If Rex had any hope his announcement would cause Clara to deem him her knight in shining armor, rush into his arms, and shower him with grateful kisses, he was immediately disappointed.

She frowned, her skepticism obvious. “Have you any talent for drawing?”

“More than you, my sweet,” he countered, plucking her charcoal pencil from behind her ear. He spread out her sketches, and a quick glance over her stick men, skewed bottles, and scribbled notes told him what she was attempting to do. “Shaw’s Liver Pills has a new patent medicine, I see.”

“A cure for colds.”

He made a scoffing sound that earned him a disapproving look.

“Disparaging our advertiser’s product,” she said dryly, “is not inspiring my confidence in your ability.”

“Perhaps this will.” Rex pulled a fresh sheet of drawing paper in front of him, bent over the desk, and began to sketch. It only took a few quick strokes to capture the essence of a happy baby and relieved mother, and by the time she had circled around to his side of the desk, he’d added a replica of a medicine bottle to one side and scrawled the Shaw’s insignia at the top. “There,” he said, straightening. “How’s that?”

Staring down at the page, she made a choked sound of relief, something halfway between a sigh and a sob, and he began to think her initial dim opinion of him was getting a polish at last. He wasn’t sure if he deserved it, but he savored it just the same.

“It’s good. Truly good.” She turned toward him, pressing a hand to her chest. “Oh, thank you, Rex. Thank you.”

Her brown eyes were filled with enough gratitude and relief that he thought of pushing his luck and demanding some sweet, sweet compensation, but he refrained. “I just wish I’d known you were in this sort of difficulty earlier,” he said instead. “I’d have come straight here this evening and spared myself the pain of listening to two hours of Wagnerian opera.”

“Is that where you were? Covent Garden?”

He nodded. “That’s where I spoke with Lady David. I saw her across the way, in the duke’s box, noted you weren’t with her party, and decided it was time to run you to earth.”

“I’m so glad you did. Can you . . . would you mind doing a few more of these?”

“That depends. Have you anything to eat?”

“You want food?”

“Well, there are other compensations I could ask for,” he couldn’t resist saying, “but I’ll settle for a plate of sandwiches.”

“I think I can manage that.” She gestured to some handwritten pages piled on one side of her desk. “Those are the notes of my meeting with Hazel before she left for Surrey. Read those and you’ll have an idea of what we had in mind. We want to propose six advertisements.”

“So, six sketches?” When she nodded, he resumed his seat and reached for her pile of notes. “Consider it done.”

Clara went off in search of sandwiches, and after reading through her notes, he set to work. By the time she returned, he had completed two sketches and was halfway through a third, but when he caught sight of the tray she put on the desk beside him, he stopped.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as he stared askance at the four miniscule triangles on the plate.

“If you expect work out of a man, you’ll have to feed him better than that, Clara.”

“It doesn’t seem like much food, I suppose, not to you. But—” She stopped, and as he turned in his chair to look at her, he noted in some surprise the hot color flooding her cheeks. “It’s j . . . just that our cook is still in the kitchen. Sh . . . she’s always the last to . . . umm . . . to go to bed. If I had asked her for more food than I usually eat . . .”

“She’d get the wind up?” he finished for her when she stopped again.

Clara nodded, looking at her feet. “It’s not really proper, you know,” she whispered. “You being here. Alone. With me.”

It wasn’t proper at all. More than that, it was risky as hell, especially given what had already passed between them, but he had no intention of pointing that out.

“I understand. Though I can’t imagine how even a dainty creature like you can subsist on a meal like that,” he added, waving a hand at the sandwiches. “It isn’t even a meal, now that I think on it. It’s a snack.”

“I can bring you more in a few hours, after Mrs. Gibson’s gone to bed. That is, if you’re still here by then.”

“I’ll stay as long as you need me to.”

She smiled, and as always when she smiled at him like that, Rex felt the world slipping dangerously sideways.

He looked away, gesturing with his pencil to the sketches he’d completed. “You might look over those and tell me I’m on the right track,” he said. “Then I suggest you fetch a glass, if you can sneak it out from under your cook’s prying eyes. If not, we’ll both be swigging that champagne from the bottle.”

