Penelope felt breathless and alive. She couldn’t remember the last time she had sprinted anywhere. She turned to look at Nev, knowing she was smiling idiotically, and her mouth went dry.

His hair was damp and curling over his forehead, and his shirt was plastered to his shoulders and arms. She could see the color of his skin through the white linen. She had always thought boxing and fencing were frivolous occupations for men with nothing better to do, but she would never criticize them again, because Nev ’s muscles were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. An image of him naked flashed into her mind.

Feeling suddenly feverish, she took off his coat and set it on the flight of stairs that curved along the wall behind her. Her wet clothes clung to her like a firm caress and her corset pressed against her breasts.

“I always loved this tower,” Nev said. “I wonder how much bread for his tenants my grandfather could have bought with the money.”

“I don’t care.” Penelope felt not at all her usual sensible self. “I like it.”

He turned and smiled at her. “Do you really?”

“I do.” Her heart pounding, not knowing what demon possessed her, she sat on the end of a step, her legs dangling over the side of the staircase, and began stripping off her shoes and stockings. When she glanced up, he was watching her legs hungrily. Encouraged, she pulled the neckline of her dress away from her breasts and looked down it. “I think the black dye ran onto my shift. I hope it’s not ruined.”

Nev made a strangled noise.

She looked up. He was staring at her breasts, just as she had intended, but he hadn’t taken one step toward her.

“Just how much encouragement do you need?” Her nerves were singing. She couldn’t tell anymore what was fear and shame and what was her body waiting for his hands.

He started, as if he really hadn’t realized that’s what she was doing, and then he tugged her upright and his mouth was on hers and everything was perfect. When he pulled away she was dizzy and hot.

“You-you minx!”

No one had ever called Penelope anything even approaching a minx before. It was oddly gratifying. He ran his hands over her, proprietarily, and she arched to meet them, the curving stone of the staircase at the back of her thighs.

“You’re shivering,” he said against her neck. “I don’t want you to catch cold in those wet clothes.”

She was going to protest that she wasn’t cold at all, until she realized what he meant. She helped him remove her gown, and then she was standing there in nothing but her shift, stays, and petticoat, with mud on her hem and wet hair straggling down her cheek. Penelope knew how she must look, but Nev didn’t seem to mind and just then Penelope didn’t care about anything that wasn’t the look on Nev ’s face.

He traced a finger over her breast and stomach-only a few layers of damp linen between her skin and his. Penelope had read about flowers springing up under the feet of the goddess of Spring as the land awakened. That was how she felt-as if her body were awakening under Nev ’s trailing fingertip.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“I-” She couldn’t say it. It was too forward.

“Yes?” Nev leaned down to nibble at her bare shoulder.

“I want you to make me a real wife to you,” she said quickly, and blushed.

She was afraid he would not take her meaning, but he froze, his hands spasming on her shoulders. “Here? Now?”

She flushed all over, desire swamped in a wave of shame. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

He tilted up her chin and looked into her eyes. “I want to. Very much. But I don’t want to you to think that-I want you to feel that I honor you. That I’m treating you as a lady of quality. I want your first time to be in a bed, not in an outbuilding with your clothes half on. I don’t know how to behave properly, but I know you deserve-better.”

Better than him, he meant. Somehow she knew it. She tilted her head, pressing her cheek against his hand. “I don’t know how to behave properly either. But you asked me what I wanted and I told you.”

He swallowed. “Penelope,” he said in a very low voice, “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”

She was afraid he would hurt her too, but she was more afraid that he would never make her his. That he would lose interest. “We’ll work it out. Millions of people have done it before us, and none died.” She frowned. “At least, not that I’ve heard of.” He laughed a little at that, and she laid her hand against his chest. “Please, Nev. I want to.”

He drew in a shuddering breath. “Then we will.” He fastened the latch on the door. Then he took off his cravat and waistcoat and sat down, tugging off his muddy boots.

She found her nerves returning. “No one is likely to pass this way, are they?” Why hadn’t she asked that before?

He looked up at her. “I don’t think so. If anyone else was caught in the rain nearby, they’d be here by now. But if you want to just put everything back on and wait, it’s all right.”

Her heart was in her throat, but she shook her head.

He took his coat from the stair she had put it on and spread it on a lower one, at about waist height, and lifted her up to sit on it. Then he kissed her. His hand slid down and cupped her through her damp petticoats. She opened her mouth under his and closed her eyes. “Tell me if you want me to stop,” he whispered, and lifted the hem of her petticoat.

Cold air hit her wetness. She was exposed to Nev in broad daylight; it was shocking and Penelope felt her muscles tighten pleasurably just at the idea.

Nev slid his fingers over her opening. “I’ve hardly done anything and you’re already wet.”

“Is that bad?”

“No.” She could hear him smiling. “It’s very good.” He pressed the tip of one wet finger to the spot that had proven so sensitive last time. “Just relax.” He rubbed, and she let her legs fall open and tilted her head back and just felt.

She had known he would do it, but it still startled her when he pressed the tip of one finger to her opening and began to slide it inside. It hurt, and she sucked in her breath and tightened her muscles automatically.

Nev froze, breathing hard.

Penelope knew that he would stop if he thought he was hurting her. She breathed deeply, forcing herself to open to him as much as she could. “I’m fine.”

Nev’s finger inched its way in. It felt odd, and uncomfortable, and a little wrong, and very intimate. But his thumb moved on her sensitive spot, and soon the finger inside her felt almost-almost good.

Then he slid another finger inside. It would have felt good, it did feel good for a second or two at a time, but she could not help wincing. There was a point at the opening of her passage, it seemed to her, that was narrower than the rest.

“It’s your maidenhead,” he said after a moment. “There’s nothing for it, Penelope. I’m going to break it, and it’s going to hurt. But after today it will be better, I promise.”

She opened her eyes and tried to sound confident. “All right.”

“You’re doing wonderfully,” he said softly, and kissed her. She smiled at him, and he smiled back, and for a moment the pain and the discomfort and the embarrassment didn’t matter at all.

He unbuttoned his breeches, taking hold of his hardness. “I don’t want to be in you too long.” She watched him pleasure himself, watched his hand jerk back and forth, and glanced at his face. He was looking at her spread legs and the neckline of her corset clinging to her breasts as if he couldn’t get enough of them. Penelope arched lazily, just to see, and he groaned.

“Will you-will you touch your breasts?”

She stilled, embarrassed. “I-”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t think I can wait any longer.”

He pulled her forward until she was sitting right at the edge of the step. The tip of his hardness pressed against her. She had not known you could feel this physically close to another person.