It took fifteen minutes to layout her carefully selected picnic. Vintage claret, dainty shrimp barquettes, smoked oysters, dressed crab, strawberry tarts, and fresh figs. Nothing that couldn't be eaten with the fingers.

The fire was crackling nicely now, the candles were lit, and the room, despite its oppressive furnishing, felt quite cozy. She threw off her gown, thrust it into a corner of the armoire together with her half boots, underclothes, and the cloak bag with her riding britches. Then she shook out the gown that had taken her hours to select. The blonde silk lace shimmered, soft and lustrous in the candlelight. She slipped it over her head, and the delicate material, the painstaking work of a dozen Chantilly-Iace-makers, caressed her naked body, as sensuous as a spring breeze.

She stepped up to the cheval glass and examined herself. The gown had cost a small fortune, but the effect was everything she'd aimed for. It was as demure and virginal as a bridal nightgown. The wide, exquisitely edged sleeves reached her elbows, drawing attention to her delicately rounded forearms and tiny wrists. Her neck rose slender and graceful as a swan's from three tiers of lace ruffles, and her almond-shaped eyes were huge and luminous, their deep violet startling against the creamy pallor of her face and gown, the silvery sheen of her hair.

Experimentally, she fastened a band of white velvet ribbon around her hair. The effect was astonishing. It accentuated the air of childlike innocence that was somehow not what it seemed.

Tamsyn turned slowly, examining herself in the mirror. Her bare feet peeped from the embroidered lace hem, and the material drifted down her body, the lace so fine that her skin glimmered beneath.

She felt as she had when she'd planned her Aladdin's cave, as seduced by the game as she knew Julian would be. Her loins were moistening, her nipples hardening, and her spine tingled.

She unlocked the door, cast one final look over the inviting table, and curled up in a massive black-leather armchair beside the fire.

Julian, after a relatively satisfactory session with the prime minister, had repaired to Horseguards to see what old friends and colleagues he might usefully find, and then to the Admiralty to discover what ships were sailing to Lisbon in the next week. A frigate, escorting a convoy of merchant shipping, was due to set sail from Portsmouth under a Captain Marriot by the end of the following week, and it looked like the likeliest passage he would find. The captain would need to be officially informed that he'd have four passengers on the voyage, and Julian would need to get the requisite instructions from the appropriate admiral, but that wouldn't take more than a day or two.

Feeling very cheerful, Julian went back out into the drizzle, to where a damp urchin was holding Soult. The lad caught the sixpence with a cheeky grin as his lordship mounted, and ran off, biting the coin to test its mettle as if he couldn't believe the largesse.

Julian rode home, left his horse in the mews, and entered the garden through the gate. He glanced up at the window of his bedchamber. It was closed against the rain, but light shone warm and welcoming from within.

An involuntary smile crossed his eyes, and his heart jumped with pleasure at the thought that Tamsyn was waiting for him.

He entered the house through a side door and strode upstairs, encountering no one, which didn't surprise him. He never entertained at home and was so rarely in residence himself that Belton and Mrs. Cogg managed to run the house with the help of a lad for the heavy work, and a kitchen maid. Most of the rooms were kept under holland covers anyway.

He entered his bedroom and then stopped. Tamsyn was a tiny figure in shimmering pale lace framed against the heavy black leather of the armchair, swallowed somehow in its depth. Smiling, she uncurled herself and stood up.

“Have you had a trying day, milord colonel?” she said softly, coming toward him. “I've prepared a picnic for us.”

He stared at her, his breath suspended. Dear God, she was wearing a ribbon in her hair! And the gown, so demure and yet so unutterably wicked. She looked as virginal, as innocent, as a child in the schoolroom, but her skin glowed in luminous promise beneath the material that stroked over her hips and outlined the soft swell of her breasts, the hard, dark tips of her nipples.

His head swam as she stepped closer to him and lifted her face in sweet demand for a kiss. Still speechless, he bent his head and kissed her lips.

“Will you take off your sword?” she said, stepping back before he could put his hands on her. “It's such an ugly, great thing and so unrestful.”

Unrestful. This woman was the most unrestful he'd ever encountered! But her hands were unbuckling his sword belt, lifting it away from him with a grimace of effort. And it did look absurdly large and menacing beside her delicate fragility. But she was neither delicate nor fragile! He watched in bemusement as she placed the sword carefully in the corner of the room and turned back to him.

“May I help you with your boots?”

In the same trance he sat down in the chair she'd just vacated. With a little frown of concentration, she straddled his lap with her back to him and hauled on his left boot. The curve of her backside, opalescent beneath the spider's-web covering of the gown, was impossible to resist. He placed his palms on the damask globes, and the heat of her skin seared his hands.

“I'm trying to concentrate,” Tamsyn said as the boot came off. “I have to do it like this so I don't get mud on my gown.”

“I'm not objecting,” he murmured, finally finding his voice as he smoothed the gossamer material tightly over her bottom. “I'm sure you're supposed to wear something underneath this.”

“That rather depends on where one's wearing it,” she said with a grunt of effort, falling back onto his lap, sitting on his hands as the second boot came off. “There.” She tossed it to the floor to join its fellow. “Now, shall I take off your coat, and then I'll bring you a glass of wine and a smoked oyster.”

“In a minute,” he said.

“Of course,” Tamsyn said meekly. “Whatever you wish to do is what I wish to do.”

“Now I've heard everything,” Julian observed, but he was smiling. Whatever game this was, it was one he was more than happy to play. He moved one hand to encircle her waist, holding her firmly in place, while his other hand slithered beneath her, the tips of his fingers inching into the cleft of her bottom until she wriggled with a little gasp. Finally he let her go. “I don't want to tear this gorgeous virginal garment… at least,” he added, “not just yet. So you'd better get up.”

Tamsyn slid off his knee, shaking down the gown.

“Whatever you wish, my lord.” She went to the table and poured wine into a glass. She brought it over together with a platter of smoked oysters and, with a shy smile, sat on his lap again. She held the wine to his lips, then began to feed him the oysters. “Do you like them?”

“Mmmm,” he murmured with his mouth full, distracted by her slight weight on his thighs, the scent of her skin, the impossibly shy smile, the deceptive purity of the blonde lace. “I think I'm going to enjoy this game.”

Her eyes widened in hurt innocence. “A game? This is no game, my lord. I wish only to please you. I wish to do whatever you wish me to do.”

She held the wine up to his lips again, then took a sip herself, before placing the glass on the' table beside the platter of oysters. She swivelled on his knee until she was nestled against his chest, her body curled against him.

She was like a small bird, her heart beating against his shirt front. Vulnerable, frail. And it didn't matter that he knew she was neither of those things. It didn't matter that he knew her to be a fierce and uncompromising, tempestuous bandit. For the moment she was all sweet innocence, and she was driving him wild.