She complied, giving him the reassurance he needed to continue, then she went in search of a glass. Unexpectedly, she brought back two, because as she explained, champagne flutes were part of the crystal, and weren’t kept in the kitchen but in the china cupboard in the dining room. Mrs. Gibson wouldn’t miss them.

“Just be sure to wash them and put them back before morning,” he advised, “or heaven knows what your cook will think. Can you open it?” he added, gesturing to the champagne.

“I can try.”

She did, but once she’d removed the wire cage and begun working to free the cork, he decided he’d better intervene. “The last thing we need is to have the cork go flying, break something, and make such a racket it brings your cook swooping in to see what’s going on. Here, let me show you how it’s done.”

He moved to stand behind her, his arms coming around her to grasp the bottle, demonstrating how to open it and stealing for himself a few tantalizing moments of having her in his embrace. Once the champagne cork had popped, however, even his lame excuse for standing behind her with his arms around her was gone.

He didn’t move.

Neither did she, and he took advantage of it, turning his head to inhale the delicate orange-blossom scent of her hair. He closed his eyes, thinking how easy it would be to pull her back against him, to bend his head and kiss her neck . . .

Christ, he was making himself insane.

He lowered his arms and stepped back, stepping to her side to pour champagne, and he decided it might be best to start a conversation on a safe topic.

“So, you fired Mr. Beale. How did this momentous event occur?”

“I lost my temper, and before I knew it, the words, ‘you’re fired’ were out of my mouth. Words, I must say, that gave me great delight.”

He grinned as he handed her a glass of champagne and began to pour one for himself. “What happened to all that rot you tried to tell me about having no authority to give him the sack, doing one’s best to get along, and respecting your sister’s judgement?”

“I didn’t really think about any of that. He was abusing a member of the staff, and I just . . . let fly.” She gave a sigh. “I’m living with the consequences now, though, I’m afraid.”

He set aside the bottle and glanced at her, noting again the weariness in her face. “Which have been arduous, I see.”

“Well, as I told you once, editor is the most important position on the staff. I’m not accustomed to making these decisions. I knew how hard my sister worked, of course, but I never realized until she went away the burden of being in charge. I’ve never really overseen anything, you see. Most of my life, Irene has protected and looked after me. I’ve been quite sheltered.”

Rex couldn’t summon any regret that her paragon of a sister wasn’t hovering over her like a hen with one chick. Although as he shot a considering sideways glance over her, he appreciated that her current lack of a chaperone made the temptations tormenting him even harder to resist.

“And now that Mr. Beale’s gone,” she went on, bringing his thoughts back to the matter at hand, “I’m in charge of everything. It’s rather daunting.”

“You’re doing all right so far,” he said and picked up a sandwich.

“Am I?” She rubbed her nose, looking doubtful. “I hope so.”

“Buck up. Paper’s getting printed, all’s right with the world.”

“I suppose that’s the only way to look at it at this point.” She paused and took a sip of champagne. “Has your father relented yet and reinstated your allowance?”

He shook his head. “Not yet, I’m afraid.”

“I only ask because our bargain might be in jeopardy. I may not be able to finish the season. If I don’t find an editor, I shall have to carry on here until Irene comes back. I doubt I’ll have time to do both, especially if this past week is any indication.”

“No applicants for the post?”

“We’ve had a few. They all seem qualified, but none seem right.” She paused, considering. “I don’t know if that’s true, actually, or if I’m just terrified of choosing wrong and I’m procrastinating over the decision out of fear.”

“You can’t let fear stop you from making decisions like that.”

She laughed. “Says the man who’ll never marry.”

“Really, Clara.” He made a scoffing sound, set aside his champagne, and reached for his drawing pencil. “It’s not the same thing at all.”

“Yes, it is. It’s exactly the same.” She laughed again as he shook his head in denial. “All right, then,” she added, settling herself on the edge of the desk beside him as he took his chair. “How is it different?”

“An editor can be sacked,” he pointed out as he resumed sketching. “A spouse, alas, cannot.”

“I agree the risk is higher, but surely the rewards are, too.”

“What rewards?”

“Love, for one.”

He made another derisive sound to show how unimpressed he was by that argument. “My parents were in love, passionately so, if their friends’ accounts can be trusted.”

