She glared out at the night, perilously close once again to the tears she despised. “I should have stayed in Wellington, with Alexander,” she said.

Jamie’s chuckle rumbled in the carriage like thunder in the far distance. “You’d ’ave been most un’appy with that arrangement, Duchess, and so would Alexander.”

Bliss whirled, forgetting the hurt she’d wanted so to hide, and spat, “Is that so, Jamie McKenna? Well, it just so happens that you’ve given me nothing that Alexander couldn’t have—he’s very well fixed, you know!”

Before Bliss was fully aware of what was happening, Jamie had shifted her so that she sat astraddle his lap. As though it were his right, he opened her cloak and kissed the curves of her breasts where they showed above the low neckline of her gown.

A groan that mingled defiance and surrender escaped Bliss as Jamie deftly began raising her skirts.

“Never challenge me that way, Duchess,” he whispered against the fevered skin of her breast. “Me manly pride won’t ’ave me let it pass.”

Bliss could feel his hand moving along her inner thigh, teasing her through the soft fabric of her new bloomers. “Damn—your—manly pride!” she spat, but she bent her head back in absolute surrender as he managed to bare one of her nipples for suckling.

“It’s times like this,” he said, between sessions of greedy enjoyment, “when I think they named you right and proper after all. This, sweet Duchess, is bliss.”

His fingers were dispensing with the tiny buttons that did up the front of her drawers. Soon enough, he stole beneath the fabric and Bliss moaned with glorious tension as he caressed her.

“We can’t,” she whimpered, in sweet desperation. “Oh—my—”

He possessed her in one smooth and searing motion while continuing to make free with her breast. “Ummm,” he responded. “Tell me you want me, love.”

The torment was exquisite; only Jamie could have torn her between the needs of her body and the dictates of her pride. “I—want you,” she gasped, half-blinded by the sensations he was stirring.

“Tell me where,” he said, then circled her distended nipple with the tip of his tongue.

Bliss hated him, momentarily, for the power he wielded, and she vowed that she would avenge herself somehow, someday. “Here!” she cried in delicious defeat.

But Jamie had not extracted the last concession yet. “When?” he asked, his voice throaty.

“Now,” Bliss answered feverishly. “Oh, damn you, Jamie, now—now!”

It was a tricky bit of business, making love in a carriage, but Bliss should have known that Jamie could manage it. Without so much as a wasted motion, he turned her away from him and lowered her onto his lap, where all his glorious maleness waited to sheathe itself in her femininity.

Bliss saw dazzling light, and nothing more, as he slowly brought her down the length of him. When he was fully inside her, he lowered the bodice of her dress so that he might caress her bare breasts with his hands while his rod caressed the velvety depths of her.