Pale, silvery moonlight poured through a gap in the heavy window drapes. That single column of hazy light sliced across a darkened bedchamber to reveal movement on the large poster bed. It was close to dawn, but Lord Davenport had not yet sated his aching lust in the writhing young woman beneath him. He grabbed a fistful of long, silky curls with one hand and slapped her ample rump with the other to give himself leverage. She yelped, then reached down to stroke him as he sawed away at her.

A moment later, he felt a familiar tingle followed by the sensation he had been chasing. A deep roar ripped from the depth of his chest as he shouted, "Oh, fuck—! Evelyn! Evelyn!"

"Who's Evelyn?" asked the young woman as he dropped onto the bed beside her.

Startled, Lord Davenport lifted his head to look at his bedmate. An unfamiliar face peered back at him. Pretty. But this was not the face he wanted to see. Disappointment was a bitter pill to swallow.

He dropped back on the bed again. "Leave."

His thoughts were already elsewhere when the bed dipped and his companion leapt away to noisily gather her things scattered about the room. In his mind's eye, he was back in the carriage again, with his arms around the supple curves of a dark-haired beauty...

....Evelyn's whole body trembled beneath his probing fingers. Her heady scent and heat filled the small, confined space of the coach. He was drunk from it. Drunk from the taste of her. It drove him mad with need. Yet somehow, he held back. Not yet, he reminded himself over and over. He continued to rub that spot above her hot little slit that released a flood of hot, sticky fluid down his fingers.

"I—I--" she gasped, her little fists clutching his lapel like a drowning person clinging to driftwood.

"Don't fight it," he urged her, with his lips pressed against her temple. "Give yourself to me."

He kissed her lips, delighting in every laboured breath she drew. Her moans made his control slip.

"Oh please!" she panted as she clung to him even tighter.

"Do you know what you do to me?" he growled against her flushed cheek. His fingers worked her like a virtuoso until her writhing and coiling grew tighter and tighter.

Her hot panting breath against him turned into a series of soft moans. They made him feel things he didn't recognise. This was the perfect moment to reveal his true desires. She couldn't possibly refuse him now.

"I'm going out of my mind. I must have you, not once or twice. Be mine alone, and I give you my word you won't want for anything—houses, jewels, wherever you like. But I must be the only one. I won't share you. Not with Prince Edward. Not with anyone. Give him up. Give them all up, and I'll see that you'll have everything!"

Before those last words were even out of his mouth, he felt her tense, but not from ecstasy.

"Release me!" In the next moment, she pushed him away even as she scrambled to the furthest corner of that tight space.

What on earth?

He was too shocked to do more than gape at her. It was difficult to see her expression in the darkness, but he could hear her heavy panting. Was she sobbing? Again, he spoke first. "Name your price, then. I expect to pay dearly."

Evelyn tried her best to pull her clothes back in order. Strands of her long hair around her face hid her expression as she hissed, "Get out!"

"See here, Evelyn--" he started to protest. Why was she behaving this way?

"LADY Evelyn!" she corrected him, her voice full of steel. Her bright eyes gleamed in the darkness. "Leave this carriage at once. You, sir, are a scoundrel! From the moment I met you, you treated me abominably. What have I done to deserve this? No, I don't care what you have to say. You've insulted me for the last time. Go! At once!"

"I'm offering you security, a way forward you stupid girl! What more can someone like you expect?"

"Nothing from you!"

She was refusing him? How could she refuse? Ah yes, Prince Edward. Or was it her other lover? How many were there? And yet, she was refusing him? His anger, indignation and frustrated need for her made him shout, "Did he tell this was the path to respectability? You must see that it's all a ruse, don't you. He doesn't care for you to have you set up with the Warwicks? He means to pawn you off. Whatever he told you, whatever he promised you, it's all lies. You must see that."

"What I see is your desire to ruin me!" she retorted with a suppressed sob. "You know nothing about me at all. All you've ever done is to draw obscene assumptions and make baseless accusations."

Anger was getting him nowhere. He took two deep breaths to calm himself before he leaned forward to reach for her again. "Let's not quarrel. You may set your own terms." She flinched away from his touch. His fingers curled into a fist, then dropped. "You'll not get a better proposal than what I'm offering you!"

"What you offer me is my ruin. By your own words, you merely want to — make a conquest? You want what you believe I am, not me!"

"Poppet, listen--"

"My lord, I will not listen to you anymore." A cold calm descended over Evelyn. She raised her chin to fix her gaze somewhere above him like a wronged queen. "I'll never forgive myself if I let you debase me further. No more. This ends here. I— I never want to see you again!"

Lord Davenport's eyes snapped open when his door slammed shut. He sat up in the rumpled bed and stabbed his fingers through his thick hair. His last image of her, so alluring in her attempt to project dignity beneath wounded pride, returned to torment him. With an angry growl, he rose to his knees, drew back a fist to land several violent blows into a pile of pillows. A flurry of feathers flew up before sprinkling harmlessly back down over him.

"What's her fucking game?" he asked of the empty chamber. He pushed off the bed to pace, naked, up and down the length of the room. 

Such protests! Such a show of false virtue! He saw again how she looked, whispering in a dark corner with that mystery man, the one who reminded him so much of Percy Elwood. The next image was of her disappearing into Prince Edward's home. Perhaps, like any good courtesan, she means to play him off her royal lover to get all that she could. Well, if she thinks she'll get more from him, she can rot with disappointment!

Then Lord Davenport stopped in the middle of the room when another thought occurred to him. It made his chest tighten with inexplicable discomfort. What if he had underestimated her devotion to his rival? What if no words or bribes could persuade her? Because— well— She loved that insipid fool.

"Bloody hell! She couldn't be so stupid!" He recalled the young prince's irritating chatter and delicate disposition. And then there were those old rumours... She couldn't be in love with the prince. It didn't bear thinking about! Yet, royalty had its allure.

"Am I not enough for her consideration? Who the fuck am I?" he shouted, as his valet opened the door with a washbasin.

The startled servant collected himself before he set the basin on its stand. "You are the Marquess of Davenport, my lord," the valet answered with a stone face as he held up a dressing gown for his master.

"Is that not worthy of her?" his lordship demanded to know. His valet made no reply as he went about laying out his lordship's shaving things.

"Fuck," Lord Davenport muttered to himself as he belted the robe around his waist. What did he know of her really, besides her stunning face, alluring body and penchant for fringe philosophy? "Well, to hell with the little cunt!"

Yet every breath he drew was sheer agony.