Y LORD?" she whispered at dawn the next morning.

Jordan opened one sleepy eye and beheld his wife looking bright and alert as she sat down on his bed beside his hip. "Good morning," he murmured, his appreciative gaze shifting to the V of tantalizing flesh exposed by the bodice of her belted silk dressing gown. "What time is it?" he asked, his voice husky with sleep. He glanced toward the windows and realized the sky was not blue, but a weak shade of grey streaked with pale pink.

Unlike Jordan, Alexandra had been awake all night and was therefore not suffering from any foggy remnants of drowsiness. "Six o'clock," she answered brightly.

"You're joking!" he uttered. Appalled by the early hour, he promptly closed his eyes and required an explanation for being awakened at dawn: "Is someone ill?"

"No."

"Dead?"

"No."

A faint smile tugged at his firm lips and creased the sides of his closed eyes as he mumbled, "Illness or death are the only acceptable reasons for a rational human to be awake this early in the morning. Come back to bed."

Alexandra chuckled at his lighthearted, sleepy banter, but she shook her head. "No."

Despite his closed eyes and apparent sleepiness, Jordan had already registered the unusually bright smile on his wife's face, as well as the fact that her hip was pressing against his thigh. Normally, Alexandra's smiles were reserved, not relaxed, and she scrupulously avoided touching him whenever possible, unless he was making love to her.

Curiosity over the reason for her very pleasant, but very unusual behavior this morning made him open his eyes and look at her. With her hair tumbling over her shoulders and her skin glowing with health, she looked delicious. She also looked like she had something on her mind. "Well?" he said lightly, restraining the urge to pull her down on top of him. "I am, as you can see, awake."

"Good," she said, hiding her uncertainty behind a vivacious smile, "because there's something special I'd like to do this morning."

"At this hour?" Jordan teased. "What is there to do, save to sneak out to the road, pounce on an unwary traveler, and steal his purse. Only thieves and servants are about now."

"We don't have to leave for a while yet." Alexandra hedged as her courage began to ebb, and she braced for his refusal. "And if you'll recall, you did say you wanted to make yourself agreeable to me—"

"What is it you'd like to do?" Jordan asked with a sigh, mentally considering the usual things women tried to get men to do with them.

"Guess."

"You want me to take you shopping for a new bonnet in the village?" he ventured unenthusiastically.

She shook her head, sending her hair tumbling over her left shoulder and breast.

"You want to ride out early to see the sun rise over the hills so you can sketch the view?"

"I can't draw a straight line," Alexandra confessed. Drawing a shaky breath, she summoned all her courage and announced, "I want to go fishing!"

"Fishing?" Jordan repeated, gaping at her as if she'd taken leave of her senses. "You want me to to go fishing at this hour of the morning?" Before she could answer, he shoved his head deeper into the pillows and firmly closed his eyes, apparently rejecting the idea—but there was a smile in his voice as he said, "Not unless there wasn't a scrap of food to eat and we were both prostrate from starvation."

Encouraged by his tone, if not his words, she cajoled, "You wouldn't have to spend your time teaching me the proper technique—I already know how to fish."

He opened one eye, his voice amused. "What makes you think I do?"

"If you don't know how, I'll show you."

"Thank you, but I can manage on my own," he said with asperity, studying her intently.

"Good," Alexandra said, so relieved she was almost babbling. "So can I. I can do everything for myself, including put my own worm on my own hook—"

His lips quirked in a smile. "Excellent, then you can bait my hook. I refuse to awaken helpless worms at this ungodly hour and then compound the crime by torturing them."

His humor was so contagious that a gurgle of laughter escaped Alexandra as she stood up and tightened the belt on her rosesilk dressing robe. "I'll take care of all the arrangements," she said happily and headed for her bedchamber.

Leaning back against the pillows, Jordan admired the unconsciously seductive sway of her hips as she walked away, while he fought down the urge to summon her back to his bed and spend the next hour in the delightful—and laudable—occupation of siring his heir. He did not want to go fishing. Nor did he understand why she did, but he was certain there was a reason for it, and he was curious to discover what it was.

Alexandra had indeed taken "care of all the arrangements," he realized when they wended their way on horseback down the opposite side of the high ridge that blocked the house from view of a wide, rushing stream.

Tying their horses to a pair of trees at the base of the ridge, he walked beside her down to the grassy banks of the stream, where a bright blue blanket had been spread out beneath a giant oak tree. "What's all that?" he asked, indicating the two large baskets and one small one beside the blanket.

