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  He was the most handsome man she had ever seen, but more than that, he was the man who had been making passionate love to her in her dreams!

  This was madness. This was … Before she could complete the thought, it happened. Only this time it was different. This time he was right there. He was nearby—the man of her dreams was standing only thirty feet away.

  His blue eyes had suddenly locked with hers, and all at once she felt herself transported to another place.

  It was a bedroom—and she recognized the bedroom, for she had been there many times in her dreams. It was as though she were in a theater shamelessly watching herself, watching him—watching, experiencing things she had no physical knowledge of.

  She was a virgin, and yet in her dream she had been his intimately many times. Now, with him so near, she saw herself naked and lying across dark, smooth sheets.

  He was bending towards her, his blue eyes glittering, his black, silky hair falling across and touching her breasts as he licked her nipple and then suckled there with expertise that sent her body into a convulsion of pleasure. His fingers moved over her flesh, and she could feel herself clench with desire as he touched—

  What … ? No! No—this was just schoolgirls’ talk coming back to haunt her. This had to stop. She had to stop. She tried to break with the vision. How could she know what it would feel like to have a man … how could she know?

  And then she saw something in his eyes across the avenue that told her a fact she could not deny: she wasn’t having this illusion alone. He was as well. It was so real and not only for her—but for him also!

  When he took a step into the street towards her, Sassy Winthrop ran as fast as her little walking boots could take her and escaped around the corner.

  ~ One ~

  THE VICAR’S ROOM was in darkness as Sassy got up from her chair, where she had been keeping vigil. She opened the curtains to allow morning light into the room.

  “Sassy,” her father whispered hoarsely.

  She turned and ran to sit near him on the bed. The sheets felt cold to the touch, and she frowned.

  The vicar of Sutton moved fretfully for a moment and then stopped to stare at her. He reached a hand, and she took it to kiss his fingers. “I’m here, Papa.”

  It had been a long and difficult night. “Papa,” she said, gently brushing his hair back from his brow, “I am here. Everything is fine. You are getting better.” She didn’t believe her words, but she needed to comfort him somehow.

  “Hush, child, I need to remind you before I go … keep your secret close. Never allow anyone to know, and never use it in any but life-and-death matters.”

  “Yes, Papa. You and Mama taught me well, and I understand, so don’t worry,” she answered, laying a damp cloth on his sweating forehead.

  “Yes, my dear … but there will be times when you are tempted to use what is in you … Be careful.”

  “Yes, Papa, I know,” she repeated. He was saying good-bye. How could she bear it?

  “Your mother always told me that you were special. She said yours was the gift of many … that it had passed over her and into you.”

  “Don’t think about it, Papa.”

  “Hush now. I have made arrangements for you, my beloved girl, to go to … Lady … Lady … I … made … arrangements … Lady … Margate …” His words were labored; she had to lean forward to hear him.

  “I know, Papa,” she said, the words catching in her throat as she struggled not to cry. “I know.”

  “Promise you will go to her … for the new vicar will arrive here … and you … will lose your home.” He moved again fretfully. “I thought you would be safely married before I had to go … My fault … all my fault.”

  “Nonsense—nothing is your fault.”

  “Promise me, child … you will let Lady Margate protect you …” His voice was scarcely a whisper.

  “I promise, but I shan’t have to go anywhere. You will get better and …” He slumped, and she touched him gently. “Papa?”

  Realization sped through her, and with an anguished cry she bent her head onto his hand and sobbed.

  * * *

  Sassy put down the miniature of her mother and paced as she thought about the last few months. Nightmarish? Nearly, though most of the time she had felt numb. Within two years of each other, both her parents were gone, and now, now she had to leave her home—the only home she had ever known.

  She gazed at herself in the long mirror. She had lost weight, and her pretty day gown of pale green needed taking in at the waist. Her black hair, though still full of luster and curls as it hung about her shoulders and back, also needed attention. Sad green eyes looked back at her.

