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Lesson Four:

Going after a vexed rake in the dead of night? Amistake.

H e supposed he was a hypocrite.

Because the thought of Juliet with another man—Dorian coughed, bringing his fist to his lips to smother it—made his lungs ache.

Damned asthma. Damned women .

Still, there were worse places to bathe in one’s misery.

He paused mid–citrus thievery to stare through the glass ceiling of the Fairchilds’ conservatory at the velvet vista that was his night sky.

The rainfall had ceased about halfway through his trek, leaving him soaked but not entirely.

A refreshing damp. And the air smelled bloody incredible after a storm.

Earthy, with just a hint of woodsmoke to burn off the sweet edge, which made the discomfort mostly worth it.

He’d always loved Derbyshire and had only stayed away because of the blind fear, an anvil through the heart, of running into her. On the moors they’d once loved strolling across, their conversations the deepest of his life. In the charming village where they’d met.

Of being unable to escape the memories.

Still, he’d managed to speak with her tonight and remain seated—partly to conceal his stiffening cock a time or two—in the cottage that had once meant everything to them, without tearing her clothes off.

An example of maturity at its finest.

As a young man, he’d never been able to keep his hands off her. Or she off him.

At the reckless age of twenty, he wouldn’t have lasted ten seconds in an empty house with a spare bedchamber at the ready. A rug. A chaise. An armchair. They’d even once, with limber, youthful grace, made love on the marble staircase in his brother’s residence.

Though his mind questioned the sincerity of that claim—flashing with ribald images, some drawn from memory, others newly imagined with how Juliet looked now.

Slightly fuller of hip, of breast. Her hair longer.

Adorable little grooves at the corners of her glorious green eyes when she smiled.

Not to mention her agile mind, that was unchanged.

He’d always been drawn to intelligent women.

Dorian sighed and popped a slice of one of her famous Sevilles between his lips. Who was he fooling, he decided as juice slid down his throat, his cock fighting against his trouser buttons. He still wanted to tup her silly.

But he loved her mind more .

In fact, he couldn’t wait to get his hands on a copy of her book. He planned to buy out the bookstore in London. Hand a copy to every member of the Rebels, those who could read, anyway. He’d make sure she hit five hundred sales with the next one. A thousand, even.

Thaddeus Meredith .

If he’d seen that stamped on a leather spine while browsing at Hatchards, the coughing fit might’ve killed him.

Meredith was his middle name, his grandmother’s maiden.

A force of nature, a woman he’d loved with all his youthful heart.

She would’ve liked Juliet—recognized her determination, her intelligence, her kindness—had she ever been given the good fortune to meet her.

Unlike the rest of his family, who hadn’t been nearly as accommodating.

And Thaddeus, they’d simply liked.

He would never forget lying curled around her, their whispers filling the bedchamber—and the night—as they talked about children. Their children. Two boys and a girl, his preference. Two girls and a boy, hers. Now, he’d be insanely delighted with just one.

Or none, if that was how it turned out.

He only knew he wanted Juliet Fairchild, in whatever way he could have her.

“I never touched that Davenport chit,” he said the moment he heard the door’s rusted hinge creak. If it wasn’t Juliet, whoever it was would be demanding to know what he was doing there. “And there’s never been an opera singer.”

There had been an Italian actress , but he thought it best not to mention that.

After withstanding as long a silence as he could, Dorian glanced over his shoulder to find Juliet lingering in the doorway.

The sight of her had him pressing his knuckles to the wall just to maintain his steady stance.

Weak moonlight in the wake of the storm flowed over her, turning her auburn hair nearly black in the shadows.

She’d changed out of her rumpled gown into an equally disastrous gardening frock that was worn thin from washings and fit her like a glove.

Fashion had never been her talent. Nor had she needed it to be.

Even dressed like a waif, she was beautiful. Her mouth—a generous, pink-tinged bow—was one he’d memorized in a hundred different moods. The years had only refined what had unmanned him when he’d been a green lad of nineteen.

“How did you find me?” he finally found the breath to ask.

“You always liked this spot.” She gazed into the distance, laughing softly, memories rushing in like a broken tide between them. But whatever was going through her mind, she wasn’t ready to share it.

So he took the lead. “I liked the company more.”