"Breakfast," Alexandra replied, shooting him a laughing glance. "And dinner, too, from the looks of it. Evidently, cook doesn't have much faith in your ability to catch our meal."

"In any case, I haven't more than an hour to spend trying."

Alexandra paused in the act of picking up a fishing pole, her face confused and disappointed. "An hour?"

"I have a dozen things to do today," Jordan replied. Crouching down, he selected a pole from the ones brought out earlier by the servants and tested its flexibility by bending it between his hands. "I'm a very busy man, Alexandra," he added absently, by way of explanation.

"You're also a very wealthy man," she answered, affecting an offhand attitude as she tested her own pole. "So why must you work so hard all the time?"

He thought for a moment and chuckled. "So I can remain a very wealthy man."

"If being wealthy costs you the right to relax and enjoy life, then the price of wealth is altogether too high," she said, pivoting on her heels and looking at him.

His brow furrowed in thought, Jordan tried to recall the philosopher who authored that quotation, and couldn't. "Who said that?"

She gave him a plucky smile. "I did."

Jordan shook his head in silent amazement at her quick mind as he put a worm on his hook, then walked over to the bank. Sitting down beside a huge fallen tree with its branches stretching out over the water, he cast his line in.

"That's not the best place to catch the big ones," his wife advised him with an air of vast superiority as she came up behind him. "Would you hold my pole for me, please?"

"I thought you said you could do everything for yourself," he teased, noticing she'd taken off her riding boots and stockings. Before he could guess what she was about, Alexandra hitched up her skirts, displaying a pair of slim calves, trim ankles, and small bare feet, then she scampered up onto the wide trunk of the fallen tree with the agile grace of a gazelle. "Thank you," she said, reaching for her pole.

He handed it to her, expecting her to sit down where she stood, but to his alarmed surprise, she walked out along a thick branch hanging above the rushing water, balancing like an acrobat. "Come back here!" Jordan said sharply, raising his voice in alarm. "You could fall in."

"I swim like a fish," she informed him, grinning over her shoulder, and then she sat down—a barefoot duchess with her shapely legs dangling over the water and sunlight shining in her hair. "I've been fishing since I was a girl," she said conversationally as she cast her line into the stream.

Jordan nodded. "Penrose taught you." He had taught her well, Jordan thought with an inward smile, for true to her boast, she'd reached into the basket of worms the servants had brought out to the stream and had deftly put a worm on the end of her hook.

Evidently their thoughts were running in the same direction, because a moment later she smiled down at him from her high perch and remarked, "I'm happy to see you aren't truly squeamish about worms."

"I was never squeamish," he protested with an expression of earnest gravity on his upturned face. "It's only that I hate to hear the sound worms make when you stick them the first time. Normally we kill things before we use them for bait. That's more humane, don't you agree?"

"There is no sound!" Alexandra denied heatedly, but he looked so certain that her own conviction wavered a bit

"Only people with extraordinary hearing can detect it, but it's there," Jordan argued, straightfaced.

"Penrose told me it doesn't hurt them," she said uneasily.

"Penrose is deaf as a post. He can't hear them scream."

An indescribable expression of queasy apprehension crossed Alexandra's face as she looked at the pole in her hand. Swiftly turning his face away to hide his laughter, Jordan gazed off to his right, but he couldn't stop his shoulders from shaking with mirth, and Alexandra finally spotted the telltale movement. A moment later, a fistful of twigs and leaves hit him on the left shoulder. "Beast!" she said cheerfully from above.

"My dear, foolish wife," he replied, grinning impenitently as he reached up and calmly brushed leaves and twigs off his sleeve, "were I perched precariously over the water on the limb of a tree, as you are, I'd take great care to treat me with more respect." To illustrate, he reached up with his free hand and gently nudged the stout limb she was perched upon.

His disrespectful wife lifted her graceful brows. "My dear, foolish husband," she softly replied, sending a momentary shaft of unexpected pleasure through Jordan, "if you unseat me, you'll be making a terrible mistakeand setting yourself up for a wetting in the process."

"Me?" he said, enjoying their banter. "Why?"

"Because," she quietly and earnestly replied, "I can't swim."

Jordan paled and surged to his feet. "Don't, for God's sake," he ordered sharply, "move one inch. I don't know how deep the water is below you, but it's deep enough to drown in and it's murky enough to prevent me from seeing you below the surface. Stay where you are until I get there."

