He even removed her boots and stockings.

  Until finally, she stood utterly naked before him. Her cheeks heated as he studied her, but she kept her chin up and her arms at her sides, even though she wanted to cover herself.

  Then she properly noticed the look in his eyes. There was a silent approval there. Pleasure.

  Ann drew in a breath. “You like…to look.”

  “I like to look.” He was in shirt sleeves, but now he reached for the buttons of his waistcoat, while his gaze lingered upon her.

  His appreciation of her form gave her the courage to step forward. “Let me.”

  Adam said nothing, but let his hands drop back to his sides. His chest lifted and fell as she slid the first button undone. She tried to move her fingers as swiftly as his had dealt with her garments, but hers would not cooperate. They were thick and felt clumsy.

  She was also aware of the heat that emanated from him, glowing against the backs of her fingers as she worked.

  Finally, she had the waistcoat open. It sagged under the weight of his watch, revealing the white shirt beneath. Ann indulged herself as Adam had done with her. She spread her fingers over the shirt and stroked, feeling the ripple of his flesh beneath the linen.

  Adam made a low sound, wordless, but encouraging.

  Ann pushed the waistcoat aside, removed his tie and then, with a deep breath, the shirt itself and the undershirt.

  Adam’s flesh was smooth and clear and as soft as her own but sprinkled with hair that ran from the center of his chest down to the band of his trousers. His groin was congested, and Ann hovered her hand over the band of the trousers, uncertain about how to proceed, or if she had the courage to do so. She had moved so far beyond known territory. The dry academic texts she had consulted did not deal with the prosaic aspects of how to unfasten a man’s trousers while he was wearing them.

  “Laisse moi.” Let me. Adam’s voice was strained.

  Ann decided she liked the hoarse note in his voice. It was a measure of how much something as simple as removing his clothes affected him. It was good to know she had that ability.

  He dropped his hands to the trousers and removed them, the buttons popping undone with soft sounds as he pulled the fabric from them. He bent and removed the last of his clothing, including his shoes, and straightened. His gaze swung back to her face.

  Ann examined him, taking her time, even though her cheeks burned once more with maidenly shyness. She tried to encompass all of him, from the wide shoulders to the narrow hips, the powerful thighs and legs. But her gaze was pulled back to the juncture of his thighs, where his shaft jutted, thick and long.

  Her heart stopped beating for a moment. She had heard the gossip about a man’s member, and had read texts containing frank diagrams, but nothing came close to the very pleasing truth. Although why she found the sight so pleasing, she could not say.

  Adam made no move to pull her to him, or to draw her to the bed behind him. He simply stood, letting her gaze roam where it wished.

  Finally, Ann lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “Mere sight is pleasing, isn’t it?”

  The corner of his mouth turned up. His eyes gleamed with heated lust. “Yes, it is.” Now he picked up her hand and drew her around the end of the bed and pressed her onto the cover.

  Ann didn’t think her heart could flutter any harder than it was already, yet when he settled on the bed beside her, crowding up against her for the bed was not as wide as it might be in an ordinary bedroom, her heart squeezed and strained. Her breath came short and quick, too.

  The touch of his flesh against hers made everything tingle and leap and fizzle with pleasure.

  Adam rested over her on one elbow. “The look in your eyes is delicious. I had not realized the power in waking another’s pleasure for the first time.” He kissed her and she trembled as his hand rested on the bare flesh of her waist, then slid up, as it had before. Only, there was no tweed or corset for his fingers to rest against, now. His hand curved over her breast. The tug of his fingers around the tip made her gasp.

  Then he shocked her completely by taking the tip in his mouth. His tongue lathed it.

  Ann cried out at the intense pleasure that shot through her at his touch. She writhed, as the flesh between her thighs throbbed in response.

  She was helpless to do anything but moan and accept whatever Adam did to her. His mouth moved over her flesh. His hands, too. His tongue stroked and even his teeth teased, nipping and scraping. He was a gourmand of her flesh. His big, hot body held her against the bed while he orchestrated her pleasure.

  Ann was mindless with the delight. She did not want it to end. At the same time, the pleasure built inside her, just as an opera swelled and rose and climbed toward the peak notes that always made her heart pause and the hair at the back of her neck to prickle.

  Now, it was her body which roused and gathered, climbing for that peak.

  When he pressed his hand between her thighs, up against the sensitive folds of her inner flesh, Ann could only groan at the pleasure of it. She was drunk upon the sensations.

  She was utterly beyond concern and had no capacity for shock when Adam pressed his mouth to her folds, his tongue sliding between them to nudge against her nub. She cried out her pleasure and grasped at his shoulders in weak encouragement.

  When his fingers slid inside her it felt perfectly natural and right. And delicious. She groaned aloud, as he pushed deeper into her, his fingers spreading and stretching her. He was preparing her, but his mouth on her nub made her care nothing for the prosaic reasons behind what he was doing to her…and she liked the deep reach of his fingers. It appealed to the woman in her.

  Then all capacity for thought disappeared as the pleasure climbed sharply. It caught at her chest, made her breath hitch, then tore through her in a sharp, hard crescendo that made her arch and strain in delight.