“It wasn’t a marriage of alliance? I thought it might have been.”

“Why? Because they didn’t live happily ever after?”

She gave his leg a kick with her shoe, demonstrating how little she appreciated that acerbic rejoinder. “So, if they were in love, what do you think happened?”

“My mother was unfaithful. She had affairs. I thought everyone knew that.”

“So, it was all her fault?”

“It was if you ask anyone in our family. Both sides condemn Mama and blame her for the whole messy business. Even her own relations won’t have anything to do with her.”

“What about you? Do you condemn her?”

“I wish I could,” he said with a sigh. He put a last flourish on the sketch before him, set it with the others, and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper to start the last one. “My life would be so much less complicated.”

Before she could ask what he meant by that, he went on, “Don’t think I deem her blameless, because that’s not the case either. My mother is beautiful and weak and terribly, terribly insecure. She needs constant reassurance and support. My father, being an impatient man, and blunt to a fault, was never capable of filling that sort of need, or even understanding it.”

“What you’re saying is that they were never suited.”

“About as suited as oil and water. From what I understand, I had barely learned to walk before they drifted apart, and by the time I went off to school, they could only tolerate each other’s company if it presented an opportunity to blame each other and tear each other to bits. After I left for Eton, my mother launched her first affair, and . . . well, the rest, as they say, is history. I’m surprised you don’t know all about it. It was reported in the papers in lurid enough detail.”

“I was only a little girl when they separated, far too young to be interested in reading newspapers. I don’t know any of the lurid details you speak of.”

“You’ve missed nothing by not knowing. When love goes awry and turns to contempt, it’s always a sordid tale.” He paused for another sandwich and a swallow of champagne. “Given the sort of people they are, I can’t fathom how my parents ever thought it could be otherwise.”

“For some, love is blind.”

He nodded. “In my parents’ case, very much so. Especially my father. My mother was already a scandal before they ever met, from what I understand. How he ever thought she’d transform into a faithful partner and loving helpmate, I have no idea. Anyone with sense could have told him that she could never be what he wanted her to be.”

“There was no way they could reconcile their differences?”

“My parents?” The idea was so absurd, he laughed, and it must have been a harsh sound, because she winced.

“Sorry,” he said at once, “but it’s clear you’ve never met them. In most cases when a marriage falls apart, it’s true that the two people attempt to put things back together. If that fails, they still soldier on, being discreet and presenting a united front to the world, even if they privately go their separate ways.”

“What did your parents do?”

He gave a laugh. “They threw discretion to the winds. My mother stopped making any attempt to hide her affairs—she wanted Papa to divorce her, you see, so she gave him ample grounds, again and again, but he refused to free her. He dug in his heels, and the next few years provided the press with plenty of mutual mudslinging to report, damaging my entire family’s social position. The one bright spot was that the scandals spurred the family to work on my father, and though he still refused to divorce her, he did agree to legally separate from her. The separation has failed to rid either of their souls of the acrimony they feel toward each other, but it has at least made it less likely that one of them will kill the other, something that was always a distinct possibility when they lived under the same roof.”

“Not all marriages are like your parents’. My parents were happy together. Until—”

She stopped, but he knew what she’d been about to say. “Until your mother died.”

“Well, yes, and then Papa rather went to seed. But love’s hardly to blame for the fact that he chooses to drink.”

“It’s unfair for me to blame love, I suppose, but there it is. My father chooses to remain bitter and wounded and unforgiving. He won’t let go of a woman whose love for him vanished over twenty-five years ago. My mother, on the other hand, being both more affectionate and more shallow than my father, loves love so much she does it every year, rather like debutantes do the season. Every time, she’s sure this time the love is true and everlasting, only to find herself crushed and disappointed when it all falls apart. My parents, your father . . .” He shrugged and took a swallow of champagne. “What good did love ever do any of them?”

“I’ve known from the start you were a cynical man,” she said. “I suppose I just didn’t realize how cynical. But Rex, some people who marry are happy.”

“Yes, so the matchmaking members of my family remind me daily. Even my father, who to this day refuses to quit the hell he made for himself, wants me to marry. But what’s the point of it? Why should I?”

“What about children?”

