Their return to the Hall was triumphant, and the news of their betrothal sent the entire household into alt.

Congratulations and good wishes rained down on their heads.

Richard suggested, and Jacqueline readily agreed, that in light of the many who had a right to know the full tale of Wallace’s perfidy and the true nature of the threat that had been leveled at Nimway Hall, a general gathering in the great hall was in order.

Everyone leapt on the idea, and summonses were gladly run to the farms and the cottages.

Three hours later, as dusk took hold, all the people of Nimway Hall—men, women, and children—gathered in the great hall.

At Jacqueline’s nod, Richard commenced their retelling at the point where, lost in the wood, he’d come across a then-unknown gentleman and his accomplice discussing a diversion of the stream. That information immediately fixed the attention of everyone there. Richard continued, relating Wallace’s subsequent offer of water and his attempt to seize the orb—which Jacqueline had, once again, brought down to the great hall and placed on the mantelpiece there for all to see that the Hall’s good luck charm was still with them.

Eventually, Jacqueline took up the tale, describing her kidnapping and the gist of her moments with Wallace at his house.

Rumblings among those gathered suggested it was as well that they hadn’t sought to bring Wallace back as a prisoner. But then Jacqueline described Richard’s arrival and that of the other men, and the consequent vanquishing of Sir Peregrine Wallace and the comprehensive overturning of all his plans, and her eloquent descriptions returned the smiles to every face.

Richard concluded by outlining the penance they had enforced on Wallace and hinted at the retribution that would ensue should Wallace again step over any line with respect to the denizens of the Hall, and relief and resurgent happiness flowed through the assembled crowd.

Then Hugh cleared his throat and, in ringing accents, announced that as Jacqueline’s guardian, he was pleased to announce her betrothal to Lord Richard Devries, known to the assembled throng as Richard Montague.

Although the news of their betrothal had already filtered through the crowd, hearing it officially declared as well as learning Richard’s family name—one even those in deepest Somerset recognized—set the seal on the resultant celebrations.

As Richard stood beside Jacqueline, a mug of ale in his hand, and smiled and laughed at the many toasts proposed in their name, he felt more at home than he ever had in his life.

Eventually, the celebration wound down, and people headed off to find their beds.

As had become their habit, with the Hall settling into its accustomed peace about them, Richard and Jacqueline were the last to climb the stairs. Tonight, Elinor had gone ahead. Cruickshank, too, had repaired to his room, leaving the great hall already wreathed in shadows.

With only each other to think of, hand in hand, Richard and Jacqueline stepped into the gallery. The single candlestick sat on the side table, waiting to light their way.

In the shaft of moonlight filtering through the gallery windows, Jacqueline paused and studied Richard’s face. When he arched his brows, inviting her question, she softly asked, “What made you turn back?”

He held her gaze for a long moment, then in the same quiet tone, replied, “To understand that, you need to know why I left.”

She tipped her head, inviting his confidence—confident he would accept.

Lips twisting in faint self-mockery, Richard reached for her hands; he took one in each of his, then met her gaze. “This is my story—the most important parts, the start and the end of my relevant past. Long ago, when I was barely twenty, I almost fell victim to a young lady who had set her sights on my money and my title. That was all she was interested in, but she was skilled at dissembling, and I believed I was in love with her and she with me. I learned my error, but only just in time. From that day forward, I learned to avoid young ladies who showed any interest in me as a husband.”

Understanding glimmered in her eyes.

“But it wasn’t only that that sent me fleeing from here.” Briefly, he recounted the response of the ton’s matchmakers to his great-aunt’s declaration and described his recent escape from being kidnapped and forced into offering for some lady’s hand.

“Good Lord!” Through the shadows, she stared at him. “I would never have imagined a gentleman might be pursued in such a way.” She paused, then added, “Exactly as I have been.”

Wryly, he inclined his head. “In many ways, my experience of would-be suitors has mirrored yours.” After a moment, he went on, “So when you showed interest in me, I…didn’t stop to think—I simply reacted. As I invariably have through the years—as I’d long ago learned I must in order to live life as I wished it, by my own choice.”

