She searched his face, then humphed and sank back. "I didn't realize."

"I know."

"Are the Cynsters exceedingly wealthy?"

"Yes." After a moment, he continued, his eyes still closed: "Within the family, my bastardry counts for nothing-my father made provision for me as his second son, which, to all intents and purposes, I am."

She was silent for so long, he wondered what she was thinking.

"Jamie mentioned that you're accepted socially."

The murmured statement held no element of question; opening his eyes, Richard turned his head and looked at her-she was staring out at the snow.

"I expect that means you could have had your choice of all the young ladies from the very best families."

Compelled by the ensuing silence, he replied: "Yes."

"So…" She sighed, and turned to meet his eyes. "What will your family think when they learn you've married a Scottish witch?"

He would have quipped that they'd either think he'd lost his senses, or that it served him right, but the shadows in her eyes held him. Compelled him to reach out, slowly, and slide one arm about her. And lift her, with an ease that sent a very definite shiver through her, onto his lap.

"The only thing they'll care about," he murmured, juggling her, "is that I've chosen you."

He would have kissed her, but she stayed him small hands braced against his chest. "But you haven't." Gratifyingly breathless, she searched his eyes, then blushed lightly. "Chosen me, I mean."

He'd chosen her in the instant he'd first closed his arms about her, in the moonlight near his mother's grave, but he wasn't bewitched enough to admit it; his witch had enough powers as it was. Ignoring her hands, he bent his head and brushed his lips across hers. "You're mine." Breaths mingling, driven, their gazes locked-then, simultaneously, dropped to each other's lips. Searching, hungry, their lips touched again-achingly gentle-then parted. "That's all that matters."

Her lashes fluttered up; for one instant, green eyes met blue, and the air about them shimmered.

She sucked in a quick, shallow breath; in the same instant, he tightened his arms about her, then lowered his head and kissed her.

And she kissed him. With a devastating sweetness, an innocence-as if this were the first time. Which, in some ways, for her, it was. The first time she'd knowingly welcomed him as her lover-a lover fully conscious, wide awake. Richard realized and inwardly groaned, and harnessed his raging desires, savagely hungry after tour days' starvation.

He deepened the kiss by gradual degrees, letting them both sink into the caress, into the warmth and heat, into that pleasurable sea. Letting their embers slowly glow stronger then flicker into flame; with an expert's touch, he fanned the flames until they burned steadily.

She followed his lead readily, openly without guile. As was her wont, she freely gave all he asked, accepting each intimacy as he offered it, surrendering her mouth to his conquest. He savored her thoroughly, then teased her into making her own demands, into meeting him and matching him, into returning the slow, languid thrusting of his tongue with clinging caresses equally evocative.

But their nerves remained curiously taut, their play curiously charged as if their first encounter as a married couple was somehow different. Richard sensed it in her, in the tension that invested her slight frame, in the tightness of her breathing-sensed it in himself-an alertness, an awareness, heightened to exquisite sensitivity.

As if their nerves, their bodies, their very beings, thrummed to some magic in the air.

Gently, he lifted her, rearranging her on his lap so that she sat across his legs facing him one knee on either side of his hips. Locked in their kiss, she barely seemed to notice; pushing her hands up, over his shoulders, she slid her fingers into his hair and angled her lips beneath his.

She moaned when he closed his hands about her breasts. He kneaded and, through the thick fabric of her pelisse, felt the mounds firm and fill his hands. Even with the benefit of a number of hot bricks, even with the heat rising between them, it was too cold to contemplate baring her. Instead, he glided his hands over her in long sweeping caresses-caresses designed to stir her to life. To love.

When she wriggled impatiently on his thighs, Richard reached between them, found the hem of her skirt, and slid his hand beneath.

He found her-startlingly hot in the cold air in the carriage. She would have pulled back from their kiss but he refused to let her; he kept her lips trapped, filled her mouth with slow, languid thrusts as he stroked her, parted her, penetrated her.

She melted about his fingers; he probed deeper, then stroked gently. She was hot and very ready.

He had to draw back from their kiss to deal with his own clothing. Her questing fingers had already pushed his greatcoat aside and undone both coat and waistcoat. Fingers splayed across the fine linen of his shirt, breasts rising and falling dramatically, her lips swollen and parted, eyes jewel green under heavy lids, she stared dazedly down as he flicked his trouser buttons undone.

They slipped free-abruptly, she lifted her head and stared at him. "What…?"

The half-squeaked question was eloquent; Richard raised a suggestive brow.

"Here?"

He raised his brow higher. "Where else?"

"But…" Aghast, she stared at him. Then she looked up at the carriage roof. "Your coachman…"

"Is paid enough to feign deafness." Ready, Richard reached for her.

She looked back at him and licked her lips glanced at the seat beside them, then shook her head in disbelief. "How…?"

He showed her, drawing her fully to him, then easing into her softness. As she fathomed his intention and felt him enter her, she spread her thighs, slid her knees along the cushions, and, with a soft sigh, sank down, impaling herself fully upon him.

As she closed, scalding hot around him, Richard watching her face and seeing the expression of sheer relief that washed over her fine features, got the distinct impression that she was as thankful to have him inside her again as he was to be there.

Wrapping his arms about her, one beneath her hips, he took her lips in a sealing kiss then lifted her. Rocked her.

She caught the rhythm quickly. Rising on her knees, she tried to increase the tempo.

"No. Anchoring her hips he drew her fully down, held her there for a moment, then picked up the rhythm again. "Keep in time with the horses."

She blinked at him, but did; gradually, the steady, rolling rocking became so instinctive they no longer needed to think of it-but could think, instead, solely of the indescribable pleasure of their bodies merging intimately, again and again, in a journey of infinite delight.

Held firmly, closely, Catriona shuddered-with pure pleasure with sharp excitement. With an unfurling sense of the illicit-of the wild the unconventional-in her soul and his. Eyes closed, held close in his embrace, their fully dressed state contradicted, contrasted-focused her senses on-the area of then naked engagement. Along the bare inner face of her thighs, all she could feel was the fabric of his trousers the smooth leather of the seat Over her flanks and legs over the curves of her bottom, all she could feel was the shift and glide of her lawn chemise and petticoats.

Only at the core of her, in the soft, swollen, heated flesh between her widespread thighs-only there could she feel him, only there did they touch with no barriers between. Only there did they merge, sweetly slick, powerfully smooth.

With heightened senses, she reveled in the power inherent in their joining, in the deeply compulsive repetition, in the burgeoning energy rising within them.

Senses wide open, awareness complete, she was deeply conscious that outside the carriage, the world, ice cold and blanketed in white, went on, committed to its own steady rhythm, the unquenchable rhythm of life. Under the snow, life still glowed, seeds warm, fecundity waiting to flower. Just as, beneath their heavy clothes, they-their bodies and their lives-were melding, seeds sown in darkness to flower later-in summer, when the sun returned.