And Eva, for once, did not care.

  She welcomed the sweet invasion pushing between her slick thighs, driving farther and farther into her until the root of him pressed against her still-throbbing womanhood, demanding more space, demanding more spread, when she had none left to give. The sensation was exquisite. All-consuming. And then Blackheath, his fingers buried in her hair and anchoring her head, began to move within her, and Eva felt her body gathering itself for that rapid plunge into ecstacy once again.

  He took her higher and higher, never losing control, setting the pace. And then, just when Eva thought she would die of pleasure, he found his own release, driving into her with a final, savage thrust and sending her own body jerking and convulsing against the rug.

  Hot, panting, and spent, she lay on her back beneath him, all but crushed by his weight, enjoying the lingering aftereffects of their coupling while his ragged breath stirred the damp hair that draped the side of her neck and lay fanned out and tangled on the rug beneath her.

  It was a long time before she spoke.

  "I ought to hate you, Blackheath."

  He lifted her just enough to slide an arm beneath her neck and draw her up against his still-pounding heart. "I daresay, madam, I would much prefer your charity."

  And a long time before she realized that she had allowed a man to dominate her by being the one on top.

  She fell asleep, still curious about this disturbing fact, too tired, too depleted, and yes, too splendidly satisfied to lend it the examination it deserved.

  Chapter 19

  Exhaustion also claimed Lucien.

  For a long time he fought it, unwilling to give up these rare and precious moments with the woman who was damned determined to give him as few of them as she could. He delighted in his seduction of her, but would not gloat about it. Triumphed in the fact that she had not demanded to ride him in a skewed display of female domination, though that, too, was something he wouldn't mind doing whenever the mood might strike them. Reveled in the sensations that engulfed him . . . the sweet, lemon-lavender scent of her hair; the feel of her in his arms; the gloriously curving, endlessly exciting length of her body lying alongside and beneath his own on the thick carpet. What more could a man want in life?

  He nestled his face deeper within her hair, pressing his lips to the side of her neck, kissing, nibbling her skin. He loved its creamy whiteness; loved the silken feel of it, its slightly salty taste. She purred with contentment. He wrapped his arm around her and let himself relax, feeling his body's first involuntary twitches as sleep claimed him. He did not fight it.

  Down through the depths he sank, like a swimmer that has run out of air and given up the fight to stay afloat in a bottomless sea. Images flickered through his mind along the journey down into nothingness. Nerissa's accusing eyes . . . his brothers smugly informing him of the king's decree that he marry Eva de la Mouriére . . . and Eva herself, neatly dispatching the two highwaymen, crawling into his arms in the coach, denying her own attraction for him in a magnificent lie that hurt no one as it much as it hurt herself.

  He hit bottom.

  The nightmare.

  The dueling field. Eva was there, engulfed in morning mist, the grass wet with dew. She held the handkerchief as the paces were counted off. Lucien tensed; his gut tightened and he spun on the final count, already leaping forward with his sword, hoping to change an ending that was as fixed as the path of the sun across the sky. Over and over again he rehearsed this dance of death, as he had done every night all these weeks, knowing it was a dream, knowing the outcome would be the same no matter what he did — terrifying, merciless, and brutally final.

  And there was his opponent, dressed all in black, masked, hooded, dreadful. It was an apparition; it had to be, for no earthly being could fight with such unrivaled skill. No mortal man could toy with him so, drawing out the impending agony of death. And no human combatant could so easily get past his guard, only to send the rapier piercing shirt and skin and bone, impaling his heart with one thrust, and twisting it into a butchered ball of pulsing, dying flesh.

  He fell to his knees in agony, the tinny-metallic taste of blood bubbling up in his throat, filling his mouth, leaking out between his clenched teeth. The ground came up to meet him. He lay there gasping on the wet grass. Choking. Dying. And as he dragged open his eyes for the last time, he saw Death, triumphant, standing over him — reaching up now to finally draw back the hood —

  "Lucien!"

  And yanking it off that terrifying face.

  Lucien's own scream jerked him awake. His heart was pounding. Sweat rolled down his back. Inches away, a pair of anxious green eyes stared into his own.

  Eva. Gingermere. The drawing room.

  He flung an arm across his brow. No dream.

  She was there beside him on the warm, sunlit carpet, her hair down around her shoulders, her face white as paste. He sat up, driving the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to banish the terrifying images. There was movement beside him, and then he felt Eva's strong, slim arms go tentatively around his shoulders. He dropped his hot forehead against her breast.

  "My God, do you always have such horrible nightmares?" she asked, her voice shaky. "I've been trying to rouse you for the last several minutes. You really know how to scare a person, Blackheath!"

  He could say nothing; his heart was still pounding, and he was breathing too hard to gather enough air to speak. Instead, he just sat there, the pulse booming in his ears, his brow resting against her chest as her arms lost their frightened stiffness and instead wrapped comfortingly around him in a way that made him wish this moment would never end.

  "Look, Blackheath — I'm sorry. I didn't realize that even the big bad wolf has nightmares, too. It's all right. I'm here now. There's nothing to be afraid of."

  "Don't leave me."