She smiled commiseratingly and gripped his fingers. “I triggered a reaction that was too deeply ingrained for you to shrug aside.”

He nodded.

“So what brought you back?”

He held her gaze for an instant, then confessed, “Your wood. It brought me to you, and it turned me back—via a branch to the head.”

She blinked, then struggled to keep her lips straight. “Really?”

He grimaced. “Malcolm the Great jibbed and distracted me, and I ran into a branch. I fell from my saddle and was jolted enough to set my wits spinning. When they settled…I realized what I’d done.” His eyes found hers through the dimness. “That this time, in you, I had finally found a lady I loved, one who might, possibly, love me back. And I saw that I was fleeing from what might prove to be my one and only chance to create the sort of life I truly wanted.” Holding her gaze, he raised her fingers to his lips, first one hand, then the other. Then he drew breath and stated, “Finally, I saw things clearly. That a life with you, by your side, is my heart’s one true desire.”

Jacqueline smiled, letting the emotions welling inside her invest the gesture. “I’m glad you came back. Even had Wallace not seized me, my heart would have sung simply to see you return—I love you so much. More than I’d imagined could be. And yet with every day that passes and I learn more of you, I only love you more.”

He held her gaze, his expression serious, yet filled with hope. “I’ve heard it said that love is a journey during which one learns more and feels more intensely with every passing season. I pray our love will be like that, forever growing. I’m sure there’ll be challenges, yet…”

Her voice clear and strong, she took up the creed. “Yet as long as we’re together—meeting life side by side—come what may, as we did today, we’ll meet every challenge and triumph.”

His lips curved. He raised one of her hands and pressed a lingering kiss to her knuckles. “Come what may. Into the future as lord and lady, side by side.”

Eagerness unfurled inside her. She curled her fingers and gripped his. Holding his gaze, she let her certainty speak for her. “Our future, my lord, starts now. Tonight.”

He searched her eyes as if to confirm her meaning. When she only looked more eager, his lips curved, then he murmured, “I feel compelled to ask—are you sure?”

“Yes.” Her voice had grown husky, her tone sultry. Allowing her expression to underscore her answer, she released one of his hands and, still gripping the other, her eyes locked with his, tugged and stepped toward her door. “Come.”

For a second longer, Richard searched her eyes, her face, then he leaned to the side, blew out the candle, and went—finally, after all his years of resisting, he surrendered and followed an unmarried young lady into her bedchamber.

There, the moonlight fell in soft swaths across the polished boards, reaching to shed a gentle radiance upon and about her bed.

He closed the door behind him and heard the latch click. Signaling, for him, an end and also a beginning.

Jacqueline walked to the clear space before the bed; when she halted and swung to face him, the moonlight paid homage to her beauty.

As he walked toward her, he catalogued anew the silver gilt of her hair, the delicate lines of her features. Her eyes, those glorious eyes that had fascinated him from the first, that had reached into him—to his soul—and touched, caressed, were wreathed in shadows and mystery.

He halted before her, and she tilted her head. Then she stretched up, her hands rising to his shoulders as he grasped her waist and drew her nearer. Drew her to him. She came up on her toes as he bent his head, and their lips met.

In a kiss of exultation. Of triumph.

Their lips melded and matched, then he traced her lower lip with the tip of his tongue, and she opened for him. Bold and confident, he slid his tongue between the soft contours and settled to explore. To learn and to entice, to engage her senses.

She followed eagerly, with an innocent abandon—an implicit trust—that touched and tamed him. That gave him the strength to ignore the primitive urge her transparent surrender evoked and, instead, devote himself to her pleasure. To ensuring it above all else.

Jacqueline found her wits whirling and inwardly marveled. So this was what giddy delight felt like.

Assiduously, she set herself to follow his lead, eager to learn the paths, to explore any and all byways.

Along the road to passion. To the fulfillment of their desires.

There was no impediment. This was meant to be. She’d waited for years for him to come to her, and now that he was there, acknowledged as her betrothed before her people, accepted by all, she was eager to take the next step—to pass through the veil of sensual innocence and explore what lay beyond.

