Hugh said nothing. He simply held her. The candle burned lower and the shadows thickened within the tent.

The tears stopped eventually, leaving Alice drained. But to her surprise, she felt calmer, more at peace with herself than she had in some time.

"Forgive me, my lord," she mumbled into his tunic. "I do not usually indulge myself in tears. I fear it's been a long and somewhat trying day."

"Aye, that it has." Hugh tipped her chin up with the edge of his hand. He studied her face as though she were a mysterious volume he was determined to decipher. "And a most instructive one."

She looked into his shadowed gaze and saw the pain as well as the iron-willed determination that pain had inspired in him. Those amber eyes held darker, fiercer, infinitely more dangerous versions of the pain and determination that had been etched into her own soul. Storm winds.

She longed to reach inside him and still the savage tempests but she did not know how to go about it.

And then, quite suddenly, Alice knew that she wanted Hugh to kiss her. She wanted it more than she had ever wanted anything in her entire life. In that moment she suspected that she would have cheerfully sold her soul for his kiss.

As if he could read her thoughts, Hugh bent his head and covered her mouth with his own.

Alice nearly collapsed. Had Hugh not held her as securely as he did, she would have crumpled to the carpet.

The disturbing male energy in him poured into her, a force that was all the more awesome because of the control Hugh exerted over it. It revived Alice's spirits the way a shower of rain renews wilted grass.

The excitement that had flashed through her the first time Hugh had kissed her returned in a heated rush. The sensation seemed stronger, more vibrant this time, as though her body had been tuned for it by the first embrace. The desire she felt radiating from Hugh set a torch to Alice's senses.

She moaned softly and then something gave way inside her. The pain and defeat of the past were forgotten for the moment. The danger of the afternoon was a distant memory. The future was an unknown haze that did not seem to matter.

Nothing was of any import save this man who held her with a strength that simultaneously overwhelmed Alice and made her feel incredibly powerful.

Alice wrapped her arms around Hugh's neck and held on for dear life.

"I chose well," Hugh whispered.

Alice wanted to ask him what he meant by those odd words but she could not speak. The world shifted around her. She squeezed her eyes tightly closed as Hugh lifted her off her feet.

A moment later she felt the softness of the pallet blankets beneath her. She gasped as Hugh came down on top of her. His weight crushed her into the bedding. She felt his leg slide between her thighs and dimly realized that her skirts were hiked up above her knees. She knew she ought to have been horrified by that fact but for some reason she gloried in it.

Curiosity overcame good sense and modesty. The need to know where this aching, surging, swelling feeling inside her would ultimately lead was simply too strong to ignore. Surely she had a right to explore these exhilarating sensations.

"I never dreamed that it could be like this between a man and a woman," she said against his throat.

"You have not yet experienced the half of it," Hugh promised.

His mouth moved on hers, demanding, coaxing, claiming. Alice could do nothing but respond. She felt his hands on the laces of her gown but she paid no attention. She was too busy savoring the heat and scent of him. Then he touched her bare breast with a hand that was callused from years of gripping the hilt of a sword.

For an instant Alice could not breathe. She opened her mouth on a small shriek of amazement. No man had ever touched her in such an intimate manner.

It was thrilling.

It was immodest.

It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her.

"Hush." Hugh quickly covered her mouth with his own, swallowing the startled cry she made. "We are surrounded by my men and the encampments of others. A lover's sweet cries will travel on the night air as though borne on wings."

A lover's sweet cries?

Alice opened her eyes abruptly. "By Saint Boniface's cloak, my lord, you speak the truth. We must stop."

"Nay." Hugh raised his head slightly to look down at her. He drew his rough fingertip along the edge of her cheek as though he touched rare silk. "There is no need to stop. We must simply be cautious."

"But, my lord—"

"And silent. Close your eyes, Alice. I will take care of everything."

She sighed and closed her eyes, surrendering control of the moment in a way that she had never been able to do before in her life.

Suddenly she saw herself as apprenticed to an alchemist who knew the secret of transforming base metal into gold. She was on the brink of wondrous new discoveries.

She would study whole realms of natural philosophy that had heretofore been closed to her. She would learn strange truths that had been concealed so well that, until this moment, she had not even guessed at their existence.

Hugh gently took one nipple between thumb and forefinger. Alice shuddered with pleasure. He moved his palm downward until he found her bare leg. Alice flinched in reaction and then instinctively bent her knee.

Hugh slid his hand up along the inside of her thigh and Alice clutched at him so fiercely that she wondered she did not leave marks.

And all the while Hugh kept her mouth covered with his own, swallowing each telltale gasp as though it were a rare, honeyed wine.

When he touched the hot, wet place between her legs Alice thought she would go mad. She could barely breathe. Her whole body was inflamed as if with fever. There was a curious tightness within her that clamored to be eased.

"Silence," Hugh said in a velvety whisper that teased and tormented as surely as his hand. "Not a word. Not a sound, my sweet."

The knowledge that she could not even give voice to these astounding sensations only served to intensify them. Alice shivered again and again as Hugh stroked her.

He parted her carefully with his fingers. Alice sucked in her breath. A small, terribly urgent whimper escaped her.

"Have a care," Hugh murmured against her mouth. "Remember that silence is all tonight."

He eased one finger partway inside her and then withdrew it.

Alice wanted to scream. She grabbed his head and pulled his mouth more tightly against hers. She thought she heard him laugh softly in the darkness but she paid no heed.

He moved his hand one last time against her softness and the night exploded around her. Nothing mattered, not the knowledge that Hugh's men might overhear her or the fact that there were encampments scattered all around the black tent.

Alice was utterly lost to the sensation that seized her.

At that moment the only other person in the whole world so far as she was concerned was Hugh.

She thought she screamed but she heard no sound. She dimly understood that Hugh must have swallowed the cry, just as he had all the others.

"Blood of the angels…" Hugh's arm tightened around her as she convulsed beneath him.

Alice barely heard him. She sighed deeply and floated gently down to earth. A lovely sense of contentment filled up all the empty places within her.

Dreamily she opened her eyes and looked up at Hugh. His face was set in startlingly rigid lines. His eyes glittered.

"My lord, that was—" Words failed her. "That was—"

"Aye?" He traced the outline of her mouth with one big, blunt finger. "What was it?"

"Most instructive," Alice breathed.

Hugh blinked. "Instructive?"

"Aye, sir." Alice stirred lazily. "An experience quite unlike anything else I have ever come across in my study of natural philosophy."