Whatever tentative platform of equilibrium Nicola had been balancing on suddenly tilted and ricocheted her off. His lips dropped to hers softly at first, and she had sucked in a breath from shock alone, hearing the same sound from him but for what reason she would never know.

His hand was at her waist, pulling her close, then other cupping her jaw, tilting her mouth up to his, and then his lips were crushingly sweet, moving with taunting ardency against her. The potency of the moment, of having Jason Blackwood kissing her, struck her with mindless shock she could scarcely take a breath with the reaction her body was having to him.

The two men coughed loudly. "It seems the Marquis of Northwick has found a tasty bit of entertainment for the evening," one of them leered suggestively. Jason dragged his lips up her cheek, caressed the shell of her ear. "Nicola, kiss me back," he rasped, his voice barely a whisper, ragged and needing. Then his mouth returned to hers and she obeyed, opening for him, moving her lips in shy imitation as he had moved his over hers. She felt him shudder, the hand at her waist flexing and banding against her back, hitching her closer.

His tongue dipped into her mouth, testing, sweet, and she gasped, opening for him wider, and he accepted the offer, deepening the kiss with a sigh. "Put your arms around my neck," he whispered, breaking away long enough to murmur the instruction. Nicola did, her fingers trailing up the lapels of his coat while he settled his lips against hers once more, until her arms were around his neck, pulling him close, and a groan of approval escaped him, his tongue delving inside her mouth with a slick, sinful heat.

There was laughter from the two men who had approached, but she scarcely heard it. Her world was consumed by the man kissing her, the way his lips were an intoxicating combination of firm and softness, the way he tasted like sweetness and sin, his breath warm and coaxing as it mingled with her own. When his tongue slid against hers, her knees buckled, her weight supported by the tree and his body, his hard, solid body.

A sound escaped her, a desperate plea for more, for anything, as his fingers spread in the sides of her hair, compressing her mouth in to his. When he withdrew slightly, bit her bottom lip with teasing firmness, a hot shard exploded low in her abdomen, almost taking her breath away, and she clung to him desperately.

He whispered something fiercely, tearing his lips away, and tilting his head to the side, but the silence suggested they were once more alone, the two men having moved along after clearly witnessing the Marquis of Northwick consumed in an illicit embrace. The hand in her hair dropped and settled on her shoulder. She hadn't heard them leave, hadn't heard anything other than the furious thunder of her heart in her ears, the ragged sounds of his breath.

Jason scanned her face, so close to hers she could still feel his breath meet and dance with hers. "They are gone," he murmured, his eyes hooded, and his voice edged with a husky timbre, the sound making molten waves course through her in response. Slowly, ever so slowly, the reality of the moment began to seep into the corners of her mind, and she blinked, dimly understanding why he had kissed her, why he had asked her to kiss him back, to hold him...

They were gone, her mind repeated dully, and he had kissed her to shield her identity from whoever had passed through the forest, had shown her how he could shatter her world without knowing any way to piece it back together. The kiss hadn't meant the same to him, she reasoned, the kiss had been a decoy, a clever ruse, to protect her.

She swallowed, hard, and lowered the arms that she had still entwined around his neck, still n his embrace, still pressed up against his body. "I should go," she said, her voice shaking and brittle. His eyes caught the sound, dropped to her lips and stayed there, not releasing her from his hold.

"Yes." The word was a short breath, and he did not release her, did not move.

"Jason."

He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head once, and then his gaze was on hers again, and she felt skewered to the tree with that look. "Christ, Nicki, I'm sorry, just one more-"

This time, he was not gentle, he was not coaxing. This time, when he kissed her, he was demanding. He pushed her head back and up, his mouth pressing her lips open and taking her, devouring her. The tree bit into her shoulders and back, his body crushingly hard against her, and she felt his hips press into her abdomen, something potently hard and tangible pressing into her skin even through the layers of her skirts. His tongue plundered her mouth with wild abandon, catching the sounds of pleasure escaping her, and his hands were buried in her hair, dragging her close, flexing and kneading.

With a ragged groan, he broke the connection as suddenly as he had begun it and stepped away from her, the distance only an arm's length between them yet it felt cavernous. "Go," he growled. "Go now."

Nicola will never remember how she compelled her legs to move after that, but somehow she made what felt like cement attached to the bottoms of her feet move, and she ran back down the path, hitching her skirts high.

To afraid to look back, at what she may see, at what she might do if she did.

***

Nicola retired soon after that, bidding her father goodnight and her other companions. It hadn't been difficult to convince them she was feeling ill, her hair in disarray and the colour of her skin vehemently piqued after what had happened in the forest, and Blanche had promised to check in on her later.

Often, in the interlude between the forest and her retiring, she would turn to find Jason's gaze, a silver-eyed hawk appraising its prey from the distance, and her body had shuddered hotly every time in response.

Once safely ensconced in her room, she felt overwhelmed to write once more, which was peculiar since she had not dared to pick up a pen and voice her thoughts on paper since she had lost the jewellery box. However, this night she was restless after all that had transpired, after the sweet torment of his lips. Perhaps he had not been as affected by it as her, but when he kissed her the second time... there was definitely something different about Jason Blackwood then.

But it was unfortunate indeed that Nicola knew sordidly all the pertinent details of his past. Jason Blackwood was not the sort to dally with innocent and proper ladies like herself... She scoffed quietly at that, considering her behaviour in the last two days. Proper, indeed. But that did not negate from the evidence accumulated against Jason's track record. He had paramours and countless mistresses, his efforts at flirting across the ballroom known far and wide, probably even on the continent too.

Nicola paced the length of her bedroom, twisting her fingers in the cotton of her nightgown, longing to find a release for her insurgent emotions. There was naught she could do since she dared not write anything so potent as another letter for fear of that being discovered and then furthermore her identity as the author. What would happen then? She wondered if Jason would scoff or, worse yet, pity her. It was ludicrous to even imagine he'd return her sentiments- the man had only just begun to notice her after the last few days, and even then she wasn't quite sure in what way since she was now his co-conspirator to determine the faux identity of whoever he wished had written those letters.

She wanted to kick something at that thought and instead went over to her vanity, unlocked the draw that contained the previous correspondence from him, and ripped up those letters with harsh movements, praying that the action would bring forward some much-needed relief.

It did not.

She glared at the shredded scraps of paper with a misery that she felt deep within her soul, before she sat upon the stool, procured a new parchment and dipped her pen into the inkpot.

I feel obliged to thank you for what you did this evening... to keep my identity private. I do not like to consider what would have happened had I been recognised with you.

Satisfied, she waited for the ink to dry, her jaw clenching. It was one truth, at least, that she couldn't refute. Jason had acted with the need to protect her reputation and had contrived the most accurate way to allow people believe the obvious about him. It was unsettling to think how quickly the two men had dismissed him and made Nicola wonder how many other romantic interludes he had been caught in to warrant such attitudes from his peers.

When the ink had fully dried, she folded the parchment and left her room, moving silently down the darkened hallway towards the entrance hall of the manor house. She slipped the note inside. The house was dark and quiet, the party and its guests dwindling long before as she stewed restlessly for hours in her room.

Nicola waited an hour before returning to check if he had read the note and replied, but when she opened the grandfather clock and checked beneath the pendulums, there was no folded parchment within, not even her own.

She endeavoured not to allow disappointment to well up within her as she returned to her chambers and crawled into bed.

But it was with the memory of his last kiss, his last ragged and urgent words, that she fell sleep to.