The Rogues Club, A Boxed Set

UNDENIABLE ROGUE, Book One

UNFORGETTABLE ROGUE, Book Two

UNMISTAKABLE ROGUE, Book Three

UNTAMABLE ROGUE, Book Four

The Rogues Club: Irresistible rogues, bold brides, & marriages of sheer inconvenience. Laughter, romance, calamity and tears.

“Annette Blair is a master artist in the world of romantic fiction. A strong plot provides the canvas for her compelling characters. Vivid settings and engaging minor characters beautifully augment the portrait. Fascinating subplots add depth. Spicy sexual encounters supply bold strokes . . .” MyShelf.com

Copyright:

First published in paperback by Kensington Publishing

Undeniable Rogue, 2002, 2011 by Annette Blair

Unforgettable Rogue, 2002, 2012 by Annette Blair

Unmistakable Rogue, 2003, 2012 by Annette Blair

Untamable Rogue, 2004, 2012 by Annette Blair

Boxed Set Published by Annette Blair, December 10, 2012

Covers Copyright 2012 Calista Taylor, www.calistataylor.com

Photoshop Brushes: Dark Garden Photography

All rights reserved.

These are historical works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events and establishments is entirely coincidental.

The scanning, uploading, and distributing of this book via the internet or via any other means, including those not yet invented, without the permission of the copyright owner, is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

Table of Contents

Undeniable Rogue

Prologue

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Unforgettable Rogue

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Unmistakable Rogue

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

Untamable Rogue

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

An Excerpt from Sea Scoundrel

About Annette Blair

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http://www.annetteblair.com

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Dedication:

To my Readers,

With sincere respect and appreciation.

I could not follow this path,

Writing the stories I love,

If not for you.

Many Thanks

Brightest Blessings

The Rogues Club, Book One

UNDENIABLE ROGUE

by Annette Blair

Prologue

Military Encampment

Night before the Battle of Waterloo

June 17, 1815

“Stare death down, Rogues, and take an oath to The Club.”

“The Rogues Club,” said the men.

Gideon St. Goddard cleared his throat. “Those of us blessed and cursed to survive, and remember, hereby vow to protect the families of those here, now, who go to their just rewards with the dawn.”

“Aye,” they all repeated.

Gideon nodded and read from the parchment they had composed together. “Every dead rogue’s widow, mother, sister, brother, ward, will be blessed with a family of rogues who provide for them. Every corporeal need—food, shelter, warmth against the cold, and when due: a spouse, an education or a living.”

“Aye.” The second response came stronger and held more conviction.

“Raise your flasks,” Gideon said. “And repeat after me. ‘We the members of The Rogues Club, so do vow.’”

After the vow, and a drink to seal it, cheers resounded and hands were shaken, so it hardly seemed possible that in a few hours any of them might meet their maker.

Soon, the men began to talk among themselves, exchanging information about their families, and Hawksworth approached him.

June 18, 1815

After Bonaparte’s Defeat

My dear Sabrina, if you read this, I have passed, yet the sun shines for me now that you are settled. As I vowed, I found for you a husband. With time running out, I exacted from him what amounts to a deathbed promise to wed and protect you.

He is the new Duke of Stanthorpe, honorable, and wealthy beyond your needs. Tell him of your enemy, I implore you, for he will help.

You suffered as the wife of my late half-brother, and for that I make recompense. I shall call you my beloved sister into eternity. Yours, Hawksworth.

CHAPTER ONE

London, November 3, 1815

By this time tomorrow, he would be wed.

Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe, was having second thoughts. Though he approached his Grosvenor Square home for the first time in months, more dread than anticipation filled him, for beyond the black enameled door of number twenty three, his mystery bride awaited.

With a curse for fate and a tug on his horse Deviltry’s reins, Gideon slowed his pace, wishing the house stood empty of all but his few loyal retainers. Loyal—odd choice of words, especially for him. But, yes, they were, because he paid them well to be so.

Loyalty, constancy, fidelity; he did not possess the natural capacity to inspire those virtues, and he did not need another upon whom to test that ability and fail.

He did notneed anyone.

Stanthorpe Place, tall, bright white and inviting in the gentle winter sun, was not his best nor his biggest home. But Gideon had chosen it to house the woman he had agreed sight-unseen to marry, because of its proximity to the pleasures of London. If worse came to worse and he found himself leg-shackled to an antidote, he could always send her to the country to rusticate and bear his progeny, while he remained in town.

The realization that he need not bother with her more than once or twice a year might actually serve to relieve his anxiety, if the specter of his parents’ almost-perfect marriage did not crook its come-hither finger so beguilingly.

At least, Grandmama was pleased about his marriage. After his estranged brother’s scurrilous and untimely demise, her letter informing him of his unexpected ascendancy to the title had caught up with him in Belgium on the eve of battle. Even now, the Grande Dame believed that her letter insisting he “Hie thee home and get thee a bride,” rather than the fall of Napoleon at Waterloo, had ultimately brought him back to England.

In actuality, her promise to make him her heir, if he did so, had more to do with it than her insistence, that and the mighty and mercurial hand of fate.

His coffers, while never empty, always needed topping-off. His first bride—though she never got quite that far—ran off with a wealthier bridegroom, reminding him that as far as money was concerned, one could never have enough. And Miss Whitcomb, according to her brother, needed a husband to protect her from a life of indigence. “So,” he told himself as he made his way ‘round to the mews, “‘tis all for the best.”

Nevertheless, as he left Deviltry to the eager stable-lad’s tender ministrations, Gideon’s heart beat like a drummer-boy’s timorous tattoo.

In an effort to divest himself of travel grime and don his best armor before meeting his intended, Gideon chose the service entrance so he could take the backstairs to his bedchamber.

In the kitchen, Cook was not to be found but a luscious wench looking set to pup shrieked when she saw him.

Arrested by an eerie sense of recognition, though he had never seen her before in his life, Gideon did not duck fast enough to evade the flour she tossed in guileless self-defense. Reduced to dusty ignobility, he bit off an oath that turned into a sneeze, and added spirited to luscious in his estimation of her.

Dusting flour from his shoulders, Gideon gave his attacker a slow sweeping perusal. Judging by the manner, if not the style, of her dress, the nymph was no servant. Round in all the right places, and then some, she obviously belonged to someone else. But who? And what was she doing in his kitchen?

“Where the devi—” A second sneeze diluted his vexation, to the point that Gideon sighed and gave it up. “Where is Cook?”

His attacker’s miffed mien turned sympathetic. “Oh, you must be hungry.”

Yes, he was, suddenly and inexplicably, but not for food, he decided, chagrined over his reaction to her. He did not normally lust after women in her interesting condition, though there had been that one incredible time.

Gideon cleared his throat. “And you are?”

He must appear as wide-eyed and assessing as she, he mused, even as he tumbled headlong into the bottomless depths of the most amazing violet eyes he had ever beheld. Sultry. Beguiling.

“S-Sabrina,” she said when the silence stretched nearly to snapping.

Shaken by the unlikely coincidence, Gideon waited without breath for her last name.

“Whitcomb. Sabrina Whitcomb.”

For the first time since the Battle of Waterloo, Gideon’s knees turned to jelly.

Behold his bride.

At first thought, the notion enticed, almost as much as it appalled. Yet he knew instinctively that if he took this woman to wife, his solitary existence would end in flames, for she burned bright and alive, and had the power to singe if he got too close.

And hewould get close, by God, especially if she were his. Be damned to the burn.

Gideon lowered himself to a chair.

“Youare hungry,” she all but cried, as she hurried to gather bread, cheese, and fruit, and fill him a plate.

Gideon added compassionate to her list of qualities, but not graceful, at least not in her delicate condition. Then again, delicate was not the word he would use to describe her. Lush, ripe, and blooming, he thought, yet with a naturally regal bearing, even now.

Soft and shapely, Sabrina Whitcomb possessed a body that would give a man ease and comfort. And despite every indication of perfidy—on the part of her brother, at the least—Gideon wanted, absurdly, to be that man and explore every gentle curve and rising crest.

Lust at first sight.

Suddenly dry of throat, Gideon drank the ale she placed before him.

He had hoped for passable looks in his bride, but he found this woman downright ravishing. By virtue of her, ah, assets, he expected she would be a sweet and succulent bed partner.

But how came she to him with child? Or by whom? he should ask. And why had not Hawksworth prepared him for any of it?

Truth to tell, time had been running out for his friend, if Hawksworth could still be termed friend, after withholding certainweighty information, though Gideon supposed one did not quite view one’s sister as other men did.

At least he could stop worrying about having to work up the necessary enthusiasm to bed a homely virgin, Gideon thought, consoling himself. There must be something to be said for experience in a wife, but what that might be, he could not precisely recall as having any import at this juncture. Given his bride’s impending motherhood, however, he felt annoyed and duped. “I assume you were widowed something less than nine months ago?”

She colored, but raised her chin. “How do you know I am not married still?”

Explaining his knowledge would reveal his identity, which seemed precipitate and imprudent, of a sudden. Perhaps he should wait a bit, at least until he regained his bearings and got a better grasp on the situation.

God’s teeth, he wished honor were not at stake here, much as he wanted the delightful but surprising package before him, in the strictly carnal sense, of course.

Since hunger for food also gnawed at him, Gideon cut a piece of cheese as he considered his answer. “Widow’s weeds,” he said, after chewing thoughtfully, indicating her black bombazine gown. “If I do not mistake the matter.”

Sabrina rolled a mound of dough from a tawny clay bowl and nodded. “You do not. I am eight months a widow. Perceptive of you.”

Not perceptive enough, by damn.

So much for his wedding night. Gideon tore a piece of warm bread from the loaf.

Good God, he was in danger of becoming a husband and father in one sweep. Not that children, in themselves, frightened him, but the notion of becoming immediately and directly responsible for one, certainly did.

No wonder her brother had begged, as he lay dying, for Gideon to wed and protect her. How well he remembered that plea for her protection. But what Gideon’s erstwhile friend had not said was that, without his protection, Sabrina Whitcomb might be forced to a life on the streets.

Even without that knowledge, with the haze of smoke and the stench of death all about them, and Grandmama’s letter in his pocket, Gideon had grasped Hawksworth’s plea like a ticket to life.

Fulfilling his friend’s dying wish became a call to honor, while caring for his sister would give Gideon purpose in a, heretofore, meaningless existence. Having suffered enough ennui and regret, Gideon had, in that moment stared his own mortality in its bony eye sockets and yearned of a sudden for an heir, someone to carry on his name. A small someone, who might fill the emptiness and accept him without condition.

He had simply not expected the tiny package to arrive quite so soon.

Since the begetting of heirs fell into line with his favorite and most accomplished sport—he had practiced diligently for years—the offer of a fresh and virginal bride upon whom to get his heir had seemed a gift from above, though hell—and Bonaparte—had needed to be faced first.

Hawksworth had breathed a great sigh with Gideon’s final promise and all but expired in his arms. Then Gideon was forced to rejoin his regiment in the thick of battle.

By the time he returned, his friend’s body had been taken away.

Weeks after Napoleon had been routed, Gideon had finally been able to send letters offering Sabrina Whitcomb his hand and arranging to have her brought to Stanthorpe Place. After weeks aboard theBellerophonin Torbay Harbor, guarding the conquered Frenchman, he had then sailed on theNorthumberland to St. Helena to stand guard there till his tour of duty ended.

Not until Dover’s Cliffs finally came into sight did Gideon have the time and freedom to worry in earnest about the pitfalls in his promise, namely, the bride, herself.

He had reasoned then that a poor and homely spinster should be particularly grateful for his name and protection, and therefore amenable and easy to the bit. But the bemused goddess watching him could, in no way, even in her interesting condition, be compared to any creature he might master. Nor, he suspected, would she ever be easy—to the bit or anything else. And yet, something about her answered a need in him, a longing he could not even name.

Gideon scoffed inwardly at his idiocy.

While Grandmama had dubbed the alliance romantic, and destined, he had called it daft and wondered if he was not sickening from something. Not that he had any choice in the matter. Honor dictated that he not deny the friend whose blood thinned the mud beneath them. No more than he could deny this remarkable woman who called forth in him a bizarre and unexplained need to care for and protect.

Moreover, it was entirely possible that, despite her temporary indisposition, Sabrina Whitcomb, with her gull-winged brows and sable-thick hair, might actually make him an acceptable wife.

And who was he trying to fool? He was eager for her. He had heard it said that expectant women glowed with vitality, but he had never witnessed the like.

Until today.

What he should do, Gideon thought with derision, was take himself off to Bedlam to get fitted for a straightjacket. Never mind that this challenging mix of seductress and virgin, child and woman, could be said to fulfill every male fantasy. Never mind that his long-time mistress, svelte and skilled, awaited his arrival even now.

“Are you unwell?” his intended asked, her brows knit with sincere concern.

“Unquestionably,” Gideon replied in bad humor. “Positively dotty. I must say, you do not seem particularly overcome with grief at your husband’s passing.”

Sabrina’s eyes darkened to liquid amethyst and Gideon regretfully expected her to shrink before him. Instead a tigress emerged, all bright fire and unsheathed claws. “I suppose your bad manners are understandable,” she snapped, “begging at the back doors of your betters, as you are, but you might at least pretend a degree of polite gratitude.”

Claws that could draw blood, he must remember. Gideon suppressed an unnatural and frightening urge to break into a smile. And did he resemble a derelict so much that she did not realize who he must be?

His bride raised her stubborn chin a fraction. “For your information, not that you merit any, my husband was...less than a good man, but I do grieve for a dear friend.

Gideon heard the truth of it in her voice, read sincerity in her eyes, and was shamed. “Please,” he said. “Accept my apology. You have had a bad time of it and did not deserve a show of temper. I do thank you for the meal.” He began to eat in earnest. “Tell me about your friend.”

The tigress nodded, claws instantly sheathed, seeming surprised at his humble reaction to her scold. “The friend for whom I mourn was the Duke of Hawksworth,” she said, love and sadness etching her features. “And I do not know how I shall go on without him.”

Friend? Something dark, possessive, and ponderous rose up in Gideon. The liar had called her, sister. Why would a man lie about his relationship with a woman, unless—

Good God, had Hawksworth been looking to give his bastard a name?

No, and again, no.

It was true that he, Hawksworth, and several others, had been friends for no more than a matter of months, their alliance forged by circumstance, camaraderie, and shared patriotism. The rogues’ whimsicalclubformed in a tent, in time of war, so life-stories had been dispensed with. So Gideon knew little of Hawksworth’s family, less of his taste in women.

Nevertheless, his friend had been, without doubt, a man of honor. That and some strong but nameless instinct about the woman before him, made Gideon believe he must be wrong. And yet....

Less than twenty-four hours remained until his wedding and would have to suffice as time enough to learn what he must. If his groundless suspicions proved true and he found the prospect of marriage to this woman insupportable, he would call off the wedding and she would never know Stanthorpe had been here.

For now, however, since he obviously appeared as much a derelict as he felt, he had best get himself upstairs to wash. Blast and damnation, how the devil would he manage that without revealing his name?

Feeling caged of a sudden, Gideon rose to stare out the window, as if an answer could be found upon the sudden summer gale.

“Sir, I do not know your name.”

Gideon turned, read her bewilderment, and resigned himself to revealing his identity. “You may call me Gideon.”

When she made no sign of recognition, he began to hope for a reprieve. He bowed. “Gideon St. Goddard, at your service.”

“Mr. St. Goddard.” She curtseyed, inasmuch as she could, and bestowed upon him a genuine smile of delight. When the deepest dimples that ever felled man tugged at his cold rogue’s heart, Gideon feared there would be no reprieve for him. None.

“Ah Mrs. Chalmer,” Sabrina said as they turned as one to the woman who had just entered the kitchen. “Mr. St. Goddard, here, will be staying with us for a while. Please have your husband put him in with the others.”

The others?

Mrs. Chalmer’s brows arched. But when Gideon shook his head, imperceptibly, her way, his wizened old cook set her mouth, narrowed her eyes, and led him wordlessly up the stairs.

* * *

Sabrina Whitcomb had never felt more gauche or nonplussed in her four and twenty years of life. Never had she come face to face with such a vital and disarming specimen of manhood.

True, his dark shadow of a beard, his intense emerald eyes, gave a first stark impression. True, he regarded her like a hawk sighting prey.

Yes, that thick hair flowing away from his face, like waves in a midnight wind, had only served to enhance the image, and he had frightened her.

But despite all that, she had also been fascinated by his every unexpected facet. His demeanor had seemed at differing moments to shift from beggar to baron; scamp to sorcerer; champion to charmer.

Here was a man who might protect her from all comers, even from the likes of the vile creature, she was afraid still searched for her. Not that Homer Lowick would ever find her in as safe and unlikely a location as Stanthorpe Place, a blessing for which she had Hawksworth to thank.

But Gideon St. Goddard was another matter entirely. Good Lord, that such a bold, capable one should arrive at her door the day before her wedding to another. Which made no account, because the man was penniless, she must remember, a situation she could no longer tolerate, for herself or her children.

Hawksworth had kept his promise with his last breath. For that reason, first, if not for her vow to herself, she must remain true to Stanthorpe. Forget that his assessing regard turned her to pudding, that his verdant eyes made him appear, almost, to smile, even when he did not. Never mind a mouth shaped to reveal an inborn cheerfulness that inevitably tugged at her own smile.

And when St. Goddard had finally bestowed his first true smile upon her, full and deadly, before following Mrs. Chalmer up the stairs, the sculpted grooves in his cheeks had deepened, revealing a rogue undeniable, handsome as sin and rife with promise.

Well, Sabrina thought, kneading her dough to India Rubber, palpitations over a charming rogue did not belong in the breast of a woman engaged to another. Especially not one past the blush of youth and due to give birth at any moment.

The doddering old Duke of Stanthorpe would do very well for her, thank you very much. With his money, he would be as able to protect her as well as any broad-shouldered pauper.

Tonight, after dinner, tomorrow at the latest, she would tell the handsome St. Goddard that he must leave Stanthorpe Place at once.

She had no room in her life for a seductive lady-killer.

More’s the pity.

CHAPTER TWO

Sabrina Whitcomb’s sunset-deep violet eyes and generous spirit played in Gideon’s mind throughout his bath and shave, so much so that he once called his valet Sabrina, a slip he would not live down any day soon.

And since Chalmer had had the good sense to show him to his own apartments—where he dressed as befitted his bride’s current impoverished impression of him—he did not even wonder aboutthe others until he met them at dinner.

The first of Sabrina’sboarders, a sixty-nine year old rag lady, had lost just enough of her sight to ruin her living. And her hearing, he discovered at dinner, was not much better. During Sabrina’s journey to Stanthorpe Place, she had found Miss Minchip wandering outside a posting inn and took her along.

When Gideon heard the story, he formed a mental image of his intended as a child, all big bright eyes and dark curls, bringing home a kitten in her pocket and telling her mother that it followed her.

Mr. Oscar Waredraper, young at sixty-two, had driven his peddler’s wagon of sewing notions into the path of Sabrina’s carriage, three weeks before, and ended the collision with a sprained back.

While Sabrina, herself, escaped harm, Waredraper got taken home as well and had been installed, it appeared, as the new seamstress. Gideon did not know if the title was a sop to his pride or if the well-mannered, older man actually performed that task for the household. Either way, like the rest, he was treated as an honored guest and joined them for dinner.

Doggett, of that suspiciously singular name, seemed to have appeared most recently inside the house—much as Gideon had done, Sabrina chidingly pointed out. And judging by Doggett’s colorful, Spitalfields vocabulary, Gideon surmised that the man had either been a pickpocket or a fence, though at seventy-seven, he seemed harmless enough, Gideon hoped.

After introducing Gideon as her latest boarder, and a seeker of fortune down on his luck—to Chalmer’s chuckle-cum-cough—Sabrina entertained them throughout dinner with intelligent and witty conversation. Gideon learned, through carefully sprinkled questions, that she had attended finishing school, married young and foolishly, and paid the price.

She was generous—sharing even that which was not yet hers to share—thoughtful, captivating, and as the meal progressed, Gideon could more and more easily envision her fulfilling the role of Duchess. His. Yet despite all her genteel qualities, Sabrina radiated an amazing depth of spirit and a fire of passion that bore more than a trace of obstinacy.

Though her clothes were not in the first stare, her poise and beauty would carry her through any social encounter. She would, he decided, appear graceful in a sack, a near thing right now, considering the size of her expected burden.

The man who wed Sabrina Whitcomb would never be bored, Gideon decided, but neither would he rest easy. The disturbing notion actually shot afrisson of anticipation through him, to the point that he could not seem to remove his gaze from her.

When dinner came to an end, he eschewed port and rose with the ladies. And after they were joined by the rest of the gentlemen, theothersdecided on a lively game ofvingt-un for ha’pennies, Doggett their self-proclaimed dealer. Hmm.

Sabrina opted for a walk in the picture gallery, inlieu of a wet garden, and Gideon, eager to know her better, offered his arm.

Awareness sizzled between them as they strolled beneath the seemingly knowing eyes of his scapegrace ancestors, and before long Gideon felt compelled to break the silence and ease the tension. “My compliments on your home,” he said. “I find the house to be in surprisingly good order, given the short duration of your stay. I did understand from Miss Minchip, did I not, that you have resided here a mere month?”

Sabrina nodded. “We scrubbed and polished the whole time. The others helped.” She beamed as she gazed about. “After I dismissed the housekeeper, of course.”

She had discharged his housekeeper? Indignance rose in Gideon on the instant, and he had to struggle to keep his temper in check.

Sabrina stopped before his grandfather’s portrait. “Hopefully,” she said. “He will be pleased with the results.”

That turned Gideon’s ire. “He?” Unfortunately, the remnants of his annoyance laced his inquiry.

Catching and shrugging his pique away, Sabrina indicated the man in the picture. “Behold the owner of Stanthorpe Place. The man I am pledged to marry.”

Good God. Gideon regarded the engraved plate beneath the portrait. “Harold, Duke of Stanthorpe. But there is no date. Do you not think his clothes a trifle out of fashion?”

Like fifty years or more, Gideon thought.

“Do you think so?” Sabrina tilted her head to examine his grandsire in more detail. “I am not a member of the fashionable set, so I must admit that I would not know this year’s court dress from yesteryear’s.”

“I see.” Gideon placed his hands behind his back to resist a strong and inexplicable urge to reach for her. It seemed that her guileless naiveté, combined with the candlelight playing across her flawless features, was wont to make him forget her offering of his home to strangers. Not to mention her high-handed dismissal of his housekeeper. But he was being petty, and he knew it.

Still his irritation rose again, and he ignored it again.

“So, what do you think of him?” Gideon nodded toward the portrait. “As your intended, that is. If he is, indeed, the current Duke of Stanthorpe.” Why the devil was he dropping hints? Did he want to set the cat, so soon, among the pigeons?

Sabrina gave the portrait another thorough study. “He is. And I think if he cannot be handsome, then it is better he is rich.”

Like fingernails across slate, her words stood the hair at his nape, while the prickling of foreboding racing up his spine further threatened his equanimity.

So much for naiveté.

Gideon composed himself, so as not to give his agitation away. “You seek a rich husband, then? May I ask why?” Foolish question.

An impish grin slivered her eyes to crescents and revealed the slightest glimpse of calculated intent. “For the same reason you should seek a rich wife,” she said. “Money.”

Honest and artless, even in her cunning, Sabrina Whitcomb remained true to the paradox he had already come to expect. Still, Gideon bristled. “Considering, as you say, you are not of the fashionable set, how became you so fortunate as to end up here, pledged to marry a Peer of the Realm?”

“The Duke of Hawksworth found Stanthorpe for me.”

“Did he, indeed? Again, may I ask why?”

“I think, Mr. St. Goddard, that you ask too many questions.”

“Perhaps I do,” Gideon conceded with a hard-won smile. “Again, my apologies. Nevertheless, will you humor me and answer just one more?”

“Why should I?” Headstrong, as he expected.

Gideon almost wished he could warn her that her future, and that of her child, depended upon her answer. “Let us just say that I wasintrigued, the moment I set eyes upon you. And I find myself wondering how it has come about that I have lost all opportunity to get to know you better, before I ever had the chance, my, ah, temporary lack of funds aside, that is.”

“Ask, then,” said she, her voice like fluttering velvet, her regard less certain of a sudden, more vulnerable, or sorrowful, perhaps.

“Why the Duke of Stanthorpe?”

In due course, across her perfect features, marched embarrassment, a thought to prevarication, then resignation. Eventually, she sighed. “To be totally honest, Stanthorpe is rich and he was convenient.”

“Convenient, by God.” Gideon bristled—he could not help himself—but he sobered posthaste, lest he waste a God-given opportunity to learn more about this siren fixed to fleece him.

She had given him the worst possible answer, though he did not know what might have been better. Convenient indeed. “Are you telling me that you need money so badly, you would sell yourself?”

Her expeditious, and unexpected, slap echoed forever through the long gallery. And as his cheek and his dignity stung, Gideon decided that a scheming bride’s hand print might be a fitting brand for her fool of a bridegroom at their wedding.

A silent pall of tension hung in the air after that, and they regarded each other in stunned disbelief. Magnified night sounds—the creaks and groans of the old house—had Gideon imagining his ancestors uniting in his defense, or in hers.

He cleared his throat. “My word choice was unfortunate,” he said. “I suppose I owe you an apology.”

“You suppose?” Her voice no longer velvet, but ice, Sabrina turned on her heel and walked away, but she slowed, faltered, stopped and looked back. “I have … responsibilities,” she said, by way of a tardy explanation, regret and apology nearly paling her agonized features. And like a Madonna, she stood there regarding him, soothing her babe with soft, unconscious strokes.

Gideon recognized and ignored his ridiculous inclination to soothe both mother and babe. “In other words, you would do anything for your child. I commend and admire the sentiment, but what about caring, Sabrina?” He began to approach her with caution, intending to offer amends and what little comfort he could, but was arrested by her babe’s movement.

“May I?” he asked, his hand hovering. And when she nodded, he placed it gently upon the site in fascination. “Amazing,” he whispered, riding a wave of unborn movement, gazing into vivid sunset eyes and feeling suddenly closer to this woman than he had to any other in his life.

A faint stirring of alarm assailed him then, for the sentiment had come so strong, but he ignored apprehension, as he had done with his promise to wed. “Would you not rather give this little one a father who would care for it?” he asked. “Do you even know whether Stanthorpe likes children or not?”

A spark of distress, quickly vanquished, managed to shatter her composure, as it did their fleeting connection.

Sabrina stepped from his reach. “You speak foolishness. I know first hand that life can be got through without love, but it cannot, believe me, without money.”

She was right, of course. And what the bloody devil was ailing him? Why talk her out of marrying his more desirable persona—that of the Duke, rather than the pauper—when, if he would but be honest with himself, he would take her any way he could have her.

Did he? Did he want this siren of a goddess at any cost? As in, purchasing her, fidelity and all, the way he purchased his servants? Or, as in...love at first sight?

Gideon stopped himself from scoffing outwardly. Either way, he was an idiot deserving of nothing but her scorn. Gad, but he was more like his grandmother than he expected, except that he did not even know the meaning of love.

He did not think he could dolove.

He could dolike, definitelylust. He could even throw in courtesy and respect to make things comfortable. But love?

For the life of him, Gideon did not understand what was ailing him. From whence had come this perverse need to believe a woman he had known for less than a day would take him as a pauper?

What he should do, is ride to Drury Lane tonight, find a willing wench, purge Sabrina Whitcomb from his blood, forthwith, and cancel his ill-advised wedding.

Pertinent notion notwithstanding, he wanted nothing more than to continue doggedly in pursuit of a woman he felt duped into marrying, a woman he wished would want him as much as he wanted her.

Tomorrow, Bedlam and a straightjacket.

Tonight, pursuit.

“Let us examine the possibility oflikeandattractionorlust between us,” Gideon suggested, his voice a croaking rasp. He stepped a hair’s breadth nearer, and promptly fell into the shimmering violet depths of her eyes, once more.

Minutes—or hours—later, when he recovered, barely, he fought good sense and grazed her cheek with the back of a hand.

Sabrina swallowed, she trembled, but she did not seem able to turn away, and neither did he. In that moment, Gideon fancied that they were adjoined by some hot, invisible current flowing from one to the other of them and back, like heat lightening, sizzling without sound. “Though I have no right,” he whispered, awed and encouraged by the openness in her countenance. “I felt those things. I felt them the minute I saw you.”

Like a doe in lantern light, Sabrina stilled.

Silently denying his statement? Or rejecting a similar admission?

“Frivolous sensibilities have no place in my life,” she said, after another tension-fraught span and with no conviction. Then she moved again from his reach. “I am engaged to marry another. And what you felt this afternoon was hunger.”

“Yes,” he said, taking now one step forward for each of hers back.

When the wall stopped her retreat, Gideon placed tentative hands on her shoulders, and when she made no attempt to shrug him away, he slid his hand upward to cup her face and contemplate her full, ripe lips.

“As you say,” he whispered. “Hunger, pure and simple.”

While he waited for a subtle invitation to touch her lips with his own, Sabrina stood still as stone, cold, hard and unyielding. Yet he caught her inner struggle in the pulse at her throat and in her fists clenched tight and trembling against his chest.

Only when he flattened her hands over his hastening heart did she begin to thaw. But she pulled away, nevertheless, breathing as if she could not get enough air, leaving him disconnected and floundering.

“No wonder you have had no luck making your fortune,” she said, soothing her unkissed lips with her tongue and bringing his body to erect and rigid attention. “You believe in fairy stories.”

No one had ever accused him ofthat before. “I was not speaking of happily ever after, my dear Sabrina, but of physical hunger.” Was he, really? “Women are the romantics in this world, not the men,” he said for his own benefit.

“Not me,” she responded with a rueful laugh. “I cannot afford to be. I am sick unto death of poverty. I must keep food in my children’s bellies, clothes on their backs and a roof over their heads.”

She could have no idea how much he respected her resourcefulness and determination, but he was mightily frustrated that she resisted the attraction sparking nearly to flame between them.

“Children?” he asked, only now absorbing her words. “Plural? Do you think, perhaps, you will have twins then? You certainly seem bi—er capable enough, though I am no expert.”

Her eyes widened to saucers. “Not a—I hope not.”

For his sanity and to keep from kissing her, after all, Gideon placed her hand on his arm and started them strolling again. “When is he due?”

“Two weeks.”

Gideon stopped, surprised. “Your bridegroom is not due for two weeks? I, ah, must have misunderstood.”

She smiled. “Oh. No, my baby.”

Gideon cursed his revealing slip and sought to recover himself. “You hope for a boy then? That surprises me. I would think that, with no heir required of you in this instance, you would long for a girl.

“My sister-in-law adores dressing her daughters in lace and ruffles and setting them out to be prodigiously admired by the rest of us. Said daughters, however, manage always to ruin their perfection with spilled jam and paw prints. And sometimes, I must confess, I become too spirited a pony for them and jiggle their curls askew.”

Sabrina’s laughter effervesced Gideon’s heart in the way their near-kiss had quickened his body, yet something different, longing perhaps, hazed her eyes for a blink before she checked it.

Score one for him.

“Perhaps after your marriage,” he said, bringing home his point. “The Duke of Stanthorpe will become your son’s first pony, if Stanthorpe is capable, at his advanced age.”

Sabrina released him and returned to studying his grandfather’s portrait. “Even if he is not capable, he will do.” She sighed audibly. “Today is nearly over. He said he would arrive today.”

Gideon stepped behind her. “What would you do, Sabrina, if he did not come?”

“Wait for him,” she said, turning. “What choice do I have?”

“Would it be so very terrible, if he never came?”

That stubborn chin of hers went up again and all trace of vulnerability disappeared from her expression. “If the Duke of Stanthorpe refuses to marry me, Mr. St. Goddard, I will be forced to bring forth this child by the side of the road.”

“Poor as a church-mouse, are you?”

His jest did not in the least ease the lines between her brows, as he intended. Instead, she nodded in all seriousness. “A mouse without so much as a feather for her nest.” Fact, plainly stated, with no room for self-pity.

Gideon’s respect for her increased tenfold, as much as hope for himself dwindled. He had set out to inspire a degree of attachment in her, for him, without monetary cost, though he should know better than to expect success on that score. Fine, then, their relationship would have to remain on a par with every other in his life.

Gideon stepped back, disconcerted by a sudden, wild notion that theirs, of all relationships, merited better.

He shook off the burdensome fancy, ran a hand through his hair, and bowed. “I pray then that he will come.”

* * *

Left alone in the huge picture gallery, mourning a loss she could not name, Sabrina sought the nearest gilt chair. Lowering her trembling and ungainly body into it, she did not allow herself the luxury of resting against its tapestried back.

Strong. She must remain strong.

Stanthorpe would come. He would come.

She regarded the Duke’s portrait without emotion. Tomorrow would be their wedding day. She would marry a mature, dependable man, and see an end to her struggles.

Nevertheless, panic rose in her like bile, and when a vision of Gideon St. Goddard came to her as a possible form of rescue, she forced herself to rout his chiseled features from her mind’s eye.

The man made her think of a deceptively docile dragon, one that would rise up and breathe fire when least expected. Rescue from such a quarter, she suspected, might be as much a hardship as the threat from which one needed delivering.

No. Neither magnificence nor charm would put food on her table. And no man was worth starving for. All were essentially the same, brutes out to appease their beastly appetites. The gentlemanly manner in which one comported himself before those appetites were satisfied, would in no way resemble his deportment afterward.

No member of the male persuasion had ever made her doubt that before. Most, simply verified it. Sabrina only wished that one had not come along to make her doubt that truth today, of all days.

Had the man’s intense eyes seemed almost to smolder when she thought he might kiss her?

No matter if they did. The future was out of her hands. Which was just as well, for she was in a fair way to making a muddle of it.

Ah, but his smile...would not be worth the price.

Her foolish musings were brought to an abrupt, but welcome, halt by the suddenly cavorting antics of her expected child.

Grateful for deliverance, Sabrina rose to make her way to the nursery, and her purpose for everything.

CHAPTER THREE

The note Gideon had written after a long and sleepless night, and had sent ‘round to the front door only minutes before, arrived in the breakfast room on a silver salver.

Unlike the others present, Gideon pretended disinterest as Sabrina read her missive, while he made a show of deliberating between poached eggs and boiled.

“Stanthorpe isn’t coming,” she wailed with more distress than he would have liked or expected, and he dropped his pretense of indifference to rush to her side.

“Oh, wait,” she said stopping him in his tracks and allowing her guests to release their collective breaths. “He has suggested a proxy wedding, provided I can find someone to stand-in for him.”

“I would be happy to oblige,” Gideon offered, forestalling Doggett who appeared at the ready to make the offer and ruin Gideon’s plan.

In the small hours of the morning, Gideon had remained wakeful and aware, body and mind, that he had but to open the connecting door between his bedchamber and hers to find the remarkable Sabrina in her bed. Heady knowledge, that.

More than once, during those hours, he told himself he was a hundred times a fool, yearning to marry a woman he had just met, especially one big with child. His instant and inexplicable attraction to this woman suggested an immature weakness, a gullibility he thought he had lost a dozen years before.

He knew better. She was used goods.

Younger, more malleable women, virgins all, would fall at his feet for a smile, he kept reminding himself.

He owed Sabrina Whitcomb nothing, whether she had been Hawksworth’s friend or his sister, or whatever else she might have been. Except that he had made a promise to Hawksworth, who had, of course, been dishonest in extracting it. But just because Gideon had not stumbled across many honorable people in his lifetime did not meanhe could not be honorable.

Furthermore, Grandmama was right; it was time he got him a wife and an heir.

Sabrina Whitcomb eased his soul just by walking into a room. He could not help imagine how she would ease his body as well. Yet simple physical attraction alone had not inspired his fantastical plan.

Sabrina was a woman who gathered and nurtured strays. And during the dark and lonely hours of the night, he had thought for one weak moment that he just might be among the mostlost she would ever encounter, that he had been for more years than he cared to admit.

No, she did not love him. But neither did he love her. Yes, she calculated his worth in coin of the realm. But why should a wife be any different from anyone else in his life? Sabrina wanted the security that his name and money offered, and he wanted a purpose in life, someone to care for and protect. He wanted to be needed, to be cherished, if only for what he could provide.

He wanted...no longer to be alone.

He wanted Sabrina Whitcomb.

So he would buy her.

Marrying her would sever a pattern of unwelcome solitude and satisfy honor at one and the same time. They could wed today, as planned, so she could await the birth of her child with no worry for her future. And while she ostensibly awaitedStanthorpe’s arrival, they could come to know each other, without expectation.

Despite her cost to his pocketbook, and his pride, Gideon had found himself considering Sabrina’s needs in this final decision. She must have suffered in her short life. One did not become so pragmatically focused, so jaded, for no reason. Though she was not hard and unfeeling as regards to her strays.

Gideon did not know the particulars of the unsavory first husband or the motivation behind her mercenary choice of him as her second. He still worried about Hawksworth’s hand in that, but life sometimes forced less than exemplary choices. In time, he hoped she would willingly reveal all of it.

He hoped...for more than he could ever have.

In time, if a relationship between them did not seem feasible,Stanthorpecould always write that he had had a change of heart and was having the marriage annulled. If it came to that,Stanthorpe would leave her with a comfortable competence and she would never have to sell herself again.

If all worked out to Gideon’s satisfaction, however, they could consummate their union at any time that seemed the right time.

Either way, for a while, at least until after her babe was born, he was doomed to spending morehard nights, like the last.

Except that he would no longer be alone in his bed, or in his life.

“Mr. St. Goddard?” Her words brought him back to the present and everyone’s eyes upon him. “Thank you,” she said.

Gideon straightened, wondered how long he had been wool-gathering, and saw immediately that Sabrina’s smile did not reach her eyes.

Dare he hope that she pined for the penniless wanderer before her? Or that perhaps she might, eventually? She might even come to request an annulment ofStanthorpe, at which point, Gideon would tell her who he was and make her deliriously happy.

And pigs would fly.

She was right; he was a romantic. He should take to penning his Gothic machinations, like some fanciful novel by Mrs. Radcliff, and profit at least from his suffering to win her.

Especially since he need not win her at all.

A simple financial acquisition would do.

“This delay can only be good,” she said, as he helped her from her chair and she regarded her stomach ruefully. “In a month the Duke might gaze upon me, for the first time, at my best, rather than at my worst.”

And if this was her worst, Gideon imagined he had a treat in store.

“If you will all excuse me,” she said to the room at large. “I shall go and prepare for my wedding.”

At the bottom of the stairs, she stopped and released his arm. “Thank you for your offer to stand in. The new Vicar, who has only just arrived to take over the parish, sent a note first thing this morning to say he would be here at three.”

“The banns have been posted and the license procured?” Gideon asked, glad he had taken care of everything by messenger from Sussex before the new Vicar’s arrival.

“All is in readiness,” she said. “You need only stand in Stanthorpe’s stead and say, ‘I do,’ then affix your name as his proxy in the parish register.”

“I expect I can do that without error. Here, let me walk you up. I, too, would like to dress as befits the occasion.”

He would not sign himself as proxy, of course—pray God he would get away with shutting the book before the Vicar took a look. Then he would distract the man with an offer of libation. As a ruse, it was weak, but it was all Gideon had.

As he prepared to do the deed, Bilbury, his valet, tut-tutted disapprovingly, in that way dared only by the most long-standing of retainers. “A proxy wedding, your grace?”

“As you say.”

“But, standing in for yourself?”

Gideon raised a brow. “Is there a problem with my decision?”

The question brought sudden color to his starched valet’s paste complexion. “Certainly not, your grace, but sheis a right one, if you will pardon me saying so.”

Gideon nodded. “It appears a distinct possibility.”

“Everybody below-stairs says so, even Mrs. Chalmer. So I am to suggest that you be nice to her—your bride that is, not Mrs. Chalmer.”

“I shall even be nice to Chalmer. You as well, though you, none of you, deserves it.”

Bilbury nodded as he adjusted the form-fitting shoulder on Gideon’s frockcoat of clarence-blue. “Mind, we do not see why you must lead her on, but we suppose it is for you to say, since you are Stanthorpe.”

“If you expect me to thank all and sundry for that reproachful concession,” Gideon said. “You may all find new employment on the morrow.”

“Yes, your grace.” Bilbury pretended a search for “that scapegrace stickpin,” to cover his lack of proper horror.

Gideon raised a brow, certain that his man had not quite finished with him.

“You just be nice to her,” his intrepid valet repeated as he tied Gideon’s neck-cloth fit to strangle.

Miss Minchip and Mr. Waredraper had performed a miracle, transforming the drawing room into a wedding chapel, complete with silk-carpeted aisle and flowered canopy. The hothouse jasmine, lilacs and roses that graced the tables had been Doggett’s addition.

For their contribution to the wedding arrangements alone, Gideon was willing to support the three of them to their dying day.

While he awaited his bride beside the Vicar, Miss Minchip sat at the pianoforte and began to play a Bach Sonata with surprising skill and no sheet music.

As a bride, Sabrina was beautiful, and blushing, which was a surprise to Gideon, considering the nature of this union, and the bride’s delicate condition. In addition, he had imagined her as far too stubborn to allow for a show of emotion. He liked that about her, her fight. But he also liked her honesty, even of emotion, even when the truth could be painful.

Sabrina Whitcomb would give as good as she got, in and out of bed.

Gideon liked most women, he admitted to himself, especially the pleasure derived in their beds, but as a wife, this one appealed to him in myriad ways. And he suspected he had not yet discovered a fraction of them—an adventure he anticipated with surprising relish.

Gideon looked about him with amazement. This was his wedding day. Yet everything seemed hazy and dreamlike, reminding him of a fantasy, or a nightmare—it was yet to be determined which. An event not wholly within his grasp, much as he suspected he would look back upon it in the years to come.

He wondered how Sabrina would remember this day, twenty years hence, when they were an old married couple with a score of grandchildren. Would she blush, all over again, at her scheme to net herself a rich and eligible husband, knowing she had confessed all to him in advance?

Gideon knew how thetonwould regard the proceedings. They would see Sabrina walking down the aisle, big with child, as infamous, a marriageof necessity, and a poor alliance at best. She, more than he, would become grist for the gossip mill.

As a peer, he was foolishly considered a prize on the marriage mart and was down in the betting books as slated to come in dead last to the altar, paradoxically making him a prime catch.

Gideon scoffed inwardly, relieved to keep society at bay, at least for today, glad no one of note was expected, particularly since his bride had come to a dead stop mid-way up the aisle.

She stood rooted and wide-eyed, frozen nearly in horror.

“Sabrina? Did you change your mind?”

“You—”

He went to her. “Are you unwell?”

She looked him down and up, shining pumps to diamond-studded stickpin and touched the pin’s crystalline jewels with trembling fingers. “You look so—”

“Groomly?” he asked. “Is there such a word? Groomlike, then?”

Her eyes filled to brimming. “Yes. That. And—”

“I thought you should have a wedding to remember.”

“But your clothes,” she said in confusion.Were too expensive, she did not add.

Oh, good God. Gideon wordlessly sought aid from those around him.

Bilbury eradicated his smile, posthaste.

Mrs. Chalmer gave Gideon an I-told-you-so smirk, for which Mr. Chalmer pinched her, for which the man would be getting his ears boxed later.

Gideon cleared his throat of the laughter lodged there and returned his attention to his uneasy bride. “I borrowed the clothes from the Duke. Do you mind? I should have asked.”

Sabrina released her breath and nearly stopped trembling. “Oh. Oh, I see. Well, then, that is to say I suppose, though I wish—  Fine.” She placed her hand on his arm when he offered it and he indicated to Miss Minchip that she should begin, again, to play.

Gideon walked his bride to the Vicar with dispatch, afraid she would turn tail and run, otherwise. Not that he needed her, or anyone, but now that he had set his course, he wanted it done.

After that, Miss Minchip sang like a nightingale and the service moved along smoothly enough. Except for the point at which the words ‘till death do you part,’ were spoken, and the length of time Gideon’s life, and therefore his hasty marriage might last, came as a near-paralyzing shock to him.

By the time the ceremony was over and the assemblage applauded, however, Gideon realized there was no turning back. His fate had been sealed and he was strangely pleased, after all.

Sabrina regarded him with trepidation, or expectation, and so he took her into his firm embrace and kissed her witless.

With the act, his apprehension turned to anticipation.

His bride went week in the knees and Gideon all but crowed, because she was so overcome by his kiss, he needed to hold her up when it ended.

His life, his future, seemed suddenly splendid, and he congratulated himself on this brilliant plan.

The Vicar commented wryly, and pointedly, that in the case of proxy weddings, it wasunnecessary for the bridal kiss to take place. Then he told Sabrina to sign the register, first with her maiden name and then her married one—the name she did not yet know. His name.

Gideon bit off an oath.

His frantic mind-search for a solution ended with a familiar screech that severed his final thread of elation and sent his euphoria straight to hell.

“Stop this wedding at once!” Lady Veronica Cartwright, his former mistress—no, drat, he had forgotten to go and break it off with her last night—appearing the tart in crimson watered silk, charged up the aisle like Wellington before the Life Guards. “Gideon St. Goddard, what do you think you are doing?”

“What are you doing? Here? Now?”

“A good thing I am, and just in time to stop this farce. When your grandmother told me—”

Gideon raised a staying hand. “Let me make the introductions. Sabrina, this is Lady Veronica, a childhood friend. Ronnie, my wife. You are, I am pleased to say, too late to stop anything.”

“Not at all. You can have the marriage annulled.”

Gideon squeezed Sabrina’s hand and stepped from his protective stance to reveal her in her full blossoming glory. “Too late for that, too.” And in the event anyone could possibly have missed the imposing sight, Gideon patted Sabrina’s middle with a possessive hand. “We suspect it must be twins.”

Ronnie screeched theatrically, and Bilbury, who had referred to her asthat toadying trollopfor as far back as Gideon could remember, chuckled inelegantly.

Veronica shot his valet a withering glance before she regarded Sabrina with similar venom. “He is mine,” she announced with slow precision, punctuating each word with a poking finger to Sabrina’s swollen middle. “Do you hear me?”

“The world hears you,” Gideon said, bored for the first time in twenty-four hours, as he moved Veronica’s offensive digit aside. As all the world and his brother would hear, as soon as Ronnie quit these premises and got the gossip mill grinding, he thought.

Veronica slapped his hand aside before turning back to his wife. “I have planned to be the Duchess of Stanthorpe since I was six, and I will allow no dowdy upstart to displace me at this late date.”

Well, there went the cat among the pigeons, Gideon thought, not daring to regard his wife, who had stiffened perceptibly beside him. Damn. “You must have planned to marry my brother, after Cartwright’s death, then,” Gideon told his former mistress. “Since I never expected to inherit. Or did you know something that I did not?”

Veronica’s eyes widened and her nostrils flared for one terrible moment, and then she shrugged with forced nonchalance. But it was too late, because she had given herself away. Gideon realized, then, that Lady Veronica Cartwright was likely more dangerous than he had ever suspected.

“You would have inherited, eventually,” his formidable new enemy said.

Gideon shook his head. “You have not been content with anything less thanimmediate in your entire life.”

“Well you have the title, now, and I would be more than content.”

He doubted it. “Listen, Ronnie, this cannot come as a surprise to you, since I have told you a score of times, but I never planned for us to marry. You are a very resourceful and desirable woman, though, and I am certain you will soon find another—” Deep pocket with a coronet attached, he had nearly, insultingly said, but he did not want her any angrier than she already was. “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I will not be seeing you again, now that I am married.”

“What?” His former mistress gaped like a Drury Lane actress.

Gideon did not repeat himself; he could see that she had heard him clearly enough.

“We shall see about that!” she snapped into the ponderous silence. Then she turned on her heel and exited the room, and the house, itself, in regal splendor, each and every door slamming in her wake.

Gideon regarded Sabrina’s heightened color, no match for her white-knuckled grip stopping the blood flow to his arm. “I will have to speak with my grandmother about the company she keeps,” he said, but his bride did not smile.

She turned, in fact, to the Vicar. “How, Sir, did you say I should sign the register?”

“First, your grace, as Sabrina Whitcomb and then as Sabrina St. Goddard. Then you, your grace,” the Vicar drew Gideon’s attention from his wife’s cold and rigid expression. “If you would sign your own name and title, I believe a special wedding supper awaits you.”

Gideon had not expected Sabrina to sign so readily. He had supposed that she would be angry and intractable. But she wanted Stanthorpe after all, and he was Stanthorpe, so why should she change her mind, now she had him?

When everything seemed in order and he and his bride regarded their guests, everyone returned to Sabrina a glance of concern, even sympathy. But toward him, each retainer looked reproachful and each boarder, suspicious.

Nevertheless, Gideon invited them to celebrate his nuptials with a toast in the library, before the bridal supper. “My Duchess and I will join you in a moment,” he said, seeing them out.

Then he squared his shoulders, prepared himself for battle, and closed himself and his seething bride inside.

CHAPTER FOUR

As soon as the drawing room door clicked shut, Sabrina’s eyes blazed, except that she also seemed frightened. Perhaps she feared releasing the anger Gideon could plainly see seething beneath the surface of her feigned calm.

“Well?” he asked.

“Well, you tricked me into marrying you.”

“Hah! Do not pretend that you were not prepared to trick me into marrying you, except that you thought I was a rich old man, instead of a rich young one. So, what do you have to say about this marriage of ours?”

Sabrina raised her chin. “I am satisfied, as I hope you are.”

“Oh, my dear, sweet Sabrina, it will take a great deal more than stepping into a Parson’s mousetrap to satisfy me.”

Again, emotion flared in her eyes. Again, she held her tongue.

“Being married to me does not mean you cannot say what you think,” Gideon pointed out. “You had no trouble baring your claws yesterday, when you thought I was an ungrateful wretch, begging at the back doors of my betters.”

His bride winced.

“So, please, tell me what you truly think of this unexpected turn of events.”

“I think—” Her breasts heaved and her fists clenched and as Gideon watched passion simmer within her, he couldthink only of getting her into his bed. “I think you lied to me.”

“You discharged my housekeeper.”

“And you tried to talk me out of marrying the Duke.”

“Iam the Duke. I tried to talk you out of marrying for money. And I did not lie. I simply omitted my title.”

“Your pardon,your grace, but why the ruse? You do not even want me.”

He did, physically at any rate, but that did not seem a clever weapon to place in her hands at this juncture. “You cannot imagine how difficult it is to find a good housekeeper,” he said, foolishly. “For what reason did you say you discharged her?”

