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not stop filled her with the wild, raw ache of passion, long denied, bursting full. She gasped, and wanted to weep for the tenderness, the richness of the moment, for the sheer beauty of it.
    His mouth parted from hers, and she sank against him, weak suddenly, trembling and stunned. He drew her to him.
    "My dear," he murmured, his arm around her shoulders, "we must get you upstairs to rest."
    "Sir," she said, gasping for breath. "I am not—please do not think me—because of the painting—"
    "Not at all, Mrs. Blackburn," he said, guiding her toward the door. He reached for a candle, and they stepped out onto the landing. "My fault entirely. It is clear that you are a very proper young woman caught in a rather odd circumstance."
    "That part is true," she murmured, and stepped out into the stairwell again, with even greater care this time.
    * * *
    He wanted to kiss her again, to never stop. Desire drove hard through him, startling in its demand, but he fought it fiercely, welcoming cool reason and his customary shielding of self and heart. He escorted her politely up the stairs, but felt like a thorough cad.
    He was at a loss to explain what had come over him, simply because he had come face-to-face with the model of a painting he particularly admired. He was not one to give rein to imagination.
    "Here is your door, Mrs. Blackburn. Good night," he said as they reached the higher landing. He forced himself to sound especially cool and reserved.
    The girl had stirred him too deeply, come too damn close to touching dreams and pain. The only woman he had ever yearned to love stood before him now—and his longing was only a fancy.
    As the laird of Dundrennan, he could never allow himself to risk the enduring passion of genuine love. According to the old Dundrennan curse, that was dangerous—particularly for the woman to whom the laird gave his heart.
    "Good night, then," he said, inclining his head.
    Christina adjusted her spectacles, frowning as she gazed at him. "Good night, Sir Aedan." Her eyes seemed full of yearning.
    God, how he wanted to kiss her again. Falling in love had nothing to do with it, he told himself. One kiss could dissolve the spell that the woman in the painting held over him, and that Mrs. Blackburn seemed to share. With one more kiss he could prove that he felt only lust, and nothing more, for her.
    "Well," he said, and he cleared his throat. "If you want to take these stairs again, be careful not to wear those dainty slippers. Though they are fetching," he added. "But I might not be here to help you the next time."
    Her chin lifted. "I can take care of myself."
    "No doubt," he murmured. Nodding in silence, he waited until she went into her room, then he turned and went back down the stairs.
    For years her image had fascinated him, but the painting was a pale reflection of the model herself. Mrs. Blackburn might hide behind spectacles and sober colors, but he sensed real fire in her, and a compelling sensuality in her wounded, smoldering gaze.
    He wanted far more than to kiss her. He wanted to be the man who awakened the enchantress inside. Loving Christina Blackburn would be rare and ecstatic, he thought—the sort of love that would last forever, days spinning into years, into a lifetime of passion and joy, fulfillment and companionship.
    But loving like that was a risk he could never afford.

Chapter 4

    A saucer hurtled past his shoulder, pale porcelain gleaming, to shatter against the wall. Aedan swept the toe of one black boot over the shards, recognizing a hand-painted view of the Great Exhibition of a few years earlier.
    "Crystal Palace," he said.
    "Not the one with the queen on it, I hope." His cousin Amy turned, a length of flowered fabric in her hands.
    "The one with Prince Albert." Aedan glanced at the women in the room, Lady Balmossie seated, Amy Stewart standing beside her brother Dougal's bride, the renowned beauty Lady Strathlin—or Meg, as she preferred to be called. The two young women