Spencer was out of his element.

It left him itchy, antsy, and decidedly off-balance.

It wasn’t the restaurant. While age had tempered his frivolity, he often dined out.

It was the company.

He only suggested the group troop down to the seaside for luncheon because he himself was starving. He had no idea sharing a meal with the Sweets would fill his belly, but highlight the gaping hole in his own carefully constructed life.

“Edison’s a genius with automatons.” Briar observed, as the waiter set down the last of their dessert dishes.

“He’s been creating them since he was small.” Meena picked up her spoon. She laughed. “Do you remember that mechanical boy?” She looked across the restaurant table at his aunt and sister. “Our tutor had assigned him to write one hundred times, ‘I will not shock my teacher with electrical currents.’ Edison had the perfectly brilliant idea to construct an automaton to do the writing for him.”

Alicia turned to the inventor. “Did it work?”

“More or less.” The big man scooped up a spoonful of custard.

“And how.” Meena raised her fork like a baton. “When he saw the perfect penmanship, the tutor stormed into Edison’s laboratory. When he yanked the pen out of the mechanical’s hand, it sent out a fountain of ink.”

Now she and both her cousins were laughing. “The man’s face was blue for weeks.”

Emmeline and Alicia joined in.

For his part, Spencer was content to watch his small family enjoy an unexpected outing with… friends. Or something as close as he’d ever come. Whatever the case, it was uncharted territory.

Outside the large plate glass windows, the sun sparkled across the wave tops. Spencer sank back in his seat. The suggestion to dine at the restaurant on the West Pier had been an excellent one. The food was passable, the surroundings even more so.

The company was unexpectedly grand.

His aunt was laughing so hard her cheeks had grown pink. Her eyes sparkled with enjoyment. It was good to see.

She patted her lips with her napkin and set it aside. “You’re quite welcome to stay for dinner,” she announced. “There’s a train back to London at 9pm.”

Edison’s spoon froze halfway to his mouth. “I have an engagement this evening, I’m afraid.”

Spencer caught the panicked look that flashed across the inventor’s face. He’d bet the engagement involved a curvaceous bedmate and an absent husband.

His own engagements usually did.

But Spencer’s amusement quickly soured. He’d been in the other man’s position countless times and had enjoyed them all. But his dalliances with available women, beautiful as they had been, gave him not the slightest clue about how to behave with a proper lady. He toyed with his own dessert.

Dense as he could be, the irony didn’t escape him. The man who never lacked for female companionship didn’t have the least idea how to act around a real woman.

A woman who’d require more from him than an enjoyable tumble.

“The Brighton Gazette was all a buzz this morning.” Alicia’s bright voice sliced through his brooding. “They say there’s a jewel thief here in town.” She sniffed. “It’s hard to imagine a thief that sophisticated in our little city. What would there be for him here? A handful of old family cameos?” She dismissed their seaside city with the sort of disdain only an adolescent could manufacture.

She set her empty teacup back on its saucer. “I can’t imagine how any thief could compare to the Jonquil. Everyone knows he’s the most masterful thief in Britain.”

Spencer choked on his mouthful of custard. He grabbed his napkin and coughed into it. “And how would you know this?” he asked, when he could finally breathe.

Alicia laughed. “Everyone knows it’s true.” She looked at their guests for confirmation.

Edison had leaned back in his chair, arms crossed over his wide chest. He looked from Spencer to his sister. A knowing grin tweaked the corners of his lips.

Briar was biting her lower lip in an attempt to reign in her humor. “I have heard that. It’s said he once broke into the Queen’s bedchamber—while the Queen was sleeping—if you can imagine. Didn’t even take a thing.” She took a sip of tea. “He said he did it because he could.”

“No!” Alicia gasped.

Spencer screwed his eyes shut.

Meena set down her spoon. "I know it sounds romantic, but he’s only a man. Flesh and bone like any other male of the species. I'm sure the tales of his prowess are greatly exaggerated.”