“You did nothave a good housekeeper. You had a brandy-faced gabble-grinder. You should have seen the state of your poor home when I arrived. Why did you not tell me you were the Duke?”

“Rich and convenient?” Gideon quirked a brow. “Shame on you.”

His bride had the good grace to pale and cover her face with a hand. “I cannot believe I told you that.”

“Fortunate, am I not?” he said, in sincere self-mockery. “That I can afford to purchase anything, even love.”

“No.” Sabrina’s head came up at that. “No one can buy love. Not even you, your grace. And I do not have a heart to give, or sell, make no mistake on that score.” That organ she would retain, intact, Sabrina had promised herself. For if she so much as offered it, and another rejected it,—which this charming rogue most certainly would do—then she would have lost the last trace of self remaining to her.

Brian Whitcomb had stolen almost everything worth having from her, including her pride and self-respect. All she had left at his death was her heart. That, and her children, the only good to come from the union. But children carried an awesome price, precious though they were; they required a lifetime of responsibility.

If not for them, she would never have entered into this arranged marriage. Oddly, though, now that the bargain was sealed, she was not near as fretful as she had expected to be.

After all, her father had sold her into marriage the first time, and she had no say in the matter. Certainly, a marriage of her own choosing, an arrangement that would actually serve her and her children well, could be no worse.

“Why did you go ahead with the marriage, once you understood my intent?” she asked her handsome, and annoyed, new husband.

He scowled. “I can be an idiot sometimes.”

An idiot, perhaps, but a man of honor, nevertheless. Sabrina knew that already. She was quite sure he would not set her aside, now that the marriage had taken place, no matter how much he might rue his actions. Especially since his note suggesting a proxy wedding had come this morning, after he had learned almost everything about her last night. She only wished she had told him then about the children. Now was certainly not an appropriate time, after everything. Though telling him was going to become ever so much more difficult as time went on.

“Whydid you marry me?” she asked, again. “If you regretted your promise to Hawksworth upon seeing me.”

He took her arm, led her to a chair and knelt before her. “You are with child for heavens sake.”

“You married me because I am with child?”

“And beautiful.” He took her hand.

He was beautiful. “Do you like children?”

“And I promised Hawksworth.”

“That you would like children?”

“He lied. He led me to believe that you were a virgin.”

Sabrina chuckled, surprising even herself. “Hardly.”

“No bloody fooling.”

He looked so annoyed, she laughed again. “I knew you were too self-assured to be a penniless wanderer, your grace.”

“And you were too...everything. Call me Gideon.”

Encouraged by the warmth in his gaze, Sabrina wanted to ask him to defineeverything, but she might not like his answer.

“And you bring home stray kittens and feed penniless wanderers,” he added.

“Hawksworth did not lie,” she interjected. “He simply failed to tell you everything.”

The man who could stir her with a look, scowled once more. “Hesaid you were his sister!”

Sabrina sighed. “I should have married him, instead of Brian.”

Gideon scoffed inelegantly. “Just what a bridegroom wants to hear on his wedding night.”

“Wedding night? I— You—”

“Out with it. How many times must I tell you that I will not beat you for speaking your mind?”

Sabrina decided then and there that she must begin as she meant to go on. She knew, first hand, the pitfalls of not doing so. Once burnt, twice wary. So she squared her shoulders, raised her chin, and faced her newest, and, perhaps, her greatest challenge thus far. “I would rather we did not share a bed.”

Her new husband actually growled. “Were you going to tell my grandfather that?”

“Your grandfather?”

“The man in the portrait.”

“Oh. Well, he would have been too old to care.”

“Notmy grandfather. ‘Twas death, alone, kept him from bedding every female in the kingdom.”

Dismayed by his ribald statement, Sabrina wanted to fan the heat rising in her face. “Tell me you do not take after him!”

Gideon flashed a grin that held the power to enslave her, which it might have done, were they discussing any other subject.

“I hate the physical side of marriage!” she cried. Then she covered her mouth with a hand, horrified at her revealing statement.

Her bridegroom reared back, no less horrified, his grin gone, his utter astonishment comical. In slow measure, he seemed to recover his equilibrium, until only a slight frown remained. “When you set yourself to speaking your mind, wife, I must say you succeed with a vengeance. But I do believe you must havebeen with the wrong men. I promise you will like the physical aspect of marriage, when I am the one to—”

All warmth deserted Sabrina, as if the blood drained from her body, and she shivered.

Gideon went for the pitcher of water.

Tense moments later, she gratefully accepted the glass he brought her. “You may be right,” she said after a slow sip and too long a silence. “But we will never know.”

Gideon tensed for a moment before gathering his wits about him. “I believe I should be given the same opportunity that you afforded your first husband, to prove myself. I deserve that much, and more. I, at least, can afford to support you, and if I precede you in death, rest assured you will not need to seek support elsewhere. You owe me a husband’s due.”

“I cannot give it to you.” Sabrina rose with the alarming pronouncement, a riot of emotions pummeling her—nervousness, panic...anticipation?

She was so agitated, she took to pacing.

She could not believe they were having this infamous conversation. Whatever happened to sweeping such indelicate issues beneath the proverbial carpet?

“Sabrina.”

Her husband’s determined voice halted her mid-step.

“Iwill sleep in your bed. Beginning tonight.”

“All night? Every night?”

“I promise you will enjoy it.”

“You will not.”

“I will, too.” He stood as well and approached her. “I always enjoy it, and so do the w— Er, so will you.”

“That is the most conceited … so do who?”

“Accept my word. We will both enjoy it.”

“I meant that I did not want—”

“I know what you meant.”

“Oh.” She blushed.

“You would have accepted a tired old man in your bed, but not me? I do believe that might be cause for annulment.”

“Too late for that. You told the strumpet this was your baby.” And why she did not feel the least threatened, even by her bridegroom’s perfectly clear threat, Sabrina could not imagine.

“Oh, no one will believe Ronnie.”

Sabrina quirked a questioning brow.

“Unsavory reputation,” he explained.

“A reputation you gave her.”

Relief flooded Sabrina when he shook his head in denial. “I hate to admit this,” he said, looking abashed, “but she initiated me.”

Relief vanished. “But she is a woman and she seems younger than you.”

“I had to work hard to catch up. I was heartily ashamed of myself.”

Sabrina nearly choked on her sip of water. She coughed to catch her breath while Gideon removed the glass from her hand.

“What if we were to compromise?” she asked when he returned.

“Compromise?” He stepped near enough for her to detect the subtle fragrance of wintergreen amidst other enticing scents of brandy and man. The blend made her head spin and her body tighten.

“I can help you catch up, too,” her seducer whispered, his lips so near her ear, she felt the warmth of his breath to her thrumming center.

If he climbed into her bed tonight, she just might melt on the spot. “Aboutsleeping arrangements?”

“Sabrina, I am paying a premium price to bed you.”

She reared back, stunned. “That is a crude way to characterize marriage.”

“Perhaps, but I should receive some compensation for beingrich and convenient.”

Sabrina groaned and accepted his supportive embrace. This new husband of hers was not the doddering old duke on canvas, but a flesh and blood man, young vibrant and alive. A rare one who stirred her senses and became awed by the movement of her unborn child.

What had she gotten herself into?

In an effort to recreate the extraordinary connection she had experienced the night before, when he touched her burgeoning belly, Sabrina stepped back, took her husband’s big, capable hands and placed them flat against her child’s cocoon. “Will you become this child’s first pony?”

When Gideon’s haughty, aristocratic features softened, so, too, did the brittle wall Sabrina had built around her oft-pummeled heart.

“Of course,” he said, with so easy a smile, Sabrina fancied they could both imagine the resultant giggles, and suddenly she dared hope that her bargain of a marriage might not be so unpleasant an arrangement, after all.

No matter her previous experience in marriage or in life, this enigmatic man deserved an agreeable, if not an enthusiastic, bride. Nervous, however, about committing herself to the overwhelmingly physical being before her, and uncertain as to how to phrase her cautious bravado, Sabrina toyed with his cravat. “Your grace—”

“How much of a compromise?” He looked down upon her as if he might discover what beguiling trick she contemplated, as if he might eat her alive.

“We...sleepin the same bed,” she said, taken aback by the question, when she had been prepared to granteverything. “But notouching.”

“We touch,” he quickly countered, and stroked the skin above her bodice, setting word to action and claiming her by branding her. “Everywhere. But no actual—”

“Fine!” she said fast enough to halt the knee-weakening word, but not fast enough to stop anticipation from coursing through her.

Her husband regarded her with knowing eyes, then, as if he could see her nipples tighten beneath her gown and the scurrilous skitterings within her traitorous body. “Fine,” he conceded. “No consummation,in fact, until after the baby.”

“Wait a minute,” she said with no small degree of panic. That would be no more than a matter of weeks. Too soon.

Not soon enough.

“You would rather not wait until after the baby?”

“Yes,” she amended. “No. Fine. Until after the baby, then.”

Gideon slid his hands upward, from the mound of her child to rest lightly beneath her breasts, and as she watched, he skimmed the tight, aching nubs with his thumbs, shivering her to her marrow and flooding her with need.

“Now I begin to anticipate our wedding night,” he whispered, nipping her lobe. “Within the allowed perimeters—” He laved and suckled that skittery spot. “There are any number of ways—” He kissed a trail to her lips. “In which to satisfy and amuse ourselves.”

Sabrina shivered again. “There are?” Her voice came out a squeaking croak and she swayed on her feet. “Oh.” She covered her belly with her hand. “I think the babe must be hungry.”

Gideon steadied her and walked her to the door. “I suggest a relaxed wedding dinner and then an early night.”

Perhaps if she seemed tired enough and was agreeable to retiring early, Sabrina thought, denying the sparkle in her rogue bridegroom’s mesmerizing eyes, she might shut herself safely away from him and his alarmingly resolved wedding night.

She might also grow wings and fly, but she would not place a wager on either. Still, she must at least try to turn the tide. “Iam exhausted.”

“It has been a busy day,” her husband said as he led her into the hall, stopping her before the library door. “Let us finish our discussion later.” He kissed her temple. “In bed.”

* * *

Gideon had no sooner dropped Sabrina at the door to her bedchamber, than she was pacing. She could not believe her ill luck. She had married a man she was more attracted to than to any other in her life, a man she was also more angry with.

Just minutes after Gideon left her, Sabrina opened her door to a knock and found Miss Minchip, come to deliver a wisp of a white lace nightrail.

“I designed this, myself,” she said coming inside, “for your coloring and delicate condition, dear, and our dear Mr. Waredraper stitched it. Is it not splendid?”

How could Sabrina refuse such a gift when she did not even have the heart to refuse to be helped into it when Miss Minchip offered.

The virginal white gown gathered beneath Sabrina’s breasts to drape elegantly, if that were possible, over her blossoming figure. The white lace confection also made her feel the fraud for the first time since she accepted Stanthorpe’s proposal.

“No need for the vapors,” said Miss Minchip, noting her sudden lack of color. “Your bridegroom is not hard on the eyes. The only thing hard on that one will be what counts, mark my words.”

Sabrina gasped and the old woman giggled. “Well, it is not as if you are untouched,” she said, echoing Sabrina’s thoughts. “I would not have made so bold, if that were the case.” The old woman patted Sabrina’s hand and kissed her cheek. “Relax and enjoy.”

“Enjoy?”

“Do not sound so incredulous. Ah, I see. You have never— Well, well, you do have a treat in store.” Miss Minchip grinned and winked as she left, shutting Sabrina inside.

And what could the woman possibly have meant by that cryptic remark? Did she, too, believe, as Gideon seemed to, that enjoyment could be had, even for a woman in the marriage bed? Or outside of marriage, given the fact that the woman had never married, and neither had Gideon, and the both of them certainly seemed to know something Sabrina did not.

Either way, she thought, she had no intention of staying here and becoming a sacrificial lamb to a scapegrace bridegroom who withheld the truth about himself upon meeting her.

Checking the corridor to be certain the place was deserted, Sabrina made her lumbering way down the servants’ stairwell toward the main part of the house.

Rooms that were big and airy by day appeared ghastly and intimidating in the dead of night, she discovered. But she found, finally, that Stanthorpe’s grand library was not among the worst of them.

Illuminated by the silver glow of the moon, the elegant room, with the smell of beeswax and lemon-polished wood, old books and fresh flowers, radiated a welcoming quality even now.

Deciding to peruse the books closest to the moonlight streaming through the big bow window, Sabrina placed her candle on a table by the door.

She hoped that by the time she went back upstairs, the Duke would have given up waiting for her and retired to his own bedchamber.

There were hundreds of books to peruse and she took her time, seeking a title to suit her mood. Nothing so gothic as Mrs. Radcliffe’sMysteries of Udolpho, but something more like Austen’s recent work. Perhaps the story of an aristocratic bridegroom and the apprehensive bride with whom he falls madly and irrevocably in love.

Sabrina bit her lip on a surge of grief at the foolish sentiment, but much to her consternation, the banked emotion escaped as something of a sob.

Blast it, she must remain strong.

* * *

When Gideon knocked on the door adjoining his bedchamber with his bride’s, he received no responding answer. “Sabrina?” he called. “Are you ready for— May I enter?”

He listened carefully, for at least the sound of a scuffle that might reveal her as unprepared to receive him as yet, but he heard nothing.

“Sabrina, are you in there?” Another minute of silence and Gideon opened the door, only to come face to face with a sea of black pitch.

After he went back to his bedchamber for a candle, he illuminated his bride’s maddeningly-empty chamber. “Where the devil?”

Taking up the candle, while attempting to keep his composure, Gideon set out to spend his wedding night on a bloody foolish bedtime chase for his new and decidedly-difficult non-virgin bride.

Truth to tell, the mettle it took for her to flee almost made him like her the more. It certainly added a degree of respect to his estimation of her. Frustration as well, not to mention his anticipation of rising to the challenge she presented. But he should be angry.

He was angry damn it. He was furious. Where the devil had she run off to?

If the tale of this wedding-night folly ever got out, he would be dubbed the sorriest wretch ever to indulge in sensual gratification. His reputation would, in fact, be ruined. He would be ruined.

After nearly an hour of searching, frustration and vexation at an all-time high, Gideon entered the library’s upper balcony on his way to the lower level for the decanter of brandy.

If he ever got his hands on his fugitive bride, he swore that he would not be held accountable for his actions.

CHAPTER FIVE

Gideon had no sooner entered the library’s wrap-around balcony, than he caught sight of Sabrina in the main library below. Her exotic beauty, enhanced by the moon’s soft glow, stole his anger as well as his breath.

His bride was breathtaking, and Gideon could do nothing for the moment but drink in the sight of her.

She stood in full profile before a tall bow window, the moonlight flowing through its mullioned panes casting a carpet of bright blocks on the floor at her feet. The same light revealed, in shadowed profile, though her lace and gossamer night-rail, the shape of her, heavy with child, her breasts, large and full, her legs long, slim and shapely.

The almost quixotic sight of her, every layer of defense peeled away, nearly stopped Gideon’s heart. Afraid even to breath, lest she become aware of his presence, Gideon willed himself to remain still and silent, so as to continue his clandestine observation.

He had yesterday, and earlier, seen her hair, twisted and plaited, arranged to be flattering and beautiful. But the silken mane of sable that he beheld at this moment, in its full radiant glory, cascading in magnificent splendor well-past her waist, appeared long and lush enough to blanket them both through the night.

Her features in profile were no less exquisite.

Recognition again swamped him, much as it had done the first time he saw her, as if they were connected in some fantastical way.

Never with another living soul had Gideon experienced such a heart-stopping awareness. And seeing her unguarded beauty, now, for the first time, he found himself doubly awed.

She had vowed to withhold her heart, and he respected that. He might have promised the same, for he had none. But for all his mystery bride’s bravado, he could not help wonder—

She gasped, straightened, and placed her hands to the small of her back, and as if her sudden physical pain combined with some hidden desolation inside her, she sobbed.

Gideon’s unprecedented flight down the carved, circular stairs revealed his presence in no small way. “Are you in pain?”

In turn, startled and astonished, Sabrina reacted as if he were on the attack, as if she could not comprehend his presence.

When he stopped before her, her violet eyes wide in dismay, she held a hand to her throat, as if she was prepared to die.

“Are you in pain?” he asked again.

“No. Yes, my back. It aches sometimes, which is n— Which is, I am told, normal for a woman this far along. It is nothing for which to become alarmed.”

With the intention of easing the ache at the base of her spine, Gideon made to place his arms about her, but his bride reared back, as if he might do her harm. “No,” she said. “Do not.”

Fighting a welling of anger, Gideon willed himself to still and school his features. “You are my wife,” he bit out.

Her eyes filled but she blinked the moisture quickly away. Her lips, she caught in her teeth, to keep them from trembling, he perceived, and despite all that, she raised her chin. “Our bargain,” she said. “I apologize. I forgot.”

“Well, I have not,” he said, louder than he should. “I will not, by God, forget such a scurrilous wedding pact any day soon. If you cannot so easily afford me the courtesy due a husband, then please remember, Madam, that purchasers have rights, too.”

His bride paled, nearly undoing him, shaming him, except that he, Gideon reminded himself, righteously, had nothing for which to be ashamed.

She alone had planned dishonesty, and, well, so had he, he supposed, for a time, at least. “We find ourselves on common ground,” he said. “With a bargain between us. If you keep to your portion of it, then I shall keep to mine. Will you?”

His reluctant bride released her breath, her color returned, and she nodded.

“Very well,” Gideon said, releasing his own breath.

He attempted again to place his arms around her and, finally, without her recoil, he slipped his hands beneath the silken fall of her hair to knead her lower back.

The sound she made, of regret or relief, or even, God help him, of pleasure, did not help him forget that this was his wedding night.

“Place your hands on my shoulders,” Gideon said, his voice soft enough to soothe her and firm enough to assure her compliance. “I seek only to ease your pain, nothing more.”

Their gazes held as she complied.

Her abdomen, huge, taut, hard, pushed against him, as his fingers worked the small of her back.

His stroking eased her to such a degree that her frightened look vanished, as did the furrows upon her brow and the panic in her eyes.

Sabrina closed her eyes, floating of a sudden in some strange nether-world, thinking she must be dreaming, wishing, if she were, that the dream might never end. This man, more handsome than her imagination, in black brocade dressing gown and leather slippers, with his thick, dark waving hair and long, sooty-black lashes, could not possibly be her husband.

Her nemesis, more like. Her judgment.

When she opened her eyes, however, the devil remained, though the crinkles at the outer corners of his eyes, indicating not quite a smile, neither quite a sneer, altered his angular features to reflect, what? Concern?

That enigmatic look engendered in Sabrina’s tired breast, hope. Almost too much to be borne and then lost, and yet the unlikely possibility of his caring warmed her just the same.

Comprehending that her bridegroom did not intend to beat her for her mad dash from their marriage bed, her apprehension slipped slowly away, leaving Sabrina relieved, but shaken.

“I suspect your little one could become a pugilist of some renown, judging by his efforts to dislodge me at this moment,” her bridegroom said, without lessening the pressure of his stroking, perhaps even deepening it.

Reminded of her babe’s antics, Sabrina relaxed to the degree that she smiled, surprised to find herself capable.

“Perhaps I should step back and allow him his way?” he suggested.

Disappointment filled Sabrina at the thought of relinquishing her new husband’s surprisingly gentle attention, to the degree that self-disgust filled her. How could she allow herself to become such an easy mark? Scoundrels of this caliber captivated women in such a way all the time. And this one, it appeared, was more practiced in seduction than most.

In self-protection, Sabrina stepped from his reach. “My child shall have to learn that he cannot always have life as he would. He shall have to compromise and settle for less than he might wish, as we all do, your grace.”

He took her reminder of their bargain as she expected, as if she had slapped him. His brow darkened to an anger as dark as his day’s growth of beard, though he bit down on his rage, if she did not miss her guess, for a tic worked vigorously in his cheek.

Uneasiness and exhaustion, combined with the weight of her burden, all mingled to betray Sabrina in that moment and her knees buckled beneath her.

Gideon caught and lifted her in his arms, distress once again creasing his brow. “I should not have kept you standing for so long.” He searched her face, for what, she did not know, and carried her to the settee.

He lay her upon it, easing her to her side and lowered himself to lie facing her.

Her shock at this scene, so closely resembling any number of foolish girlhood fancies, set up a trembling within her. Their bodies fit together like two halves of a whole. Their lips, scant inches apart, would meet, if one or the other of them moved so much as an inch.

This lying so close, in so small a confinement, in so public yet unlikely a place where anyone could come upon them, must be considered indecent, Sabrina reflected. Except that they were husband and wife.

What should she do? How should she act?

Her husband gathered her hair and settled it across them. Then he placed his arm behind her to continue his undulating motion, widening his span to knead her upper back and shoulders, to the base of her spine and beyond.

Sabrina gave up trying to make decisions and simply absorbed his touch, her senses heightened, her limbs growing heavy and weak. She dared to place her hand against his chest near the vee of his dressing gown, noticing that he caught his breath when she did.

Gideon had not expected his bride to make such a bold move, neither had he expected her to beg for his kiss. Did she even realize she was doing it? Could she know how invitingly parted were her lips?

In a moment, he would know.

He parted his own, fitting them to the invitation of hers, discovering a treasure of cool silk and warm, welcoming woman.

As the kiss went on, he continued stroking her back, with some force now, pulling her closer against him, as close as could be, given her current condition.

Gideon realized that the cadence of his touch had turned sensual, in the way he stroked her to her bottom, along the side of her breast, and in his arousal, hard against her, and he wondered at her thoughts. “What are you feeling and thinking, right now?” he asked.

“I, I think we should go upstairs,” she said.

“Yes,” Gideon said. “Let us go up to bed.”

That was not what she meant, Sabrina thought, almost frantic, as he lifted her off the settee and carried her up the library stairs.

But when he left her at her bedchamber door, for the second time that night, relief filled her and she bid him a good night.

Back in her bedchamber, she nearly fainted with relief, until she saw herself in her mirror. If not for the antics of her child, she could almost imagine herself a new bride, so innocent did she appear—from her breasts up, at least.

Still, the lacy confection seemed almost too dangerous a temptation, as if she were inviting trouble just by wearing it. “I have got to get out of this gown,” she said.

“By all means, do,” said her bridegroom, framed by a portal previously unseen by her, cut in the wall as it was. So much steely intent brightened his hunter’s eyes as to rob Sabrina of breath, before he was even close enough to reach for her.

And when he did reach, to unfasten the silken frogs at her bodice, she allowed that he must hear her heart pounding, in the same way she could hear it echo inside her head.

“Do you feel better?” he asked.

“Much, thank you.”

Her bodice scandalously undone, her breasts nearly spilling free, he took her hand and sat her at her dressing table.

Regarding him in her mirror, as he stood behind her, Sabrina shook her head, not certain what he wanted, but sure she must say no. But he nodded, just to be contrary, she thought, judging by the dubious twinkle in his piercing green eyes. “Relax,” he said, anticipation deepening the dimples in his cheeks.

He combed his fingers through her hair. “Silk enough to cover us both,” he said, almost in reverence. “Had I known about this last night, I fear yon door would not have remained sealed.”

Sabrina knew then, just how much trouble she was in, for he had but stroked her hair and her weak body shuddered.

“Tell me how you feel, Sabrina.”

Did he honestly care? She knew of only one way to find out. “Nervous,” she said, licking her lips and waiting for him to turn on her, but he did not. Dare she reveal the whole? Though he did not know of her concern, his open countenance invited her to do so.

“And frightened,” she added.

“Good God.” He sat beside her, facing her, his back to the mirror, took her hand and examined her face. “You tremble. In fear of me?”

And why should that surprise him? She turned away.

“Look at me.”

She tried, but her gaze dropped to their clasped hands, instead.

With a gentle finger, he tilted her chin upward and looked into her eyes in such a way as to suggest that he could read her emotions in them.

Thank God he could not.

“Need I remind you that you ran from me.” He raised a brow. “On our wedding night, and no evil has befallen you at my hand.”

“Not yet,” she said.

Gideon cocked a brow. “There will be no reprisals,” he said. “My word on it. It is finished. Now tell me what else frightens you.”

“That...pleasing you might harm my babe.” And cost me a piece of myself, she did not say.

“But I promised I would not penetrate.”

An inferno consumed her at his bold words. “But you said there were other ways,” she all but cried. “And I—”

Her agitated husband rose to pace.

She stood to plead with him but stopped when she saw his thunderous expression.

“Do not recoil from me,” he snapped.

“I cannot help myself. You look furious.”

“I am, damn it, but not at you. My fury is directed toward the man who frightened you.”

Sabrina looked away, ashamed of cowering.

Gideon walked her back to her dressing table, sat with her and took up her brush to run it through her hair. “You do not need to look at me right now, if you had rather not,” he said. “But you do need to listen. I have never hurt a woman in my life, and not for lack of opportunity.”

“An understatement, I think.”

He nodded at her reflection in the mirror, but no pride laced his look, only fact, plainly stated. “When you and I climb into that bed, which wewilldo.” He sighed and faced her. “When we are intimate and you want me to stop—whatever I am doing,—beginning now and until the moment death parts us, you must simply say,stop, and I will do so. Do you understand me?”

“You do not even want me. Why are you being so kind?”

“I can see that I will need a great deal of time to prove my humanity to you, but I take courage in the fact that it is not just me who frightens you. It is any man, is it not?”

“Except Hawksworth.”

Her husband sighed. “Ah, yes. Hawksworth.” He slapped his knees with the flat of his hands and stood. “And on that sobering note, I will take my bride to our marriage bed.”

Why sobering? Sabrina wondered. Was her husband jealous of a dead man? Oddly, the notion calmed her as nothing else had since the ceremony. That sign of insecurity in him was more a proof of humanity to her than kindness, for the latter could be falsified, the former, no proud man would own. And this man was prouder than most.

When Sabrina had settled herself against her pillows, however, her husband remained standing, there, at the side of the bed, as if he were waiting for something in particular.

Sabrina sat up. “Your grace?”

“I expected you to remove your gown.”

“Not in this condition, I will not.”

Her husband sighed, disappointed, she thought, and unfastened his splendid, black dressing gown, beneath which, he wore nothing but the skin God gave him.

Sabrina squeaked and turned her face to her pillow.

The sound he made was something of a strangled chuckle. “Scoot over a bit,” he said.

She did, appalled that her naked husband wanted to share her bed at all, never mind climb onto her side of it, when he had an entire side of his own to occupy.

He settled in behind her, nevertheless. Close. Too close. Did the bed seem smaller suddenly? The covers, warmer?

Skin, she felt along her legs. His legs, hairy, hard, abrading and...incredible, slid against her own. Sabrina assured herself that she did not warm to the sensation, not even a little.

Her rogue of a husband found the hem of her gown, lifted it and stroked her ankle, the underside of a knee, the inside of a thigh, his insolent hand moving too quickly, yet too slowly to be borne.

She trembled, she shivered, then suddenly he was stroking her big naked belly and Sabrina groaned in mortification, but in relief also. He had not touched her where she expected and she was grateful, though a strange lethargy assaulted her at his simple touch of her belly, bringing a heaviness to her limbs and breasts.

She wanted somehow to stop him, but she could not.

The bed, which had not seemed empty on nights previous, seemed now to be filled properly, with the wicked-as-sin Duke of Stanthorpe wrapped warm and snug around her.

Sin notwithstanding, Sabrina found herself almost able to breathe, again, for perhaps the first time since climbing into the bed.

Slowly, sensuously, as if he must know intimately every inch of her child’s haven, the knave who owned her smoothed his big impertinent hand along her girth.

With the quickening beat of his heart at her back, and his gentling whispers at her ear, he told her she was beautiful in her maternity, aglow, the most wondrous of God’s creatures … with child.

Unable to keep herself from falling under the unrelenting spell of his practiced touch, Sabrina relaxed to the point that, several mesmerizing minutes later when he sought her embarrassingly moist center, she jumped and squeaked in surprise, protestation, or, God help her, in jubilation. Nevertheless, she grabbed his hand and brought it back to her belly.

“I will not hurt you,” he whispered, his mouth at her ear, enhancing his spell. “Pleasure will not hurt you.”

“It will do you no harm, either,” Sabrina snapped.

CHAPTER SIX

Men were the same the world over, Sabrina thought as she tried to ignore the … something … her clever husband stirred, there, where no man had ever touched her before, though he was not even touching her there now.

“I seek your pleasure, Sabrina, not mine.”

She craned her neck to look back at the scoundrel. “Do you think that I was born yesterday?”

There, that strangled chuckle again.

“Are you laughing at me?”

“Not at all,” said he, all wide-eyed and feigned innocence. “I merely find myself thinking that your not having been born yesterday is a fact for which I shall remain eternally grateful.”

As if to prove his words, he planted kisses at her shoulder, her collarbone. Unusually skillful kisses. And while his one hand played lower along her belly, in an oddly soothing yet agitating way, the other came around to cup her breast and finger her nipple, adjoining the separate actions with a charged filament of sizzling fire.

Liquid heat pooled inside Sabrina, there, where he might have stroked had she let him, spiraling to and from places where his hands, and other parts of him, met and sparked off complimenting portions of her.

Sabrina moved her legs, just to sense the full length of his, from thighs to arching feet, and when she did, she unwittingly opened for him, and he made to take advantage.

She jumped when he touched her, crying out involuntarily, and again she brought his hand back to her belly. But in the back of her mind, Sabrina knew that she was being dishonest with herself.

She had cried out at the wonder of his touch, however fleeting.

Who was this woman living inside her skin? This woman who took a man to her bed and gloried in his touch, after everything. Never mind that he was her husband, that he would care for and protect her children. Who was she?

As if he understood her sudden need to be soothed, he gentled her as he might a skittish mare, with sweet, tender words and soft amiable strokes, making her deliciously drowsy, yet amazingly alert at one and the same time.

Afraid to forego some new and momentous sensation, Sabrina refused to succumb to sleep, but neither would her treacherous past allow her to succumb to exhilaration. One seemed a waste and the other a danger. And yet, she felt as if there was something of this experience she was missing, and she coveted the unknown.

“Your grace,” she said, barely recognizing the soft, lazy voice as her own.

“Yes, Sabrina.”

How sweet her name sounded on his gifted lips. How foolish she was becoming for reasoning so. “I have never experienced anything quite like this before.”

“Never?”

Sabrina caught a suggestion of cocksure satisfaction in her new husband’s hypnotic voice, and as a result, she experienced a disgraceful surge of gratification at having pleased him.

“Do you like this new experience?” he asked, his breath against her ear, warm and shivery, raising the hair on her arms and the temperature in the room.

“Is it terribly wicked, do you think?”

“Terribly,” he said on a nipping half-chuckle against her neck. “But did you not know that wickedness is suspended in the marriage bed?”

She sighed. “Then God must surely be a man.”

She felt, rather than heard, a hint of mirth in the ripple of her husband’s chest at her back and in his weakening arms around her.

At another time she would challenge his ridiculous notion of suspended wickedness, but right now, she had rather float as talk. How amazing that his hands on her skin, almost everywhere, could feel so fine.

“Shall we remove your gown?” her undeniable rogue of a seducer asked in such a way as to insure compliance, the last traces of mirth not entirely missing yet from his voice.

“Yes,” she said, knowing herself for a weakling and wishing she cared.

Her nightrail was gone before she quite understood the forfeit. But her bridegroom had been right; every touch felt better, richer, tighter, skin to silken skin. Then his mouth covered her breast, pulling pleasure from her deepest recesses in undulating waves of pure sensation. Touching her in such a way, and in such places, as to make her arch and reach in an anxiety of expectation, and yet, she could not bring herself to open for him.

She would not make that mistake again.

When she found herself turned toward him, his shaft hard against her thigh, rigid and prodding, sparked a memory, an old and frightening discomfort, Sabrina whimpered and pushed at that invasive portion of his anatomy.

“Yes,” he gasped, at the accidental stroke of her hand, the single word bearing a plea, hoarse and urgent, but not harsh or demanding, as she would have expected. And the very absence of threat helped her to recall his promise, which she grasped like a lifeline as she called him on it. “Gideon, stop.”

Gideon stopped—breathing nearly—though his heart pounded fit to burst, as if he had run up against a door of steel, his body screaming for denied release.

He pulled his arm from around his trembling wife and fell back against his pillows, perplexed and aghast.

Embarrassed at his prominent arousal, he raised a knee, as if he could hide that throbbing evidence, and rested his arm along his brow. Closing his eyes, he waited for his breathing to catch up with his pumping heart.

He felt a dip in the bed as his bride moved beside him. He felt her breath against his arm, sensed her concern.

“Your grace?” she queried. “Are you unwell?”

Almost warily, Gideon opened his eyes, and met the bright violet gaze of his tremulous bride. A single droplet of true remorse hung suspended from one long sable lash.

Gideon released his breath on a last fading glimmer of hope, bowing to another inevitable night of discomfort. “’Tis nothing a romp to the finish would not cure,” he said, but he knew better than to expect it.

“Oh.” His untouched bride took her full bottom lip between perfect, white teeth.

Gideon groaned inwardly as he watched, while he contemplated soothing the poor beleaguered lip by sacrificing his own for her nibbling pleasure. But he contented himself with gently prodding the abused lip free with his index finger. “Do not. You will hurt yourself.”

She bit down on his finger, tugged it playfully, and a shaft of white-hot lightening shot straight to his groin. Startled by the unexpected jolt, Gideon winced and moaned as if he had been struck.

“Your grace?” Sabrina’s face became a study in naive disquiet.

What spell had this frustrating mix of seductress and saint cast upon him that she could leave him in such terrible shape, hard and needy as all hell. And instead of getting upset at a teasing bride who halted him at the worst possible moment, he wanted to smile just for looking at her.

“Do you worry about me?” he asked, absolutely amazed that he could think as much.

Sabrina nodded, all wide, exotic eyes, and needy in her own right, except that he could not put his finger on her need, exactly. He could not name or imagine it. But he sensed its existence, keenly.

Twirling one of her thick raven curls around his finger, his hand hovering above her breast, just inches away, Gideon enjoyed the silken warmth of it, even as he was engulfed by a strong wave of serene possession. “Why did you stop me?”

For a minute, Sabrina seemed to consider her answer. From the multitude and diversity of expressions that marched across her rich, perfect features, he imagined her reaching a conclusion then pondering a choice somewhere between fabrication and truth.

Finally, she nodded. “I was testing you.”

Gideon could only gape and wonder what the devil he had gotten himself into. Then all thought fled when his bride leaned toward him, as if she would confide a secret, and the blanket fell from her breasts. Heavy with milk and ripe for suckling, her tantalizing nipples, with their dusky aureoles, stood proud and mouth-watering.

“Good God, woman,” he said, salivating at the sight, while heat pooled in his loins. “Forgive me for saying so, but I have this sudden and horrific fear that you will test me to my dying day.”

In self-preservation, he covered the enchantress up to her neck.

Wide-eyed with understanding, she grasped the blanket tight against herself.

“Did I frighten you badly?” He had to know.

The innocent siren licked her lips. “Almost.”

Gideon barked a laugh. “Almost, by God. Did I, at least, pass your test?”

A shrug, a nod, and a sidelong glance toward the location of his incessant throbbing. “I guess.”

“God’s teeth, woman. If you have another trial in mind, give it to me now, or watch me perish in a blaze of nervous anxiety.”

The sound she made was nearly a giggle, or a gurgle, he supposed he should say, and still she stared at his burgeoning erection. “Staring, will only make it worse, Sabrina.”

“Can I do anything to make it less … inconvenient? It seems to be getting huge.”

“Why thank you, Sweetheart. And yes. Touching it would help.”

Damned if she did not reach right out, and pull as swiftly back. “I am sorry. But I cannot.”

Gideon released his breath. ‘Twas probably for the best that she did not touch him, for if she did, he would burst into flame and embarrass them both. Simple as that. Just the idea drove him about as close to the edge as a man could get.

“Come here,” he said and when she complied, innocent that she was, he settled her on her side in front of him, spoon-style. “If you can ignore theinconvenience for a while, we can just settle down to sleep. Comfortable?”

She nodded. He liked that she was using one of his arms for a pillow. His other, he rested against her belly, where her little one seemed totally unwilling to settle into rest.

Despite his hard discomfort, contentment stole over Gideon in slow, soothing measure, while the old emptiness, that had long been his companion, seemed somehow to be missing from the softening mist of drifting night-shadows.

He thought he just might be able to sleep then, until his bride did something wondrous. She turned in his arms, reached over and curled her hand around him.

Gideon sucked in his breath and moved, involuntarily, within the glove of her grasp. “God’s teeth, Bree, you try me to my limits.”

“Is that bad?”

“Bad can be good. Much too good.” He tried to pull away, but she would not allow it. Since coming was a near thing, Gideon stopped struggling, wondering how a woman about to deliver a child could be such an innocent, at one and the same time.

She began to move her hand along his length and he could barely breathe, so incredible did her touch transform him. “What?” He shuddered. “What are you … planning to do?” he bit out, determined not to embarrass himself with the release he craved.

“I think, Imightbe ready now todo what you started.”

“The devil you say? All of it?”

Like a hot poker, she let him go. “All of what?” Suspicion, he read. Dread.

“I think you do not really wish to do this,” Gideon said fighting disappointment.

“Why do I not?” Sabrina asked, snuggling against him, relaxing, and taking him into her hand again.

Sweet, sweet torture.

“Could we not continue?” she asked.

“Like this you mean?” He could not keep from nudging her blanket away and taking her nipple into his mouth once more.

She gasped and she sighed, and her legs shifted and stirred, as if she were seeking something she could not, or dare not, name.

In answer to the need she failed to recognize, Gideon again tried to touch her, there, at her core, but, again, she would not have it, would not open for him.

She must have been frightened once, badly. Perhaps more than once. In that case, there was only one way to go about this seduction business—from the beginning.

After that, he touched her everywhere, almost. Never at her center, but nearly there. When finally she allowed him to cup her—legs still closed tight against him—she sighed and relaxed. And he thought that perhaps she floated at least.

She sought his chiseled mouth with her own.

Amazed at her boldness, Gideon complied and gave her his. He took command of the kiss, and to his shock and delight, she allowed him to use his tongue in such a way as to mimic the act he most wanted to perform.

She used him as her anchor then, her grip like a vise, a tourniquet, until he lost all feeling in his ill-used shaft. But never one to shy away from a challenge, Gideon became resolved to bestow a lightness of pleasure upon her, while denying his own need, and oddly enough, he barely minded at all.

“I could make you fly,” he whispered, when he sensed that she craved but fought his final touch with equal panic. “Let go, Sweetheart. Open for me,” he kept asking, but she would not.

Instead, she kissed him again.

“Let me touch you,” Gideon whispered at her ear a few minutes later.

“I cannot. I cannot. Do not make me,” she cried, but she did not let him go or push him away. Indeed, she seemed, for all the world, as if she were trying to climb inside his skin.

Even as he cupped her and allowed her to move against his hand, Gideon got as close as she seemed to want him. “You are a fine and beautiful woman, Sabrina—a wife, my wife—exquisite, precious. And I am the man destined to deliver you to a new and wondrous place. A place you have never journeyed, never imagined. Come with me to a summit higher than the clouds, and all the way to the stars.”

“I cannot,” she whispered.

Gideon let her set the pace, then, a gentle touch for a gentle rise. He would not ask her again, not this night.

Somehow, she must have sensed his surrender, for she seemed to relax and float, slowly, and more slowly, and he saw her smile just before she slipped into sleep.

And Gideon was left speechless, battered of pride, and hard as a pikestaff.

Minutes, or hours, later, Sabrina moaned and turned on her side, and Gideon woke.

She must be uncomfortable with such a burden to carry, he thought. Yet this might be her best night’s sleep in months, despite the fact that ultimate satisfaction had escaped her. Hell, it escaped them both, he could not seem to forget.

Imagine getting himself a pregnant, yet innocent, bride.

Imagine him failing to satisfy her.

Imagine waking on the day after his wedding with his marriage yet to be consummated.

Gideon groaned. His ego could not take much more of Sabrina St. Goddard. Till death do them part, be damned. Being married to this woman would surely kill him.

Why, then, did being married to her give him no end of satisfaction? A puzzle as intricate as Sabrina herself.

As enticing.

As exasperating.

Already, he ached to stroke her again, to bring her back into his arms, but he would forego that pleasure to allow her sleep. With her burden, comfort in sleep must be difficult enough to attain, without him disallowing her rest at his whim.

Even he was not so selfish as that. Not quite.

Gideon turned on his side to resettle himself, and came face to face with...a child?

“What?” He sat up and regarded the location by the bed where the boy had just stood, but it lay in shadows, empty and undisturbed.

While he tried to decide if he had been asleep or awake, seen or imagined a child, he heard the squeal of a door hinge, and then silence.

Could one of the servant’s children be sleep walking? He would inquire in the morning as to which child might have taken to wandering.

Ignoring his state of semi-arousal, yet absurdly content with his previous day’s work, considering the abysmal failure of his wedding night, Gideon curled himself around his bride and drifted back into sleep.

* * *

Sabrina awoke disoriented, surprised to find herself pinned to the mattress, and sought to identify her ravager.

Ah, yes, ‘twas the penniless wanderer who had charmed her, until she realized she had married him. The rogue who talked her out of her nightrail and seduced his way into her bed. Yon dragon with his prodding staff tucked against her backside even now, the staff, she discovered to her surprise that could be harmless, after all, because unlike most men, he cared to control it. For now, perhaps.

Such a slow sweet warmth had built inside her at his tender touch, she had thought she might burst into flame, almost hoped she would. But she did not. Instead, she simmered until the contented heaviness of half-sleep beckoned. She remembered smiling when she realized she was drifting, wrapped in her new husband’s gentle arms.

For the first time in a marriage bed, she had reveled in the gentleness of a husband.

Peace had claimed her then, as it did now in memory. And because she understood already that Gideon St. Goddard just might be that rarest of creatures, a good and gentle man, Sabrina almost wanted to give him what he sought. Almost.

When she considered the price—herself—she decided that consummation would have to wait. Perhaps, forever.

She supposed she might someday trust him enough to give herself to him, body and heart, free and clear, but she knew he would have to earn it first. And in this case, earning was a state of mind … hers. Even she did not quite understand the proof she sought. She simply knew that she would recognize it when she found it.

She wondered, then, about their life, what a future with this puzzling man might possibly hold.

Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe, her husband—sweet one minute, tart the next, first hot, then cold. He had frightened her witless and stirred her senses … and they had only just met the day before.

Tonight, she had drifted to sleep, naked and content in his arms … and left him wanting.

She would never be able to look him in the eye again.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Mama? Are you sleeping?”

Sabrina sat up, clutching her blankets to cover herself. “Damon?” she whispered frantically. “What are you doing here?”

“It is Rafferty, Mama. Damon is still sleeping, but I cannot, because I am thirsty.”

“Where is Miss Minchip? Why did you not ask her for a drink of water?”

“She is snoring so loud, she cannot hear me. I think her ears are too old,” he whispered, all serious concern. “She does not hear very good.”

Sabrina smiled at her son’s observation. “Go back to the nursery, Sweet, and Mama will be right up.”

“But, that man, he—”

“Go, Sweet, I will be up right behind you. Move now.”

She should have realized right away, if he was quiet, he was Rafe. Damon would have climbed into bed with her and spoken afterward, and he would not have whispered.

She told the twins, of course, that they could no longer come to her during the night, that they would have to see how this man would deal with two noisy little boys.

But how could two four year olds, who had already faced the devil in their short lives, understand the appearance of what they must perceive as another fiend, after the first had frightened them senseless?

Sabrina slipped from her marriage bed, somewhat sorry to be leaving her new husband’s embrace, a circumstance she would not have thought possible a short twenty-four hours before.

She groped for her nightrail, found it, and slipped it over her head. Two nights before, she had gone to sleep foolishly wishing that the penniless wanderer and the Duke of Stanthorpe were one and the same, and now that she discovered they were, or, rather, he was, she was not certain how she felt.

Somehow, Stanthorpe had seemed safer as a figment of her imagination, than as a flesh and blood man with wants and needs of his own.

When she had discovered his perfidy, in company with the others at her wedding, she had experienced relief, gladness, annoyance, any number of new and strange emotions. But right now, she was too comfortably lethargic to examine her careening feelings.

Besides, she had best see to the twins, before they instigated a midnight insurrection fit to wake the dead, thereby revealing to her new husband exactly how large a family she came with.

Shivering at the very thought, Sabrina tied her serviceable wrapper over her burgeoning middle. She cut through her dressing room and slipped out the servant’s access into the hall. Then she stole through the house like a thief in the night.

She should have told Gideon about the twins already, she supposed, as she made her way up the servants’ stairs toward the third-floor nursery. And, she supposed, she should tell him sooner, rather than later, before he discovered their existence on his own. Horrifying thought.

But perhaps she was worrying uselessly, for he seemed sincerely to like children. Had he not become his niece’s galloping pony, a steed so spirited, he had knocked his rider’s curls askew?

But had he not also suggested that she should discover whether her intended even liked children? Did he mean the words as a warning? If so, would he not have cried off at the mere sight of her impending motherhood?

Her maternity had certainly not deterred him in their bed earlier tonight. Not at all. Her very condition seemed actually to stimulate him.

Then again, a quiet expectancy and an unquiet pair of striplings were entirely different kettles of fish.

Sabrina heard the twins’ laughter before she stepped into their bedchamber, off the nursery where, she just now realized, Gideon must once have played.

A pillow hit her in the face as she entered their cozy bedchamber. And her sons’ giggles escalated.

As she approached in the darkness, something dropped down before her, and Sabrina sat on the bed, rather than fall on her face. “Damon Whitcomb!”

A gratified giggle.

“I did nothing. Those were Rafferty’s legs coming down before you. He is the drawbridge. I am only the toll booth.”

Sabrina grinned. “Do you really want a drink of water, Rafe? Or just someone to play with?”

“He woke me up,” Damon accused.

“I did not.”

“Did so.”

“Jinglebrains.”

“Paperskull.”

Sabrina shook her head, lit a lamp, and poured them each half a glass of water from the pitcher, high atop a nursery shelf. And like centuries of male travelers at village inns the world over, her men guzzled their drinks to a lusty beat, until both empty glasses were handed back with corresponding thanks and sighs of relief.

She ruffled one dark, curly head, then the other.

Damon stood the taller of the two, and the broader, by as little as only a mother would note.

Rafferty bore a wiry, whip-strength that Damon lacked, but you would have to hold them each in your arms to discern the trifling difference.

“Ready to go back to sleep,” she asked when one of them yawned.

Damon climbed on his miniature bed to stand face to face with her and reached out to stroke her cheek with his little hand. “Are you all right, Mama? That man did not hurt you, did he?”

“If he did, we would protect you,” Rafe said, climbing up beside his twin.

“As I would protect you,” Sabrina returned, pushing them down, one by one, to land with a giggling bounce. Then she lay between them, both boys snuggling in.

She hugged them close and kissed each precious head, thinking she must like them best scrubbed clean and in their flannel nightshirts, all warm, soft, and open to a mother’s love.

“I would scale a mountain to protect you,” she said, beginning the game they had played, once upon a time, to comfort each other when they had all rather have cried.

“I would climb the highest mountain to protect you,” Rafferty said.

Sabrina kissed his nose. “I would sail the seven seas.”

“I would sail the biggest sea,” Damon said.

“The coldest,” Rafe countered.

“The deepest.” A yawn.

“Stormiest.”

In minutes, they were quiet, and Sabrina relished their deep and even breathing and their small hearts beating against her.

For nearly four years, these two amazing gifts, these identical miracles, had given her strength and purpose and a reason for living. As they would in the days and years ahead, and she would let nothing, and no one, harm them.

“I would catch me a dragon to protect you,” Sabrina whispered. “And hide you in his cave.”

The dragon rose at dawn, aroused and hungry for more than food; his wife saw, as he stood in glorious relief, stretching his most amazing body.

That was when Sabrina realized what a challenge would be this Peer of the Realm, this fine-sculpted Corinthian who claimed her bed and shivered her spine.

As if the mythical beast sensed her watching, he turned and looked right at her, his hunter’s eyes direct and probing, pleased, if she did not miss her guess, at the shiny new bauble he had bought for his bed.

With a grin, he approached the four poster. And with a squeak, Sabrina launched herself up and out of it, in as ungainly a manner as she could manage, given the fact that her burden seemed actually to have dropped during the night.

Her dragon’s expression went from fire to ice in a blink as he leapt.

Sabrina reared back and cowered.

Gideon caught and braced her. “Are you all right?”

Embarrassed at her fear, Sabrina silently chided herself. “Of course I am all right,” she snapped. “Why would I not be?”

“One minute I thought you might fall, and the next, I could swear that you were afraid I would strike you.”

Sabrina raised her chin but she could think of nothing to say.

“Youhave been struck in the past, have you not?”

He was pressing a point she had rather perish than reveal. “My past is not your business.”

A shutter seemed to descend over his expression. The bright of his eyes, his very aspect shut down. “Correct,” said the suddenly haughty Duke of Stanthorpe, all regal splendor, arrogant condescension, and hard-edged fury.

He let her go. “I have purchased you for the present and for the future. And a tidy price I paid.”

In silence, he strode toward his own bedchamber, controlled anger in every step. At the door, he turned. “You will meet me in the breakfast room in one hour, precisely. Good morning to you, Madam.”

The door between their rooms closed tight.

So, too, did Sabrina’s hope.

* * *

“A child, your grace?”

Typical for Bilbury. A question for a question. “Yes, Man, who of the servants has a child?” Gideon asked, for the second time in as many minutes.

“Why, none that I know of. Would you like the bottle-green, the celestial-blue, or the Devonshire brown frockcoat this morning?”

“The blue. Does a close neighbor have a child then?” Gideon asked, as Bilbury helped him on with the coat and smoothed the shoulders.

“I wonder, your grace, if you saw this child-like apparition late last night, after, say, a brandy or three, when you were half in your cups? Or in the early morning when you were still sleeping?”

“Damn it man, are you saying that I imagined the child?”

“Actually, no.” Bilbury placed a sapphire stickpin in Gideon’s mathematical-styled neck-cloth. “A wayward lad at midnight? Could have been a chimney sweep turned to burglary.”

“That, at least, is a sane explanation. Thank you, Bilbury. That will be all.”

After his valet left, Gideon checked his pocket watch to see how long he must cool his heels until meeting Sabrina. Seventeen minutes. She had better be on time.

He snapped the watch shut.

But when he arrived in the breakfast room, he found no breakfast, no wife, but his servants were all shivering in their shoes.

