Emily didn’t want Lord Blackstone to apologize. She wanted him to kiss her again. It was the honest to goodness truth, she thought as she donned her cloak and slipped out via the back terrace.

And if he didn’t, she would kiss him. She’d had several sleepless hours to think about it. She wasn’t going to marry, and until tonight it hadn’t occurred to her she’d be missing anything. She’d had two kisses in her life. The first was with Billy, when they’d both been eleven. Emily had read about kissing in a Minerva Press novel and commandeered her friend to practice. It had resulted only in a mutual fit of disgust, and she’d had to swear never to repeat the assault before Billy would deign to speak to her again. The second had come later, from the son of family friends of the Mannings. She’d been sixteen and curious—novels did make kissing seem like quite the thing—and the boy had been acceptable enough, if a trifle dull. The whole thing had been…not unpleasant, exactly, but uninspiring. Nothing she felt the need to repeat, and certainly not at all like its fictional counterpart. No choruses of angels. No rising tides of passion. Kissing, she’d decided, was an activity that was better read about in books than experienced by one’s person.

Obviously, she’d been wrong.

Apparently it was important to kiss the right person if you wanted rising tides of passion and choruses of angels. She shivered as she crested the hill that led to the lake, taking big gulps of the sea air that permeated the estate.

He must have excellent hearing, for he turned from where he was sitting on the dock. The brilliant moonlight gilded the planes of his shirtless chest as he leaped to his feet in a single, graceful movement, like a cat. She paused at the top of the hill, swallowing repeatedly in the hopes that it would calm the frantic pounding of her pulse in her throat. Was she really going to do this?

He lifted a hand in greeting, causing the lean muscles in his chest to undulate.

Starting down the hill, she felt a little like she was marching to her doom. Walking a short plank into an endless expanse of sea that was sure to subsume her. A kiss, she reminded herself, willing her heart to slow. Just a kiss.

“Next time, sea bathing,” he said as she approached. She struggled to make sense of the assertion—why would he think there would be a next time? Tomorrow they were returning to London, and she would almost certainly never see him again.

That last thought emboldened her. She would never see Lord Blackstone again. All the more reason to kiss him here tonight. And an excellent excuse to look her fill. She allowed her gaze to slide down, to take in the broad shoulders that narrowed to a sculpted waist. This was very likely the first and last time she would ever see a man’s naked chest. Well, she’d seen Billy’s… She shook her head. Now was not the time for memories like that. Better to concentrate on making Lord Blackstone want to kiss her again—or on screwing up her courage to kiss him.

“Next time, the sea, but tonight, the lake. Time to take your advice. Time for a swim.” Narrowing his eyes, he stared at the water intently.

Belatedly realizing her mouth was hanging open, she snapped it shut. If he’d noticed her ogling him, he was gentlemanly enough not to remark on it. She needed to get a hold of herself. She’d been thinking of nothing but the kiss she hoped they would share, when here was Lord Blackstone preparing to face his fear.

Clearing her throat, she considered the situation. A small part of her protested that it was difficult to do so when her companion’s shirt had gone missing. He stood so close that she could feel the heat radiating off him. Despite it, and the warm night, she shivered. She took a step away. “Will it help if I go in first?”

He glanced at her before returning his attention to the lake, one corner of his mouth turning up slightly. “Why? So you can rescue me if I begin to flail?”

“No.” She felt suddenly foolish. “I meant only to offer moral support.” To have presumed that her presence would have any effect on the proceedings as Lord Blackstone faced his demons was a schoolgirl’s naive fantasy. “But of course I’ll just stay here and—”

“Thank you, yes. I think it will help enormously if you go in first.” He looked her up and down, clinically, as if he were inspecting a horse at Tattersalls. Before she could think what to say, he turned his back. “Tell me when you’re in.” When she didn’t move, he shot her a look over his shoulder. “Good Lord, Miss Mirren, you can’t go in in your cloak and gown, or you’ll be weighed down so much that I’ll have to rescue you.”

He did have a point. And despite the moonlight, the water was very dark. One couldn’t see beneath its glassy, black surface at all. Once she was in, her modesty would be well enough preserved.