She caught Spencer’s eye and winked. The twinkle in her toffee-colored eyes hit him straight in the gut.

He struggled to keep the surprise off of his face. He didn’t recall ever having that sort of reaction to a woman. If he was honest with himself, he needed to admit he liked it.

He liked it very much.

Alicia pouted. “Well that doesn’t sound nearly as exciting.”

“Real life generally isn’t,” he couldn’t resist pointing out.

Before Alicia could respond, Edison pulled a large pocket watch from his vest, and snapped it open. “We’d best make for the station.” He looked at Briar. “Train leaves at half past.”

He stood and made Emmeline a graceful bow. “Thank you for the hospitality, Mrs. Forrest. It’s much appreciated. Crane, thank you for the luncheon.”

Briar sprang from her own chair. Her purse clinked she pulled it from the table. “Yes, it’s been most delightful. I hope we’ll have occasion to see each other again.”

She followed her brother out of the restaurant as Meena, Alicia, and Emmeline gathered their things.

Spencer stopped at the maître d’ station to pay the bill, then followed the ladies outside. The midday sun colored everything with the intensity of a child’s coloring book. The deep blue water edged by the bright white sands, and behind them, the waterfront shops, a blocky hodge podge of colors.

It was days like this that made him grateful he’d raised Alicia away from the filth and grime of London.

He increased his speed, catching up with the three ladies as they made their way toward the shore. They stopped at the edge of the pier. All three leaned over the railing, entertained by a pair of seals swimming just beyond the pilings. The graceful creatures dove among the thick tar-covered poles, circling each other with amazing speed.

The ladies watched, pointing and laughing at the sleek brown animals, absorbed in a world of their own.

He should chime in. He raked a hand through his hair, thinking hard.

Nothing.

The kind of conversation he had with women suited a bedroom, not a boardwalk. Damnable hell. How hard could it be to make some silly comment about the weather?

The Jonquil had done it a million times in crowded ballrooms. In intimate boudoirs. The setting hadn’t mattered in the least. He couldn’t think when he’d ever lost his tongue around a woman. A woman he had no interest in keeping.

The thought shook him to his core.

Was he becoming attached?

With a splash, the seals disappeared, leaving white rings of foam behind to mark their presence.

Emmeline looked from Meena to Spencer. “I think we’ll be heading home.” She tapped her niece on the shoulder. “I believe you have school work to finish?”

The look on Alicia’s face told Spencer what she thought about facing school work on such a beautiful day.

Her shoulders slumped. “I know. “

Emmeline took her arm. “I have a few more tasks on my list as well. We’ll see you this evening.”

Spencer leaned over the railing again and clasped his hands together. The grayish-green water undulated back and forth around the pilings in a most pleasing pattern. If he stared at it long enough, perhaps it would mesmerize him into finding his long-lost conversational skills.

While he knew well how to bed a woman, he didn’t much know how to talk to one it seemed. Without undue conceit, it was fair to say he could seduce. He could befuddle, flatter, cajole.

But he couldn’t befriend.

While he was wool gathering, Meena had inched closer. The tight sleeve of her sea green day dress came within a hair’s breadth of his arm. Her skirts caressed the backs of his legs through the thin wool of his trousers.

She leaned in close, close enough that her sweet, clean scent filled his senses.

“I had always understood red roses to signify passion,” she murmured. Her breath caressed his ear, sending a jolt of the same straight through him.

And she hadn’t even touched him.

Spencer cleared his throat. Sensations he had no business feeling in the middle of the day, in the middle of the city, paralyzed him.

Meena traced a line down his arm. “I particularly wondered, as you sent quite a lot of them.” She stared into his eyes. “I was hoping we could explore that hypothesis more fully.”

Spencer tried to swallow, but his mouth was uncommonly dry. “You— I—”

Meena nodded decisively. “I was hoping you’d say that.” She pushed off from the railing. “As this may be our last night together, I suggest we meet in your study. Midnight should be late enough, don’t you think?” She walked away, not even waiting for his response.