  The pleasure ebbed very slowly, leaving her breathless and tingling. Sense was just as slow to return, but when she blinked, still breathing hard, she found Adam leaning over her once more, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  “Oh…” she whispered.

  His smile widened. He reached for her knee and brought it up by his hip, as he slid over her. Ann recognized this moment from the texts she had read, but there was no fear, now. How could something so delightful hold any fear?

  His shaft pressed up against her and slid inside and miraculously, she could feel her flesh shift around him, accepting him into her.

  “It is good?” he asked her, studying her face.

  “Yes…yes! Oh, so very good…” she breathed.

  He made another wordless sound of approval and pleasure, and shifted against her, so his shaft withdrew and slid back in.

  Her breath caught. This was the thing she had recognized, before. This was the sensation she had sought, when it had merely been his fingers inside her. This was far, far better.

  Adam’s body worked against hers as his shaft thrust in hard, deep motions. The sensations were novel, at first, but then Ann found herself caught up in them, her own body responding. She could feel the building of the same type of pleasure that had gripped her before, deep in her belly.

  She sank into the pool of delight with a soft moan of her own.

  Adam’s movements hastened, his thrusts becoming even deeper, as he worked his body against hers. His breath shortened, until, with a deep groan, his hips grew still against hers and his shaft pulsed and the tendons in his neck strained.

  Ann recognized that the same peak of pleasure had gripped him. She half expected him to collapse against her, for she had been as weak as a kitten in the moments afterwards.

  Yet, even though he relaxed, he did not fall upon her. His arms kept his upper body propped as he looked down at her. His gaze was almost sleepy. “Mmm…” It was the same deep, approving note.

  “Hmm,” she said in agreement, copying his tone.

  He laughed and untangled himself from her and laid next to her once more. He dropped his arm over her waist, and his fingers stroked gently against her side.

  Ann settled her head upon the pillow once more and studied him.

  “And she measures…” Adam murmured. There was a tiny note in his voice. Worry? Concern? Irritation, perhaps?

  Ann took in a slow breath. Her body was deeply relaxed. So were her thoughts. “Oh, I haven’t had nearly enough time or opportunity to properly measure anything.”

  Adam laughed again. This time it was silent. She merely felt the chuckle run through him, from where his body rested against hers. “Vraiment? Then I must provide you with more to measure.”

  He bent his head and brought his mouth to hers.

  Time, which had slowed to treacle speed, now raced like a hare, while Adam taught Ann some of the complexities and joys of making love. “Whatever pleases you is the only guide you should follow,” he told her, his mouth brushing her hipbone. “And this dip here…ah! This is such a pleasing curve.”

  Ann caught her breath, her hips lifting, as he slid his tongue over the indentation next to her hip. “How can I please myself, if you will not let me up from the bed to do so?”

  “Because I am pleasing me,” he breathed, and rolled onto his back, bringing her with him.

  Ann had not suspected there was such range and variety surrounding the marital act. Adam seemed inexhaustible, and her own appetite for pleasure increased, the more she experienced it.

  It was fully dark, the compartment lit only by moonlight, which swung and shifted as the tracks the train followed curved across the land, when Ann fell into a languid motionlessness, her head against Adam’s heavy chest. Her fingers moved over the flesh of his belly in lazy circles, until even her hand grew heavy and her motions ceased.

  Did Adam sleep? His breathing was slow and deep, as a sleeper’s would be.

  The train slowed and gave the low, long note of warning as it approached a station.

  Ann tensed.

  “Belgrade,” Adam murmured. “Sofia by morning, then Constantinople by afternoon teatime.” His hand rested against her shoulder. His lips touched her forehead. “You should sleep.”

  “Perhaps…” She hesitated. “I wonder, would it be possible to send a wire from Belgrade?”

  His body did not shift, not by an inch, yet she was certain he had grown abruptly wary. “To whom?” His voice was even. Unconcerned.

  “To Papa, I was thinking. They will be worried, especially with all the reports in the papers.”

  Adam did not move or speak.

  When the train came to a stop, she raised her head to look at him, even though she could see very little of him in the dark. The platform at Belgrade was too short to reach this far along the train. No lights shone through the windows.

  “Adam?” she prompted.

  Still he did not speak immediately. Then he gave a great sigh. “You are still trying to save the family. You still think of them.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “No, you misunderstand me. I have no intention of contacting Filip. I will not marry him. Not now…how could I?”

  “Then marry me.”

  Ann sat up, wishing suddenly for a lantern by which to see his face and the expression in his eyes. His eyes always said far more than he did, if one watched closely.

  Adam did not sit, but she could see from the angle of his chin that he watched her.

  “I will not marry you,” she said gently. “At least…not until I am free of this business with Filip.”

  Adam did sit up then. “Why?” he demanded. “Why wait? After this?” His hand spread, taking in the bed and their nakedness.

  Ann brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Her hair spread around her elbows. The pins had long ago come loose and now lay scattered upon the floor on either side of the bed. “I must wait,” she said patiently. “If I marry you now, then it will be for all the wrong reasons.”

