The insanity of this notion almost jerked her back to reality but then he was kissing her again and she heard herself moan faintly. He lowered her to the ground, and she smelled flowers and fresh grass, and felt the fierce warmth of the large male body hovering just above her. And so it was she who wound her hands in his curls and pulled his masculine pressure down onto her softness.

He pushed aside her cloak, but her eyes were shut tight and she was lost in the intense pleasure of the moment. When he ducked his head and his mouth closed on her breast, Charlotte—uncaring of the ballroom a few feet away, just on the other side of some trees—gave a moan that wasn’t a moan but almost a scream.

His mouth sent trails of fire up and down her body and especially down her legs, and she gasped and twisted in his arms, her body instinctively arching up, her hips lifting off the soft grass. And he was murmuring something, murmuring his strange, delicious kisses against her skin. Charlotte strained to listen and then forgot to understand; lips moved down her body as if he were tracing messages, teaching her a language of which she had known nothing until now.

Charlotte was on fire and exploding at the same time, and so when his face appeared over hers, all she did was delicately put her tongue to his lips, and run her hands through his curls again. With a muffled groan, he did something, she didn’t know what, and he was pushing about her clothing, but his hands were on her breasts and she couldn’t think. And when he said, “Would you like …” in a deep, velvety hoarse voice that she still shivered to think about, she whispered, “Please,” and strained toward him for another kiss.

A knee pushed between her legs, but he was bending down to kiss her and she swept into a swirling, breathless haze, her body ignited by the closeness of his. But then, in a split second, pain shot through her and she screamed.

“What the hell!” he said in a furious tone, rearing up on his arms. Charlotte shrunk back, suddenly coldly sober.

Alex McDonough Foakes, future Earl of Sheffield and Downes, looked down at the girl in stupefaction. She was a virgin, for God’s sake. She was staring up at him, absolutely white in the face, her lips swollen with his kisses. Lovely lips, he thought wonderingly: such a dark, dark red, and she tasted like honey…. And, not thinking at all, he lowered his body back down onto her softness and claimed her lips again.

She was devastatingly beautiful, this serving girl: so wild even if she was a virgin. He didn’t remember ever feeling so frantic with need. He ran a slow hand down her lovely languorous thigh, and in spite of herself, Charlotte squirmed against his hand.