With him. In truth, she couldn’t imagine taking this path if it wasn’t him in whose arms she stood. He was the key to unlocking the door of passion for her.

When his hands shifted, palms and fingers gliding over her curves, up to feather over her bodice, over the swells of her breasts, setting the sensitive skin exposed above her neckline prickling, she caught her breath on a rush of desire.

She knew it was desire, that anticipation that sharpened her senses and set her nerves on edge. That triggered the compulsion to kiss him more fiercely, to return his escalating ardor in full measure. His palms settled over her breasts, and her breath suspended. His hands weighed, then his fingers shifted and firmed, seeking and finding the tightened buds of her nipples beneath the fine brocade of her bodice. His fingertips gripped, squeezed—dexterous and deliberate—and sensation streaked through her, and she gasped through the kiss.

Immediately, he soothed her, drew back, and let her sparking nerves relax, but when, wordlessly through their kiss, she pushed for more, he repeated the exercise, his touch, this time, more forceful, the result commensurately more potent.

Within seconds, she felt drunk—drunk on the pleasurable sensations his clever fingers evoked and stoked.

Richard couldn’t get enough of the woman in his arms. A goddess who was his and his alone to worship, to his senses, she personified all he desired. Her lips moving beneath his entranced and captivated; the delights of the succulent haven of her mouth lured him in and trapped him. In that moment, he knew nothing more than his flaring need to be her lover, to make her his and give himself to her.

To that end, he set about educating her senses and appeasing his own.

The firm curves of her breasts, even shielded by the fabric of her bodice, filled his hands as if sculpted exclusively for him. Her response to even the lightest of caresses spurred him on.

Spurred him to send one hand sliding down, over her stomach, over her hip, to caress the globes of her derriere, smoothing and molding the silks of her gown, learning the shape, tracing the curves, then splaying his hand and possessing.

Beneath his other palm, her heart leapt; so did his as he drew her nearer, angling her hips to his. Wanting her to sense all she did to him, to know and understand.

Her hands slid to frame his face; she gripped, holding him to the kiss as his tongue plundered and his hands closed and held, then he eased his grip and, with both hands, gently kneaded, and she made a soft sound in her throat.

Under the circumstances, disrobing wasn’t an act to be hurried. There was no need to rush. Unlacing her bodice took time and skill. When he tugged the last lace free and the material sagged, she drew back from the kiss—pushed back.

Curious, he allowed it. Watched as, her lips swollen, her fine skin faintly flushed, her expression passion-blank, she swiftly stripped the sleeves from her arms, then tossed the embroidered bodice away.

Leaving only the fine ivory silk of her chemise to screen her breasts from his hungry gaze.

His fingers had already shifted to the laces securing her skirt and petticoats. Impatient, she waited only until he’d unpicked the knots before she eased out the drawstring and wriggled and pushed both skirts and petticoats down her legs.

Her long, slender, shapely legs.

His mouth watered, but then she stepped from the mound of silk and linen directly to him, and with her luscious lips now firm, she grasped the sides of his coat, spread them wide, and tried to push the coat off his shoulders.

He chuckled and obliged, shedding the garment. By the time he’d drawn his arms from the sleeves, letting the coat crumple to the floor behind him, she was working her way down the large mother-of-pearl buttons of his waistcoat.

Jacqueline was determined to get her hands on the wide muscles of his chest. Determined to see what, to that point, she’d only imagined and feast her eyes on him. Although the night air was cool, warmth had risen beneath her skin, a delicious flush that left her breathless and hungry for more, eager to find the ways to fan the flames higher, to wallow and burn.

On walking into the room, she’d set aside all inhibitions, knowing beyond question that instinct, and he, would guide her. Now, instinct assured her that her most urgent and immediate needs would be met once she’d rid him of his clothes. She applied herself to that task with unrestrained fervor.

His lips curved; he seemed faintly amused, but also approving as he shrugged out of his waistcoat. She unraveled the knot of his cravat, dragged the long length from about his throat, and flung it aside, then focused on the ties of his shirt; she had them undone in seconds, then he stepped back and drew the billowing linen off over his head.