“Do you need help?” A teasing tone made its way into his speech. “I’m quite at your service should you require any assistance disrobing.”

“No!” It came out a shout, spurring her to action. Throwing off her cloak, she willed clumsy fingers to make quick work of the pearl buttons that ran down the front of her bodice. She hopped around on the dock as the dress slid into a pool at her feet, followed by her stockings. Without pausing long enough to allow herself to think better of the whole absurd affair, she ran off the edge of the dock.

The normally cold water was icier than usual without the warmth of the sun. Surfacing, she swallowed the shriek that had risen up her throat and began to tread water. There wasn’t a chance to catch her breath before Lord Blackstone began unbuttoning the fall of his breeches. He must have dispensed with his boots while she was underwater.

“Wait!” she gasped. It was enough to interrupt his progress. “Leave your smalls on!”

A wicked smile blossomed across his face. “How can you be certain I’m wearing any?”

Her cheeks burst into flame, and she turned. He probably thought she was averting her face so she wouldn’t have to look at him, but in truth she didn’t want him to see how much he’d discomfited her. The assault on her senses continued unabated when he pounded down the dock and launched himself off the edge like a cannonball. The enormous splash that resulted had her sputtering and wiping her eyes.

She needed to prepare herself for anything. He’d teased her about saving him if he drowned, but what if he did have a strong negative reaction? What if his memories came rushing back?

More importantly, what in heaven’s name had she been thinking? The cold water had a sobering effect. Here she was in the middle of the night, swimming in her chemise with a man who might or might not be wearing smallclothes. Not just any man—an earl. A potentially naked earl whose brother drowned in this very lake.

Where was he? He hadn’t broken the surface yet. “Lord Blackstone!” she called. “My lord!” He’d overshot her with his dramatic jump, and she swam toward where he’d hit the water. Dear God, if she couldn’t find him, she was going to have to get out and run to the house.

He was going to die in the same watery grave as his brother, and it would be her fault.

“Please, Lord Blackstone!” Her voice had risen, become shrill. Making a conscious effort to lower it in the hope that a more resonant tone would carry down through the water, she tried once more. “Eric!”

With as little warning as accompanied his entrance into the water, he shot up, suddenly next to her. And he was grinning.

She slapped him.

Ha! That wiped the smug look off his face. His eyebrows flew up and his hand went to his cheek.

She didn’t even bother trying to temper the accusation in her voice as she swam to the dock and grabbed one of its posts, willing her runaway heart to slow. “That was a very mean-spirited trick.” No doubt he would have something withering to say, something that would make her feel she’d overreacted. “I thought you were…” The thought was too unbearable to finish.

“I’m sorry,” he said simply. “You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.” He swam over and took hold of the nearest post, which put him a few feet from her. The moonlight washed over him, making his wet skin shine. “It’s just that, when I hit the water, something happened.”

“What?”

“I realized I wasn’t afraid.”

Her anger melted into the cold water.

He looked around, as if seeing the lake for the first time. “I’ve given this place too much power. The lake didn’t kill my brother. He killed himself. I should know. I watched it happen.”

She tried to mask her shock, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he stared at the middle of the lake, oddly expressionless. He’d witnessed the suicide—a detail he’d omitted in his recounting last night. How horrific.

“There was a storm that night. You knew that.”

She nodded, though he still didn’t turn his gaze to her.

“I was awakened by his valet, who reported him missing.” It was as if he were speaking to someone else entirely, giving a speech to a remote audience. “That wasn’t altogether unusual, but unlike other times he’d disappeared, we didn’t find him hiding in a closet, or lost in the maze.”

“You found him here,” she finished, wanting to prompt him to continue, but also feeling—foolishly, perhaps—that she might share some of his burden by supplying the words to continue his tale.

“We organized a search of the grounds—and, yes, found him in the lake. He’d paddled out to the center. The storm was raging. It was black as pitch except when lightning offered brief flashes of illumination. During the flashes, I could see that he was cutting himself.”

“Cutting himself?” She didn’t understand. “Deliberately?”

“He used to carve things into his flesh. Words and shapes. He said it made him feel better.” The mild tone he used was at odds with the awful images his words conjured.

