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snow.
    Oh—he was offering his library!
    Brice swallowed, feeling foolish. Then she was staring into his heated gaze and reconsidering what he was saying.
    His library! That was cheating! It was the perfect lure—way better than the clichéd, Come up and see my etchings . He knew her too well.
    Brice made herself stop the words of acceptance from hurrying off her tongue and to think carefully. Her impulse was to say yes— yes!—yes! She felt very at home with Damien Ruthven now, and absolutely lusted after the contents of his library that he dangled as a lure.
    But she also seemed to be lusting after the man, and quite possibly he after her. There was an attraction between them that didn’t appear to end with the respect of one intellect for another of close kin. She realized, with a small shock of revelation, that her physical desire over the last few hours had actually become a low-grade fire that burned the nerves just beneath the skin. And it intensified every time they touched. Did he feel it too? Looking into his eyes, she had to believe that he did.
    Perhaps it was mostly the result of her hormonal cycle and a long period of abstentious behavior, but there was also something about Damien Ruthven that fueled these flames and made her feel recklessly impulsive.
    Maybe she was incinerating brain cells to fuel her libido, and that was why she wasn’t receiving any inner warnings that she should be cautious even when she gave herself time for reflection.
    As though truly able to read her mind, he said: “You hesitate—but ask yourself how often will you have this chance. You don’t want to spend Christmas alone in a hotel anyway. How dreary that would be.”
    No, Brice admitted, she didn’t want to stay at the hotel. She wanted to spend the holidays in front of a roaring fire in Damien’s library, drinking hot mulled wine and talking about Byron with this handsome man who seemed to truly understand him, and who didn’t think her peculiar for being fascinated by the dead poet.
    And supposing—just considering the improbable—that something did happen between her and Damien, would that be so terrible?
    No , her body answered emphatically.
    “Can it be that you doubt me? Do I need to reassure you that my intentions are honorable?” His dark eyes were suddenly dancing.
    Brice thought unexpectedly about what Caroline Lamb had written in her diary after Lady Westmoreland’s ball where she had first encountered Byron. Mad, bad, dangerous to know. That beautiful face is my fate . Brice had always had little sympathy for the spoiled, neurotic creature who had chased Byron shamelessly, but she finally understood what the woman meant. Though Brice had always doubted tales of love—or even of overwhelming lust—at first sight, she had to admit that if she were younger and less wounded—or simply more romantic—she might similarly be thinking of Damien as her doom.
    “Does your silence mean yes, that you have reservations? If so, I believe I can dredge up a proper speech to reassure you.”
    She wasn’t at all certain that she wanted to hear that he would be a gentleman, so she interrupted him before he could make any such declaration.
    “No speech is necessary. I’m not concerned about your…integrity. And thank you for the offer,” Brice added, her manners coming to the fore. “I gladly accept—on condition that we actually talk about Byron. That is what brought me here, after all.”
    “Oh, we will, I’m certain.” And then, almost under his breath Brice heard him add, “Given his ego, there’s probably no avoiding it.”

Chapter Five
“What does Ninon say about this?”
—Louis XIV
The night
Shows stars and women in a better light.
—Byron
“My honored father—I am eleven years old. I am big and strong, but shall certainly fall ill if I continue to assist at three masses every day, especially on account of one performed by a great, gouty, fat canon who takes at least twelve minutes to get