“I . . . Please.” Her breaths were short. “Do not ask of me what I cannot give.”

“For what exactly do you believe I have asked?”

“I will dress your wound and then you will leave me alone and that will be an end to it.”

For an instant his grip tightened. The crowd had thinned, the music fading into the darkness. Nearby, the brasserie patrons laughed and drank wine in the warm night.

He took her hand and without speech led her. The inn was close, the rhythmic whoosh of the river meeting the sea mingling with the Gypsies’ music. He led her there, releasing her hand only when they came to the door of the inn and gesturing for her to go before him. She climbed the stairs, breathless and fashioning the words she must say to put him off.

When they came to her bedchamber and he opened the door, she turned to face him.

“I must retrieve a lost horse now,” he said. “We will depart for Saint-Reveé-des-Beaux early. Until then, I wish you a good night’s sleep, Miss Caulfield.” He bowed and went swiftly down the steps.

THE NIGHT WAS still warm and the festival celebrations continued undeterred by the approach of midnight. But the careful, thorough search through Saint-Nazaire’s quieter alleys cooled Luc’s blood and distracted him from the pain in his shoulder and his aching head. He carried with him pistol and dagger, and his sword, which he had cleaned in those first moments after leaving her at her door when he still doubted that he could in fact walk away.

The trail of blood from the place where they had attacked her was not difficult to follow. A handful of coins passed to a prostitute in a slatternly house by the docks revealed the wounded man lying on a pallet in an upper room. His shirt and coat were crimson with blood. He did not open his eyes when Luc spoke to him.

Luc gave the woman a few extra coins for burial expenses and sought from her the names of his companions. She did not know them. They were sailors and foreigners, she claimed. She had not seen them before tonight.

He continued on until the dark town had finally gone to bed. His search awarded him nothing. The other three men had vanished.

There was nothing left but to find his horse. It had returned to its master’s stable and stood nervously outside the paddock, reins dangling to the ground. He soothed it, climbed into the saddle with extraordinary discomfort, and turned back toward the inn.

In the inn’s stable, the little governess stood in the golden circle of a candle’s light.

He removed his mount’s bridle, saddle, and blanket and drew the animal into a stall. Then he shut the half door and allowed himself to look at her. She stood straight and proud, the pale oval of her face framed by the hood of her cloak.

“Clearly you have learned nothing from your adventure this evening of the dangers of wandering about alone at night in this town,” he said.

“I was not ignorant of the dangers of such ‘adventures’ before tonight, Captain,” she countered. “Though never four men at once, it’s true.” Her voice wavered but her chin inched up, as though to deny that such encounters had ever distressed her.

Luc’s chest felt inordinately tight.

“I see you found your horse,” she said. “I presume it did not require the entire four hours you were absent to do so.”

“I lingered for a spell at a watering hole,” he said. “Drink, you see, can be useful to dull undesirable—ah—desires. When one drinks alone, that is. When one drinks with a beautiful governess it can have quite the opposite effect, as we already know.”

She came toward him until she stood nearly touching him. Luc’s heart beat hard. She reached up, slipped her slender hand about his neck and went onto her toes. She tugged on his neck.

He dipped his lips to hers. Her kiss was firm and deliberate.

She released him swiftly and took a step back. “You have not been drinking. There is no scent of spirits about you.”

“Witch.”

Her hood had fallen back and the cornflowers were wide. “You went to find those men.”

“Would you rather they went free?”

“I would rather you did not again endanger yourself on my account.”

“There was little danger. I am not unknown for my skill with sword and pistol. Wooden crates notwithstanding.”

“Do they not teach wooden crate fighting in pirate school?”

“Not the one I attended.”

“You hadn’t sufficient skill with a sword to protect your eye in the duel you fought with Lord Bedwyr.”

“A curiosity, that mistake. As he would have admitted if he weren’t trying to impress you.”

She paused. “Was the moment of madness you spoke of a curiosity too?”

“No.” He struggled against that madness pressing at him now. She was like no other woman. Without flirtation, she was direct and forthright and vulnerable all at once. And beautiful. So beautiful that despite the wretched night he’d had, he still ached for her. “Rather, the regular state of things lately.”

Her eyes were wary. “I am doubly in debt to you now.”

“I don’t expect payment.” He backed away from her. “I don’t want payment. Your debt is hereby cancelled.”

“I don’t want to pay you. I don’t intend to pay you,” she said swiftly. “I only want . . .” Her lashes flickered with uncertainty, then entreaty.

Luc counted to ten. To twenty.

She said nothing.

He turned and strode out of the building. He went through the trees toward the water, seeking refuge and sanity where he had always found them.

She came after him and touched his arm, and he succumbed to madness.

HE PULLED HER into his arms, bent to her mouth and kissed her. He kissed her quite thoroughly, with no pretense of hesitation, and Arabella did nothing to halt him. It was what she most wanted and why she had run after him. He made her want things she should not want and do things she should not do, and this was no doubt the worst of all because she did not only want to be kissed. She wanted to feel weak-kneed from something other than fear. But the only thing other than fear that had ever made her feel weak-kneed was him. He made her forget that she had been kissed by men who did not want to please as they took pleasure.

He clearly wished to please. Flat across her back, his palms slipped to her waist and he tugged her against his body. She allowed this too. He was hard and strong and she wanted for a moment to lose control.

He sank his fingers into her bound hair, tilted her head back and put his mouth on her throat. She sighed, pleasure fanning through her until it was everywhere inside her, in the tips of her breasts and between her legs. It made her want to touch him, to feel him with her hands. She trailed her fingers along his arm, then grasped gently. The muscle beneath his coat shifted beneath her touch. A sound of pleasure rumbled in his chest.

“You have hands after all, do you?” he murmured behind her ear, his mouth hot upon her skin making her feel wild inside. “Use them on me, duchess.”

“I mustn’t.”

“I invite you to.”

“You frighten me.”

He released her. His chest rose upon a hard breath. “This is worse than war. At least in battle a man knows where he stands from one moment to the next. Usually.”

“I am only being honest with you! I—”

“Yes or no?”

“Yes.” She closed the space between them and laid a light palm upon his chest. His hands covered her behind and pulled her flush to him and his knee came between her thighs.

Arabella lost her breath. She lost all thought. She felt only the hard shock of his muscle against her most intimate place.

He kissed her neck and tugged at the fastening of her cloak.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, her words lost in the rhythm of the surf and need inside her.

“Undressing you. Touching you. Let me touch you.” His palm smoothed along her collar and over her breast. But she did not move away or chastise him or tell him no. She knew it was wrong to let him touch her, but she wanted to feel pleasure. She wanted, even for a moment, to be as mad as a pirate.