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Silence filled the room, the only sound the muted crackling of the fire. He stared at her, and she couldn’t read his expression, but it definitely wasn’t promising. “You’re a child,” he said after a moment.

“I’m twenty years old. Most women are married by my age. I want you to take me to bed.”

“You want me to ruin you,” he said, and there was no missing the exasperation in his voice. “That’s the last thing I’d do.”

This wasn’t going well. “Why?”

“I’ve been trying to look after you, not destroy you....”

“Why?”

“My life is complicated enough without an overgrown girl in love with me,” he snapped.

“Well, at least you admit that I love you.”

“It’s a crush, nothing more. If you were just out in society, you’d find someone more suitable and?—”

“I found someone more suitable. Andrew Salton. And he was in love with my sister. In fact, you’re the only man who’s ever preferred me. I’ll have to make do with you.” She’d hoped to coax a smile from him, but he was deadly serious.

He was also beautiful, with those mesmerizing blue eyes, haunted now. “There will be plenty of men who prefer you to her. You haven’t given it a chance.”

“I don’t want to....”

“I’m not arguing with you, Georgie. You’ve thrown my life into disarray and I need to get it back. As soon as Stiles finishes with the house, I’m taking you back there, and you’ll help me clean up the mess he made.”

“Of course,” she said sweetly. “If you tell me what he’s looking for. What you’ve been looking for—don’t pretend you haven’t. You were searching down in the coal cellar, you were looking through my father’s office. What is it you’re looking for?”

He looked at her in frustration. “It’s none of your business.”

“It’s my house. Of course it is.”

“If I tell you, will you go to bed?”

“Of course,” she said promptly.

He sighed, leaning against the door. “I used to work for a man who had a great deal of money. Ill-gotten money, and he hid it before he died.”

“And you think he hid it in our house? Why?”

“It was his house before he...was killed. He often stashed things there, and we’ve searched everywhere else. It’s somewhere at Corinth Place, and Billy Stiles is determined to find it.”

“And you?”

“I’m determined to find it too, just to get Billy off my back.”

A cold certainty settled down around her. “So that’s why you agreed to become our butler? Because you needed to search the house?”

“You gave me the perfect opportunity. With any luck, I should have been able to find it in a day or two. But as far as I can tell, it’s nowhere.”

“But why did you take such good care of us if you were only there to find some stolen treasure?” she said, fighting the disappointment that filled her.

“Temporary insanity,” he said irritably. “If I’d known you were going to read all sorts of foolish things into my efforts, I never would have done so.”

“So you’re supposed to share this so-called treasure with Mr. Stiles?”

“I don’t think sharing’s in the picture. He’ll take it all, and I’ll let him. I don’t need the damned money.”

So much for being a beggar. She glanced around the room slowly, her brandy-infused glow fading in the wee hours of the morning. “Do you live here alone?” she asked abruptly. What if he had a wife, or a mistress? What if she was making an absolute fool of herself...?

“No,” he said, and her heart sank. “I have someone who looks after me. A valet cum butler.”

She couldn’t help it, she laughed. “The butler has a butler? No wonder you were so good at your job.”

He said nothing, and in the distant night air they could hear the bells of the new clock tower. It was four in the morning, and suddenly Georgie was very cold and tired. “I want to go home,” she said.

“Stiles isn’t finished. I’ll take you back in the morning. Go back to bed and get some sleep.”

She looked at him, at his haunted face and high cheekbones, at his unsmiling mouth and shadowed eyes. That’s what she ought to do—leave him alone and go to bed, forget her dreams.

She climbed off the window seat, and her diaphanous gown floated around her. “I don’t want to sleep,” she said, and before she could think better of it, she crossed the room and reached up to him, sliding her arms around his neck. He didn’t move, simply looked at her.

“What are you doing?” he said in a rough voice.

“Seducing you.” Reaching up, she pressed her mouth against his.

He didn’t move, didn’t react, simply stood there as she kissed him, his mouth cold and unmoving. She pulled away. “I’m not doing a very good job at this,” she said. “I really don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Go to bed, Georgie,” he said in a low, gravelly voice.

She looked up at him, and knew she’d lost somewhere along the way. He really didn’t want her—it had all been a part of his lies.

