“Oh Lord,” Sophie whispered suddenly. “You’re making love to me.”

Patrick’s mind was leaping from fact to fact, putting together Sophie’s untutored caresses, the surprised leap of her flesh every time he touched her somewhere new, and the shocked amazement in her blue eyes. He’d made the mistake of thinking that she was as sophisticated in sexual matters as she was in dress and conversation…. He let his fingers drift to the soft flesh of her thighs.

“Sweetheart, I can hardly see you.” He kissed her nose lightly. “May I light a candle?”

Sophie stared at him in fascination. “Simone, my maid, said that the moon was as thin as a mouse’s whisker tonight,” she finally replied.

“Hmm.” Patrick gave her lips a brief kiss, as a reassurance and because he couldn’t bear not to. Then he rolled to his feet and struck a match, sending a flame flickering around the room. He lit the candle on Sophie’s bedside table and sat back down on the bed, his weight pulling down the mattress.

“How you look at me!” Sophie whispered, half shy, half cross. She sat up sharply, tugged up the bodice of her nightgown, and pushed the skirt back over her knees.

“I look at you the way a man looks at the woman he wants more than anything in the world,” Patrick said, his tone light but his eyes fierce.

“Oh,” Sophie whispered. Patrick had thrown off his cloak; underneath all she could see was a fine lawn shirt, the collar lying open against his chest.

“I’ve never seen a man’s shirt without a cravat,” she said irrelevantly.

A wisp of a smile crossed Patrick’s face. Then in one swift movement he tugged the shirt from his breeches, pulled it over his head, and threw it down beside the bed. Sophie’s eyes widened. The candle flame danced and bent in the sudden breeze as the shirt fell to the floor. Orange shadows played on bronzed skin, flickered over ridges of muscle.

Sophie opened her mouth, then closed it again. The only thing she could think of to say was “oh,” and she was tired of sounding like such a nitwit. So she said nothing, but she took courage from Patrick’s dark eyes and reached out to touch his chest as he had touched hers. They were sitting side by side on the edge of the bed now, almost primly, Sophie thought, except … except. She spread her hand flat on his chest and brought the other up to meet it. Her little finger rubbed across Patrick’s nipple and he drew in his breath suddenly, his eyes dark with desire.