Emily thought it important she not react with the horror she felt, so she strove for evenness as she asked, “What kinds of words?”

“It started with my mother’s name—Christine. Then it moved on to other things. They seemed random, but they would repeat. ‘Ocean,’ appeared a great deal toward the end.

“I used to try to stop him,” he said quickly, looking at her for the first time since he’d begun the story. “It got so I could read the warning signs and could tell when he was going to make a new cut. Toward the end, he made me watch. I tried to take the knife from him, of course, but any attempt to intervene would enrage him. He’d hold the blade to his throat and threaten to slit it if I didn’t sit calmly and watch him hurt himself so badly.”

Emily reached a hand toward him, wanting to comfort, but he waved her off and stared into space again as he resumed the gruesome tale.

“That night, I could see that he was cutting himself—well, not see exactly, because it was dark and he was far away, but I could tell by his stance, by his rapt concentration. I screamed myself hoarse trying to get his attention but he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—hear me. He never looked up from his…work.

“Just as I was pulling my boots off, he jumped over the edge of the boat. I swam out after him, but it was so dark. I kept diving, but I couldn’t find him. Eventually a group of servants pulled me out by force. The next morning they dredged the lake.” He turned once more to look at her. “You know the rest.” The last sentence was delivered in a different voice. Instead of calm and remote, his voice had become thick and gravelly. He cleared his throat and offered a small, sheepish smile. “But I can see now that this”—he lifted one arm and gestured vaguely around them, water sluicing off his muscled biceps—“is just a lake.” His smile deepened, softening his hard, angular features.

A smile, after such a tale, felt like a reprieve, and she couldn’t help but return it. “It’s a very nice lake.”

“A gem among lakes, didn’t you say?”

“I believe I did.”

“That is high praise indeed. We know you’re something of an authority, having no doubt read several books on the topic.”

The sour, serious peer was gone, at least for now, replaced by the man she’d caught a glimpse of that first night in the library. It was as if his cool recitation of his story had transformed him, freed him from its chains. She didn’t believe that the change would be permanent, but for now, she wanted to prolong the moment and hold onto this version of Lord Blackstone, who seemed, suddenly, very much like a friend. Her heart wrenched. One could forget how lonely one was until, suddenly, for one bittersweet moment, one wasn’t.

But of course there was no way to voice all this. She couldn’t even think of a suitably clever retort. So she settled for splashing him.

“Ooof!” The indignant grunt echoed across the water, and she braced herself for the inevitable retaliation. She was surprised when it didn’t come.

“I suppose I deserved that.” He looked contrite. “I am sorry about scaring you earlier.”

“It’s all right. I’m just glad you—ahhhh!” A wall of water hit her face, leaving her sputtering. “You blackguard!”

He lunged, but she dodged him. “Did you just call me a blackguard? I’ll remind you that I’m a peer of the realm.”

“You’re not acting very aristocratic, my lord.” Taking a deep gulp of air, she dove. The dark surface of the water would obscure her direction. Swimming way down, she aimed to come up just behind him, and when she did, took great satisfaction in the sight of him looking around wildly, unable to locate her. Using both arms to scoop the water’s surface, she sent a torrent of water his way. She shrieked in delight as he turned, mouth hanging open in surprise.

“Or very gentlemanly,” she added, attempting to push off the dock to escape the revenge he would no doubt seek. He was too fast. Pouncing, he caught her and hauled her back to the dock, hooking the elbow of his injured arm around a post to stabilize them. Though she laughingly resisted for a moment, his pull was too strong. She reached for the same post he held.

“Shall I point out that you’re not acting very ladylike yourself?” he rasped into her ear, as if he wanted to share a secret at a crowded party. Though his breath was warm on her cheek, an icy bolt of lightning shot down her spine.

Her breasts were covered in wet linen. Though she’d always thought of them as disappointingly small, not the sorts of fleshy mounds men were said to favor, next to the hard planes of his chest, they were pleasingly soft and feminine. With a start, she realized he was looking at them, too. A wicked thought arose. She wanted to close the few inches between them, to press her soft curves against his unyielding chest, to really feel the difference between their bodies.