  She pulled him closer. "I'm not going anywhere. Relax. Just take a few deep breaths and everything will be fine."

  He did just that, though the nightmare was fast receding into the inky depths from which it had come, taking the terror with it. It would stay there until he sought sleep again; would stay there until the death these dreams foretold finally caught up with him. Gradually, his body calmed, leaving him with an overwhelming sense of exhaustion. But he didn't want to move. Not just yet. He had not been held like this, had not been so comforted, shown such tenderness, since his long-dead mother had last held him in her own loving arms, all those years ago . . .

  It was a sensation he wanted to drown in. One that he could easily come to crave, if he was foolish enough to imagine it would ever be repeated.

  "Do you want to talk about your nightmare?" she asked gently, pulling back a little and searching his face with what appeared to be genuine concern.

  "Yes, but first . . . first I have a need to affirm life, the continuation of my own existence." He pulled away just enough to rest his hand atop her abdomen. "It comforts me, knowing our child lives."

  Her face filled with horror. "Oh, Blackheath, surely you didn't dream that it died —"

  "No. No, nothing like that."

  She eyed him with confusion, then leaned back on her elbows and let him rest his hand there on her still-flat belly. Lucien closed his eyes. At least the baby beneath his palm would be here when he was gone, carrying on his name, carrying on his own flesh and blood. The knowledge soothed him, brought a raw ache to the back of his throat. Slowly, he removed his hand, closing the fingers around his palm to try to hold the sensation in.

  "I will tell you about my dream now, Eva. But do you really care so much?"

  She shrugged, but even the negligent gesture could not mask the concern and compassion in her slanting green eyes, and for once, she didn't try overly hard to fool him into thinking she felt something she did not — though she did give it a token effort. "Care? Of course not. But really, Blackheath, you can't wake a woman from a sound sleep with such frightened ramblings of the unconscious mind, and allow her to go about her day with no explanation whatsoever."

  "You do care, then," he said with a weary smile.

  "Of course I do, you cretin. Go ahead, then. Tell me about your demons, and maybe, one of these days, I'll tell you about mine."

  "Let us move closer to the fire, then. I am cold."

  The hearth was blazing, its leaping flames banishing even the winter drafts that snaked across the floor. Their tea had gone chilly, so Lucien poured two glasses of wine from a nearby decanter, pressing hers into her hand before lowering himself to the rug once more. She hesitated, then sat down beside him, cross-legged, stiff-backed, farther away than he would have liked, closer than he would have expected.

  He ached to move up next to her.

  Wanted nothing more than to lay on his back beside her, pillow his head on her thigh, and enjoy her nearness.

  But no. He would not take advantage of her like that. He would not use this thread of caring compassion she had offered him in a way that would make her feel uncomfortable.

  Instead, he drew up his knee and draped his wrist over it, the glass dangling from his fingers as he began to tell her about the dream.

  She sat listening, never interrupting, never commenting, never mocking, never scoffing. He told her everything — something he had not been able to do with his siblings, for he was the big brother, the leader of the family, and he had a place to uphold in the family hierarchy. But he had no place to uphold with Eva. He had nothing to hide, nothing to prove, no reason to hold anything back, because she was his equal, and he knew it.

  At last he finished and, draining the last of the wine, held the empty glass in his fingers as he gazed unseeingly into the crackling flames before them. "It's the same dream every night," he murmured. "The first time I had it, I passed it off as nothing but a meaningless but unpleasant nightmare and promptly put it out of my mind. But then it happened again. And again. I started having it every night, and soon sleep became something I began to dread.

  "It wasn't long before I realized the dream would likely become reality. I could not die knowing two of my siblings were still unmarried. Given the love and happiness my parents shared within their marriage, I wanted the same things for my siblings. Yes, I did orchestrate matters so Gareth, and then Charles, ended up in wedlock. Then the dreams started. Andrew had just met Celsie, and I took advantage of the situation. I was abominable to them. Beastly. But I was desperate. I succeeded, manipulating Andrew into wedlock as I had done with his brothers, until only my dear Nerissa remained." He dragged a hand over his face. "Everything you've heard about the whole Spanish estate affair is true, I'm afraid. My motives were good; my methods were unforgivable. I had hoped that absence would indeed make Perry's heart grow fonder . . . fond enough that he'd come back to England with an offer for my little sister. I knew I was overstepping the bounds, knew that I was tempting fate, but I had beaten fate before and was determined to do so again. I had a vow to fulfill; I had no choice but to get them together."

  Eva felt his pain as though it were her own. She looked at him, the noble profile painted in firelight, the stark face gazing unseeingly into the flames. "A vow? What vow?"

  He turned his head and looked at her, and she saw past the arrogant, omniscient duke, past the Machiavellian monster, and into the man behind those silent black eyes . . . a man who was very different from what he would have others believe he was, a man with a soul so deep, a heart so worthy and true, she feared it was only an illusion, for men surely didn't possess such depth of character, such naked, vulnerable emotions as Blackheath was allowing her to see.

  He turned his head and gazed into the flames once more, his face very still.

