He cupped her delicate, triangular face in his large hands and pressed kisses on her eyelids. Still she didn’t make a sound, just opened her mouth a bit and gasped when he drew his tongue over her eyelids. Which was such an entrancing sound that even though Alex knew he had to get out of there, stand up, deal with the unpleasant fact of having deflowered a wench, he bent back to her lips and brushed his across hers, tantalizing, asking, demanding.

His hand ran down her thigh again and then up the inside, sliding slowly over the gossamer silkiness of her stocking, over the slight bump of a garter at her knee, into the creamy smoothness of her inner thigh. His hand closed over her, and her body arched again, surprised by desire for something she had never felt before. Gasping, Charlotte stared blindly into the dark leaves overhead. Mindlessness descended and she moaned, small ragged sounds, parting her lips. The burning pain of a moment ago was forgotten.

Alex stared down at her, almost puzzled. She had a perfect, aristocratic nose, and such delicate, flyaway eyebrows…. She turned her head and looked squarely into his face. Her eyes were glazed, her mouth swollen. Alex was struck by such a bolt of lust that he shuddered all over. He reared over her again, easing his fingers from her, his knee thrusting between her legs.

But in that instant—before he could reclaim her, virgin or no—Charlotte struggled, a belated instinct for self-preservation replacing the unwelcome coolness when his fingers left her.

Alex let her go instantly, rolled himself off to the side. Charlotte ignored how unpleasant the loss of his heat and weight felt. She was shaking slightly all over, her heart pounding as if she’d run for miles. She tried not to look at him as she stood up, almost stumbling from the sudden pain between her legs, pulling her bodice up.

But she couldn’t not look. He was much younger than she thought, probably only a few years older than her brother Horace, and Horace was only twenty-five. And he was so lovely: His skin looked golden as shadows of leaves played over his white shirt. Her eyes fell. He was politely looking away so she rearranged herself, straightened her cloak, and put her mask back on.

The only thing she could think of, besides throwing herself back into his arms, was getting home, so she gently laid her hand on his arm and said (with an inborn politeness which was natural to her), “Thank you. Goodbye.”

She didn’t think how odd it was to say thank you for being ravished—the worst thing that could happen to a young lady, after all.