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soft swell of flesh. A finger dipped into her neckline, and her nipple was hard and erect as he touched it. All the while her hungry mouth engulfed him, seeming to draw him up from his body’s core, her demanding sweetness heady on his tongue.
    With a supreme effort, he broke free of the web her body was spinning around him, a web whose gossamer strands were made up of her scent, her taste, the lithe feel of her beneath his hands.
    “Holy Mother!
Enough!
” He pushed her from him and ran his hands over his face, his mouth, tracing her imprint on his flesh. “What kind of sorceress
are
you?”
    Cordelia shook her head, saying with soft wonder, “No sorceress. But I love you.”
    “Don’t be absurd.” He struggled to regain his composure. “You’re a spoilt and headstrong child.”
    “No.” She shook her head again. “No, I’m not. I’ve never loved anyone like this before. Oh, once Christian and I thought that perhaps we loved each other in that way, but itdidn’t last a week. I never wanted him to kiss me the way I
needed
you to. I
know
what I feel.”
    There was such calm conviction in her voice, in her eyes, in her smile. She looked as smug and satisfied and as sure of herself as any cat with a saucer of cream.
    Leo laughed, thinking desperately that maybe tolerant amusement would puncture her intimidating self-possession. “You know nothing, my dear girl. Nothing at all. You’re at the mercy of a host of emotions you don’t as yet understand. They belong in the marital chamber and you’ll understand them soon enough. I blame myself. I should never have kissed you.”
    “I kissed you just then,” she corrected simply. “Because I needed to.”
    He ran a hand through his hair, disturbing the thick black locks waving off his broad forehead. “Now, listen to me, Cordelia. It was all my fault. I should never have teased you the way I did in the gallery earlier. I didn’t realize, God help me, that I was playing with fire. But you must now put all this nonsense about love behind you. You’re going to be the wife of Prince Michael von Sachsen. That is your destiny. And you will only hurt yourself if you don’t accept it.”
    Cordelia tucked a loosening ringlet behind her ear. “Are you married?”
    “No.” He answered the simple question without thought.
    “Do you have a mistress?”
    “Do I
what?
” The change of tack left him momentarily speechless, until he realized that it wasn’t a change of tack at all.
    “A mistress?” she repeated, tucking away another ringlet. “Do you have one at present?”
    “Get out of here, Cordelia, before I really lose my temper.”
    “I wonder what that would be like,” she said mischievously, then backed away as he stepped toward her. “Oh dear, I have made you cross. Well, you needn’t answer menow. I’ll ask you again when you’re more used to the idea.” She blew him a kiss, turned, and moved away into the darkness. He stood watching the glimmer of her ivory gown wafting as if disembodied until even that had vanished and he was left only with the lingering scent of her.

Chapter Three
    R AIN LASHED THE windowpane, and a chill draught set the flames in the hearth flickering. Prince Michael von Sachsen put down his pen and leaned toward the fire, holding out his hands to the warmth. April in Paris was not always a soft time of budding trees and nodding spring flowers; the wind and rain could be as raw as on any winter day.
    He picked up his pen again and continued with his writing, covering the thick vellum page of the leatherbound book with a spidery sloping scrawl. At the end of the page, he laid down his pen. For twenty years he hadn’t missed a daily entry: a scrupulously accurate accounting of his day, with every event, every significant thought punctiliously recorded.
    He reread the entry before sanding the page and closing the book. He carried the journal over to an ironbound chest beneath the window. He took a key from his pocket and unlocked