For a long moment there was silence. Vickery squeezed his eyes even more tightly shut, and then opened them and turned his head and looked at her. Charley Prowse. Alexander Aubrey St. Clare. With his mismatched eyes and his tousled dark hair and the worry on his face.

Georgie held her tongue while he wrestled with his decision. Don’t push, she told herself. Let him make up his mind.

“Yes,” he said, and the word seemed to come from deep within him. He thrust the diary aside and pulled her into his arms and kissed her as passionately as he’d kissed her yesterday. “I love you,” he said against her mouth. “You have no idea how much I love you.”

Georgie tried to say the words back to him, but his kiss was too fierce, too urgent, stealing her breath, making her heart sing. It wasn’t until he abandoned her lips to trail light kisses across her face—jaw and cheek and brow—that she was able to tell him. “I love you, Vic.”

He stilled, his face pressed into her hair.

“I love you,” she said again. “And I don’t care whether you decide to be Charley Prowse or Alexander St. Clare. I just want to be with you.”

“I want to be with you, too,” he whispered.

They sat silently for a moment, nestled against the pillows. Vickery’s arms were warm and strong around her. She listened to his breathing, his heartbeat, felt his breath stir her hair, and felt joyfully alive, overflowingly happy.

“The past eight months have been . . .” She couldn’t find the right word. Unexpected? Wonderful? The two of them riding together daily, talking and laughing and growing closer. “Perfect.”

“It’s been a lot longer than eight months for me, Georgie.”

“What?”

“It’s been years,” Vickery said, pressing soft kisses to her temple. “Years and years.”

Her throat tightened. All the time she’d been mourning Hubert, knowing he had to be dead, hoping he was still alive, Vickery had loved her? “I didn’t know,” she whispered. “You never said anything.”

“Of course I didn’t.” He pressed his face into her hair again and was silent for a moment, then said, very quietly, “I wanted Hubert to come back just as much as you did.”

“I know.” Hubert and Vickery had been as close as brothers. She put her arms around him and held him tightly. A feeling grew in her chest, as if she was about to cry. Not because of Hubert, but because of Vickery’s constancy, his patience, his hope. “Thank you for waiting for me,” she whispered, lifting her face to him, kissing him.

It started slowly, a tender, gentle kiss, but as the seconds slid by it became something deeper and more urgent, a kiss that didn’t merely say I love you, but also I desire you, I hunger for you, a hot and breathless kiss, no longer sitting on the bed but lying on it, Vickery leaning over her, his mouth devouring hers.

He pulled back, panting. “We have to stop.” His eyes were dark. His pulse beat fast in the hollow of his throat. “Georgie, you need to go.”

She looked up at him. With his pupils dilated like that, both his eyes looked the same color. “You always do the right thing, Vic. The responsible thing.” She reached up and touched his cheek. His skin was hot, slightly bristly beneath her fingers. “I wish you’d do the wrong thing tonight.”

His breathing was ragged. He stared down at her. “That’s what you want, is it?”

“Yes.” She traced the shape of his mouth, running a fingertip over his lower lip, over his upper lip. “I’ve had a daydream these past few months.”

He was silent, watching her with those dark eyes, his breath warm on her hand.

“I used to imagine that we’d gallop along the clifftops until the horses were sweating, and then we’d stop, side by side, and look out at the sea, and after a moment you’d lean over and kiss me.”

“I would, would I?”

Georgie nodded.

“And then what?”

“And then whatever happens after kissing would happen. Except I don’t know what that is.” She traced his mouth again—lower lip, upper lip—then blurted, “I want to know, Vic.”

Vickery stared at her for a long moment. “I’ve had some daydreams, too, these past few months. Would you like to hear one of them?”

Georgie nodded.

“Do you remember the time that spring squall came up out of nowhere and drenched us?”

She nodded again. The burst of rain had been sudden and intense, soaking them both within seconds. They’d galloped home, sodden and laughing.

“Well, sometimes I imagine that we see it coming and we make for the summerhouse and tie up our horses and I run up the steps and open the door, but for some reason you’re a few seconds behind me—fussing with your horse or something—and it’s you who gets drenched. Not me, just you. There we are, in the summerhouse, and you’re cold and wet and . . .” He flushed. “And I have to warm you up before you catch a chill.”

“Warm me up how?”

“Well, first we need to get you out of your habit. The wool is soaked through and you’re shivering.” Vickery’s flush deepened. “You don’t mind this? It’s not . . . offensive?”

“No,” she assured him. “It’s a lot better than my daydream. Go on. You help me out of my habit . . .” She imagined him fumbling with the buttons.

“Everything you’re wearing is wet, your stockings, your chemise, everything, so, um.” He cleared his throat, his blush spreading. “So you take it all off and I dry you with my shirt and give you my coat to wear, but it doesn’t really cover you.”