“I have an heir, and though he may be a distant cousin, at least the estates won’t revert to the Crown when I die.” He shrugged. “Marriage is a difficult business. To my mind, frankly, there’s not enough reward in it for the risk.”

“Perhaps if you ever truly fell in love you’d change your mind.”

“I doubt it.” That reply was so uncompromising, Clara’s face so solemn, watching him, he felt he had to lighten the moment. “I think if I ever had an inclination to love, I’d just want it over as quickly as possible. Love is painful, they say,” he added, forcing a laugh. “Why prolong the agony?”

She didn’t smile in return. Instead, she gazed back at him, her eyes dark and steady, and in their depths, he saw—God help him—a hint of pity.

He sobered at once, looking away, reaching for the bottle to refill their glasses. “And how does one know it’s true love anyway? That’s the trouble with it. Infatuation and desire blind you, so there’s no way to know if you’ve got something that will last through a lifetime. When you fell in love with your vicar, you were sure you wanted to marry him, but you must agree that if you had done so, he could never have made you happy.”

She considered. “I don’t think I thought about it from that standpoint. It all seemed very simple and straightforward to me. I loved him. If he loved me, then of course we would marry. What else is there?”

His hand tightened around the glass in his hand as he slanted a glance at her, the devil inside him appreciating all the delicious possibilities. “What, indeed?” he countered, holding her filled glass up for her.

She took it, making a face at him. “Free love, I suppose,” she said, and took a swallow of champagne. “Hardly the culmination devoutly to be wished.”

“Depends on one’s point of view,” he countered, setting the bottle aside and settling back with his glass. “I could say the same about marriage.”

That bit of wit did earn him a smile, rather a rueful one. “God help any woman who falls in love with you,” she said, shaking her head. “As to my vicar, I was only seventeen when I fell in love with him, so I’m sure infatuation was a large part of what I felt. But that wasn’t all of it. I cared very deeply for him, and though I couldn’t give him the sort of marriage he wanted, I still believe he cared for me.”

Rex considered that, and gave a nod. “Yes, I think he did. Otherwise, he would not have been so honest with you. It’s lucky he was. Had he not told you just what sort of marriage he was hoping for, you’d have wed him in ignorance, only to be shocked and disappointed when the truth was revealed. And you’d also have been stuck for life with a man who could never have made you happy.”

“Thank you, but . . .” She paused, giving him a rather tipsy smile over her glass as she swirled her champagne. “Had we ever married, I’d like to think I would have eventually persuaded him to abandon his notions of a celestial marriage.”

A picture formed in his mind at once, of Clara standing in a bedroom somewhere in corset and drawers with that smile on her face, and his throat went dry, leaving him in need of several swallows of champagne before he could reply.

“In the case of most men,” he said at last, “no persuasion would be needed, Clara, I assure you. But for your vicar, it’s my guess all the persuasion in the world wouldn’t have availed. I saw enough of that sort of thing at Eton to know.”

Her smile vanished, and she gave him a puzzled frown. “What sort of thing?”

“There are some men who just don’t desire women. Any women. Ever. Poor devils,” he added, shaking his head. “It’s illegal for men to desire other men, you see.”

She stared at him, aghast and shocked, heaven bless her sweet, innocent mind. “That’s what you meant about being arrested?”

“Yes.”

“Good heavens.” She shook her head, still trying to assimilate this theory of the events surrounding her marriage proposal. “It wasn’t me, then,” she said after a moment, and began to laugh. “It wasn’t me at all. It had nothing to do with me.”

He took a deep breath, unable to look away from her laughing face even as he tried to shove images of her in a corset out of his mind, appreciating more than ever his newfound pleasure in self-torture. “Really, Clara, I don’t know why that’s such a revelation now,” he muttered. “I told you weeks ago it wasn’t you. I even demonstrated the fact, quite strongly, as I recall.”

She stopped laughing, her smile faded away, and suddenly, in her face, he saw all the same desire he felt. Or least, he saw what he wanted to see. “And really,” he added, taking refuge in teasing, “I don’t know why you needed a demonstration anyway. Why can’t you just trust me when I tell you things?”