Someone had entered the library during the night and had searched desks, knocked books off shelves, and taken paintings from walls.

“Looking for a safe, no doubt,” Chalmer said as Gideon stepped into the room.

“Inside the books?” he replied, raising his brows at the preposterous notion.

“Some people hide paper money and even bank drafts in books,” Doggett said, though that sturdy character was trembling like a leaf in an English gale. His knowledge of money hidden in books, however, would seem to confirm Gideon’s belief that he might have survived as a rookery cutpurse, or some such, in his former life. Except that his certain fear also seemed to negate same.

“Searching the library makes no sense,” Gideon said. “Would a robber not search bedrooms for jewels or the long gallery for paintings?”

“Oh, none of the paintings are missing, your grace. Nothing is, actually. Everything is simplydisturbed.”

“As am I.” Gideon took in the dishevelment of his favorite room. “I believe I shall send a note to Bow Street, to see what the runners have to say about this.”

“Very good, your grace.” Chalmer bowed and left the room.

Doggett sidled up to him. “You think the runners are necessary, your grace?”

“Do you have another suggestion?”

“I would like to offer my services for the night watch, if I might. I have some little experience in these matters.”

“I see.”

“I would do anything for her grace. And for you, of course,” he added in a rush, almost as an afterthought. “I promise to keep your home safe from any and all comers. My honor as a...peddler.”

“You think you know who might have done this?”

“I know the type.”

“Very well, Doggett. You are officially assigned the night watch.”

“Thank you, your grace.”

Gideon squeezed the older man’s shoulder. “I am depending upon you.”

* * *

Sabrina would not let emotion rule her, she vowed, not for the first time, as she lowered her awkward body into a slipper bath of warm, lilac-scented water, placed before the fire in her dressing room.

She did not need romance, just a husband, a man to house her and her children, to give them a sense of belonging, of peace, and to put food in their bellies.

That Stanthorpe could control his ire, stood to his credit. That she dared want more than control from the man, angered her inordinately.

Her first marriage had remained turbulent, unpredictable and grim. For the better part of her life, she had known hunger and abuse, betrayal, treachery. She remembered well the humiliation of being sold to the highest bidder, the hopelessness of being tossed in the trash.

Now she craved stability and predictability for herself and her children, and in today’s world, nothing but unrestricted wealth could purchase such rare and expensive commodities. Yes,she had sold herself to the high bidder this time, but if anybody deserved to do the selling of her, ‘twas she, thank you very much.

She did not bloody well care what his royal haughtiness thought about her decision not to share her past. That horror was hers to bury, and bury it she would, as deep as the sea, if she could.

This sudden need for happiness, for a man she knew nothing about, husband or no, was misplaced, foreign, totally out of character. An aberration.

Sabrina knew better than to allow her heart to become involved within marriage. The Duke of Stanthorpe might have purchased her body, but there existed no purse in all the kingdom large enough to purchase Sabrina Whit—Sabrina St. Goddard’s heart.

And her husband knew it. She had already told him so.

So why couldshe not remember?

What ailed her today? How could she possibly forget such a hard-won lesson?

‘Twas her own nurturing body giving her trouble, Sabrina mused, as she soaped her big belly in soothing circles. Her mind and body worked unpredictably these days, and sometimes, even, independently of each other.

‘Twas the babe made her feel unsettled, emotional, needy.

She suffered weakness and craved strength. Of course she would be tempted to turn to the first man to show both strength and gentleness. She had never come across the likes of Gideon St. Goddard in her life. But just because a man acted gentle in bed did not mean he would act anything like out of bed.

Regard the stodgy Duke, himself, just this morning. Demand this and demand that, without a by your leave, if you please. Be there or be damned, he had all but said.

Well, be damned to him. She wouldnot be there.

Sabrina dressed in her second best black bombazine, empire-style gown, wondering again why she wore mourning for a barbaric brute of a man she had wanted to murder, herself, more times than she cared to recall, a man she still feared someone must have murdered.

Someone, whose name she knew, she also feared.

A short while later, looking in on her children, she remembered the reason she wore black. She did it for them. Respectability, it was called. She would do anything to earn that for them. Even marry a doddering old man, or worse, a virile young one.

After she left the boys in Miss Minchip’s able care, she took the servants’ stairs to the kitchen, conferred with cook, and set out for a walk toward Old Souls Church. There she would seek guidance from a higher authority as to how she might best deal with her mystifying rogue.

She had not waddled half a block, however, when a closed carriage pulled up beside her, and to her surprise, the door was thrown open by an unseen hand. “Come in, your grace, and rest from your burden.”

The voice prickled the hair on Sabrina’s arms and sent a chill down her spine. Familiar, yet not, and even as the words invited, the voice struck terror.

“Come,” it coaxed. “I will convey you wherever you wish to go.”

Though Sabrina was certain she must have heard the voice somewhere before, she could not seem to recall it.

And she believed she should.

Oh, she was certain she should.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Sabrina faltered as she tried to decide whether to turn and run or peek into the dark, forbidding interior of the nondescript conveyance. But her decision was taken away by a top of the trees Corinthian out for a stroll. In his many-caped greatcoat, his black curly beaver at a jaunty angle, and tipping his gold-tipped cane her way, the rogue offered her his arm.

Almost at once, the door of the mysterious carriage closed and the driver pulled the vehicle smoothly into traffic.

“Who was that?” her husband asked.

Sabrina looked down her nose at him, but she took his arm, nevertheless. “Someone looking for directions, I expect.”

Damned if her Duke did not resemble the devil incarnate this morning, wicked as sin and elegant as ever. Amazing what a bath and a change of clothes, or clothing at all, could do for a man.

Not that he appeared a fragment less than magnificent without his clothes.

“Do we feel better after our bath?” he asked, both patronizing and annoying.

“If you mean, by we … do I?” Sabrina asked. “And does the baby? Yes we do. If you are asking after you and me, then I suppose you will have to answer at least part of the question, yourself. Doyou feel better, Your Surliness?”

His bark of laughter surprised and delighted Sabrina. She had only heard it in the dark, in bed, and supposed that any and all playfulness on his part would be kept strictly in the bedchamber.

Glad to be found wrong on that score, Sabrina smiled, relaxed, certainly for the first time since she annoyed him by refusing to share her past with him.

“For some odd reason, despite the nature of our wedding night,” he said with a wink. “I feel incredibly well-rested this morning. But I must admit that I find myself concerned about your missing breakfast. You are eating for two, you must remember.”

“Mrs. Chalmer force-fed me toast and milk in the kitchen when I went down to approve today’s menu,” she said. “But thank you for your kind concern.”

“Balderdash!” he said.

“Balderdash?”

“You mock an honest emotion, Sabrina. I am genuinely concerned for you. While you may not always like what I have to say, you may be certain that I will always speak in earnest.”

“I see.”

“I am glad to hear it. Let us then proceed to the dressmaker, shall we, and get you out of your blacks?”

Sabrina stopped walking. “In this condition? Now?”

“If you had rather go out of mourning after the baby….”

“Honestly? I had rather bury the blacks now, but I find myself weary and feeling rather exhausted, I am appalled to admit.”

Sabrina had no sooner spoken than Gideon snapped his fingers and bundled her into his carriage, which must have been following at a discreet distance, for the two-block trip back to Stanthorpe Place.

Mr. Chalmer reset the breakfast room, posthaste, and half the household rallied round to be certain “the little mother” consumed enough “good healthy fare” to recover herself, while Gideon relaxed and partook of the breakfast he had been too remorseful to enjoy without her.

He gave her a sidelong glance as he buttered his toast and wondered if she realized the importance of the lessons they had taught each other today.

He had showed her that she could not run anywhere he would not find her. And he hoped she noted that he would not let his temper get the better of him, no matter how much she annoyed him.

Direct orders, she had demonstrated, like surly behavior, she as much as said, would not be tolerated or obeyed by her.

Gideon grinned as the implication sank in. As he had suspected, his bride did indeed make for a worthy opponent, in and out of bed.

Anticipation filled him at the thought.

He liked nothing better than a proper challenge, except, perhaps, winning.

“What, pray tell, do you find to amuse you?” she asked, as she regarded him, perhaps a bit worried, but more than a trace smug as well.

So, she did comprehend her power, or she thought she did. Gideon gave her a grudging nod of approval, while she had the audacity to acknowledge, what amounted to, her rebuke of his high-handedness, with a vainglorious grin.

Round two to Sabrina.

“Oh my,” Miss Minchip said.

Gideon saw that theothers had been watching and likely bestowed a somewhat sensual bent to their individual translations of the silent by-play between him and his new wife.

Gideon chuckled but did not reveal the source of his humor, even when pressed. Instead, he sought to change the subject. “I had a remarkable experience during the night.”

Sabrina squeaked and nearly choked on her eggs. Miss Minchip’s eyes grew huge and eager, and one of Mr. Waredraper bushy white eyebrows rose high enough to kiss his bald pate.

To halt speculation, Gideon held up his hand. “You will pardon my poor word choice,” he said, winking at Miss Minchip then fearing she might swoon. “I awoke,” he said, starting again, “and could swear that I came face to face with a child, a lad, I believe.”

Doggett sat up as if he had been called to attention. “Did he have a mustache?” he asked. “Or a gold hoop in his ear?”

Everyone’s head turned swiftly in that man’s direction.

“You know a child who looks like this?” Gideon asked.

“Er, no, but you can never be too careful with the silver.”

“We do not keep the silver in the bedrooms. Most people do not.” Perhaps that lack in Doggett’s education was the reason he seemed not to have succeeded in his chosen profession. If thieverywas his chosen profession.

“Perhaps Ishould call in the runners,” Gideon said.

Doggett blustered and cited any number of aristocrats who hid theirbaubles in as many varied and unusual places.

When his recitation ended, Gideon thanked him for the lesson, pondered from whence Doggett’s knowledge had come, and turned to the others at the table. “Do any of you know who our midnight visitor might have been?”

If their previous reactions could be calledrapt, then their current expressions could only be termedwary. Interesting, indeed.

“Who? The child, or the intruder who made that mess in the library?” Doggett asked.

“Oh no,” Sabrina said. “What happened in the library?”

“Not to worry,” Gideon said. “Nothing was taken. But if one of the servants is keeping a child, without my knowledge,” he added, more to Sabrina and the hovering Chalmer than to his boarders. “All his mother has to do is come to me and we will discuss the matter and see that her child is properly housed and schooled. The boy should be given an opportunity to flourish, rather than stagnate.”

Silence, ponderous and bleak, served as his answer. And the nature of that quiet, or disquiet, he should say, ruffled Gideon’s feathers. What the deuce was going on?

“You must have been dreaming.” Sabrina laughed, not sounding nearly as light-hearted as she pretended.

“Yes,” Waredraper said, too eager by half. “Last night’s supper gave me vile dreams, too. Er, pardon to Mrs. Chalmer,” he said, nodding toward Mr. Chalmer, who had ceased pouring Gideon’s tea.

Rather than bristle, Chalmer released his breath. “Apology noted. She will not hear a word from me.”

“There, that is settled,” Sabrina said as she rose.

Gideon concluded his meal as well and took her arm. “Perhaps,” he said. “The child made the mess in the library.”

“No,” said every member of his household, from his wife to his butler.

“Well that is an end to that,” he said, tongue in cheek.

What dire secret lived in his own damned house, Gideon wondered, as he escorted his wife from the dining room, that kept everyone from revealing it?

Whatever it was—and he would bet fifty guineas there was a child nearby who might, or might not, be a thief—he had best nip this little intrigue in the bud, before suspicion destroyed the foundation of his household.

What could the lot of them possibly have to keep from him, anyway? And what could a child he had not even been certain existed have to do with it?

That he was being kept in the dark, rankled, and Gideon bloody well wanted to know why.

* * *

Sabrina discovered that very first morning that as Stanthorpe’s expeditious and unexpected bride, she had become the newest form of entertainment for London’sbeau monde, an experience she had rather do without.

The gears of the gossip mill must have started grinding the moment Lady Veronica left their wedding, Sabrina mused, because all and sundry seemed to be working those gears into a powerful head of steam.

Almost the instant her first collection of morning callers arrived, they began to regard her as if she were a rare specimen under glass, or an exotic creature in a zoological exhibit.

As the unique display in question, Sabrina began to entertain an absurd image of herself roaring, or crouching—to the horrified delectation of her audience—like one of the tigers brought from India and kept on display at Exeter ‘Change.

In her maternally-girthed widow’s weeds, however, Sabrina very much feared that she more closely resembled one of the ill-kept beasts at the Tower’s Royal Menagerie. She dearly wished, now, that she had felt up to visiting the dressmaker earlier, for she might well be there, still.

The one boost to her pride and confidence was Stanthorpe Place, particularly the drawing room where she received her visitors. A veritable showpiece, the room boasted twin fireplaces of topaz-marble, carved cypress-wood ceilings, and six wide, full-length windows, that admitted just enough illumination to spotlight its luxurious appointments.

Butter cream damask covered the walls, with the same pale yellow, robin’s egg blue, and soft fern green, picked out in the upholstered furniture, cushions and curtains. Subtle scents of beeswax and citrus hung in the air and complimented the serene atmosphere.

Bright, welcoming, and subtly beautiful, the room had already become Sabrina’s favorite in the house. The first time she had seen it, she had experienced the most wonderful sense of having arrived home, safe, finally.

At this moment, she reveled in the sentiment, wrapped it around herself like a mantle of spun gold and wore it with her head held high.

She needed all the help she could get.

Her guests were so much a drain on her self-confidence as to be more likened to weapons of utter destruction.

Claws bared and innuendo at the ready, refined ladies in silk and satin—vultures in disguise—tore her up one side and down the other, barely stopping long enough to collect the bloody shreds. They simpered and they smiled, wielding compliments like swords.

As each party left, Sabrina sighed in relief, but if she thought her first group of visitors concealed lethal talons, they were nothing to Lady Veronica Cartwright and her toadying train of twittering trollops.

“Congratulations, your grace,” said one mawkish matron. “So you are the new Duchess of Stanthorpe? Quite a rise in station, I should say. Would that we were all so fortunate.” Her bristly brows rose with the last, giving her the look of a startled porker. “An heir apparent, as well,” she simpered, examining Sabrina’s middle through herlorgnette. “You certainly know how toprocure that which you fancy, do you not, my dear?” The woman smiled artfully and raised her teacup in salute. “No matter the rest of the world’s opinion, I say, well done!”

Verbal swordplay must be a form of entertainment with the scandal broth set, Sabrina mused, offering her tormentor more tea, wishing she could tip the pot and drench yon feathered bonnet. She thought it amazing, really, and sad, that she had imagined herself the tigress, and her guests the innocents, when all along, things stood the other way ‘round.

Lady Veronica, herself, acted as if upon a theater stage, an edgy desperation stiffening both manner and movement, like a marionette, clumsily worked. As if her very life depended upon the success of her performance.

Not many minutes after thinking so, Sabrina began to understand what Lady Veronica might actually be attempting.

Society must perceive her as pitiable—suddenly and publicly abandoned, as she was, by Stanthorpe. So to maintain her social rank and associated power, the poor woman needed to show theton why she had been displaced, or, replaced,—please God—in Gideon’s affections.

How better to prove one had not been thrown over lightly, or even willingly, than to reveal the true reason for one’s abandonment—the imminent possibility of an heir.

Sabrina smiled knowingly and raised her chin higher. Rather than being embarrassed by her delicate condition, she wore her maternity like a medal of honor.

‘Twas she, not Lady Veronica Cartwright, who bore the title Duchess of Stanthorpe. In the eyes of the world, at least, Sabrina—not the ruthless Lady Veronica—carried Stanthorpe’s child.

Unfortunately, Sabrina could not shake the notion that she should not underestimate the Lady. Not only had she married the man Veronica had chosen for herself, but she was afraid she had made a powerful enemy in the bargain.

When the requisite time for the visit was up, Veronica and her entourage rose as one—a covey of bright, chattering birds startled into flight.

Before departing the room, however, Veronica, his headmistress, narrowed her eyes and stepped close enough for Sabrina to detect the acrid scent of hate. “I will have Stanthorpe yet, one way or another,” she promised. “He desires me, not you.”

The way Veronica preened before her friends, made Sabrina want, for all the world, to slap the smile from the woman’s face.

“Do not forget that Stanthorpe was still bedding me,” she went on, looking down her nose at Sabrina’s figure. “When he put that in you.”

“Odd, you should say so.” Sabrina placed a hand on her belly. “For I believe our child is proof to the contrary.”

“As do I,” her husband said from behind Sabrina’s tormentor, turning the woman on her heel with a gasp.

“Lady Veronica mistakes the matter.” Gideon regarded Sabrina. “My tastes have matured. Improved, I daresay.”

He returned his gaze to his former mistress. “I now prefer sweet to...tart.”

CHAPTER NINE

Gideon stepped around his dumbstruck mistress, kissed his wife’s hand and gazed with adoration into her eyes, a move for which Sabrina would remain forever grateful.

Then he placed her hand on his arm and covered it, possessively, with his own. “It took no one less powerful than Napoleon Bonaparte, himself, to keep me from marrying Sabrina sooner.”

He encompassed Veronica’s intimates in his smile. “Surely you, dear and lovely ladies of theton, understand the sacrifices war demands.” By the time he bowed to them, he had made conquests of them all. “We shall bid you a good-day.” He swept Sabrina from the room.

“Chalmer,” Gideon snapped as they crossed the hall. “Her grace is notat home to visitors for the rest of the day—no, for the rest of the week. He examined Sabrina’s face, his brow a study in concern. Amend that; she will not be receiving for a fortnight.”

Sabrina smiled gratefully.

Lady Veronica Cartwright had overplayed her hand.

* * *

Lady Veronica Cartwright’s dislike of his wife was beginning to worry Gideon. He knew her too well not to be concerned.

Theyhad been childhood friends, of a sort, and he had seen her at her worst, or what he hoped was her worst. At the age of eight, he had failed to keep her from strangling the life out of a baby bird, whose only crime had been falling from its nest and landing in her lap.

As an adult, he had fooled himself into thinking she had outgrown her ghastly childhood antics. He told himself she had changed and he proceeded to use her body, as she used his.

In retrospect, Gideon was ashamed of his ongoingliaison with the viper. He hated to admit, even to himself, that keeping her as his mistress had satisfied him, because he could bed her one minute, and walk away without looking back, the next.

He had, God help him, reveled in the disconnectedness of their alliance.

As he escorted Sabrina up the stairs for a rest after Veronica’s fateful visit, he berated himself for having placed his wife in danger by virtue of association. Veronica must be de-clawed, he knew, so that he and Sabrina could get on with their lives.

“Here we go,” he said, accompanying Sabrina into her bedchamber. “Let me help you out of your dress.”

Sabrina laughed. “Do you never stop trying?”

Gideon grinned. “Never.”

“I suppose I should take that as fair warning.” She drew her hair over her shoulder and turned to present him with the row of buttons down her back.

Gideon regarded this woman, who had caught his imagination the first moment he saw her, as something of a gift to unwrap. And like an excited child at Christmas, he hardly knew where to begin.

In fact, he did not begin. He stepped close behind, put his arms around her and rested the flat of his hands upon the haven of her child. What would life be like, he wondered, if this were his child, too?

But he could not imagine it. Not yet, at any rate.

“How is he?” Gideon spoke softly, at Sabrina’s ear.

She lay her head back, against his shoulder, and closed her eyes. “He is sleeping now. He performs only during the night.”

“Performs?”

“Acrobatics, jigs, reels, that sort of antic.”

“Then this should be a good time for you to catch up on your sleep. I will undo your buttons quickly, shall I, before he wakes?”

“Yes, please.”

Gideon especially admired her beauty as she lay back against her pillows, wearing nothing but her shift. He sat on the bed beside her and took her small hand in his, liking the notion that together they, alone, belonged to this intimate moment.

He supposed that he simply liked her attention, however and whenever he could get it. He had wanted her from the first, after all.

Never having had an opportunity, previous to this, to examine his bride at his leisure, Gideon feasted to his heart’s content.

He found her flawless and marveled at the richness of her beauty. Exotic eyes, violet as an island sunset and just as fathomless. Lips, full and pouting, exceptionally kissable.

But what Gideon decided intrigued him most about this new wife of his was the sparse dusting of wayward freckles that danced beneath her eyes and across the top of her nose. With his fingertip, he skimmed each beauty mark, as if connecting them one to the other.

Without them, she would seem altogether too perfect, untouchable. Imperfect as she was, she presented a surprising blend of porcelain doll and flesh and blood woman, vibrant and alive.

Allure and vulnerability, all in one package.

Gideon wanted to touch, and more.

“You make me want to pull the blanket up over my head,” she said.

Gideon shook his head at her cryptic comment. “Do I, by God? And why would you want to do that?”

“To save you from having to look at me.”

“From having to?” He knuckled the crest of a breast, at the edge of her shift. “My darling wife, no one, not even you, could stop me from feasting on your beauty.”

Her laugh reminded him of a songbird that brings joy to all who hear it. “Does that kind of talk work on your other women?”

Gideon wrapped himself in dignity. “Excuse me?”

“Ah, the haughty Duke returns.”

All his life, his aristocratic arrogance had served to put people in their proper places. And now, behold his bride, happily oblivious to his awesome presence.

Gideon released an exasperated breath. “Let us set your mind at ease concerning my, er, other women, shall we?”

“Oh, yes. Let us, please.”

Gideon raised a brow but refused to respond to her caustic gauntlet. “I have employed—one at a time, mind—several mistresses over the years—”

“How many is several?”

Gideon raised a brow. “Five.”

Sabrina nodded. “A good conservative number,” she said. “I approve. Go on.”

Gideon coughed and cleared his throat. “As it happens, I dismissed my latest, and my last, in your presence, after our wedding, yesterday. Unfortunate timing, that. Again, I apologize.”

“You are forgiven. Did I not say so, then?”

He quirked a brow, and his bride closed her mouth and schooled her features.

Gideon kissed her hand and held her gaze. “I am now devoted to one woman—you. And I shall keep only unto you, till death parts us.”

Gideon watched keenly for his bride’s reaction to his vow, but he perceived nothing in her demeanor to reveal that she had heard him. “You doubt me.” It was a statement, not a question, and the only possible reason for her lack of response.

“I doubt … me,” she said after a moment, and he suspected she was being as honest as she could, given their situation.

But he was confused. “Explain, please.”

“I have never managed to inspirefidelity in a man, so I worry that this marriage will be no different.”

“Then, we are of like mind. Identical, actually.”

Sabrina rose on her elbow. “I vow that I will remain faithful to you.”

If only he could believe it, Gideon thought, regarding their clasped hands, because he did not want her to see how deeply her naïve declaration affected him.

After he collected himself, he raised her hand to his lips and returned his gaze to her. “I promise the same, Sabrina. I would inscribe and sign the vow in blood, if such would help you believe me.”

Sabrina let go of his hand, lay back against her pillows, and closed her eyes. But after a minute, a single tear escaped from between her lashes. And Gideon knew that she could no more believe him than he could believe her. Had she also lost her ability to trust after having it stripped carelessly away?

If so, perhaps they could heal together.

Gideon rose and pressed his lips to the tear trail on her cheek. “Sleep.”

Gideon went to his bedchamber to change, then to the mews. He wanted to take Deviltry out and run him fast and furious, faster and farther than his need—his desire, damn it—for a wife who frightened him with the strength of her inscrutable hold on him.

As he neared Deviltry’s stall, Gideon stopped in his tracks. There, stroking his steed’s silken muzzle was the child he had seen in the night. “You, there. What is your name?”

The child bolted, faster than a jackrabbit, and disappeared just as quick.

Where was the stable-hand? “Harry! Har— Oh there you are. The lad who was just here? Who is he? What is his name?”

Harry scratched his head, his chin, beneath his arm, and he was going for his ballocks when Gideon ran out of patience. “Damn it, Man, take a bath!”

The shocked expression on the stable-hand’s face drained the pique right out of Gideon. “‘Twas a simple enough question,” he said. “Surely small boys do not wander in and out of my stables at will. You must know who he is.”

“Sure, I know him well enough; I just don’t know his name is all.”

“Well, where does he live?” Gideon asked, losing patience, again.

Harry made to scratch his head, caught Gideon’s expression and stopped. “As to where he comes from, your grace. I am sure Icannot say.”

Gideon cursed and turned to leave.

“Were you wanting to ride, your grace?”

“No. I changed my mind. Thank you.”

To Gideon’s surprise, not five minutes later, he spotted the boy outside the servants’ entrance to his own bloody kitchen. And this time when he approached, the urchin did not bolt.

Gideon bent on his haunches to address him. “How did you get back here so fast? I could swear that I saw you disappear in the opposite direction.”

The boy shrugged. He had dark hair and darker eyes and so much dirt on his face, you could hardly tell where the grime ended and the freckles began. His serviceable, nankeen playsuit looked to be as dirty as his face and hands, as was his short serge jacket. Gideon could not help think that the boy reminded him of someone, but he could not, for the life of him, imagine who. “Are you from around here?”

“No sir.” The boy shook his head, not seeming the least inclined to scamper.

“Funny, I could have sworn I saw you in my bedchamber last night.”

The boy laughed a happy little boy sound. “Not me, Sir. If I did such a thing, Mama said she would— ‘Twas not me, Sir.”

Just from his ease of speech, Gideon knew the boy was speaking the truth. “Where is your Mother?”

“Right now? I cannot say for certain, but I do know she must be working. She works all the time.”

Taking in laundry and such, most likely, when she should be caring for her son. Gideon wondered how far the lad had wandered to get here. “I am on my way to the small kennel we keep here in town,” he said. “Would you like to come and see the puppies?”

The boy shrugged but fell into step beside him. Along the way, they talked about dogs, and Gideon was glad he had been inspired to offer the impromptu outing.

If only to prove to the members of his household that there was nothing they could, or should, keep from him, Gideon very much wanted to unearth their secret, and he was certain that this boy held the key.

His name was Damon and he was four. Cute little tiger. Bright. Loved the puppies, and they loved him. Giggled in the way all little boys should, easy and free, without restraint, the way Gideon had never dared.

This child was loved, unconditionally, unreservedly; that was clear. Gideon need not worry about Damon’s upbringing or the momentary absence of his mother. He lacked nothing but a recent face-wash. Hell, little boys needed their faces washed about every ten minutes, did they not?

A shrill whistle split the air, and Damon stood like a shot. “Gotta go,” he said even as he ran. “Thank you,” he called back.

Gideon found himself smiling from ear to ear as he returned to the house, looking forward to seeing, well looking forward totalking with someone. Anyone would do. Though Sabrina, as his wife, he supposed would be the logical choice.

He took the stairs two at a time but slowed at her bedchamber door. He went softly in, disappointed to find her still sleeping.

Not disappointed, actually. It was not as if he needed her, or anyone. He had simply hoped to lie down and wrap his arms around her, perhaps attempt a bit of playful seduction, to keep his skills honed. He did have a challenge to rise to, after the baby was born, and he needed to learn all he could about this new wife of his, like what was most likely to melt her resolve.

Damn, he had become hard just watching her sleep.

Gideon backed away from the bed and carefully closed the door between their rooms. She needed to rest. He needed to cool down.

He stripped out of his clothes. He may not have returned smelling of horse, but the pungent aroma of puppy clung.

One of the beagle pups, to his absolute horror, had lifted a leg and drizzled on his boots. Even Gideon’s inexpressibles had been sprinkled in the onslaught.

When it happened, Damon had fallen to the ground in a paroxysm of childish giggles.

Gideon chuckled now, remembering, his heart lighter than it had been in some time.

CHAPTER TEN

Sabrina awoke, from what turned out to be a three-hour nap, dressed, and slipped up to the nursery to check on Damon and Rafferty. While Miss Minchip dozed in her rocker, the boys sat in the far corner, spillikin sticks scattered on the floor between them.

Unfortunately, they looked less like they were playing and more like they were conspiring. “What are you two whispering about?” she asked.

Just their tight faces and tighter lips told her that she had reason to be suspicious.

“Out with it,” she demanded, hands on hips.

“With what, Mama?”

At what point had they conquered the art of apparent innocence? “Damon?”

“Mama, can I have a puppy?”

Sabrina allowed herself a great mental sigh. Her life was complicated enough, keeping two energetic little boys entertained and quiet, never mind throwing a yapping pup into the mix. “What brought that on?”

“The kennel man showed me the puppies.”

“I see.”

“He said they need homes.”

“I am sure he did.” Wonderful. For her boys’ sakes, she would inquire of Miss Minchip, later, which of the servants cared for the kennels and how the man dealt with children.

For now, however, Sabrina sat in the nursery rocker and took a hand of each to pull the boys closer. “Boys, listen, I am sorry, but we cannot have a puppy, not right now. I am not even certain you should go back to visit the kennels.”

“But Mama?” Identical twins, identical entreaties, quadruple the maternal guilt.

Sabrina sighed. “Tell you what. Perhaps we can hunt you up a cat. Cats are quiet. And perhaps we can come to a compromise on the kennels. If Miss Minchip approves of the kennel man, and if you promise to always tell me where you are going, I will let you visit the puppies again.”

That concession earned her two kisses and four hugs. Not bad for half an hour’s work. Before she left, Sabrina kissed both boys one more time and woke Miss Minchip to inquire about the kennel man and give her decision concerning puppy visits.

Once she knew the boys were settled, she went in search of her husband.

She found him sitting on the settee in the library, reading the London Times, but he looked up and rose when he saw her, folded the paper and tossed it on a table. “Good,” he said. “He checked his pocket watch. Dinner will be ready shortly. I was just about to go and fetch you. Come. Sit beside me.” When she reached him, he surprised her by kissing her cheek, rather than her hand.

She sat on the settee, he, beside her, and she wished she could tell him how nice she found the experience of anticipating her husband’s company, rather than dreading it.

“What?” he asked.

But she shook her head. “Woolgathering,” she improvised. “Sorry.”

“Still sleepy? Did you not have a good rest, then?”

“I did … until the baby started doing the Highland Fling.”

“Smart little tiger. Is he still flinging?”

Sabrina carried her husband’s hand to her belly. “See for yourself.”

Gideon winced as he felt and saw her child’s wild contortions. “Does that not hurt?”

“Not at all.”

“I think he is trying to break out.”

“Soon enough, he will. How do you think you will feel about having a little one in the house?”

“A babe could make life interesting.”

“No emotion stronger than interest comes to mind?”

“Such as?”

“Pleasure, panic, anger, elation, dread?”

“I assume the babe will not be leaving puddles on the carpets, or anything like … correct? The reason I ask is because a hunting dog lifted a leg against my boot this morning.”

Sabrina laughed. “In that case, I will be very careful that the baby does not do the same.”

“Then I am still open to the experience.”

“Open to the experience,” Sabrina said, considering. “I like that far better than plain oldinterest, because interest can result either positively or negatively, you know, and sometimes we do not even—”

Gideon kissed her, and when he had her silence, he crossed her lips with a finger. “I know you are not willing to share your past, yet, but I perceive in you an emotion akin to fear. So let me give you my promise that you have nothing to fear from me, and neither does your child.”

Before Sabrina could respond, she needed to swallow the emotion that welled up in her at his unsolicited vow. “Thank you, Gideon.”

“Gideon! She calls me Gideon. Finally. And not just to stop me in our bed.” We make progress, I think.”

“Yes,” Sabrina said, blushing. “I believe we do.”

“Good. Now I am going to pour myself a glass of sherry before dinner. Would you care for one?”

“No, thank you, but go ahead.” Sabrina could not help remember the two of them wrapped in each other’s arms, on this very settee, and how frightened she had been—”

“Woolgathering again,” he asked from beside her, and she jumped.

But she turned to face him. “I was remembering how frightened I was last night, especially when you came charging down the balcony stairs.”

“Are you saying you are less frightened of the marriage act now?”

“No. I am saying that I am less frightened of you, now.”

“I suppose that must suffice as a beginning.”

“I expected you to be terribly upset when I informed you of my feelings concerning theintimate side of marriage, but you were not.”

Gideon barked a laugh. “I shall take that as a compliment to my equanimity. But for your information, I was very, terribly bothered, for about ten minutes, then I decided to handle the situation in the way I usually do. Did I not make my intentions clear to you at that time?”

“Uh, no, I do not believe you did.”

Her husband shrugged. “I considered the possibility that you told me how much you dislike marital intimacy as a way of throwing down the proverbial gauntlet, and I decided to take it up.”

Sabrina raised a questioning brow.

“I mean that I decided toacceptyour challenge.Change your mind?” Gideon set his drink on the table to show his wife what he meant by taking her into his arms. “I will make you ache for me, Sabrina St. Goddard. And when we consummate this marriage of ours, you will enjoy the remarkable experience and beg for more.”

Sabrina did not know whether to laugh or cry, but when she made to speak, Gideon opened his mouth over hers, and his sculpted lips worked their magic.

Her first kiss ever, a mutual and spontaneous burst, had taken place the night before on that very settee, in the heat of passion, but it was more of an inferno than this slow, sweet sizzle.

This kiss went on, and on, while temperatures escalated, and Sabrina happily sizzled.

Before she knew what Gideon was about, he was lying on his back, her draped over him like a rug—a lumpy rug—her knee soothing his erection, his face between her breasts.

Sabrina pulled away a bit, and they regarded each other, with more of the heat lighting sparking between them as had visited them the night before. “Hefty blanket you have here,” she said, when her breathing caught up with her heart.

“I feared crushing the baby, so I reversed our positions.”

Sabrina raised a brow. “You planned this? I do not even know how we got here.”

“Good,” he said. “That means I am going about this seduction business in just the right way.”

Chalmer cleared his throat.

Sabrina started and felt her face warm.

Gideon grinned.

“Dinner is served,” the manservant said, almost without expression, except for the smile Sabrina caught as he turned.

She was terribly uncomfortable by the time they retired that night.

Gideon seemed so in tuned with her discomfort that he helped her off with her shoes and stockings and left while she finished undressing and got into her nightrail. When he returned, he found her shifting in the bed, trying to find a position to suit her circumstance.

“What can I do to help you?”

“Not what you want to do.”

“I fear I agree,” he said, coming to stand by the bed. “Tell me what you would like and I will comply. I will even go and sleep in my own bed, if you think you would be more comfortable.”

Sabrina shook her head. “Honestly? I was more comfortable with you at my back last night than I have been for weeks.”

“You shall have me at your back then.”

“Can you rub it, just a bit?”

Gideon placed his hands at her back and gave himself over to the unexpectedly stirring experience. It was more sensual even than in the library the night before, given the fact that he was now in her bed with her, and he knew her body a vast deal better than he had then.

“Ah, yes, like that,” Sabrina said. “Down lower. Mmm. Oh, yes. Oh, God, that feels so good. Harder. A bit lower. Yes, just there.”

“Damn, you are getting me excited.”

His statement surprised Sabrina, and she could not seem to stop laughing.

Her mirth was so contagious, Gideon took to laughing with her, though he did not stopped soothing her sore back.

The thought occurred to him, as he absorbed the sound of her laughter, that he had never before enjoyed a woman, beyond sexual gratification, in or out of bed. He had never laughed with one, talked with her, in the way he and Sabrina had talked before dinner.

He liked the experience, the easy camaraderie, as if they were a world unto themselves, the two of them alone. Amazing how shared laughter could sweeten life, make it seem worth living.

Sabrina calmed after a while, but every so often she would take to giggling again. One of those times, Gideon was so wholly charmed, he could not stop himself; he bent over and kissed her cheek. “Damned if I do not find myself liking you, Sabrina St. Goddard. Welcome to my life.”

For a minute, he thought she might cry, but she brightened, instead, almost as if she needed to correct her errant emotions and set them on the proper course. Odd that.

“Thank you,” she said finally. “Your life is not as bad a place as I expected.”

He did not know how the devil to reply to that. Should he be pleased or angry? In the end, he said nothing, and before long, he saw that she slept.

He continued to rub her back for as long as he could keep his eyes open, and the next thing he knew, the light of morning had cast a beam across the bed.

Gideon managed to rise without disturbing his wife and left her to sleep for as long as she was able.

Rather than sit down to breakfast alone, he grabbed the Morning Post and retired to his study. He had not read more than a minute when he shot from his chair in fury over an anonymouson ditthat reeked of revenge:The Duke of S. has married hastily, and of necessity, to a nesting canary...with nary a feather to fly with. This author suggests that S. beware upon whose perch his canary next hops.

Gideon vowed that when he got his hands around Veronica’s throat, he was going to squeeze.

First he wrote a scathing letter to the newspaper, demanding a retraction. Then he wrote a scathing letter to Veronica.

Feeling better after the exercise, he pondered a diversion of pint-size proportions.

Down in the kitchen, he grabbed so many sweet rolls, Mrs. Chalmer gave him a chiding look, for which he gave her a wink, before going outside to look for Damon.

The sweet rolls were bait.

Gideon searched, but the boy was not to be found, not in the mews, nor the kennel. He had just about given up, when he spotted the lad walking purposefully in his direction.

“Good morning, young man. What have you got there?”

“A weapon. I am going hunting.” Damon pointed toward Grosvenor Park across the road in the center of the Square. “There, in the jungle.”

Gideon nodded. “I see. Care for some company?”

“Sure, do you want to come?”

Since they were going hunting, Gideon thought it a good thing he brought bait. Hand in hand, they crossed to the park. “What kind of animal are we hunting,” he asked the boy.

“Cat.”

“Panther? Lion?”

“Are panthers and lions noisy?”

“As a matter of fact, I think they sometimes are.”

“Then, I do not want either of those.”

“What kind do you want?”

“I want a quiet cat to keep in the nursery with me. Mama said I can have one.”

A nursery denoted a large house, which must be nearby, Gideon surmised, since the boy could usually be found near the mews. “You are hunting for a housecat, then?”

“I s’pose.” Damon looked sharply up, his eyes suddenly bright with knowledge. “’Cause housecats must be the kind you keep in the house, right?”

The boy’s grin was deadly, bringing Gideon’s own, and he found himself chuckling and ruffling that small head of dark hair.

Bedamned, they were hunting for a pussycat.

Gideon regarded the lad’s weapon askance—a club, if he ever saw one. “If we are hunting for a housecat, I do not think you want to be hitting it with that.”

“Why not?”

“Because, you will do some damage.”

“You mean, I might hurt it? Do animals hurt like people do, when they are hit?”

“Afraid so.”

The boy paled, as if he knew what being hit was like, making Gideon want to defend him, against he knew not what.

Now the boy’s bottom lip trembled. “I only want to find a quiet cat to come home with me. I would never hurt it.”

“I will help you catch it. You may discard the club.”

“Thank you.”

The shrill whistle that sent the boy scurrying from the kennel yesterday, sounded again, but Damon only slowed, became more alert, and kept walking.

Gideon shrugged and followed. They pursued that illusive creature, cat, without success. As time passed, joy left the boy’s face and discouragement loomed heavy.

“There does not seem to be an abundance of cats loose in the jungle this morning,” Gideon said. “Perhaps we should go and investigate over in that direction.”

If he had had any notion that the boy wanted a cat, he would have acquired a kitten from some kitchen mouser. Perhaps he might still be able to find one, to give himself an excuse to locate and visit the boy’s home.

He noticed that Damon was dressed appropriately for the cooler morning. Though his nankeen skeleton suit appeared similar to the outfit he wore the day before, a warmer jacket and knee-length stockings had been added in honor of the brisker day. One of those stockings, Gideon noticed, had a rip in it and drooped a bit, giving the lad that reckless little boy look.

“Do you know anyone up at number twenty-three?” Gideon asked, nonchalantly. “I have seen you around there several times now.”

“Miss Minchip, I know. Not much of anybody else.”

“Ah,” Gideon said. “Well, shall we see if we can build us a cat trap? You go and find some branches, and I will start putting our trap together.”

The boy skipped off, and before long, he was back with an assortment of spindly branches.

Together they fashioned a rather foolish-looking contraption that Gideon was certain would blow over in a light breeze.

Nevertheless, they sat back, man and boy alike, filled with eager anticipation, to await the appearance of a dumb cat.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

While Damon and Gideon waited for a jingle-brained cat to collapse their trap—never mind become caught in it—Gideon offered Damon a sweet roll, which the boy accepted with alacrity.

In return, the boy pulled from a leather sack, which Gideon had not previously noticed, an earthen jar, and offered it to him. On its label was marked “pickled cabbage?” Gideon hefted the vessel and examined its seal.

“For in case we get hungry,” Damon explained sniffling.

Gideon fished out his linen handkerchief and handed it over. “How were you planning to open the jar?”

Instantly, Damon saw the dilemma, and scanned the area with his gaze looking for an answer. “I know,” he said, using the handkerchief. “We can smash it open on that big rock over there.”

“Bad idea. You will cut yourself on the shards. Let us just eat the sweet rolls, shall we?”

The boy shrugged and offered the used handkerchief back.

Gideon smothered his chuckle by clearing his throat. “You may keep it, in case you need it again. Just tuck it into your jacket pocket. There’s a boy.”

“So,” Gideon said, to make conversation and pass the time. “What do you and Miss Minchip find to talk about?” But the boy got an odd, cornered look on his face, one of panic and distress, which did not seem to fit his usually happy mien. Then again, Gideon had not known Damon for that—

“I do not know anybody named Miss Minchip.”

“I see,” Gideon said, after a minute, more than a bit intrigued by the sudden turnabout. “Well, then, tell me about your mama. Why did she send you hunting for a quiet cat?”

“She said we make enough noise by ourselves.”

“We?”

“Me ‘n— Me. I make lots’a noise all by myself.”

Gideon felt disoriented, as if he were speaking to an entirely different child, quite an odd feeling. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” he asked, without knowing why, but he awaited the boy’s answer, almost with baited breath, while the rooks in the trees above cawed and squabbled louder than usual.

“Mama is getting me a new brother real soon,” he said. “She has a big belly.”

“Lot of that going around,” Gideon remarked, his thoughts teeming with speculation, his gaze assessing.

This must be Damon. Regard the expressive face, the sable hair, the short blue serge jacket, droopy stockings.

Gideon sat straighter. Wait, neither stocking had been torn, neither drooped.

He saw only the two small discrepancies, and yet, one was often sufficient.

The lad crawled over to check the cat trap as Gideon watched. “Damon,” he called, softly, but loud enough to be heard, to see whether the child would respond automatically to his name.

Damon did not, which proved nothing, of course.

Gideon rose and tapped him on the shoulder. “I have an idea. Let us go and set up more traps.” He stepped quickly from the clearing, hoping to catch some phantom child with drooping socks, he supposed, but no one was there.

When he turned back, however, he saw the lad leave a sweet roll on the boulder before dashing away.

They walked side by side after that, each lost in his own thoughts, until Gideon stopped. “Forgot something,” he said. “Wait right here.”

Back in the clearing, nothing had changed, except that the roll was missing. Gideon walked around to the far side of the boulder, and there sat Damon eating the roll.

“What?” Gideon asked, hands on hips. “Three rolls were not enough for you?”

“Three?” the boy said, at once indignant and appalled, until he stopped short, as if to reconsider, and shrugged. “Growing boys need lots of good food. Guess I must be growing.”

“That will be quite enough, young man. Come on out.” He lifted Damon and sat him on the boulder. “We need to have a talk.”

“’Bout what?”

“Remember the puppy, yesterday?”

The giggle was surely Damon’s “He was funny, drizzling on you like that. Too bad cats are quieter.”

“Tell me,” Gideon said. “What is your brother’s name?”

“Hunh?”

“Your twin. At least he said he was your twin.”

Damon huffed. “Rafe’s a squealer. His real name is Rafferty, but he likes to be called Rafe.”

“Rafe,” Gideon called. “Come see what I found.”

The boy came tumbling into the clearing, the ugliest cat on God’s green earth in his arms. “Did you catch one, too?” he asked breathless?

“Caught this.” Gideon indicated Damon, sitting on the boulder swinging his legs, finishing his sweet roll.

“Aw, he’s not a cat, he’s my brother.”

“So I noticed.” The secret, Gideon perceived, was more than the fact that they were twins, though that must be part of it. A wild notion had been scampering in and out of his brain, but it was just too fantastic to be possible.

One step at a time, Gideon cautioned himself, regarding the two, identically innocent expressions. “Why did you pretend there was only one of you?”

“Two is trouble,” Rafe said. “Two is noisier.”

“And messier.” Damon shrugged. “People see us and they say,oh no, two of them, so we pretend, sometimes, like we’re just one. It’s fun fooling people.”

“You never feel as if you are lying?”

“No, only playing.”

Damon nodded. “Telling fibs is bad; we know that.”

“Unless fibbing is the only way to keep Mama from getting hit,” Rafe said.

Damon nodded. “Right.”

Once again, Gideon felt as if he had stepped into a world where he was playing a game he must win, except that he did not know the rules. And whatever those rules were, he would not be learning them today, nor would he pursue such sad and revealing statements with children, especially ones he did not know.

Gideon regarded them and ignored the tightening of his chest. “I commend you on your care of your mother.”

Then he smiled. “Rafe, my boy, are you certain thatis a cat you have there?”

The mangy, three-legged feline, with one and a half ears and half a tail, licked sweet-roll-icing off Rafe’s fingers as if it had not eaten in a month, precisely how the ghastly creature looked. Pry the burrs from its fur, where fur grew, and Rafe’s feline might increase in beauty all the way up togod-awful.

“’A course this is a cat.” Rafe grinned. “He’s our cat now.”

He was a she, but Gideon did not know if you explained such things to four-year olds. He would have to ask Sabrina. He had a sneaking suspicion she would know.

He did not know exactly how he felt about any of it.

There was a good possibility that she had lied to him. Oh, all right, she had not lied, she had omitted the truth, as he had omitted his title. As the boys omitted the fact that they were two peas in the proverbial pod. As Sabrina omitted the fact that there were any peas at all.

Gad, he was making himself dizzy.

But, children? Two of them? Gideon groaned inwardly. Twomore, he should say, if he considered the babe.

No wonder Sabrina was nervous.

Had he not recently thought he might not be ready to become immediately and directly responsible for a child? One child.

Gideon felt almost ill, and needed to sit on the boulder while his stomach calmed and his head cleared.

The boys watched him with wide, uneasy eyes. Eyes so closely resembling the shape of Sabrina’s that—

Like the woman he believed was their mother, fear lived inside these two.

Gideon ruffled Rafe’s hair, and Damon stepped near for a hair-ruffle of his own

“How did you manage to catch the cat?”

“He let me pick him up, did you not, pretty boy,” Rafe crooned to his purring pet, his expression full of love and admiration.

“What color would you say his fur is?” Gideon asked, thinking that it looked like mud to him.

“It is like when we mix up our paints,” Rafe said, “and all the bright colors run together, except for that tan patch around one of his eyes.

Ugly, Gideon thought.

Damon tilted his head to study the scruffy creature in question. “I think he looks exactly the color of the stuff inside a Christmas pie.”

“Mincemeat,” Rafe said. “We can call him Mincemeat.”

Gideon barked a laugh. If a better name for that cat existed anywhere, he could not imagine what it might be. “Shall we head back across the street, before someone misses you?”

They walked side by side, Gideon in the middle, Rafe petting nightmare-cat, Damon pensive.

“Do you think Mincemeat is a quiet enough cat for your mother?” Gideon asked. “You know how she worries about noise and everything.” He asked the question with nonchalance, hoping to garner information about their mother, but neither boy spoke. Instead, their expressions had become serious.

Together they crossed Grosvenor Square and Gideon stopped by the kissing gate of number twenty-three to bend on his haunches before them. “Your Mama is often sad, is she not?”

Unsmiling, Damon nodded then he brightened. “But not so much since we came here.”

Gideon experienced a bittersweet jubilation at that. She was less sad, perhaps, but no more trusting.

“Even when she is sad, she plays games with us,” Rafe said. “When she can get away from that man.”

“Let me ask you something else,” Gideon said. “And I want you to be honest in your answer. Are you afraid of me?”

“No,” Damon said, as if his question was absurd. “We had fun together with the puppies, yesterday, and even hunting today, did we not?”

“We certainly did,” Gideon said, that odd, threatening jubilation back. “Do you not wonder why you always see me around here?”

“You take care of the kennel,” Damon said. “Miss Minchip told Mama that you are a nice man, so it is all right for us to talk to you.”

“Can you keep a secret?”

Both boys nodded, wide-eyed, eager for a scrap of surreptitious knowledge.

“First, tell me your name,” Gideon said.

Gideon was glad Rafe could laugh as easily as his twin, because laughter was how they both reacted to his question.

“You know who we are. We’re Damon and Rafferty.”

“I mean your second names.”

“Oh. Whitcomb.”

Gideon had known, of course, but still, it came as a dizzying blow.

He would not, after all, be responsible for one child, but for three. Suddenly the irresponsible life of a scapegrace rogue seemed far from reach and excessively appealing. But he shook off regret and turned his attention to the twins. Sabrina’s twins. His boys, now, too. He sighed. “You live in this house, then, do you not, and Miss Minchip takes care of you up in the nursery?”

Twin nods.

“Which one of you went into your mother’s bedchamber the other night and almost got caught?”

Rafe fingered a nasty burr in Mincemeat’s coat. “That was me,” he said, not looking up. “I was thirsty.”

“You did not see the man’s face very well, did you?”

Now he looked up. “I do not like him.”

“But he likes you.” Gideon shook his head, unclear as to how to proceed. “Come.” He took their hands. “I have an idea, but I will need your help,” he said, as they made their way toward the kennel. “First, we will get that puppy you like from the kennel, so you can take him up to the nursery with you.”

“But Mama said we cannot. That man—”

“Your new father, you mean?” Sweat broke out on Gideon’s brow just knowing he was speaking of himself.

Not that he was frightened exactly. He supposed he could raise a boy or three as well as the next man. He just did not know if he could summon up the required emotion—God help him—that such an immense responsibility required.

“We have a new father?” Damon asked.

And Gideon was affronted, which made him wonder what insanity prompted him to run from fatherhood one minute, then claim it the next. And what would make Sabrina deny her boys a father, whether she did so consciously or not? “Yes, the man you saw, Rafe, is your new father, and he would like very much for you to like him.”

“Ourother father hated noisy boys. We tried to be good, but we got him mad at Mama all the time.” The revelation came from Rafe, but both boys lost their spark.

Gideon knew then, that as far as fatherhood was concerned, there had never been a choice for him. For good or ill, he had two boys to raise now, and soon, very soon, there would be three.

“Our new father might not like the noise we make, either,” Damon said. “Mama worries about that.”

About them, Gideon thought. Sabrina worried about them, as they worried about her.

