regret, as if he had felt the wonder and novelty of that kiss as deeply as she. Which was a self-deceiving lie, of course; he’d kissed so many women he probably couldn’t provide a full list of them even under torture!

      ‘Liar,’ she accused softly and stepped back again so that the scent and heat and reality of him couldn’t trip her senses again.

      With distance came the full slap of sanity, and she was tempted to sink on to the cushioned window seat and cradle her silly head in her hands and weep. What had she done, for goodness’ sake? Only actively encouraged a rake to believe her a great deal more willing to be seduced than she was and rekindled all those silly girlish fantasies of being kissed by her pirate prince. No, she wouldn’t permit them to haunt her, and she resolved to avoid his company whenever possible, as they’d be living too close until she went on her travels.

      ‘I think you should leave now, Captain,’ she heard herself say in a stiff voice that should tell him what a proper and starchy spinster she really was.

      ‘I believe you’re right, Miss Courland,’ he replied softly and the thread of something she couldn’t quite read in his deep voice tantalised her with ifs and maybe’s, but she stalwartly shrugged them aside.

      ‘The Feathers does an excellent ordinary,’ she went on blithely, as if she had no idea he could make her forget her own name with an idle kiss.

      ‘My thanks, but I have good friends living not ten miles away.’ For some reason he sounded as if he didn’t relish being dismissed as a lightweight who’d forget what had just happened on the promise of a hot meal and a soft bed for the night.

      ‘Indeed?’ she replied with a haughty look that was probably wasted in the gloom. ‘Then I’ll call for a groom to light you to your destination.’

      ‘No need, it’s a fine starlit night and I have my private servant and a groom with me. It’s more than time we were on the road if we’re to reach my friends’ house before they retire for the night, so I’ll wish you a good night, Miss Courland,’ he replied, and she could just discern his quick bow of farewell before she could ring for a lantern to guide his way. ‘Rushmore will have acquired a light by now,’ he assured her shortly.

      ‘Goodbye then, Sir Charles,’ she said, wishing there was the slightest hope he wouldn’t return to haunt her.

      ‘Until tomorrow,’ he confirmed, and she listened to his assured steps as he found his way down the hall and into the early darkness, seemingly without the slightest hesitation.

      She waited until she heard three sets of hoofbeats retreat down the drive before she rang the bell for candles and all the help she could muster. There was a great deal to do before she could sleep tonight if she was to be all but gone when Sir Charles arrived in the morning. Another encounter like that and she might do something even more ridiculous, and suddenly there were worse things than being evicted from her beloved home, after all.

      While Hollowhurst Castle was jolted out of its accustomed calm by a mistress who’d become a whirlwind of frenetic energy, a dozen or so miles away Westmeade Manor was serenely comfortable. Charles tried not to envy his old friend Rob Besford, the younger son of the Earl of Foxwell, his contented domesticity with his lovely wife and smiled as he contemplated what Miss Courland would think of such a disgrace to the rakehell fraternity as he was proving to be. Not a great deal, he suspected, and absently contemplated the intriguing task of changing her mind.

      ‘So will you do it, Charles?’ Caroline Besford asked him.

      Charles wondered cautiously what he was being asked to do, but luckily Rob took pity on him and explained.

      ‘My wife is asking you to be godparent to our next offspring in her own unique manner, Charles. On the principle that you’ve already committed most of the follies he or she will need to steer clear of if they’re to grow into an honest and sober citizen, I suppose,’ Rob Besford told him, looking lazily content as he lounged beside his very pregnant wife.

      ‘Couldn’t you ask Will Wrovillton instead? After all, you plan to give this one his name,’ Charles argued half-heartedly.

      ‘Only if it turns out to be a boy,’ Caro said with a wicked sparkle in her eyes as she encouraged him to imagine the fate of a girl called William. ‘If it does, we want to name him after Rob’s brother and James insists it must be a second name as it would cause too much confusion if there were two James Besfords, even though James is Viscount Littleworth as well, and I can’t see it myself. We thought Charles James unkind, since Charles James Fox has only been dead for a decade or so. So we couldn’t name this one after you and Rob’s brother, Charles. Maybe next time,’ she ended with a teasing look at Rob that he carefully ignored.

      ‘With Fox having been so fiery a Whig and notoriously profligate with it, it’d be a backhanded turn to serve any brat to name him so, I suppose, but did Will turn down your offer to make him the