With the lithe agility of an athlete, he bounded onto the tree trunk and began walking toward her, moving out along the branch until she was within arm's reach. "Alexandra," he said, speaking in a calm, reassuring voice, "if I come any closer, my weight may break this branch or bend it enough to throw you into the water."

He edged another few inches closer to her and bent at the waist, extending his hand toward her. "Don't be afraid. Just reach out and clasp my hand."

For once she didn't argue, Jordan noted with relief. Instead she reached up with her left hand and tightly grasped the limb above her head for balance, then she extended her right hand to his, catching his wrist in a strong grasp, at the same time Jordan's fingers closed tightly around her wrist. "Now get your legs beneath you and stand up. Use my wrist for leverage."

"I'd rather not," she replied. His amazed gaze narrowed sharply on her laughing face, while she tightened her grasp on his wrist and threateningly said, "I'd rather swim, wouldn't you?"

"Don't try it," Jordan warned darkly, unable to free his wrist. In his awkward position, bent at the waist and his arm imprisoned, he was completely at the mercy of her whim and they both knew it.

"If you can't swim, I'll rescue you," she sweetly volunteered.

"Alexandra," he threatened in a soft, ominous tone, "if you toss me into that freezing water, you'd better swim for your life in the opposite direction."

He meant it and she knew it. "Yes, my lord," she meekly replied and obediently released his wrist.

Jordan straightened slowly and stood looking down at her with an expression of exasperation and amusement. "You are the most outrageous—" He broke off, unable to control his grin.

"Thank you," she replied brightly. "Predictability is so very dull, don't you agree?" she called after him as he turned and walked along the branch, then jumped down to the grass.

"How would I know?" he replied with grim amusement as he stretched out on the grassy bank and picked up his pole. "I haven't had a predictable hour since I set eyes on you."

The next three hours passed as if they were but a few minutes, and by the end of it, Jordan had confirmed she was not only an excellent fisherman, but a thoroughly delightful, witty, and intelligent companion as well.

"Look!" she called suddenly and unnecessarily as Jordan's pole bent nearly in half, almost jerking him to his feet as he fought to hold it. "You have a bite—!"

After five minutes of the most deft maneuvering and skillful fighting on Jordan's part, his line abruptly went slack. His disrespectful young wife, standing upon her tree limb, from whence she had observed his unsuccessful struggle for supremacy while calling out advice and encouragement, groaned and threw up her hands in disgust. "You lost the fish!"

"That was not a fish," Jordan retorted, looking up at her. "That was a whale with large teeth."

"Only because it got away," she retorted, laughing.

Her laughter was as infectious as her enthusiasm, and Jordan couldn't stop himself from grinning even though he tried to sound stern. "Kindly stop belittling my whale and let's open those baskets. I'm starved."

Standing back, he watched in admiration as she scampered down from the fallen limb. When she tried to hand him her pole and climb down herself, he caught her by the waist and lowered her to the ground, but she stiffened when her body brushed against his, and he abruptly let her go.

The pleasure he had taken in their morning faded somewhat at her reaction to his touch. Sitting down across from her on the blanket, he leaned his back against a tree and studied her in impassive silence, watching her unpack the baskets of food while he tried to guess her motive for instigating this outing. Obviously, she'd not wanted it to be a "romantic interlude."

"It's been a lovely morning," Alexandra said, pausing to watch the sunlight dance on the water's surface in front of them.

Drawing one knee up against his chest, Jordan draped his arm across it and said flatly, "Now that we've finished, suppose you tell me what this is all about."

Alexandra tore her gaze from the water and looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, why did you want to spend the morning like this?"

She'd expected him to wonder, she had not expected him to flatly demand an answer, and she wasn't at all prepared with one. With a shrug, she said uneasily, "I thought I'd show you the sort of life I truly like to lead."

Cynicism twisted his lips. "And now that you've shown me that you're not completely the refined, elegant young woman you've appeared to be, I'm supposed to develop a disgust for you and let you go back to Morsham, is that it?"

That was so far from the truth that Alexandra burst out laughing. "I'd never have conceived such a convoluted plan in a hundred years," she said, looking nonetheless impressed at the ingenuity of it. "I'm afraid I'm not quite that inventive." For a split second, Alexandra could have sworn she saw relief flicker in his hooded grey eyes, and she was suddenly determined to recover the companionable, easy mood they'd enjoyed while fishing together. "You don't believe me, do you?"