She barely waited until he straightened to set her hands, fingers splayed, to his chest. To the wondrous expanse of taut skin stretched over hard muscle. To the crinkly dark hair that adorned the splendor. Heat and welcoming warmth reached for her; sweeping her hands across his torso, she exalted and filled her senses. Her lids lowered as she drank in the reality, and his arms slowly closed about her, drawing her in, drawing her to him.

Richard quelled a shudder provoked by her questing touch and compounded by the evocative caress of her silk chemise over his bare chest. Those sensory delights were followed by the firm pressure of her breasts, screened by that single, flimsy layer. Torture of a sort, a suggestive, seductive teasing of his senses. Instinctively, she moved against him, side to side, settling, then pressing closer yet as she lifted her face—and he bent his head, found her lips with his, and whirled them and their now-clamoring senses back into the sensual fire.

The flames rose, desire fanning the embers of passion into a blaze, then into an all-consuming conflagration.

She was country-born; unlike naive, town-born innocents, she knew what was to follow. More, she was increasingly explicit in her eagerness to embrace the experience. Her lips and tongue engaged with his, flagrantly demanding. Her hands caressed, blatantly explored, then gripped and urged him on.

His control grew thin as her hot, greedy hands reached between them and closed about his iron-hard staff.

Possessing. Wanting.

Needing.

They turned to the bed. Her chemise floated to the floor. With all modesty long gone, between them, they dispensed with his boots and breeches and, in a heated breathless rush, fell onto the sheets.

Hands reached and found, and they drew each other closer, rolling body to body. Skin met naked skin—and a jolt of pure sensation lanced through them both.

Beneath him, she stilled, eyes closed, her breath, soft pants, washing over his cheek.

His body—his every muscle—tensed as he held against the roar of his instincts.

Then her hands clutched again, and her lips found his, and he fell into her kiss, into the moment—into the passion that rose and rushed through them and swept them into the age-old dance.

Jacqueline’s senses had imploded the instant their naked bodies had met, skin to skin. As if the sensual impact had been too great for her mind to encompass—not in that instant, not at first. Yet within seconds, her mind had caught up, and now, the rest of the world fell away as sensation flooded her, overwhelming her wits, tightening her nerves, and smothering her senses. Taking them—and her—over.

She gasped and clung, then flung herself headlong into the fire, into the beckoning cornucopia of sensual delights. She caught his lips with hers and kissed him ferociously, returning his ardent kiss with one even more fiery. She swallowed a moan as his palm, slightly roughened, closed about one breast. He kneaded, the possessive act underscored by his heavy body lying over hers, his weight pinning her to the sheet. Then, with his fingertips, he circled her nipple, teasing her senses; in wordless reaction, she sank her fingertips into the long muscles of his back, and he closed his fingers about her aching nipple—tight, tighter—and she arched beneath him as fire lanced through her, streaking down her veins to pool deep, a glowing furnace at her core.

She stroked his back, glorying in the long planes, the pliable, powerful strength of him. She reached farther, her fingertips skating over the upper swells of his buttocks.

He shifted and repeated his previous ministrations on her other breast—reducing her to wantonly writhing, breath bated, her heart thudding to an escalating rhythm.

A rhythm of want and need that only built as, between them, desire rose, a tangible entity, and stretched and flexed its claws.

It gripped, hard, and drove them on.

Her legs tangled with his. Driven to sensual distraction by the abrasion of her already sensitized skin by the wiry hair that dusted his, she arched and shifted and pressed herself to him, using her limbs to slide and stroke and caress.

With passion swelling, her skin feeling stretched and taut with need, she focused what little wit she had left to making him as desperate as she.

The rigid rod of his erection was pressed like a burning brand to her hip; she reached down, found the fine-skinned, silky head, and with the tips of her fingers, circled the flared rim. Then she reached farther, closed her fingers about the steely length, and stroked.

From the sudden tension that streaked through him, she sensed that she’d succeeded in capturing his attention.

Emboldened, she played, and he let her. Gradually, he returned to his own agenda, with increasingly explicit caresses playing on her senses and orchestrating a symphony of pleasure that steadily, caress by caress, built toward a crescendo.