“What if our new father hates us, too? Suppose he hates the puppy and Mincemeat?”

Damon, Gideon knew, was begging for more than a simple answer to his question.

Facing a pregnant bride seemed, in retrospect, child’s play compared to this. Gideon wiped his damp palms on his knees and allowed his breathing to catch up with his pumping heart. He knew panic and fury, but more than that, he felt the boys’ pain.

No, he more than felt it, he remembered it, vividly, from his own boyhood.

Aware of the dangers in confession, but despite them, Gideon was prepared to jump into deep water. He stopped and sat on the garden wall before them, winked at one and chucked the chin of the other. “Rafe, Damon, you should know that I am not the kennel man.” He looked from one to the other of them, and he took the jump. “I am your new father.”

Gideon allowed his words sink in as he watched their expressions.

So like their mother, these two. Why had he not noticed that before? The dusting of freckles, the hair, the eyes, their feelings in their expressions, ready to be read, plain as day. Awe, wonder, realization, fear, before hesitation settled in. Wanting it to be so, they were afraid to be disappointed.

Damon sidled a bit closer, and however slight a beginning, the action clogged Gideon’s throat and trembled the tentative hand he placed at the boy’s back.

Rafe stood unmoving, his expression more guarded. Gideon had already suspected that Rafe would be the tougher of the two.

Gideon moved his hand to Damon’s shoulder and reached over to play with Mincemeat’s paw near Rafe’s arm. “I want you to know, right off, that I like you,” he said. “Both of you. I understand that boys make noise when they play. Boys should play. Even I make noise sometimes.

“Do not mistake me, I am not saying that I will never ask you to quiet down. I am saying that when I do ask, I will give you a good reason for my request, so you will understand why I ask.”

Rafe took to breathing again. Damon leaned closer in, until his small shoulders touched Gideon’s larger ones, and Gideon felt almost as if his own shoulders broadened then, with pride and perhaps with the need to carry these amazing new responsibilities.

He led the boys to the puppies, and sure enough, the friendly pup took to squealing and jumping and drizzling and yapping with glee, unlike his six brothers who were more interested in lunch.

“Will the pup belong to both of us?” Rafe asked, petting Mincemeat.

“So your Mama will not be angry, I think the puppy should remain mine. But I want you to take care of him up in the nursery for me. It is clear how much he loves you. He is a special pup, and you two are special boys, which is exactly what he needs.” The pup was, in truth, too gentle, and too enamored of people, to make a good hunter anyway.

Gideon scratched the ecstatic canine under an ear. “Do you think you can take care of him?”

Twin, very serious, nods.

“What about Mincemeat?” Rafe asked, hugging ugly-cat protectively.

“I think Mincemeat needs you even more than the pup does. So you may keep her, er, him, too.”

“A dogand a cat,” Damon whispered with reverence.

“Now I need you to help me play a silly game with your Mama. Will you?”

A short while later, Mr. Chalmer told Gideon that her grace was working in her sitting room and wished to speak with him when he came in, if his grace pleased.

Gideon headed straight there. Part of him wanted to make Sabrina squirm for her mischief, but another part of him understood her motive. He almost wished he did not.

When he entered, he found her bent over her desk, in concentration. As he approached, she rose with a smile to greet him. And he wondered if her response meant that she was eager for his company, or if she was accustomed simply to pretence.

If possible, she seemed to grow more beautiful with time. Today, she positively glowed.

“You look ravishing,” he said, taking her into his arms to kiss her, lingering, nibbling at her lips for longer than he intended.

“Gideon,” she said, breathless, but not averse to his attention, if he did not miss his guess. “We need to talk.”

“Talking can wait. I brought you a surprise.”

“No, really. This is important.” She noted his torn cuff, stepped back and did a hasty scan of his countenance. “What happened to your clothes? You are positively filthy.”

Gideon looked down at his unkempt self and shrugged. “I went hunting.”

“What?” She placed her hands on her hips. “Gideon—”

“Stay here,” he said. “I shall be right back.”

He reminded her of a small boy with a fancy seashell or a shiny, colored rock to show off.

Sabrina lowered herself to the settee to await his schoolboy whim. Yet another interesting and surprising facet of her complicated new husband, and almost charming. She sighed with frustration.

She needed to tell him about the boys and put the momentous confession behind her. Ever since last night, when he had patiently rubbed her back for what seemed like hours, she understood that she might be able to tell him, without fear of reprisal.

When she awoke this morning, she knew the time had come, and once she made the decision, she had become desperate to be done with it.

“Surprise!” Gideon shouted. “Look what followed me home.” Like sacks of grain, he carried her sons, slung, one under each arm.

Sabrina gasped and clasped a hand to her pounding heart, the other over her mouth.

Gideon raised a brow. “Can we keep them?”

Sabrina did not know if her husband’s foolish question, or his sporadic jiggling, tickled her sons’ fancies, but their fits of the giggles, was something wondrous to hear.

And while they laughed, Sabrina regarded Gideon, as he regarded her, a thousand serious questions and as many difficult answers hanging between them. But despite the grave implications in her boys’ sudden appearance, Sabrina became breathless, and the mist over her eyes had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with joy.

“We hunted us up a cat, Mama. Just like you said we could.” Rafe beamed with happiness and Sabrina realized that whatever Gideon’s reaction—and his anger would certainly be justified—he had not taken it out on the boys.

“There he is, Mama,” Rafe said. “There is our cat.”

“Good God,” Sabrina said, when she spotted the hideous creature.

Though she knew that before the day ended, she would be forced to answer for her deception, she could not help embrace her sons’ happiness in the moment.

Close behind the cat, and only half its size, waddled a beagle pup, poking and snuffling its way in her direction.

“He is cute, is he not, Mama?” Damon asked.

Hanging there suspended, the boys’ rare smiles and rarer laughter transformed their freckled faces, bringing one thought to Sabrina’s mind. They rarely, if ever, misjudged people, for they had learned early in life the danger in doing so.

Filled with rioting emotions, Sabrina tried not to cry. “Did you hunt him up, too?”

Gideon cleared his throat. “Ah, Drizzle is mine,” he said. “But I asked Rafe and Damon to take care of him, upstairs in the nursery, as a favor to me, because Drizzle needs them. If you agree to the plan, that is.” Her husband seemed again like a boy, in that moment.

Sabrina hauled the pup into her lap and allowed that hewas quite cute. “Drizzle is not the same—”

“Pup who wet my boots?” Gideon, the boy, shrugged. “He will acclimate. He simply gets excited around people.”

Fast as lightening, Sabrina lifted the pup from her lap, but not fast enough.

Drizzle had piddled on her dress.

CHAPTER TWELVE

For the rest of that day, Sabrina and Gideon sorted life into new and uncharted order—disorder really, for despite their best efforts, chaos reigned, the more so for two happy little boys, no longer confined to the nursery.

Sabrina could not believe how well Gideon seemed to be adjusting. But she was so used to working to keep peace in volatile situations, she kept waiting for an explosion to take place. Not knowing what might set Gideon off was exhausting.

“We need to move to the country,” he said later, over an informal tea in the nursery. “London is no place to raise children. My house in Hertfordshire is perfect. Damon and Rafe can each have their own rooms, off a huge nursery. Plenty of grass and trees outside to romp with Mincemeat and Drizzle. The stables and kennels are larger as well.”

“Stables big enough for ponies?” Rafe asked.

“Ponies?” Damon said. “Can we have ponies?”

Sabrina blushed. “Boys, please. Your manners.”

The twins ran with the possibilities of life in the country. They talked so quickly of plans and projects, and with such overwhelming excitement, that Damon spilled his milk.

When everybody rose to move out of flood range, or to clean the spill, Mincemeat jumped on the table, lapped some milk and ate some shortbread. By the time they got the cat down, Drizzle was standing on a chair, tail wagging, eating a scone.

Sabrina saw her frightened boys move out of the way, expecting a reprimand, or worse, until they saw that Gideon was laughing, and released their breaths.

Tears sprang to Sabrina’s eyes.

“Bree, what is wrong?” Gideon asked, worried. He went to her, the boys one step behind him.

“Thank you for not being angry,” she said. “This is silly. I never cry. It is just that everything is happening so fast.”

Rafe rubbed her back, Damon her arm, and Gideon realized they were used to caring for their mother, themselves. As she was used to caring for them—without him.

He was still an outsider, likely always would be.

As a child, the knowledge had carved a raw and heavy place in his small chest. Old feelings—very old—of yearning, inferiority, and unworthiness threatened to swamp him, even in memory. Always, it had seemed that he stood to the side, insignificant, desperate for attention, never daring to hope for affection.

He moved to the window. He knew his place now and he was comfortable with it. Even with this new family, he knew where he stood, and he accepted the position. He would watch over them, from afar.

“Perhaps we should slow our pace a bit,” he said, turning to face them. “Accept our new situation, become comfortable with it, before we make any significant changes.”

Sabrina laughed, almost with hysteria, and Gideon regarded her with concern.

“You might not have noticed,” she said, attempting a smile and failing. “But we have undergone several, significant changes already, and there are more on the way.”

More changes, Gideon wondered, or more babies, plural, as in twins again? He shivered.

Sabrina regarded her belly and then him. “I am in no condition to pack up a household and move it fifty miles to the north.”

“I had not noticed,” Gideon said, sharing a smile with her, which reminded him of their nights alone in the big bed upstairs, and brought him back from the window into their tenuous family circle. In that moment, he almost felt as if anything could happen.

Could they become something of a family, however patched and disjointed?

This was not a question to be answered in a day, Gideon knew, or asked ever, or even expected. He knew better than that. But he had to try.

If he tread carefully, he might even carve his own special place among them, a place where they wanted, needed him, to be. More, a place where they welcomed him.

And twenty minutes later, as Damon and Rafferty dragged him, each by a hand, toward the stables, so they could show Sabrina the other pups, hope blossomed in Gideon’s breast.

Before the amazing day came to an end, beds needed to be fashioned for the animals and arrangements made for Doggett to oversee the boys as they handled Drizzle’s walks and Mincemeat’s outdoor jaunts.

Mr. Chalmer was pleased to find all his limbs intact, after he slipped in a suspicious puddle in the foyer.

Mrs. Chalmer agreed not to turn the cat into its name, after she found Mincemeat up on the sideboard eating her dinner ham. For a cat with only three legs, that feline could certainly get around.

Miss Minchip, however, went on strike that night, just after Gideon and Sabrina relegated the boys to the nursery for the night. “Two boys are one thing,” said she, back ramrod straight, hands trembling with indignance. “But animals? And one of them Satan’s own spawn. Well,” she huffed. “I am simply too old for such nonsense.”

Gideon apologized for his thoughtlessness and offered the sharp old bird a generous stipend to oversee the nursery, animals and all, with two days off weekly to rest and recover. He even allowed that Mr. Waredraper could assist her when sewing did not rank high on his list of priorities. Yes, of course, she would remain in charge of the nursery at all times.

Miss Minchip grew younger before his eyes.

Once she took the boys in hand, Gideon vowed silently that he would create a place for himself in this new family of his. They needed him. Whether they wanted him was another issue, but that would be their choice. It mattered not to him, one way or the other.

As he prepared to retire, finally, he could not seem to locate his wife.

His life, he concluded as he searched, was noisier, crazier, more alive, and definitely more challenging with Sabrina and her boys in it.

Yes, she had concealed a colossal fragment of information, namely the existence of twin sons, which she should have revealed before the wedding, not days later.

Well, come to that, she had not revealed their presence at all, had she?

Nevertheless, after the boys’ revelations, Gideon understood her reasoning, all too well. What he did not understand was why she seemed now to be missing. Already he knew her for a worthier and stronger woman than to run away.

On their wedding night, when he wanted his husbandly rights, she had not really run, she had simply needed to come to terms with her new circumstances, and she decided to do so in the library. Nor did she run when he became surly yesterday morning, she had simply refused to respond to his orders, putting him in his place, which, he supposed, he deserved.

But her disappearance, tonight, seemed very much like running.

He found her, finally, at her desk, where he had located her that morning. She paled when she saw him and put her papers away, as she had done then, almost as if she were hiding something.

But no, he was being overly suspicious, after finding the boys, which, he reminded himself, he understood. When she rose to greet him, however, neither her smile nor her color returned to her face. “Gideon, I realize that you must be—”

“Shh,” he said, crossing her lips with a finger. “No apologies, no excuses, however worthy, are necessary. I know.”

Her face paled to flour paste. “What do you know?”

“That their father did not like noisy boys. You had spent years hiding them from a man you knew. Of course you would protect them from one you did not.”

When she made to speak, he shushed her, again. “I seek neither affirmation or denial, nor do I expect you to share any part of your past that you wish to keep to yourself. My intent is not to take advantage of any misplaced guilt you might feel, or to extract the details of your first less-than-good marriage—your words. I simply wish to assure you that you have not entered a similar, disagreeable union with me.”

He placed her trembling hand on his arm, covered it with his own and led her from the sitting room and up the stairs toward their suite. “Hear my promise: I am the son of such a father. I will never be such a one.” He stopped before the door to her bedchamber and raised a brow. “However … if there exist any other skeletons you might be hiding, now would be the time to reveal them.”

Sabrina thought of the villain who purchased her, and his purpose in doing so. And she knew that no man, no matter his apparent kindness, could turn a blind eye to that sordid a truth.

Not about his own wife.

Not even this man.

So rather than answer, Sabrina turned to her new husband, put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

Another day, another sale, she thought, even as she slipped, heart and soul, into the kiss … into her first-ever seduction. What difference to a body, bartered so many times, that another, more or less, meant nothing. Besides, she owed him for his gentleness and understanding.

“Oh, my dearest Sabrina, do not toy with a drowning man.” Gideon opened his mouth over hers and gave himself into to her keeping. “Do with me as you will.”

Sabrina almost wanted to smile then. Fancy that, a man who could please her even as he purchased her. A man who carried her to her bedchamber like some knight of old.

This man was an enigma, as was she, even unto herself.

For inasmuch as Sabrina was trading herself for her husband’s kindness and trust, however misplaced, an amazing streak of anticipation shivered her limbs, tightened her breasts and throbbed her womb.

At this moment, Sabrina St. Goddard knew herself less than she knew her strange new husband, with his magic hands and his disarming smile.

Her body and mind once again acting independently of each other, Sabrina ached for fulfillment, for the ecstasy she suspected only Gideon St. Goddard could engender.

Wanton. Slut. In her father’s words, in her first husband’s, the oft-repeated accusations echoed in her mind. But as if Gideon heard them as well, he altered them. “Sweet, innocent Sabrina. My dearest, my wife.”

As he sat her on her bed, Gideon did not simply remove her stockings; he peeled them slowly down, kissing every inch of trembling flesh he exposed along the way.

From her thigh to her toes, he nibbled her.

“Twenty one blasted buttons,” he bit out, just before he spread her bodice to expose her mended petticoat of washing silk over her equally tattered shift. “No stays,” he said. “Thank God.”

Sabrina shook her head. She fretted over her shabby underpinnings. He worried about how quickly he could remove them.

Such a twinkle lit his eyes, she chuckled. “Stays and nine-month babies do not a happy union make.”

“No more than stays and randy husbands,” said he with a wicked wink.

Her hands seemed to cup his face of their own accord, but once she had touched him in that intimate and wifely way, she liked the gesture as much as he. Emboldened, she brought his kind and handsome face to hers to initiate a second kiss, a third, and when he raised his head, many, many, minutes later, she brought him to her breasts.

Through the linen of her shift, Gideon teased the aching nubbin until a sharp and shocking stab of desire shot straight to her center. She arched and slid her hands into the silken hair at his nape, cool and elegant, and for the first time, she thought of him as hers.

Against cruelty she could perhaps be strong. Against gentleness, she had no defense.

“More,” she said. “Gideon, give me more.”

“Madam,” he said pulling away, lighting a candle on the night-table. “You shall have all you can take, but I must be allowed to watch as you do.”

Then he began to remove his clothes.

And so she watched him as boldly as he had watched her and he slowed his pace for her delectation. By the time he unfastened his last stud and removed his shirt, Sabrina imagined, with a frisson of anticipation, running her hands over the mat of hair on his firm, muscled chest.

His shoes went next, then his stockings. But he paid such attention to her watching him that he tripped removing them. Sabrina did not know that any part of the sex act could bring laughter, but then Gideon St. Goddard had already taught her more lessons than she could count.

Her wicked as sin Duke, and so he especially appeared this night, held her gaze as he undid the flap on his pantaloons, first one side and then the next, and lowered them ever so slowly. Pure, undiluted torture.

Need, anticipation, stroked Sabrina in a physical way. So much so that she sat up to watch, openly curious, as the first man she might actually want as her lover began to slip his drawers down his legs.

Male perfection and all hers.

Gideon’s sex sprang free, huge and throbbing, and Sabrina wondered how she could have imagined that portion of his anatomy as harmless.

He came and stripped her of the last vestiges of her own clothing, gently, layer by layer, planting more kisses as he went. He last removed her petticoat and shift, until she lay naked, vulnerable, and strangely unembarrassed.

Sabrina raised her chin at his blatant reaction, shot with pride that she could produce it.

Then he joined her on her bed, and he worshiped her.

Kisses, he planted everywhere. Behind her ear, near the pulse at her throat. He stopped only to suckle and learn her body.

Sabrina grew moist, needy, and still he did not touch where she ached.

She wanted to scream, to rant, to strike him.

Why did he not touch her now, when she finally wanted him to?

Her belly, he adored as he spoke to the child. If Sabrina were not so frustrated, she might giggle, such nonsense did he speak. “Gideon—”

“Shh. This is between me and the child, if you please.”

She did laugh then, swatted him, and he caught her finger and suckled it. And even that aroused her.

Just when she thought he might stroke where she most needed him to, he shifted her to her side.

She nearly did strike him then, but he had taken to kissing the small of her back, the backs of her knees, and someone whimpered. Was it her?

Then she was on her back again and he knelt between her legs. “Oh, no. Gideon, no, the baby.”

“Shh, sweet. I will not hurt the babe, but I will pleasure his mother until she cries for mercy.”

“Mercy,” Sabrina whispered as he spread her legs and kissed her, there, where every nerve clamored and pulsed.

“Mercy,” she cried a bit louder when he spread her nether lips and—

“Mercy,” she shouted. “Oh, my God. Gideon, do not. Stop. Do not...stop. Do not stop.”

Gideon grinned and went back to giving her his undivided attention.

Sabrina screamed, and she begged, and she wept with pleasure, as her remarkably talented husband created an escalating wonder of magic inside her. He took her beyond heaven once, and again, and by the third time, she thought she might swoon.

“Gideon. No more. I cannot, not again.”

“Ah, but you can,” said he, too cocky by half. “Just one more time.”

Twice more, she spiraled upward and shattered into starlike pieces, hot and sparkling. And while she floated, he lay down beside her and kissed her, and kissed her, and neither of them could get enough of those kisses, or of each other.

No sooner did she take him into her hand than he spilled his seed against her belly. And such a warmth flooded her at the intimacy that she drifted to sleep, very much afraid, that if she were not careful, she might be foolish enough to fall in love with her rogue of a bridegroom.

* * *

“What the devil?” Gideon shouted some time later. “Lord, the bed is wet!” he said, standing naked and shocked beside it. “Have I married a bed-wetter?”

Sabrina woke enough to understand her discomfort. “The baby,” she whispered, as surprised as he. “The baby is coming.”

“Oh, good God.” Gideon ran somewhat in circles as he attempted and failed to hop, literally, into his pantaloons, not a stitch covering him, his ballocks swinging, as if in the breeze. “But it is too early,” he shouted in a panic. “What have I done?”

“The twins came early, and rather fast,” she said, slipping her nightrail over her head, trying to reassure him, but wanting so very badly to laugh, instead.

“Yes, but there were two of—Oh, good God,” he said, again.

Sabrina did laugh, then, for he looked just too comical to believe.

To her surprise, her door opened and the twins came strolling in, uninvited, unannounced—without Miss Minchip, fortunately,—Rafe cradling Mincemeat, Damon bouncing Drizzle on his shoulder.

These midnight visits would have to stop, Sabrina thought, while the boys watched Gideon fighting with his pantaloons.

“He gots a long ding-dong,” Rafe said.

Damon snorted. “Mine is bigger.”

And Gideon stopped to gape at them.

Sabrina choked as she laughed, and found it terribly difficult to do both, while she endured her first honest to goodness birthing pain. “No doubt about it. This is it,” she said, bracing herself on the bedpost.

Gideon paled to bleached muslin when he perceived her discomfort. “What have I done?” he whispered, as if to himself, but she heard. And so did the boys.

“This is not your fault,” Sabrina said.

“I am a selfish bastard, er, your pardon, boys, Sabrina. What can we do to help?” Finally in his pantaloons, with bare feet and an open shirt, Gideon placed a hand on each boy’s shoulder.

Touched by that sign of fatherly protectiveness—if only it might last—Sabrina felt suddenly like weeping. “If you could take the boys up to Miss Minchip, ah—” She clapped a hand to her back. “And find the note that Lady something or other sent me with the midwife’s direction. It is around someplace.” She endured yet another contraction.

As much shocked as confused by the sudden turn of events, and by Sabrina’s flighty directions, Gideon watched her catch her breath, straighten and begin to strip the wet bed. “Sabrina, do not tax yourself. Get one of the—”

“Moving will help,” she said. “Ease the way. Go now. Take the boys up. And hurry, please.”

‘Twas thirty minutes, before he returned. “I sent for a doctor, but he was not to be found. Now I have sent for the midwife. I finally located the note with her direction in your desk in the sitting room.”

Sabrina stilled and Gideon waited for her to say something more, but she simply released a long breath.

By then, he saw, she had made up the bed, with an oilcloth beneath the linens, and ropes tied to the bedposts. She had set out basilicum powder and scissors, needle, thread, absorbent cloth and two basins.

Gideon paled when he saw them.

“I cannot pick you up off the floor,” Sabrina said, as another pain seemed to suck her into its jaws. “Do not swoon,” she screamed.

As if he would.

“I thought that perhaps Miss Minchip could help you,” he said, going to her, sponging her brow. “But she became as quick a case of nerves as I. Worse.” Gideon shrugged helplessly.

Sabrina reached for him, thank God, and he took her into his arms and held her tight, wishing he could keep her safe from all life’s harm.

“Do not leave me,” he whispered. “Please, Sabrina.”

“I am not going to die, much as I might wish it.”

His head snapped up. “You do not mean that.”

“Because I might wish death would end the pain, not because I do not want to live,” she said. “Of course I want to live. I must. I have children to care for.”

Gideon wished she wanted to live because of him, but that was foolishness.

“Where would you prefer me?” he asked soberly. “Here with you or downstairs waiting for the midwife?”

“The midwife,” she said, and nearly broke him.

Gideon left, unable to speak for his disappointment.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Gideon pounced on the midwife the second she breached the door, but the stench of her pickled breath and unwashed body sent him reeling back. “What the devil?”

“Maggs the midwife,” said she, curtseying and tottering against the open door. “At’cher servich, yer Grache.”

Gideon barely understood a word, so slurred was her speech. “You are drunk as an Emperor,” he accused.

“Nah, jusht a bit squiffed is all. Ta brace meee-se-helf for the ordeal ahead.”

“Out,” Gideon ordered. “Your services are no longer required.”

“Your grace,” Chalmer cautioned. “Her grace will need some—”

“Not a souse. She does not need a bloody drunken harlot for midwife. Out,” he said again. “Now.”

The midwife gasped, cursed, and squinted at her accuser. “Lay-deee Ver-hon-hic-haaa shall hear about thish.” Maggs raised her nose, harrumphed, turned on her heel, and tumbled her tangle-footed way down the front steps.

“Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” Gideon said. “Pick her up, give her a guinea, and send her on her bosky way.” He shut the door on the sight of his retainers righting the lush, dusting his hands of the grime he imagined must linger in her wake. “There.”

“But, your grace. Who will, er, assist the Duchess?”

Gideon ran his hand through his hair. “Mrs. Chalmer surely has exper—”

“Went to her sister’s in Cheapside, not three hours ago. Children come down with the spots.”

Gideon raised his chin, squared his shoulders and took the stairs two at a time. He would tell Sabrina that she would have to wait until the doc—

Every candle in the bedchamber blazed.

In the middle of the huge four-poster, her legs bent, her back arched, a feral animal sound issuing from her throat, Sabrina labored alone.

The sight, the sound, his wife’s isolation in her struggle, were like to cut Gideon to the quick.

He would never forget any of it. Neither would he allow her to struggle alone. He tore off his coat and released his cuff studs. “The midwife was disgusting,” he said, taking her hand. “Unwashed, reeking of gin, and God knows what else. Disease-ridden as well, no doubt. Did you say that someone recommended the woman?”

The pleading look Sabrina gave him, when she finally lowered her back to the bed and closed her eyes in exhaustion, turned his heart over in his chest and brought it up into his throat. “I sent her away,” he confessed. “I had to, Bree.”

Her look incredulous, his wife appeared too breathless, too exhausted to speak.

“Tell me what I must do,” he said, dipping a cloth into the warm, soapy water that she had prepared.

He sponged her face and her neck. “I want to help, but you must tell me, Sweetheart, what to do. I am sorry. I am so sorry that I did this to you with my selfish lust. I would not blame you if you never forgave me. But let me help you, now. Please.”

She stopped his ministrations, took and kissed the back of his hand. “He is almost here. Just catch him when he comes.” She started to twist again, her stomach to mound. Then she raised herself on her elbows, pulled her legs back, and pushed.

Gideon did not know which of them perspired more, which was more like to scream.

“Now,” she shouted. “Catch him now.”

Gideon went to the foot of the bed and watched amazed as a bloody, wiggling bundle of screaming humanity slipped into his waiting hands. He looked up at his wife, awed and shaken by what he had just witnessed. “A girl,” he said, the lump in his throat making further speech impossible.

At Sabrina’s direction, he cut and tied the cord, his knees going to water. Then he bound the baby’s belly. And when he made to lift her, the mite waved her arms as if she were losing her balance. So he brought her close against him, and she nuzzled his neck, clutching him with the tiniest little hands he ever saw, as if...she needed him.

Gideon knew that he would never be the same again. “There’s my girl,” he crooned. “You are safe. Do not fret, little one, I will keep you safe.”

As Sabrina regarded them, her sparkling violet eyes bright and alive with some heady emotion he could not fathom, she smiled. Sabrina St. Goddard, the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld. Radiant. “This little one must be the second most beautiful sight in the world,” he said, gazing into Sabrina’s eyes in such a way as to make her understand that, she was the first.

With the babe clinging to him, filling his arms, his heart, Gideon had not felt so protective, so needed, or so strong and capable in his entire thirty-four years.

Sincerely loathe to relinquish the wiggling bundle, he nevertheless carried her toward the bed, while near his ear the mite squeaked and cooed and made soft, sweet suckling noises.

His grin grew so wide, of its own volition, he could barely contain it.

“I think you should name her,” Sabrina said, still breathing heavily, looking weak but satisfied. “After all, you delivered her.”

“You delivered her, make no mistake, but I would— Never mind. Here she is.”

“Wait,” Sabrina said arching, appearing to be in pain again.

“Oh Good Lord,” Gideon said, placing the babe on the bed and covering her with a corner of the blanket. “Is there another?” He went back toward the foot of the bed. “Is it twins?

Sabrina groaned and laughed at the same time, quite an odd sound. “No, thank God. It is only the afterbirth. I can feel it coming.”

Gideon received the afterbirth in a basin as Sabrina directed, then he called for one of the maids to dispose of it.

“You are certain,” he said, his heart still pounding, “that there is not another babe?”

Sabrina shook her head as she took her new daughter and put her to her breast. “I am certain.”

“I ask because you are bleeding heavily.” The amount of blood that flowed with the afterbirth had disturbed him greatly. “So much bleeding cannot be good,” he said, feeling foolish. “Of course you would bleed, but what do you require? I mean, I do apologize, but I do not know what to do for you.”

“The babe’s nursing will slow the flux,” Sabrina said. “Fold one of the cloths for now, will you, and place it between my legs?”

After everything, Gideon could not believe that she blushed when she asked.

“Later,” she said, “after I rest, I will wash.”

Placing the padding between her legs, Gideon found himself shocked by the terrifying amount of blood pooled there.

His head swam, his stomach roiled, and the floor rose up to greet him.

No sooner did he land, however, than he heard the baby wailing furiously, and Sabrina calling his name, both sounds coming to him as if through a long and deep tunnel.

The lightheadedness had come upon him so quickly, he had been caught unaware, but now he turned his head toward the sounds and, despite the dip to the floor and the spin in the room, Gideon moved his arms and legs to brace himself and attempt to rise.

Once he was up, he placed one foot in front of the other and made his way around the bed, determined not to go down again.

His wife and his daughter needed him.

Sabrina’s concern, he could tell, despite her attempt to hide it, was tempered with a good deal of amusement. He cared not. He had reached her when she most needed him, which was all that mattered.

“Sit there, on the bedside chair,” she said. “And lower your head between your knees. That should help.”

Gideon slipped, rather than sat, in the chair and did as she bid.

Foolish as the position seemed, the ridiculous contortion did help clear his foggy brain considerably. When he felt almost normal again, he raised his head, rested it against the chair-back and closed his eyes.

“Good,” Sabrina said. “Rest for a few minutes. You have had a difficult time of it.”

“You need not sound so amused,” Gideon said, not bothering to open his eyes while the bedchamber continued to waltz about him. “You have quite established your superiority in the birthing department.”

“I have had practice. Double practice, when you come down to it. Did you hurt yourself when you fell, though it was more a fold and glide type of swoon you performed. Very neat.”

He opened one eye. “If you ever,ever, tell anyone that I swooned at the birth, I will beat you.”

Sabrina giggled. “Sorry. I already perceive that you will not.”

“Thank you,” Gideon said. “That is the nicest compliment you have paid me to date. However, lest we lose track of the subject, let me say that you also had more than a few days to prepare for this.”

“I did, and for the first time, I did not give birth alone. Thank you. You were magnificent.” She had not seen her first husband for two months before the twins’ birth, for he considered her useless to him, then. Neither did she see him for three months after, praise be, because the tardy and remorseful midwife had frightened him with tales of birth fever spread through a woman’s bloody after-flux.

“Are you up to calling a maid to take and bathe the baby,” Sabrina asked her husband. “I think she is finished nursing for the moment.”

By then, Gideon seemed to have regained enough of his equilibrium to stand and perform the menial task she assigned him.

By the time the maid answered his summons, Gideon seemed more himself. But he appeared loathe to let young Alice take the baby away. “Prepare two basins of warm water,” he told her. “And bring them here.”

Gideon took the fretting babe from Sabrina’s arms, then, and the mite’s squeaky, little whimpers calmed the minute he cuddled and crooned to her, almost as if she knew him.

Sabrina caught her trembling lip between her teeth. “I repeat, she is yours to name, as she believes you are hers to command.”

Gideon sat on the bed beside her, the babe cradled in his protective embrace. “I would not mind if she thought of me as her Papa. The boys, too, except that they knew their father, so perhaps they would not care to. At any rate, it might be best to allow them to decide. It matters not to me, of course.”

“Of course,” Sabrina said, getting for herself a rare glimpse of the true Gideon St. Goddard.

“But how would you feel if they did call me Papa, eventually?”

His wife’s hesitation eroded the thread of expectation Gideon refused to name.

“You are a good man, Gideon St. Goddard. I know you are, and yet I feel compelled to remind you that they are but babes, the three of them. I will not have anyone hurt them. Not again. I will not.”

Gideon did not know what to say to that. He understood her warning, was humbled that she considered him good at all, especially when he considered all the ways in which he was not. He understood her need to protect her children.

If only she understood that he would protect them as fiercely, himself. With his dying breath, if needs be.

Sabrina covered his hand with her own. “What shall we call her?”

“Juliana, perhaps?” Gideon dared suggest. “I have loved the name since I was a child. It is my grandmother’s.”

“Oh, I like that.”

Gideon wondered how someone who had just endured so much could remain so beautiful.

“I like it very well, indeed. Juliana St. Goddard.”

The sound of it gave Gideon a quick and pleasant flood of warmth in the region of his cold rogue’s heart. Juliana would carry his name. Of course, she would; he was married to her mother. “Thank you,” he said, sincerely moved, though he gave his thanks for so much more than her allowing him to name her daughter.

Alice, the maid, brought Gideon’s basins of warm, soapy water, and he set himself up to supervise the girl’s attempt at bathing the babe. He ignored his wife’s raised brow at his high-handed tactics, because, well, this was important.

“Be careful she does not fall,” he cautioned Alice. “Hold her head. No, watch her belly, the cord.” And finally, he all but elbowed the poor maid out of his way and sent her up to the nursery for his old cradle.

Gideon proceeded to take great care and inordinate pleasure in giving Juliana her first bath. “Did you ever see such tiny fingernails in your life?” he asked Sabrina, earning himself a muffled giggle in reply.

After that, he did not deign to look in the direction from which the uncivil squeak had come, he simply directed his conjecture toward the beautiful and wide-eyed babe, herself. “And look at your little toes,” he crooned. “And your perfect little button nose, exactly like your amused Mama’s.”

Alice returned with the cradle, placed it on the floor beside Sabrina’s bed, and left again, seeming slightly less put out than before she left. Gideon carried the clean and wrapped baby back to the bed, patting her little back, loving the feel of her, warm and soft and sleepy in his arms. “Forgive me,” he said, looking down at his tired wife. “For last night.”

Sabrina touched the back of his hand to her cheek, and Gideon experienced that odd heart-flood again.

“Nothing to forgive,” she said.

“I should be whipped for my determination. My fault she came early.”

“Then I must thank you.”

Gideon examined Juliana’s tiny pink hand waving before his eyes, kissed the exquisite silk of it, and understood, for the first time in his life, the meaning, the enormity, of love. Then he looked into the eyes of her mother and understood the emotion he had not recognized earlier. Love for her daughter.

Amazing, really, that she could radiate such an abundance of that emotion, lying there, as she was, drenched in blood, and sweat, and utterly exhausted.

Though Gideon hated to let go of Juliana, he needed to tend Sabrina, so he bent on his haunches and placed his daughter in her cradle. “Is she all right, do you think?” he asked his wife, not taking his gaze from the babe.

“Beautifully healthy. Big, shiny eyes, a cry to split our ears, and she suckles as greedy as you.”

That got her husband’s eye-sparkling attention, as she intended. He had seemed melancholy somehow, though Sabrina suspected he would deny as much, if she mentioned it.

“You did enjoy myministrations last night,” he said looking up at her, his hunter’s eyes bright, intense. “Five maybe six times, if I remember correctly.”

Sabrina groaned. “I will never mention the swoon again, if you never mention the five or six times.”

“It was seven, but I will never mention it again.”

“Liar,” she accused.

“Here,” he said, pulling her blanket back. “Let me wash you and get you into a clean fresh bed, so you can sleep while Juliana does.”

“Oh, Gideon, no.”

But he did not listen, for which she was immensely embarrassed, but ever so much more grateful.

Disconcerting as his bathing her—though no worse than his sexual attentions the night before, or his help during the delivery—Sabrina gloried in her husband’s gentleness and concern.

He washed her tenderly with the warm, soft, soapy cloth, and before she knew it, he was carrying her into his bedchamber and placing her in his bed.

Then, it seemed, hours had passed, and he was slipping into the huge bed beside her with a screaming Juliana in his arms. Sabrina found his kissing her brow, deliciously pleasant upon waking.

Her rogue was dressed and shaved, handsomer today than yesterday. “Good morning Sleepyhead,” he said. “You have had a good rest, I hope. Alice is already next door putting your bedchamber to rights, and here is one hungry little girl wanting her Mama.” He turned to their fretful babe. “Here she is, Sweetpea.”

Juliana was frantic and Sabrina blushed as she untied the bodice of her gown to bare her breast. As Gideon placed her new daughter—their new daughter—in her arms, Juliana latched ravenously onto her nipple.

Lying on her side, Sabrina settled her daughter to suckle, smoothing an amazing thatch of black curls from her tiny brow. And an overwhelming sense of well-being, of rightness, enveloped her. A new experience that, and one she prayed fervently would continue.

Gideon moved her gown aside, away from Juliana’s face so he could see her, and as he did, the babe caught and curled her hand around his finger, bringing it tight against Sabrina’s breast as she nursed.

“I had better stop trying to decide which of you is more beautiful,” Gideon said, his voice raw with emotion. “And tell you that being here with the two of you, like this, is probably the best gift I have ever received.”

Sabrina saw love for Juliana, clear as a summer breeze, in her husband’s warm, sea-green eyes, and realized what an error she might have made in warning him away. How, now, to tell him she would be pleased to have her children call him Papa, without bringing her warning to mind?

“Who else but Juliana’s Papa should be here,” she said.

And Gideon understood her offer. She saw the wary gratitude in his eyes and accepted his thanks with his kiss.

* * *

The watcher leaned heavily on his cane, as he stood across the street from number twenty-three Grosvenor Square. He needed desperately to know what was going on inside Stanthorpe Place.

The tormented man had recently returned from hell only to find that a worse perdition awaited him.

But before he could face his own devils, he had a score to settle here. Except that he needed to know in which direction the settling needed to be done.

This was, in fact, his first visit, but he had come too soon, he realized now. More time would have to pass, more healing would have to take place, before he recovered enough to return.

And return he would.

Integrity and honor would be rewarded and bounders would be made to pay the price.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When Gideon got to the nursery to fetch the boys to come and see their baby sister for the first time, Damon and Rafe were playing, but when Rafe looked up, he also looked worried.

Gideon sat in the chair, indicated by Miss Minchip. He especially wanted to give this more reserved of the twins his full attention. Rafferty would notice and feel keenly any distraction on his part. Unlike the happily playing Damon, who rarely saw the little things, because he was so busy flitting from one exciting aspect of life to the next, Rafferty missed nothing.

Gideon lifted Rafe onto his lap. “And what is on your mind, young man?”

“Is Mama sick? She looked sick last night.”

“She did not, Beetle-brain.”

“Bird-wit!”

“Nodcock!”

Gideon chuckled. “Mama is feeling fine this morning, and she wants you both to come and see the surprise we have for you.”

The pronouncement garnered Damon’s immediate and wide-eyed attention as it did Rafferty’s skeptical reserve.

“What kind of surprise?” Rafe asked

Gideon grinned. “You will have to wait and see.”

Damon ran straight to the nursery door. Rafferty shrugged his shoulders and followed cautiously behind.

For once they, neither of them, thought to take their pets.

Walking beside Gideon, Damon raised a seeking hand his way. Gideon was touched and humbled as he took the small hand in his own. The eager child bounced, pulled ahead, swung back and all but stood on his hands, asking questions all the way down the stairs.

Rafe kept to Gideon’s exact pace, giving each and every one of his answers to Damon’s questions his full attention. Gideon could almost see the workings of Rafe’s mind reflected in his expressions, as he measured and weighed those answers.

Sabrina was back in her own bed, washed, dressed, coifed, and smelling of lilacs, and she beamed when she saw them, and held out a tiny bundle, wrapped like a mummy, for their inspection.

“A brother?” Damon asked, excited.

“A sister,” Sabrina said. “Juliana.”

Rafferty shook his head. “Send it back. I really rather have a brother.”

“You have a brother,” Damon said, affronted. “Me.”

“I want one Ilike.”

Damon shrugged. “Too bad.” He grinned. “I wanted a dog and I got one, so a sister is fine, I guess. Can we bring her to the nursery to play, now?”

Gideon chuckled. “A little soon for that, I think. Juliana will stay with your Mama for a while.”

Juliana screwed up her face for a moment, then she calmed and blew a bubble and everyone laughed.

Damon regarded his mother. “We should show her to the man watching us from across the street. He seems sad and I think Juliana would make him laugh.”

Gideon sobered, but his wife bristled. No, more than that, she shuddered. Her face lost color, her eyes darkened and, yes, she pulled Juliana just the smallest bit closer.

“What the deuce?” Gideon asked, questioning all of it, not the least of which was Damon’s ludicrous tale. “Damon,” he warned. “You are frightening your Mama.”

“Damon,” Sabrina said. “You know what I told you about making up stories.”

“But the man is real, Mama. He watched the house for a long time this morning, and he is bent and old and leans on his cane. He is as ugly like a hideous beast and scary as a ferocious dragon.” Damon growled for good measure.

Rafferty laughed. “What a cork-brained whisker.”

“Is not, clod-pole. He even reminds me of someone.”

“Who?” Rafe scoffed. “The dragon you keep beneath the bed?”

“What do you know, paper-skull?”

“I know I did not see anyone.”

“It was early, mutton-breath. You were still sleeping.”

“Dragon brain.”

“Boys. Enough,” Sabrina said.

At first, Gideon was afraid Veronica had sent someone to harm Sabrina. But while his spiteful former mistress was certainly capable, Damon’s dragon put the unlikelihood into perspective.

Gideon lifted Damon onto the edge of the bed to sit beside Sabrina. “Damon, is something bothering you?”

The boy shook his head, changed his mind mid-way, and nodded. “Sort of.”

Gideon regarded Sabrina, and in a bit of silent communication, he understood that she wanted him to continue. “Tell us what is wrong, Damon, and let us help you solve your problem.”

Damon sighed. “I just—”

His new sister sneezed, diverting his attention before he looked back at Gideon. “I need to know what you think Juliana should call you. You know, when she is smart enough to talk and all, ‘cause she might be worried about that.”

“Ah.” Gideon lifted Rafe to perch beside his twin.

Again, Gideon sought and received Sabrina’s approval before responding. “I have considered the problem, myself,” he said.

Damon’s eyes widened. “Honestly?”

“Honestly. I thought, because Juliana never knew your father that she can have no problem calling me Papa, if she wishes.”

He watched their faces. Damon’s expression fell as Rafferty’s tightened.

“Now, if you asked what you and Rafferty might call me,” Gideon went on, skewering Damon’s attention. “I would have to say that the decision must be yours. I have many names. You could call me any of them and perhaps use Uncle before your choice, like Uncle Gideon or Uncle Stanthorpe. I suppose Uncle St. Goddard sounds funny. Though some of my friends just call me Saint. Uncle Saint?”

“That’s silly,” Damon said, tickled.

“It is,” Gideon agreed. “How about if you were to use Papa, rather than Uncle, before any of my names? Papa Gideon; that could work, if you wanted.”

Rafe shrugged.

Damon shook his head, not quite liking it, giving Gideon hope. “I think you had best choose either Papa Gideon or just plain Papa, then,” he said. “Again, whatever you call me will be your choice. You do not need to decide right away. Think about it for a while and decide when it is comfortable for you.”

Without a word, Rafferty slipped off the bed and headed for the door.

“Rafe,” Sabrina called. “Where are you going?”

The pensive boy turned toward his mother, keeping his hand on the knob. “Mincemeat needs me.”

“Let him go,” Gideon said.

Sabrina nodded and Rafe left.

Damon scrambled up to his mother’s side and kissed her. “I gots to go think.” Then he kissed Juliana’s tiny cheek and hopped off the bed. As he passed Gideon, he reached up and tugged his hand, holding it for a moment before he ran out.

“That went well,” Gideon said.

Sabrina looked concerned. “We shall see.”

When Damon had touched his hand, Gideon sensed a kind of connection, one he did not comprehend, as if Damon had pricked his finger but Gideon felt the pain. Gideon knew only that it made him both uncomfortable and hopeful.

This fathering business was much more demanding than he anticipated and still he did not know whether he was up to it.

A father was a man whose seed hadtaken, a man like his own. A father ignored small beings and took mothers away from same. A father sneered at questions and physically punished dirty hands and childhood transgressions. He beat rebellion out of one to first blood, and taunted weakness to the point that iniquity could be misrepresented as strength.

No wonder he was afraid to be a father. No wonder he had wanted at first to turn tail and run.

At this moment, he was feeling very much as if that might still be a good idea. What did a cold-hearted rogue like him know of children, anyway, except what kind of father not to be.

When Juliana started fussing, he took her from Sabrina. And when the babe looked up at him, as if he had all the answers in her world, Gideon realized that he would change nothing. He had become a father, whether he wanted to or not, and he would do his best to be a good one, or die trying.

After he walked Juliana for a bit and she fell asleep, he kissed her small cheek and placed her in her cradle. “There’s my sleepy girl.”

Then he bent over Sabrina. “I need to go and see my poor grandmother, who knows only that I have married, not that I have three children.”

Sabrina touched his sleeve. “If there is a man across the street—”

“I shall send him packing, posthaste, and set the runners on him.” Gideon smiled his reassurance.

“Thank you,” she said, her relief clear.

“If there is neither a phantom watcher nor a hideous dragon, however, I would like to keep previous appointments with my man of affairs and my tailor, if I possibly can. That is, if you feel you can do without me for the morning. In which case, I shall see you again at luncheon.”

Pleased that Gideon felt the need to tell his grandmother about her children, and glad he cared whether she needed him or not, Sabrina kissed him with passion when he bent to her.

“Mmm. Rest while I am gone, so you will be up to giving Papa your attention again someday soon.”

Sabrina could not rest, she was too busy fretting over Damon’s tale of a man across the street. Yes, Damon had an imagination, but he never insisted his stories into blatant lies. Details like the time of day, the fact that Rafe was sleeping, and most importantly, that the man seemed familiar, worried her. The boys had only been three when, along with her, they had been given by Brian to Lowick, so they might very well find Lowick familiar.

And Lowick might be hideous now. In her defensive assault with the rusty blade she found in his cellar, she could easily have scarred him, though, God help her, she had hoped she killed him.

More than ever, she wanted to tell Gideon about the man she was sold to for the price of her husband’s gambling debts. Life was good here at Stanthorpe Place. Safe. Gideon cared for her in his own way. He cared for the children. But how would he feel, if he knew about her shameful past?

Whether he knew of it or not, he would protect her, of that she was certain. So, if she already had his protection, why risk telling him?

There was the problem. The risk. And she was not willing to take it. Decision made.

Not that she did not trust, Gideon, precisely. She trusted him more than she did most men, especially her first husband. Yes, she was hiding money from him, which she kept in her desk, where, he had come upon her twice now. But she kept it for a reason. In the event Lowick located her, she would need the money to get away. Except that for the first time in her life, she did not want to leave.

Here, she was safe. Here, her children were safe. Here, even her money was safe, for if Gideon did find it, he would not take it. She simply did not want to explain its existence. She had worked hard for that money for years, sewing, writing letters, washing clothes.

Her first husband used to search out and steal her secreted coins when he could, until she began sewing them, individually, into the flat, oilcloth belly-bands the twins wore beneath their diapers.

If not for the money she had kept from Brian’s greedy hands, she might never have gotten herself and the twins away from Lowick and safely to Hawksworth.

If they were safe.

In weak moments, Sabrina very much feared that Brian’s fall into the Thames had not come about by accident, as the runners thought, that Homer Lowick had pushed Brian, because her flight negated the payment of his gambling debts.

In weak moments, she expected to come face to face with Homer Lowick at every turn.

But here they were safe.

Gideon would keep them safe.

* * *

Gideon’s paternal grandmother, now the Dowager Duchess of Basingstoke, regarded Gideon as if he had grown horns and a tail. “Three of them?”

Gideon nodded. “Two boys and a girl.”

His grandmother shook her head. “I said to get yourself a bride and an heir, not someone else’s heirs.”

“The boys are scamps.” Gideon grinned. “Damon has enough energy to power Trevithick’s locomotive. As a matter of fact,Catch-me-who-can is a good way to describe that one. And his twin, Rafferty, Rafe, is going to be a great thinker someday. They are full of questions and make me dizzy sometimes.”

Gideon regarded his grandmother’s appalled expression. “I thought I should run when I first saw them, but you will never believe—”

“I begin to think I can believe anything.”

“I rather like them,” Gideon said. “Sticky fingers, pup puddles, and all.”

“That will pass.”

“Not before I get some of my own, I hope.”

“Are you ill?” his grandmother rose and tested his brow with the back of her frail hand. “What have you done with my heartless rogue of a grandson?”

Gideon took her hand, smoothed his thumb over her translucent, parchment-like skin and kissed her knuckles. “We named the new babe, Juliana.”

His grandmother blinked at the welling of tears in her eyes before turning her hand to cup his cheek. “I do not remember ever having felt so honored.”

She squared her shoulders and reclaimed her composure. “I was afraid that your selfish parents had put you off marriage for good. I expected to have to bully you into getting yourself an heir.”

Gideon chuckled. “Pray do not tell me how you planned to accomplish that,” he said. “The picture in my mind is infamous.”

“Rude boy.” She kissed the top of his head and Gideon made to rise.

“No, sit, sit. That was not a dismissal. I shall call for tea. Eventually, I want to hear about every member of your new family, especially about your bride. But first, let me tell you something I learned about your brother and Veronica Cartwright.”

* * *

Gideon returned to Stanthorpe Place later than he expected, because he had made a call at Bow street, after all, and set them to looking into Lady Veronica Cartwright’s dealings and finances.

When he entered his study, he found Chalmer trying to clean an ink stain the size of a dinner plate off the oriental carpet.

Gideon smiled when he saw it, not because he disliked the carpet, but because of the inky paw prints weaving in and out of the stain in all directions. “Throw it out and purchase a new one,” Gideon said. “Or put it somewhere beneath a bed or a sofa.”

He went up to the nursery to talk to the boys.

As one, they backed up when he entered.

Gideon shook his head, knowing that nothing he could say would negate their fear, that he must prove to them, over time, that he would not hurt them. “I came to see if you would like to go exploring with me later this afternoon.”

“Exploring where?” Damon asked, stepping nearer.

“This house, of course. The wonders in my study are nothing to the marvels in some of the other rooms. I have a display of Stanthorpe armor in the long gallery. Did you know that?”

Rafe’s chin went up. “You mean you will show us whatever we want to see?”

“I will not allow you to play with swords or pistols, mind, but yes, within reason, you may examine whatever you wish.”

“Ripping,” Damon said.

Rafe narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

“So we can spend some time together, get to know each other better. Like when we went hunting. So you will have a chance to examine things that interest you. So I will be able to answer your questions and keep you from breaking your heads, or whatever else on you that might get cracked. If I were there, I could prevent other breakage and spills as well. But most of all, it is your necks, I am concerned about.”

Rafe actually grinned. “Famous.”

When Gideon got to Sabrina’s bedchamber, she had just finished feeding Juliana. “How many times a day does she eat? Ten? Twenty?”

“It seems so,” she said, wiping Juliana’s milk-wet mouth. “How is your grandmother?”