Georgie could imagine it vividly: the coat would be enormous on her, the cuffs swallowing her hands, the tails dangling almost to the ground. It would cover her breasts, but from the waist down she would be naked, completely exposed. She felt her cheeks grow hot, until she was blushing as much as Vickery.

“And even though you’re dry, you’re still cold so I make you warm.”

Georgie stared up at him and listened to her heart thump in her chest and felt her blood rush in her veins. Her gaze was caught in his, she couldn’t look away. “How?” she whispered.

“Like this,” Vickery said, and he placed his hand on her bare ankle.

She shivered convulsively, and he froze, and said, “Is this all right, Georgie?”

Her throat was almost too tight for speech. “Yes.”

Vickery hesitated a moment longer, his gaze intent and searching. What he saw on her face must have reassured him; his hand slid up her ankle and under the hem of her nightgown.

Georgie couldn’t help shivering again. This time Vickery didn’t stop. His hand climbed her calf slowly, gliding over her skin. When he reached her knee he paused, his eyes intent on her face. “Still all right?”

It took Georgie a moment to find her voice. “Yes,” she whispered.

Vickery gently nudged her knee.

Georgie surrendered to that nudge, parting her legs, inviting him to do whatever he wanted, anything, everything.

Vickery’s hand slid higher beneath her nightgown, creeping up her inner thigh, inch by slow inch, his fingers moving over her skin, tickling, making her shiver and gasp.

“Getting warm?” Vickery asked.

“You know I am,” she managed to say, breathlessly.

He laughed softly, and transferred his attention to her other thigh, his fingers light and caressing, teasing. Georgie bit back a groan. She dragged air into her lungs, unable to believe that this was happening, that she lay on Vickery’s bed with her legs spread for him, the nightgown barely concealing her private parts—and then she remembered that in his daydream she was wearing his tailcoat, and if she lay like this, splayed, she would be utterly bared to him.

It should have mortified her; instead, a pulse of pure pleasure coursed through her veins.

Vickery’s hand drifted higher. “Want to be even warmer?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

Vickery pushed her nightgown up to her waist and she was bared to him.

Every muscle in her body tensed. Georgie was caught between embarrassment and need—and then she saw the expression on Vickery’s face and the embarrassment snuffed out. He was looking at her as if she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She saw his wonder, saw his desire.

Vickery reached out and traced a gentle path through the curls at the junction of her thighs, and then—oh, God—he was stroking her again, his fingers sliding across exquisitely sensitive skin—sliding, sliding—and then his fingers dipped inside her.

Georgie’s back arched slightly off the bed. She clutched the counterpane.

Vickery grinned at her, his face hot, his eyes dark, and dipped his fingers inside her again. “Like that?”

She could only groan.

His grin broadened. He shifted, lowered his head, and then his mouth was where his fingers had been.

Georgie opened her own mouth—but no sound came out. She had no breath to give voice to her shock, or to the quite extraordinary pleasure he was evoking. She could do nothing but grip the counterpane and shift helplessly while he teased her with his fingers, with his tongue, with his teeth. Her pulse thundered in her ears and she was hot enough to burst into flames—and then she did burst into flames. She heard herself cry out breathlessly.

Vickery drew her nightgown down, covering her, smoothing the fabric gently over her legs, and then stretched out alongside her.

“Do you think that would warm you up enough?” he asked.

Georgie pressed her hands to her face for a moment, catching her breath, catching her sense of self, then she lowered her hands and looked at him. “You know it would.”

He laughed softly and gathered her in his arms, kissing her brow, her cheek, her lips.

Georgie kissed him back, tasting herself in his mouth. “What happens after that? In your daydream.”

“It depends,” Vickery said. “Sometimes it stops raining and you get dressed and we ride home, and sometimes . . . sometimes it rains all afternoon and we stay in the summerhouse for hours.”

“Hours?”

“Hours and hours.”

She ran her fingers through his dark, disheveled hair. “What do we do?”

“Lots of things,” Vickery said. “Would you like me to show you my favorite one?”

“Yes.”

Vickery climbed off the bed and removed his nightshirt in one movement, dropping it to the floor.

He was stunning in the candlelight. The broad shoulders, the muscular arms, the powerful thighs. A trail of dark hair arrowed down his abdomen.

Georgie’s gaze followed that trail and fastened at his groin. She had grown up in the countryside. She knew that males of a species possessed an appendage that females didn’t. What she hadn’t known was what the appendage looked like on a man.

Vickery’s appendage was rather larger than she’d thought it would be, jutting stiffly from his body. Its color was a rosy red.

Georgie stared at it, consumed by curiosity and an intense longing to touch it, and then looked at his face.

