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watched her with a hooded, unreadable expression.
    She moved to smooth her dress back over her exposed body but found he had already done so. With a heated blush, she struggled into a seated position and stared at him.
    He smiled, but the expression held no warmth or genuine happiness. Instead, it was tight and false.
    “I think that is enough tutelage for today,” he said, his voice strained.
    Lysandra blinked. That was all? All that passion had built to a crescendo, yes, but he had not taken her, claimed her, in the ultimate way. In fact, she realized now, he hadn’t even kissed her… at least not properly on the mouth.
    “I—” she began, but then stopped.
    What was she going to say? Beg for something she couldn’t properly express? Demand he take this strange, erotic afternoon to its expected end? She was not daring enough to do so.
    “I shall arrange for a place for us to meet. You will stay there throughout the course of our…training,” he said.
    His voice was cool and distant, as if he were arranging a luncheon meeting, not a tryst.
    She blinked as she looked around the parlor. “We will not meet here?”
    He jerked his eyes to her in surprise. “No.”
    Lysandra turned away. What a foolish notion. Of course a gentleman didn’t keep his mistress in his main house. She must look like an idiot of the highest order.
    With a shake of her head, she said, “Well, then I will leave my direction with your servant at the door so you may reach me with the address and when you would like me to move there.”
    “No, my driver will take you to your current address, then he can deliver my message to you,” he said.
    She shook her head. “Oh no, I wouldn’t trouble your servant. I can take a hack.”
    His lips thinned. “If I am to be your protector, for however short a time, you must allow me to protect you, Lysandra. No more hacks. You will allow my driver to be at your service today and I’ll arrange for one of your own as soon as possible.”
    She opened her mouth, but he arched a brow and silenced her with just that pointed look. She nodded.
    “Very well. Thank you for the…er, protection.”
    From the way he shifted, she could see he felt as awkward in this exchange as she did. Had she done something wrong? Was her passion too muted? Too powerful? Or was a man with experience and power like this simply unmoved by a girl of her ilk?
    Whatever the reason for his sudden coolness, it could not bode well.
    She gathered her reticule and tilted her head toward him. “Good afternoon, my lord.”
    “Good afternoon, Lysandra,” he said softly as she slipped from the room.
    Once in the hall, she rubbed a hand over her face. She had never felt so confused and ill at ease in her life. But she had also never felt so alive and passionate. And it was very clear to her that whatever happened next with Andrew, she would never again be the same person she was when she entered his parlor.
     
    As soon as the door closed behind Lysandra, Andrew began to pace. His world felt like it was spinning out of control, pushed off its axis by the slight frame of a woman he had only just met.
    Since Rebecca’s death three years ago, he had been sleeping. That was his choice, to live in a way that left him happily numb and dead to the world. His wife deserved that after what he had done, what he had not done.
    But now, in the span of an hour with Lysandra, it was like he had been shocked awake. His emotions boiled inside of him, raw and so pleasurable that they bordered on pain.
    Worse, he wanted more with this woman. He craved her body in a way he hadn’t done since…God, since before he was married. Since he was a rake of the highest order and had thought only of the pleasures of this world.
    He had no idea why this woman would inspire such strong reactions in him, except that there seemed to be something so complicated to her. Something so troubling.
    Yes, she was exquisitely responsive, but there was also an innocence about