  Her father had been a vicar in a small village and thus had brought in very little income. It had been supplemented by her mother’s small trust, which her family had not been able to undo, though in all other ways they’d turned their backs on her when she married Sassy’s father, for she had spurned the plans they’d had for her.

  Now that small living was Sassy’s, but the home … the home would go to the new vicar.

  Lady Margate had called on Sassy immediately after the funeral and reiterated the vicar’s wish for Sassy to join her at Tanderlay Place, and thus Sassy began putting her affairs in order. Even so, leaving had been something she found she just didn’t wish to do, and she’d put it off until she received the letter that a new vicar had been appointed and would soon be arriving. Thus forced to act, Sassy dispatched a note to Lady Margate, advising her that she was ready to move to Tanderlay Place.

  And so it was Sassy, with her well-kept secrets, unsure, grieving, and unsteady, prepared to leave the only life she had ever known.

  ~ Two ~

  SASSY WATCHED THE leaves of russets and gold waltz their way to the ground in the morning’s bright light.

  She sighed as she heard the sound of horses and stepped outdoors to see a handsome pair of bays pulling a streamlined brown, shiny, and newly styled carriage. At the sight of the Margate Crest glistening gold against the vehicle’s sturdy doors, Sassy thought with a lift of her brow that she was certainly being taken away from the vicarage in style.

  The neat carriage came to a halt directly in front of her, and a livery boy jumped from the boot. He stumbled on a rock and went reeling forward a few steps before he caught himself and grinned shamefully at her while he opened the door for its occupant.

  She gave the lad an encouraging smile when he shot a furtive glance back her way and stood waiting.

  The occupant of the carriage stepped down, tapped the livery boy with his cane, and commented on the lad’s clumsiness before casting a deprecatory glance about his surroundings.

  Sassy’s bottom lip quivered as she watched him walk mincingly toward her.

  “Good morning, Sir John,” she said, her eyes alight with amusement. He had no doubt just returned from his London romp. She noted that he had taken fashion to the extreme; the points of his collar looked as though if he turned too quickly he would pink his cheeks.

  “Ah, Sassy, how lovely you look,” he drawled.

  “Won’t you come in,” she asked, turning, “and have a cup of tea?”

  He followed her inside with mincing steps, his ennui displayed by his expression and the use of his handkerchief swishing before him.

  Sassy’s gaze went to his bright yellow waistcoat and then to his matching nearly as bright breeches. Turning away, she bit back a giggle.

  She found him right at her back as she turned to bid him be comfortable. He stopped and touched a long strand of her hair. “Lovely,” he whispered, “so like midnight. Quite alive with shine.” He sighed heavily. “I could write an ode to your hair … but, egad, your eyes!” He paused once more, using this acquired affectation as though on a stage. “I have never seen a shade quite as green … touched with aqua. Yes, I shall write an ode to both your hair and your eyes.”

  Sassy giggled and could not stop herself. “But what of my face?”
/>   “Dash it, Sassy … piquant and beautiful …” He moved closer, and his voice lowered as he said, “Delectably ripe.”

  Sassy suddenly realized she should not have teased with him. He had crossed the line, and she stiffened. “And here I was thinking that the black of my mourning clothes made me look dowdy.” One brow was raised with a warning.

  “Black? Mourning? Ah yes, to be sure. So sorry about your father. Been in London. Shame and all … shame … but, well, shall we be off now?” He fidgeted uncomfortably.

  Sassy looked to the three portmanteaus packed and ready to go near the door. All her things, all her mother’s things—not clothes but other very important things—had been stuffed inside those bags. It was as though her whole life were now on the move. “Yes, of course,” she said with a sigh. “We just need to put my bags at the boot.”

  “Is that all you have?” Sir John frowned over the luggage.

  “That is all,” she said. “And quite enough.”

  “Yes, yes, of course … got what you need. Fine, then … let me get you situated while the lad packs it up. Can’t keep m’mother waiting. She is anxious to have you at Tanderlay with her.” He took her elbow, but she gently withdrew it.

