A Regency Courtesan's Pride. Ann Lethbridge

back gilded by candlelight. She reached out to run a hand over the beautiful skin, then whipped it back, touching her lips with a fingertip. He looked so relaxed, it seemed a shame to disturb him. Even if the little flutters low in her abdomen suggested he might very well like it.

      She glanced at his face, at the full lips, relaxed in sleep, the dark crescent of eyelashes, the slash of brow, the rugged features.

      Delicious. A gorgeous man.

      She raised up on her elbow. He looked younger in sleep. Less world weary. Less drawn. Less severe. Closer to her own age than she’d thought.

      The clock on the mantel struck the quarter hour. She glanced over and saw it was past five o’clock. Very soon Brian would come to make up the fire and find her here. She’d asked him to take over the task from Beth and Jane. She didn’t want Tonbridge propositioned again. Not by them, anyway. She quelled a small smile.

      Nor did she want to start any gossip.

      The ripple of concern over the bourgeois Miss Draycott and her brief girlish love affair in those long-ago schooldays would be nothing to the scandal of being caught in a marquis’s bed.

      Her first indiscretion had been with a boy. Charlie was a man. A beautiful, wonderful man who knew how to please a woman.

      She stretched. She really should return to her own room.

      Their mutual passion had been nectar from the gods to her, but might have seemed passing ordinary to him. A sow’s ear, rather than the silk purse in her mind. Hopefully, Tonbridge wouldn’t betray her indiscretion. He was much too much the gentleman.

      What did it matter? After today, she would never see him again. A pang beneath her ribs halted her breath.

      Sadness, when she should be feeling nothing but sated. A longing for what could never be. How futile. How unlike her since she’d grown up.

      She retrieved her robe from the floor beside the bed.

      Charlie sighed, but didn’t waken. Just as well. He only had to look at her with those dark eyes and sweep away any semblance of reason.

      She slipped on her nightgown, thrust her arms into the sleeves of her robe and knotted the tie. She glanced around the room. It was dangerous to leave candles burning unattended. The thought of a fire made her skin crawl. The house in Skepton had taken but minutes to burn. The girls had been lucky to escape with their lives. She took the snuffer from the mantel and tiptoed around the room, quickly extinguishing them all.

      Unfortunately, Charlie didn’t seem to notice her departure. With a rueful smile at her continuing feeling of regret, she opened the door and peeped out into the corridor. All quiet. And dark. With no sound from her bare feet on the runner, she ran lightly back to her own room at the end of the hall.

      She jumped between the cold sheets and shivered.

      It would have been nice to stay next to Charlie. For them to wake up together. Like husband and wife.

      The faint memory of sitting on her parents’ bed in the early mornings, drinking chocolate like a real grown-up lady slid into her thoughts. They’d been so happy. Before the fever had struck.

      Afterwards, everything had changed. Poor Grandfather had been so sad, so worried about what to do with her.

      She snuggled deeper beneath the sheets and closed her eyes. If only things could have been different. If only she could have been a lady like her mother, as Grandfather had hoped, Charlie might have gone along with her proposal. Betrothed to a marquis. Merry Draycott. What a thing. She couldn’t help but chuckle beneath her breath. She hugged her arms around her body. Imagine meeting such a gorgeous man on the road across the moors.

      The vision of her phaeton, shafts upright in the ditch, brought her upright. Deliberately damaged.

      Her stomach roiled. Her heart raced, rising in her throat to shorten her breathing. Fear.

      Saints above, she’d never sleep now. She couldn’t go back to Charlie, admit her terror. He’d use the knowledge to impose his will.

      Shivering, she got up and lit a candle to keep the dark thoughts at bay. She stared at the flickering flame. Was that why Charlie kept his candles alight when he slept? To keep away evil?

      It would have to be something terrible to trouble such a powerful man.

      Numbers were her escape. She picked up the accounts ledger she’d put aside earlier in the evening. It would either put her to sleep, or she would get her morning’s work done before first light. She must find a way to increase production, or she would have to let employees go.

      Why was everything going wrong now? Were all the naysayers who had wrung their hands in horror at her inheritance of the mill right after all? Was it impossible for a woman to run such a large enterprise as Draycott’s? Should she have abided by her uncle Chepstow’s wishes and put everything in his hands?

      She sighed. Grandfather would have solved the problem in an instant. Look out for t’coppers was his motto. Was that what she was doing wrong? Looking out for the pounds?

      Dash it all, she would not be beaten.

      She opened the ledger at the beginning. The answer had to be here.

      Cold. Alone. Charlie opened his eyes.

      Darkness assaulted his gaze. Silence his ears. A band tightened around his chest, cutting off air. Sweat trickled down his back. His heart thundered. He lay rigid. Still. Suffocating.

      In a bed?

      Why the hell was it dark?

      The candles must have gone out. Darkness had woken him. He threw back the covers and drew back the curtains from the window. It didn’t help.

      He gathered the supply of candles he’d left ready with shaking hands. He brought down the candelabra and struck the flint. A candle flared. He inhaled a deep calming breath.

      He held the flame to the candelabra. Its candles hadn’t burned down, they’d been snuffed. Some time ago by their length.

      He glanced at the rumpled bed. Merry must have doused them when she left.

      Why hadn’t he awoken then? He had slept through her departure. Were the nightmares finally gone?

      He rubbed at his breastbone and stared at the window. A faint trace of grey in the darkness of the room. He wanted to cheer. He felt rested. For the first time in years, energy coursed through his veins at the thought of a new day.

      He’d made love to Merry, wonderful passionate wild love, and fallen asleep. God, he’d lost complete control with her, behaved like a green boy with his first woman.

      She had climaxed deliciously. He hardened, wanting her again.

      It wouldn’t happen.

      Their lovemaking hadn’t changed her decision. The two things were not connected. She wanted him gone. He was to drive away and leave her to face the danger alone. Impossible. Yet what choice did he have unless he agreed to her suggestion that he pose as her future husband.

      He groaned. If his father ever learned of this new adventure of his, Robert would be outcast forever. But leaving Merry in danger was out of the question. He already had enough guilt to carry. What he’d done to Robert. His failure at Waterloo.

      He would not fail Merry.

      He stilled. Was he once more being reckless, endangering others to satisfy his own ego as his commanding officer had accused?

      He went hot, then cold. Damn it all, what else could he do? If he left and something happened to Merry, he would never forgive himself.

      A knock sounded at the door. He grabbed for his banyan as Brian stepped in, carrying hot water in a jug. ‘Ready for your shave and a bath, my lord? ‘

      Ready? Yes, indeed. Because he needed to see Merry as soon as possible. Not that he expected the conversation to be easy.