The flames rose between them, more urgent, more potent than before as desire soared and whipped them on. With breathless, gasping murmurs, both directing and imploring, with touches and caresses both gentle and firm, wanting, hungry, and consumed by need, they forged on.

With deft, experienced touches, Richard built her desire and fanned her passions and readied her. She writhed beneath him, clutched, encouraged, flagrantly demanded, and ultimately, opened for him. Flowered for him.

The petals guarding her entrance were swollen and slick. Her honey scalded his probing fingers, stealing his breath, sending his need soaring. The pearl of her passion throbbed, tense and tight beneath its hood, begging for his touch. With one fingertip, he circled it and felt her nerves leap. He stroked, and she bowed beneath him, and a strangled moan escaped her lips.

He parted her folds and pushed one long finger deep.

She clutched and held him with a desperation to rival his own.

He refocused on their kiss, plundering evocatively, recapturing her attention, then he stroked, and beneath him, she trembled and quaked.

Jacqueline wanted him inside her with a certainty impossible to mistake and with a fervor impossible to deny, to hold back from.

She gripped, tugged, pulled back from the all-consuming kiss long enough to whisper, “Now. Please…”

Instantly, he moved over her, his heavy legs parting hers, his hips settling between her spread thighs. She felt the smooth head of his erection part her folds, and she tipped her head back into the pillow as expectation gripped, but then he recaptured her lips, kissed her with utterly rapacious ferocity, and ripped her senses and wits away.

With one sharp thrust, he breached her. The pain was nothing more than a brief sting, then the sudden intrusion of his body into hers swamped her mind. Heavy and alien, yet oh-so-welcome, his erection stretched her and impressed the reality of their joining on her body, on her senses, in myriad ways. He’d frozen, head bowed, the muscles of his arms locked and quivering as he held his chest above hers, giving her time to absorb and accept the undeniably novel, elementally intimate sensations.

Then, powerful and sure, he forged deeper.

Barely clinging to sanity—when had joining with a woman ever been this intense?—Richard eased the hold he’d clamped upon his most primal urges and nudged deeper yet, into the molten embrace of her body, forging in until he was sheathed to the hilt. Until she’d taken all of him and held him deep within her.

Then he showed her how to dance, how to drive their senses on. She was an avidly eager pupil; all too soon, she was demanding he dispense with every last rein and allow passion to have its way. To, between them, let desire hold uncontested sway and, unrestrained, whip them on and up passion’s peak until…with their skins slick and burning, their hands locked, fingers clutching, with eyes closed, with her breath coming in sharp pants and him with his head bowed, chest heaving, their bodies merged to an unrelenting beat in the last desperate rush toward completion.

And then they were there.

Ecstasy struck, the tension gripping them snapped, and they were flung into the void.

Their senses fractured—shattered, fragmented. Glory rained upon them and flared inside, scintillatingly brilliant and bright. Senses awash, overloaded, they clung to each other as ecstasy’s starburst blinded their minds.

Leaving one shining truth illuminated—clear to their senses, obvious to their minds, and anchored in their souls.

Linking them, fusing them, binding them for all time.

Gradually, the brilliance faded, and a different type of pleasure rolled in. Filling them, buoying them, soothing their senses.

Steeping them in its indescribable beauty before letting oblivion take them.

Eventually, the possibility that he was crushing the lady he had vowed to protect penetrated Richard’s mind. Wracked more profoundly than he could ever remember being, he stirred and raised his head enough to look down at her face.

Her features were relaxed, but a faint smile—a richly satiated expression—curved her lips.

He softly humphed, yet the sight sent smug satisfaction flowing through him. He dipped his head, brushed his lips across hers, then lifted from her.

She stirred and made a protesting sound that cut off when he settled in the bed beside her.

Despite the loss of Richard’s oddly comforting weight, Jacqueline remained enfolded by, engulfed in, a blissful warmth unlike anything she’d ever known could be. Pleasure still coursed beneath her skin; her senses seemed to glow, her nerves were softly humming, and satiation flowed like the very finest wine through her veins.

