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myself?’ she questioned him further, flushing
when he grimaced.
    ‘Forgive me, but to pay for a woman’s company is not to my
taste. I would rather she be in my arms of her own free will.’
    ‘As I was,’ Juliana mused, ‘although it was hardly my own free
will that brought me here.’
    Guy looked at her to see her eyes were twinkling merrily.
‘Minx,’ he said, kissing her again. He could hardly get enough of her, a feeling
so alien to him it was unnerving.
    ‘God, but I wish we had met under more favourable
circumstances!’ he ground out, feeling again an overwhelming urge to protect
her. How had she come to this? He had to know.
    ‘And you, what is your story?’
    Juliana’s voice was quiet as she talked of her family, of her
hard-working coach-maker father and the vivacious mother she barely remembered.
Self-made, proud people with a zest for life, so at odds with the uppity and
eventually cruel Dora. As she described her stepmother’s cruel attitude towards
her and the eventual assault by Mortimer and her subsequent banishment, Guy’s
arms tightened around her.
    ‘Bastard. He sounds a lot like Sinclair. I’ve had to drag him
off more than a few girls in the past. We have more in common than it would
seem, perhaps.’
    ‘Why did you quarrel yesterday?’ she asked, and he winced as he
related the story of the serving girl and her brother. ‘He will squander all we
have and leave our mother destitute, if he has his head.’
    ‘You have to go back and try to reason with him. A duel? That
is an act for desperate men. There must be a better way. Why, the victor could
well end by being strung up.’ Juliana gasped at the thought. Already she felt a
strong attachment to this man, although she tried to tell herself it was stupid.
Such feelings could only lead to heartbreak.
    She was right, of course, but Guy feared the outcome of a
showdown with his brother. Some things, when done, changed the course of one’s
life forever. Meeting with this woman had been one of them, he thought with a
jolt, and he began to wonder if he had a chance at a future that held more than
dealing with the family’s honour. He tried to tell himself his feelings came
from his shock at finding her a virgin, the sense of honour that said he
couldn’t take her and then abandon her, but he knew if she had had a thousand
men he would still feel the urge to make her wholly his. She had moved beneath
him as if her body had been made for his, had looked up at him with such trust
and longing that their lovemaking had been so much more than a fumble by the
fireside with a pretty woman. But he dared not give voice to his feelings. What
could he possibly offer her, when by this time tomorrow he would be either a
murderer or a dead man?
    Juliana laid a kiss on his shoulder. Her lips were cold and
startled Guy out of his reverie. The fire was dying down. He lifted her,
carrying her to the bed, and though she fought it, her lids fluttered. He laid
her in the bed and covered her with the blankets before going to the chair, but
she pulled him back.
    ‘Won’t you sleep with me?’
    ‘I did not want to presume.’
    ‘A little late for that,’ she retorted sleepily. He smiled as
he slid in beside her, curving around her back. Her body fitted into his
perfectly, her soft buttocks causing a stirring in his groin even though he had
just fully emptied his desire into her.
    ‘If I go back tomorrow, come with me,’ he whispered into her
hair, ‘if only so I can make up for what I owe and see you get back to your
lodgings safely.’
    He felt her stiffen, then nod. He stroked her cheek, not
knowing how to give voice to the unfamiliar feelings that flooded through him.
The thought of her returning to life as a courtesan—especially now that he had
in effect damaged her prospects—turned his stomach. If he had his way, she would
do no such thing; she deserved better. The idea of taking her home with him and
having her in his life drifted through his