"I'm not certain."

"Have I ever done anything to make you think I'm devious?"

"Your sex is not noted for being either forthright or frank," he replied dryly.

"The fault for that must be laid at the door of men," she teased, flopping down on her back and resting her head on her arm as she stared up at the fluffy white clouds drifting across the powder-blue sky. "Men couldn't endure it if we were forthright and frank."

"Is that right?" he retorted, stretching out beside her, propped up on his elbow.

Nodding, she turned her head and looked at him. "If women were forthright and blunt, we wouldn't have been able to convince men that they are smarter, wiser, and braver than we are, when in truth you are superior to us only in the brute strength occasionally required to lift extremely heavy objects."

"Alexandra," he whispered, as his lips slowly descended to hers, "beware of shattering a man's ego. It forces him to show his supremacy in the time-honored way."

The huskiness of his voice, combined with the seductive languor in his grey eyes, was already making Alexandra's heart hammer. Longing to put her arms around his broad shoulders and bring him down to her, she asked shakily, "Have I shattered your ego?"

"Yes."

"Be-because I said women are smarter, wiser, and braver than men?"

"No," he whispered, his smiling lips almost touching hers now, "because you caught a bigger fish than I did."

Her startled giggle was abruptly smothered by his lips.

Feeling utterly languid and thoroughly content, Jordan decided to forestall their lovemaking for a few minutes, and after allowing himself a long, hungry kiss, he lay back beside her.

She looked a little surprised and a little disappointed that he hadn't continued.

"Later," he promised with a lazy grin that made her blush and smile and then hastily avert her gaze. After a minute she seemed to become fascinated with something in the sky.

"What are you looking at?" Jordan demanded finally, watching her.

"A dragon." When he looked bewildered she lifted her arm and pointed to the sky in the southeast. "Right there—that cloud—what do you see when you look at it?"

"A fat cloud."

Alexandra rolled her eyes at him. "What else do you see?"

He was quiet for a moment studying the sky. "Five more fat clouds and three thin ones." To Jordan's surprised pleasure, she burst out laughing, rolled onto her side, and kissed him full on the mouth, but when he tried to hold her tighter and begin to make love to her, Alexandra drew back and insisted on resuming her study of the sky.

"Have you no imagination at all?" she chided softly. "Look at those clouds—surely you must see one that reminds you of something. It can be something whimsical or real."

Goaded by her insinuation that he possessed no imagination, Jordan narrowed his eyes and stared hard—and then he finally discerned a shape he recognized. Off in the sky, on the right, there was a cloud that looked remarkably like, exactly like—breasts! No sooner did he recognize the shape than Alexandra excitedly asked, "What do you see?" and Jordan's whole body shook with silent laughter.

"I'm thinking," he said quickly. In his haste to come up with some acceptable shape to tell her, he suddenly found one. "A swan," he said, and then almost in awe, "I see a swan."

The study of cloud formations, Jordan soon realized, was an unexpectedly pleasurable pastime—particularly with Alexandra's hand clasped in his, and her body pressed against his side. A few minutes later, however, the combined distraction of her nearness and the scent of her delicate perfume became too potent to ignore. Leaning upon his forearm, Jordan braced his other arm on the opposite side of her, then he slowly lowered his mouth to hers. Her response to his first kiss was so warm and eager that Jordan felt as if his heart was melting. Pulling his lips from hers, he gazed down at her lovely face, feeling humbled by her gentleness and warmth. "Have I ever told you," he whispered solemnly, "how sweet I think you are?"

Before she could answer, he kissed her with all the hungry urgency he felt.

It was midafternoon when they rode back to the stables. Unaware of the surreptitious glances of Smarth and the two dozen stablekeeps and grooms, who were all avidly curious about the outcome of the morning's jaunt, Alexandra put her hands on Jordan's broad shoulders, smiling into his eyes as he reached up to lift her down from her sidesaddle.

"Thank you for a lovely day," she said as he slowly lowered her to the ground.

"You're welcome," he replied, his hands lingering unnecessarily at her waist, keeping her body only inches from his.

"Would you like to do it again?" she offered, thinking of their fishing.

Jordan's chuckle was rich and deep. "Again," he promised huskily, thinking of their lovemaking. "And again… and again…"

Alexandra's smooth cheeks turned as pink as roses, but an answering sparkle lit her eyes. "I meant would you like to go fishing again?"