“Maybe because . . .” She paused and licked her lips as if they were dry, drawing his gaze like a moth to a flame. “Maybe because you’re a rake and not to be trusted?”

“I’m not though,” he blurted out. “Not a rake, I mean. Not anymore.”

She laughed, clearly skeptical of that contention. And who could blame her?

“Oh, I used to be,” he went on. “Don’t misunderstand me. I was once one of the most notorious men about town, and my reputation was well-earned. Drink, cards, low company, women . . . especially women. God,” he added, laughing in disbelief at how much his life had changed, “so many women. I chased skirts from the West End to the East and back again. Actresses, Gaiety Girls, mistresses, courtesans—any woman who didn’t expect marriage and wasn’t already taken was fair game to me.”

“You speak as if all that’s in the past.”

He gave a nostalgic sigh. “Well, let’s just say my wild ways have been temporarily suspended.”

“Oh, I see.” Her brow cleared and she gave a nod. “Women, you said once, are deuced expensive. And now that your father and your aunt have both cut you off, you can no longer afford such things.”

“Well, that’s true, yes, but I’m afraid this sad state of affairs came to pass two years ago, long before my father stopped my allowance.”

“Years? The gossip columns say otherwise. They . . . h . . . have you with some new . . .” She paused and looked away. “You seem to . . . have a new m . . . mistress every other month.”

“I know, but that’s all a hum, Clara. The women, the cards, the drink . . .” He paused, waving a hand vaguely in the air. “All that’s just a charade nowadays. A charade I created over two years ago, and one I maintained up until the night we made our arrangement at Covent Garden.”

“But why would you do such a thing? For what purpose?”

He shrugged. “I had to find some way to explain why I’m always short of funds.”

“And why are you?”

He took a deep breath. “I give my mother money. Everyone believes I still spend whatever I get on rakish pursuits, but as I said, that’s tosh. Whatever I don’t spend on my own household has been going to my mother for quite some time. I’d ask you to keep this knowledge to yourself, for if my father found out, I’d never get my allowance back.”

“Of course, I won’t tell anyone, but why should your father care?”

“In the separation agreement, he stipulated an allowance for my mother. It’s enough to live on, but only just. Mama can’t afford a household, so she’s drifted all over the Continent, from friend to hotel, to friend, to hotel, but after a decade of this, she has pretty much used up all her friends’ goodwill, and hotels have stopped allowing her accommodation, for though she’s a countess, she’s a disgraced one, and she always ducks her bills. She tried to bolster her income with gambling, but of course, that didn’t work. She only got into more debt. Debt that my father, understandably, refused to pay.”

“So, she began applying to you for money, and you give it to her?”

“Yes. That’s the reason my father cut me off. I don’t know quite how, but he discovered what I was really doing with my income. Detectives, I’d guess. He’s employed enough of them to trail my mother in the past, God knows. He probably has a firm of those good gentlemen on permanent retainer.”

“But keeping you continually short of funds only hurts him. If he wants you to marry—”

“Even the ambition to see the estates secured to his own bloodline is not stronger than his need to try to control my mother. He can’t accept that he never could do that and he never will. And he can’t bear to think my allowance from the estate might be circumventing his control over her.”

“He hates her that much?”

“He hates her as much as he loves her.” Rex laughed, and even to his own ears, it had a bitter tinge. “I think if she ever expressed the desire to come back to him, he’d let her. But, of course, he’d also make her pay for it. Love, Clara, can be a terrible thing. Which is why I’ve so little use for it.”

“I do see your point of view a little better now, I suppose. But, still, as terrible as it can be, love can also be beautiful, surely? If it’s true?”

“Perhaps—that is, if true love exists at all, which my cynical heart is inclined to doubt. I think romantic love is a bit like a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.”

“A mirage, you mean?”

“Yes. Sorry if that disappoints you.” He tilted his head, giving her a curious look. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I do it?”

“Why you give your mother money? It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“Is it? The family—both sides, mind you—think I ought to have told her to go to the devil. And that I was a fool for risking my father’s wrath for her.”

“I don’t think you’re a fool. You obviously love your mother.”

He smiled, raising his glass. “That’s what makes me a fool.”

She shook her head. “No, Rex, it doesn’t. You are trying to help her as best you can. It’s . . .” She paused, looking at him thoughtfully. “It’s quite noble of you.”

