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When she said nothing in response, merely stared at him, lips slightly parted, he went on roughly, ‘You were a married woman, you are a woman of experience, so I must assume you know precisely what I mean. I am very close to losing control over my… reactions.’

She swallowed again and he watched the motion hungrily, which hardly helped. ‘You are telling me, so that there should be no misunderstanding, that you will really spend yourself in your breeches as you sit there, if I just pick up a pastry and eat it in front of you?’

God help him, he was lost and did not even want to be saved. ‘Yes. Yes, precisely that.’

It was as though they were the only two people in Italy, in Venice, in St Mark’s, in all the world. The voices of the passing crowd in the square, a snatch of violin music from somewhere, the cries of gulls, the shouts and scraps of song from the gondoliers on the quay and out across the water, all faded into nothingness, muffled by the fierce roaring of blood in his ears.

Signora Rossi did not seem to consider for very long, if at all. She reached out one leather-gloved hand for a pastry. A cream one. He could have closed his burning eyes against the inevitable, but did not. He held her gaze. And she held his with perfect steadiness.

Her teeth bit down. The cream did squirt, and her red little tongue came out and licked it from the tender flesh of her red lips. Still her dark, enigmatic eyes were locked with his. He groaned deep in his throat, a low sound he tried to muffle. It took all the self-control of which he was capable to prevent the spasms that threatened to rack his body from being entirely visible to anyone who might look at him. He held his frame rigid as he resisted the compulsion – perhaps the table shook a little between them, perhaps the cups and teaspoons rattled in their saucers – and the effort of doing so, of not relaxing into the powerful orgasm that was so close and tempted him so, made the sensation all the more intense. It was shocking, appalling, and utterly exquisite; a test of his vaunted self-control that he had damn nearly failed. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before, and he knew he would never forget it.

She had finished the cake; she had entirely done for him.

‘That was good,’ she said very low, and licked her lips again, in case there might be a smear of cream that she had missed, or a crumb of sweetness. He could not possibly be imagining the sensuality in her voice, the little suggestion of a growl. God knows what he would have said, if he had been able to speak, but in that moment he could not.

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Xan had been strictly trained in etiquette from his earliest youth; his father might have been something of a libertine, his brother worse, a disgrace even to a tarnished name, but that did not mean that the most rigid forms and conventions must not be observed at all times. His mother had insisted upon it, as the only fragile bulwark against the encroaching chaos that her husband and elder son’s behaviour threatened to bring down upon them all. So Mr Challender’s upbringing had, in theory, prepared him for any awkward social situation that might arise.

And they did arise. The husband of one of his father’s many mistresses had once challenged the late Earl to a duel in a heated confrontation in the middle of a crowded Bond Street, just outside Angelo’s fencing establishment, slapping him smartly across the face with his dog-skin glove one fine spring afternoon – an event witnessed in horror and confusion by half the ton, including Xan himself. He had only been a boy, and he had been unable to suppress tears at the shameful sight, which had somehow made it so much worse; it was one of his strongest and most unpleasant early memories, and no doubt had shaped his life in ways he didn’t yet fully understand.

That had been embarrassing. Mortifying, scarring. But nothing in his experience had prepared him for this. He, who had always striven to be so correct, had very nearly indulged in one of the most primitive of human functions here in St Mark’s Square, just outside the holy basilica, at a table belonging to Europe’s most famous café, in broad daylight at eleven in the morning.

He did not dare look about him to see if anyone had noticed. Even in Italy, such a thing could hardly be commonplace. And what would he do if they had observed him? What could he possibly say? He didn’t feel like moving just now, and perhaps he could not. Perhaps his legs would not support him. His deep shame was warring with the glorious sensations bubbling and fizzing through his blood and body. He had had just a taste, a suggestion of what he might experience with her, and he wanted more.

And all the while Signora Rossi sat opposite him. She had not taken her eyes from his, nor had she spoken. Perhaps she was frozen in horror; perhaps she had not believed him when he’d warned her what might happen, and that was why she had eaten the damn cake, as a sort of dare. He was not currently in a condition to tell what her motivation might have been, and whether she was regretting her recklessness now.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered at last. The apology seemed entirely and pathetically inadequate, though God knows it was more than his father had ever managed.

She smiled. She smiled. ‘Well, I can’t say you didn’t warn me. And I was not obliged to pick up the cake and test you so, was I? But I confess, I’m not accustomed to being regarded as the sort of alluring siren who can so deeply affect a man merely by biting into a pastry. It makes a woman look at herself in a completely new light, I promise you, sir.’