  “One moment, Sir John … I have some farewells to make to my friends.”

  “Friends?” He looked about, and dawning displayed itself on his face. “Er … servants … I see … friends.”

  He moved about impatiently as Sassy kissed the people she had grown up with and bade them be happy with the new vicar. When she finally allowed him to lead her to the waiting carriage, he released a relieved sigh; once again she smiled to herself.

  As the carriage rumbled over the sandy driveway and onto the paved road, Sassy made an attempt at conversation. “I can’t imagine why you have left London in the height of the season?”

  “Er … one gets weary of parties …” he said evasively.

  She smiled, but suddenly she got a vision of him, and it wasn’t what she was expecting. He was in his undergarments and running out of a bedroom. Another man was shouting and waving a gun … and a woman, naked, was pleading with her husband not to shoot him, saying it meant nothing.

  Sassy shook this off and turned to the window, once again biting her lip. She had heard Sir John had a penchant for women—young, old, married, widowed. Servants talked, and her family’s servants weren’t above chatting about him within her hearing. Apparently Sir John was, in his own estimation, ‘a ladies man.’ Sassy repressed a giggle, for he was not that in her opinion—not at all!

  And once again her thoughts drifted briefly to the illusion of the man, the mesmerizing man who haunted her dreams. How could she stop it? Was it part of her final transition? Was that what was happening?

  * * *

  The Marquis of Dartmour wielded his new phaeton through London’s traffic. He was, as he had been ever since he had seen that exquisite creature in the village of Sutton, totally distracted by a vision, albeit fading as the months passed by, that repeated itself both day and night in his mind.

  The thing was, he had experienced something that felt as though it was taking place even as he looked into her eyes—those compelling, beautiful eyes. It hadn’t come from him; he knew that. But what then was the explanation?

  He had experienced the event as though it had been real. He had actually been in his bedroom with her, looking at her as she lay on his bed—naked.

  He had touched her skin and felt her tremble to his touch. He had licked her nipples, felt them harden … Bloody hell, he had felt her exquisite flesh beneath his fingers! It was so much more than a dream. It had felt as though, when he looked at her across the avenue—this was insane, absolutely insane that he should think this—but it was as though he had been transported in time, to a place where they belonged together …

  Madness—and yet, it haunted him. She haunted him.

  What had triggered it?

  She had, of that he was certain. When those speaking green eyes met and locked with his gaze, he’d lost himself to a living dream. An explanation presented itself: Magic. It could be nothing else.

  He wasn’t an innocent young man capable of being captivated by a lovely young woman to the point of being consumed by a fantasy. That wasn’t what happened, but what then? He didn’t have the answer, so he tried to forget it, forget her. But then, without realizing it, his thoughts would stray, he would find himself staring at a beauty, and that beauty was in his bed!

  An illusion so strong, he had been unable to forget it. This sort of thing never happened to him. He was a realistic man, in control of everything he was and was not.

  He had even given chase. At the time he’d thought he would stop breathing if she escaped him. But she had rounded the corner, and then suddenly Percy shouted his name at his back, bringing him back to earth.

  He had snapped out of it as though waking immediately from a dream. All that now was a memory, and although it was fading, he could not forget it.

  He and his friend Percy had been visiting the Dellesons, who were in turn visiting friends in the area. They had returned to London that very day, but since that time he had thought about her, dreamt about her—and she remained in his mind like a haunting memory.

  He came back to the present as a passing pretty serving girl cast him a saucy smile and threw him a kiss. He tipped his top hat to her and grinned rakishly, his eyes telling her if he could stop and catch that kiss with his lips he would.

  London reeked with the aromas of horses, overpopulation, moneylenders, flashhouses, thieves, and vitality, and he longed to return to his establishment in the country. He sighed, for he was weary of the London scene, but at that moment he had arrived at his club on St. James Street. He pulled his team over to the curbing and handed the reins to his tiger, who jumped off the back of the phaeton to take charge. “Walk ’em, lad,” he instructed. “I shan’t be too long.”