She’d had no idea it was possible to feel so thoroughly and deeply pleasured, much less so completely possessed. Nor to feel so certain that, in return, she’d pleasured and possessed him to the same degree.

The sensations of when they’d joined still echoed through her mind. The mutuality of the giving and taking, the true meaning of being intimate, had been so much more powerful than she’d imagined.

Content didn’t come close to what she felt. Euphoric, buoyed by a sense of rightness so profound there were no appropriate words with which to do it justice.

Him and her—together was how he and she were meant to be. Their joining that night had been the next step along their road. Their futures were one, their paths forward the same, irrevocably intertwined. Their fates were merged, now and forever, two halves of the one coin.

She lay amid the rumpled sheets and dwelled on the prospect with quiet joy.

Richard reached down and flicked the sheet free, then drew it over them. They settled; he raised his arm, and Jacqueline shifted to lay her head on his chest—but the moon had drifted farther on its arc, and the silvery light slanting through the window struck her full in the face.

“Hmm.” Eyes closed tightly against the glare, she frowned.

He smiled and nudged her. “Turn around.”

She did, and he followed, spooning his larger body around the soft curves of hers. She chuckled, then sighed deeply; he felt her muscles relax.

As, still smiling, he settled his head on the pillow behind hers, he noticed a mark on the back of her left shoulder, now illuminated by the moonlight.

Gently, he touched the spot. “You have a birthmark—just here.”

“Hmm? Oh, that. Yes, I know.” She snuggled deeper into the mattress. “It’s always been there.”

Her skin was like fine porcelain; even though the mark wasn’t that dark, it stood out in stark relief.

Fascinated, he traced the outline with one fingertip. Then, struck by the coincidence, he glanced across the room—at the orb sitting, once more, on her dressing table.

He stilled, staring, then murmured, “The orb. Did you have someone bring it up again?” She couldn’t have brought it upstairs herself; he’d been with her from the moment she’d placed the orb on the mantelpiece in the great hall.

“No—why?” Then he felt her stiffen. Clearly, she’d opened her eyes, looked across the room, and seen what he had. “Oh.” The exclamation fell softly from her lips. “There it is.”

After a moment, her voice a bare whisper, she confirmed what he’d suspected. “I didn’t ask anyone to bring it upstairs but…perhaps one of the maids saw it when they were clearing the hall and realized I would rather keep it here, safe, and so she brought it up.” After an instant’s pause, she stated, “That’s what must have happened.”

His “Presumably” was distinctly dry.

For half a minute, he stared at the orb—glowing with nothing more than the radiance one might expect from the moonlight caressing it—then he looked back at her birthmark. Took in the lines, the shape, once again. He hesitated, then told her, “Your birthmark is the same shape as the orb.”

She stiffened rather more, then she twisted her head and looked over her shoulder. She met his eyes and searched them, confirming he wasn’t inventing anything. Her lips parted on a silent exhalation. Then in a wondering tone, she said, “I’ve never truly seen the mark—well, even with a hand mirror, with the angle, it’s just a roundish blob to me.”

“It’s definitely the orb.” He traced the outline again. “The moonstone, its upper curve surrounded by the jagged tips of the claws, with the ornate base beneath.”

She nodded fractionally, then faced forward. After several silent seconds, she relaxed into the mattress again. “I suppose that means the orb belongs to me, and I belong with it—here.”

He couldn’t—didn’t wish to—add anything to that. He hesitated for a heartbeat, then bent his head and placed a soft kiss on the mark before lowering his head to the pillow.

A moment later, he drew her closer, cradling her back to his chest. She sighed and relaxed even more. He closed his eyes and felt sleep creep nearer.

Tomorrow, he knew, neither he nor she would mention the reappearance of the orb in her chamber. They wouldn’t ask who had moved it; they wouldn’t do anything to call attention to it moving.

As far as he was concerned, and he felt sure she would agree, the orb and its strange abilities was one mystery that could remain unsolved.

The orb was where it was meant to be—there, and therefore safe—and that was all he and she needed to know.