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couldn’t be, but she didn’t have the strength to resist, and then their pace quickened, and she couldn’t think anymore. Dazed with the heat of their joining, she rocked over him, mindless, riding up the crest to pleasure. He pounded up into her, and she sensed his climax and let herself explode with bliss.
    As she lay in his arms afterward, the pulsing gradually slowed, and realization hit her. Except for that first endearment, he had said nothing to her. No whispers, no murmurs or growls or...anything. Contentment drained from her.
    There was nothing right about this. She’d been a fool to think it meant anything more to him than a quick tumble.
    She rolled away. “Just this once for old times’ sake, but I cannot do this anymore. As you say, it is no longer wartime. I cannot be a succubus without good cause.”
    His brows drew together. “You’re not being a succubus with me, any more than I’m being an incubus. We’re just Lucie and Val.”
    “No,” she said, “there is too much between us for that.”
    He slid off the bed, lean and strong and beautiful. “We’re here together. There needn’t be anything between us except...this.”
    Two naked bodies and two guarded souls. They could never trust one another, and without that there was only this pleasure—which, while wonderful in its way, no longer held any appeal for her without love. She wished she could be innocent like Theodora, who had opted for true love or nothing.
    She retrieved her nightdress and pulled it over her head. “That’s like being a succubus. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
    He picked up his clothing but didn’t put it on. Perhaps it was too difficult with only one sound arm, but she couldn’t offer to help. She wouldn’t risk touching him again. “From now on, I want to use my power to send dreams to help people, to do only good,” she said. “I shall concentrate on my mission.”
    He shrugged, indifference in his posture and his gaze. He was a competent actor, but she feared this was no pose. “I hope it’s less ridiculous than mine,” he said. “It’s no secret worth keeping. My spymaster sent me to arouse the sensual feelings of Miss Southern.”
    Lucie halted midway through donning her wrapper. “What? Why?”
    “Someone to whom my spymaster owes a favour wants Miss Southern to marry and believes that if she feels the pull of sensuality, she will be more likely to fall in love.” He chuckled unpleasantly. “You needn’t look so appalled. I won’t seduce her. She’s not my sort of woman, and even if she were, I’ve been ordered not to.”
    “Your mission had nothing to do with me? You were not ordered to kill me?”
    He rolled his eyes. “As I already told you, I didn’t know you would be here.”
    “That does not reassure me,” she said. Even if he was telling the truth, it didn’t mean that he wouldn’t soon be ordered to kill her. It didn’t mean that this wasn’t a test of his loyalty to England. “My mission is much like yours. I am to arouse Lord Westerly’s interest in the female sex, in the hope that he will wish to marry and carry on his name.”
    Val wrinkled his nose in a sneer. “You intend to seduce him?”
    What business was it of his? He couldn’t possibly be jealous. “No, because I think Theodora loves him. Even if he has no interest in her, it would be too much like betraying a friend.”
    His sneer turned bitter. “A friend you cultivated in order to come here.”
    “She is my friend nonetheless,” Lucie said, aching with the pain of all she couldn’t say. I didn’t want to betray you. I had no choice.
    “You’re wasting your so-called loyalty,” he said, going to the door. “Westerly asked me to try to make his guests uncomfortable. He didn’t invite them and doesn’t want them here. He’s not interested in marriage.”
    A brief sadness for Theodora flitted through Lucie’s heart, and then it filled again with her own misery. “You know nothing about my