Harriet went still. She raised her head, eyes widening. She touched his scarred cheek with gentle fingers. "Morland did this to you?"

"It was an accident. Or so he claimed at the time. We were both much younger then. Mayhap a bit wild. In any event, we had too much wine one night and Morland challenged me to a fencing match. I accepted."

"Dear heaven," Harriet breathed.

"We did not have masks to protect our faces, but there were protective tips on the ends of the blades. Several of our friends cleared a space on the floor and took bets. The agreement was that the first one who got through the other's guard was the winner."

"What happened?"

Gideon shrugged. "It was all over in a few short minutes. Morland was not a particularly good fencer. I won, knocking his blade aside. Then I stepped back and lowered my guard. But he picked up his rapier and lunged forward suddenly without warning. The protective tip on the point of the sword had somehow come off and the blade sliced open my jaw."

"Gideon. He could have killed you."

"Yes. I have often wondered if that was his intention. There was something in his eyes during those few seconds. I saw it when he came at me. He hated me in that instant, but I do not know why."

"How did he explain lunging at you after he had lost?"

"He claimed later that he had not realized I had been judged the winner. He assumed the match was not yet ended, that I was retreating."

"And the fact that his blade was unprotected? How did he account for that?"

"An accident." Gideon shrugged. "In the heat of the match, he had not realized the protective device had fallen off. It was a logical explanation, as it happens all the time."

"What did you do?"

Gideon was quiet for a moment. "I saw the fury in his eyes and I reacted instinctively. I fought back as if the match had suddenly become a real one. Morland was so startled, he lost his balance and fell to the floor. I dropped my blade and picked up his. I held the bare point to his throat. He started screaming that it had all been an accident."

"And you believed him?"

"What other explanation was there? We had both had too much wine. I told myself it had to have been an accident. Morland was my friend. But I could never forget the look in his eyes when he had lunged at me."

"You remained friends?"

"After a fashion. He apologized later and I accepted the apology. I told myself it was over. I knew I would be scarred for life, but I also knew it was my own fault for agreeing to the stupid challenge in the first place."

"He claims he is the only one who stood by you when you were accused of abandoning Deirdre."

Gideon smiled his humorless smile. "And so he was. But as he had been the one who seduced her and got her with child in the first place, and as he was married at the time, he probably assumed it would be in his favor to pose as my friend. It made him appear completely innocent."

Harriet lifted her head, her eyes widening in shock. "Morland was the man who seduced her?"

"Yes. Deirdre admitted it that night when she came to see me. But there was never any way to prove it later after her death." Gideon's mouth twisted. "It would have been extremely helpful if Deirdre had bothered to leave a note that night before she shot herself. But Deirdre was never particularly thoughtful of others. She probably did not care if I took the blame for her suicide."

Harriet shuddered at the raw pain and frustrated anger in Gideon's voice. "Gideon, you do not still love her, do you?"

"Good God, no." He looked down at her in glowering amazement. "I was convinced I loved her when I offered for her. Looking back, I think I was merely dazzled by her beauty and the fact that such a beautiful creature apparently wanted me. But whatever I felt for Deirdre Rushton died the night she told me she had accepted my suit only because her father forced her to do so and that she was pregnant with another man's child. She told me she hated the very sight of me."

"Oh, Gideon." Harriet tightened her arms around his waist. "She sounds like a very desperate woman. She was very young and she no doubt thought herself in love with Morland. She knew she could never have him and she resented being forced to marry a man she did not love. She blamed you for her problems."

"You do not need to make excuses for her," Gideon muttered.

"I just want you to realize that she probably did not hate you at all. She simply felt trapped and she took out her fear and frustration on you."

"She has certainly had her revenge on me, if that is what she was after," Gideon said.

"Yes, I know. You have been living in your own private corner of hell for six long years."

"That is a rather dramatic way of putting it, but not entirely untrue," Gideon said dryly. "I do know that I have been very much alone for the past six years."

Harriet smiled tremulously. "But not any longer. Now you have me."

"Now I have you." Gideon lifted his hands to touch her hair. "And I vow I shall take very good care of you, Harriet."

"Thank you, my lord. I promise to take excellent care of you, too."

"Will you, indeed?" His leonine eyes gleamed with a warm fire.

"Oh, yes. You are wrong to think that I am more fond of my fossils than I am of you." She stood on tiptoe and brushed her mouth against his. "It is true I am very attached to them, but I care far more for you, my lord."

Gideon smiled slowly. "I am very pleased to hear that."

He scooped her up into his arms as if she were as light as a feather. Gideon made her feel like a delicate princess from a fairy tale, Harriet thought.

He put her down in the center of his bed and lay down beside her. "Perhaps you will show me just which portions of my anatomy you consider equal to or more impressive than the old bones you collect, madam."

Harriet laughed up at him in the shadows. "It is a very long list."

"Then you can start from my toes and work up."

"With pleasure."

She pushed at him gently and Gideon obligingly rolled over onto his back. Then she knelt beside him and studied his large feet with a serious expression.

"I would have to say that I have rarely encountered fossil metatarsals of such size."

"I am flattered." Gideon watched her face in the firelight.

"And one seldom is lucky enough to find a tibia of such proportions." Harriet drew a ringer slowly upward along the inside of his lower leg. "Very impressive."

"I am relieved to hear I compare favorably in that portion of my anatomy."

"Definitely," she assured him. Her fingers drifted up over his knee and along the inside of his thigh. "And other than the femur of an elephant I once had the privilege of examining, I have never seen such a magnificent thigh bone."

Gideon sucked in his breath as her palm drifted higher, opening his black silk dressing gown to expose his thighs. "I am glad you appreciate it."

"I most certainly do, my lord." She bent her head and dropped a tiny, damp kiss on his upper leg. The crisp, curling hair tickled her nose. The masculine scent of him made her deeply aware of her own growing arousal. She touched his thick shaft. "Now we come to a most interesting discovery."

"Do not tell me you have found fossils of that particular anatomical item," Gideon said.

"No," Harriet admitted. "But this is certainly as hard as any fossil I have ever dug out of stone."

"Ah." Gideon breathed deeply as she caressed him.

Harriet saw that the muscles of his thighs and chest were rapidly growing rigid with sexual tension. Stroking him was like stroking steel. The power in him was mesmerizing.

"Had I ever discovered something of this nature," Harriet murmured as she circled him with her fingertips, "I would have most certainly written it up for the Transactions. "