  "A long time ago, when I was just a boy, my mother went into labor with her last child." He stared unblinking into the fire. "She had safely delivered the rest of us, but with Nerissa, something was wrong. Her struggles, her pain, her strength . . . they were to no avail. The midwife could do nothing. My father was frantic. He sent for the doctor, but even he could not help her, nor in the end, could he save her." Blackheath set the glass down beside his knee. "Sometimes, when I am alone and companion to only my memories, I can still hear her screams."

  Eva sat unmoving. The duke was still gazing into the flames. His face showed such raw, naked pain that Eva instinctively reached out and took his hand, cold despite their proximity to the fire.

  "You scoff at the love a man may feel for his wife, Eva, but my brothers are not so unlike their father. He loved my mother more than life itself. He loved her so much that every cry that issued from her poor, tortured body might have been his own, every tear that streamed down her cheeks might have been his. He grew frantic in his inability to help her. Frenzied. He tried to escape, to flee the cries of pain that only emphasized his own helplessness, and so ran upstairs to the ducal apartments, high in the tower . . ."

  Here, Blackheath stopped. And Eva tensed, gripping his hand, dreading what he was about to tell her.

  "I found him some time later." Blackheath shut his eyes. "Found him lying there on the cold stone stairs that led up to what are now my own apartments, his neck broken and the tears still wet upon his warm cheeks."

  "Dear God."

  "He must have tripped and fallen in his haste. I knelt beside him and gathered him up in my arms, wiping the tears from my eyes with the inside of my elbow, telling myself that he was just sleeping — yet knowing by the angle of his neck, the blank stare in his eyes, that he was not. I held him until he grew cold, held him until my nanny found me hours later, because I thought that as heir-apparent to a duke, I had all the power in the world . . . including that of holding the life within him. But, of course, I could not do that." He shook his head. "Just as I could not hold the life within my mother when she, too, died, shortly after." He gave a faint, distant smile. "I was ten years old."

  Ten years old.

  Eva's heart constricted, and it was all she could do not to gather him — this man who had never finished being a little boy, this man who had been thrust into adulthood, into a dukedom, in the cruelest way imaginable — into her arms and comfort him like the mother that had been wrenched from him. No wonder he was so controlling. As a child, he had been unable to save his beloved father. His mother. No wonder he had tried to address the balance by imposing his will on everything else that surrounded him. Dear God, could she blame him?

  He was still staring into the flames, his eyes empty of expression, empty of everything but the memories that still haunted him. She had not thought that he could own such terrible demons, could feel such anguish, could bring himself to share it with another person — let alone someone like herself. But he had, and the knowledge humbled her, filled her with compassion and a strange sense of protectiveness toward him, toward what he had told her. He was braver than she. He was made of a stronger substance. Tears filled her own eyes and she looked away, blinking, to hide them.

  "Hell, Blackheath, you're making me want to hold you and cry my heart out for the little boy you were, the suffering you must have endured," she said shakily, trying to find firm ground beneath her suddenly tangled emotions.

  "I will not stop you, should you wish to do so."

  "You want me to hold you?"

  He looked at her, unafraid to admit to such a humble need. "I would like it very much."

  She moved closer to him, closing the distance, and slowly, tentatively, put her arms around his shoulders. They were so wide she could not contain them within the circle of her arms. It broke her heart to think how small they must have been when he'd found himself with the weight of a dukedom, and the care of four little siblings, upon them. She lay her cheek against his back, her heart aching in a way she could not understand.

  "We laid them both to rest on the same day," he continued in that same flat, quiet tone. "And as I looked at those coffins being lowered into the vault, I promised my father and mother that I would be the parent my siblings would never have. I vowed that I would see to their welfare at all costs, that I would always take care of them, that I would put their happiness above all else — even the dukedom, if need be, because I loved them, and they were all I had left."

  "But you went too far."

  "Yes. I was overzealous. Arrogant. I took my vow, and my responsibility, too seriously. I may have triumphed where my brothers were concerned, but with my little sister . . . I failed." He took a deep breath, let it slowly out. "Instead of happiness, I have brought her only grief. Instead of love, I have brought her only agony. I have . . . destroyed her."

  Eva held him within the circle of her arms. "I wish I could take away your pain, Blackheath. I wish that the little boy you were could have had his childhood."

  "I do not suffer so much anymore, Eva. It was all a long time ago . . . though it is still, after all these years, difficult to get past that spot on the stairs where I found my father. Old memories never die, I guess."

  "No," she said, remembering her own. "They don't."

  For a long moment, they sat there together, two souls that had come together in pain and sharing, her arms around his shoulders, the fire snapping with melancholy quiet in the hearth.

  "I will help you find the truth about Lord Brookhampton," Eva said at length. "But please, don't go to France. It is too dangerous for an Englishman now."

  "I must."

  "Your life may be imperiled."

  "What does that matter, when my days are counted anyhow? No, Eva, best that I use whatever time I have left to undo the damage that I have wrought. I cannot live with the knowledge of what I have done to my sister . . . what I have done to the man she loved."

  "Oh, Blackheath . . . do not be so noble, it will be the death of you."

  "My sister's grief will be the death of me. I must do what I must do, Eva."