Mary Putney - Dancing on the Wind

The desperation between them eased, leaving more room for the primal blaze of passion. "Dear God, Kit," he said huskily as his deft fingers undid the lace thongs, releasing her breasts into his hands. "You're more than mortal man can resist."

"Then don't… resist." Fabric ripped, buttons popped, garments fell as they instinctively sought to bare their bodies as thoroughly as their minds. The bed creaked with protest at the force of their arrival. Then flesh against flesh, musky scent and liquid heat, taut muscle and harsh breath. Passion was the instrument, and intimacy the goal.

When they had made love before, she had pulled away, fearing that she would lose herself in him beyond recall. This time she did not retreat. Instead, she dropped all the barriers, concealing nothing of herself. In that surrender she found fulfillment. If Kira was her other self, Lucien was her soul.

He had feared this fevered mating almost as much as he had craved it, terrified that it would be only of the body, leaving his deeper self unsatisfied. Yet this time she was there, her love lighting the dark corners of his mind, her tenderness a balm to his aching heart. She knew his strengths and failings, his fears and hopes, as surely as he knew hers. And the love that joined them was as unmistakable as the sun.

The physical climax was shattering, a fiery symbol of the melding of their spirits. Afterward they lay face-to-face in each other's arms, her forehead against his cheek, her ragged breath stirring wisps of his hair. He was half afraid to move in case this was only a dream and he risked waking.

But she was more real than any dream when she tilted her head back and said lazily, "Did you know that your eyes turn to transparent gold when you're happy?"

He gave a slow smile, knowing only Kit would say something like that. "I think of them as a rather ordinary hazel."

"Nothing about you is ordinary," she said with conviction.

He ran his hand down the naked curve of her back, loving her lithe strength. "Though you've suspected me of being a rake, for years I've been nearly celibate because the satisfactions of coupling were brief compared to the loneliness I felt after. But making love with you is as soothing as it is intoxicating." He bent his head and gave her a light kiss. "I feel so content right now that it's hard to believe we'll ever need to speak a word aloud again. We can simply read each other's minds."

"We might not have to talk, but we'll want to. I love talking with you." She caressed his cheek with the back of her hand. "I love looking at you: I love making love with you." She blinked pensively. "Have I mentioned yet that I just plain love you, body and soul?"

"No, but after the way we made love, you don't have to." He lifted her hand and kissed it. "The feeling is entirely mutual, as you know."

"Yes," she said with perfect contentment. "I know."

He brushed a kiss on her forehead. "You and I suit each other perfectly, my little tiger kitten. We both prefer lurking behind the scenes to being on center stage."

She laughed. "That's true, isn't it? Kira and Jason are both more sociable types."

He wound a silky strand of her hair around his forefinger. "The estate that borders Ashdown will soon becoming on the market. I had intended to buy it and farm the land, then lease the house, but perhaps Jason might be interested in the place. It's a fine property and convenient to Bristol, which would be a good base for his shipping business."

"And Kira and I can be neighbors for the rest of our lives," she said quietly. "What a wonderful, generous thought."

"I'm being entirely selfish. The happier you are, the happier I'll be."

Her quick smile soon faded. "I'm still astonished that you love me. And… I think I'm a bit afraid you'll be disappointed when you see me in more mundane circumstances. So much of what you've seen has been me pretending to be Kira, rather than the real me."

"Nonsense," he said calmly. "It isn't only the world that tends to define identical twins as opposites-twins do it to themselves as well. You could never have impersonated Kira so effectively if you didn't have the same qualities in yourself. In the last few weeks you haven't been playing a role, you've been discovering your own nature."

She blinked at him. "You really think so?"

"I know so." This time he kissed the tip of her nose. "I'm glad you're retiring as Cassie James, but I hope you'll still dance for me. You make a delightfully wicked Gypsy."

"You may have a private performance whenever you want."

"I still like the idea of a special license. We can be married before Christmas."

"An excellent plan-the best of all possible presents." She stretched languidly, then settled closer to him. "Very practical, too. Kira claims that I'm pregnant." She laid a gentle hand on her belly. "Another essential person might be on the way."

That startled him out of his lassitude. "Indeed? If she's right, that's a wonderful news." He propped his head on his hand and studied her face. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

"I wanted you to marry me because you loved me, not because you had to."

He smiled ruefully. "You're more honorable than I, Kit. For much of what might be laughingly called our courtship, I had a thoroughly selfish desire to get you with child so that you would have no choice but to accept my offer." He laid his hand over hers on her abdomen. "I'm not a very admirable character, you know."

"I am," she said in her primmest, most Kathryn-ish voice. "I have every intention of devoting the rest of my life to your physical and spiritual upliftment."

"Speaking of physical upliftment…"

She laughed as he rolled her on top of him, and she discovered that the physical was definitely uplifting. After settling over him with a provocative wiggle of her hips, she asked in a voice husky with love, "Do you think we'll have twins?"

The Friars of St. Francis of Wycombe were founded in 1752 by Sir Francis Dashwood, a man whose great wealth and talent were matched by his passion for debauchery and love of outrageousness. The world at large called the group the Hellfire Club, and its preoccupations were sex and Satanism. I don't know that any of the members were as dreadful as the worst Hellions of Dancing on the Wind , but as a group they were brutal, selfish, and terminally immature.

Members of the club included some of the most influential men in Great Britain, including Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, and Lord Bute, a prime minister. Benjamin Franklin might not have been a member, but he certainly attended some of their orgies and lobbied the members to win support for the American colonies in the early 1770s. Together Franklin and Sir Francis Dashwood wrote a prayer book that was a great success in America and became the basis for many modern prayer books.

The Hellfire Club's first meeting house was in an abandoned abbey on an island in the Thames. The chapel and grounds were full of clever, wildly obscene artwork. Alas, some years later the location became public knowledge. Sightseers overran the Garden of Lust and sat on the river banks with picnic baskets to watch the monks glide in on their barge. It quite ruined the mood. (No, I did not make that up!)

Dashwood created a new meeting place by digging an enormous maze of caves (in a sexual design) into a chalk hill on his own estate, West Wycombe Park. It gave Dashwood the opportunity to employ his fertile imagination in freshly pornographic ways.

Nitrous oxide parties were indeed trendy in some circles during this period. Many thanks to my friend Linda Moore Lambert for providing me with a copy of "A Dissertation on the Chymical Properties and Exhilarating Effect of Nitrous Oxide Gas," written by a medical student in Philadelphia in 1808. His experiments were performed on himself, and he seems to have had quite a jolly time of it. (Getting high for course credit! Even in Berkeley, they didn't do that.)