Vickery was watching her, waiting, his eyes dark and intent, his chest rising and falling with each breath.

Georgie moistened her lips, found her voice. “You’re magnificent.”

Vickery blushed, until his face was as rosy as his appendage. “Do you still want to continue with this daydream?”

“Yes,” Georgie said.

Vickery stood quite still for a moment, and then he climbed back onto the bed on hands and knees, looming over her.

She looked at his face—flushed and intent—and then at his appendage, and reached out and touched the very end of it with a fingertip, cautiously, curiously.

Vickery inhaled a sharp breath and shuddered.

“Do I touch you in your daydream?”

“Yes.” The word was half-strangled, almost unintelligible.

“Do I touch you a lot?” His appendage was very hot, very smooth.

He caught her hand. “Sometimes.” He was trembling. “But that’s not my favorite.”

“What is?”

“My favorite is when you take off my coat and we make love.”

His words froze her for a moment, every muscle in her body clenching tightly.

“Do you want that, Georgie?”

“Yes,” she said urgently.

Vickery released her hand.

Georgie scrambled out of her nightgown and lay on the counterpane, naked. Her nipples were tight, her whole body taut with anticipation. “Like this?”

Vickery let out a shaky breath. “Yes,” he breathed. “Exactly like that.”

He bent his head and kissed her breasts, his mouth gentle at first, barely touching her, then more forcefully, grazing her nipples with his teeth, nipping them. Georgie clutched his head, digging her fingers into his hair, arching up.

She was breathless by the time Vickery abandoned her breasts. He kissed her throat, and then her mouth, fiercely, and she kissed him back just as fiercely. His hand was between her legs, two fingers inside her, and she arched into his touch. “Vic.” His name came out in a sound that was neither gasp nor groan, full of urgency and need.

Vickery withdrew his fingers and positioned himself over her. He looked almost wild—the tousled hair, the flushed face, the dark eyes. A man made of hot skin and hard muscle. “It doesn’t hurt you in my daydream, but it might . . .”

“I don’t care,” Georgie said.

It did hurt, a little, but then came pleasure. Georgie surrendered to instinct, not thinking at all, arching up to Vickery, their bodies striving together, a fierce and primitive dance, and she was hot, so hot, tension building inside her until it almost hurt—and then the tension released in great waves of pleasure. Georgie heard herself cry out breathlessly, heard Vickery cry out, and then the frantic dance slowed and stilled.

Vickery drew in a shuddering breath and rolled off her and gathered her in his arms, holding her close.

Georgie burrowed into him, inhaling the scent of his skin.

It was a perfect moment. A moment she never wanted to end. Slowly their breathing steadied. Slowly their heartbeats steadied. They lay together quietly, warm and sated and relaxed. Vickery stopped holding her quite so tightly. Georgie nestled in his embrace, her hand on his chest, drinking him in with her fingers. Warm skin, a little damp with perspiration, with that soft trail of hair leading downwards. My Vic.

His heart was beating in time with hers. Their breathing was exactly in unison, slow inhalation, slow exhalation.

We match each other, Vic and I.

Finally Vickery said, “Do you like my daydream?”

“I love your daydream,” Georgie told him. “May I borrow it?”

“If you wish.”

“Now?”

“If you wish,” he said again.

Georgie thought for a moment, making patterns on Vickery’s chest with one fingertip. “We’re riding along the beach, the horses are almost up to their bellies in the water, and you fall off—”

“Fall off? The devil I do.”

“You fall off your horse,” she repeated.

“No,” Vickery said, mock indignation in his voice. “I do not. I haven’t fallen off a horse since I was eleven.”

“It’s my daydream,” she protested.

“No, it’s mine,” he said. “And I’m not lending it to you if you make me fall off my horse.”

Georgie huffed out a breath, but what she really wanted to do was laugh. “All right.” She thought for a moment. “My hat blows off into the sea, and you jump in and rescue it for me.”

“Much better,” he said. “You may continue.”

She hid a smile against his skin. “It’s winter, and the water’s freezing, so I take you to the summerhouse to get warm, and I make you take off all your clothes.” She sat up suddenly and dragged on her nightgown. “But I keep mine on, because my clothes wouldn’t fit you.”

“What? You don’t give me your chemise to dry myself with?”

“Oh, no,” she said primly. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

Vickery laughed, as he hadn’t in days, and he looked so relaxed and so happy and so Vic that Georgie couldn’t resist leaning over and kissing him.

He kissed her back, one hand cupping the back of her head, holding her there. They kissed until they were both breathless, then Georgie drew back. She looked at him stretched out naked on the bed. “Poor Vic,” she said sorrowfully. “You’re so cold. Shivering.”

She drew one fingertip lightly up his thigh, which did make him shiver. “I need to warm you up, even if it isn’t proper . . .”