And she still wanted to kiss him. This was her chance.

Did she dare?

He could have stopped it. There was a split second when Blackstone realized, with great incredulity, that Miss Mirren was going to kiss him. The right thing to do was to release her, to move back, to restore some semblance of propriety to the encounter. It’s what a gentleman would do.

But right now, he couldn’t seem to override the very loud and insistent voice in his head that proclaimed it wanted to know what those delectable little breasts would feel like crushed against his chest. It insisted on feeling, just once more, those bee-stung lips opening to admit him.

He attributed it to the joy. This odd, unfamiliar feeling that had begun the moment he turned and saw her appear. That whispered, with amazement, “She came,” as he watched her walk down the dock, bathed in moonlight.

It had started slowly, a slight lifting of the ever-present burden. A lightening. Then, when she’d offered to go in the water ahead of him, his heart had wrenched. She was good, like her father. And now she’d trained the full force of that goodness on him, sacrificing modesty and decorum to do something so ridiculous as swim with him in the middle of the night, simply because she thought it would ease his mind.

And then, hearing the splash of her entry into the water, it was as if she’d sliced off a gangrenous, shriveled part of his soul, her body a cauterizing knife as she sluiced into the water. He’d shouted a happy war cry as he ran off the dock, heeding the voice that urged him to hurl himself into a better, lighter, future.

He hadn’t even thought of Alec until he hit the water. Alec, whom the whole bloody exercise was supposed to be about. Waiting for the guilt to flood in, he’d pumped his legs and swum as fast as he could underwater, as if he could outswim his brother’s ghost.

But the guilt didn’t come. Even as he told Miss Mirren the whole story of that night, it didn’t come. Alec was dead, yes. He would be missed always. But that had nothing to do with this lake, with this night. With this woman, he thought, feeling his prick jump even as he swam through the icy water.

It was only then that her shouts penetrated the water. “Eric!” she’d screamed. He’d startled at the use of his Christian name. Since he’d ascended the title, no one used it. The last person to call him Eric had probably been Alec. Until Emily Mirren.

Who was here, now, in his arms, looking for all the world as if she were about to kiss him.

He stayed still, lifting his gaze from her lovely décolletage to her eyes, which gleamed in the moonlight. Time slowed down. Was this what maidens felt like, awaiting their first kiss, all nerves and fluttery anticipation?

Tamping down the urge to pull her closer, he waited, ignoring the aching in his cock. The idea of letting her do the kissing seemed important, somehow, and also strangely, intensely arousing.

Holding the post with one hand, she pressed the other down on his forearm, using the buoyancy of the water to lever herself up a little. He shifted his attention to her lips, concentrating on them until the world shrank and those pink pillows of flesh were all he saw.

The blood pounding in his ears and his groin seemed deafening, until she drew a sharp intake of breath as she came closer, a sweet inhale that presaged what was to come—as if she knew she would soon be left breathless, gasping. That breath rang in his ears as finally—finally!—she pressed her lips against his. Letting her set the pace, he followed the sweet, tentative movements of her mouth. After a few moments, he groaned with the effort of holding back. She must have interpreted it as a sign of approval, for she sighed as her lips came apart. The invitation was unmistakable and almost impossible to resist, but he still believed she should take the lead. So he measured his reaction, opening his mouth slightly to mirror hers.

The freezing water was the only thing saving him from spending himself like an untried boy as her tongue made a gentle, tentative incursion into his mouth. A groan broke from him, coming from deep in his throat as he sucked on the velvety softness of her tongue. When she closed the final few inches between their bodies, the stab of pleasure that ripped through him bordered on painful. Her chemise had slipped off one shoulder, leaving a breast exposed. Its softness was like balm and, oh God, he could feel her nipple against his skin. He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but he felt even lighter than when he’d jumped off the dock. His burdens were melting away, kissed away by a water nymph. Unable to help himself, he brushed his hand down the side of her breast. His thumb grazed a nipple hardened into a taut nib from the cold—or, he flattered himself, perhaps from the passion they shared.

And she was passionate, he thought, as the kiss went on and on. Of course she was. An unmarried woman who single-handedly took on the cause of abolition and spied on a powerful man like Manning had passion in spades. He would expect no less from Captain Mirren’s daughter.

