He whispered close, and she shivered at the touch of his soft lips upon her sensitive lobe, the feel of his hot, humid breath in her ear. "I'm going to come inside you, then you will belong to me. No turning back."

"Yes."

He drove in hard and fast, shuddered and groaned, then she felt the hot liquid surge of his climax pour into her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, wanting to tell him she loved him, but she bit back the words because they seemed foolish, even to her. They barely knew each other. She was in love with the romantic fantasy she'd been nurturing all these years.

But it was real now…

Wasn't it?

He rested on top of her for a time, then rolled onto his back.

"Did I mention you are a very exciting woman?" he said.

"Yes." She stared up at the ceiling-amazed, bewildered, and terrified. She had just been made love to. By her hero, Devon Sinclair. Her body would never be the same. Nor would her heart, her mind, her life.

He sighed heavily. "I am spent." He lay quietly for a while, then he turned his head on the pillow to look at her. "Are you all right?"

It was all she could do to manage a nod.

"It always hurts the first time," he said.

"You didn't hurt me. It was wonderful. I am fine."

But was she?

He turned his gaze to the ceiling again. "How long do you think I've been here?"

She tried to guess, but time seemed immeasurable. "An hour perhaps?"

"Will your aunt come to check on you?"

"No," she replied. "But even if she did, the door is locked and she always knocks."

"I would have to hide under the bed, I suppose."

She managed a chuckle, while she struggled to get her mind around this light tone of their conversation. This was all so foreign to her. "If you wish to avoid a caning from her, yes."

He rolled to face her, resting his cheek on a hand. "I intend to speak to her in the morning. Is that agreeable to you?"

Her heart stumbled inside her chest. "Speak to her?"

"Yes, Rebecca. I will have you as my wife and duchess."

Strange panic exploded in her belly-for there it was. He had said it. He had put into words the thing she had dreamed of since she'd met him in the forest. Just the sound of the word on his lips-wife-was enough to dry up all the rain outside and bring sunshine into the room even though it was past midnight. He was offering her marriage.

But of course he would. He was a gentleman and she was a gentleman's daughter. He could not have made love to her without knowing the consequences and requirements.

How could it have been so easy?

"Are you certain that's what you want?" she asked, knowing it was a foolish question. "There are other women here who…"

"I don't care about them. You have enraptured me, Rebecca, and so much of this seems like destiny, don't you think? But are you sure you want me for a husband? I suppose I should have asked you that before I made love to you."

"Of course I am sure," she said. Could there be any other answer? "I confess, I have secretly wanted this since the moment I saw you galloping toward me on your horse. I cannot begin to describe how I desired you that night, and how I have wanted to feel your hands on my body every day since. I wanted what we just did, and I will want it again and again."

He smiled. "How is it possible I have found the perfect wife, only days after my return home to England?" He ran a finger lightly down her front-from the base of her throat to her navel.

She shivered with pleasure, even while her mind was reeling with disbelief. She had not expected any of this to happen so fast.

"Perhaps it truly is destiny," she replied.

Perhaps she was meant to be happy after all.

Devon's gaze followed the trail of his finger down to the triangle of her curls below, then his eyes lifted. "If this had not been your first time tonight, it would be my pleasure to satisfy your desire for 'again and again.' But I will make the proper arrangements first and give you time to recover. We shall have a respectable engagement, Rebecca, and save any further wicked antics for the wedding night."

He rolled off the bed and bent to pick up his trousers, which were lying in an untidy pile on the floor.

She leaned up on her elbows. "You're leaving?"

"Yes," he replied, pulling them on. "I don't want to risk gossip if I am missed."

She felt some uncertainty suddenly, and wished he did not have to go.

He wasted no time pulling on his shirt and buttoning his waistcoat. She supposed this sort of thing was easier for a man. He had no doubt done it before. Dozens of times, probably, or maybe even hundreds for all she knew.

He stepped into his shoes and pulled on his dinner jacket, then leaned forward to kiss her on the forehead. "Sleep well," he said. "We'll talk again in the morning."