“She is well, and anxious to meet her namesake, the boys and you. She will be coming to visit soon.”

“Your grandmother is coming here?”

“She is.” Gideon could not keep from taking Juliana from her cradle and putting her on his shoulder.

“What day is she coming?” Sabrina asked, re-buttoning her bodice. “Please tell me you were able to hold her off for a little while.”

“Oh I was.” Gideon bounced Juliana as he passed her by. “She should not be here for another hour at the least.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

For a week after Juliana’s birth, Gideon moved back into his own bedchamber, so Sabrina could get some sleep and recover. During those nights, he missed his wife more than he cared to admit.

On the eighth evening, he appeared in her bedchamber in his dressing gown. She sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair, and he sat beside her and took up the brush. “I miss sleeping with you,” he said. “No, it is more than that. I miss laughing with you when you are in my arms. And I miss being alone with you. We are never alone anymore.”

When Sabrina leaned against him, he encircled her with his arms and brought her close.

“And you miss playtime,” she said.

Gideon cleared his throat. “Yes, well, but not only that.”

“I am sorry that we are never alone.” She regarded him, steadily. “With three children, aloneness is a difficult state to achieve.”

“I am not complaining about the children.”

“I keep expecting you to. The twins are acting like pups, following you around as if you had a brisket bone in your pocket.” She touched his face, ran her hand over his day’s growth of beard. “Why are they not afraid of you, I wonder, with your dark, brooding looks. Wherever you go, whatever you do, they are either watching or following.”

“I had noticed, and at first I found it amusing.” He cleared his throat, embarrassed. “It is somewhat like hero worship, is it not? After a while, I did begin to feel a bit crowded. But today, when they seemed to have disappeared—” He shrugged. “Missing them bothered me.”

Sabrina rose, removed her dressing gown and climbed into her bed.

Gideon just stood there and watched, wanting her in his arms so badly, he could taste the want. Not that he needed her. But, frankly, just the wanting was an experience he found almost too uncomfortable for words.

“I saw the boys following you,” she said. “So I told them to give you some time to yourself.”

“I am sorry you did that. When you see them in the morning, tell them, first thing, to come and see me, will you? I missed them today.”

“You mean that you are not feeling suffocated?”

He liked their attention. He liked when they needed him or just wanted to show him something as simple as a garden snail they had found, but for some reason, he found himself loathe to admit it. “I decided that the unknown was worse,” he said. “Perhaps it is because when they are behind me, I at least know what they are up to.” He sighed, finding it difficult to see her and want her without hope for much longer. “I will leave you to sleep.”

“Are you not going to kiss me goodnight?”

Gideon raised his chin, determined to be strong, then he caught her smile and it was just a little too cheeky. “Wait a minute. Are you teasing me?” He needed no more provocation than that to move her way.

When she opened her arms to him, his heart tripped. “Come to bed, your grace,” said she.

Gideon shed his dressing gown in short order and took his bride in his arms as fast. This is home, he thought and sighed, aware he would have scoffed at the notion a mere month before. Despite the vulnerable implications, Gideon delighted in having Sabrina in his arms again.

“Mmm.” She kissed him.  “I have worried, that after witnessing Juliana’s birth, you would never want to sleep with me again.”

“You want me to sleep with you, then? It is not just our bargain you are fulfilling?”

“You are being precipitate.”

Gideon chuckled. “Whatever fault you may accuse me of,precipitate is not among them. Nevertheless, for now, because you are not ready for more, I want only to hold you and talk with you. I want to wake up with you to feed Juliana in the night. I—”

Sabrina looked back at him when he did not finish. “You—”

“Sound like a besotted fool.”

“Are you?”

“Whatever I am, naked with you is best. Here,” he said. “Let us remove your gown.” After they did, Gideon sighed in contentment and began to relearn his wife’s body. “Good God, half of you is missing.”

Sabrina giggled. “Not missing, sleeping in her cradle, praise be.”

“Oh, this is nice,” Gideon said. “When you are notwith child you are a fine figure of a woman, I see.”

“You see nothing; this room is as dark as the forest-green of your eyes when you are angry orneedy.”

“I see in this way,” he said, running his hands everywhere now. “No, do not tense up,” he said. “I maybeneedy but I know my limits. You still have healing to do and I promise to be on my best behavior in bed.”

Sabrina barked a laugh. “That will be the day. Gideon?”

“Yes, Sabrina.”

“I might like being naked in bed with you, too.”

It was a beginning, he thought.

* * *

Damon and Rafferty knocked on Gideon’s bedchamber door during his morning grooming.

Bilbury answered and started to send them away.

“No, Bilbury,” Gideon said. “Damon, Rafe, come in,” he called. “I missed you yesterday. How are Mincemeat and Drizzle?”

Damon sighed. “Drizzle sprinkled Miss Minchip.”

“Oops,” Gideon said.

Rafe grinned. “She was not happy. And she says that Mincemeat is getting too fat.”

“Of course he is getting fat. He is always stealing food.” Gideon thought the boys seemed intimidated by Bilbury’s ferocious presence. “Would you like to stay while Bilbury shaves me?” he asked them. “We can have amen-to-men chatwhile he does.”

The boys sat on the straight chairs Bilbury brought over, side by side, their small legs out straight. “What do men talk about during man to man chats?” Damon wanted to know.

“Man things,” Gideon explained. “You, know. Horses, racing, carriages, wom—Ah, cats and dogs.”

“We never saw a man shaved,” Damon said, standing and stepping closer. “Do you ever worry that he will cut your nose off?”

Rafferty snickered.

“No,” Gideon said. “But I thought he was going to cut my ear off, once.”

Bilbury bristled. “Your grace. I hope you know I am a better valet than to do that.”

Rafe stepped very close. “Are valets always starched and bristly?” he asked, beneath his breath, but loud enough to make Bilbury stiffen.

“Always.” Gideon winked at the boy. “And bossy, too. But you will never look finer than when your valet has turned you out.”

“Thank you, your grace.”

To Bilbury’s dismay, the boys returned the following morning at shaving time, as they did the next day, and the next, and so forth.

The morning Gideon wanted an early start, he sent Bilbury to fetch them, before allowing the man to begin.

That night in bed, Sabrina rolled into her husband’s arms. “What do you find to talk about with the boys while you are shaving? They have been raving about your man to man chats.”

“We talk about man things.” Gideon kissed his wife’s nose. “Mostly about how to please the ladies.”

Sabrina squeaked, but her husband’s mouth stopped her cold, or warm, and getting warmer.

The day his Estate Manager, James Warren, came down from Hertfordshire to meet with Gideon, the boys showed up in Gideon’s study during the meeting, so he invited them to stay.

An hour later, Sabrina opened the door in a panic. “I cannot find—”

Damon was sitting on Gideon’s lap, Rafe on Jim Warren’s. They all four waved at her standing there, dumbstruck.

“We are discussing crop rotation and horse breeding, Mama,” Rafe said. “One day, I shall have an estate of my own.”

Gideon thought Rafferty looked happier than he had ever seen.

“I am listening, too,” Damon said. “I am going to raise race horses.”

Temporarily, however, the only race horse Damon rode was Gideon, himself, daily and with enthusiasm.

Gideon thought the boy abruising rider, literally.

* * *

To stop the vicious gossip Veronica had started, Grandmama was going to give a Christmas Ball in Sabrina’s honor, it was decided after a week of discussion.

“Once everyone gets to know you, my dear,” Grandmama said, patting her hand. “They will realize what a liar that woman is.”

She regarded her grandson with a raised brow, and Sabrina saw from whence he inherited his habit of doing so. “They will also realize that my grandson’s taste in women has finally, vastly, improved.”

Gideon, in turn, looked insulted, sheepish, and proud.

Grandmama wanted to introduce her granddaughter-in-law to Society and show one and all the refined beauty who had won Stanthorpe. “The minute they meet you, Sabrina,” she declared. “They will love you as we do. And they will know exactly why Gideon married you.”

“Heaven help us all,” Sabrina said.

“But everyone who is anyone is off to the country for Christmas,” Gideon pointed out.

“Nonsense,Iam here,” Grandmama snapped. “Yes, I know that town is quiet and thin of company at this time of year, but there are enough of theright people staying through Christmas to make for a comfortable squeeze. Soon enough after the ball, word will spread to the rest.”

The day Grandmama came to pick Sabrina up for the final fitting of her ball gown, the poor old woman came upon her tough-as-nails grandson racing through the foyer, whinnying, Rafe on his back, charging him to go faster, Damon running behind.

“I shall need a month in the country, at least, to recover from that sight,” she said.

Juliana was nearly four weeks old by then and Sabrina was glad Gideon worked off his excess energy playing with the boys. Fast approaching was the day she would be well enough to consummate their marriage, and she was more skittish over that than she was at the thought of being introduced to the cream of London Society.

Two days before Christmas, Gideon, Sabrina and the children climbed into two carriages for the move across town to Grandmama’s luxurious townhouse on St. James Square. Sabrina’s ball would take place there that night.

“You must all move to my house,” Grandmama had said, several days earlier, beginning her argument. “Sabrina, you would be able to feed Juliana before the ball and return upstairs mid-way through, if needs be.” That pretty much won Sabrina over, Gideon thought. Damn, the old bird was good.

“If the boys were there, I would allow them to peek into the ballroom from the musicians gallery, early in the evening,” she said. “They would be able to see you both in your finery, dancing together at a great ball.” Gideon knew that second argument won Rafe and Damon’s approval.

“And since the day after the ball is Christmas Eve,” she added. “We can all settle in for our first family Christmas together.” This won him over, though he thought Sabrina and the boys looked less certain by then.

“It all sounded so easy, so reasonable, when Grandmama suggested all of this,” Sabrina all but wailed in the carriage on their way to Basingstoke. “But I am nervous as a cat.”

“Mincemeat is not nervous, are you fellow,” Rafe asked the cat purring in his lap.

“Which reminds me,” Gideon said to Damon. “You did take Drizzle for his walk, as I asked, right before we left?”

Damon petted his pup’s exposed belly. “He drizzled like he was s’pose to, didn’t you boy?”

The boys had not taken to calling him Papa, Gideon mused, regarding them across the carriage with their pets. Neither did they call him Papa Gideon. Damon had, the day after their talk, called him Uncle Papa, for effect, Gideon suspected, then he had rolled on the floor giggling. But nothing more had come of the conversation.

Not that it mattered.

At Basingstoke, the children, including Juliana, were settled into the nursery. Sabrina and Gideon took the master suite that Grandmama had vacated the day she lost husband number two.

The rest of the evening, he devoted to not dressing for the ball. It never took him as long to dress as his wife, so he bided his time before beginning, anxious as a boy at Christmas to see his wife in all her finery.Not in black, he thought with a smile.

Suddenly he wondered what he was doing pacing, waiting to see Sabrina in her gown, when he had much rather see her out of it.

By the time the thought was finished, he had crossed his dressing room to hers, where he found her soaking in a slipper bath before the fire, hair piled atop her head in glorious disarray, alabaster skin gleaming from the fire’s glow. “A dream come true,” he said.

Sabrina squeaked and dropped her soap. “Goodness. You startled me.”

“Why have I not caught you in your bath before?” Gideon shut the door between their dressing rooms, lest Bilbury enter on his side. “Forgive me. I could wait no longer to see you.”

“You can never wait,” she said. “You are the kind of man who would want to see the bride before the wedding.”

“Excuse me, but in our case I wanted tobed the bride before the wedding.”

“You want to bed the bride every day.”

“Every hour.” He knelt beside the tub, rolled up his sleeves and went on a search for the soap, except that he found all manner of interesting diversions. “How old is Juliana, now?”

“Not old enough. Gideon!” She slapped the water, as she went for his hands, splashing them both.

Gideon touched his forehead to hers. “I am going to expire for wanting you.”

“You have me.”

“Do I?” he asked, sober of a sudden. “Sometimes I am not so sure.”

Her maid came in then, and it was all Sabrina could do not to send poor Alice packing.

Gideon rose and left without another word, leaving Sabrina deflated and hurt by his words, despite the truth in them.

Her husband was a powerfully, sexual being, she must remember. Even without consummation, she had experienced more fulfillment in her short time with him than she had in her four-year marriage to Brian.

Then again, she could never compare the two men.

Brian felt compelled toward brutality, in and out of bed.

Gideon was a gentle man, in the true sense of the word. Yet the thought of full surrender to him still scared Sabrina witless. Not that he would hurt her. He never would. He would always put her first, whether his aim was her welfare, her wellbeing, or her sexual fulfillment.

No, it was that she would be giving up the last vestige of herself left to her. But she simply did not know whether she could continue to withhold her heart from a man who demanded everything, in all ways, and who gave her as much, though he, too, seemed to guard his heart much of the time.

She was beginning to fear, however, that she no longer wanted to withhold hers, not from Gideon, and that was the most frightening notion of all.

Sabrina swallowed against tears of confusion and turned her attention to dressing.

In his bedchamber, Gideon ached as he paced, while frustration, anger, and determination, coursed through him in turn.

All he wanted was to seduce his own damned stubborn wife, by God. He ran a hand through his thick waves. How could he blame Sabrina for shying away from so final a commitment to a worthless rogue like him?

In that moment, he felt somewhat the way he used to as he watched his parents absorption in each other, wishing that a place existed in their circle for him.

Not much in life had changed for him, except that, perhaps now, to a degree, Damon must see something,some worth in him. Else, why the boy’s continued attention, his ease and comfort in his presence? Even Rafe sought him out more often than not.

To Juliana, well, he seemed to beeverything. Heady notion. Too bad she was too small to understand her dedication.

Still, the children, theothers, they all seemed to look up to him. “So where the bloody devil am I going wrong with my own damned, stubborn wife?” he shouted.

“I am sure I do not know, your grace,” Bilbury said, coming into the room.

Ten minutes before the receiving line was due to form, Bilbury checked his appearance one last time. That his meticulous valet regarded him as if he were a work of art, encouraged Gideon. Bilbury removed a spec from his black tailed-frock-coat here, straightened its stand-fall collar there.

At the last, his fastidious valet whisked a brush down Gideon’s silver satin knee breeches, smoothed his white silk stockings and quick-buffed his black patent pumps. Within the pocket of Gideon’s white-embroidered satin waistcoat, his valet tucked his watch and fob, and last, but not least, he tied Gideon’s cravat in a perfect Oriental.

“Shall I do, Bilbury?”

His man held up a finger as if all that was required was one last touch, then he slipped Gideon’s diamond and ruby stickpin into his neck cloth and beamed. “Splendid, your grace.”

Gideon nodded. “Thank you, Bilbury.” He grabbed a flat, square, velvet box and crossed the dressing rooms into his wife’s bedchamber. There he stopped, moving and breathing. The clock struck before he could speak, and even then, he could form only one word. “Stunning.”

“But there is too little dress.” In panic, Sabrina turned before her cheval glass. “Grandmama insisted it would suit.”

“It very muchsuits,” Gideon said, calming her. “The dress and the goddess within suitme very well. Gad, I cannot believe you are mine.”

“Oh Gideon.” Tears sprang to her eyes as she stepped into Gideon’s arms and he closed them hard around her. They held each other for a time then they kissed before stepping apart. “Thank you,” she said. “I feel better now.”

“So do I.” He regarded her dress again. “What do you call the style? It is very different, yet very muchde rigueur.”

“Madame Suzette calls ita pseudo-Greek classical, Empire-style gown, over a slip of taffeta. I call itamaranthus gown with scandalous decolletage.”

He stroked her breast along the edge of it, until her eyes seemed as warm as he felt. “I always enjoy anything scandalous and I applaud thedecolletage.” Dangerous, he thought, and lowered his hands to his sides. “I also like the train, the way it sweeps the ground behind you as you walk.”

“The color is so bright after wearing black for so long.”

Too long, Gideon thought, for the likes of Brian Whitcomb. “It is a pinkish sort of purple so you could perhaps think of it as half-mourning, if you must. The dress does suit you, Sabrina. You look a positive confection with your breasts pushed up by the gown’s high waist in that way.” Gideon lifted her breasts in his hands, just to test his theory, winning himself a sample of his wife’s tinkling laughter.

“You, Sabrina St. Goddard, are every inch the confection I would most like to feast upon, but before I do, there is the small matter of Grandmama’s ball.”

He offered her the flat velvet box. “For my Duchess. Open it.”

“What is it?” Sabrina asked, as if she were afraid to accept it.

“Something to compliment your gown, not that you do not enhance it gloriously without jewels.” He pulled the box’s lid back for her viewing pleasure.

Gideon feared for a moment that she would faint, so pale did she become when she saw the triple strand necklace of diamonds and rubies. “It matches your stickpin,” she said.

“They are both St. Goddard family heirlooms. This necklace was to be passed to my bride. Later, our eldest son—providing we ever consummate our marriage….” Gideon softened his comment with a wink. “And we will. Our son will someday present this very necklace to his Duchess, as I am now presenting it to mine. Turn around, so I may fasten it.”

Sabrina’s hands were shaking a minute later when she touched the ornate circlet, as if she could not believe it rested there, against her very own skin. “Oh, Gideon, I am afraid I will lose it.”

“You will not.” He fished in his pocket, opened her hand and placed something more inside. “Matching ear bobs,” he said, watching her in her mirror as she fastened them.

“I will be the envy of every man present,” he said, coming to stand behind her.

Their eyes met in the full-length mirror.

“And you, my dragon rogue will flutter all female hearts. If you were not mine, every unmarried lady at the ball would pursue you.”

Gideon raised an arrogant brow.

Sabrina raised her own. “And every married one as well, I suppose?”

Gideon grinned. “Naturally.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“I feel as if we will grow roots, if we stand in this receiving line much longer,” Sabrina whispered an hour later. “I have met so many Lords and Ladies that I will never keep them all straight.”

“So many boring Lords and Ladies, you mean,” Gideon said. “And I do feel the distinct sprouting of a taproot.”

“That will be enough, you two.” Gideon’s grandmother tapped his shoulder with her fan. “Behave yourselves.”

“Grandmama, if we were not behaving ourselves, we would be in b— Good evening Lady Digby, Lord Digby. May I present my Duchess?”

When the receiving line broke up, Gideon led Sabrina behind Grandmama to the top of the stairs. As the announcer intoned, ‘The Duke and Duchess of Stanthorpe,” Gideon covered Sabrina’s hand on his arm and squeezed it. “Chin up, Beautiful,” he said as they descended the long graceful stairway into the ballroom.

The entire assemblage—hundreds of them—stopped talking. Some even appeared to stop breathing, simply to watch them descend. Sabrina’s heart quickened. “Everyone is staring.”

“They are savoring the sight of the most exquisite woman in England,” Gideon replied. “Flash your smile, Sabrina, and a dozen men will swoon as their ladies turn green. Gad, I am proud to have you on my arm.”

They stopped at the bottom of the stairs, where Gideon requested a waltz from the orchestra for the first dance, and the musicians obliged.

He bowed. “May I have the honor, your grace?”

Sabrina curtseyed. “I would be delighted.”

Gideon swept his bride into his arms and waltzed her onto the floor, the two of them dancing alone in the huge gilt and crystal ballroom.

Captive to her husband’s hot, hunter green gaze, Sabrina felt as if they waltzed alone in the center of the universe.

Her bubble burst, however, when the highest echelon of London Society, along the periphery of the ballroom, broke into spontaneous applause.

A few minutes later, Sabrina gazed about her. “Why is no one else dancing? I expected everyone to join us.”

“They are affording us the honor of the first dance.”

“I feel conspicuous.”

“That’s what comes of being a Duchess.”

“Why did you ask Lady Jersey in the receiving line if I could waltz? Should you not have asked me?”

“There are rules in London Society, which I will teach you in time, though none are quite as strict for a married woman. In this case, however, because of Veronica’s venomous rumors, I thought it prudent to stroke society’s haughtiest feathers, beginning at the top. Sally Jersey, you will soon discover, is as close to the top as you can get, without tripping over Prinny.”

“Prinny?”

“The Prince Regent, someday to become King George the Fourth?”

“I see.”

“If we can position ourselves on Sally Jersey’s good side,” Gideon said. “We are on our way to full acceptance.”

“If you care so much to be on society’s good side, why did you marry me?”

“I have often wondered that myself,” her husband dared reply.

Offense stiffened Sabrina’s spine, until Gideon leaned near, stroking her ear with his warm breath. “Perhaps because, the moment I saw you, I knew that I wanted you in my bed.”

Sabrina raised her chin. “I am certain you have wanted to bed any number of women at first sight.”

“I have. But they were, none of them, in a delicate condition at the time, believe me. Neither did I consider marriage, even for a minute, to any of them.”

“Do not mock my intelligence. You married me to honor your promise to Hawksworth.”

“I could have honored it as well, I believe, by buying you a house and settling a more-than comfortable competence on you. I considered it, before I met you. Of course, back then, I did not know that settlements would be required for each of the boys, as would a dowry for Sweetpea.”

His words lightened her heart. “We gave our daughter a beautiful name. Why do you call her Sweetpea?”

“Well, she is sweet and she is always p—”

“Gideon.”

The outrageous twinkle in his eyes made Sabrina laugh outright.

“Do not look now,” he said. But you have just earned the adoration of another score of admirers.

Sabrina scanned the crowd watching them and scoffed.

“Believe it or not, in stroking Society’s plumes, I am thinking ahead to the eventual acceptance of Damon, Rafferty and Sweetpea.”

“Why do you not have pet names for the boys?”

“First she chides me about one pet name and now she requires more. But, I can think of none that suit our boys better than their own names.”

“Hawksworth used to call them Demon and Rapscallion.”

Gideon barked a laugh. “That sounds like him, but I do not believe either boy deserves so negative a monogram.”

For better or worse, another piece of Sabrina’s heart fell to her husband.

She barely made peace with the fact before she noticed, on the sidelines, the figure of a squat little man she could not place being introduced to Lady Veronica. Much as he reminded her of Lowick, she knew that one such as he would never be accepted in this exalted company.

Something in the scene dimmed Sabrina’s joy, but since she could not seem to wrap her mind around the reason for her inner tremor, she relegated the odd fancy to the back of her mind.

“We are being watched again,” she said, to make conversation and turn her thoughts.

Gideon chuckled. “I daresay. Like me, none of them can keep their gazes off you.”

“Are the jewels too much, do you think?”

“For the Duchess of Stanthorpe, the most breathtaking woman in the room? I think not. Besides, you are not conspicuous in your jewels, Sabrina, but in the beauty you radiate.”

“Oh, Gideon.”

“Ah,” he said. “I see that Lady Veronica and her rude escort are joining us on the dance-floor.” Gideon raised a particularly mischievous brow. “The rogue my grandmother names me prompts me to teach theLady, and I use the term loosely, a lesson.” He laughed at his doubleentendre, slowed and skewered his wife with a heated gaze. “Shall we?”

“Gideon, no.” But her warning came too late. Her husband swooped in for a kiss, there, before the cream of society, until she became his slave, fell in with his plan, and gave herself up to his sensual assault.

Applause began, swelled, deafened, and brought them back to earth.

Then, as if an axe had fallen, the roar of approval ended and silence fell.

A man, almost pear-shaped in figure, imperfect, yet magnificent in dress and bearing, crossed the near-empty dance floor, making straight for them.

When the commanding man stopped, Gideon made him an elegant bow.

Heart hammering of a sudden, Sabrina could only think to award him the deep curtsey Grandmama had had her practicing for weeks, in the unlikely event that—

Oh, no, could this be the man for whom she had prepared?

“Shame on you, Stanthorpe,” the man said before Sabrina found his bright blue gaze trained on her, in a way that suggested he could see beneath her petticoats.Then she recognized him.

With one, silent, majestic look, the Prince Regent relegated her husband to the sidelines.

The Prince regarded the other dancing couple and made a shooing motion with his hand, sending Veronica and her escort scurrying off, like mice from a scullery bin.

Sabrina wished she had not again seen the retreating figure of Veronica’s escort. She might have enjoyed the moment more.

“My dear?” the Prince said. “You look as if you have taken a fright.”

“I fear that the honor you do me weakens my knees to the point that I will swoon at your royal feet.”

The heir to the throne of England laughed, full-bodied, head thrown back, and swept Sabrina into his arms to complete the dance—thereby bestowing upon her Society’s coveted seal of approval.

Sabrina forgot her worry over Veronica’s escort and gave herself up to the amazing moment. And as they swept past Gideon, she caught him beaming with pride and appreciation.

Sabrina’s pleasure came more with her husband’s endorsement than with her future monarch’s lusty regard. She gave her royal partner her full attention, however, and flashed the smile Gideon earlier praised.

All and sundry named the ball a great success, perfect in every way. Everyone except Sabrina, herself.

Yes, she had made a conquest of The Prince of Wales.

Yes, Lady Veronica had scuttled away, tail between her legs, but then so had her nameless partner, a situation Sabrina still found disquieting. She tried to quiz Gideon on the identity of the man, but apparently her husband had never seen him before, either.

She knew she must soon consider telling Gideon of her concerns, and she would—consider it—after the first of the year.

For now, she decided, she would concentrate on getting through Christmas with Gideon and his grandmother.

Grandmama had a Yule log cut, which sat drying outside near the mews. In half an hour’s time, they were all to go in carriages to Epping Forest, near Wanstead, on the outskirts of town, to trudge the woods for holly and mistletoe, which they would use later to decorate the house together.

Everyone was going except Juliana, who would remain here at Grandmama’s with the nurse Grandmama hired. But Juliana chose this very morning to dawdle over her breakfast. Sabrina was trying to be patient with her when Gideon arrived to see where his wife had got to.

“Juliana does not seem to want to stop nursing,” she said. “Though I cannot believe she is still hungry after so long a time.”

Gideon bent over to regard the babe. “Good morning, Sweetpea. Mama says you are dawdling and holding up our gay Christmas parade through the woods. I cannot say as I blame you. I tend to dawdle myself over your delicious Mama.”

“Gideon!”

Juliana cooed and waved her hands in a great show of excitement when he spoke, and she lost her grip on her lunch with the smile she gave him.

“Good Lord, she has bestowed upon you her first smile,” Sabrina said, straightening her bodice. “Not that I am surprised. She became your slave, or you became hers, at her birth.”

“Are you my girl?” Gideon asked, taking the happy baby into his arms. “Are you my Sweetpea? I bet you would like to come with us, would you not? After all,” Gideon said, regarding Sabrina. “This is Christmas.”

“If we take her, she will require carrying, and we are not certain that the boys will not also require it.”

“Nonsense, if Grandmama is coming, the terrain cannot be so bad as that. Come, let us put our Julie in her woolens and take her with us. It is not so very cold today.”

“If you keep this up, by the time she is ten, she will have you jumping to her every wish.”

“And what else are Papas for, than to jump through the hoops their little girls set up for them?” Gideon asked his adoring daughter.

To make a merry party, they decided they should all travel in the same carriage—Gideon, Sabrina, the twins, the baby, and Grandmama. One problem, Damon and Juliana both insisted, rather loudly, that they required the exact same spot on Gideon’s lap.

Everyone took turns trying to hold Juliana, but she would only quiet when Gideon took her.

Grandmama crowed and took Rafferty onto her lap. “I shall have my favorite with me,” she said, earning Rafe’s adoration.

“And I shall take Damon,” Sabrina said. “As we can insist that he keep quiet, and save all our ears.”

“Done,” Gideon said, trading a whining four-year-old for a screaming baby, and when silence descended, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, though to soothe Damon’s pout, Gideon gave him a wink.

The trudge through heath and grass, toward groves of hornbeam, beech and oak, turned out to be wet and chill, but brisk and invigorating. It was Christmas after all. Their footsteps in turn crunched and squished, as the layer of snow from the day before had already begun to melt in places. But everyone persisted, the boys chattering and running, in turn, except when they were rewarded with deer sightings, and they turned still as statues to watch.

Finally they came to a coppice edged by a huge holly, bright with berries in its upper branches.

“The berries are too high up in the tree,” Sabrina said.

“Nonsense, Gideon can reach them,” Grandmama said. “Can you not, my boy?”

“Of course, but someone else will have to take Juliana.”

“I will take her,” Sabrina said. “She looks sleepy enough not to care who holds her.”

Juliana, it turned out, did care, but everyone ignored her wailing. They were too busy watching, with baited breath, as Gideon climbed an oak near the holly bush, chosen for the mistletoe clinging to its upper branches. When he reached up and caught the thick-leafed parasite, lush with waxy-white berries, high above him, water rained down on him in torrents.

Gideon shouted with the cold shower but discovered that, rather than garner sympathy, he had become a laughing stock. Between Sabrina and his Grandmama, he could not tell which of them was more highly entertained, but he suspected that it might be Sabrina.

Standing high above them, Gideon tossed the great bunch of mistletoe he had won, and got back a bit of his own, as it sprinkled the lot of them. Then he placed his hands on his hips and looked down his nose at them with haughty disdain. “Take care, Sabrina, if you please, not to laugh yourself so silly that you drop the baby.” Which speech somehow managed to tickle her and his Grandmama the more.

Even the boys laughed, especially Rafferty. A good sight that, Gideon thought. “Well, young Rafferty,” he said. “I suppose you think you can do better?”

Smiling, Rafe nodded up at him, so Gideon climbed down and put the boy up in the tree, climbing up behind him.

“Gideon, what do you think you are doing?” Sabrina shouted. “Bring that boy down here, at once.”

Gideon laughed. “This boy is going to reach us some holly.”

Sabrina gasped but Gideon held Rafe tight at his waist, while the boy climbed onto an oak branch, less sturdy than would hold a man’s weight. And Rafe managed to become the hero of the day, earning hugs and a slap on his back, even, from Damon.

One more climb, so Damon could have his turn, and they had enough holly and mistletoe to decorate Basingstoke Manor and then some.

After they returned, changed into dry clothes and partook of hot chocolate and iced gingerbread men, Sabrina made a kissing bough with the mistletoe, and Grandmama fashioned wreaths and garlands with the holly.

Rafe and Damon were set to cutting and painting gold and silver stars and bells with which to decorate the garlands, while Juliana’s cradle, in the center of the holiday bustle, sat empty.

With Juliana on his shoulder, Gideon happily supervised. But he could not help consider past Christmases, and a question that had often nagged him as a child, plagued him again now.

Gideon set Juliana in her cradle and went to his grandmother. He kissed her cheek and placed an arm about her shoulders. “Why did you not take me when I was the twins’ age?”

Her eyes filled on the instant. “I tried, but they would not let me have you,” she whispered. “I am so sorry.”

Gideon brought her close. “Shh. I did not mean to make you cry. I have always wondered. You were my ray of sunshine during those years, my one source of hope, did you know that? You will never know how much you meant to me, then, and how much more you mean to me now.”

Damon snorted. “I think you are supposed to be kissing Mama under that kissing bow, not Grandmama.”

Gideon gave his grandmother a smacking kiss. “No, young man. You are wrong. I am supposed to kissall the girls under the kissing bow.” He left his grandmother, went for his wife and waltzed her, laughing, toward the spot beneath it.

The kiss he gave Sabrina lasted longer and ended with applause from their audience.

Then he went for Juliana and danced with her on his shoulder until he held her up beneath the mistletoe and kissed her on her bubbly little heart-shaped mouth.

That entertained the devil out of the boys, until Gideon made each of them kiss their baby sister under the mistletoe, their Great-Grandmama, then their mother.

The Yule log was brought into the great hall a short while, later, and the servants gathered round.

Veering slightly from tradition, Gideon chosetwo sturdy brands, out of several saved from last year’s log, and handed one each to Rafe and Damon.

One on each side of the giant log, the boys set tinder to flame with the burning brands, and everyone cheered.

Gideon placed his arm around Sabrina’s shoulders. “Best of luck, in the year to come, and Happy Christmas to all.”

After long afternoon naps, even the boys were allowed to stay up late, to take the holly-festooned carriage to St. George’s, Hanover Square, for the midnight service.

Rafe fell asleep at about the same moment the Vicar began his sermon, and so Gideon took him on his lap, smoothing the hair from his eyes as he cradled this stubborn, contemplative twin against his chest.

In Gideon’s heart, aloneness and unworthiness vanished. In their place stood life, celebration, family. Instinct told him to run, that this heady sentiment could not last, that he would end the worse for having grasped and lost it.

That was when he knew that he would never be sorry for taking on Sabrina and her children, nor for caring about them, no matter what the future held.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

For once in his life, Gideon did not care how long the sermon lasted. Instead, he opened himself up to the Christmas message, drawing strength from Rafe, asleep on his lap, and Damon and Sabrina beside him.

These were moments to savor, family moments that might keep the wonder of Christmas alive throughout the year.

He had already received so many new and amazing gifts, Gideon could not keep his joy inside and found it emerging as a smile.

He caught Sabrina watching him, then, her expression reflecting the emotion inside him, while something warm, uplifting, even spiritual, passed between them. There and then, Gideon experienced the holiness of Christmas, and understood its true meaning for the first time.

Rather than awaiting the completion of the final Christmas carol in impatient silence, he sangJoy to the World, and he meant every word.

Back at Basingstoke, after everyone was tucked into bed, neither he nor Sabrina spoke of Christmas morning, which made Gideon think he must have a treat in store. They merely climbed into bed and reached for each other, embracing, as if they had become each other’s personal anchor.

“This was the best Christmas ever,” Sabrina said as she drifted off.Wait until tomorrow, Gideon thought, smiling.

In the morning, however, everything seemed different. The boys were cranky and furtive, holding their pets close, as if someone might jump out and take them away. And when Gideon spoke to them, they acted as if he should not notice them skulking about the house, looking miserable.

He remembered feeling just so as a child on Christmas, always a particularly lonely day for him, with his parents either away partying, or partying at home, without him.

Occasionally, he saw them exchange gifts with the servants, with friends, with each other, but never with him. He always received the oranges and sugar plums cook sent up with eagerness, and he was grateful, but he had also known that there must be something more.

To his mother and her new husband, wrapped up in each other as they were, he did not seem to exist, a situation he came to accept, eventually, though he always did resent it.

This year, he could barely wait to give everyone the gifts he had purchased for them. Except that Sabrina needed to finish feeding Juliana first. He had only come downstairs at all, to help Grandmama pass out gifts to her staff.

When that was done, however, he searched out the boys and marched their mulish-faced selves up the stairs to the master suite.

Sabrina was just putting Juliana into her cradle when he knocked and they entered her bedchamber.

“I thought we could have a quiet Christmas celebration of our own up here,” he said. “Before we give Grandmama her gifts.”

But no reaction did Gideon receive from Sabrina or the boys.

“You do exchange gifts, do you not?” Suspicion niggled at him.

They, all three, looked at him as if he had grown horns and turned blue.

“Do you object philosophically to gift-giving, then, Sabrina?”

“DoI?”

“That is my question. You all seem so, I do not know, rigid or frightened.” And then he thought that, perhaps, no gifts had been allowed them previous to this, or they could not afford any.

“Sit,” he said. “Everybody up on Mama’s bed.” He lifted Damon onto the bed and Rafe scrambled up on his own. “There you go. I have surprises. Wait here.”

Before he entered his own bedchamber, Gideon caught Sabrina shrugging at the boys, as if perhaps he had grown horns, after all, or gone daft.

When he took his stash of gifts from the bottom of his cupboard, Gideon feared that perhaps he had not purchased enough. He had assumed that Sabrina would also have gifts for the boys. But if that were not the case, then his would have to suffice as a little something with which to celebrate the day.

Both boys had moved up close to Sabrina by the time he looked in on them from his room. She held them, in a protective embrace, one on each side of her, as if she would defend them to the death.

“I am not going to ask what is wrong,” Gideon said, standing in the doorway. “But I must say, I am puzzled. Nevertheless, Happy Christmas, Damon and Rafferty.” He carried from his bedchamber, with great flourish, two large, gaily-painted wooden rocking horses, one for each boy.

No one on Sabrina’s bed moved. No one seemed capable.

Gideon stood alone between the two rocking horses, feeling foolishly deflated.

“One of you will please say something,” he begged. “I feel rather stupid and conspicuous at the moment,” which speech seemed to open some invisible flood gate.

They were suddenly all three crying. Sabrina wept quietly, but the boys cried in great wracking sobs.

Gideon abandoned the horses and went to sit beside them on the bed. He took them, all three, inasmuch as he could, into his arms. He tried to pass them his handkerchief, but they were so overcome, he had to wipe their noses himself, even Sabrina’s.

She laughed when he did, then she cried the more.

All he could do was soothe his wife, squeeze the boys shoulders and ruffle their small, dark heads. He hugged and tried to calm each one, in turn, but to no avail. And none seemed able to explain.

“I wanted to make our first Christmas special,” he said when tears finally slowed. “I did not intend to ruin the day. To tell you the truth, I do not even know where I went wrong, but I am sorry. So very sorry.”

“Mama?” Damon asked, a new and brighter glint to his eye.

Sabrina regarded Gideon and she cupped his cheek in her hand, which he loved, so he turned his face to kiss her palm.

“Boys,” she said, without taking her gaze from him. “I believe it is safe for you to go and play with your rocking horses.”

“Safe?” Gideon watched Rafe and Damon approach the horses for all the world as if the steeds might rear up and crush them beneath their hooves.

To Gideon’s silent inquiry, Sabrina shrugged. “I attempted for several Christmases to sneak gifts to the boys,” she said. “But, last year, I did not even try. It was too painful a day to repeat, so we did not celebrate at all.”

“You will not hurt Mama for giving us gifts,” Damon said, and Gideon was surprised to find the boy back beside them, leaning on the bed. He was also speechless at Damon’s comment.

“And you will not smack us for playing with them.” Damon spoke with surety.

Gideon turned to Sabrina. “I knew he struck all of you at one time or another, but at Christmas for the giving of gifts?”

Sabrina raised her chin. “One of many reasons I ran to Hawksworth.”

“So you left while your husband was still living?”

“He died shortly thereafter.”

For a moment, Gideon wondered if the man had died at her hand. If so, he could not blame her, but even the possibility made him regard his wife in a whole new way.

“I see,” he said. “You never celebrated Christmas with Hawksworth, then, I take it?” Surely his friend would have celebrated as Gideon had always believed most people did.

“Wellington got Hawksworth first,” Sabrina said.

“So we got you,” Damon said.

Hawksworth was their first choice, Damon did not quite say. Gideon was the man they ended up with, because Hawksworth died.

Feeling very much unwanted, a mistake, in the way, too familiar an experience to be borne, Gideon rose from the bed. “Enjoy your horses, boys. Sabrina, I will not burden y—”

Damon threw his arms around Gideon’s legs, stopping him beside the door. “Papa?”

Heart thumping, limbs prickling—in triumph, if he heard correctly, in dismay, if he did not—Gideon regarded Damon, standing there, attached to his legs, looking up at him with a range of expressions too heady to name. “Thank you, Papa,” he said.

Gideon hauled the boy into his arms and held him tight.

After a minute, Damon leaned back and toyed with the knot in Gideon’s neckcloth. “I do not have a present foryou,” he said.

Kissing Damon’s small cheek, Gideon closed his eyes. “I have my Christmas gift,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Having you call me Papa is everything I ever wanted.”

Sabrina began sniffling and searching again for his handkerchief.

Gideon pulled it from his pocket and tossed it her way.

She laughed as she caught it.

Papa, when you least expected it, he thought. He was proud and humbled. But something uncomfortable and vague also filled him, because Damon caught him by surprise, he supposed. A lump of inadequacy, perhaps, or incompetence, clogged his throat and blurred his vision.

Then all out fear gripped him. He did not feel qualified to fulfill the awesome duties required of a Papa.

A lifetime of responsibility, times three.

Once again, running, fast and far, seemed a wise choice, yet the trusting, hopeful eyes of a small lad rooted him to the spot.

Gideon was not certain he was up to the task, but felt in that moment, with Damon’s faith, almost as if he could do anything.

Someday, he might even make Rafe believe in him.

Rafe, his reticent son, who, Gideon noticed rode his rocking horse with energy, smiled at them. “Lucky is a prime goer,” he said.

Gideon carried Damon over to place him on his own horse, then he went back into his room, returning this time to give Juliana a doll twice her size, and the boys each a map puzzle.

Then he brought out a German-made Noah’s ark, complete with two of every species. “This is to be shared by all our children, present and future.” He regarded the mother of said children, until she blushed.

Then he brought out a stack of boxes for her. The boys came to watch her remove from the first a red velvet empire-style gown, vandyked ‘round the petticoat. “That one is for today,” Gideon said.

From the second box, she removed a green velvet riding habit complete with a top hat trimmed in blonde lace. “That is for Hyde Park at five in the afternoon, so I may show you off.”

From another, she removed a pale pink walking dress of jaconet muslin embroidered up the front. The same box held a matching cottage mantle of grey, lined with pale pink silk.

Sabrina exclaimed and gasped in delight, thanking him, over and over, but despite her smiles, tears swam in her eyes, overflowing more often than not.

Gideon went to his bedchamber and came back with a stack of handkerchiefs. “I should have done better to buy you six dozen of your own,” he said, to make her laugh, as he handed them to her.

“You did not choose all these clothes yourself?” she said.

“You must know that Grandmama picked them out for me. I purchased them from Madame Suzette, the dressmaker who created your ball gown. She had all your measurements, after all.”

“The red velvet is perfect for today, but I cannot wear it, for I will need—”

“You will find all you need in my bedchamber,” Gideon said stopping her. “I thought it best not to, you know, reveal every layer I purchased to all and sundry, though I do not hold to that rule where I, myself, am concerned and when we are alone, you understand?”

Sabrina threw her arms around his neck. “You are the best Christmas gift any of us has ever received.” She kissed him. Then she ran into his room and shut the door to change.

Her words, Gideon thought, ranked right up there as part and parcel of his best Christmas, ever, alongside Damon choosing today to call himPapa for the first time.

Much as he would have liked to help Sabrina dress, he sat on the floor and helped the boys put together their map puzzle of India, telling them stories of his experiences there during his visit to a friend in the East India Company.

By the time Grandmama sent for them, Sabrina was dressed and looking exquisite in red velvet. Before they went upstairs, Gideon handed the boys the perfume and handkerchiefs he had purchased for them to give their great-grandmother. From him and Sabrina, Gideon had purchased a ruby broach in the shape of a heart.

“I am ashamed that I have nothing for her, myself,” Sabrina said.

“Nonsense.” Gideon kissed her brow. “It is a wonder you do not become hysterical at the very notion of Christmas.”

“I do.”

In answer, Gideon could do nothing but hold his wife close, until the boys became so rowdy, they had no choice but to make their way upstairs to his grandmother’s private suite.

Grandmama gave the boys each a tray of tin soldiers, one painted the bright red and white of the Life Guards, Gideon’s own regiment, and the other the deep blue of the Royal Horse Guards.

To Sabrina she gave a pair of exquisite carved ivory combs to dress her beautiful, long hair, with a fan of painted silk and carved ivory to match.

Juliana received a bright red shaker rattle that entertained the babe enormously.

And to Gideon, her grandson, she presented his grandfather’s prized watch, and a copy of her will, with her love and pride.

Later, the entire family and their guests, Miss Minchip, Mr. Waredraper and Doggett, sat down to partake of a sumptuous Christmas goose, with sliced beef, roasted parsnips and potatoes, and plum pudding for dessert.

Two days later, Gideon, Sabrina and the children stepped into the foyer of Stanthorpe Place. “Lord, it is good to be home,” Sabrina said.

Home? She stopped and looked about her, arrested by the sentiment. Yes, she had come to think of Stanthorpe Place as home, a gift of itself, a precious one that must be appreciated, and worked at, all year long.

“I need to check my correspondence,” Gideon said, handing Juliana to Sabrina. “Five days is a long time to neglect the business of my estates. Give me an hour to read and catch up and I will see you upstairs.”

He aimed for her cheek, but she turned and gave him her mouth. He accepted with enthusiasm, for several long beats. “You do know how to tempt a man,” he whispered with bright eyes as they pulled apart and he turned toward his study.

“Do you need us to help you with your business, Papa?” Rafe asked.

Gideon stopped dead and turned to regard the boy. His wonder, he knew, must be written plainly on his features. Wonder, yes, and humility as well, filled Gideon. He even waited for that uncomfortable and vague discomfort, that he had felt when Damon first called him Papa.

But that unworthy feeling did not clog his throat or blur his vision, this time. And Gideon felt a modicum of self-worth reflected in the trust in the expressions on the two little boys waiting for his answer.

A lifetime of responsibility, times three, no longer seemed so awesomely impossible. And running far and fast did not even rank as a choice.

Gideon got down on his haunches and opened his arms, and Rafe launched himself into that circle for the first time.

With a single, breath-taking word, this boy had given him hope for the future, as his twin had done just a few days before.

Gideon opened his arms for Damon to step in as well. Two boys who called him Papa. ‘Twas almost too much to take in.

Gideon rose, clearing his throat and took the boys hands. “Sabrina,” he said, his voice rusty and telling. “I need the boys to help with estate business for a while. I think we can dispense with naps for this afternoon.”

Eyes bright, Sabrina nodded. “Of course.”

As he made his way to the study, holding the boys hands, contentment enveloped Gideon. Then he opened the study door and found Doggett, unconscious. Dried blood caked his temple. In his hand, he clutched a handful of brown hair shot with silver.

Gideon sent the boys for Sabrina and told them to stay with Miss Minchip.

Sabrina came down the minute she was informed and set the servants to getting Doggett back up to his bedchamber. Gideon sent for the doctor, who brought their friend around in good order.

“Happened early this morning, your grace,” Doggett said.

“Anybody you recognized?”

“Didn’t see his face. Small frame. Wiry. Rifling through your papers. The fellows of my, er, acquaintance would be looking for shiny baubles to turn into quick brass. Nothing big or easy to spot. Never papers. The likes of them don’t read, ‘ya see.”

Frustration heavy on his shoulders, Gideon returned to the master suite.

“Did you find that anything important had gone missing?” Sabrina asked.

“A few papers,” Gideon said. “Nothing for which to worry overmuch.” His new will, in fact, the one leaving his unentailed wealth and property to Sabrina and the children. The Hertfordshire estate to Rafe, the stud farm in Sussex to Damon, the equivalent—fifty thousand pounds—to Juliana, and two hundred thousand to their mother. The entailed assets would go to his heir, as should be, that inheritance considerably larger than the rest, though he would teach said heir to share with his siblings, make no mistake.

Gideon was not happy to have such informationout therewhere anyone could learn of it. He bristled particularly at the notion that Veronica might. She was dangerous enough without such powerful motivation. Worse, he feared thatshe had hired someone to steal the will.

He did not know whether he should go again to speak with the runners, and then pay Veronica a visit, or whether visiting her should be attempted at all.

Sabrina carried her own set of concerns. She suspected Lowick as the villain who broke in, that he would use the missing papers against Gideon in some way.

“The papers that were taken?” she asked as she walked Juliana. “They worry you, do they not? They were of some value. Much more than you tried to let on.”

“What makes you so clever?”

“I have worried about money all my life,” she said. “Of course I will recognize the concern in others.”

Gideon sighed and rose from the bed, an admirable male beast, all sinew and strength, the fire’s glow bronzing his skin and carving his face to hawk-like angles.

Magnificent, alluring.

“Always money,” he said, his attraction replaced of a sudden by an aura of danger. “No need to worry on that score, Sabrina. I still have the wherewithal to keep you in excellent style. But thank you for reminding me that you are here merely because I purchased you. My forgetting such an important fact could become tedious for the both of us.”

When he shut the door between their rooms, Sabrina wept.

After she put Juliana down for the night, she remained alone in her bed, awake, waiting, worrying that Gideon must finally be wrong.

God help her; she was very much afraid that she was here because she wanted to be.

If so, her greatest strength had deserted her—the ability to run and never look back.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In his study, Gideon paced. He was a selfish bastard. But, damn all money to hell, he wanted Sabrina to be his, free of charge, and he did not know how to bring such a fool's fancy about.

He could set her up with ten thousand pounds, now, today, make her independent, see if she made a final choice to stay. Except that he was afraid she would not. Though they were married, after all, why would she go?

Fear. That was why. Sabrina was afraid of something, likely only of being poor. It all came back to the fact that making her independent was a risk he was not willing to take.

If he were poor, however, and she decided to stay. In a rush of acknowledged madness, Gideon sat at his desk and began to write. By the time he finished, he had forged a reasonably authentic-looking document attesting to the fact that he had lost all his funds on the ‘Change.

His hand shook as he folded the forgery and placed it in a small hidden drawer at the back of his desk.

Bold move, he thought. Too bad he was too much the coward to use it, yet.

Back upstairs, outside Sabrina’s bedchamber door, despite the frustration raging inside him, Gideon wanted nothing more than to slip into bed beside her, place his arms around her, and close his eyes.

Even in sleep, she soothed him. Giving into his desire, he entered her bedchamber and returned to her bed.

It seemed as if he had no sooner settled against her, than Damon was tugging his arm. “Papa, Rafferty is afraid of the storm and I cannot—I mean Rafe cannot wake Miss Minchip.”

“I am coming, Sweet,” Sabrina said, sitting up, all but talking in her sleep.

“Stay,” Gideon told her, urging her back down. “Go back to sleep. I am still awake. I will see to Rafe’s fears.”

“Mmm, thank—” That fast, Sabrina slipped back into the waiting arms of Morpheus.

Gideon rose, slipped into his pantaloons and dressing gown, without lighting a candle, and lifted Damon into his arms to take him back up to the nursery.

His head on Gideon’s shoulder, the winsome lad sighed. “Can I have a pony ride back?”

Gideon chuckled. “Not up the stairs, you cannot. Despite indications to the contrary, I am not so mighty a steed as you suppose.”

Some time later, Sabrina awoke to her daughter’s demands for nourishment and remembered Damon coming to them afraid of the storm.

“Your brother must have come down an hour or more ago,” she told Juliana as she nursed. “I wonder what happened to your Papa?”

Papa, Sabrina thought, remembering Gideon’s face just this morning when Rafe had called him that for the first time. How like a rogue,her rogue, to charm her children and claim them for himself, one by one.

When he had returned earlier, after their quarrel, of sorts, though they had not spoken, he had seemed his roguish self again. He had sighed as if in contentment and become aroused just holding her in his arms, as if nothing had happened.

And so it had not. Quite. An argument, but not. Only with Gideon could she imagine the like. Only with him could she emerge physically unscathed, yet emotionally bereft, mourning the loss of something she could not seem to wrap her mind around. “Even now, I cannot say what it is,” she told Juliana.

When the babe finished nursing, Sabrina changed her and carried her upstairs to the nursery to check on the men in their lives.