  The tasteful sign identified his club as Watier’s, the most exclusive gentlemen’s club in all of London.

  He took wide, hard strides up its renowned steps to find the door opened by a flunkey who received a gratuity for his trouble. Inside, he gave his hat and cloak to another, and then the marquis made his way to one of the card rooms.

  He scanned the masculine and elegantly designed room for the gentleman he sought, found him, and raised a brow as he noticed his disheveled state.

  “Percy,” he said quietly in way of greeting.

  A pleasant-looking man turned and gave his dearest friend a sour expression. “Hallo, Justin … you here …?”

  The marquis grinned to himself as he picked up the empty brandy glass at Percy Lutterel’s elbow, gazed at it meaningfully, and then replaced it hard on the table. “Drinking deep, eh, lad?”

  “Don’t read me any lectures, Justin. For one thing, you only have one year on me, and for another … I won’t have it.” Percy sank his chin onto his folded hands resting on the table.

  “You should know better. Me? Read you a lecture? Don’t be a fool.”

  “Eh? Then sit down and have a drink with me, ol’ boy. A man needs his closest friend when he is being delivered to hell in a cart.”

  “Delivered to hell in a cart?” the marquis repeated incredulously. “This is no time for you to moon on and on about a wench!” The marquis pulled up a chair and straddled it.

  “You wouldn’t understand,” moaned Percy as he sat up and ran a hand through his fair mass of flaxen locks.

  “No, I wouldn’t, because this is not the way to help yourself!”

  “Damnation, Justin … I’m not mooning over Miss Delleson, and I’ll thank you not to refer to her as a wench. She is … a goddess …”

  The marquis’s opinion of Miss Delleson being very different, he rolled his eyes as he exclaimed, “Good Lord!”

  Mr. Lutterel grumbled, “Well, might as well get it over with. Just what do you want, for I tell you to your face, I won’t have you sitting there looking all superior over me …”r />
  The marquis resisted a laugh and managed to keep his tone serious. “Heard you were in your cups these two days, and thought I’d have a look-see.” He studied him a moment and added baitingly, “Do you know how you appear? I cannot imagine you would allow the Beau to observe your disheveled appearance unless you were out of your mind with grief.”

  “The Beau?” Mr. Lutterel pulled himself up with a start. “Never say he is here?”

  “No, as it happens he is still at Oatlands this week, which is a fortunate circumstance for you. What would he think? No doubt he would cut the connection.” Inwardly, the marquis was grinning, though he kept a grim expression. His friend fancied himself a man of fashion and was proud that Beau Brummell counted him as part of his circle.

  Percy, however, sank back onto his hands and sighed heavily. “What does it matter? What does anything matter?”

  Justin Dartmour, Eighth Marquis of the House of Dartmour, threw up his hands and then leaned on the back of the wooden chair he straddled.

  Mr. Lutterel gazed at him wonderingly but kept silent as the marquis lit into him. “I see. You have decided to give her up. Poor spirited, Percy.”

  “What? What’s that you say? Give her up? Hell and fire, Justin, I have done no such thing. What a paltry thing to say to me. And wait—who was it who said, ‘Forget the chit. Move on.’? You said that only last week!”

  “As to that, it appears my excellent advice was for naught, as apparently you have been unable to do so. I find that you are attached more deeply than I suspected, but I tell you to your head, this whimpering … ’tis disgusting!”

  Percival Lutterel attempted to get to his feet but was detained by the marquis’s firm clasp on his shoulder. “No, ol’ boy—don’t call me out. I should be forced to delope, and then you would in all probability put a bullet through me—an act I am persuaded would cause you as much pain as it would me.”

  Percy’s eyes twinkled at the humor behind this, and for a moment the marquis saw a return of his sunny smile. “You are a despicable, Justin.” He shook his head slowly and pronounced, “A dog.”