Prologue

       Fentonwyck, Derbyshire

       July 1816

      “I’ve waited my whole life to kiss you.”

       Good heavens!

      Lady Lydia Rothermere hardly credited what she heard Simon Metcalf say, nor the urgency in his manner while he said it. When he grabbed her hand, the heat of his touch sizzled right to her toes, left her feeling jumpy and needy.

      As he lured her a step closer to the hay barn, her voice emerged high and breathy with excitement. “You’re utterly mad.”

      “Not mad, merely desperate. You’ve avoided me all summer.” He gave her the dazzling smile that always made her yearning heart tumble against her ribs. “Now I’ve got you to myself, I intend to take full advantage.”

      “A-advantage?” Nervously she glanced around the empty stable yard, but nobody was present to observe Sir Reginald Metcalf’s second son making inappropriate advances to the Duke of Sedgemoor’s daughter. His Grace was away in London and not due back until tonight. In his absence, the estate slumbered. The noon sunlight beat down on the cobbles with almost Mediterranean intensity.

      Her senses reeled. Could this really be happening to her? Could Simon be staring at her as if she made the sun rise every day?

      She’d been in love with Simon Metcalf since she was little when, as an impossibly grown-up eight-year-old, he’d comforted her after she skinned her knee on the drive. He’d been a handsome boy, tall and strong, with golden hair and laughing blue eyes. He’d matured into a strikingly handsome man, something she was miserably reminded of whenever she saw her uninspiring features reflected in a looking glass.

      Hopeless pining had transformed into humiliating torment this last year until she’d turned seventeen and her fantasies had taken a disturbing direction. She’d spent her life praying for the boy from the neighboring estate to talk to her and smile at her and ask her to dance. Now her dreams, waking and sleeping, had become blatantly physical. Dreams of Simon touching and kissing her. Dreams that left her restless and unhappy and deeply ashamed. As a result, whenever she’d seen Simon this summer, she’d mumbled and blushed and generally behaved like a ninny. How she regretted that their easy friendship had deteriorated into awkward self-consciousness.

      But now when she studied his vivid features, she read an intensity that trapped the breath in her throat. Even in her innocence, she knew that he meant to kiss her. A thrill shivered through her.

      “Come with me,” he said with another daredevil smile, drawing her into the shadowy hay barn. Out of the sun, she should feel cooler, but her blood pumped so furiously, she felt likely to melt into a puddle of longing.

      Just past the entrance, Lydia stumbled to a halt and blinked up at Simon in shy astonishment. Her grip tightened on the red rose he’d presented to her when he’d persuaded her to abandon her work in the stillroom. A thorn pricked her thumb, but she hardly noticed the sting amongst all the turbulent sensations assailing her.

      Her fear momentarily outweighing Simon’s powerful attraction, she made another unconvincing attempt to pull free. If her father learned she’d been alone with Simon, there would be the devil to pay. Horror of scandal had been drummed into her from the cradle. “You know we can’t.”

      He laughed softly, his teeth white against his tanned face. “Of course we can.”

      With