  “I do not care,” he ground out. “Marry me as a shield, a tool…I care not.”

  “Yes, you do,” Ann replied as calmly as she could, even though his vehemence had made her heart race. “You do care, and you will care much more as time goes on. I want to marry you when it has become something I wish to do, not something I must do. Do you see?”

  Adam’s chest rose and fell as he studied her, his eyes blank shadows in the dim light.

  Ann added softly, “You should only consider marrying me when you want to, Adam—and not because it is the way you will help the family.”

  He jumped, as if she had slapped him. “That is not—” he began, his voice low and hard.

  “Yes, it is,” Ann replied. “At least in part.”

  For a long moment he simply stared at her. Then he pushed a hand through his hair. “I cannot deny it,” he said. “How strange. I thought the family to be a useless anchor—far too English and staid, and yet all this time I have been…” He blew out his breath. “Je ne sais pas quoi.”

  “I think you have been looking for a way to be accepted by everyone. You have been trying to earn your place in the family, one you’ve never fully felt is yours.”

  Much farther along the train, she heard voices speaking softly in a language she didn’t know. The train shuddered as doors were opened and closed. Ann watched through the window for the movement of people. In her current state of undress, the last thing she wanted was for anyone to stand outside the window and peer in, even though it was very dark in here.

  “They’re bringing on fresh coal,” Adam murmured. “They will stop only long enough for that.”

  Ann turned back to him as he gripped her arm and drew her up the bed to where he sat. “You have infected me,” he murmured. “Now, nothing will be the same, no matter what happens.”

  “You are not angry about it,” she pointed out. “I have done nothing but upset your life that you liked.”

  “It is what it is. I don’t give a damn, not while you are here, and I can do this…” His mouth came against hers, and his arms tightened around her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Constantinople, Capital of the Ottoman Empire.

  They stayed in Adam’s compartment until only an hour or two before the train was due to arrive in Constantinople. Houses and small towns which dotted the land about the ancient city whizzed past the window.

  The corridor outside the door buzzed with conversations and steps and the sound of trunks and valises and other luggage being carried and arranged, ready for the passengers to depart, for in Constantinople, everyone alighted, as the city was the final destination.

  “Tomorrow, the train will set out for Paris once more,” Adam explained as they bathed from the same bowl. The efficiency had been Adam’s suggestion, and it was a novel sensation to stand beside a man with no clothes and wash herself. Although Adam appeared to approve of the process, for he stopped several times to draw her soapy body against his and kiss her, his hands sliding over her wet flesh. The sensations he produced were completely different from the trace of his fingers when she was quite dry.

  Yet the building suburbs and dense clusters of houses and buildings passing the window forced them both to concentrate on the moment ahead.

  “What if Filip has his men waiting for us?” Ann asked Adam. She turned her back to him. “Would you mind? It is very awkward, hooking them closed by myself.”

  Adam hooked her dress closed as he spoke. “It is very likely he will have men waiting for us, for that is what I would do.” He tugged her gown into place. “When we arrive, I will scout the station first. We will find a way to escape their attention.” He turned her to face him. His expression was grave. His gaze steady. “Or you could confront Dahl right now, while I am with you, and end the matter here and now.”

  “If Filip is willing to chase me across Europe and into the Orient, then I suspect that Dahl will not merely shrug and go back to Denmark simply because I say so. He will insist I go back with him, even if it is to stand before Filip and speak to him myself.”

  Adam lifted her chin so that she was forced to meet his gaze. “You have made up your mind, now, not to marry the man. Perhaps allowing yourself to be taken back to Denmark to speak to him is what you should do, to end it properly.”

  Fright tore through her. Ann gripped the lapels of his jacket, as if that might keep him right there. “No. No, Adam. Filip has been so determined about this…I have embarrassed him across the breadth of two continents. He will not simply accept my refusal to marry him, either.”

  “He cannot force you to the altar,” Adam pointed out.

  “I haven’t the courage to face him, just yet,” Ann admitted. “Especially if you are not there with me.” She squeezed her fists, clinging to him. “Just a few more days,” she said, her voice straining. “Everything is changing so swiftly…I need to draw breath.” She did not voice the other reason; that she wanted more time in Adam’s company. In her heart, she suspected that when she did finally confront Filip, in whatever manner that confrontation took place, it would mark the end of this time with Adam, too.

  She would be forced to return to England, to deal with the even greater scandal she had created by running away from the cathedral in Silkeborg.

  She cringed at the thought of facing the approbation and condemnation that would greet her in England. She lacked the courage, yet. Lingering in these exotic and far off lands was far preferable.

  Even though she said nothing of that aloud, Adam seemed to understand, anyway. He touched his lips to hers. “For now, then, we will avoid the Duke and his men. When we arrive in Constantinople, I will go ahead. You must wait for me here.”

  They finished their ablutions, which included retrieving all the pins and clips from the floor so that Ann could comb and pin her hair properly.

  By the time she had her hair arranged to her satisfaction, the train began to slow as it drew closer to the station. The long, low whistle announcing the imminent arrival sounded.

  Ann swallowed.