And there she found them, all in one bed, Gideon on his back in the center, snoring and snorting like the famousPuffing Billy Locomotive, his long, graceful, bare feet hanging off the bed’s bottom edge, a boy clutched in each arm.

Drizzle slept between Gideon’s legs, Mincemeat sprawled draped across his chest. Animals always knew the difference between a good man and a dangerous one, Sabrina thought. Like her boys knew.

“Papa is protecting us from the thunder,” Damon said softly, when she got close.

“I think his snores scare the thunder away,” Rafe added.

Sabrina chuckled. “Do you want me to stay, too?”

“No,” her twins said in unison.

“Sleep well, then,” she whispered, kissing all three foreheads, not certain how she felt about not being needed by her sons. But she did know of a sudden how she felt about this remarkable new Papa of theirs.

She cared. And the knowledge frightened her.

She cared a great deal more than she wanted to.

Somewhere along the way, while she worried about Lowick and protected her children, had she become so distracted that she had forgotten to protect her heart?

Had she already lost her heart to her husband without even realizing it?

God help her, if she did. God help them all.

As the storm howled without, and Sabrina fretted within, and everyone else at Stanthorpe Place slept, a man with a gold hoop in his ear, and another with a mustache, broke into Gideon’s study.

“Lookee here, I found me a silver flask. Ah, and an ivory letter opener.” While one thief hid his baubles on his person, his crony dragged out a drawer and dropped it on the floor. Then he pulled out another. “That Doggett is a smart one, getting himself perched in this fancy nest.”

“Not smart enough. Are Chinese snuff bottles worth anything?”

“Some, take it anyway.”

Elsewhere in the room, they discovered and took a venetian glass inkwell, a mother of pearl card case and a tortoiseshell snuff box in the shape of a shoe.

* * *

For the first time in weeks, the watcher stood across the street from number twenty three Grosvenor Square.

He was strong again, nearly as strong as he used to be, though not nearly so fine. He was up to learning what he must, and setting everything to rights.

So far, he had learned nothing but the fact that Stanthorpe had too many people coming and going at odd hours of the night.

Right now, if he were capable of walking normally, he would walk right up to the door and knock. To the devil with the consequences.

If he were capable.

Images of the reason he was not, filled the watcher’s head with ugliness and horror, with the things men are forced to do, terrible things that changed their lives forever. Acts that ruin them, and often through no fault of their own, the innocents those men touch, and corrupt, in the doing.

Nevertheless, someone always had to pay.

Sometimes men were forced to act. Take matters into their own hands. More often than not, the women suffered.

Some women were forced to suffer. He knew that, too.

They were bystanders, pawns, playthings.

And some women just needed to be taught a lesson.

One in particular came to mind.

* * *

Sabrina tossed in turmoil half the night, only sleeping near dawn, but deeply and dreamlessly. The following morning, in the event Gideon had returned to his rooms and dressed before she woke, she went to his study to seek him.

He was not there, but he surely had been. Sabrina shook her head at the mess he left behind.

For the first time since she had known him, Gideon must actually have lost his temper. He certainly seemed angry the night before, close to fury when he left her. Now the results lay scattered undeniably before her. ‘Twas a tantrum of formidable proportions by the looks of the place.

In the process of straightening the disorder, Sabrina found, beneath a small, upended, unvarnished inner-drawer, a scrap of paper that intrigued her. Folded numerous times into very small squares, the scrap fit the small drawer perfectly.

She located the inner drawer’s resting place, behind a visible outer drawer, and recognized the small compartment as a secret drawer. This document had been secreted away, never to see the light of day.

So of course Sabrina unfolded the document and spread it out before her.

Even after reading it twice, she did not know what to make of it.

The official-looking certificate almost appeared as if— Sabrina sat. Had Gideon lost his fortune on the stock exchange? The puzzling record before her certainly made the possibility appear fact. If so, he must be frantic with worry.

Could this be the prize Lowick sought? If, indeed, it had been Lowick who broke in and struck poor Doggett before they returned from Christmas at Grandmama’s house.

Homer Lowick devoured the vulnerable. And losing one’s fortune certainly made a man vulnerable. Poverty could turn Gideon into prey, rather than protector. It could make himappear weak, rather than strong.

“Poor Gideon.”

Sabrina found it difficult to imagine Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe, radiating anything less than absolute strength, control and power. Weakness simply did not suit his nature, yet the document clearly revealed—

No wonder his ire, nay his frustration, of the night before. No wonder—

Poor Gideon, did she say?

Drat her for losing her focus. She should be worried about his inability to support her and the children, not about his feelings.

Rogues, she must remember, experienced nothing so mundane as feelings. For the sake of her children, she should leave Stanthorpe Place and seek more able protection. But as long as her children had a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, how could she leave Gideon, when he must need someone, more than ever?

Besides, he had become everything to the children.

Sabrina went back upstairs, her mind filled with her husband’s problems. She was pacing his bedchamber considering those problems when he returned.

In nothing but his breeches and open dressing gown, her sleep-mussed husband looked as if he had run all the way down the stairs. His cheeks rosy, his brows furrowed withembarrassment, while chagrin was clearly writ there, as well.

Sabrina’s imagination painted a picture of what might have taken place upstairs in the nursery, and she grinned. “Such a lecherous rogue you look. Do not say that you faced Miss Minchip in your morning dishabille and frightened her witless.”

“Faced her? Frightened her? I was sound asleep, thank you very much, my dressing gown open, if you please. ’Twas she who frightened me with her foolish screams.” He ran a hand through his sleep-tossed locks. “I woke and scurried away like a thief in my own house.”

“My poor cross bear,” Sabrina said, talking baby talk, stroking the night’s growth of beard on his cheek. “Did the nasty old nanny scare you?”

For half a minute, the frown on Gideon’s brow became more pronounced. And just when his eyes lit, and he became focused on the fact that she was playing, and he reached for her, his valet stepped into the bedchamber, and made to back out as fast.

“His grace will not need you today, Bilbury,” Sabrina said, turning to the valet. “I will handle his morning ablutions, myself. Will you just see that a tub of hot water is readied in his dressing room?”

“Very good, your grace.”

“Thank you, Bilbury.”

Gideon’s grin appeared. “You will see to my morning ablutions? This becomes intriguing. To what do I owe the pleasure of your undivided attention?”

Gideon began to advance and Sabrina allowed him to catch her.

When he had her in his clutches, she slipped his dressing gown from his shoulders. “I simply want to thank you for protecting the boys from the storm, last night.”

“I should, perhaps, point out that I was given little choice in the matter. You were like to sleep-walk your way out the front door.”

Sabrina grimaced. “Well, I know that you did not.” She ran her hands over his chest, allowing herself to absorb and enjoy the feel of his skin against her palms, of his chest hair, silky, not coarse, as she used to think, enticing and strangely arousing as it slid between her eager fingers.

She found a hidden nubbin, teased it with her finger, then her tongue, as he often did to her, and a low growl emerged from Gideon’s throat. By the time she looked up, he was opening his mouth over hers, bending her backward in his arms.

Afraid she would fall, Sabrina grasped him tighter, but he arranged to have them land on his bed, him on top, smiling victoriously down at her.

They had never come together in broad daylight. She had never wanted, in the true sense, to experiencealmost everything with him when she was alert and awake, and accountable to herself for her actions.

Perhaps her boldness stemmed from the fact that she had it in her mind that she could help him for a change. She was acting from a position of strength for once, a feeling she embraced.

She knew not what, exactly, drove her to seduce her husband amidst her worry over his losses, but she did feel driven.

They heard the servants filling the bathtub in his dressing room and pulled somewhat apart, lest one of the retainers enter, but no one did.

“You said you would care for me, yourself,” Gideon said, his voice butter smooth, enticing. “Does that mean you will help me with my bath?”

“I will.” She raised her chin, but lowered her lashes, aware she was flirting. Flirting. With her own husband.

Gideon hardened the more against her. She would never stop thrilling to the knowledge that she aroused him. “I missed you last night,” she said. “I went looking for you.”

“Did you? We were all asleep?”

“You were. The boys were awake. Rafferty said you were frightening the thunder away with your snores.”

“The bounder. Much good it did me to protect him.”

“He was smiling when he said it.”

“I suppose that must count for something.”

“With our Rafe, it must. Do you care for your bath, now, your grace?”

“Have I any other choice?”

Sabrina sighed. “I wish.”

“Do you?” Gideon pulled back so he could see her better. “Honestly?”

Sabrina blushed, which apparently became answer enough, for his grin reminded her of the undeniable rogue who drove so sensual a bargain on their wedding night.

“Away to my bath, then Milady, and scrub your Lord and Mater’s back, and whatever else comes to...hand.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“How can I bathe you withthat monstrous thing in my way?” Sabrina asked, not five minutes later, as she leaned over Gideon’s bathtub, washcloth in hand.

“Why thank you, Bree.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Well, how can you blame me? Since Juliana’s birth, we have abstained for, what, six months?”

“Four and a half weeks.”

“Is that all, by damn?” Gideon threw his head back in a caricature of martyrdom. “Yea, how I have suffered.”

Sabrina smiled at his play, enjoyed it, even, so much so that she dared reach into the water to grasp his poor neglected...self. “Let me make it better.”

Like Neptune rising from the sea, Gideon stood, stepped from the tub and lifted his wife in his arms, all in one shocking move.

He carried her to his bed and they went down as one, dripping, soaking the covers, and kissing as if they had not kissed in months.

“Touch me now,” Gideon said, “The way you just did in— Ah yes.” He set his jaw and closed his eyes in an ecstasy of sweet suffering. Then he touched her in return, more gently than ever, so lightly and beautifully that together they found the release denied them.

They remained entwined for a long, splendid, eternity of kisses, until Juliana in the next room began to make her presence known.

While Gideon took his bath, Sabrina changed her clothes, and fed the baby, and just when she got to the point of beginning his shave, the boys trooped in.

Sabrina gaped at them, and then she gaped at Gideon. “I assumed that your door had a l-o-c-k,” she spelled.

“N-o,” he countered with a grin, looking jocular beneath his shaving cream. “I never needed one before.”

“Well you need one, now. I mean, I knew that my door did not lock, but I assumed the Duke’s did. Good God. We might have... They could have....”

Sabrina gave up raving and shaved her husband.

“Do not cut off anything important,” Damon said.

“What do you mean by important,” Sabrina asked.

Damon rolled his eyes. “His nose, of course, and his ears.”

“And take care to shave his chin dimple well,” Rafe said. “Old Mr. Bundy, the farmer,—do you remember him, Mama?—He always had pig whiskers bristling from his chin dimple.”

Sabrina had to stop, because Gideon had broken into a fit of laughter. When he caught his breath he regarded Rafe seriously. “How do you know they were pig whiskers?”

“Well, they were his own whiskers, of course, but one day his porker came up to him as he spoke to me and I saw that their whiskers were exactly like.”

“Will you stop laughing,” Sabrina ordered her husband. “It is not easy to shave you while you do. Ishall snip something important, if you do not calm yourself.”

Gideon cleared his throat and relaxed, though his shoulders shook at regular intervals after that.

“There,” Sabrina said when she was done. “Everything still attached, and Rafferty, you will note, that I did a good job on the chin dimple. Not a single pig whisker bristles from it.”

“It is time to go back upstairs and do ciphers with Miss Minchip, is it not?” Gideon asked the boys, while Sabrina wiped the excess froth of shaving soap from his face.

They groaned in unison, but they went.

When they were gone, Sabrina broached the subject praying on her mind. “I am a bang-up rider, Gideon, did you know that?”

Gideon started in surprise at the question. “I did not. When we go down to Sussex, I shall have to let you ride one of my Arabians.”

“I am better than a simple rider, I mean. I once jockeyed in a race where a certain gamester lacked the funds to pay a real jockey?”

“Your husband lacked the funds, you mean?”

“I won a fat purse.”

“Congratulations. I did not know I had married a horse jockey.”

“There is a race at The St. Eustace Winter Fair in three weeks time. I have seen your Arabian. Deviltry is a prime goer. I could ride him at the fair race and win you the purse. I imagine five thousand pounds would help.”

“What?” Gideon took the towel from her hand and wiped his face more thoroughly. “What are you talking about?” he asked, rising. “You want to play jockey in a race? Why ever would you want to do that? And of course, you will not.”

“I want to help you recover some of your fortune.”

“I am sorry, Bree, but you make absolutely no sense.”

Sabrina took from her pocket the folded paper she had found beneath the upended drawer and handed it to him.

Gideon barely needed to read the document she gave him. He had only forged and hidden it last night. He rubbed his freshly-shaved face and considered this unexpected turn of events. “Where did you find this?”

“On the floor in your study with everything else you tossed about in your rage last night. Shame on you. But do not worry, I cleaned everything up, so no one else would realize that you gave in to a tantrum. I know you do not usually lose your temper in that unruly way.”

Sabrina paced to the window and back. “I knew, of course, when you left me last night that you were upset about money, but I never dreamed—until I saw this. Then I understood.”

“I see.”

Gideon’s brain and his heart ran a rioting gamut of emotions. At first taken aback then chagrined, he moved through bewilderment, and finally to hope.

He had purchased this woman. She had made it clear to him that money meant everything to her. And now she supposed him penniless and rather than releasing her rage or threatening to find a rich protector, she was offering to help him recover his losses.

It made no sense, but Lord, it made him hope, as he had never dared.

As he slipped into a fresh shirt, Gideon wondered how long Sabrina would remain with him, if he allowed her to continue to believe him destitute.

Ignoring the anguish engendered by the very possibility of losing her, he regarded her levelly. “You saw this and realized I needed funds.”

His wife nodded. “I would like to show you how well I ride, so I will need you to help me dress like a man. Then I will need help walking and talking like a man as well, because it has been a long time since I raced, before even the twins were born.”

“Let us be clear, here. You want me to help you dress, ride, walk and talk like a man?”

Sabrina nodded.

“Now there is a scheme I can sink my teeth into.” Aware he was ignoring any and all possible repercussions; he also knew that if he did not snatch at this opportunity to become closer to his wife, he might never be allowed another. “When shall we begin?”

“This evening after the children are asleep?”

Gideon stepped up to her, took her into his arms and kissed her as if she were his lover in fact. “This evening. I can barely wait.” He gave her a look heavy with promise, before he went downstairs to his study to see what might have gone wrong.

By the time he was finished examining his study, he was not certain what to think. It left him with new questions, when already too many had been left unanswered, not the least of which was the nagging question of whether he could be so foolish as to be falling in love with his wife.

A query with no answer, one to be saved for another day.

For today, he needed to confront Doggett, because several— What had he called them? Oh yes, baubles. Several baubles were missing.

By the time evening arrived, and the children were finally asleep, the phraseI can barely wait had become Gideon’s mantra. He placed on his bed all the clothing Sabrina would need, and she regarded the assortment with a critical eye.

“Drawers?” She held up a pair for a thorough examination. “Why do I need drawers? They will bunch, I think.”

“Because you have nothing with which to fill them.”

“The better for you,” said she.

“Saucy wench. What did you wear under your pantaloons the last time you raced?”

“Nothing.”

“Even better.” He went for her.

She sidestepped his reach. “Gideon, now, stop that. We seek to arrive at a particular destination, do not forget. We are undressing me to redress me.”

“But there can be nothing wrong with a little side journey, now and again, before we reach our destination, can there?”

“Hmm. A journey to where?”

Her rogue raised a speaking brow. “Heaven.”

Sabrina laughed and danced from his reach once more. Under cover of her dress, she attempted to pull on the pantaloons he had set out for her.

“Oh, no fair. You have to take the dress off first.”

“We will never reach our desired destination, if I go about dressing in that way.”

“Will we not?”

But Sabrina’s opinion held sway. And after she successfully pulled on and fastened his pantaloons, she did remove her dress.

Gideon decided that she filled his breeches out in remarkable ways. Come to think of it he was filling his own out quite well at the moment. His palms itched to touch, his mouth watered to sample. “I must be the luckiest man on earth.”

“Mama, Damon is sick.”

Sabrina turned her back and slipped into her wrapper, tugged off her riding boots, checked to be certain Juliana slept, and followed Rafferty and Gideon up the stairs.

Miss Minchip was holding Damon’s head over a bucket when they arrived.

“Oh, Baby,” Sabrina said. “Did you eat something that upset your stomach?”

He shook his head, his face red. Very red. Sabrina examined his neck and his chest as well.

“Spots,” Miss Minchip said. “T’other one will get it, too, him sleeping in the same bed last night.”

All heads turned to Gideon.

He raised both hands and backed away. “Oh no. I do not do spots, thank you very much. I do not have any now. I will not have any later. End of discussion.” He turned and left the nursery.

Sabrina grinned at the boys, who were grinning back. “If Papa gets the spots, he will be cross as a bear.”

Gideon was waiting for Sabrina when she returned to her bedchamber. “Can we go back to where we were?” he asked, already churlish.

“First, let me check you for spots.”

He crossed his arms before him stubbornly. “I refuse to be checked, and I refuse to have spots.”

“I would have to check you everywhere. You would have to take off—”

He relaxed his stance. “That could be agreeable.”

“You did sleep with the boys, so you must allow me to check you. Come here so I can—”

The minute he got close enough, Gideon removed her wrapper and grinned when he saw that she was still wearing his pantaloons but nothing much else, except her chemise. “I had forgotten where we were up to.”

“I remember where you were up to,” she said, unbuttoning his shirt, watching him react to her standing there as she was, half dressed.

“Gideon,” she said, stepping into his arms. “What we have together is not so bad, is it? Even children and dogs and cats and spots? You do not have any, by the way. Spots, that is.”

He kissed her. “I feel much the same, Sabrina. Not about the spots, but that this is good, our life.” He carried her to his bed. “I have also been thinking that it is about time Papa had another turn.”

And though it was still too soon for consummation, they did not do much talking before they slept the sleep of the sated.

* * *

The watcher wondered if any stranger would invade Stanthorpe Place this night. There were so many intrusions, ‘twas a wonder Stanthorpe did not simply leave the front door open.

Once upon a time he might have been welcome at that door, himself.

Back then he stood tall, taller than most, and strong. Used to be, he stood handsomer than most, as well. A heart-breaker women had once called him.

A rogue, a lady-killer. He scoffed. Not anymore, not unless the women he gazed upon died of fright.

The only heart he broke now was his own, every time he looked into a mirror.

Every time he regarded the scar slashing his cheek, he recalled everything ugly in his life. They told him, of the knife-wound to his face, that it satclose enough to his eye so that only a miracle could save his sight.

Only a miracle could have saved his life as well.

Yes, he got his miracles, both of them, much good they did him. He had paid a high price.

But he supposed someone had to pay.

Someone always did.

* * *

That evening, when Gideon came into her bedchamber, Sabrina was already wearing his pantaloons and trying to button his shirt. “I cannot fit my breasts into your shirt,” she said in greeting.

“That is not the only problem,” Gideon said, regarding her, hands on hips, his look warm and assessing.

“What could be worse than this tight thing?”

“Those two wet spots at the front.”

“Oh, Lord, I am leaking. I will expel all Juliana’s dinner, if I am not careful. I told you it was too tight.”

“That, my Sweet, I can see for myself.”

“Help me out of this, will you?”

“I have never been more eager to assist.”

“Oh, you. Will you, never, pay attention to anything more than the desires of the flesh?”

“I did not hear you complaining last evening. As a matter of fact, I seem to recall someone asking for more. Was that me? I did not think it was me.”

Sabrina kissed him and danced from his reach. “That will be enough. Deviltry is to be saddled in two days time at dawn, so we can go for an early ride in Hyde Park and I can demonstrate my riding skills. I will set Waredraper to making me a larger shirt tomorrow.”

“And what do you plan to wear for a coat?”

“He found an old one of his and is fixing that for me. I knew the coat would be a problem, but I did not consider the shirt. Now you must teach me to walk like a man.”

Teaching his seductive wife to walk like a man became an exercise in futility. When she tried to walk straight, Gideon found the swivel in her hips truly amazing.

When they got down to business, they decided she must at least learn to swagger like a man. This, she tried with Gideon behind her, his hands at her hips, to keep them from swiveling, but it was no use.

Sabrina could not walk like a man for anything.

All the exercise served to do was arouse Gideon, which was fine with him. He had rather be the rider, where his wife was concerned. He certainly had no intention of letting her jockey in a race. He was simply having as good a time with her foolish notion as he could while it lasted.

* * *

Both the coat and the shirt turned out well and on the day of their early morning ride, Sabrina woke Juliana to feed her early. Then they were off.

In Hyde Park at five o’clock in the afternoon, all the fashionables paraded through the gates, in open carriages, on horse back, or arm in arm. But at five o’clock in the morning, none but a robust and dedicated few riders could be found there.

Since Gideon kept several good stallions in the mews behind his Grosvenor Square house, he gave his blood bay to Sabrina for the ride there and he rode Deviltry, himself. “When we arrive,” he told Sabrina. “We can trade mounts.”

Truth to tell, he wanted to be certain that she did, indeed, ride well, and that she had a good seat, before he took a chance either with her neck, or Deviltry’s.

As good as her word, Sabrina proved to Gideon that she could handle and sit a horse as well as any member of The Jockey Club, so they switched mounts.

Once she was up and settled on Deviltry’s back, they chose a course for a short race between them. Gideon was so cock-sure he would win, even on Ransom, because of his superior riding skills, that when the race began, he did not bother to try. But when he saw what an exceptional race jockey Sabrina proved to be, he bent low over his horse and gave it his best.

Still, Sabrina won, hands down.

“Where did you learn to ride like that?” Gideon asked. They turned their horses back toward Grosvenor Square, with her riding Deviltry, and him cutting a fine figure on Ransom.

Sabrina petted Deviltry’s neck. “I rode everyday when I was a child on my father’s estate in Exeter.”

“You said you were not of the gentry.” Gideon slowed and allowed her to take the lead on the left turn toward his stable in the Grosvenor mews.

“I said I was not a member of the fashionable set, not that I was never a member of the gentry,” Sabrina said, dismounting.

She waited for him to dismount and join her. “My father lost our estate ages ago,” she continued as they approached the house. “Therefore, as an adult, I was not fashionable.”

“Who are your parents?” he asked as they crossed the kitchen and took the stairs toward their bedchambers.

“My father was a country squire who gambled away the money and property his father left him. And I do not see that it makes any difference,” she said, preceding him into her bedchamber. She turned to face him, for once allowing her self-confidence to show. “What matters is that I ride well, do I not?”

“Very well.”

She threw herself into his arms. “Then you will allow me to race at the St. Eustace Winter Fair, to win you the purse?”

Gideon pulled her close and tried to distract her with kisses.

She pulled away. “You will, will you not?”

Gideon sighed. “I will not.”

To his shock, she shoved away from him so quickly, and with such force, she left him off balance, literally.

“Why did you let me race you this morning?” she cried. “Why dress me and—”

“Undress you?” Gideon raised one, speaking brow. “Why, indeed.”

“The race, everything, it was all a hum? A big fat Banbury tale?”

“This morning’s race between us was a lark, Sabrina. Nothing more. Of course you will not ride in a public race.”

“You bounder, you reprobate, you, you—”

“Husband?”

“But—”

“No. You cannot. Absolutely not. Over my dead body. Next question.”

Sabrina marched across the room tapping her hand with her riding crop, arguing beneath her breath at a ripping pace.

Gideon could just imagine her working up her best argument, while he fortified himself against same, by going off to his club and not returning until long after she slept.

Unfortunately, he had discovered that spending time at his club did not hold the appeal it used to.

Before he opened his eyes the following morning, Gideon sensed that his bedchamber spun about him. He also suspected that someone had set the bed afire.

He wished hehad gotten drunk the night before, so there would be a good reason for this misery. As it was, he had done nothing but play cards and win.

“Oh, oh,” he heard Damon say, from somewhere beside him.

Loathe to open his painful eyelids, Gideon hoped, for once, that the exclamationmeant that Drizzle had desecrated a carpet.

“What is it, Sweetheart?” Sabrina asked, stirring as she woke beside Gideon. “What is wrong?”

“Papa has—”

“Do not say it,” Gideon begged, his eyes closed against the room’s gyration.

“Spots,” the boy said anyway.

“Damn.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

“You are the worse patient I have ever come across,” Sabrina said the evening of the fourth day of Gideon’s confinement.

“Of course I am,” he snapped. “I am hungry but food does not stay with me. I am dizzy and the room will not settle. I itch where one should never scratch, and that of course mostly happens while Grandmama is reading to me.”

Sabrina giggled. “But you are better today. I see that your spots are fading.”

“Thank God for that. Except that I am fading, too, and it is barely dark outside.”

“Sleep, then,” she said kissing him and rubbing his back as he turned on his side to close his heavy eyelids. “Come to bed,” he said as he drifted. “I will sleep better, if you do.”

He awoke late the following morning, feeling worlds better. After he ate the breakfast delivered to his bed, he discovered that his food stayed where it ought.

When Bilbury returned for the tray, Gideon asked him to fetch Sabrina.

“I am sorry, your grace,” he said nearly an hour later. “But we cannot seem to locate the Duchess.”

“Did you look in the nursery?”

“Of course, your grace.”

“In the kitchen?”

“We looked everywhere, your grace. Your wife is nowhere on the premises.”

“Nowhere?” Gideon said. “She has to be somewhere. Wait. What day is this?”

“It is the third of February, your grace, in the year of our Lord, Eighteen Hundred and Sixt—”

“Stuff it.” Gideon jumped from the bed. “And fetch my clothes.”

Bilbury offered the pantaloons he had already brought in. “But your grace—”

“The St. Eustace Winter Fair begins today, does it not?” Gideon tugged his pantaloons from his disapproving valet’s reluctant grasp.

“Er, yes, your grace. It does begin today.”

“Have my carriage brought around. Hurry, Man.”

* * *

By the time Gideon’s carriage arrived in Chelsea, it was early afternoon and obvious from the cheering crowd that the race had already begun.

Gideon jumped from the conveyance, blocked on all sides by farm animals, farmers and other assorted fair fanciers. He fought his way amid the throng, weaving through a score of gaily decorated booths and tents selling every item from silk gloves to baby pigs.

He denied an opportunity to buy a manure spreader and bypassed a miracle elixir, advertising a cure for ailments ranging from apoplexy to temper tantrums. “Too bad they do not have one for headstrong wives,” he muttered.

He almost cut through an abandoned cockfight ring, until he saw that it was littered with the carcasses of birds that looked to have exploded.

In a huge open ale tent, a table full of red-faced merrymakers, back-teeth-awash, invited him in for a nip. He damned near joined them.

At a Far-Eastern pavilion, a bearded lady propositioned him, stopping him in his tracks. Gideon apologized and told her that he had enough problems, thank you very much, with the woman he already had.

By the time he made it to the front of the spectators, he saw Deviltry, clear as day, pass a length ahead of the rest.

Gideon could not moderate his grin, no matter how angry he tried to be.

“Two more times around the bell course,” he heard the announcer say.

His palms sweat and his knees knocked. Gideon had never been so worried. If Sabrina got out of this alive, he was going to have to beat her, after he assured himself she had not broken anything but his trust.

The runners passed again. Only one more time around—he just might make it.

A rider was down. Damn.

Gideon charged onto the course, nearly getting himself trampled, but he fell and rolled, just in time, and neither horse nor rider was forced to break stride.

When he reached the felled rider, the injured man was cursing a blue streak, accusing the race commissioners of allowing a professional jockey on the course with a blasted Arabian.

Sabrina. They thought Sabrina was a professional. “I’ll be—”

The race had ended, the spectators cheering and crowding ‘round the winner.

Gideon elbowed his way through. Sabrina sat atop a snorting Deviltry, grinning with pride, laughing, congratulating Deviltry, until she saw him.

When he grabbed her by the waist and hauled her to the ground, she yelped. Then he crushed her in his embrace and kissed her dizzy.

The crowd went dead silent. The Duke of Stanthorpe had just kissed his boy jockey before the entire world and his brother.

Someone tapped Sabrina on the back, stealing her attention from the fiery exhibition she and Gideon had just presented. She turned to accept the five-thousand pound purse and caught sight of Homer Lowick, grinning, not ten feet away.

Amidst the chaos of happy congratulations, the horrible little man tipped his hat and made a cutting motion with a finger across his neck.

Sabrina tried not to faint or to run. She turned away, but stood her ground, glad now that Gideon had come, glad to have his supporting arm around her.

In addition to the race purse, she received an additional thirty-five hundred pounds from the bet she had Doggett place. When Doggett brought her the second purse, Gideon all but growled at the man, likely for abetting her in this jaunt. Then her husband had the gall to ask Doggett to bring Deviltry home for them.

Through it all, Sabrina felt sick, she was so worried. There remained no doubt in her mind any longer. Homer Lowick knew where to find her and who to find her with. He was closing in and she would be forced to run again or she would have no choice but to stand and face her enemy.

After the race crowd finally thinned, they began to make their silent way back toward Gideon’s carriage. But it was getting late, so Gideon stopped to purchase tup’ney pies and found a bench where they could sit and eat them.

“Tell me,” he said, breaking the tense silence. “Did our daughter receive any sustenance today?”

“I expressed my milk so Miss Minchip could bottle feed her. If I was not back by now, she was going to feed her pap. Do not worry. Juliana is not at home starving.”

“I am pleased to hear it.”

And that was the end of their dinner conversation.

By the time Gideon’s driver was able to move the carriage from its location amid the merrymakers, dusk had just begun to paint the horizon with wild streaks of pinks and grays.

They rode home in silence as well, on opposite seats in the closed carriage, facing each other, but not.

Gideon was furious. Sabrina knew that. She could still see the tic working in his cheek. Yet, he had kissed her. Why?

She could not bear his silence, because guilt rode her. She could not bear her own silence, because she kept seeing Lowick’s threatening action in her mind’s eye.

“When it was clear that you wanted to beat me, why did you kiss me, instead?”

“To keep from beating you.”

“Oh.”

He turned from his absorption in the passing scenery to regard her. “I thought at first thatyou had fallen and broken your neck, but by the time I saw you, I had already discovered the injured to be a different rider. I was grateful enough that you were spared to need to kiss you.”

Thunderclouds formed on his brow and the timbre of his voice rose an octave. “But I need to beat you as well, because youcould have been the rider who was injured. Damn it, Sabrina, you could have been killed!”

“Is the fallen rider badly hurt?”

“Not as badly as you will be when I am finished with you.”

“Oh.”

“Your vocabulary seems to have deserted you.”

“I believe I dropped it somewhere near the finish line, when I spottedyou in the crowd.”

“And trampled it underfoot, like the years you took from my life with that stunt.” Gideon leaned his head against the squabs and closed his eyes. “God, Sabrina, I would never have forgiven myself, if something had happened to you.”

“Why? I made the choice. Why would you blame yourself?”

He regarded her as if she had grown an extra head. “Because I told Hawksworth I would care for and protect you. And if you were injured, I would have failed to honor that promise.”

“Oh. I thought, perhaps, you might have had...a different reason.”

“Like?”

“Me.”

Gideon reached for her and hauled her across the carriage to his lap. “I had many very good reasons,” he said, as he opened his mouth over hers and kissed her in such a way as to leave her with no doubt of his feelings on the matter.

“Because you like me?” she asked with a satisfied smile when he allowed her up for air.

“Hoyden,” he said kissing her again. “Vixen.” Another kiss.“Enfant terrible.”

“I am not a child,” she snapped, pulling away and crossing her arms.

He stroked her breast, and she moved to accommodate his possession, sliding back into his embrace.

“Point taken. You are not a child.”

In an unprecedented move, Sabrina slipped her hand inside the flap on his tightening pantaloons, garnering an oath from her husband that seemed less a curse and more an exclamation of appreciation.

The carriage came to a sudden stop.

Gideon swore as the door opened, nearly on the instant.

Grandmama stood on the walk tapping her foot, her annoyed countenance still visible in the smoky light of full dusk. “Where the devil have you two been. The house is all in an uproar.”

Having turned to present her back to the open door, not that anyone could see much in the dark interior, Sabrina tried to slip her hand from the very-full front of her husband’s breeches.

“Better stay behind a minute,” she whispered before stepping down and chuckling at the growl he returned.

She walked Grandmama to the steps to give her husband a chance to gather his wits about him and emerge from the carriage without embarrassing himself. “To what do we owe the pleasure of this unexpected visit?” she asked his grandmother.

“To my granddaughter riding in a race in Chelsea and going missing for all of a day. I did not think you had windmills in your head, girl. What was this racing nonsense all about?”

“Just a lark, says Gideon. He thinks I am anenfant terrible, hoping that my husband will take some notice of me.”

“Take notice of you?” Grandmama said. “That will not wash. That boy fair trips over himself every time you walk into a room.”

“Does he?”

“Lovesick fool.”

“Gideon? Oh, I do not think so.”

“Same as you. Calf-eyed the two of you and everybody knows it but you. Need to face the facts, my girl.”

Grandmama kissed her cheek. “Minchip sent for me a while ago, all in a dither. But now that you two are back, I will be on my way, so you may finish what you started in the carriage.”

Sabrina opened her mouth, and closed it again.

Grandmama left chuckling, and when she passed by her grandson, she thwhacked him with her cane.

“Ouch.” He rubbed his arm. “What did you do that for?”

“Good measure.” She shook her head. “You beef-witted looby.”

“A looby? Me?” Gideon was still watching his grandmother climb into her carriage when he reached his wife at the door. “What got into her?”

Sabrina sighed. “I suppose wisdom would be too much to hope for.”

“What? Why was she here? Why is she leaving?”

“So we can finish what we started in the carriage.”

“The devil you say?”

“Meet you in your bedchamber in five minutes.”

* * *

When they met upstairs, half an hour later, after having checked on all their sleeping offspring, Sabrina found herself remembering the looks on the faces of the people in the crowd when Gideon hauled her off her horse and kissed her.

Well, one face she tried not to recall.

“Do you realize that you kissed a boy before all and sundry right out in the open. Soon the world will believe that Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe, prefers boys.”

Gideon barked a laugh as he approached her. “I kissed Sabrina St. Goddard, my wife, and I do not care who knows it. Besides, the world will laugh at such a foolish rumor about any St. Goddard. Any who know me will not doubt me.”

‘Twas she who doubted, Sabrina thought. In the same way that she didnot doubt her husband’s dedication to the pleasures of the flesh, she doubted herself capable of arousing any of the more tender emotions in him.

Grandmama must be wrong.

Lowick was at the core of her doubts, of course, her fears, her anxiety over the future. But she refused to speak or even think of him for the rest of the night.

She wanted Gideon to erase from her mind the memory of Lowick’s evil smile, the unspeakable future that might very well be in store for her, for all of them.

She could think of only one way to do that, and she felt certain, if she went about her seduction in the proper fashion, that her rogue of a husband would cooperate.

As a beginning, Sabrina allowed him to unbutton each and every one of the buttons down the front of her racing shirt.

After he removed it, she began to undo the binding around her breasts, until he took over and walked around her, unwinding her as he went, revealing her in her beauty, until he had worked his way down to her shift, where two wet stains gave evidence to the fact that she had not given Juliana her evening meal as yet.

Gideon slipped one of her shift’s straps off her shoulder, exposing a breast. “I will not steal Julie’s dinner, but I have yearned to taste, fantasized about doing so.”

Her husband awaited her approval.

Sabrina nodded, the shock of his suggestion touching her physically. But the actuality shot a fiery pleasure through her every fiber. He grew hard and heavy against her belly, the swiftness of his arousal matching hers.

Just as her legs began to tremble, as if they might give out, Gideon raised his head and licked his lips. “Sweet.” And he opened his mouth over hers.

Sabrina tasted her own milk on her husband’s tongue.

Mating. This was the prelude to mating at its most primal. Her seduction was working, Sabrina thought absurdly.

“More later,” Gideon said replacing her strap against her shoulder. Then he began to slip the pins from her hair. He massaged her nape, kissed the back of her ear, nibbled her lobe.

That she was willing to consummate their marriage did not mean that she was ready to give up the last vestiges of self left to her, Sabrina decided. Her decision simply meant that consummation, at this time, would serve her well.

Awake on all counts, as far as this final, pivotal step in her marriage was concerned, she simply would not allow herself to emerge from the experience so attached to Gideon that she could not separate her life from his.

She would not.

From behind her, he slipped his hands beneath her shift and cupped her breasts. “Mine,” he said.

Sabrina smiled and allowed pleasure to wash over her.

She admitted to herself one undeniable truth, a fact she had suspected since marrying this man: Against brutality, she could erect the strongest of barriers. Against gentleness, she could mount no defense.

Her gentle rogue took remarkable care of everyone placed into his keeping by her. She honestly believed that, if ever there was a man who would care for her individualself, Gideon was that man.

That they seemed doomed not to spend their future together, she would not allow herself to contemplate at this moment.

“These clothes have to go, beginning with your boots,” he said. “Sorry.” He was not. He was glad. He led his wife to a chair and pushed her into it. Then he straddled her legs, his back to her, grasped her boot and tried to tug it off her foot.

Sabrina planted her other foot against his backside and pushed him forward, during which process the boot came off and he went flying.

Her laughter soothed his injured dignity.

When he attempted to remove the second boot in the same way as the first, Sabrina tried some fancy footwork, teasing him by running her bare foot up his leg, along the inside of his thighs, and, incredibly, between his legs, before she actually aided in the second boot’s removal.

Having landed halfway across the bedchamber, Gideon put the boot down and turned to her, more than ready to move forward. “I fear I will never be able to have my boots removed again without becoming aroused,” he said. “Bilbury will quit, I tell you, and I will not blame him. Gad, what made you think to do that?”

Sabrina shrugged. “Instinct?”

“Yes, well, now you shall see how my instincts take over, wife, and then you will bedelighted.” He grinned a wicked promise, then he began to advance, exactly in the way she wanted him to, with lust in his eyes and determination in his step.

In a token show of resistance and to heighten her seduction, Sabrina jumped from the chair and began to back away from his advance. But all the while she wanted him to assume she was trying to get away from him, she was leading him to her ultimate destination, his bed.

Lord, she was a smart one, she mused, inordinately pleased with herself.

Then he lunged, unexpectedly, surprising and frightening her, and she screamed and jumped on the bed in a move of instinctual self preservation. As much to put space between them as anything, she scrambled up the bed to stand at its head, her back against the wall.

Gideon stood on the floor, at the bed’s foot, his hands on his hips, his grin deadly and so filled with promise, Sabrina almost forgot to breathe.

“Now I have you,” he said. “There can be no further escape for you.”

Sabrina looked to the left and he stepped in that direction. She looked right, and he stood there.

She laughed, her heart pounding with excited anticipation, but she had never even got near her goal. She had thought that she had him where she wanted him. Foolish girl.

“Do you think you are fooling me?” he asked.

Did he mean that he knew she had led him there? “I did think I was fooling you, but now I realize that I was only fooling myself.”

“In what way?”

Sabrina cocked her head. “In what way do you suppose I thought I was fooling you?”

Gideon grinned. “In every way.”

“Oh,” Sabrina bit her lip in concentration. “I thought I was ready for you, physically, but even though I had the mistaken impression that I was seducing you, you taught me that you have the stronger power to seduce.”

“Do I?” Gideon’s grin formed, even as he pulled off and threw down his own boots. “What other power do I hold over you?”

“I would be a fool to tell you.”

He unbuttoned the front placket on his breeches. “You would be a fool not to tell me.”

Sabrina raised a brow and undid the placket on her own pantaloons in the same slow manner. “Is that a threat?” she asked coyly. She stepped out of the pantaloons and threw off her shift. “I dare you to be more specific.”

“Is that my wife, daring me?” Gideon undid the buttons on his shirt, and given her current state, ran out of patience and tore the uncooperative garment open. Buttons flew even as he tossed it off.

But when he made to join her on the bed, she stopped him with an imperious hand, half way there.

“Naked, if you please,” she intoned like a majesty on her throne. Except that she stood on his bed in glorious nakedness, like Godiva on her steed, her hair her only cover.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Standing on the floor, at the foot of his bed, Gideon slipped his drawers down his legs, almost awed by the fact that Sabrina awaited his touch, begged for it even. Was she ready, finally, for the consummation of their marriage?

He watched her, atop the bed, her back to the wall, watching him, her eyes wide, eager and assessing. Her smile began in their verdant depths first, until the invitation in that smile transformed her entire face. “I want us to become as close as two human beings can,” she said, her voice a rusty rasp, shivering his spine and thrumming his taut nerves. “Hurry,” she added. “I want to feel every inch of you along every inch of me.”

And there was his answer.

Gideon shed the last of his clothes and made his way toward her, across the bed, on his knees, rather than on all fours. Damn she had him at a disadvantage and she knew it.

Still, he could not help his cocksure grin, like some crowing rooster who has just captured his prize. “Any chance you might be willing to lie down when we match inches?”

Sabrina turned serious. In her smoldering eyes, in her lips gone dry and in her sweet moistening tongue, Gideon saw exactly when arousal took over her being. “Standing would bedifferent,” she said, her voice nothing more than a shiver of promise.

Treating Sabrina as a goddess, he became her disciple, kneeling before her, adoring her. “Standing would bedifficult, the first time, at least.” He slid his hands up from her ankles, along her calves and all the way to the inside of her thighs, where he kissed her, softly, near, yet too far from his ultimate destination.

When her legs began to tremble, she clasped his head to keep from falling, and he knew then that he had her exactly where he wanted her.

“You must come down here with me,” he said, learning the contours of her bottom with his palms, breathing warmth against her core.

And like a quivering bowl of cool mint jelly, his wife did a folding slide into his eager embrace.

Sabrina loved the way Gideon opened his mouth over hers and took heated possession of her pulsing self, as if he were starving and she, manna from heaven. She felt the same desperate longing for him, and their mutually-frantic need thrilled her.

He took to suckling her again and the blaze he stoked warmed her to her core.

Home, Sabrina thought, was not a place, but a state of being, a meeting of minds and hearts.

Home was the one’s strength balancing the other’s weakness.

Home was the instinctive knowledge of when and where to listen or speak, to hug or hold, to stroke or kiss.

Home was the person who completed you in the way only heaven could ordain.

Gideon was her home. Why had she not realized that sooner?

Earlier, she might have been able to run away.

Now, she could only run toward.

As if Gideon sensed her surrender, he stretched out on his back, and took her atop him, skin to skin, every inch of her matching every inch of him. “Glory,” she whispered.

“Alleluia,” he replied.

Every dip and rise in her seemed to match, perfectly, every rise and dip in him, so that they meshed and melded into one, almost.

“Soon,” he said. “It must be soon.” He turned them and lay facing her, pulling all their contours into blatant focus.

Gideon touched Sabrina then, to prepare her. “I want to make this good for you,” he whispered, kissing her brow, her eyes. “I want this to be the best experience ever for you. When I am inside you, you must have no doubt that there is where I belong.”

He touched her and Sabrina opened and moaned, arched and begged, in a silent frenzy of need.

Gideon made of her a new-rising star, coaxing her to soar, encouraging her to sparkle, then allowing her to float glistening to rest.

Then he rekindled her spark, till she blazed and reached heaven once more.

He plied her with sweet, soft touches, with tantalizing tongue-licking kisses, stopping to stroke and suckle.

As he feasted on her, he gloried in her expressions, from impatient need to overwhelming amazement, to satisfaction and contentment.

She trusted him and he rewarded her trust. She allowed him to weave a spell along her every hollow and curve, and with her generous blessing, he made magic within her.

At a point where Sabrina thought she must stop or swoon, her rogue denied her request and flew her past bearing to a place so high, they fractured the sun.

Stars rained a sparkling cascade all about them. And he sustained the sunburst with practiced hands until he, too, thought she might expire, then he lowered her slowly back to earth and the realization of his arms encircling her.

Gideon rose above her only then and he watched her as he made to enter her. “You are mine,” he shouted as he slipped inside her.

“Mine,” he said as she closed about him, milking him with her pulsing need.

“Mine,” he whispered, moving within her, arching her, riding her, until she wept with her release.

“Mine,” she whispered on a sob.

Then the rogue carried his wife to heaven again, and when she reached it, and the stars singed them with their sparkling tips, Gideon gave her his seed, shouting at the last, “Mine,” as did she.

They kissed, and kissed again, more ravenous than even in the melding. Touching, confirming, settling arms and legs, bodies, to meet and touch, unable to get close enough.

Never enough.

Hours or minutes later, Sabrina awoke to a crying babe and aching, milk-full breasts. She rose to feed Juliana, and Gideon never woke.

When she returned, a staff of moonlight crossed the bed. She slipped into her husband’s possessive embrace and remembered that she had not given him her prize.

“Gideon,” she whispered. “Gideon, wake up.”

He moaned and turned into her embrace, hard on the instant. She could feel his grin grow against her breast. “Again, my greedy wife?”

She laughed. “Not quite.”

He moaned. “Oh do not burst my fantasy.”

“I want to give you something first.”

“As I want to give you somethingmore.”

Sabrina chuckled at the promise in his voice, at his playfulness, as she rose from their bed and sought the purse she had dropped upon entering the bedchamber.

When she returned to the bed, she sat, looking down at him, prone, half asleep, one wide-awake portion of his anatomy tenting the bedclothes. With a finger, she stroked his erection through the sheet and he lunged and wrapped himself around her, making her scream in surprise.

“Shh,” he said. “You will bring the house down around us.”

Sabrina sought and found the purse then she lifted it and placed it on his chest.

“Oomph. What is that?”

“The race purse, plus my winnings from a wager. Eighty five hundred pounds. All yours.”

Gideon pulled away from her and she heard the purse thunk when it hit the floor as he rose.

She raised herself to kneel on the bed, and watched her rankled husband light candles, one by one, his movements severe, until he bathed the bedchamber in light nearly as bright as day.

Fury shadowed his brow and chiseled his hawk-like features to harder angles, until he stood before her, an arrogant rogue once more, handsome and wicked, and all but threatening in stance.

“Gideon?”

“What do you take me for? Do you think I am the kind of man would send my wife out to make my fortune. Damn you, if you do. Damn you for a fool.”

“I do not understand.”

“Money is nothing to your safety. Nothing do you hear?”

“But you need—”

“I need you safe. What would I— What would the children do, if something happened to you?”

That was when Sabrina knew that there would be no flight this time for her, because if she ran now, she would leave her heart, her veryself behind.

She was his and he was hers.

She loved him. God help her, she did. With a love, the likes of which, she never imagined could be hers. Pray God, such a vulnerable love would not destroy them both.

Sabrina rose from the bed, took the purse and threw it in the corner. Neither of them turned, even when the cloth bag split and coins scattered and rolled to every corner.

He cared for her, Gideon thought.

He cared for her, but all she cared about was that he should have enough money to keep her.

That broke him. Always for the money with her. He had almost forgotten that everything she did was for money. He wanted to ask if she had finally taken his seed for the money as well. But he could not, for he could not bear her answer.

It might destroy his last thread of hope.

It almost did destroy his pride, because, God help him, in that moment, he did not even care. He wanted her any way he could have her, as he had from the first.

He cared only that she was safe, and here, and his.

His.

He took in the picture of her then, almost defeated as she moved to the chiffonier, where he had left her hairpins. She bent to the side, to cascade her hair in that direction, her profile perfect. She took the fall of hair, twined it and set it atop her head, slipping hairpins into it, before turning to regard him.

In the full glow of candlelight, her breasts were high and heavy, proud and free. Sabrina. His wife, the woman he loved, the most beautiful—

The candle’s flame flickered and brightened in the breeze he stirred, as he moved toward her. Light danced off an imperfection, ascar, clarifying it, bringing it into stark relief.

The closer he got, the more such abominations did he notice. Another and another, too many of a sudden. Scars slashed her shoulders, a breast.

Gideon grasped those fine shoulders and turned her so he could examine each desecration that marked her porcelain skin.

Her scars, Gideon thought absurdly, were all on the outside.

Other scars marked the nape of her neck, the back of an arm.

Rage, and an abounding tenderness, filled him, to the point that he feared he must crush her in his embrace, beat on her tormentor, or smash something.

Taking his hands from her, lest he leave bruises of his own, Gideon fingered one particularly thick white blemish along the back of a shoulder. “Tell me about this one.”

“I...fell against a hot poker.”

“He attacked you with a hot poker.”

Sabrina regarded the floor.

“And this one?” He kissed the circular scar at her nape.

“A nail.”

“A bloody, huge nail,” he snapped.

“Sticking out of the wall, and I got...pushed...more than once, against it.”

She had been pinned, literally, to the wall. Gideon’s stomach churned, his throat closed. Something constricted his chest. “I want to kill him.”

“You cannot. Someone else already did.”

“Would that I could end his despicable life a second time.”

“You would have to wait your turn. He was much despised.” Sabrina wanted to tell Gideon then, that she feared she knew Brian’s murderer, and that Lowick must even now be looking for her. But she could not.

“Why, Sabrina? Why did you marry him?”

“I was seventeen when my father sold me to Brian. I believed Brian must be an improvement over my father. In such cases, one always assumes that the unknown must be better.”

She shrugged. “As it turned out, they were two of a kind.”

Dear God, Gideon thought. How many men had she been wronged by, passed to? Her father gave her to her first husband, whom she must have fled, to go to Hawksworth, who passed her to Gideon. Lord, this could end badly.

Or had it already done so?

“Did you kill your husband?”

“No.”

“More’s the pity.”

“I am a coward.”

“You have more strength than ten of the best men who fought Boney beside me.”

“I endured.”

“You survived.”

“I did not remove my children soon enough from danger

“You got your children to safety.”

She had not. Oh she had not. “I got them to you, which is as close to safety as they can get.”

“But not complete safety.”

Long moments of silence passed during which time Gideon became more and more agitated. “I had thought that we were beyond secrets, you and I.”

She shivered. “I am afraid.”

He grabbed a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her. “Of me?”

“Not so much anymore.”

“The day you become certain that I will not hurt you, is the day I pray for and will celebrate.”

“Celebrate now. I am certain you will not hurt me.”

“Then why are you afraid?”

“I am not even certain why. Not quite.”

“You do not think me strong enough, or enough yours, to stand with you?”

“I think you the most wonderful man it has ever been my privilege to know. I thank God daily for your presence in our lives.”

“But?”

“You are human, and only a man, after all.”

“After all.” Frustration ate at Gideon, fury, but over what, precisely, he did not know. “The danger you fear is from an outside source?”

“Yes, and no.”

“Damn it, Sabrina!” Gideon turned away in anger, and came back as fast. “Damn, damn. Damn! You must trust me enough to tell me.”

“If I did, I would place you in danger.”

“To hell with your lack of faith in me. Tell me, damn it!”