He let out a sort of low moan. ‘You licked your lips, too; I’m only human. But in all honesty, ma’am, I believe you could have achieved the same effect merely by taking off a glove.’ He paused for a moment and then said abruptly, ‘I’m not a lunatic, you know. I’ve not been sent to Europe in the charge of some damn Swiss bear-leader because I make a habit of this sort of thing at Almack’s or Court, to the enormous embarrassment of my family, and the only alternative is locking me up. This…’ By the exercise of further strong self-control, Xan managed neither to look at nor to gesture in the direction of his lap. ‘This is entirely outside my experience.’

She did not look there either, thank God. ‘And mine. I must admit I am not entirely unaffected by… what just happened. Your frank confession of how I affected you, and then your ability to control your reaction – but only just… The effort it cost you…’

They were still in their private bubble. The world around them was a blur of irrelevant sound and colour. He considered what she might mean by her extraordinarily frank admission, and felt arousal building again. But then, it had never truly left. He could see that her lovely face was still slightly flushed, her eyes bright. Perhaps her breathing was fast, if he did not flatter himself. He could not help letting his hot eyes drift over her body, wrapped in prim dark muslin. Under that would be white lawn petticoats, and boned stays, another layer of flimsy fabric, and then warm naked woman. Christ.

He couldn’t claim to be an expert lover, not by his family’s outrageous standards, but he had experience of a woman in the throes of passion. Admittedly, just the one woman. He and she had made a child together, so it would be a tragedy if he had not seen such a sight, if he had not been the cause of it. And so he could imagine that Signora Rossi’s nipples might be hard, her breasts heavy, the dark curls at the junction of her thighs damp with desire. He could imagine other things, too. If he carried on like this, he would be in as bad a case again, with, he felt instinctively, less chance of holding back this time.

They were past all thoughts of conventional behaviour now, both of them. ‘I’d like to take you in a gondola,’ he said with unvarnished honesty. ‘Out in the lagoon, in the evening, when it is cool and the sun is setting, the stars just coming out.’

‘And what would you do with me there? Take is a useful sort of a verb, but sadly ambiguous.’

Indeed it was. ‘You really want me to tell you?’

She looked down now, and then about her, a little dazed, as if she too had forgotten the world that still surrounded them. But her dark, mesmerising eyes returned to his. ‘Apparently so. Tell me. You could have a cake too, while you do; it seems only fair.’

‘It’s not cake I want to devour, it’s you. I’ve never spoken like this before, not to anyone. I want to be alone with you in the darkness and I want to kiss you. I want my tongue deep in your mouth, and yours entwined with mine, our bodies pressed together with not a sliver of space between us. I want to touch your skin. Good God, I want that more than I have ever wanted anything in my life till now. But I don’t want to stop at kisses. I want to find the hem of your gown and slip my fingers under it, and follow the lovely line of your legs up and up and up. I want to find where your stockings end, and trace the edge, so that I am touching your bare skin at last, my fingers a little rough against your softness, and then I want to stroke further, till I meet your curls, which I imagine being damp…’

‘That’s not your imagination alone,’ she said very low. ‘You should know that some things that occur to you are real. And that is one.’

He swallowed. He was instantly as close to release as he had been before. ‘Damp, then. Wet. And I want to explore your secret folds, and find your pearl of Venus, and stroke it, as you lie back and abandon yourself in trust to me. I want to discover what you like, what pleases you. If you like it hard and fast, I will go hard; if soft and slow, I will take that time, and caress you till I feel the tension building in you, and hear your soft little moans and gasps that you will be obliged to suppress for fear of anyone hearing. But I will hear, because I am so close. My fingers will be firm on your softness, and slip in your glorious wetness, but always find better ways to pleasure you, and at last you will be overwhelmed with pleasure, and I will feel it seize you, and I will not stop until every last little wave of bliss has washed over you and carried you away. And if you cry aloud – I hope you cry aloud – nobody will hear because my mouth will still be on yours.’

‘And then…?’ Most certainly she was breathless now, and so was he. He’d made her wet. He had.

‘And then I will raise my fingers to my mouth and suck away every last drop of your pleasure so that I can taste it and remember it forever. And then I’ll do it again, as often as you will let me. I want to reduce you to a wreck, as you have reduced me. And that is only the start.’

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