Spencer forced his legs to work. He lumbered after her, like some sort of Frankenstein’s monster, only the most primitive parts of his brain functioning.

She wanted passion.

She wanted him.

Good thing he wasn’t one to disappoint a lady.

* * *

Midnight took far longer to arrive than it usually did.

Meena was sure the hours had slowed to at least twice their normal length. It seemed like days before she snuck down the stairs to join Crane in his study.

She hadn’t expected that she would go through with it. There were so very many risks.

For the first hour, she tried to talk herself out of it.

Pacing from the bed to the window, she reminded herself Crane was a cad. She’d allowed him to break her heart once already. From the window back to the bed, she determined she could take a lover in London anytime she wished. Crane couldn’t be the only man who knew what he was about in the boudoir, could he? They’d made love before, it couldn’t be that much different, that much more exciting, now that they were older, could it?

She very much suspected that it could, unfortunately.

She shivered in anticipation.

The second hour mostly involved the excruciating awareness of each minute as it crept by. By the time the clock struck midnight and she could be reasonably certain his aunt and sister were asleep, Meena was crawling out of her skin.

No matter the cost, she wanted him.

She wanted a last night of passion with the man who had stolen her heart.

Before she could change her mind, she slipped on the rose satin robe Mrs. Hapgood had given her the Christmas past, edged out onto the landing, and tiptoed down the stairs.

Crane looked up from the paperwork spread across his desk. The tight line of his jaw, and the grim set to his mouth sent an icy panic sluicing through her.

Meena froze, half way through the doorway. She gripped the fine walnut trim of doorjamb with stiff fingers. “You’ve changed your mind.”

He couldn’t have.

Not after all the clandestine looks he’d thrown at her across the dinner table. At one point, she caught him looking at her with such intensity, she wondered if she might burst into flames while passing the roasted potatoes.

But now the look on his face was cold, distant. Had those hours in the dark, waiting for his aunt and his sister to fall asleep, given him time to come to his senses?

The waiting had only stoked the fires building inside her. She couldn’t wait to be in his arms, to run her hands over the velvety male skin, the hard muscles, so very different from her own.

To feel him inside her.

Meena blinked in the dim light of the oil lamp on Crane’s desk. She pressed a hand over the knotted sash of her robe. Usually, the beautiful wrap made her feel ever so elegant. Now she wondered if it had been a serious miscalculation.

The women in Mr. Nance’s novels were forever courting love and danger in their nightwear. But standing across from Crane, still in trousers, his linen shirt unbuttoned halfway down his broad chest, she felt more like a little girl than a sensation novel heroine.

She was close to shutting the door and retreating in disgrace when he finally responded.

He rose from his seat, unfolding, until he seemed taller, broader, stronger even. His dark eyes glittered in the lamp’s flame. “There is nothing in heaven or hell that would change my mind.”

He crossed the room and took her hand, pulling her inside the room. Then he reached behind her and closed the door with a soft click. The merest snick of metal on metal told her he’d locked it as well.

Without taking his eyes off of her, he took both of her hands in his, and drew her close. “Have you changed yours?”

A lady could get lost in those eyes. Not exactly brown nor exactly green. But deep, dark, and wholly intoxicating. Meena shook her head vehemently.

Her mouth seemed incapable of forming words.

His thumbs made lazy circles across the backs of her hands. The motion was hypnotic, mesmerizing in the extreme.

Meena took a deep breath and stared up into his beautiful face. “I have no intention of changing my mind.”

The smile that dawned on Crane’s face made her breath quicken. His fingers trailed down the side of her neck, then toyed with the bow at the center of her nightgown. When his knuckles brushed the skin just above her breasts, she gasped.

“You are so soft.” He kept his voice low. They were both well aware of the ladies sleeping above stairs. When he murmured, the low timbre of his voice sizzled through her, like one of Edison’s electrical currents.

Instead of shocking her, the energy sang in her veins, heightening her arousal.

