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more of your games, love, now it’s my play. Or don’t you think I deserve a reward for all I’ve been through, hm? Terrorised by highwaymen, threatened within an inch of my life, deprived of my dinner. Yes, I think I’m owed some restitution, wouldn’t you say so, Miss Trevaine?”
    “Yes, my lord,” was Jacelyn’s whispered response.
    “What’s that, my girl, not used to paying for your crimes?”
    “No, my lord,” meekly.
    “Ah, in that case I won’t demand too high a price. Perhaps just a kiss?” And he stood there, his arm negligently across her shoulder, waiting expectantly.
    After a moment’s indecision, Jacelyn stood on tiptoe and darted forward, quickly brushing the side of his mouth with hers. When she moved as if to leave, that strong hand firmed at the back of her neck.
    “No, no, you’ll have to do better than that. That was not even dustman’s wages, much less an officer’s. Come, little sparrow, let me show you.”
    He pulled her to him, his other arm pressing at her back, and bent his head to hers, his lips very soft and gentle on her mouth. She almost thought she was floating, till his hands started to move, to knead and caress. He raised his head briefly, to see a wondering look in her eyes, her mouth formed in a bemused “Oh.” With a groan he covered her mouth again, this time with his lips opened, his tongue running over hers until she could taste the wine and his breath and his very soul, she supposed, as he must hers. Then she gave up what little rational thought was left to her. She had no frame of reference, nothing to compare these fiery new feelings to, to understand them better, so she stopped trying and joined wholeheartedly in her first real kiss. She raised her arms and held him as close as she was able, wanting to stir him the way his hands were rousing her, straying down her back to where a lady would have skirts and petticoats, so a gentleman couldn’t take such liberties. Then his hand pushed aside Lem’s jacket and stroked the side of her breast until she felt she’d faint if this went on much longer, and die if it ever ended.
    *
    It’s one of those interesting observations that, whenever the cards are stacked against you, there are so very many jokers in the deck. Take now, for instance. Miss Trevaine had not only abducted the wrong gentleman, but she’d spent four hours alone with him. Furthermore, he’d turned out to be, by his own confession, one of the worst womanisers on two continents. And now, just when she was enthusiastically, devastatingly, definitively helping him prove that claim, who should come thundering into the clearing but Squire and half his house party.
    It was Lord Arthur Ponsonby who, first spying the couple silhouetted in the open doorway, locked in a passionate embrace, gave the evening’s most superfluous statement by shouting, “There she is!”
    Jacelyn was right. Arthur always was a spoilsport.

Chapter Four
    She’d done it again. Squire Bottwick had no idea how the she-devil’d managed to bring off such a complicated, convoluted plot, but she’d done it. Here it was, a perfect Saturday morning in autumn. You could almost taste the crispness in the air as the thoroughbred trampled leaves under its hooves. Was Squire out riding neck-or-nothing on the heels of his hounds? Was he feeling the wind in his face as he took the jumps along with his friends, ridding England of one more vermin? No, he was plodding along, riding as slowly as the purebred under him would tolerate, on his way to Treverly Hall. Miss Trevaine had done it again, ruined another day’s hunt. It was enough to make a grown man cry.
    Bad enough he’d miss today’s sport, Squire mourned; sure as hellfire his wife and sister would have him in church tomorrow, for all his sins. Monday morning the guests would be leaving, and he’d have to see them off. No hunting then either, but at least now there was something worth praying for. If his puffed-up sister sniffed down