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whom she could confide. Surely she knew much more of life's vagaries and vicissitudes than the twenty-year-old ladies maid.
    "I'll bring you another warm cloth, if you wish, m'lady," Marianne offered.
    "No, thank you. I'm quite sleepy now." She yawned hugely and crawled into bed.
    Her dreams were wildly erotic.
    Each new scenario placed her and Thomas in the gardens engaged in more and more compromising situations. She tossed restlessly, fighting to gain consciousness, but falling back under the spell of each new scene, each new conversation, each new arrangement of their bodies on the thick blankets covering the grass.
    She awoke with a gasp, her heart thundering in her chest, her skin clammy. Between her thighs, a thick pulsation throbbed. She grabbed herself there until it ceased.
    The sheen of guilt lay heavy on her conscience as feeling subsided and she lay back down. Even though, she told herself, she had in actuality done nothing wrong.
    She almost believed her own admonitions.
    She reached for a glass of water at the same moment she hear a click at her chamber door. Marianne slept in the adjoining maid's room, the door slightly ajar so she could hear if her mistress needed her. Was the girl wandering about?
    Another click and then a slow swing of her bedroom door opening widely and a dark shadow emerging cautiously. She held her breath. The shadow took substance, and she knew from the shape and breadth of it that it was not her husband.
    What audacity had made Thomas creep into her bed chamber? Was he mad?
    She sat upright, alerting him that she was awake. In the dim light from the moon shining through the window, she saw him raise a hand and place a finger over his lips, although he spoke not a word. She watched him move easily and quietly for such a large man over to the door leading to Marianne's room. Chastity heard the quiet snore of the girl who was clearly fast asleep. He closed the door and placed the wooden chair from the corner beneath the latch.
    Clearly Thomas had a great deal of practice sneaking into ladies' bedchambers and assuring his presence would not easily be found out! Probably scores of women had watched him engage in the same activity. Her cheeks flushed hotly.
    She would not be one of his many ... amours.
    "M'lady?" he whispered as he walked closer to the large canopied bed. "Lady Chastity?" She realized he could not see that clearly in the dark and wondered briefly how he'd manage to determine where her chamber was located, how he'd gained ingress with all the footmen and servants about.
    "What in heaven's name are you doing here, Thomas?" she asked more loudly than she'd intended.
    "Shh," he admonished. "You don't want to be wakin' pretty Marianne."
    She heard the Irish lilt return to his voice, a disguise she now realized, that he used when he didn't want anyone to understand what lay beneath the façade of the stable master.
    "I've come to see if you're feeling better." He sat easily on the edge of the bed, impudent man! "And if I could help ... ease your discomfort a bit more."
    "You must be insane," she protested. "If someone found you here, if Marianne should waken, if – "
    "Shh, m'lady," he whispered again. "If wishes were fishes and all that."
    And he touched his mouth lightly to hers, the velvet touch of it warm and tender and infinitely comforting.
    After a long moment she pulled away. "You should not be here. It's too dangerous."
    "Perhaps the danger of it makes the getting of it all the more enticing," he muttered as he kissed her again, this time more demanding, more insistent.
    She could not breathe, could not halt the wild battering of her heart inside her chest. She could do nothing but wrap her arms around his neck and pull him toward her on the silken sheets.
     

 
    Chapter 8
     
    Suddenly Chastity jerked back, jumped from the bed, pulled the covers against her chest. "I don't want this. I don't want you here." She nodded vaguely toward the door. "You must go."
    Thomas