Crane traced the line of her jaw with a knuckle. “What in blazing hell could make you think I would change my mind.”

She needed to answer him, but his mouth was so close, so very very close to hers.

As if he’d read her mind, he lowered his mouth, erasing the inches between them. His lips brushed hers with a feather-light touch that made her ache.

Eager to deepen the kiss, Meena opened her mouth to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him. “Crane,” she breathed against his mouth.

He gave a soft, husky groan. And suddenly, his mouth was rough and demanding. Electrical energy snapped and crackled between them. Meena wondered that her hair didn’t stand on end. His hands moved down her back, settling just above her buttocks, pulling her against him.

Meena shivered with need. Caught up in the energy, she clutched his shoulders, hanging on for dear life.

Well before she wanted him to, he broke off the kiss and took her face between his hands. “It’s past time for you to call me by my Christian name, don’t you think?”

In the shadowy glow of the lamp, his expression was not that of a gentle lover. He exuded a raw, compelling hunger that matched her own.

She shivered, but not from nerves. Anticipation pulsed through her. “You make an excellent point… Spencer.”

A small smile played across his face.

That small movement sent her spinning over the edge. She loved him, she realized. She always had. “Spencer.” She kissed the pulse point at the base of his throat. “Spencer, Spencer, Spencer.”

A low growl was all the warning she had before he claimed her lips again. His mouth was wet and hungry on her skin. An exquisite excitement made her catch her breath. This was what she needed. This desperate, intense passion.

How she’d missed it.

Spencer scooped her up in his arms and carried her across the room. He set her down next to his desk. Then he pulled her to him. His hands went to the fastenings of her nightgown.

Meena was amazed to realize that his fingers, so skilled and sensitive with locks and keys, trembled. She could hear his breathing. Hot. Urgent. When she touched him, she discovered the muscles of his shoulders beneath his shirt were rigid.

Soon, he would be inside her.

She never dared dream this would happen again. Perhaps allowing one’s self to be swept away by passion was not as foolish as she had maintained.

Or perhaps it was exactly so—and the price mattered not.

The bow at the top of her nightgown came undone. Warm air caressed her bare breasts, tickling her skin, making her nipples pebble. Nothing veiled her from his gaze.

He bent his head and kissed her throat, striking a trail of fire from the edge of her ear down to her collarbone, making her shiver in his arms. His thumb grazed a nipple, sending little tremors through her. She took his shoulders in her palms, revealing in the strength and power she found there, wanting to touch him more intimately.

Without warning, he cupped her buttocks in his large hands and lifted her up, setting her on the edge of the desk. Ledgers and correspondence spilled off the back side and tumbled to the floor.

The next thing she knew his mouth had taken the place of his hand on her breast. When his teeth closed around her nipple, she gasped. He raised his head and silenced her with another smoldering kiss.

When he pushed the skirts of her gown upward, slowly sliding them up above her knees, a shiver of passion rocked her. His hands closed over her thighs, pushing them gently apart.

Her pulse skittered wildly. She was still adjusting to the stunning intimacy of his touch when he slid his fingers inside her. The searing heat of his palm on the most private portion of her was both outrageous and exquisitely thrilling.

“You want me still,” he whispered hoarsely. “Say it. You want me as badly as I want you.”

“I do.” She tightened her hands in his hair. “Oh, yes.”

Her head spun. The world outside his study ceased to exist. This was what it meant to be consumed by passion.

“You’re so soft. So ready for me.” He stroked her. “You’re driving me mad.” He thrust his fingers inside her again, at the same time, he caressed the skin between her breasts with his cheek, roughed by an evening’s stubble.

She moaned, arching against his hand. When his lips found her breast, and he suckled hard, she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming in delight.

He pulled back, away from her. Even in the warm room, she felt his loss. Then she realized he was opening the front of his trousers. When she glanced down, she glimpsed his hand wrapped around his erection. She wanted to touch him, to wrap her own fingers around his member. But slowly, carefully, he was already pushing himself into the melting core of her body.

