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shuddering breath. Her eyes grew round. “I remember now. What Mama said. But surely…? No, it must have been. It was the only time she saw them together.”
    Ben took her by the shoulders, as if he were about to shake her. “Suzanne, what on earth are you talking about? You make no sense at all.”
    She smiled beatifically. “Tell me, Ben,” she began innocently, “is it true that your Jack is the son of a duke?”
    Ben continued stroking the tender skin at the side of his wife’s breast. He seemed intent on rousing her passion yet again. He had cause, she decided. It was, after all, their wedding night.
    The new Lady Dexter was not about to succumb without a fight. She tiptoed her fingers lazily across the tops of Ben’s thighs, venturing occasionally on to the lower part of his belly. Never any lower. That would come later, but a little more wifely torture…in the shape of the things she would not do…was a necessary preliminary. He was beginning to writhe against the sheets. It was most gratifying.
    “You deceived me.” His voice began normally, but ended in a gasp when Suzanne ran the edge of her fingernail down his hard length.
    “I did not, sir! You simply assumed I was a merchant’s daughter. If you had asked me outright, I would have told you my mama is the Marquise de Jerbeaux.” She paused, reflecting on that. “Probably. Besides, my deception is no worse than yours.” This time, she circled his flesh with her fingers and squeezed gently, provoking another gasp of pleasure. “I am an aristocrat’s daughter. You are a viscount’s heir. We love each other to distraction. So I think we are equal, do not you?”
    He caught up her hands and rolled her under him so that he could settle into the cradle of her hips. “We are certainly equal, Lady Dexter. In everything, I would say, including…” he raised his hips and pushed deep into her welcoming warmth “…in our ability to satisfy each other.”
    The urge was very strong now. He began to move, timing his thrusts to the rhythm of his words. “To satisfy each other, in every…possible…way!”

Dear Reader
    If you are new to the Aikenhead Honours, I hope that reading His Silken Seduction has left you eager to discover what went before. At the start of this story, poor Ben was lying hidden in a silk-weaver’s house in Lyons, recovering from a nasty bullet wound. But how did he come to be shot? And why had his comrades left him alone in such a place at such a dangerous time?
    The answers are to be found in the Aikenhead Honours…trilogy, three intertwined stories following the exploits of Ben and the other members of the spying ring…Dominic, the Duke of Calder, and his brothers, Lord Leo and Lord Jack Aikenhead.
    The acknowledged leader of the Honours is Dominic, the eldest of the three Aikenhead brothers. In the first story, His Cavalry Lady, Dominic is spying on the Russian Emperor during the royal visit to London in the summer of 1814. He strikes up a friendship with Captain Alexei Alexandrov, a decorated Hussar, even though they are on opposing sides. But Dominic is troubled, both by the enigmatic Russian captain and by the memory of a mysterious lady he held in his arms just a few weeks before. She disappeared like smoke, but she haunts him, first as a Frenchwoman and then as a passionate little lady from Scotland. Even with the help of Leo and Jack, Dominic cannot fully resolve the puzzles that beset him. When he is sent to Russia in the wake of the Tsar and his entourage, Dominic has to operate alone. Can he find the answers he is seeking in that alien land?
    In Dominic’s absence in Russia, Leo becomes the leader when the Honours are sent to Austria, in His Reluctant Mistress. Their mission takes them to the Congress of Vienna where most of the crowned heads of Europe are assembling to carve up the continent.
    Leo uses his reputation as a notorious rake as cover for his spying activities, aided by Jack and Ben. For once, his success