What did she think she understood about him? His gorgeous appearance was only the first layer, yet it was one that she savored now as if she had been hungry for it all of her life. Α wealth of lace and silk on a man was something she had always taken for granted. It spoke of power and social status, vital to the structure of society. Yet Alden had turned it into something elseHis appearance was both beautiful and witty, almost as if he celebrated the irony of hiding masculine muscle beneath such essentially feminine frippery. For a woman to put her hand on a man's sleeve and feel the hard tension of his arm beneath the silk was intensely erotic. Perhaps no age had ever been as blatantly sensual as this one. No wonder men like Alden reveled in it, reaping woman after woman like a scythe harvesting flowers.