Sylvester disengaged slowly and looked down at her with a rueful expression. "I'm sorry, Theo. I thought you'd prefer me to finish it quickly."

"But I think I missed something," she said, sounding slightly aggrieved. "I did, didn't I?"

Sylvester fell on the bed, laughing with relief. "Yes, my dear gypsy. You missed a great deal. But you won't the next time."

"Can we do it again now?"

"There are a few things you need to understand about male anatomy," he said, still laughing as he sat up. "It takes a while to recover its strength."

"Am I bleeding?" Neither the personal question nor the delicate examination it invited troubled her now.

"A little," Sylvester said. "It's only to be expected. Lie still, and when it's stopped, we'll try this again."

He lay back, drawing her head onto his shoulder, and idly began to take out the pins securing the braided coronet. Theo found his fingers in her hair both soothing and arousing in their intimacy. It was a proprietorial intimacy, she realized vaguely, the very thing a few moments before she had feared.

Her hair was the most amazing color, Sylvester thought as he drew his fingers through the long tresses, arranging them over her breasts with deliberate artistry so that the glossy blue-black offered a startling contrast with the milk-white skin visible between the strands. She was as physically different from her sisters as she was temperamentally, although Rosie had some Theo-like quirks in both areas.

Smiling, he moved a strand aside to reveal the rosy crown of one breast. His finger circled slowly around the nipple feeling it grow small and hard. Theo stirred, a little sigh escaping her. Her leg moved against his with an urgent pressure.

"Are you rested yet?" she murmured into his shoulder.

"Why don't you discover that for yourself?" he suggested, running a hand down her side, into the indentation of her waist and over the flare of her hip.

"Oh… like this, you mean?" Her own hand slid down his belly, her fingers reaching through the crisp tangle of hair at the apex of his thighs.

"Exactly like that," he agreed softly, inhaling with pleasure as he rose against the palm of her hand.

Theo eased onto her side to extend her reach, a little frown of concentration between her brows, as she learned the feel of him.

Sylvester stroked over her bottom, slipping his hand between her thighs on his own voluptuous exploration, and Theo began to imitate his caresses, on the theory that what pleased her might also please him.

When he entered her this time, her body was open and ready, her eyes gazing intently into his as if, determined not to miss one iota of sensation, she was watching his expression for guidance.

Smiling, he bent and kissed her eyes as he eased deeper within the silken sheath, feeling the little ripples of her body tightening around him.

"I'm not hurting you now?"

She shook her head, her eyes bright. "The opposite. It's wonderful."

He laughed softly and began to move with more purpose, watching her eyes as she picked up his rhythm, her body lifting to meet each thrust. Her fingers scrabbled down his spine, and abruptly she gripped his buttocks, pulling him against the cleft of her body, her feet twisting around his calves. Her eyes were wide and filled with a surprised wonder as the pleasure built, deep and inexorable.

Sylvester held himself in check this time, using his body to orchestrate her pleasure as she climbed to her own pinnacle. There came the moment when her eyes sparked fire, her lips parted on a round O of astonishment, her hips arced off the bed. Sliding his hands beneath her, he held her on the shelf of his palms as he drove to her core. She cried out against his mouth, riding the crest of the climactic tidal wave until it tossed her to shore and she fell back onto the bed, sinking into the deep feather mattress, her limbs in an abandoned sprawl, her eyes closing for the first time.

Sylvester remained within her, enjoying his own leisurely climax, stroking her cheek with a forefinger until her eyes opened and she smiled, lifting a hand to stroke his back as she came out of her own trance to recognize her partner in pleasure.

"Fears laid to rest, little gypsy?" he asked softly, gathering her against him as he fell, heavy with fulfillment, to the bed beside her.

"What fears?" she murmured with a weak chuckle. "I seem to be very sleepy."

"Then sleep." He closed his eyes, stroking her hair as he felt her slip into a light doze.

Theo stirred and awoke. Her sleep had been so light, it didn't seem as if she'd ever lost awareness of the sun-filled bedchamber and the deep mattress. The scent of their lovemaking was still in her nostrils, his skin still clung to hers, his breath was still warm and even on her cheek, his hand heavy on her back, holding her against him. And her memory of that glorious surge of pleasure was as clear as if it had just happened.

She stretched against him. "I'm famished."

"You didn't eat anything at the reception," he murmured lazily. "Too busy preparing to attack my mother, as I recall."

"I don't wish to discuss that," she said, her lofty tone spoiled by a massive yawn. "We might quarrel."

"Might we?" He sat up and looked down on her with a quizzical smile. "I thought it was settled."

"For this time," Theo responded, wrinkling her nose. "But you can't promise me I'll never have dealings with your mother in the future, can you?"

"No," he agreed. "I can't promise you that."

"And will you always take my side?"

"I can't promise you that, either, I'm afraid."

It was intended at least in part as banter, but Theo frowned, hitching herself onto one elbow. "How old were you when your father died?"

"Three. Why?" He had only the vaguest memory of Sir Joshua Gilbraith, so vague that he thought it was probably based on the portrait hanging on the stairs of Gilbraith House.

"So you lived alone with your mother and elder sister all your life?"

He shook his head. "No. When I was five, I was sent away to school. I spent hardly any time at home after that. At ten I went to Westminster School and spent most of the year there."

"Why would they send you away so early?" Theo was horrified at such a grim picture. A five-year-old child was far too young to be sent out into a frequently brutal world on his own.

Sylvester shrugged. He'd never given his childhood much thought. It was a world he'd shared with his school friends; none of them questioned either its harshness or its rightness. Except Neil Gerard, who'd spent those years in a state of permanent terror. An English public school was no place for the physically timid – let alone the coward. Again some shadow of memory pushed insistently against the dark periphery of his mind. For a second he struggled with it, and then it was gone. Theo was looking at him in some puzzlement, waiting for an answer to her question.

"My trustees believed it wouldn't be good for a boy to grow up without a man in the house," he said. "An all-male environment is considered preferable for the upbringing of boys." Smiling, he brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. "Don't look so worried, gypsy. I suffered in good company."

"But you still suffered?"

"I suppose so." He shrugged again. "But we didn't look at it that way at the time. It was, after all, a highly privileged existence."

"But didn't they beat you?"

"All the time," he said with a chuckle.

"And they never kissed you or cuddled you?"

"Good God, no!" He sounded genuinely shocked at such an idea.

Theo frowned down at the coverlet. No wonder he was such a reserved man. And yet behind that intimidating, controlling exterior she knew there was humor and warmth and sensitivity. One just had to know how to tap into it.

"Well, it sounds dreadful to me," she declared, and dropped the subject, returning to the original topic. "Shall we have a picnic? There must be plenty of food in the kitchen. I know there was a dish of dressed crab, and a salmon mousse, and I believe there was a rabbit pie." She swung her legs energetically off the bed. "I'll bring up a tray."