She knew her eyes filled with tears but she blinked them back, starting to pull away. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice. “My mistake.”

“No,” he said with a growl. “Mine.” He slid his arms around her waist and brought her up tight against him, and his mouth sank down on hers.

She was a far from a tiny woman, but she felt small and delicate in his arms, and she sank against him like she was coming home.

The damned shift was practically transparent, and he could feel her breasts, her hips, against his body, and he knew he was surrendering.

Surrendering to the aching need that had haunted him for the last five days, that stole his sleep and his common sense, and left him helpless to resist her when he knew he must. She was just a determined girl with an ill-advised crush, and he was going to take her to bed and do everything he dreamed about to her.

And then he was going to leave her.

He caught her face in his hands, holding her there, as he kissed the smooth planes of her cheeks, her forehead, her eyelids, wet with tears.

She was crying, and he knew he ought to stop, but it was too late.

They were salty tears on her lips, and he licked them off.

And then he scooped her up in his arms and started toward the bedroom.

He didn’t have to do this, he told himself. He could set her down on the bed, tuck her in, and leave. She wouldn’t come after him. She’d used up her courage for the night, and she’d let him go.

Go where? He was going nowhere but to bed with Georgie, mistake though it was. He wasn’t a man built for abstinence, for noble self-denial. He wanted this woman more than he could remember wanting any woman in his life, and he was going to take her.

Kicking the bedroom door shut behind him, he set her down on the bed.

One low candle was burning, and it would gutter out soon, and he wanted to light a dozen more, so he could see her.

But he didn’t want to let go of her long enough to find the candles—she felt too good in his arms, smelled too sweet, and he laid her down in the middle of his big bed, following her down.

He wanted to take her then, to rip off her chemise, shove open his pants and plunge inside her.

He needed surcease so badly, but he couldn’t do that to her.

She was a virgin, and he’d never taken one to bed before.

He needed to woo her, arouse her, tease her.

He had to make her his in every way possible before he got what he needed so badly, and the first step was getting rid of the blasted chemise that was getting in his way.

It was flimsy, old, like most of the clothes she’d worn before he replaced them, and he wanted to rip it from her body.

He didn’t. The shift had a drawstring neckline, and he loosened it, his fingers deft and gentle, and slowly drew it down, exposing her full, perfect breasts to the moonlit room.

She gasped nervously, but didn’t try to cover herself, and for a moment, he simply looked at her, drinking her in.

“Change your mind,” he said, in a gruff voice. “Tell me no.”

He could see her eyes glittering in the darkness. “Yes,” she said. “I love you.”

If he had any sense, he wouldn’t let her say it, but some small part of him wanted to hear it. Women had often told him that they loved him, particularly in bed, but this was different. This was the first time he believed it.

He covered one breast with his hand, and the nipple was tight and beaded against his palm.

He knew he should get her used to his touch first, but temptation was too strong, and he put his mouth on her as she let out a little squeak of surprise.

He sucked at it her, using his teeth, using his tongue as his fingers toyed with her other breast, and he could feel the response surging through her.

“Oh, my,” she whispered in a choked voice, and he smiled against her breast.

He was drawing the chemise down her body, and she made no attempt to stop him. Moving his mouth to her other breast, he pulled the garment off her hips, and she lifted them up so he could pull it away. And then his little chatterbox started to talk.

“I know what you’re going to do,” she said breathlessly.

“You do?”

“Bertha explained it to me years ago. And I really don’t mind.”

He slid his hand across her waist, down over her softly rounded belly. “You don’t?”

She was biting her lips. “It’s going to hurt.”

“Yes. The first time.”

“The first time?” she echoed. “You mean we’ll do it more than once?”

“Usually,” he said, as his long fingers slid into the tangle of curls at her apex and she jerked, then forced herself to lie still.

“But it doesn’t hurt that much?”

“I don’t believe so. But I’ve never been a with a virgin before.”

“You haven’t?” She sounded pleased but then gasped as his hands slid further between her legs. His touch was sure and practiced and slowly she began to relax, some of the tightness in her body loosening.

He moved up again, so that he could kiss her, distract her, as he began to coax some dampness from her. She continued to chatter.

“Most women find this perfectly acceptable,” she said, in a tight voice as his fingers delved deeper. “I’ve heard some even grow to like it.”