...Merciline stood beside the Hepplewhite bookshelf for what felt an eternity, clutching the leather-bound volume of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese to her breasts and allowing her prodigious imagination, her most clandestine desires, to consume her. Just viewing Lakeland, napping on the horsehair sofa with an open book resting on his muscular, hirsute bare chest, brought to mind the opening words of Sonnet 43, which she had read only moments earlier—

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

The ways, Merci decided, eyeing with hungry eyes this devilishly handsome man—her stepson, no less—would have whisked her straight to Hades if she didn't control her manic urges.

Damn Browning!

So immersed in the author's heart-rending prose, Merci had paid little attention to the plantation's library when she'd entered. And now, here she trembled, panting from the afternoon's unbearable heat and faced with her most wicked temptation, a temptation that furnaced additional torridity through her veins. She reluctantly tore her gaze from Lakeland's alluring physique and shoved the tome of sonnets into the bookshelf's barren space, all too aware of the smooth, flame-patterned crotch mahogany brushing against her fingertips.

But Lake had not seen her, she reminded herself, drawing a lung full of humid-heavy, courage-bolstering air. She could slip away unnoticed, and at least—for the moment—remain free of the lure his semi-nude form induced within her. Yes, for another day, she might be able to exist in this stuffy plantation house, in this stifling marriage, without additional enticements augmenting her misery.

Battling the urge to give his naked chest another gluttonous perusal, she spun toward the door. Her frantic movement, however, caused her insufferably wide skirt to buffet a side table. In what seemed like slow motion, she watched in horror as a Staffordshire figurine of a sinewy Roman archer teetered and wobbled, then plummeted to the hardwood floor. Though successfully smothering a gasp, Merciline could do nothing to muffle the high-pitched clank as the figurine shattered into dozens of unrecognizable pieces.

"What? Huh?" Lake sputtered behind her. She heard the smack of his bare feet hitting the floor, followed closely by the slam of the thick book that had rested on his chest.

She spun toward him, blood pouring into her cheeks. "I'm sorry—I didn't mean to wake you."

He knuckled his dark eyes, scratched his beard, and blinked away the sleep. When his gaze settled on her, his startled expression turned to one of forgiving tenderness. He pointed to the chunks of Staffordshire. A generous smile cut through his bewhiskered face, while his sensuous lips twisted in amusement—and something more that coerced Merci's heart to throb.

"No mind. I've always detested that hideous figure."

"But your father will surely—I mean—"

"Damn my father and his lust for silly possessions."

"Lakeland!" Fearful, Merci turned to the open window, then the open doorway, expecting either a servant, her other stepsons, or her ruthless daughter-in-law to be lurking and taking note of his words. Her controlling husband needed little excuse to commence a verbal onslaught on anyone, especially on this gentle, patient, long-suffering man.

"Relax, Merciline," said Lake, as if gleaning her mind, "or haven't you learned by now that I care not one hoot what the almighty Wallace Trask thinks of me? That oaf could write me out of his all-important will tomorrow and I would dance a jig of undiluted joy. I'd sooner see Blazing Oaks burned to the ground—to live up to its name—than to give him any satisfaction in holding that blasted inheritance over my head another moment."