Although he’d loved this place. Their third kiss—no, second—had happened just steps from where she now stood. The utility room at the back? If he lingered too long on the memory of what they’d done there, on two occasions, his gossamer-thin control would fray like the hem of her shabby gown.

Smiling, though trying not to make a point of it, Dorian flipped the orange between his hands while the air between them shimmered.

She’d come to find him. That had to mean something.

“You’re giving me that look, Montrose. The devious one.”

He ducked his head, because he was loathe to tell her—would use every bit of his practiced charm if necessary—that he wasn’t letting her leave without a kiss. One kiss.

He’d been famished for five grueling years, and the famine ended tonight.

“I miss the taste of oranges, that’s all. Damned hard to come by some months.” He made a show of peeling one, juice slicking his fingers and sending his mind to all sorts of lurid places. “And I’d forgotten how beautiful Derbyshire is after a storm.”

Dorian frowned. That last bit had landed too close to things he didn’t talk about anymore.

“You sound like a poet,” she murmured, pausing to inspect a citrus tree that looked to be in decline.

He hurled a sliver of peel to the flagstones. “And we know how you adore those .”

Juliet stilled for a breath, then her laughter burst like sunlight through London’s infamous haze. “Such jealousy when I haven’t even kissed him yet.”

Yet . Dorian extinguished the rush of temper with an aggrieved sigh. So this was why she’d come out here. For the same thing he wanted. If she’d laid a sword at his feet and asked him to leap over it, the dare couldn’t have been clearer.

Smiling softly, he licked the juice from his fingers, making sure she observed every move. “How long?”

Her bewildered gaze drifted from his hands to his face. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Deep inside, where she couldn’t see it, he preened like a peacock. She still wanted him. He still wanted her. Why fight the inevitable pull? He was drained, lonely, weary .

Maybe a kiss could help them decide where they were in the now.

Swallowing the last slice of orange, Dorian dusted his hands over his trousers. “How long will you allow me to touch you?”

Ignoring her hushed sigh because his shaky strategy demanded it, he went on, “Or—since I’m without my beloved Bainbridge timepiece—perhaps it’s better to ask: how far can I go?

Right here. Nowhere else. When it’s done, I’ll scuttle back to your lumpy settee with nothing but the taste of you, and your Sevilles, on my tongue. ”

Instead of retreating like most society chits would have, Juliet eased back against the potting stand, considering the question. Tilting her head, she murmured, “You do owe me for the fruit.”

He nodded as his cock threatened to tear a hole through his trousers. “Quite right.”

“Two kisses, your style. A simple starter, followed by a not-so-simple.”

“I have a style?” Dorian grinned, exultant. He had a style, and she remembered it. Although…this likely meant she’d sampled others to realize anyone had a style.

“Come here, Dare,” she whispered, crooking her finger.

*

Juliet’s heart was near to leaping from her chest.

She gripped the rotting wood of the potting stand as Dorian hesitated for barely half a second before advancing on her. Through shadow and muted light, with his clothing ruined and his mahogany hair a disaster, he shouldn’t have been what she wanted most in the world.

He wasn’t even smiling his practiced smile.

In fact, the look on his face held a thousand hues of intensity. Passionate intensity, the expression telling her exactly what he was going to do. No mercy. No hesitation.

The dangerous second part of that two-step style of his.

He’d already, she could see, decided to skip the first.

Why she raced the short distance to him in accord was—like everything else between them—a delightful mystery.

With a groaning, joyous reaction, he caught her hips in his broad hands and pulled her to him, seizing her lips and all reason.

She waited the scant two seconds it took her body to remember before sinking her fingers in his silken strands, slanting his head to allow her to take .

Together they stumbled back, her body wedged between his and the medieval stone he crowded her against. He tasted of citrus and her dreadful brandy, of youthful love lost. Sensual images from the past collided with the present, undoing her.

Trembling with desire, the shudder skated through her and into him.

Groaning, he sent his hand in a languid glide to her neck, his fingers curling around her nape as he plundered, securing her involvement. His hard length was a tempting presence fitted quite snuggly against her upper thigh, and she longed to touch .

When she reached, he caught her wrist. “Simple,” he whispered, his words holding a ragged edge. “Simple.”

When nothing about this was simple .