She turned away from him, instead. “I cannot.”

Crushed, almost broken, Gideon regarded her steadily. “Tell me, at least, if I must set the runners to watching the house day and night.”

“You must.”

“Can you give me a description of your enemy?”

“Satan’s worst nightmare.”

Gideon ran both hands through his hair. “Veronica must be one you see as your enemy?”

“Yes, but not only her.”

“A man, too, you see as dangerous?”

Sabrina nodded.

“He is tall with a beard. Confirm or deny.”

“Short and clean-shaven.”

“A skinny man.”

“Sturdy, barrel-chested and thick-limbed.”

Gideon saw that Sabrina was breaking under the weight of his questioning, but he needed to know more. “His eyes, they—”

She sobbed. “No more, please.”

Gideon lifted her into his arms and carried her to his bed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Gideon had left Sabrina alone in his bed, almost as soon as she fell asleep.

From the moment he extracted from her something of a description of her tormentor—though he still had no understanding of her torment, which worried the hell out of him,—and from the degree of her fear, he knew he must do something immediate to set her mind at rest and protect her and the children.

Hemust act quickly.

For his own peace of mind, he went first into Sabrina’s bedchamber to look in on Juliana in her cradle and assure himself that all was fine with her. She slept on her stomach, and he could not see much more of her than her tiny hand covering her pink little face, but she was there, safe, and sleeping well. Then he dressed and went up to check on the boys. He covered Damon’s shoulders and tucked one of Rafe’s feet beneath his blanket.

Everyone in his world was tucked into their beds, safe.

Drizzle gave a squeaky yip as Gideon was leaving, and he stooped down to scratch behind a small ear, and even the pup went back to sleep.

On the second floor, Gideon woke Doggett, then Waredraper. Doggett had not patrolled since his accident, but it was time again.

After the men dressed, they met him in his study. “I need your help,” Gideon said. “Sabrina is afraid of someone, and though I do not have a name, I need you to begin patrolling again, both of you. Day and night. Keep an eye out for anyone who looks suspicious.”

Gideon took to pacing. “You once said that you would do anything for Sabrina. Well do this. Prove to her that she and the children are safe at all times, beginning now.”

“Can you give us a description of the fellow?” Waredraper asked.

“Only that he is robust, thick-limbed and barrel-chested.”

“That will have to do,” theirseamstress said, rising.

“Thank you.” Before he left, Gideon made for Sabrina’s sitting room to see if he could find something that might give him, or Bow Street, a clue as to her tormentor’s identity.

She might not appreciate him going through her things, but he remembered her scars, and for that reason, felt justified in trying to help her, despite her reluctance to trust.

Other than her writing things, he found a canister containing a hundred pounds sterling, a small fortune to someone for whom money has always been a problem, he supposed. What he did not understand was her reason for secreting it away from him, when he gave her a more-than-generous allowance.

The canister was, as far as he could see, the only item of value in her desk. Before he left the house, he took the container of money to his study and locked it in the safe.

After he did, Gideon went straight to the mews, behind the house, to saddle Deviltry, for it was unlikely that even the stable lad was awake at this early hour.

Unfortunately, Grandmama would soon be, because Gideon was going to awaken her, himself, and persuade her to pack up her household and move back to Kent today. He wanted her to take Sabrina and the children with her, for he believed they would be safer away from London.

On his way to Grandmama’s he would stop at Bow Street. If it was not too early, he would request ‘round the clock protection for his family. If it was too early, he would go back after he left Grandmama’s.

Last would be a very quick stop at his solicitor’s, to have the man set up an account in Sabrina’s name with the eighty-five hundred pounds she had won at The St. Eustace Winter Fair. It was hers. She had earned it, every penny.

Not only had she stayed when she thought he was poor, she had tried to help him by winning the race purse and giving it to him.

Lord, if he had not already loved her— The realization stopped him in his tracks. Did he?

Yes, he loved her. He had not even realized it. Perhaps it had only taken root sometime last night. Perhaps when she stood on his bed and ordered him not to come to her unless he wasnaked, if you please. Or when she helped him remove that second boot. Perhaps when he had seen her scars and wished they were his, wished he could claim all her pain.

He supposed his love for her had been sneaking up on him for some time. Perhaps, since she threw flour in his face, or when she made a conquest of England’s Prince.

When he loved her, mattered not; he only wished that she loved him in return. Though life would probably go easier on them both, if she simply trusted him.

Ah, but he wanted her love.

He needed her love.

He needed her.

* * *

When Sabrina awoke alone, she realized that within the ultimate tenderness of their second loving, Gideon had made their first encounter, earlier in the night, seem almost brutal.

She thought then, that he might have attempted that second time, to make love to her.

If that was his intent, he had succeeded.

He had cherished her into forgetting the ugliness that marked her. He had carried her all the way to heaven and promised her eternity.

Then why, when she slept, did he leave her?

Had he taken a disgust of her, when he awoke and realized the horror she had brought to their marriage?

Like him, the scattered coins were gone, and Sabrina did not know whether to be pleased or saddened by the fact.

Foolishly afraid that she would never see him again, Sabrina rose to a more-than-frantic wail from her daughter.

* * *

Not fifteen minutes after Gideon left by way of the mews behind the house, Damon woke and went to his favorite spot on the window-seat, with its view to the street out front. What he saw made him run for his brother.

“Rafe, wake up.”

Rafferty sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “What? What is wrong?”

“He is there, across the street again. The man who watches us. Come.”

Rafe fell backward in the bed, moaning. “It is still nighttime.”

Damon pulled his twin’s covers off. “Wake up. Come and see.”

“No.” Rafe pulled them back up. “Leave me be.”

“But there is something about him. He reminds me of….” Damon tugged on Rafe’s arm. “Just come and look. Now.”

“In a while,” Rafe said turning over. “I just need one more sleep.”

“No. You will not sleep when I need you to see that man. Rafe, he reminds me of, of Uncle Bryceson.

“That is not funny,” Rafe said, yawning, hugely and hugging his pillow tighter, fighting suddenly to stay asleep, though he opened one eye. “Uncle Bryceson died at Waterloo. Mama would scold you for your faradiddle.”

“Suppose he is not dead, after all, and is watching over us? Suppose that, hunh?”

Rafe sighed and sat up, allowing himself to be tugged from his bed, dragging his feet on principle, when he was curious enough to run to the window and see Damon’s ghost. He even threw in a complaint about sisters being quieter than brothers.

“Look, there,” Damon said. “Does that man not look like uncle Bryceson, if he were not bent and used a cane and had scars and longish hair like a lion?”

“I think you are having another bad dream, and what happened to your dragon?” Rafe picked up the purring Mincemeat, sliding against his leg. “All I see is a lonely, old man.”

“Then why does he watch us all the time? Answer me that.”

“All the time?” Rafe snorted. “Have you seen him more than twice, then? And what makes you think he can see us? It is almost still dark out, and he looks so old and broken, he might also be blind.”

“He is not blind.”

“Is.”

“Is not.”

“Wave at him, then. Go ahead. Wave.”

Rafferty waved and laughed, until the watcher shrugged his shoulders, and waved back. But before Rafe could react, he turned to a scraping sound behind him, then something covered his face, making it difficult to breathe. Panic clawed at his middle. “Damon!” he shouted, kicking out with instinct. “Damon, you stop this right now.”

“Help,” Damon yelled. “I am caught.”

Mincemeat was torn from Rafe’s arms.

Rafe screamed, heard his brother screaming, until a blow silenced him, as the next did for Damon.

Below, in the hazy gray of awakening dawn, the watcher, straightened, despite the pain in the action. “Damon! Rafe!” he shouted.

Neither boy returned to the window.

The scarred man was not even certain what he had seen. Perhaps Demon and Rapscallion were only playing a trick on him, except that it was a bit early in the day, even for those two.

Then the watcher saw, just down the road, two ruffians, each with a thick, rolled rug over his shoulder, emerging from the mews road, several houses down from Stanthorpe Place. Side by side, the rug-toting rotters made their scurrying way toward Henrietta Street and disappeared from sight.

The watcher made to charge forward, as if he would run after them, but he was thwarted by his bad leg. He tripped and dropped his cane, cursed and glanced down the street, but he saw nothing save the smoky fog of London’s dawn. “Hello the watch!” he shouted, hoping to catch the attention of a retiring night-watchman. “Hello the watch!”

“Damn.” The kidnappers were getting away, if they were kidnappers. Except that he had seen no one in the nursery window since that scuffle of a sort was played out before his eyes. One minute both boys were there, waving, then something cut his view of them, giving him the absurd notion that curtains, or bags, had gone down over them, as if the boys were butterflies caught in nets. Except that all had been darkness inside the nursery, making it difficult for him to discern much of anything beyond the window.

As hobbled as he was, he would follow the route the men with the rugs had taken, he decided, until he came upon someone who would help. If only he could reach his cane, far below him on the ground, and get back up again, after he did.

But before he could attempt that feat, a beefy arm hooked him ‘round the neck, and something hard—a knee, perhaps—wedged itself in the small of his back.

“Never you mind shouting for your thieving cronies, Mate, you got Stanthorpe’s own guard dogs, at’cher service. We saw you watching the house.”

Another man stepped before the watcher, wielding a kitchen knife in a parody of swordsmanship, for all the world as if he were stitching a sampler in the air. “Waredraper and Doggett, sentinels, guardians and protectors of the righteous,” said the knife-wielder.

“Thank God,” the watcher said, tongue in cheek, wishing Doggy, or Dogwart—or whatever the devil the oaf behind him called himself—would loosen his bully hold. “Enough of your burlesque performance,” the watcher snapped. “The Whitcomb lads have been kidnapped.”

The sham sentinels laughed. “Kidnapped? By who?” the prissy one facing him asked. “Those two would bruise an abductor bloody.”

That was true, the watcher thought. “Look, if it is all the same to you, the men I believe to be their kidnappers scurried toward Henrietta Street, likely heading for Oxford Street. You had better go after them.”

“Sure we will, just as soon as we get you settled, won’t we, mate?” Dogwart asked his prissy, grinning friend.

“If you do not believe me,” the watcher tried. “Then take me to Sabr—to her grace. She will tell you who I am and she will listen to me, by God, which is what you should be doing. You will rue this morning’s work. Her boys are taken, I tell you.”

“What do you say, Doggett? Think we should take the scoundrel inside to see if her grace knows him?”

“We can’t go scaring her Ladyship, now, can we? But we can put ‘em in the cellar, truss ‘em up right ‘n tight, and wait till Himself comes back.”

“You are making a terrible mistake,” the watcher said, as he was dragged along, tripping over his accursed leg. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“The king of England?” Prissy-man suggested.

“Nah.” Doggy-breath cackled. “‘E’s the bloody queen.”

“I happen to be—”

“Not so bloody sturdy and thick-limbed as you’re s’posed to be, I can tell you that,” Dogwart said, shoving him forward again, forcing the watcher to center his concentration on remaining upright.

If he fell and cracked his senseless skull, he would be no use to Sabrina or the boys, he thought. And this time he must be. God, he must. “At least go and see if the boys are in the nursery,” he said.

And the fools laughed again.

More than an hour later, Gideon dismounted, threw his reins to his stable lad, and made for the house.

Grandmama had been more than willing to pack up on the instant and take her “sweet daughter-in-law and dear grandbabies,” into Kent with her to protect them, a concession for which Gideon was incredibly grateful.

Though his wife did not yet know it, she would soon be safe away and in possession of an account with money enough to keep her comfortable. At this point, all he cared about was keeping her and the children safe and cared for. Nothing else mattered.

He had barely made it into the kitchen when Waredraper and Doggett came racketing down the backstairs, attacking him with frantic, meaningless prattle before he could draw breath.

“The lads,” Doggett said.

“’Twas a half hour before we even looked.” Waredraper groaned. “And only then because of that yapping pup. We just don’t know.”

Gideon raised both brows. “What are you talking about?”

“Could have rolled ‘em up in the carpet.”

Doggett shook his head. “Bloke’s a blackguard. He didn’t know for sure.”

“Then where are the missing carpets?”

“Stop!” Gideon shouted, a sick feeling churning in his gut. “Tell me first thatthe ladsarenot Rafe and Damon.”

Doggett and Waredraper glanced at each other. Doggett swallowed. “But they are.”

“What about them?” Gideon snapped.

Doggett backed up a step. “Gone.”

“Are you saying you lost my children?” Gideon’s voice rose. “How could that be, when they were in their beds even as I put you on watch?”

Gideon saw his guard-dogs cower, forced himself into a pretense of calm, and took a deep breath. “You will excuse my outburst. Where do the boys usually hide?”

“If they are hiding, it is not in this house.”

“Are you certain?” Gideon asked. “Did you look in the park, across the street, where we hunted cat?”

“Hunted what?”

“Across the street, Man. Did you look across the street?”

Doggett nodded. “We looked.”

“Everywhere,” Waredraper added.

Gideon named a dozen places the boys might hide, but his men insisted the boys were in none of them.

“I will find them, myself, by damn.”

Waredraper grabbed Gideon’s arm to stop him as he stepped determinedly forward. “Wasting time. Signs of a struggle.”

That was Gideon’s undoing. A struggle. He could barely breathe. Fear grew in his belly like a canker. Who would do such a thing?

Veronica was the first person who came to his mind. “What have you told her grace?”

“Nothing.” Doggett shook his head. “Didn’t want to give her a fright.”

Gideon released his breath. “Do not. Not yet. Veronica is trying to draw me out. I am certain of it.” Except that he had learned, only that morning on Bow Street, that Veronica was likely more dangerous than any of them suspected.

“What if her grace looks for them?” Waredraper asked.

The question stopped Gideon’s scrambling thoughts. “Wait a minute. It is past nine. Why has Sabrina not discovered the boys missing for herself? Are you certain they are not with her?”

“The babe’s fussing up a storm,” Doggett said. “Spots. Her grace doesn’t want the boys catching it again. Told Minchip to keep—”

“Minchip!”

“Hysterical. Knows nothing. They were gone when she woke.”

Gideon’s heart raced, guilt snapped at his heels. He would have served the boys better if he had stayed, rather than gone. His fault they were missing. His doing. “Have my horse saddled, at once.”

“Where are you going?” Doggett asked Gideon, as Waredraper left to tend the horse.

“Lady Veronica Cartwright’s. Keep this … situation quiet, until I return.” He turned to Alice, standing on the far side of the kitchen, her mouth pursed as if she had sucked a hot-house lemon. “Say nothing to your mistress,” Gideon told her. “That is an order.”

He waited for the maid’s nod before regarding Doggett. “Come with me, while I get my pistols. If I am lucky, I will have the boys back before Sabrina ever realizes they went missing.”

Gideon loaded his pistols as efficiently as if he were the second in a duel. “After I leave, go for the runners and hurry them up,” he told Doggett. “I went to Bow Street this morning and left a request. They will help when you tell them the situation has worsened.”

From atop his horse, five minutes later, Gideon regarded his watchdogs. “If you do not hear from me in half an hour, then you must tell her grace. If it comes to that, keep her here at all costs. Do you understand me? I know who is behind this, and I believe the boys are safe. I must believe it.” He nodded before turning his horse. “I will have them back in a trice.” Please God.

Doggett and Waredraper watched Gideon ride from sight.

“Blast it,” Doggett said. “You forgot to tell him about the bloke in the cellar.”

“I forgot?” Waredraper shouted. “Me? I was supposed to tell him?”

“No matter. You’ll be forgiven. Says he has everything under control.”

Minutes later, Gideon stormed Veronica’s house without resistance. Obviously, she had neglected to inform her servants that he would no longer be paying their wages. So much the better, under the circumstances.

He cut through her dressing room, and when her maid both curtseyed and crossed herself, upon seeing him, he knew what he was like to find.

He did not even try the knob on the bedchamber door, but kicked that portal open.

The bed’s copulating occupants separated in shock, the both of them cursing like guttersnipes. Veronica’s nameless partner jumped to his feet, then the puny fellow had the audacity to bow. No small insult, given his nude state.

“I daresay, he is smaller, Ronnie, than you used to prefer.” Realizing the man must be a rookery acquaintance, Gideon was bedeviled into insulting his height, but as a result, all of them regarded his limp little wick, instead.

God help him, despite all panic and good sense, Gideon laughed.

The man growled and demanded satisfaction.

Gideon ignored him. “Give me the boys, Ronnie. If you give them to me now, your perfidy will go no further.” He wanted to tell her what he learned of her treachery this morning, but this was no time to anger her. “Kidnapping is too cruel, even for you.”

Her lover straightened. “Kidnapped, you say? Well, in that case, I shall let your insult pass, due to the overabundance of anxiety you must be feeling.” The little man pulled on his trousers with haste and turned to the bed. “Good bye, my dear.” He seemed almost to grin, except that his lips remained a slash of firmness. “Thank you. It has beeninteresting.” As quick as that, the curious little man was gone.

Veronica waved him away, even as she regarded Gideon with narrowed eyes. And like a black widow spider, still hungry for a mate, she threw back her covers, for all the world, as if she were inviting him into her bed.

“I want my boys,” Gideon said, more disgusted than ever, but determined not to reveal it. “Just give them to me, so I may go.”

“If you are referring to the children of that slut you married, does this mean that you have misplaced them already? By accident, or by design? I knew you could not stomach raising another man’s get.”

Gideon wondered when she had become so destructive a woman. His brother had gotten his throat cut in a bordello, the runners recently discovered, and they said it was an establishment Veronica owned.

She rose from her bed now, employing all the wiles of a temptress, though she fell so far short of the mark, as she stalked toward him, it was all Gideon could do not to reveal how ill her ploy, their very association, made him. He understood, now, the difference between making love and the physical act, itself.

“You loved me, once,” she said. “Surely you could do so again.”

“For a time, I bedded you, to our mutual, physical gratification. That time has now passed.”

Shedding her cunning, like a snake sheds its skin, Veronica Cartwright looked every inch a strumpet, screeching in mortified fury.

Her fists raised and poised to do damage, she rushed him.

Gideon stepped from her path.

She turned and rounded on him. “You are a fool, Gideon St. Goddard. Do you mean to say that you think you care about that whore you married?”

“She is not a subject I will profane by discussing her with you.”

The woman who was nothing more to him now than a caricature of depravity, laughed. “The more fool you.” She took up her dressing gown and slipped into it. “I am sorry to be the one to break the news, darling, but you had best resign yourself to having me. Because your harlot of a wife is on her way to save her precious brats even now.”

Gideon grasped her shoulders. “What do you know?”

“That he will never let her go, once he has her. And that by the time he is finished with her, you will not want her anymore.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

“Your grace,” Alice said, entering Sabrina’s bedchamber and holding forward a sealed note. “This has just arrived for you.”

Sabrina tore open the missive and was trembling before she finished the first line. “Dear God,” she whispered. “He says he has the boys. Alice, go upstairs and fetch the twins, or stay with Julie while I—”

“They are not there, your grace.”

Sabrina stepped around her maid. “I will go for them myself, then—”

“The boys are missing.”

“No,” Sabrina wailed. “Please no,” but she could tell from the look on her maid’s face that it was true.

Sabrina wanted to rant, to scream, to blame someone, but she knew she must calm herself or be useless to them. She also knew that the fault was hers.

She read the note again. It said she must go to Seven Dials, else Damon and Rafferty would be harmed. Worse, he promised, if she did not go alone, they would die. Sabrina sobbed at the very words. She did not need the undisclosed address or signature to know who had taken them or where in the Dials she must go to save them. She did not need his signature to know that the fiend meant every word.

He, Homer Lowick, had stolen her boys. Dear God; they must be so frightened.

Sabrina began to search her bedchamber for anything she could fit in her reticule that might serve as a weapon. Then she came to a dead stop, realization dawning. “You knew? Why did no one tell me? Who else knows?”

Alice hesitated. “Everyone is out looking for them, your grace, even the runners, now.”

“Does his grace know, too? And kept it from me? Is he searching for them as well?”

Alice bit her lip. “He is out looking for them, yes.”

Sabrina moved from panic to fury, then to relief, all in a flash. Perhaps it was best that Gideon was away, else he would try to prevent her from going, or try to go with her, or in her stead, and place the boys in mortal danger. “Will you care for Juliana, Alice, while I go out?”

“But where—”

“Do not ask.”

“Of course, your grace.”

“Thank you, Alice.” Sabrina picked up Juliana to kiss and snuggle her one last time, then she all but ran down the stairs. She dared not give voice to how long she might be gone, or that she might never return.

Sick over leaving, afraid she would never see her daughter or her husband again, Sabrina made her surreptitious way toward Oxford Street, avoiding the main roads whenever she could. On Oxford, she gave in to her anxiety and hailed a hack. People were too busy there going about their own business to notice her.

Inside the hack, head back, eyes closed, she could think of nothing but the danger to her boys. The man in whose hands their fate rested had already committed murder, of that she was certain. She had placed her children in danger by not doing something about Lowick sooner.

She would never forgive herself.

At St. Giles High Street, she had to argue with the hack driver, before he would set her down. But despite his dire warnings, Sabrina planned to lose herself among the motley mix of close-set buildings. She did not intend to be followed.

As the hack drove off, she stood unmoving, alone, and afraid, for perhaps the first time since she came to know Gideon. She had never consciously placed her trust in him. Yet, she did trust him, she came to realize, as she made her way through a nefarious aggregate of humanity, most in need of a wash.

On Monmouth, near Seven Dials, a grimy urchin, twelve at the most, in stovepipe hat, but no shoes, accosted her, demanding her purse or her virtue.

Sabrina laughed somewhat hysterically at the ultimatum. “I have neither,” she said, throwing him off his guard. “And Lowick will not want me to be late.”

As she expected, her assailant stepped back and looked about, as if the demon might jump from the shadows, and Sabrina continued on her way.

Perhaps she should have told Gideon about Lowick. Except that her husband might now be dead, if she had, for he would surely have tried to rid the world of such a one. At least this way, if something happened to her, Gideon could raise Juliana, the boys, too, if she could manage it, please God.

In Seven Dials, a dingy neighborhood of costermongers, bird-fanciers, and sellers of old clothes and shoes, a body could go missing just walking down the street. There, heart hammering against her ribs, bold on the outside, shaking on the inside, Sabrina approached a battered front door and stepped gingerly into the house.

Having fled this place some seven months before, Sabrina knew something of the extravagant layout. Her only hope for Damon and Rafferty was that they, too, remembered, so that when she distracted Lowick, in whatever way she could manage, the boys could get away.

She hoped she would have a chance to tell them how to get to Gideon from the crypt in the St. Giles in the Fields churchyard, where the old priest-tunnel exited.

She had only ever told one person about the underground passage, and that man was dead. She should have told Gideon about Lowick, if only so he would know about the tunnel. Except that she did not want Gideon following, Sabrina reminded herself.

If he came, her husband would die, just as her time here would no longer matter by the time he arrived, for it was entirely possible, that when she and Lowick were finished with each other, either Lowick would be dead, or she would.

* * *

Upstairs, Lowick rubbed his hands together, smiled, and studied his bait. Huddled together on a single attic cot, identical-twin boys, in nightshirts and bare feet, sniveled like two peas adrift in a leaky pod.

Taking them had been too easy to be fun, his men had complained. Lowick was sorry for their lack of sport, though they had had sport enough later, what with that bloody runner breaking down the front door. Served the idiots right, walking down the street with stolen rugs, bold as you please, for all the world to see.

Lowick was only sorry that he would now have to replace them, and he was furious over the cost of disposing of the bodies. He hoped no one came looking for the missing runner anytime soon.

Nevertheless, he had Whitcomb’s brats, no matter the nuisance. Besides, he would only keep them around long enough to get him the prize, then he would dispose of them.

Brian Whitcomb’s woman was all he cared about. That she was now St. Goddard’s would only make his mounting of her that much the sweeter.

First, he was going to work the money Whitcomb owed him out of her, every shilling, then he was going to make her pay double for the insult St. Goddard had paid him. It was just too bad he would not be able to keep her around for a bit of fun later, but she would be just too hot a property, if St. Goddard lived.

One of the boys took to sniveling again and Lowick snickered. “Be good and you can make me some brass,” he said. “If St. Goddard won’t pay to have you back—as he can well afford to do—you’ll make a fine pair of chimney sweeps. Might even get me a guinea for a matched set.” Lowick laughed. “Give me trouble and I’ll set you adrift in fact, and there’ll be no boat beneath you, leaky or otherwise.”

They remembered him, he thought. He could tell from the way their eyes had widened when he’d walked into the room and from the way they clutched each other now. He wondered what else they remembered.

“How did your slut of a mother get you out of here the last time?” he asked. “Tell me and I’ll let your baby sister go.”

Rafferty charged him for his groundless taunt, throwing his whole body into the action, but Lowick boxed the cheeky boy’s ears and sent him sprawling to the floor.

“Papa is going to find you,” Damon spat. “He will find you andbeat you.”

Lowick laughed. “Too late,” he said. “Your Papa hasn’t got it in him, anymore.”

“Uncle Bryce does.”

“There’s a new name,” Lowick said. “And who is this fine Uncle of yours?”

“He is the Duke of Hawksworth,” Damon said. “And very powerful.”

“Hawksworth. Hawksworth? Didn’t he come to a bad end at Waterloo? Blimey, if you two keep depending on people from the netherworld, you’re going to find yourselves joining ‘em real soon.”

Lowick leaned in close. “In this life, best you remember who can help you and who cannot.” He pointed to himself. “Me,” Lowick said, “I am the only man who can help you now.” Then he screamed in rage and twisted around as if to grab something.

“Mama, Mama,” the boys shouted when they saw her.

Lowick choked her with an arm, and while her boys beat against him, he forced her hand, into the air, the hand with the bloody scissors she had stabbed into his shoulder. When he bent back her wrist, Sabrina screamed, in pain and frustration, and dropped them.

With a curse, Lowick kicked the sharp-edged cutters under a chest of drawers, then he picked her up and carried her, kicking, toward the staircase.

Remaining silent, so as not to terrify her boys any more than they already were, Sabrina managed to drop her reticule before Lowick carried her down the stairs.

* * *

At Stanthorpe Place, Gideon called Sabrina’s name as he ran up the stairs and into her bedchamber, all the while praying that Veronica’s insane tale was false. When he failed to find Sabrina in either bedchamber, he went up to the nursery.

There, he found Alice walking Juliana, the babe red-faced and screaming. “Sabrina?” he asked, but his heartbeat had already trebled, for he knew that Sabrina would not leave her sick baby, unless she had a compelling reason to do so.

Gideon felt as if he had stepped off the edge of the world and dropped into hell. Veronica’s tale could very well be true.

Fighting a knot of emotion stronger than any he had ever encountered, scared enough to break under the weight of his fear, Gideon regarded the maid. “Where is your mistress?”

“I read her note,” Alice wailed, as if she expected him to cuff her for her impertinence.

“What?” Still breathing hard, Gideon searched the nursery with his gaze, for a clue, something, to lead him to the boys, while he also tried to make sense of the maid’s words above the din of his daughter’s fretting.

Alice bounced Julie. “I sent Doggett to see if he could find her,” she said. “It is so bad a place, after all, and I hoped he could tell you, but he is not back. And the man in the cellar has been making ever so much noise. I am afraid he will break free and murder us all.”

Frustrated and anxious as Gideon was to set off and make everything right again, he needed to hear what Alice knew, so he took Juliana to quiet her. “Tell me now, Alice.”

When the maid’s discourse became disjointed, Gideon set her gently back on the simple path, until she began to make sense. Then he perceived that Veronica had been correct. Panic set in and he gave her the baby back.

When Alice pulled a note from her apron pocket and offered it, Gideon gaped at her for not presenting it sooner, but he said nothing and read it. Then he cursed as he crumpled it, tossed it to the floor, and was on his way out the door again.

Alice placed the baby in a cradle. Then she bent down to pick up the crushed note, and as she regarded it, she remembered the man Waredraper was guarding. “Wait!” she called. “What about the man in the cellar?” But when she got to the top of the stairs, Gideon was long gone, and the very man she feared was on his way up.

“Where is Sabrina?” he shouted, his cane smacking each step as he climbed. “Where is your mistress?”

Alice backed up a step.

“It is all right,” Waredraper said, coming up behind him. “I am convinced he is a friend.”

Alice extended her trembling hand to reveal the crumpled note.

The man who had been locked in the cellar snatched it from her, and Alice screamed and ran back to the nursery to lock herself and the baby inside.

* * *

Gideon found Doggett hurrying down Oxford Street, halfway between Stanthorpe Place and one of the worst sections of London.

Gideon hauled the man up on his horse. “Did you find her?”

“Seven Dials. I know the house. I was just—”

They rode hell for leather toward Seven Dials.

Down the street from the house Doggett indicated, Gideon pulled his pistols from his greatcoat. “Take my horse and go for the runners. Where the bloody devil have they been, anyway?”

“Out searching for the boys, but I’ll bring them here,” Doggett said. “You be careful, your grace. That Lowick’s a bad one.”

“Describe him to me.”

“Like you said, short, sturdy and barrel-chested, but I never made the connection. Not till I came here.”

Gideon cursed and moved forward.

Getting inside the house was easy, almost too easy, Gideon thought as he stepped into a setting that became eerie for its contradiction of lavishness amid London’s squalor.

The sound of weeping lead Gideon down a set of dank stone stairs and into a dim, milled-stone cellar. There, huddled together beside a massive door, closed against them, sat his barefooted boys in their nightclothes, Rafe clutching Sabrina’s reticule.

Pistol in hand, Gideon held a finger to his lips, so that when he advanced and they looked up and saw him, they did not announce his presence. Nevertheless, they shouted “Papa,” when they saw him, though not as loudly as they might have, as they launched themselves into his arms.

“Where is Mama?” Gideon whispered, accepting hugs, kissing heads, wishing he could hug them back, except that he must keep his pistols at the ready and clear of the boys at the same time.

“The little man is hurting her,” Rafe said. “And I want to hurt him back, Papa.”

Rafe’s words fired Gideon’s hunger for vengeance. “I shall deal with him for you, son, but first, I want you to go upstairs and wait just inside the front door for the runners. And when they arrive, I want you to direct them down here. Go ahead now, so I can get your Mama and bring her safe up to you.”

Gideon’s attention focused suddenly on what he could not see, on the opposite side of the massive door, the more-frantic tone of Sabrina’s weeping, and the heightened fervor of the man’s cursing.

He tried the knob while he watched the boys climb the stairs, but he did not aim his pistols or try to force the door until they were out of sight. When he did try, the blasted portal would not budge. Gideon swore, looked about him, and unearthed a downed beam which he used as a battering ram.

On the second try, the door gave with a splintering crack and flew open to smack the stone wall. Across the room, the struggling heap on the bed separated, and a man launched himself offSabrina!

The bastard was still dressed, praise be, his face and arms were raked bloody, and blood soaked his shoulder. Gideon cocked his pistols, aimed one at Lowick’s heart, the other much lower.

Gideon’s gaze strayed to Sabrina, pushing down her skirts, shivering to the point of chattering teeth, looking at him as if she could not bear the sight of him. “Sabrina?”

His distraction allowed for a pistol to be cocked. Lowick’s.

“Go ahead,” Gideon said, refocusing, facing down Lowick’s gun. “But I will send you to hell before me.”

Lowick grinned and shifted his aim toward Sabrina.

Gideon lowered his pistols.

A knife sliced the air, buried itself in Lowick’s thigh, and as the fiend roared his rage, he re-directed his aim toward Rafe, coming up beside Gideon.

“He was going to shoot Mama!”

Gideon knocked Rafe down, covered him, and caught Lowick’s shot.

Sabrina screamed. Rafe’s name. Gideon’s. A good sign, Gideon thought, as he rolled off the boy, ignoring the pain, thinking he needed to look for his pistols.

He shook off a sudden dizziness to focus on Sabrina, holding Rafe. His wife. His. So close, yet too far away to touch. She knelt over him, then, one minute regarding his bloody side with anguish, the next fixated on the doorway.

Damon stood framed there. Veronica stood behind him, her hands on his shoulders, narrowing her gaze on Sabrina. “This could have been avoided, my dear, and your boys might have survived you, if you had just stepped into my carriage that morning or even accepted the services of the midwife I took the trouble to send.”

Gideon called himself a hundred times a fool. “Ronnie,” he said. “Let Sabrina and the children go. Let my man take them home.”

“I care less than nothing for the brats. I want only to remove the harlot you were coerced into marrying.” She gave him a fanatical smile. “So you may come back to me.”

“I saved your life once,” Gideon said to her now. “Give me my family’s lives in return, and you may have mine to end, or to keep.”

“No,” Lowick said, holding Gideon’s pistols.

Sabrina began to weep, even as a thundering filled the chamber, vibrating the floor beneath them, as if the end of the world had come.

One of the cut stones in the floor shuddered until it disappeared, leaving a hole through which a strange man rose, abetted by a second—Waredraper.

Fast as the first man appeared, he dropped and rolled, knocking Lowick off his feet.

Waredraper tackled Veronica, freeing Damon.

Ignoring the burn in his side, Gideon sought his pistols, but they were caught in the fight between Waredraper and Veronica, a near thing, until Waredraper ended on top, Veronica screaming and kicking beneath him. From his perch, the old man grinned. “Ain’t as old or as stupid as I thought I was. Good thing I let my friend, here, talk me into this.”

“Who put the knife in this one?” the friend asked, his familiar voice catching Gideon’s attention, Sabrina’s.

“I did,” Rafe said. “Found it in Mama’s reticule.”

The man yanked the knife from Lowick’s thigh to hold at his throat, ignoring his string of curses. “That’s my Rapscallion.”

Sabrina gasped.

“Hawksworth?” Gideon asked. If not for the voice, he would not have thought it possible, the stranger was so different, yet he had used Hawk’s pet name for Rafe. “Hawksworth?” he asked again, with more hope.

“I told you to protect her, damn it,” Hawksworth shouted in fury. “How the devil could you let this happen, Stanthorpe?”

Fury eclipsed hope. “I thought I was protecting her from indigence,” Gideon snapped. “Neither of you bothered to tell me that I was supposed to be protecting her from Satan, himself.”

Gideon and Hawksworth looked at Sabrina, clutching her boys, being clutched by them, and weeping into their arms, and neither had the heart to hold her accountable for her foolhardy omission.

Silently, they bound Lowick and Veronica.

When they were done, Gideon regarded his wife. “Sabrina, are you all right?” But she would not look at him, and Gideon was cut to the quick by her aversion and rejection.

Lowick sneered. “You are agreeable with having my leftovers, then, your grace? Oh, I forgot, you already have had them, for I had the slattern before you. As I had her again today, make no mistake.”

Despite the ache in his side, Gideon took great pleasure in cutting his knuckles on the man’s jaw.

Hawksworth sat back against the wall with a half-smile on his face and closed his eyes.

Gideon thought his old friend looked as if all the fight had left him. He was pale, and the scars on his face only now registered. But Gideon could not keep his attention from Sabrina, there, beside him, bending over him, binding the wound in his side.

Safe. Sabrina was safe. The boys were safe.

Inhaling her fresh lilac scent, Gideon touched her hair as she tended him. He stroked her cheek with his fingertip, all the while begging silently for her to look at him. But she did not, and in the end, he was forced to close his eyes against the pain of having the wound bound.

When Sabrina finished and pain subsided, Gideon opened his eyes, only to find her in Hawksworth’s arms.

All the blood seemed to drain from him.

The event he wanted to rejoice over, his good friend’s return from the dead, now made him ill, for it meant the loss of all Gideon had come to care for.

Hawksworth was alive. Alive and holding Sabrina as if he would never let her go. As she held Hawksworth, the man she loved, running her hands over the scars on his “poor, beautiful face” and weeping in his arms, thanking God that he did not die, after all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

As Gideon watched Hawksworth and Sabrina together, he knew that he had lost her to the only man she had ever loved. Even Damon and Rafferty, the boys he had come to think of as his, were being crushed in Hawksworth’s embrace. They called him Uncle Bryce and said they had recognized him watching the house, and they knew he would save them.

Soon, even Juliana, Gideon’s bright little star, would be lost to him as well.

Like a man in a trance, Gideon watched Doggett arrive with the runners, and pull Lowick and Veronica to their feet. Before they got Lowick out the door, the bastard turned to Sabrina. “You ruined me with your whoring ways. This is your doing.”

And on his wife’s face, Gideon saw only an unbearable and haunted sadness, as she turned from his silent entreaty and leaned into her lover’s waiting arms.

Gideon’s eyes met Veronica’s, and she read his anguish, and started to laugh. He could hear her demented laughter all the way up the stairs.

In that moment, Gideon wanted to do murder. Lowick and Veronica, first, just for the satisfaction of it. Then Sabrina’s first husband and, perhaps, her father, if only he could.

And last, Gideon would do in Hawksworth, the friend who had given him heaven and took it away again.

He watched Sabrina stand and show concern, not for him, but for Hawksworth. She helped his old friend to rise, offering herself as his crutch, and they made to leave together.

Almost as an afterthought, she turned to him, but rather than look at him, she regarded the bloody bandage against his side. “Thank you for saving Rafe,” she said, as if she were speaking to a stranger. “It is a flesh wound but wait for the doctor. We will have him sent to you.” With that, she turned and walked from his life.

Gideon saw the boys hesitate and look from him to their mother and back.

Sabrina called them sharply, and they sent a last anguished look in his direction.

Gideon smiled and nodded. “Listen to your mother,” he said. And they did.

It was over, then.

We will have the doctor sent, she had said. Already, in his wife’s mind, she and Hawksworth were together again.

* * *

When Sabrina, Hawksworth, and the boys, arrived back at Stanthorpe Place, she ordered refreshment for Hawksworth and went up to the nursery to comfort and settle the boys.

They were tired and cranky. They did not understand why they had left their Papa behind.

Once she took them away from Stanthorpe Place for good, which she must do, Sabrina realized that her own sons might never speak to her again. But what choice did she have? She would not remain to wait for her husband’s disgust, his eventual hate, to destroy them all.

Sabrina found Alice and Miss Minchip in the nursery with Juliana, so she fed and cuddled her baby girl, and thanked Alice, before she went back downstairs to say goodbye to Hawksworth.

She needed to pack herself and the children up and leave Stanthorpe Place as quickly as she could.

If she were lucky, they could be gone before Gideon returned.

A sob escaped her at the thought.

* * *

“My bachelor accommodation at Stephens Hotel on Bond Street is not fit for you and the boys,” Hawksworth said when she revealed her plan to leave. “But you can go to my townhouse. It is for sale, I have learned, but still mine, I believe. Alexandra is not there, I understand, though she would welcome you, if she were. If you truly wish to leave Stanthorpe,” Hawksworth qualified. “Which is not what I have been hearing.”

“What do you perceive you have been hearing?”

“That you have no choice but to leave, except that you look as if you would just as soon stay.” He smiled grimly. “Not to mention the way Stanthorpe looked when we left him. Why did we abandon him, like that, by the way? And after he saved Rafe’s life?”

“What do you mean about the way Gideon looked?”

“Broken, is the way he appeared to me, as if he had lost his best friend … or his only love.”

Another sob escaped her, and Sabrina turned away. “Ah, Hawk, what did you do to me, giving me to him, of all men?”

“Why? What do you find so bad in Stanthorpe?” Hawksworth turned Sabrina’s gaze back toward him with a finger to her chin. “Can you not bear to look at my scars, Sabrina? Or can you not look me in the eye and say you do not love your husband?”

Sabrina raised her chin. “It is your scars,” she lied, and then she wept in earnest, because he had winked, even as she said it. But despite his attempt at levity, she had had a glimpse of the agony deep inside him. She took to crying in earnest then, and Hawksworth held her in his arms as she did. If she could not bear the destruction of her dearest friend’s legendary perfection, how then could he?

Sabrina wept for them both, for her children’s loss of a father, for Gideon, himself, and for her, because she would love and mourn Gideon, forever. Hawksworth, she suspected, wept as well, and they consoled each other.

Gideon stepped into the foyer, with Doggett and Waredraper, and found his wife and her lover thus, clutching each other as if they would never let go. They were so wrapped up in their quiet embrace, Gideon brooded, that they did not even notice her invalid husband’s tardy return.

Gideon slapped Hawksworth briskly on the back, as he passed. “Hello, old friend. Make yourself at home. Anything I can get for you? Ah yes. I almost forgot. ’Tis my wife, you want, and have.”

Waredraper and Doggett went directly upstairs.

Gideon stepped into his study, but remained inside the door watching Sabrina and Hawk. “I am fine,” he said. “Thank you for asking. As you said, it is only a flesh wound.” He shut the door with a decided slam.

Sabrina shed a new bout of tears before she stepped from Hawksworth’s arms and wiped the moisture from her eyes. “Do you see what he thinks of me?”

“He thinks nothing of the sort. He desperately fears the worst; that he has lost you. And you have given him reason to fear. The way you regarded him, at Lowick’s, as if he were dirt beneath your feet.”

“No. No, I did not. Not that. ‘Twas I, who felt dirty, filthy, disgraced, and I could not bear to witness his disgust of me. I was mortified that he had observed me with so vile a creature.” All but mounted by that creature, she thought, with inescapable and everlasting regret.

“Sabrina, he does not think badly of you. He is afraid, bitter, to see us like this, and hurt. Badly hurt. By you, and quite possibly he has been hurt previous to today, if I do not mistake the matter. Have you used him ill?”

“I have done nothing to hurt him. I have given himeverything.” Sabrina refused to admit that until recently she had given him all but herself. The night before had already likely been too late.

She shook her head, repeating her silent denial. “Gideon hates me because of Lowick’s accusations. I knew he would. He has taken a disgust of me. My association with such a horrid man is beyond scandalous; I always knew Gideon would perceive it so.”

“I think you must look into your heart, my dear, and discover the truth there, and then perhaps you should look into your husband’s eyes, and discover the truth there, as well. Learn to trust, Sabrina. Trust is everything,” Hawksworth said. “Stanthorpe is a good man. He bound my wounds as best he could and held me as I lay dying, or so we both thought, making of himself a target on that bloody, deadly battlefield.”

Hawksworth sighed as he looked into the teeth of hell. “He did not leave me willingly, but only when forced by circumstances to defend the members of our regiment against Boney’s troops.”

“I do not dispute that Gideon is a good man,” Sabrina said. “I have had daily proof.”

“He is the best of men. I would not have entrusted you to anyone less worthy. But even I know that you must earn love, and return it, if you wish to keep it.”

“Fine words from a man who appears to be running away.”

Hawksworth kissed Sabrina’s brow, lowered his cane to the floor and made for the stairs. “You mistake the matter,” he said, turning. “I no longer have the ability to run.”

Sabrina scoffed. “That is as blatant a falsehood as my saying that I could not bear to regard your scars. Stephens Hotel, indeed.” Sabrina raised a brow.

Hawksworth smiled. “You have perfected Stanthorpe’s arrogant brow, I see.”

“Where will you go?” Sabrina asked, refusing to rise to his bait. “What will you do?”

“After I have said good-bye to the boys? I have not as yet decided.”

“Have you at least informed Alexandra that she is not a widow?”

Hawksworth shook his head. “No.”

“Then you had better, and soon.”

Hawksworth regarded her sharply, and returned to her. “Tell me which is more important, that I tell Alex, or that I tell her soon?”

“Go and see her. Please.”

“Perhaps, I will,” he said. “We do have a score to settle, her and I. She needs to be taught a lesson, I believe. Perhaps…. Yes. I will strike you a bargain, Sabrina, my love. I will see my wife soon, if you will tell Stanthorpe that you love him.”

“I do not think I can,” Sabrina whispered. “I am afraid he will not care—”

Gideon opened his study door. “Hawksworth,” he said. “Do you mind if I have a word with my wife before you steal her away?”

There stood the man she ached to run toward, Sabrina thought, the man whose enfolding arms had once offered blessed comfort and a place of safety—if only he would open them now.

“Go,” Hawksworth said. “I will be upstairs with the boys.”

Sabrina raised her head and crossed the foyer on shaky legs, then she stepped into the study and shut the door behind her. As she and Gideon regarded each other, Sabrina damned near said she loved him, except that he distracted her by handing her the money canister that she had kept hidden in her desk since she moved in.

“Why were you hiding this from me?” Gideon asked.

Sabrina bit her lip. “I was not so much hiding it from you as I was hiding it for me.”

He scoffed. “Always, you talk in circles. It is time for talking straight, Sabrina, for once, please.”

“I suppose there does come a time to tell the truth,” she muttered, almost to herself, thinking she should come right out and say she loved him.

“From you, the truth would be a refreshing change.”

Smarting from the sting of those words, Sabrina raised her chin and changed course. “I used to keep my money hidden, in the event I needed to get away from my husband—my first husband. Once, I did use it to get away from Lowick.”

“And you hid it fromme because?”

“Brian used to steal it, so I was forced to hide it. Once I was here, I continued to hide it, because I was used to doing so. Knowing I had it gave me a sense of safety.”

“And you could n—”

“Though that was nothing,” she said, stopping him. “It was nothing, I came to realize compared to the sense of securityyou gave me.”

Gideon opened his mouth to speak, paused to reflect, and firmed his lips. He paced to the window and looked out for a long moment. “Thank you for telling me.” He took a slip of paper from his desk and handed it to her.

“What is this?” Sabrina asked, stepping nearer the lamp to read the document.

“I had the full race purse, eighty-five hundred pounds, deposited into an account in your name this morning. That is a copy of the deposit order. The money is yours.”

Sabrina sat. “You did this for me?” No one had ever done anything half so generous for her before. But then Gideon had done so much, never previously attempted, including making her love him. She rose and approached him. “After today,” she said, her voice suddenly as small as she felt. “You are especially kind to give this to me.”

“Kind?” Gideon spat the word, as if she had insulted him. “I am not kind,” he shouted—roared, more like. “Damn it to hell, Sabrina.” He grasped her shoulders. “Listen to me.”

Her heart began to race and her palms to sweat. And Sabrina simply stood there staring into his beautiful, bright green eyes, aware, so aware that her love for him shone in hers, hoping that was love for her, she saw in his.

But as if he could not believe the evidence before him, Gideon shook his head imperceptibly and stepped away from her. Then he ran his hand through his already mussed hair. “I love you,” he said in a rush. “I love you in a way I never thought myself capable of loving. I love you so damn much that I am prepared to divorce you, so you can have that former friend of mine, who gave you to me, only to take you away again.”

Sabrina did not know which of them was more surprised by his words. Chagrin, bashfulness, of all things, seemed to color Gideon’s features. He made to run his hand through his hair, again, but dropped his hands to his sides. “I am sorry. I do not mean to act coercive or bitter. You deserve every chance at happiness with whomever you choose to spend your life.” His voice was rising. “Though I honestly believe that I am the best husband for you, damn it.” He took a breath. “But that is the last I shall say on the matter.”

He loved her? After everything?

Gideon gazed out the window, traced the frost on the pane while seeming to look inside himself. “Sabrina. If you or the children ever need anything….” He turned to regard her, his emerald eyes more beautiful than she had ever seen them, so filled with love, Sabrina was like to fall to her knees in thankfulness. “Anything,” he said. “Ever.”

Gideon, the man she loved, loved her in return. Sabrina could barely take it in.

But why, when he believed that she gave herself to Lowick? He did not even know the truth of it, that Lowick attempted to take her by force on two occasions and failed both times.

Could she be so fortunate as to be the recipient of such a love? Impossible.

Perhaps he wanted her merely because he could not have her. It was a disheartening thought, but she must know for certain. She must. “There is something you should know about Hawksworth,” she said. “Before we go a step further.”

“Spare me. I know how much you love him.”

“You know nothing of the sort,” she snapped, getting his full attention. “Neither, I perceive, do you know that Hawksworth has a wife—though Alexandra yet believes herself a widow and is set to marry another.”

“I thought—”

“I know what you thought, but you are wrong. It was never like that between us. Hawksworth was Brian’s half-brother. He was my brother-in-law. He became my best friend. Featured himself my brother.”

Did she see hope burning in Gideon’s expression? “Hawksworth is still a friend,” she said. “But he is no longer mybest friend.”

“Then you have already been a Duchess?”

“No, Brian was Hawksworth’s mother’s son, untitled and impoverished.”

Bitterness dimmed hope in Gideon’s look. “Ah, yes,” he said with disgust. “And you will not be impoverished again.”

“There is no danger of that. I have eighty-five hundred pounds.”

“Yes, you do.” Gideon sighed. “But let us not forget my situation.”

“Your situation has no bearing on this matter, for I want our bargain done.” Sabrina gave him back the document of deposit. “You said that money was mine to do what will make me happy.”

Gideon nodded. “So, I did.”

“I sold myself to you, Gideon St. Goddard and now I return your money. This negates my sale, does it not? It frees me?”

“Yes,” Gideon said, closing his eyes against the pain of losing her, this agony infinitely more piercing than that from the pistol shot. “You are free to go.”

“Good,” Sabrina said, stepping closer. “If I am free to go, then I am free to stay.”

Gideon could make no sense of her words. She was so close, he could touch her, but if he touched her now, he would never let her go.

He fisted his hands. “But I have lost all my money.”

“You have not.”

For a minute, Gideon thought she knew he had tricked her.

“You have the eighty-five hundred pounds,” she said. “Money enough to keep us, if we are thrifty. I am better at economy than horse racing, you know.”

In Gideon’s heart, joy sought purchase, yet too many questions lingered. “Why did you appear as if you hated me, after I broke into that room? Why did you turn from me, after all was said and done and the runners had taken the villains away? And why, by all that is holy, did you never tell me that horrible man was after you?”

Sabrina turned away from her husband’s probing gaze. “It was so ugly, what you came in on. Previous to my coming here, people like Lowick, sordid, corrupt, are the kind I was forced to associate with daily. Such as them are so far beneath you that I knew you would take a disgust of me once you learned of my life with them.”

“Do I look as if I have taken a disgust of you?” Gideon appeased his deep need to touch her by grazing her chin with his thumb. He wanted to haul her into his arms, but he was still afraid that if he did, really did, she would run screaming from the room, and straight into Hawksworth’s embrace.

“I want our bargain done,” she said again.

“Sabrina, you give me hope and take it away again. Please, you are killing me. If you must bury your knife, bury it to the hilt, now, with one thrust, and put me out of my misery. Tell me what you want of me.”

“I want your purchase of me to be negated. I want for you no longer to own me. I must own myself again, so I may be what I want so badly to be.

“What?” Gideon whispered.

“Your wife.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a gentle man, and the best of Papas. You are good, kind, mine—” Sabrina touched his face. “And I love you.”