"Will you let me catch the biggest fish next time?"

"Certainly not," she said, her face glowing with merriment, "but I suppose I'd be willing to vouch for you if you want to tell everyone about the whale you caught that got away."

Jordan threw back his head and shouted with laughter.

The sound of his mirth echoed through the stables where Smarth was standing at a window beside one of the grooms, watching the duke and his young duchess. "Told ye she could do it!" Smarth said, nudging the groom and winking. "Told ye she'd make him happier 'n he's ever been afore!" Humming cheerfully, he picked up a brush and began to groom a chestnut stallion.

John Coachman paused in the act of polishing the silver-trimmed harness to study the pair of lovers, then he bent his head to his task again, but now he began to whistle a happy little melody between his teeth.

A stablekeep laid down his pitchfork and watched the duke and duchess, then he, too, began to whistle as he reached for another bundle of hay.

Putting his hand beneath Alexandra's elbow, Jordan started to escort her back to the house, then he stopped abruptly and turned as the stableyard seemed to fill with tuneless, discordant melodies being hummed and whistled by servants going about their tasks with jaunty vigor.

"Is something wrong?" Alexandra asked, following his glance.

A slight, puzzled frown creased his forehead, then he shrugged, unable to discern exactly what had caught his attention. "No," he said, guiding her back to the house. "But I've lazed away most of the day, and I'll have to work twice as hard today and tomorrow to make up for it."

Disappointed, but still determined, Alexandra said brightly, "In that case, I won't try to corrupt you with amusing distractions—until the day after that."

"What sort of distraction do you have in mind?" Jordan asked, grinning.

"A picnic."

"I suppose I could find time for that."

"Sit down, Fawkes, I'll be with you in a few minutes," Jordan said later that afternoon without bothering to look up from the letter he was reading from his London business agent.

Undaunted by his client's discourtesy—which he correctly attributed to the duke's understandable annoyance at needing his services—the investigator, who was masquerading as an assistant bailiff while at Hawthorne, sat down across from Jordan's massive desk.

Several minutes later, the duke tossed down his quill, leaned back in his chair, and abruptly demanded, "Well, what is it?"

"Your grace," Fawkes began briskly, "when you gave me Lord Anthony's note last evening, did you not tell me that you'd instructed your wife not to visit him?"

"I did."

"And you're certain she heard and understood your wishes?"

"Perfectly certain."

"You made them very clear?"

Expelling his breath in an irritated rush, Jordan clipped, "Impeccably clear."

The first sign of uneasiness and concern tightened Fawkes' face into a mild frown, then he quickly recovered and said in a brisk, impersonal voice, "Late yesterday afternoon, your wife went down to the stables and asked for a carriage. She told my man, Olsen, that she was merely going to visit a cottage on the estate, and would therefore not require his services. As we agreed last night, after learning Lord Anthony had mysteriously decided to return to Winslow, Olsen followed your wife, staying well out of sight, so as to be able to protect her without alarming her."

Fawkes paused and then said meaningfully, "After paying a brief visit to one of your cottagers, your wife went directly to Lord Anthony's house. In light of what transpired while she was there, I find this incident disturbing and possibly even suspect."

Jordan's dark brows snapped together over frigid grey eyes. "I fail to see why you should be 'disturbed' by it," Jordan said in a cutting voice. "She ignored my orders, which is my problem, not yours. It is not, however, cause to suspect her of any…" He trailed off, unable to voice the word.

"Complicity?" Fawkes provided quietly. "Perhaps not—at least not yet. My men, who have been watching Lord Anthony's house to spot any suspicious strangers who might call there, tell me that Lord Anthony's brother and mother were both inside the house. However, I must inform you that your wife spent little time in the house visiting with them. After approximately a quarter of an hour, Lord Anthony and your wife left the house together and went into the garden at the side of the house, out of sight of the occupants of the house. They then carried on a private conversation which Olsen could not hear, but which appeared to him to be of an extremely intense nature—judging from their expressions and mannerisms."

The investigator's gaze shifted from Jordan's unreadable face to a point upon the far wall. "While they were in the garden they embraced and kissed one another. Twice."

Pain, suspicion, and doubt blazed through Jordan's brain like hot axes as he envisioned Alexandra wrapped in Tony's arms… his mouth on hers… his hands…

"But not for a prolonged period of time," Fawkes said in the taut silence.