He choked on his champagne. “Noble?”

“Yes.” She frowned as he laughed. “Why are you laughing?”

“Clara, in over three decades of life, no one who knows me has ever deemed me noble.”

Her frown cleared, and her smile came back. “Now who’s hiding their lights under a bushel?” she asked and swallowed the last of her champagne.

His amusement vanished, for in her face, he saw something he’d never seen there before, something that shouldn’t be there. He saw a hint of admiration. “If you knew what I’ve been thinking about you ever since I walked through that door, my sweet lamb, you’d never call me noble.”

She set aside her glass and slid off the edge of the desk. “And if you knew what I was thinking about you right now,” she said as she turned his chair toward her and leaned over him, “you’d never call me sweet.”

She kissed him, and the moment her mouth touched his, Rex decided to rid her of any ridiculous notions of his nobility in the best way a rake could do. He broke the kiss long enough to stand up, and then, he wrapped his arms around her and took her mouth again, not with any tenderness or gentle regard for her inexperience, but with all the passion he’d been keeping under such tight, agonizing control.

From the moment he’d first kissed her on that settee, he’d been able to think of little else but doing it again, of tasting her mouth and unleashing the sweet passion he’d so unexpectedly uncovered that afternoon. Yet now, as her arms came around his neck, he reached up to grasp her wrists, the vague notion in his head that he ought to stop this, that he ought to exercise at least a shred of the nobility she’d attributed to his character.

But then, her lips parted, he tasted champagne on her mouth, and any thought of stopping crumbled into dust. He deepened the kiss instead, sliding his tongue into her mouth.

Her response was immediate, her fingers raking through his hair as her mouth opened wider, her tongue meeting his with all the same sweet eagerness she’d displayed during their first kiss. She wasn’t thinking of boundaries or consequences, he knew. She was only drinking in all these sensations still so new to her, and he wanted, more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life, to give her more.

Keeping one arm tight around her waist, he slid his free hand up along her ribs. Through her shirtwaist, he could feel the rigid whalebone stays of her corset, a barrier and a reminder, but he moved his hand higher, embracing her breast through her clothes.

She gasped, turning her head away to break the kiss even as the rest of her body pressed closer. “It’s all right,” he murmured, his palm cupping her through the rigid corset, his other arm tight around her waist as he trailed kisses from her cheek to her ear. “It’s all right.”

Her skin was like velvet, her hair held the sweet scent of orange blossoms, and her breathing was shallow and quick against his neck. When he pressed his lips to the side of her throat, he could feel tendons there quiver beneath the caress of his mouth. When he moved higher, pulling the lobe of her ear into his mouth, she moaned. Her hips stirred against him, sending fissures of pleasure through his body, pleasure so intense, it almost knocked him off his feet.

He pulled back, sliding both hands to her waist. She was so slim, so delicate, that his hands encircled her waist completely as he lifted her on to the desk.

He reached up to the thin bow of ribbon at her throat, yanking it free, then he began unbuttoning her shirtwaist.

“Rex?” Her hand encircled his wrist, and he stopped. Hands at her collar, he made himself to look into her face. He couldn’t see into her eyes, worse luck, for her gaze was lowered, her lashes tilted down.

Not yet, he thought, desperate. God, Clara, not yet.

“Not yet, then,” she whispered, and only then did he realize he’d uttered his agonized plea out loud. But he wasn’t going to let a trivial thing like his pride get in the way now, and when her hand slid away, he worked his way down, unfastening buttons as fast as he could.

When he reached the waistband of her skirt, he paused to take a deep breath and remind himself there would come a point soon when he would have to stop. Praying that when that moment came, it wouldn’t annihilate him completely, he pulled the edges of her shirtwaist apart. As it opened, revealing the muslin and lace of her sweet, white undergarments and the delicate pink flush of arousal on her pale skin, his own arousal deepened and spread.

He leaned closer, and the soft, pristine scent of talc mingled with the orange-blossom scent of her hair, flaring arousal into lust, making him dizzy. He pressed a kiss to her collarbone, and she stiffened, sucking in a sharp breath at the sensation.

