And lay back on the bed to see what she would do.

What she did . . .

She knelt and then relaxed onto her side, her lovely curves just before him, the straight line of her backbone going down to the curve of her hips, her arse.

“Globes,” he said, his hand running down to her hips and then behind. “Another word for buttocks. A more poetic one, perhaps.” His fingers were trembling.

Linnet had just been looking, but now she reached out and curled her fingers around him.

The sound that came from his lips was undignified to say the least. It was a carnal sound, and he thought Linnet’s face turned a little pinker. Fighting not to simply lie back and let her do her will, he ran his hand more firmly into the curve of her bottom, around the most delicious curve of all, between her legs.

She flinched.

“Very sore,” he said, withdrawing his hand. “I do apologize.”

Linnet’s eyes glinted with amusement. “But you wouldn’t take it back?”

Take back the most ecstatic sexual experience of his life, not to put too fine a point on it? “Never.”

She seemed to like that answer, since she shifted down in the bed, her head dipped, and her tongue touched him.

His head fell back at the sweep of it, the liquid, hot touch of her. Still . . . “Linnet,” he managed.

“Yes?” She was looking at him consideringly. He wrenched his mind away from the possibilities she might be considering.

Cleared his throat. “I feel bound to mention . . .”

She bent forward, licked him again, and then her lips slipped around him like wet silk.

A hoarse cry tore from his throat.

“Yes?” she asked, looking up at him. Her eyes were bright with mischief, and dark with desire . . . She was the very picture of trouble.

“Most ladies, that is, women who aren’t paid for their time, don’t pleasure men in that particular way,” he said hoarsely.

A little frown crinkled her brow. “They don’t? Why not? You did so to me, and you told me that it was quite proper.” She reached out and ran her fingers swiftly up his length, as if a feather brushed there. “I like this part of you. Such an interesting shape, as if it were made for a kiss. See?”

And before Piers could do anything, not that he would have stopped her, she bent over again. Her mouth was tight on him, like delirium, like a fever in his blood, like . . .

“You don’t sound as though you dislike it,” she said, stopping again.

“Wretch,” he said, raising his head. “Don’t—”

“Don’t continue?” she said, full of mock sadness. “I was just starting to imagine what you might like. For example . . .”

She did it again, deeper, at the same moment that her hand curled tightly around the lower part of him. His hips jerked forward, and Piers realized that he had exactly five seconds to make sure that Linnet, delicious Linnet, knew exactly what she was doing.

“If you keep doing that,” he said, his voice strangled. “I’m going to come. And that means my sperm will rush out and directly into your mouth.”

“Are they injurious?” She sounded curious, unafraid. Something in his body relaxed, some deep powerful caution in him.

“No,” he whispered. She was playing with her right hand too, touching his balls, rubbing him. Her hair glinted in the sun slanting through the window as she bent to him again—the silky hair of a princess. But no princess ever gave her lord such pleasure.

He could withdraw. He told himself to withdraw. He had never allowed a woman to perform such an intimate service, never.

But he couldn’t hold in the sounds erupting from his throat. His balls tightened, he arched toward her one final time. Her tongue gave a playful little twist, a caress that burned all the way to his balls and down his legs . . .

Piers lost himself as he never had before. His mind shut down like a box with a lid, leaving him no more than a man in the hands and mouth of a woman who was enjoying herself. There is no greater aphrodisiac, he thought dimly.

And stopped thinking altogether, because her hands . . . her mouth . . .

He forgot to withdraw. He forgot his name. He forgot he was a doctor. He forgot . . .

He forgot everything except for Linnet and the curve of her neck, and the wet warmth of her mouth, and that little hum that told him she was happy.

In fact, his mind was still completely blank when she crawled back up to him and said in a husky, lustful voice: “Now you owe me.”

Indeed.

Chapter Twenty-One

That night after supper they all retired to the drawing room for a postprandial brandy (for the gentlemen) and tea (for the ladies).

Linnet was having a hard time keeping herself within the bounds of ladylike behavior. She wanted to touch Piers, to speak only to him, to smile at him in unmistakable invitation. She was in the grip of ravening hunger, as if lust were the only emotion in her body.

Every once in a while a thought of the future—even, it had to be said, a pulse of anxiety—would float across her mind. After all, she had thrown away her virtue, her most precious possession. Her father would be horrified, even more so if he knew that Piers had promised to marry her only if she were carrying a child.

But one glimpse of Piers’s lean body, and her heart started beating high in her throat, and heat crept up her legs. She couldn’t hide the truth from herself: given the chance, she would throw her virtue to the wind again. And again.

It was like madness. It was like being drunk, as if she were drinking brandy with her tea.

After a few minutes in the drawing room, Linnet found herself wondering if perhaps Lady Bernaise had slipped brandy in her tea. Her ladyship insisted on dancing, taking the marquis as her partner and consigning Linnet to Mr. Bitts. Even when the waltz was over, she was remarkably gay, her eyes sparkling, her fan in constant motion.

Linnet looked down at her white gown and sighed. Lady Bernaise was wearing an exquisite gown, of lilac tissue caught up just under the bodice with ribbons the color of mulberries. Though it might be a misnomer to talk of a bodice, since her décolletage was so much in evidence that her breasts appeared to be decorated rather than concealed.

Piers was leaning against the wall, watching with a sardonic expression as his mother grew more and more outrageous, flirting with the young doctors, tapping them with her fan, laughing her throaty little French laugh.

Linnet caught his eye, and put her hand on the sofa beside her.

“You summoned?” he asked, a moment later.

Her whole body shivered as he sat down, his broad shoulder brushing hers. “Did your mother have too much champagne?” she said in a low voice, trying not to look too delighted that he had responded to her summons.

“I doubt it. I think she’s discovered a new pastime, which could be summed up as Torment the Duke.”

“Torment as in make him jealous?” Linnet asked, her eyes sliding to the duke. “I believe it’s working.” Piers’s father was sitting bolt upright, his eyes fixed on his former wife.

“It might be a bit more complicated than that,” Piers said. “You see, my father divorced her on the grounds that she was a—”

“Oh, I see,” Linnet breathed. “Do keep your voice down, Piers. Your father will hear you.”

“And?”