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She leapt atop Demon and rode across fields, then picked her way ed the shore She knew the way, she knew the bayou She had been born in it, and she did not fear it, nor any of the creatures of the night

It seeuided her well, as if Deed hooves Even as she worried with a heavy heart about her father, she burst upon Stone Manor, the old ht upon his arrival in New Orleans Beneath the eerie low The tall white colu froold-red sparks

He waited for her

Waited

Fro that steeled the length of his body and sent hot sweet shudders surging through him

He had waited for her an eternity Waited forever And he had known, fro far across the room, that he would love her Then he had touched her Held her while they danced And he had wanted her Wanted her with an anguish that surpassed desire Wanted her so that he lay torht He could take her, seduce her He was a master of the craft But she had to love hiht

Tonight

Tonight she had come She appeared on a sudden rise, seated atop pitch-black Delow of the ed to touch her face

The dark horse began to race across the overgron to the house Alec watched,to Thomas below in the entry, and then he heard the soft fall of her footsteps as she raced up the stairs

He threw open his bedroom door, and she was there He lifted his hand to touch her at last, and the hood from her cape fell back "You have co back, drew her into his domain Her hand seeant He lifted the cape from her, and let it fall to the floor, and his eyes devoured the length of her, the slender colurace of her body as she swirled into the room then, drawn to the red fire that burned in the hearth below the marble mantel She stretched our her hands to feel the war her shoulders both fiercely and gently, inhaling the scent of her hair

"Where does your father think you are?" he asked

"In bed, asleep," she responded

He saw the pulse ticking furiously against her throat He touched it with the lightest kiss

She spun around, passionate, vivacious "Alec, I could not lie! We fought dreadfully I--"

"It’s all right"

"I told hiht"

She sighed and then threw her arms around him "He must accept us For I love you"

"Do you? Can you really love in to understand"

She drew back from him, puzzled, as she sometimes was Dear God, but he was an extraordinarywith his ink-dark hair and nearly black eyes His shoulders were handsomely broad, his waist hipcord lean, his jaw firm and square There wasn’t a woman in Louisiana who had danced with hierously handsome man she had ever s he had told her Much of his family had perished in the French Revolution, but there had been survivors as well, defying the guillotine He hiht at the Battle of New Orleans--as a boy, of course, a runaway in the employ of the pirate Jean Lafitte He had traveled extensively, he had fought duels, he admitted, with pistols and swords He was an excellent marksman By the very nature of all that he was, all that he did, he was nificent

He turned his back on her suddenly and walked away fro a bottle of wine upon a slasses, his back still to her She looked around his room, his private abode The spread had been pulled down fro contrast to the snohite sheets beneath it Nuainst the headboard More wine chilled in a silver bucket by the bed Chane There was no pretense as to why he had wanted her here He was clad in a floor-length black dressing goith a red satin lining She was sure he wore nothing else Yet it seeht Perhaps you should not love me"

"Do you love me?" she whispered

He turned to her, very solemn "With all my heart For all my--no, for all eternity"