Her hands came up to cradle his head, pulling him closer as he trailed kisses along her collarbone to her shoulder, then he buried his face against the warm skin of her throat, and lifted his hand to once again embrace her small, round breast.

He wished he could unlace her, but removing that barrier, he feared, would break his already shaky willpower utterly apart, so he was forced to be content with shaping her through the rigid confines of her corset. He pressed a kiss to the soft white crest of her breast above the edge of her undergarments, and she moaned in response, her body stirring in agitation.

Gently, still kissing the talc-scented skin above her breasts, he grasped folds of her skirt in his free hand and began pulling the soft, thin wool upward, working to get his hand beneath the layers of skirt and petticoats.

She made a faint, maidenly sound of what might have been protest, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders. Rex went still, waiting, expecting her to push him back, but when she didn’t, he resumed, shaping her thigh through her drawers as he slid his hand upward.

He was rock-hard now, aching with weeks of pent-up lust, but oddly enough, he didn’t mind that now, for he was driven by a far greater need: the need to pleasure her. He wanted her to know just what the culmination of passion felt like, the release and the exquisite bliss that followed it.

Kissing her all along the curve of her neck and shoulder, he shoved folds of her skirt upward, then slowly eased her backward onto the desk, moving to lay beside her as he slid his hand up a few more inches and eased it between her thighs.

She stirred again, but he wanted to deprive her of any ability to call a halt, and he turned his hand, cupping her mound through her drawers. Her hips jerked sharply, and she gave a soft cry of surprise.

He kissed her, hard, catching her cry in his mouth. His hand moved between her legs, using the friction of his caress against the damp fabric to arouse her further, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted more, and he eased his fingers inside the slit of her drawers.

She was wet, ready, and as he caressed the crease of her sex, he relished the soft, desperate panting sounds of need she made. She was nearing climax, he knew, and he used his voice to inflame her further.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he said softly. “You’re close, so close. Let it happen.”

As he spoke, her hips began pumping faster, moving against his hand in awkward, frantic jerks as she strove toward the peak, and when she came, he felt the sweetest pleasure he’d ever felt in his life.

She collapsed back against the desk, panting. He waited until the last waves of her orgasm had subsided before he pulled away, easing his hand from under her skirts. He was aware of the painful, aching need in his own body, and he knew he had to leave now, while he still could, but when she opened her eyes and smiled at him, her eyes filled with wonder, he knew he couldn’t stay here one more minute without crossing the Rubicon.

He moved at once, rolling away and sliding off the desk. “I’ve got to go.”

Even as he said it, he was aware of all the times he’d said those exact same words to women before, of all the times he’d rushed to dress and raced for the door. This time, his reasons for dashing off were totally different—rather the opposite, in fact. The irony of that was not lost on him.

“It’s terribly late,” he felt it necessary to point out as he reached for his jacket and slipped it on. “And you need sleep. Try to get some, all right?”

“You, too.”

He laughed, a caustic sound in the quiet room.

“You always laugh at things I say when I’m not trying to be funny,” she accused, sitting up.

“Sorry,” he said and bent to retrieve his hat from where it had been pushed off the desk, a move that exacerbated the pain of his unrequited lust. “But somehow, I doubt I’ll sleep much tonight.”

He turned away without looking at her. “Good night, Clara.”

He could feel her gaze on his back as he departed, but he kept walking, vanishing from view into the corridor. As he traversed the short distance from her office to the outer one of the newspaper, he realized he hadn’t even kissed her good-night.

He stopped. Any woman deserved at least that much, Clara especially.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go back, not even to offer her such a simple consideration. Anarchy was inside him, and if he went back, her virtue would be utterly lost before any good-night kiss.

“Lock the door after I’m gone,” he called back over his shoulder, “and from now on, if you’re going to work late, then keep it locked. If you don’t, any scoundrel could walk in. God knows, I’m living proof.”

With that, he left the newspaper office, but even then, he did not depart. Instead, he crossed Belford Row, where he paused in the doorway of a darkened building, and waited in the shadows, watching the lit windows across the street. With his body in agony, it seemed an eternity before she came into view, but it was only after he had seen her lock the door, draw the blinds, and put out the lights that Rex turned away and started up the street to find a taxi.