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gazes locked. Rainey felt a disorienting mixture of Marguerite's emotions and her own. Each of them was unsettled by her partner. In Marguerite's case, the reasons were obvious and would be resolved by the end of the movie, but Rainey's situation was far more uncertain.
    Kenzie Scott was dangerously attractive, and he knew it. There was something very real here, yet he was a stranger to her, a man famously protective of his privacy. A man who could injure her deeply if she wasn't careful.
    To relieve the electricity crackling between them, she said,
    "You're really good at this. Do they teach period dancing at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art?"
    "Yes, we learned all the major dances in movement classes."
    "I envy your education." She spun away from him, their hands still linked. "The RADA graduates I've met are such good actors, prepared for everything."
    "It's ultracompetitive—hundreds of hopefuls audition for a handful of places." He drew her toward him again. "The rejection is good preparation for an actor's life."
    "You've known less rejection than most."
    "I was a good instinctive actor," he admitted, "but instinct will only take one so far. RADA taught me the craft and discipline of acting. How to let a character play through me, rather than me playing the character. How to hit the same emotional point again and again and have it ring true each time. How to be a professional."
    "You're making me even more envious. I learned piecemeal in various acting classes and workshops."
    "Wherever you studied, you learned well, Rainey. I imagine that RADA students and atmosphere weren't much different from your workshops."
    She laughed. "Everyone obsessed with acting, wildly melodramatic about their lives, and half the class sleeping with the other half, with partners changing regularly?"
    His eyes glinted with humor. "Acting classes are the same the world around."
    The music ended and they both slid back into character. "Farewell, my lady. I do not know if I shall return. "
    Since the script called for a kiss, Rainey went into his arms. "Don't leave me like this, Percy! What have I done to deserve such coldness?"
    Instead of Sir Percy's swift, unhappy kiss, Kenzie's mouth met hers with gentle exploration. She fell into him like a thirsty woman discovering water in the desert. He was so close that she saw he wasn't wearing contact lenses. Those incredible green eyes were real.
    Hollywood had changed her from a rebellious girl to a self-protective woman. She had avoided casual affairs because it wasn't her nature to be casual and she couldn't afford distractions.
    But dear God, how she had hungered for warmth. Amazingly, under Kenzie's movie star glamour he seemed to yearn for intimacy as much as she did.
    His hands skimmed her back as the kiss deepened. Soft, expert, passionate. Weak-kneed, she whispered in a last halfhearted effort at defense, "I can see why you have a reputation as a terrific lover."
    "If I slept with even a quarter of the women the gossip columnists claim, I'd have died of exhaustion years ago." He tugged her down onto the sofa so that she was lying full-length along his strong, beautifully fit body.
    She buried her hands in waves of dark hair grown long for the part he was going to play. Too many men looked on kissing as merely a step on the road to intercourse. Not Kenzie. His mouth and hands learned her with luxurious patience. No attempts to rip off her clothing or rush to greater intimacy.
    His restraint made her feverish with longing. Even as a hormone-crazed adolescent, she hadn't felt like this. As he kissed her throat, she said huskily, "So we're going to have an affair?"
    "Yes. But not until we've finished shooting The Scarlet Pimpernel ."
    "You're kidding!" She pulsed her pelvis against his. "Granted, it's been a while since I had a personal life, but you feel quite ready now."
    He caught his breath, then lifted her so that they were reclining side by side in the deep cushions. Stroking back her