He left her alone in the empty bed and dying firelight to contemplate her dream of a happy future. A moment later, the fire flickered out, leaving only a few smoldering embers. A chill came into the room, so she drew the covers up to her shoulders and hugged her knees to her chest to keep warm.

Devon walked out of Rebecca's bedchamber. He closed the door quietly behind him and strode down the corridor before someone had a chance to encounter him in this wing where he had no reason to be. Other than to debauch a virgin and seduce her into becoming his wife with immediate haste.

As soon as he entered the corridor that housed his own lodgings, he stopped and rested a hand over his stomach. He swallowed uncomfortably and backed up against the wall, then tipped his head against the dark oak paneling and closed his eyes.

He had wanted Rebecca tonight, there was no question about that, and he wanted her still-with every primal, pounding urge in his body. The troubling fact of the matter was-he had forgotten himself. He had allowed romance and desire to overshadow his intellect.

Marriage. He'd known he would have to succumb to it eventually, he just hadn't expected to be swept away so quickly and impulsively without even attempting to swim against the current. He had been home for only a few days, and already he was back in that familiar saddle, doing exactly what his father wanted him to do. This, when the man was clearly out of his mind.

Devon wondered how he would be dealing with this situation if Rebecca had not come to the ball. He certainly would not have been deflowering Lady Letitia tonight, or any of the other women who had attended. He would have been thinking things through more carefully, maybe even swimming upstream in the opposite direction. He would not have been so full of lust and desire as to thrust himself recklessly past the point of no return.

There was no going back now.

So it was her fault then, he told himself, with an embittered chuckle and cynical shake of his head. Her fault entirely, for being so inconceivably alluring, like some beautiful, magical nymph sent here to bring him to his knees.

Maybe it was a test of some kind to see if he'd learned anything from the past and had strengthened his will. If it was, he was failing it. Miserably. He would try to do better.

He pushed away from the wall and headed toward his own room. Tonight he would focus on practicalities. He would plan a swift and efficient wedding to the woman he had just bedded.

That very night, far from Pembroke Palace, beyond the Cotswold Hills, Rebecca's father, the Earl of Creighton, rose from his desk and sat down in front of the fire in his bedchamber.

He held a letter in his hand. The ink was barely dry. He had signed his name to it only seconds ago.

Rushton would not be pleased when he received it. What would he do? Would he come here straight away, or would he give up his plan to have Rebecca as his wife and simply back down?

Unfortunately, the earl knew that Rushton would not be so easily defeated. He had spent his entire life working toward this goal, climbing and clawing his way back to this tiny, secluded part of the world. He was not going to give up, and he was not going to be happy.

The earl took a sip of brandy and stared into the hot, dancing flames. His daughter was gone.

Damn her for her independence. She was too much like her mother.

But perhaps it was that very spirited nature that had attracted him to his wife more than twenty years ago, and later that young woman Rushton had brought round…

Serena.

For a brief fleeting second, he thought he could see Serena's pretty face in the flames, her golden hair flying in the wind, but then she was gone, and he became quite certain that he was looking into the very portal to hell.

Chapter 10

Devon hesitated in the doorway of the breakfast room when he spotted Lady Saxby standing by the sideboard with a cup of tea in her hands. She was laughing and conversing with one of the other female guests. Lady Letitia was on the opposite side of the room with her mother.

Rebecca sat at the table next to Charlotte. He looked at her lovely face and recalled the tantalizing warmth of her voice when she'd read to him from the diary the night before, and the mindless lust that had driven him to make love to her and propose. Something lurched in his chest and all at once his feet seemed fixed to the floor.

A muscle clenched in his jaw. He wondered suddenly if Lady Letitia might have been a safer choice, for there would never have been any danger that he might lose his heart to her.

But, no, there was no point wondering about what might have been. He had amends to make to everyone in this family, and he would make them. He had made his choice last night. He would go forward.