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desire to give him the same pleasure she had just experienced. Still not looking at her, he took her hand from his leg and brought it to his mouth, turning her palm upward to receive his kiss.
    â€œAmanda,” he said gruffly, “I don’t trust myself with you any longer. I have to leave while I’m still able.”
    Amanda was stunned by the dream-swept, faraway sound of her own voice when she replied. “Stay with me. Stay all night.”
    Jack threw her a wry glance, and she saw the flush that lingered on his cheekbones. Continuing to cradle her hand, he stroked his thumbs over her palm as if rubbing in the kiss he had placed there. “I can’t.”
    â€œIs it…do you have another…engagement?” she asked tentatively, while a horrible feeling swept through her at the thought of him going from her arms to another woman’s.
    He laughed shortly. “Good God, no. It’s just—” He broke off and gave her a moody, contemplative glance. “You’ll understand soon.” Bending over her, he brushed kisses on her chin, her cheek, her closed eyelids.
    â€œI—I won’t send for you again,” she said uneasily while he reached for a nearby lap blanket and draped it over her.
    Amusement curled richly in his voice. “Yes, I know.”
    She kept her eyes closed, listening to the rustling of clothing as he dressed himself before the fire. Floating on currents of shame and pleasure, she tried to consider all that had happened to her this evening.
    â€œGood-bye, Amanda,” he murmured, and then he was gone, leaving her disheveled and half dressed in the firelight. She kept the soft cashmere blanket over her bare shoulders, her hair coiling over her body and the arm of the settee.
    Senseless ideas occurred to her…she wanted to visit Gemma Bradshaw and ask questions about the man she had sent. She longed to know more about Jack. But what purpose would that serve? He occupied a different world from hers: a sordid, secretive world. There was no possibility of a friendship with him, and although he had not taken money from her this time, he certainly would the next. Oh, she had not expected to feel this way, so guilty and yearning, her body still throbbing with delight, her skin tingling as if silk veils were being stroked over her. She thought of his finger reaching inside her, his mouth teasing her breast, and she pulled the blanket over her face with a mortified groan.
    Tomorrow she would carry on with the rest of her life, just as she had vowed. But the rest of the night she would let herself drift in fantasies of the man who, already, was becoming more of a dream-figure than a real being.
    â€œHappy birthday,” she whispered to herself.

Chapter 3
    After the death of Amanda’s father, the decision to move to London had not been difficult. She could easily have stayed in Windsor. It was only about twenty-five miles from town and also harbored a few notable publishers. She had always lived in Windsor, and both her older sisters’ families were located nearby, and the small but comfortable Briars House had been left to her in her father’s will.
    After her father’s funeral, however, Amanda had sold the place promptly, drawing howls of protest from her sisters, Helen and Sophia. They had all been born in that house, the sisters told her angrily, and she had no right to sell a vital part of the family history.
    Amanda had received the criticism with outward patience, but she had concealed a grim smile as she reflected that she had earned the right to do as she liked with the place. Perhaps Helen and Sophia still cherished a fondness for the house, but for five years it had been a prison to her. Her sisters had married and moved into homes of their own, while Amanda had remained with her parents and nursed each through their last illnesses. It had taken her mother three years to die of consumption, a slow and messy and singularly