She wanted more. Desperate, she wriggled her hips, urging him deeper.

His soft laugh tickled the shell of her ear. His teeth grazed the lobe. When she gasped, he claimed her mouth with his, thrusting his tongue deep inside. His hands cupped her taught breasts. Then he gripped her buttocks, and pulled her onto his shaft with a single thrust, sinking himself to the hilt inside her.

For a heartbeat they were joined, then Spencer eased out of her.

She held her breath.

He stopped just short of her entrance and pushed slowly, steadily back into her. Meena tossed her head back, and gasped at the feelings running through her.

Spencer kissed her, silencing her cries. He repeated the magic, withdrawing, then stroking deeply back into her.

The familiar wave of pleasure neared it’s crest. She spiraled higher, and higher still.

Spencer must have sensed it, because he chose that instant to palm her sensitive nipples, rolling them between his fingertips as she convulsed.

Not an instant later, he followed her over the cliffs. The deep, masculine gasp that exploded as he thrust into her for a final time prolonged her pleasure.

Still deep within her, Spencer’s chest rose and feel with the strength of his release. Meena marveled at the masculine beauty looming over her. Inside her.

No wonder the ladies in Mr. Nance’s sensation novels risked all for their men. Not that they would dare engage in such going’s on within the pages of a book.

Out of nowhere a giggle bubbled up. As if a writer of sensation fiction—any fiction—could describe such a glorious act.

“Am I so amusing?” Spencer was watching her, one eyebrow nearly at his hairline. As he spoke, he withdrew from her body.

“Not you.” Meena shook her head. She placed a hand in the center of his muscled chest, revealing in the feel of the crisp, dark curls under her palm. “I was just thinking about—never mind.” She stopped herself, recalling his disdain for novels.

He dropped a light kiss on her lips, then bent to pull up his trousers. “Tell me.”

Meena busied herself pulling her nightgown back over her pink, sensitized breasts. “I was thinking about Mr. Nance’s novels, and I—”

She stopped, concerned at the odd look that had come over him. She reached out to caress his rough cheek. “Are you all right?”

Spencer was stuffing his shirt back into the waistband of his trousers. “I’m fine. Perfectly fine, thank you.”

Meena bit her lip. Men were such fragile creatures. She often forgot that. “I apologize. I in no way meant to imply that I find this… I mean to say….” She took in a fortifying breath. “I don’t find making love with you in any way amusing.”

Spencer closed his eyes. The set of his jaw made her think he might be gnashing his teeth. “That is ever so reassuring.”

“It’s the truth.” She finished fastening his buttons. “Wonderful, glorious, spectacular, but never amusing. Amusing is far too frivolous a word for… this.”

Spencer pulled her nightgown down and let it fall to her feet, then he wrapped his strong hands around her thighs, just above her knees. He leaned close until the heat from his body stirred her blood all over again.

Meena sucked in a breath.

“I will take wonderful, glorious, and most assuredly spectacular, Miss Sweet.” He leaned in even closer. His breath caressed her parted lips. “Mostly, however, I want to take you. Now.”

“But Spencer—” The bulge pushing against the tweed of his trousers sent delightful shivers skittering down her spine.

She wanted him just as badly, but the faintest glow of light had begun to creep around the edges of the curtains. “It’s almost dawn.”

“Your point?” He kissed her, parting her lips, igniting fires that ran from her mouth all the way to the juncture of her thighs.

Exactly.

It was almost dawn. Not yet dawn. Cinderella’s coach would surely remain intact for a while longer.

Meena slid forward, capturing his thighs between hers. She smiled, and arched her back, thrusting her breasts closer to his chest. “Could we try this laying down?”

Spencer’s answer was a long, deep groan. He lifted her hips, standing her up against him so his erection nestled against her belly. “Your wish is my command.”

His kiss was so sweet, so long and slow and delicious, it was quite some time before Meena cared where they were.