KENSINGTON BOOKS

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      For JWR, and why not?

      Contents

      Author’s Note

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Epilogue

      AUTHOR’S NOTE

      Meet Lord Edward Delamar, who first appeared in THREE, having a very good time with Lady Fiona. This story happened before he met her—but if you look closely, you will find her in ONE WICKED NIGHT.

      1

      It began with one night. But what man would stop there? Not I, not then, for I was just twenty and not yet schooled in the infinite variety of pleasure. My sensual education began upon the stroke of twelve during that long-ago encounter. The lady and I loved each other well in that one wicked night. My beautiful tutor was someone I cannot name, wanton in all her ways but necessarily discreet, as she taught me to be.

      In six hours with her I learned more than most men learn in six years of vigorous whoring, or during the sort of fashionable affaires de coeur that so seldom involve that most vulnerable of human organs, the heart. She was somewhat older than I and far more experienced, and she taught me well, pleased to have such an eager student who wanted to learn everything at once. My dear love—she was my first love—did her best in the brief time that we had.

      Of course, we had known each other, although not intimately, for a while before she acted upon her secret passion, having guessed my feelings for her. Until our first kiss, I had never experienced such ardent tenderness. A decade later, I remember it well.

      I am straightforward as a rule, but only the most romantic words serve to describe her, such were her charms. Where to begin? She had eyes the sweet brown of meadow honey, and unruly hair like afternoon sunshine, golden and long. My hand was lost in her tresses when she let her hair down and allowed me to touch her for the first time. But it was her open-hearted nature that captivated me most of all, expressed to perfection by a voice so soft and mellow that…ah, a man never forgets his first love, it is said. If he is given to writing, as I am, she will appear again and again, in many different guises.

      She is in this book. But no—I cannot very well bestow the name of Book upon the heap of miscellaneous paper presently upon my desk, at my right hand. A casual look through it reveals pages and pages of my private musings upon my affair with a very different woman: Lady X. There are also rough drafts of erotic tales I wrote to please that insatiable female, penning the finished versions in a little volume of which there is only one copy. And, of course, many amorous missives from me, read attentively and promptly returned—my darling X was not the sort of female who bound such things in silk ribbon and sighed over them.

      All were written in secret. My crest does not appear upon the cream-colored paper that makes up so much of the pile, mingled with torn pages from lewd chapbooks that she sent her maid to buy. I often wondered what the girl thought of those. She could not read but the illustrations made the subject quite clear.

      A faint scent of perfume still clings to the note-sheets on which my darling scribbled sexual fantasies of her own that aroused me to the point of fever, a fever that only she could cure. Many of her notes bear only a swiftly penned message. Come to me. Words that I kissed each time I received them.

      We are all doomed to remember our greatest joy, the mingling of our soul with that of another, when we are utterly alone, as I am now. Perhaps solitude has led me to attempt to make sense of it all. Certainly several of the stories I wrote were inspired by the Lady X, although other lovely creatures appear in them now and again.

      It has been whispered that only I am privileged to know the intimate desires of the most sensual and daring women in London. Perhaps it is so. Some of these wantons are entirely fictional, but many are real, masquerading under different names and costumes. They, and the pages on which they appear in promiscuous array, crowd my mind as well as my desk.

      I would be rid of them all. When I am done, I shall consign every page, every memento of her and the others, to the fire. Erotica created by a sensual imagination may well make the hottest blaze of all.

      Ah, the myriad sources of my inspiration might not be pleased if they knew of their ultimate end in a drawing-room grate. But they will never know. It is not masculine boasting to say that I bedded many women in the ten years that passed since the night of my initiation. My heart, however, had remained untouched. It could be argued that my dear Lady X thought me, a rake with a deservedly wicked reputation, essentially naïve and easy to deceive. She was a highly intelligent woman.

      Once our affair was over, I could scarcely comprehend what had happened between us. And so I collected these papers and began to reread them, adding to them here and there for my own edification and for no other reason. Certainly not for publication—do I repeat myself? I am a man of honor, and every lady’s secrets are safe with me.

      Some minutes later…

      I have returned with a glass of brandy that will fortify me to look more closely through my odd collection. I especially treasure the stories that Lady X set down in a fine, light hand that brings back the memory of her touch, something I would like very much to forget. But I find I cannot. Not yet.

      Damnation! I have knocked over the glass—

      The fumes ignited, owing to the shortness of the candle, which had burned low. The hour is late. For a few seconds, a blue fire danced over the surface of my desk but I pushed the hodgepodge of paper to the floor in time. However, I will take the mishap as a sign of sorts: I must be careful.

      In any event, a trustworthy friend, Richard Whiston, who is also my secretary, has instructions to destroy my personal ephemera upon my death, if I have not done so first. Only he and I have keys to the safe hiding place to which I return the collection