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his shirt out of his trousers. Before the hem could settle around his hips, he pulled his shirt off, over his head.

    Oh, dear lord.

    His skin was the color of brandy, like a laborer’s, and she couldn’t imagine why. What could he possible do out of doors with his shirt off?

    “I want you to make me forget.”

    “Forget what?” she asked. A blush crept over her cheeks that she had been so bold as to ask the question. She normally listened. Tonight, with his kiss singing on her lips and champagne bubbling through her blood, she truly was Verity—someone else other than mousy Maryanne.

    Swansborough paced around her, arms folded over his massive chest. Soft black hairs curled over hard planes of muscle. The sight of his nipples left her hot and embarrassed. She felt the sweep of his gaze, the assessment of breasts, of hips, of bottom. She felt like a mare on display at Tattersalls.

    “You’re slender.”

    Reed thin, compared to the women here—the women with large bosoms, plump arses, and generous thighs.

    He paused long enough to kick off shoes—he had prepared to undress, he hadn’t worn boots. With lazy motions, he undid the buttons of his trousers.

    This time, with this man, she did not want to run.

    “Lovely.”

    Her heart soared at the word, heaven help her. She liked this. She liked to be stared at by lustful Lord Swansborough.

    He peeled down his trousers. She’d thought—she’d been certain—that men wore undergarments beneath their trousers.

    He didn’t.

    She was faced with his cock, and its thicket of black curls, and it, like the rest of him, stole her breath away. He gave her a smile, mischievous and boyish and utterly endearing. “Does it please you?”

    “I’ve no idea.” Truth again.

    He laughed at that, not the usual laugh of a man who was in his cups. Deep, erotic, his laugh was filled with naughty promise. “Most lightskirts ‘ooh and ah’ over the size, my dear.”

    “It is large.” Her first thought had indeed been astonishment, and now she knew one did mention that to a man. In all the erotic books she edited, men always possessed members that lasted for one carnal bout after another. Georgiana had laughed about that and had confided, with a wry smile, that such cocks were creatures of fantasy.

    “I think,” Maryanne hazarded, “it is a creature of fantasy.”

    He wrapped his hand around the shaft, and this time the sight of his large hand over his enormous staff had her hot and panting and giddy with desire.

    “What do you want to do to me, my sweet?” he asked with a strangely vulnerable air, the way a shy man asked a lady to step into his curricle for a jaunt around the park.

    She didn’t know. She couldn’t find words! Her thoughts were a tumble of nebulous fantasies. Of imagination and dreams. Of lust and foolish madness.

    “What do you think would please me? I like an inventive woman.”

    She had no idea, knew she could not hope to fool him, but the challenge heated her blood. “I would like to…kiss you. Again.”

    “Kiss me where?”

    “On your lips.”

    “And I would like to kiss your lips, your breasts, your quim, your arse. Would you be willing to do such things for me?”

    “You haven’t got breasts.”

    His deep, throaty, wicked laugh washed over her, more intoxicating than champagne. Surely Lucifer laughed like this—before tempting a woman to surrender her soul.

    “Indeed I don’t. Disappointed? Do you enjoy suckling another woman’s breasts? Tell me—I enjoy inviting a crowd into my bed at times. Have you experience there?”

    She felt as if she were being interviewed for a position—she supposed she was. He thought she wanted to be his mistress. Suddenly the realization of what she’d come for stopped her cold.

    “I can’t. I must—I must go.”

    “To find Georgiana? She isn’t here, love. She’s left London.”

    “How do you know?”

    “I know everything, sweeting. The lovely Georgiana is pursuing an