Captain Mirren’s daughter. Oh, God. Captain Mirren’s daughter, who was endangering his mission to get Le Cafard. In any other circumstance, her meddling would make her enemy number one.

It took only the gentlest pressure to push her away, but at the same time, it took all the strength he had. “We can’t do this,” he whispered.

“I’m sorry,” she breathed, turning her head away.

Wanting to howl at the idea that he’d caused her to feel any shame, he hooked a thumb under her chin and forced her to look at him. “I’m not.” And he wasn’t. Tomorrow, he’d force himself to start thinking of her as the threat she was. Today, though, he couldn’t make himself regret this extraordinary interlude.

“Lord Blackstone, please accept my apology.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“I threw myself at you.”

She looked adorably mortified. “And I enjoyed catching you very much.”

“Worse than my assault upon your person, this was supposed to be about you facing your fears, and I’ve gone and—”

“Hush.” He ran a finger over her lips—one last caress of that sensuous pout. He cursed the night. If he was going to completely lose his head, transgress the boundaries of common decency, and offend the memory of his captain, he would have enjoyed doing it inside. In a bed. Under the high noon sun. How he wished he could look his fill of her whole delectable body, just once.

But it was not to be. “We both got carried away, but there’s no harm done.” He searched her eyes. “Is there?”

“No, of course not. I’m just sorry I used you so rudely.”

He swallowed a laugh. “You used me?”

“Yes. I wanted to…”

The darkness could not hide her blush. He raised his eyebrows, merciless. “You wanted to what?”

She bit her bottom lip. Goddamn, but he wished those were his teeth there and not hers. “I wanted to know what it felt like to kiss a gentleman.”

“And what did it feel like?”

“It was enjoyable.”

Enjoyable? He coughed instead of letting her hear the indignant protest that almost escaped. Enjoyable didn’t even begin to cover it.

She moved toward the ladder. “Will you please turn away, my lord?”

He wanted to ask her to call him Eric again, as she’d done before when she’d shouted for him, but he knew she would not comply. So he turned away, but only for a moment before stealthily turning back. Devil that he was, he wanted to watch her, to memorize her, to add to the trove of memories he would carry from this night.

Her shoulder blades undulated as she lifted herself out of the water. The moonlight cast a silvery glow over the elegant planes of her back. Stepping onto the dock, she reached back with one hand and squeezed water from her hair, gathering the wet locks and pulling them to her front, over her right shoulder, revealing skin the color of milk.

And an angry, raised, red scar that ran from her neck all the way down to disappear into the neckline of her chemise, which, loosened and soaked as it was, hung halfway down her back.

He was out of the water in a flash, tracing the raised scar tissue, wanting to see how low it went.

“What is this?” He tried to keep his voice mild but could hear in the growl that came out that he had fallen short.

Jerking away, she turned to face him. “It’s nothing.”

“Who did this to you?” he persisted, once again failing to deliver the question with equanimity. He extended his hand toward her, the way a man did to show an enemy he came in peace. It wasn’t her he was angry with. “Please, won’t you tell me what happened?”

As she stood, shivering in the moonlight, trying to cover herself, he saw how utterly vulnerable she was. Running all over England after a dangerous traitor, penning controversial newspaper articles.

“I tried to help a slave escape, and I ran afoul of his master.”

The breath hissed from him. That was a whip mark. “Who did this to you?” he asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

“Does it matter?” she whispered.

“No,” he lied, striding past her, heedless of his nakedness, and picking up his greatcoat. He returned and settled it over her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. We should go back to the house. It’s an early start for the journey to London tomorrow.”

But of course it mattered a great deal. The man who had done this to Captain Mirren’s only child would spend the rest of his life paying for his sins.

As they walked back to the house, he watched Miss Mirren shiver and thought about that scar. He thought about the letter, about Edward Markham.

She was reckless. Brave, but reckless. It was only a matter of time before she got seriously hurt—or worse.

And she was in the way. She stood between him and Manning, and Manning was the bridge to Le Cafard. He needed to remember that.

An idea rose, fully formed, in his mind.