Drawing a long, steadying breath, Jordan briefly closed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was calm, cold, and hardened with implacable conviction. "My wife and my cousin are related by marriage. They are, moreover, friends. Since she does not know my cousin is suspected of trying to assassinate me—or that her life may also be in danger from the same assassin—she undoubtedly felt my restriction against her visiting my cousin was unjust and unreasonable and she chose to disregard my orders."

"Your wife flagrantly ignores your wishes, yet you don't find that, er… suspicious? Or at least odd, your grace?"

"I find it infuriating, not 'suspicious,' " he replied with biting sarcasm, "and it is anything but 'odd.' My wife has been doing as she damned well pleases since she was a child. It's an unpleasant habit of which I intend to break her, but it does not make her a willing accomplice to an assassin."

Realizing that it was pointless to argue the issue any further, Fawkes nodded politely and reluctantly stood up. He turned to leave, but his employer's icy voice made him halt and turn back.

"In the future, Fawkes," Jordan ordered tightly, "instruct your men to keep their backs to my wife and me when we are out of the house. They're supposed to be looking for a possible assassin, not spying on us."

"S-spying on you," Fawkes stuttered in dismay.

Jordan nodded curtly. "On the way back today, I saw two of your men in the woods. They were watching my wife, not watching for an assassin among the trees. Get rid of them."

"There must be some mistake, your grace. My men are highly trained, professional—"

"Get rid of them!"

"As you wish," he agreed, bowing.

"Also, when I am with my wife, you can tell your people to keep their distance. If they're doing their jobs, we should be able to wander about the grounds without fear of danger. I will not sacrifice our privacy, nor will I be forced to hide inside my house day and night. When I'm with my wife, I'll look out for her myself."

"Your grace," Fawkes said, holding out his hands in a gesture of conciliation, "I know from years of experience that situations like this are trying, to put it mildly, particularly to men of your station. But I would be remiss in my duty if I didn't tell you that Lord Townsende's unprecedented decision to return to his home at this time of the year makes him a prime suspect. Furthermore, my men and I are only trying to protect your wife—"

"For which I am paying you a fortune!" Jordan interrupted acidly. "Therefore, you can damn well do it my way."

Fawkes, who was no stranger to the unfair demands the nobility were accustomed to making upon all those around them, nodded resignedly. "We shall try, your grace."

"And I'll countenance no more of your groundless suspicions about my wife."

Fawkes bowed again and left. But when the study doors closed behind him, the resolve, the absolute certainty slowly drained from Jordan's hard face. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he leaned his head back against his chair and closed his eyes, trying to block out the words Fawkes had spoken, but they pounded in his brain like a thousand vicious hammers. Lord Townsende's unprecedented return makes him a prime suspect… Your wife and Lord Townsende went for a stroll and carried on an intense conversation… They embraced and kissed one another… I find their actions suspect…

A silent shout of denial in Jordan's brain drowned out the investigator's words, and he lurched forward in his chair, shaking his head as if to clear it. This was madness! It was hard enough to face the fact that Tony, whom he loved like a brother, was probably trying to kill him. But he would not allow himself to think for another moment that Alexandra was also betraying him. The artless, enchanting young beauty who had teased and laughed with him today and then clasped him to her while he made love to her, was not secretly lusting after Tony, he told himself furiously. Such an idea was insane! Obscene!

He refused to believe it.

Because he couldn't bear to believe it.

A ragged sigh escaped Jordan as he faced the truth. From the moment she had hurtled into his life, Alexandra had stolen his heart. As a girl, she had enchanted and amused him. As a woman, she delighted, infuriated, enticed, and intrigued him. But no matter what she did, her smile warmed him, her touch heated his blood, and her musical laughter made his spirits soar.

Even now, beset by jealousy and plagued by doubt, he smiled when he thought of the way she had looked this morning, seated upon a tree limb with the sunlight glinting in her hair and her long, bare legs exposed to his view.

In a ball gown, she was elegant and serene as a goddess; in his bed, she was as unconsciously provocative as the most exotic temptress; and seated on a blanket with her bare legs curled beneath her and her gorgeous hair blowing in the wind, she was still every inch a duchess.

A barefoot duchess. His barefoot duchess, Jordan thought possessively. She was his by the law of God and man.

Picking up his quill, Jordan determinedly threw himself into his work, blocking out everything else on his mind. But for the first time in his life, he could not completely lose himself in it.

Nor could he entirely forget that Alexandra had lied to him about her whereabouts yesterday.