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shoulders then into his hair. With her mouth she gave him what she was beginning to understand, but she wanted to be even closer.
    She could not. She should not be doing this at all.
    She broke away.
    “I-I must go. It is late. I am expected at . . .” She could not finish. He stood perfectly still as she backed away, but his handsome face wore an expression as staggered as her own.
    “Of course. You must go.” His voice was rough.
    “Perhaps I could stay for a moment longer,” she said, returning a half step.
    His chest rose and fell in heavy breaths. “All right.”
    “Just a moment.” She inched forward again. “For I simply must go. Don’t you see, the sun is nearly set?”
    “I see one thing only.”
    She planted herself upon his lips, upon his chest, upon his everything. She wrapped her arms about his neck, he surrounded her with his embrace, and their kiss consumed. She wanted him to kiss her more, deeper, harder, and he did, and it was perfect, but it did not suffice. Inside she yearned so profoundly, a sort of ache his kisses filled yet also spread.
    His hand curved around her behind and she gasped. But it felt right, and she wanted him to hold her like this, impossibly intimate, her hips pressed tightly to his. Then his tongue caressed hers and a strange and perfect shudder slipped through her. Around them the sounds of night were coming on, the singing of crickets and crackle of torches and lamps being lit. They had not been found in the daylight; they would be hidden in the dark if she remained. But she must return to the carriages before her family departed.
    “I must go. I must .”
    He kissed her throat then her neck, his open mouth sending new pleasures through her.
    “Stay with me, sweet Isolde,” he said, his voice thick. “Ten minutes longer, I beg you.”
    “The sun has set.” She clung to his shoulders, the caress of his mouth a drunken pleasure. “It will be dark soon.”
    “Stay.”
    “I wish to. I cannot .” She dragged herself away. “The Maypole at ten o’clock tomorrow. You will come?” Abruptly apart from him, she felt uncertain. It all seemed so unreal in the failing light, her tender lips and pounding heart.
    “Would that I were then and there already.” His gaze seemed thunderstruck. But she was so worried. If she released this moment, it might vanish forever.
    “But will you come? Promise me you will come and I will believe that you are a man of your word.”
    He nodded solemnly. “Yes, I will come. I promise it.”
    Perhaps he had. Perhaps he had been there at ten o’clock when she was standing in a drawing room three miles away, her family and friends congratulating her upon a betrothal that she had not known about until moments before, Oliver beside her with satisfied pride on his face.
    Perhaps he had waited at the Maypole a quarter hour. Half an hour. An hour. Perhaps he waited until just before she managed to arrive there, racing the gig she stole from the stable by bribing the groom with her pin money, frantically praying, vowing that if he were there she would run away with him that very day rather than be married to another.
    But he was not. Despite his declarations the previous night, he had not waited an hour for her. Or perhaps he had not gone at all. Perhaps he had forgotten her as soon as she refused him her favors the evening before.
    She would never know. She could ask him directly now, but she did not trust in any response he would give. The naïve girl had not fully understood what he had wanted from her that night, but the married woman eventually did. Now she knew he was not the man she had longed for and dreamt of for months, commencing her marriage with lies that twisted her inside out. A man who would seduce another man’s wife was not that fantasy. Captain Nikolas Acton was someone else entirely, and she should have known.

Chapter Six
    N ik pressed the currycomb to his horse’s neck and smoothed it along the sleek brown coat. He did not