Gideon scanned her expression to see if he could read anything, anything, to deny her words, his hope, but he did not, and he was humbled. “You love me.”

“I do, but how can you want me, thinking me a whore and a schemer?”

“It never occurred to me to believe what Lowick said. I know who you are, Sabrina St. Goddard. I know you and I love you. But, Sabrina, tell me he did not hurt you. I have been so worried, but I dared not ask, because I was afraid you would consider the question a judgment on you. It is not.” Gideon cupped her head to pull her near and press his face to hers. “You are so precious to me, I cannot stand the thought that you have been hurt, in any way, and that you must suffer alone, because I am unaware of your pain. Did he hurt you, love?”

Sabrina was so touched, she pressed her lips to his ear before she could speak. “No, Gideon, not on either of the occasions he tried. I fought him off, though I might not have succeeded this time, had you not intervened. But if….”

Gideon straightened from their embrace and moved a curl from her eyes. “If he had hurt you, I would share your pain and we could heal together. Did he, love?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I simply cannot comprehend that you would want me still, if he did.”

“Do you not realize that I have wanted you, any way I could have you, almost from the moment I walked into my kitchen and you threw flour in my face?”

“Any way you could have me?” Sabrina smiled through her tears. “The way you can have me, my lovable, undeniable rogue, is by your side, and in your bed, for as long as we both shall live.”

Gideon kissed his wife the way he ought to have done weeks before, with all the love inside him. With his kiss, he told her how much he treasured her, and with hers, she proved the same. Love turned to passion and passion to desire and—

The world intruded with utter chaos … two excited little boys, and one crying baby, who shattered the moment’s passion, but not the love.

The love, they deepened.

Sabrina and Gideon stepped apart, reluctant but smiling.

Damon and Rafferty whooped and charged Gideon, welcoming Papa home, with kisses, and hugs, and questions, and more hugs, until Sabrina once again sought Gideon’s handkerchief, except that he had to use it on his own eyes first.

Hawksworth stood in the doorway, a screaming baby in his arms. “Help,” he said.

Grinning, Gideon took Juliana, and the babe quieted and gave her Papa her best grin.

Hawksworth chuckled.

Gideon extended his hand to his friend. “I apologize for thinking—”

“And I for doubting—” Hawksworth took Gideon’s hand and clasped it firmly.

Gideon cleared throat. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“Thank you. If not for your care on the battlefield, I might not be here.”

“I am glad you did not tell me so when I came in the door tonight.”

The two men shared a smile.

Hawksworth nodded toward the baby. “Sorry to interrupt. I tried to hold them off as long as I could, but as soon as they knew Papa was home….”

Rafe slipped his arm about Gideon’s leg and leaned against it. “Papa, Mincemeat went missing, but we found him sleeping in your bed.”

“Withhis kittens.” Hawksworth said with a wry grin.

“Does that really mean he is a girl?” Damon asked.

Drizzle waddled in, went tail-wagging mad over Gideon and … drizzled, he was so happy.

Hawksworth laughed as he backed out the door. “As much fun as this has been, I must take my leave and allow you to recover.”

Everyone followed him into the hall. “Hawksworth,” Gideon said from the base of the stairs. “You will take the children at some point? You got us into this—for which we will remain eternally grateful—but we would very much appreciate a honey-month.”

“Good God,” his friend said, thunderstruck. “A month?”

Gideon chuckled as he slipped his arm around Sabrina’s waist, and she slipped hers around him, and they started up the stairs.

Hawksworth remained by the open door to watch them, all five, make their undisciplined way up the stairs, happy, chattering, jumping, holding hands. A family.

“Can I have a pony ride, Papa?” he heard Damon ask.

“Lord have mercy,” Sabrina said. “Your Papa has a gunshot wound in his side.”

“From saving me,” Rafe said. “Thank you Papa.”

Gideon ruffled Rafe’s hair. “Anytime, Son.”

“Can we do anything to make you feel better, Papa?”

“Why, yes, Damon, thank you,” Gideon said. “I would like you and your brother and sister to spend some nice, quiet time in the nursery, so I may take a napwith Mama.”

THE END

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The Rogues Club, Book Two

UNFORGETTABLE ROGUE

by

Annette Blair

PROLOGUE

Hawks Ridge at Devil’s Dyke, St. Albans, England, March 1815

Bryceson Wakefield stood less than a breath away from becoming the Fifth Duke of Hawksworth.

His father moaned. “In life, I have failed.”

No man should die, or live, Hawk knew, calling himself a failure. “No Father,” he said, “Do not believe it.”

The old man grasped his hand with more strength than Bryce thought possible. “What do I leave behind?” he asked.

“Me!” Bryce wanted to shout. “You leave me!” But he said nothing. His sire voiced no pride in an only child, though neither did he repeat his litany of disappointments. How does one deal with a parent who had not so much as touched one’s hand for all of a lifetime and now clasped it to his heart?

One attempts, Bryce decided, to invoke the smallest spark of kinship. “You leave me behind, Father.”

Fervor brightened his sire’s gaze. “You, Bryce, you will make me proud?”

God knew he had tried. “I like to think I will.”

Hawk’s hope for approval waned with the weakening of the old man’s grip. “I will; Of course I will. Tell me what I must—”

“Fight Bonaparte!” Obsession flared in the old man’s eyes for one bright moment. “Bring honor to my name. I would die . . . proud.”

A father’s last words: He would be proud if....

CHAPTER ONE

London, September, 1816

Bryceson Wakefield, the Fifth Duke of Hawksworth, stood at the mouth of hell—not on the field of battle, but in the vestibule of a church, gothic and empty of guests.

There, he saw from afar, his wife, a bride with her bridegroom standing before a priest . . . and there, Hawk knew that living, again, just might kill him.

Thrice on his way to this improbable place, he had ordered the carriage turned around, and thrice he had turned it back.

Even now, he wanted to leave, rather than face Alexandra with the dreadful sight of him, scarred and battered by war, but her very presence drew him up that aisle like a beacon in a night-dark storm.

* * *

Smile, Alexandra Wakefield told herself, as she turned to face her bridegroom, her attention captured, instead, by the bearded derelict making his lone way up the aisle, the tap of his cane a desolate echo in the vaulted church.

His bearing, tall, sturdy and wide-shouldered, as he took the front pew, and the sharp, intense gaze he directed her way, sent a shiver of startled awareness through her. He made her think, absurdly, of her late husband—not the first time Bryce came to mind today—but the brooding stranger watching her, as if he might devour her, looked nothing like.

Bryceson Wakefield, the Fifth Duke of Hawksworth, a rogue by nature, swarthy, charming and handsome as sin, had enraptured every female who beheld him.

Alexandra had been no exception.

Beauty and his beast, some slyly called them, but Hawk was the beauty. The day he asked for her hand in marriage had been the happiest of her life. Then she learned the real reason he married her, and it hurt.

It hurt enough for her to say yes to Chesterfield’s proposal of marriage, one year to the day, after Hawksworth died at Waterloo.

At the memory, a sob rose in Alex, until the Vicar cleared his throat, snapping her back to reality with a hot rush of embarrassment. “Do you, Alexandra Huntington Wakefield,” he was forced to repeat, “take Judson Edward Broderick, Viscount Chesterfield, as your lawfully wedded husband?”

Panic gripped Alex, grief, soul-deep, but she had no time to regard it, as the brooding stranger stood, his jaw rigidly set, and tapped his cane on the floor. “You will pardon the intrusion,” he said, his husky and familiar voice swamping her in a miasma of yesterdays. “But my wife must decline.”

“Bryce?” Alex cried, but no sound emerged from her throat, none save the sob that had been trapped there. Then the chapel’s ceiling tilted, and dipped, and kissed its floor.

Hawk hastened awkwardly to his wife’s side and ignored the agony of kneeling, aware that he would have the devil of a time rising again. But at this moment, he cared for nothing, no one, save Alexandra. “Give us a minute,” he enjoined the beleaguered Vicar, because warning her hovering bridegroom away, with even a veneer of civility, would be impossible.

“I object,” Chesterfield said, revoking the need for civility.

“What?” Hawksworth snapped. “You think I will abduct her from the altar? You would have no say, even if I did.”

His old adversary hissed and bared his teeth, like a hound after a bone.

“She is my wife,” Hawk said, as much to affirm his responsibility as to stake his claim. “Mine.”

“Gentlemen, remember where you are,” the Vicar admonished, as he took Chesterfield’s arm and urged him up and toward the sanctuary, nodding for the unknown groomsman to follow.

Hawk lifted and supported his wife’s head and shoulders, drinking in the sight of her like a man parched, shocked that the vision before him was not the hoyden he remembered. “Ah, my funny-faced minx,” he said, a rasp in his voice. “What were you thinking, while my back was turned, to go and blossom into a beauty, and to accept Chesterfield, of all people?”

Hawk had known for some time that Alexandra deserved better than a broken man like him, that for her own sake, he must set her free. But as he made his way up the aisle, he recognized her bridegroom and faltered in his resolve. Yes, he must seek an annulment as planned, but not just yet, for she also deserved better than the scoundrel standing beside her at the altar.

Hawk smoothed a curl from her brow. “You were such a discerning sprite; you cannot possibly love the knave.” Then again, she had married once without love, why not twice?

“Ragamuffin?” Hawk called, less in banter than in challenge, the old nickname certain to ruffle her feathers and bring her around. “I know I am scarred and changed,” he said. “But am I so horrid that you cannot bear to look upon the sight of me?”

Even then, Alex did not stir.

With a rush of panic, Hawk called for water, and almost as fast as he did, the Vicar appeared and offered a cup.

Chesterfield, two steps behind, knelt and reached for Alex’s hand.

“Do not,” Hawksworth snapped with the command of a man who led regiments, halting his wife’s accursed bridegroom like a hail of grapeshot. If only he had a weapon to hand now, Hawk thought as he placed the cup to his wife’s lips and tipped it upward.

She swallowed involuntarily, coughed, opened her eyes and swooned again.

Would she were overcome with joy, he mused facetiously as he stroked her cheek with the back of a hand, rather than frightened to death by the loathsome sight of him.

Hawk wanted to take Alex into his arms, stand and carry her as far from the cruelties of life as he could get her, except that he had become the ultimate cruelty. Besides, rising at all, without revealing his blatant and embarrassing weakness was a feat he had not yet mastered.

Without choice, but mortified all the same, Hawk gently returned his wife to the mercy of the cool marble floor. Then he stood in one resolute, pain-racked motion, no one, save him, aware of the cost to him in sheer willpower, or of the shout of anguish trapped behind his firmly-set lips.

Chesterfield impaled him with a look, fists clenched at his side, malice in both stance and expression.

“Sorry,” Hawk said. “I lived.” Though he repeatedly questioned his survival, when better men had died, true regret escaped him for the moment. “You may carry my wife to my carriage, or I shall have my man transport her. Either way, you will say your good-byes.”

To Hawk’s consternation, Alexandra’s lock-jawed suitor bent effortlessly to bundle her into his arms, rose as easily, and awaited further instructions.

Moments later, Hawk made his fraudulent, stiff-spined way down the aisle, repudiating pain, his concentration firmly fixed upon his wife, secure in her limber buck’s sturdy arms.

Other than his concern that Chesterfield might try to abscond with Alex, with him, her crippled husband, unable to prevent it, Hawk found that he was almost glad of his bride’s near bigamy, for it compelled him, if only for a time, to join his life to hers, once more.

Still, he detested the thought of imposing his scarred and savage self upon her.

Once upon a time, he had conceived of a naïve anticipation to return to her, a goal that grew daily stronger, as did he, until he saw his scarred face in a mirror, attempted to walk, and realized he might never be a man, in every respect, again.

By God, he wished things were different, that he was different, whole, that they could go back to the simple and easy friendship between them.

He wished . . . that he deserved her.

Selfishly, he wished that she had not changed. She used to be downright plain, but all his. Now she was beautiful. Breathtaking. And to whom she belonged was yet to be determined.

Her very presence infused him with the contentment of his youth, of their youth. Seeing Alex, again, uplifted him in an extraordinary, almost abstract, way. It brought him the same overwhelming joy that her calling him from the light had once done, when against all odds, the memory of her had brought him back to life.

When she had brought him back.

Either fate, or God, must have a sense of humor, Hawk mused. Of a certainty, they had switched places, he and Alex, for she was now one of the most beautiful women he had ever beheld. Exquisite. And him? Well, he had become beastlier than anyone could have imagined.

With the reminder, regret swamped him. Guilt. She would have fared better if—

But no. No. If he had died, she would be condemned to a life with Chesterfield, a fate Hawk could not conceive of, under any circumstances.

Look at the strutting, thick-skulled cockscomb, agile, capable, more comfortable in his strapping body than Hawk would ever be in this scarred and broken one. He wanted to beat the blackguard bloody just for existing, which was nothing to what he wanted to do to the cad for touching Alex, despite the fact that his robust assistance had been required, damn Chesterfield’s eyes.

As they approached the church’s thick, groaning, gothic doors, held open by an apprehensive Vicar, Hawk vowed that the day would soon come when he could carry Alex up a bloody mountain, if he pleased. Correction, if she pleased.

If only he were granted the miracle of time and strength to accomplish it.

A wife should rest secure in her husband’s arms, blast it . . . except that she would not be his wife for much longer, Hawk reminded himself.

As if his agonizing walk down the aisle, with its sights and insights, were not enough, Hawk was forced to feign perfect agility, and endure perfect hell, once more, as he climbed into his waiting carriage beneath her stalwart swain’s vigilant gaze.

Then, reward came, for he took excessive satisfaction in accepting Alex in his arms, especially as she was being relinquished by the furious man with whom she had damned near replaced him.

Still, she belonged to him for the moment, and since only he knew that their marriage must end, this moment must be enough.

He found himself tempted, however, to rub salt in her ousted bridegroom’s wounds, just for sport. But his increasing concern over his wife’s inability to awaken took precedence. “Alexandra?” Hawk tested her brow for fever, chafed her hands and brought them to his lips. “Ragamuffin, wake up.”

* * *

Alex floated in a sea of warmth, safe, secure, happy, an unusually blessed experience, since she rested comfortably in Bryce’s arms. But her singular dreamlike contentment began to trouble her. She remembered believing that Bryceson had, impossibly, returned from the dead. Then as in all dreams, everything shifted and she found herself carried in a death-grip by Judson for a long, long distance.

Voices had drifted above her, angry one minute, soft the next, hushing and admonishing, as well. She remembered a great deal of movement, hers—bouncing, jostling—and being held so tight, she could barely breathe.

As if, within the dream, her deepest, most private yearnings were being granted, Judson had handed her to Bryce, of all people. She became incredulous, then elated.

She loved being in her husband’s arms but hated facing Chesterfield with her guilty joy. She wished she could remain here, asleep, floating forever in whatever netherworld she existed.

Did death beckon then, finally, and would she feel as peaceful as she had sometimes imagined?

Would Bryce be there waiting for her?

As much as she wanted to give herself up to the promise of peace, someone called to her.

Alex shivered.

“Myerson, where did you put the lap rug?” That voice, again. Bryceson’s . . . but impossible. Alex was exhilarated and frightened by the sound. It could not be real. ‘Twas not Lazarus, after all, she imagined hearing, but Bryceson Wakefield, Duke of Hawksworth, dead this last year and more.

She heard her own whimper as warmth covered her like a blanket, and she slipped blissfully back into that all-enveloping state of happy oblivion, there, in the only place where Bryceson’s arms could possibly remain around her.

“Myerson, Stephens Hotel, if you please. We will not be going on today, after all.”

Alex smiled at the sound of his voice and slipped deeper into the place where it dwelled.

CHAPTER TWO

Hawk saw a smile curve his wife’s pale lips and he bundled her close as he regarded the two silent men by the open door of his carriage—Chesterfield, vigilant, scowling, the Vicar, a study in apprehension.

Hawk nodded. “I’ll just take her to bed, shall I?”

The Vicar’s lips thinned. Chesterfield growled and made to charge, but the Vicar stopped his forward surge. “You do not even know her,” her discarded bridegroom accused over the struggling Vicar’s shoulder.

Hawk’s heart beat at a frantic pace, for something in the accusation stung deep. He raised a speaking brow. “Not know her? I assure you that no man knows Alexandra better than I do.” After today, he no longer believed it, but he would not give her erstwhile suitor the satisfaction of hearing as much.

Someone shut the carriage door, severing Chesterfield from sight, but rather than the exultation Hawk would have expected, he experienced a flash of sympathy for the man. He, too, was about to lose Alex, though not quite so soon.

“She does not want you,” the malcontent shouted, negating Hawk’s compassion. “She wants me.”

Upon the blade-sharp echo of that sobering thrust, Hawk’s carriage began to rattle and dip, shiver and clatter, as it crept across the cobbled terrace before Holy Trinity Church.

When, at length, the vehicle pulled safely into London’s Sloane Square traffic, exultation filled Hawk, euphoria, followed by a shot of blind panic.

Yes, he had gotten Alexandra safe away, but Chesterfield’s parting volley, echoing in Hawk’s brain like a death knell, made him question every decision he had made since his father’s death.

Until today, he thought he could not fail Alex any worse than he already had, but suppose he was wrong? Suppose he had just broken her heart by stopping her from marrying the man she loved?

Could she love Chesterfield? It hardly seemed possible, given their dissimilarities. Then again, she might have changed, as he certainly did.

He had all but died and risen from the dead. Dying changed a man. War changed him the more. There were his scars, to begin with; how would Alexandra feel, once she saw the likes of them in the light of day?

She might take one look and run screaming into Chesterfield’s arms.

He and Alex had certainly switched places, and in more than looks, Hawk feared, for with his return, he might now become the thorn in her side.

And what would he do with her, now that he had her? Not that he did not know precisely what he wished to do. He was not so broken that he did not want to be her husband in every way, though desire and action were two entirely different matters. As were desire and duty.

Or trust and honor.

Hawk slipped a wisp of his wife’s rich nutmeg hair behind her ear and examined her in the fading rays of afternoon light filtering through the uncurtained carriage window.

During her growing up years, none of Alexandra Huntington’s features had seemed to match. Her eyes were too big and too bright for her small pale face. Her eyebrows, like unmatched wings, appeared drawn by an angry hand, brows one wanted to trace with a fingertip. Hawk did so now, amazed to see how much better they fit, nearly two years and one war, later.

Her mouth was still too wide, her lips too full, her nose elegant but tip-tilted. Yet the amalgamate had become all of a piece, falling into symmetrical and harmonious placement, of a sudden, making of his ill-favored hoyden, a beauty, striking, too remarkable not to be kissed.

Like the beast his scars proclaimed him, Hawk wanted to awaken the slumbering princess in just that way, or lay siege to her tower fortress. Or was beauty storming his beastly rogue’s lair, even in sleep?

Difficult to tell which tale fit. Hawk knew only that in this marriage he had created from whole cloth, he must take care not to play the jackal and claim her for himself.

Rogue wolf, after all, was the role for which he had been born and bred. But Alexandra’s role, and which of them would maintain the sturdier fortress, remained to be seen.

He already knew that there would be no happily ever after for them.

Still, to Hawk’s surprise, something akin to anticipation began to take root deep within him. He looked forward to every minute he would spend in Alexandra’s life, for however short the duration.

His decision to give her an annulment and set her free had been difficult. But not consummating their marriage might be easier than he expected, given his physical condition, and her penchant for staid, lumbering bridegrooms.

On the other hand, the course upon which he was determined might also be fraught with peril, for he could never tell Alex he was giving her up for her own good. If he did, she would fight him, rather than leave him, for she was in the habit of placing the welfare of others before her own. And he could not be so cruel as to pretend dislike, or worse, disinterest.

He could not dispirit so bright a flame.

A low, simmering flame, capable of flaring into blaze at any time, he remembered as he watched her sleep.

Unable to keep from stoking her fire and awakening her, Hawk touched his lips to hers in that age old, mythical rite. But Beauty turned the tale and awoke her astonished beast by deepening the kiss and bringing him to alert and rigid attention. A startling and extraordinary turn of events, in every respect, for Alex was exceeding eager, and he was sexually aroused for the first time since the battle of Waterloo.

Impatient to prove his prowess and taste her once more, Hawk parted her soft, sweet lips with his own, taking the kiss to a deeper, more intimate level, both testing himself and gauging his wife’s reaction.

Alex moaned. She sighed. She moved restlessly against him, enhancing his physical reaction. But rather than rejoice over his unexpected progress, Hawk worried about the lessons her blackguard of a bridegroom might have taught her.

He did not remember the imp kissing with such fervor before. Not that he had kissed her above twice, and then, in a brotherly fashion, except on the day of their wedding, when he had kissed her with promise, before saying goodbye.

How blind he had been, how foolish, kissing scores of others, when the flower of his youth could kiss like a dream.

Still, Hawk would give his fortune—if he were still in possession of it—to know the name of the man who had taught his wife this exquisite lesson.

To his delight, Alex sighed, then her lids fluttered, and her eyes, bright and soft as turquoise velvet, opened at last. For a moment, she appeared, for all the world, as if she were that princess of legend, waking from a years-long sleep … her eyes growing wider and wider as she regarded him.

As if seeking a touchstone to reality, she scanned the interior of the carriage with her gaze, the passing scenery, then his face, again, taking in and examining his every flaw.

Hawk watched a range of telling expressions flit across her amazingly unguarded features, though, not a one of them revealed her revulsion or disgust.

He supposed she must need to verify what might seem like a dream, but in the verification, her eyes awash with unshed tears, she appeared less certain as the silent seconds passed, but more curious.

Not fearful, nor pitying, but not best pleased either.

Then her frown deepened and her eyes turned to blue flames, and she lashed out and struck him square in the jaw. “Dead,” she shouted, her trembling voice a rusty rasp. “We thought you were dead. How dare you let us believe it.”

“Alexandra, Alex. Shh, calm down.”

“A year.” She smacked his shoulders. “A blasted year. No. Longer than that. How could you?” She slapped his arms as he tried to brace her. “Where the blazes have you been?”

When Alex kicked her dead husband’s shin, he winced. But when she smacked his thigh with a fist, all color left his face. Pain etched the harsh angularity of his firm jaw and ashen features, further whitening the new lines carved there. He had suffered—she recognized that now—and her wrath pricked her.

“You lived while we wept because you died.” Broken and elated by the shock of his return, Alex begged to understand. “Why did you not tell us?”

“I was not capable, not for some long time.”

“Because you were wounded?”

He nodded.

“Unable to speak?”

“For the most part, no.”

“You could speak?”

“When I was conscious.”

“You were unconscious for a year?” Her voice rose.

He winced.

“You lost your memory, then?”

Denial, again.

Alex wanted to strike him every time he refused an offered excuse. “Someone should have written to us.” She shoved his shoulder. “I am so….” Her sob took her by surprise, fast and wild and from the depths of her soul. She grasped his lapels to anchor herself in a careening world. And when that was not enough, she clutched him about the neck, afraid she would shatter, if he did not hold her together.

He held tight.

The storm did not last long. Alex was glad, for rage was exhausting. “I am furious with you,” she said after a calm moment.

“I know you are. It is no more than I expect.”

“And deserve.” She accepted his handkerchief.

Hawk nodded. “I do deserve it. Beat me, if you will, but mind my left leg … and my face.” There, he had said it, Hawk thought with relief. He brought his ugliness into the open.

At once solemn and assessing, Alex reached toward his battered and badly-mended face, stopped, and pulled her hand back, as if he might burst into flame … as if touching him repulsed her.

Hawk rejected anguish, and an overwhelming need to crush her in his embrace once more, and donned his old devil-may-care mask. “What, Alexandra? Am I not still a handsome rogue? Does my countenance not please you?”

She frowned and reached again, hesitated again. And after too long a time to be borne, she extended her hand the entire distance between them, to finger a coil of the overlong hair lapping at his shoulders, unadulterated amazement overtaking her.

Hawk braced himself against the grateful quiver that her touch, even on his hair, engendered. “It’s beastly,” he said. “I know. Uncivilized, like me. If you find it in your heart to forgive me, can you tame me, do you think?” Would she even care to?

“I may never forgive you.”

“I guessed as much, but I am the eternal optimist.”

“You are the eternal charmer, but you will not charm your way back into my good graces.”

“I applaud your perception and your determination.”

Alex shrugged and fingered his overlong hair. “You remind me of a cat,” she said. “A night-stalking lion, jungle-bred and ravenous, but I am your huntress.”

“Odd, you remind me less of a cat’s doom than its plaything.”

“A mouse?” she said with more than a trace of indignance, her defense at the ready, if he did not miss his guess.

“Catnip,” he corrected.

“Oh.” Her turquoise eyes widened, making her appear even more beautiful, coy, flirtatious, yet naïve, unmistakably in need of a good loving, God help him.

The notion brought his body to hard attention once more. Rejoicing inwardly over the reaction, Hawk settled his delectable wife more intimately against him to enhance and savor the torture, her breasts no more than a stroke and a kiss away.

She moved a lock of his hair from his eyes, her warm breath bathing the scars on his face like a blessing, and Hawk caught her familiar, violet scent with a new rush of expectation.

As he sat stunned and entranced, she smoothed his beard, which shrouded the worst of his scars, and all but cupped his face.

In that instant, Hawk ached to turn his head and set his lips to her palm, knowing full well that if he did so, a slap might be his for the taking. Her very touch unmanned him, made him want to rush dangerously forward.

Such a mad turnabout—the wicked-as-sin Duke of Hawksworth, moonstruck, over the girl he once treated like a pesky pup.

But the paradox was not new. Alexandra, herself, the memory of her, laughing, teasing, driving him daft, had kept him going, kept him fighting for his life during those endless, pain-wracked months after Waterloo.

And all that time, a world and a war away, a lifetime away, when he still expected to die of his wounds, he was becoming enthralled with his own wife.

“I like it,” she said—of his beard, he presumed, for she was stroking it—but he was too taken with her touch to focus on anything else. “It makes you look a danger,” she said, catching his attention, as she fingered his scar.

“I am a danger; make no mistake—jungle-bred and rapacious, as you say. And well you should remember and keep a safe distance.”

But before he could garner her promise, Hawk was forced to close his eyes, as he entered hell, or heaven, for she had begun to trace the red, uneven welt with a gentle touch, from beside his eye, along its raised and puckered surface, down his cheek and into the depths of his beard, where it disappeared near his chin.

At the wonder of her touch, remorse rose in him, chiding him and ordering him to make amends. He could not keep her—he must not—for she merited better than a battered hulk for husband, a man who would walk away with no glance back. An undeserving fool who knew not what he had, but sought instead what he could never have—his father’s approval.

Why did he not appreciate the people who cared about him, until he all but lost them? His nieces, Beatrix and Claudia, his Uncle Giff, Alex’s Aunt Hildy, and Alexandra, herself.

They were his family, though all of them, especially Alex, might have done better to remember him as he was, rather than see what he had become. A beast. Ugly. Disfigured.

“For your sake,” Alex said. “I am sorry your scars forced you to join the flawed human race, but you are still the Bryceson I hero-worshipped.” With a fingertip, she soothed the hideous knot of discolored flesh nearest his brow. “Does it pain you—other than when you are rightfully beaten for your thoughtlessness?”

Hawk opened his eyes and feasted upon her, struck anew by her beauty, but more by her words. He had not felt like Bryceson for a long, long time … neither had he felt anything near human.

Would she understand if he said his inhumanity was the reason he had not contacted her?

He covered her hand against his face with his own. “At this moment,” he said. “even the memory of pain escapes me.”

“Your leg?”

Hawk shook his head, denying weakness until the end. But she gave him a disbelieving look, and he knew that with Alex, prevarication was useless. He shrugged. “On occasion.”

She tried to move from his lap then, but he held her in place, his hands at her hips. “No, stay. I am becoming fond of the ache; it is far better than feeling nothing, and I like you here.”

Her incredible blue-green eyes widened, swam, and Hawk scolded himself for the admission even as he agonized over what she must be thinking.

CHAPTER THREE

Alexandra was in a fair way to screaming as emotions bombarded her from every quarter.

Joy—for here, miraculously, sat her husband, back from the dead, the man she had been unable to forget, even during her wedding to another.

Sadness—for the time they had lost and the pain she had glimpsed, deep and abiding, behind his winking jest. Yes, his legendary perfection had been startlingly altered, but he had survived, for which she would remain forever grateful.

But fury hardened her heart as well. She had taken a great deal of satisfaction in pummeling the arrogant, marble-hearted rogue to pudding, though she had not expected to hurt him, which in turn hurt her.

So many people had mourned him, the very family he had all but deserted. Alex sighed. Yes, he had married her for mercenary reasons and left her at the church, yet her anguish was nothing to theirs.

But he was alive, after all, and perhaps the future could be set to rights, though a loveless marriage had never been her intent, not with Bryce at any rate. She had once naively thought that her love for him would be enough to carry them through life, but now, more than ever, she was uncertain. Despite the fact that he had kept his survival from her for far too long, she could think only that he was alive, against all hope.

To prove she was not dreaming, Alex placed her hand on the coarse fabric of his frockcoat to feel his warm, thickly-muscled arm beneath, and her heart leapt as her spirit rejoiced. Alive. Her husband was alive and holding her in a way she had always imagined, in her deepest, most secret dreams, except….

Chesterfield would not take kindly to being set aside, especially after the bargain they had struck. This time, she had been willing to marry without love, in order to support the family she and Bryce had all but failed.

But Judson Broderick, Viscount Chesterfield, was a powerful and persuasive man. For agreeing to wed him, she had accepted a favor in advance, thereby granting him a hold over her, the stronger for her having cast him aside.

Bryce would not appreciate the irony. But there was nothing she could do, if he did not. She had thought he was dead, after all. Besides, he might never find out, if luck remained with her.

“Other than your justified anger at my, ah, tardiness, you have not said how you feel about this unexpected turn,” Bryce said, asking for what she dare not give—a glimpse into her heart. If he knew how she really felt, how much she loved him, had always loved him, he would flee in panic, bad leg or not. She knew him that well. “Despite my anger, I am glad you survived. Of course, I am.”

“Of course.” His scowl still had the power to set tinder to flame. “I suppose I do not blame you,” he said. “For preferring to be a new and beloved bride, rather than a reclaimed and convenient wife.”

Convenient. Ouch. So, it was laid bare. In the open. Irrefutable. Theirs had been a marriage of convenience. It hurt more to hear it from him than to suspect it, or hear second-hand.

Alexandra sat straighter, hurt overriding embarrassment, but before long, ire replaced pain, and she was grateful. “Do you think to take me for granted as you have done for the past year and a half, ever since we wed and you fled?” His turn to wince. Good. “As you tolerated me when we were growing up, while I trod in your wake, a devoted pup after its master? If such is the case, then you are right; I had rather be Chesterfield’s cherished bride.”

With as much dignity as she could muster, given the tardiness of her move, Alex shifted from her husband’s lap to the seat opposite, folding her arms before her and allowing several silent moments to pass, until she remembered that she should not show her hand.

She sighed and forced herself to relax. “We are married for good or ill,” she said, setting herself and her clothes to rights. “And neither of us has a choice in the matter. If we held sway over life, we would be God.” What a foolish statement, she thought. With Hawk’s return, God had granted her everything.

Nevertheless, she pinned her wayward husband with steely regard. “I will not be overlooked or under-appreciated. Not by you or anyone. Do so at your peril.”

“If I do, will you beat me?”

Behind the jest, Alex saw an easing of his anguish, though she dare not let down her guard. “If you force my hand, Bryceson Wakefield, I will … go and live in sin with Chesterfield.”

“The devil, you say!” The very demon flared of a sudden in the fire of Hawk’s eyes. Jealousy, she would name it, green and sizzling to a turn. “I see you have not changed your rule-breaking ways,” he said, as close to a sulk as one could imagine on a heartless rogue.

Alex shivered with the elation of success. “In case you have not noticed,” she said, adjusting the blonde lace on her low-cut, cream satin bodice, I am a big girl now. A woman. Chesterfield wants me.”

That devil in Hawk’s eyes leapt. “So you do love him?”

How dare he? Alex refused to cater to her husband’s fittingly-overburdened conscience. She would not give him the satisfaction of revealing her true feelings. He did not deserve to know them. Not yet. Perhaps, not ever. “I said I was glad you lived.”

“Being glad I lived, and glad I took you away from the man you love, are not one and the same thing.”

“They are not, but Chesterfield is strong; he will recover.”

Hawk sighed, feeling the sharp bite of his wife’s pointed, though silent, censure. As she would not recover, she did not need to say … because she loved the man. Her omission spoke louder than her words ever could, and even Hawk could not utter them, for to do so would surely give them credence. “Chesterfield loves you, then?”

“He adores me.” Alex raised her chin. “It has been a delightful change.” She quirked a brow. “And an exhilarating experience.”

Hawksworth winced at the bald statement, remorse and possessiveness, both new and uncomfortable sensations for a rogue like him. Positively disconcerting for a man bound not to touch his wife.

“Poor Alexandra,” he said, running headlong into the subject with which he had been toying for weeks. “Would you rather we lived apart?” Even as the words left his lips, Hawk’s heart about stopped.

Alex paled to the color of flour paste. “That will not be possible.”

His heart caught the beats it missed and continued on its palpitating way, albeit a bit faster than normal, for he was as taken aback by her answer as he was relieved by it. Though he should not be, he reminded himself, for they must part in the not too distant future. “No?”

“Do not be foolish.”

“I am never foolish, Alexandra. I am occasionally blind, I have come to understand in hindsight, but never knowingly foolish. I should think that someone who cares naught for the rules and loves another might consider separation a solution.”

“Only an annulment would serve as a solution, as far as my alliance with Chesterfield is concerned, and well you know it. But the fact remains that neither an annulment nor a separation is possible, for your wards need no family skeletons further littering their rock-strewn paths in life.”

That she wanted an annulment at all, whether possible in her mind or not, damn near broke Hawk. And still, she had given no elaboration as to whether she did, or did not, love the man she had been about to marry.

Hawk found the lack more than frustrating. He found it ill-mannered, evasive, and downright exasperating. “My wards?”

“Your nieces, Claudia and Beatrix.”

“I know who you mean. I simply cannot imagine how two little girls can have any bearing on the matter.”

“You have been gone for nearly two years, Hawksworth. You must realize that Beatrix is now six, and Claudia, I will have you know, is due a season this year. She has some funds, but more beauty. With so small a dowry to her name, however, even something so simple as a separation in the family could be infamous enough an excuse for an ambitious mama to thwart a titled son’s unsanctioned attachment.”

“Then I take it that you will not be living in sin with Chesterfield … until after Claudia marries?”

“Do not push me, Bryceson.”

Feeling immeasurably uplifted of a sudden, Hawk nodded. “If Claudia is due a season, then so must you be. You cannot be more than two years older than she.” … and stuck with a beast. The intrusive thought sent Hawk’s spirits plummeting.

“Claudia is seventeen, and I am an old married woman of twenty,” Alex said. “There are many things I do need, but a season in London is not one of them, thank you very much.”

Hawk wanted to ask what it was she did need, but he might not like her answer.

Adoration, obviously, Chesterfield’s at least, but what about him? Would she accept his worship, if he were so foolish as to offer it?

At one time, he had thought she might.

And should he check himself into Bedlam today, or tomorrow, for having the idiocy to imagine it? Especially now.

The angel of death must surely scramble one’s brain, Hawk mused, hoping that rest and further recovery would set his bedeviled mind to rights. Until it did, however, he would tread warily and guard his heart. “I hope you do not expect me to adore you.”

Her easy laugh made Hawk see crimson. Was he still not good enough for her, then? Was the exalted Chesterfield an unexceptionable rogue? More attentive? Never more practiced?

“The family will be in alt,” she said, dismissing his ire, if she even noticed it. “In veritable transports, to learn that you lived. I am sorry to say that Jud is not much liked by any of them, except Claudia.”

“Jud,” Hawk said, giving the name a harsh, dull sound. “Should be playing a crude musical instrument with his unshod feet in the remote reaches of America.”

Alexandra’s grin broke before she could stop it, and when she did, it was too late. She had warmed Hawk’s cold rogue’s heart in a way that organ had not been warm since he left her. Unfortunately, the thaw made him deuced uncomfortable. “Wait a minute,” he said, pinning her with his look. “I would have expected you to try and defend your swain.”

To his entertainment, Alexandra raised that obstinate chin of hers, impaling him with narrowed eyes and glaring ire. She examined him so thoroughly that Hawk began to chafe with a disturbing need to hide his scars. Instead, he laid his head against the squabs and closed his eyes. Let her look her fill, and let him get on with being an object of horrified fascination. And, there, her reason for preferring Chesterfield came clear, for the knave stood handsome and unscathed.

Bedamned. Would his father not have a good laugh at this turn of events?

Once upon a fleeting time, Hawk’s many dalliances, a source of rare swaggering braggadocio to his father, had been legion and widely known.

If not for his sire’s deathbed promise of true pride, Hawk would not have gone to fight Boney, which turned out to be an idiotic reason to support a patriotic and worthy cause. Despite his injuries, Hawk was glad he had fought for England.

Before the war, however, he had not needed to walk with the aid of a cane. He had stood proud and strong, as prepossessing as any of the rogues in the Wakefield portrait gallery, as any London buck, including Chesterfield.

He had stood handsome, as well. A heart-breaker, women had once called him. A rogue, a lady-killer. He had been all that, and more. Even Alex had been fond of him then.

But he would slay the ladies no longer, not unless the women he gazed upon died of fright, as Alex had nearly done upon sight of him.

The doctors in Belgium had said that one of his bayonet wounds sat close enough to his eye so that only a miracle could save his sight.

Only a miracle could have saved his life as well.

Yes, he got his miracles, both of them, and for that he must give something back.

He must give Alexandra her future.

“Here we are,” he said, loathe to prolong his painful reverie. “Bond Street. I have rooms at Stephen’s Hotel until the end of the month. I think it best we spend the night here and travel on to St. Albans in the morning.”

Home in the morning. Alex could hardly believe it. With Hawksworth, her husband. To begin their life together. Finally. Though the bigger part of her rejoiced, a goodly part was still angry. He had used her … as she had used him, she must admit.

In the way he had needed a caretaker for his family, she had needed a home and medical attention for her aunt. Besides which, she loved him and had foolishly thought he cared for her. But the fact remained that if he had baldly told her his true reason for marrying her, she would likely have married him anyway. God knew, if she had known she would lose him, she certainly would have agreed to be his wife. Though then, she would have demanded to be a wife in deed as well as fact.

Lord, she was a love-struck fool, an idiot, a detestable weakling, who deserved what she got, because despite all of it, she was deliriously happy to have him back.

She loved him that much.

She only wished he loved her a fraction as much. She particularly wished that he had kept the fact that he did not love her to himself.

CHAPTER FOUR

Disgusted with her calf-eyed self, Alex gazed out at Bond Street, a jumble of tall brick buildings with few courtyards or alleyways to separate them. Signs proclaimed establishments such as John Jackson, Boxing Salon, known to the sporting set as Gentleman Jackson’s. They passed Yardley of London, Smith Adam & Charles, Linen-drapers, and Mr. Weston, the tailor Bryceson had once frequented.

Alex’s heart sank as they passed Stedman & Vardon, Goldsmiths & Jewelers, which she and Bryce had visited on the day they wed, the day after he buried his father. As they passed, she wondered if he remembered the plain gold band he purchased for her that morning, and the wider one he had chosen for himself.

She had worn hers until she arrived at Holy Trinity Church to marry Chesterfield earlier, removing it in the carriage before going inside. Even now, the precious symbol of her marriage to her one true love sat tucked in a velvet box inside her reticule. What fate had befallen his wedding band? she wondered, as she regarded his unadorned hand.

Once they arrived at Stephen’s Hotel, Bryce seemed to struggle as he stepped from the carriage, though he did so in the same way his man helped him, without being obvious. Once he was down, Bryce turned to offer Alex a hand, and she took it, though she made certain not to burden him with her weight and quickly let go. She no more wanted him to lose his balance than to guess at her undying love.

The impressive hotel stood taller and less soot-stained than most of the Bond Street shops. On the Clifford Street side, there waited a score or more saddle-horses and half as many tilburies. A six-horse dray—Barclay’s Brewery lettered in red on the side—was being unloaded of its delivery of wooden casks.

In the front of the five-story structure, men milled about in groups, talking, laughing raucously, reeling from overindulgence. Some of them were obviously dandies, but most wore the reds and blues of the military.

“Am I allowed inside?” Alex queried stepping closer to her husband’s side as they walked arm in arm toward the black lacquered double front doors.

He patted her hand on his arm. “Stephen’s is mostly frequented by officers of the Guards—the Life Guards in red and the Royal Horse Guards in blue—but you, as my wife, will not be turned away. Though as the rare female among us, you will be much admired, I daresay.”

That surprised her. “Admired? Me?”

Bryce shook his head, as if she had made a poor jest. Alex wanted to call him on it, but they stepped inside the hotel and her attention was taken with the bustling activity and gentlemanly ambiance.

“You will be safe from the crush beside the stairs,” he said. “Wait there while I fight my way to the desk to claim my key.”

Feeling at sea, Alex kept her gaze trained on him while several men in uniform saluted as he made his way toward the front. She wished she could hear what he said that relaxed his subordinates and made them smile.

Closer by, a military man in the red of the Life Guards mentioned Hawksworth by name catching her attention. “Excellent commander,” the handsome officer said. “Had the full respect of his men.” The speaker went on to say that Hawksworth was brave, forthright and had saved his men’s hides a time or two.

One soldier shook his head, as if disbelieving. “How was it then that he was so carelessly given up for dead?”

Since awakening in his arms, Alex had wondered about that, as well.

“Hawk told me that he was so near death as to be incapable of correcting the medic, dodging grapeshot, who pronounced him dead. So Hawk was painfully tossed on the body heap. Minutes or hours later, Hawk said, a peasant boy leaned over him to snatch the gold buttons from his coat and Hawk did the only thing he was capable of doing; he bit the blighter’s hand.

“The boy took him to the Waterloo Inn, but the doctors there, scrambling to save those more like to survive, said they could do nothing for Hawk. When our man was given up for dead that second time, the lad went looking for a dray and went back for him. Took Hawk home and his family nursed him back to health.”

“Good God.”

“Good lad.”

A body heap? Alex wished she had not eavesdropped, for she felt as boneless and light of head as she had at the church when she heard Hawk’s voice for the first time. But despite the dip in the room, she was determined to remain upright.

When Bryce called her name, the story-teller noticed her and must have realized what she heard, as he stepped forward, appalled, and lifted her into his arms. Despite her argument that she had not been about to swoon, the repentant officer carried her all the way up the stairs at Hawk’s direction. Mortified to have become a spectacle for the second time that day, Alex wished she could shrink from sight.

The man sat her down in a leather chair in the sitting room of a small apartment that looked very much like a gentleman’s study, while Bryce poured her a brandy. After she sipped it, while her husband stoked a fire in the hearth to “warm her and take the damp from the room,” Alex turned her attention to her rescuer. “Thank you for becoming my chariot.”

“If not for my thoughtless story,” he said. “You would not have needed a conveyance.”

“But it was a true story?”

He grimaced. “Indeed.”

Bryce looked from one of them to the other, silently questioning, but when neither of them enlightened him, he cleared his throat. “Alexandra, may I present Squadron Corporal Major Reed Gilbride of the Life Guards and a charter member of The Rogues Club. Reed, my wife.”

“Your wife? Congratulations are in order, then?” The officer bowed and kissed her hand.

Bryceson waved his friend’s congratulations away, as if their marriage meant nothing, and Alex’s heart sank. He must have removed his ring and never mentioned having a wife the whole time they served together. Alex swallowed the rising lump in her throat. “We married shortly before Bryceson joined the Guards,” she said to explain why congratulations were unnecessary, and to keep her husband from seeing her hurt. “Tell me about this Rogues Club.”

“We were bored playing at war, your grace,” her rescuer said, charming her out of countenance, for she had not been courted by a gallant for longer than she could remember. “So in our dreary tent, we formed an unofficial club.”

“But exclusive,” her husband said.

“Oh very,” her rescuer replied with a chuckle, regarding Alex. “My true identity is something of a mystery, you see, even to me.” He said it with a wink and Alex was doubly taken.

She smiled. “What must one do to become a member of this Rogues Club?”

“Why, be a rogue, of course,” Bryce said with a shrug and a wink of his own.

“He means we are all scamps,” the charmer explained, “who banded together against Boney in support of Mother England and in support of each other’s families, should the worst happen to any of us.”

“Sounds like a worthy club, then,” she said. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, C.S.M. Gilbride.”

“The honor is all mine, I assure you.” He bowed. “I shall leave you to recover and hope that I may see you again in the near future.”

Alex said her good-byes and Bryce walked his friend out, shutting the door, leaving her alone inside. When he did not return for fully fifteen minutes, she began to think he had deserted her again. But he finally returned, followed by a succession of servants bearing a table, linen, everything necessary for an intimate supper. Other servants brought up the rear with her bags, which Hawk’s man must have taken from Chesterfield’s carriage at the church.

Dinner looked and smelled divine, but Alex was in a fair way to dozing off after such a taxing day. The joint of roast pork and fried sole were simple but delicious fare. She was just too tired to eat much beyond a nibble.

Hawksworth waited until everything to do with supper had been collected before suggesting they retire early, which woke her right up. Was this then to be the first night of their marriage? Finally?

Since this was supposed to have been her wedding day, Alex thought it fitting for the wedding night denied her nearly two years before.

This man leading her into the bedroom was Bryceson, after all, her friend, first, now her husband, her love.

Hawksworth, his friends now called him. Hawk.

She liked it.

Hawk, taking the pins from her hair, turning her in circles until he found the hooks beneath the rosebuds marching down the front of her cream satin wedding gown.

Hawk, opening and sliding her wedding dress off to bare her to her stays and petticoats.

And this was Alexandra, not only allowing her husband’s intimate attention but reveling in it, flattered and amazed to have so much of his focus directed her way.

He sat her on the bed and left her then. And like a bisque doll on a nursery shelf, Alex sat unmoving, waiting to be redressed, or undressed, or dropped and shattered, at whim.

Far in the back of her mind, she knew she was acting lovesick and calf-eyed again. But at this moment, she cared not a whit.

When Hawksworth returned, he laid her portmanteau beside her on the bed and extracted the gossamer gown she was supposed to have worn for her wedding night with Judson, one of several he had dared to purchase for her.

Hawk’s brow rose as he regarded it, then he set it aside and extracted the wrap that went with it. When he was finished, he lifted her foot to his knee, removing first one cream kid slipper, then the other.

As if she floated outside her body, and watched from afar, Alexandra wondered what or who had taken over her more sensible self and why she was letting it happen. But the only answer that came was love, or lovesickness, as she thought.

Why neither of them spoke, Alex did not know. Perhaps Bryceson was too busy concentrating on his task while she was too busy appreciating and noticing everything about him. She knew only that his topaz eyes were warm, kind, loving. Here stood the gentle boy who’d tended scraped knees, extracted slivers from small hands and dried a lifetime of silly tears. She saw that his shoulders were broader, his arms stronger, his huge hands callused, his sable hair, prematurely silver-gilt.

His demeanor no longer bore the mark of a young god, perfect of feature and seeking admiration, but of a soldier home from war, wounded and scarred, though striking, still, and virile. So potently male that Alex lost her breath just watching him. As opposed to his former chiseled perfection, Hawk’s face now bore a hard, flawed quality, which gave him an aura of jeopardy, a provocation that would draw women like moths to a flame.

He was definitely older, though she could not yet vouch for wiser, but after overhearing his amazing story, earlier, she surmised that he could hardly have escaped some degree of wisdom. She did know that he must have survived a great deal more than he would ever willingly reveal. “Your father would be proud of you,” she said without thinking.

“If I had died fighting Boney, perhaps, but I expect that he would have considered any man mustered home, broken, as a failure.”

“But you were not mustered home because you were wounded. The war ended.”

“Gideon guarded Napoleon all the way to St. Helena, and Reed is still one of Wellington’s aides.”

When put that way, Alex knew he was right about his fanatical father, but what could she say?

She was embarrassed that she had mentioned the man, but she was even more embarrassed when Bryceson slipped his hands up her leg to unhook her garters, and she shivered and squeaked, because she felt the lightning shock of his touch to her core.

He looked up and quirked a brow. “I am not going to ravish you, Alexandra.”

After a stunned, silent moment, she sighed with resignation. “I am sorry to hear that.”

Bryce reared back, and after a similar moment, he shook his head. “Stand,” he said, and she understood why his men obeyed him, as did she. He untied the laces on her half-petticoat, slid his hands down her hips to push it to the floor, and she stepped out. Her second was a full-petticoat and he helped her out of that with entirely too much experience, in the same way he loosened and removed her stays, expertly and efficiently.

At a knock on the outer door, he turned to leave her standing in her new lawn shift, and again like an empty-headed porcelain doll, Alex waited and hoped for more.

When Bryce returned, he slipped her white gossamer nightrail over her head, down her arms then he helped her into her matching wrap. “You will surely catch your death without both,” he said, a hot, hard glint in his eyes. “Or worse.”

The tardy promise in those last two words—along with his piercing gaze—shivered her to her trembling knees.

When she was dressed in the night rail made for her trousseau, Bryce neither stepped back to admire her, or his handiwork, nor did he comment further on the exquisite finery—a disappointment. He simply peeled back the bedcovers and urged her into its feather-filled warmth. Heart-pounding, Alex did as her husband bid, moving toward the center, expecting him to undress and slip in beside her.

Instead, he pulled the covers up to her neck, sat beside her on the bed and waited, with a disapproving frown, as she freed her arms. Then he took possession of her hand. “I am afraid that this has been a long, tiring, and shocking day for you,” he said. “And I am sorry for all of it. Reed told me what he said. I am especially sorry that you heard, but perhaps it is best you know. Get a good night’s sleep now, for we have another long day ahead of us tomorrow, though hopefully, a much less alarming one.”

“But what about you? Are you not going to sleep?”

“I am having the settee made up as we speak. I will be fine there for one night. I have slept on worse.”

Alex sat up and saw by his arrested gaze that the blankets had fallen away and exposed her breasts to his view. She did not cover herself and he did not look away, not for several pulsing beats. For the first time, she had her husband’s full and blatant male attention while she was conscious and could appreciate it, and she was glad.

When he did look away, she sighed. “Bryce, this is your bed. You are too tall for that short sofa. Come, sleep beside me.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Hawk cursed his trembling hands as he tucked Alex back into his bed and admired the cloud of cinnamon waves forming a silken halo upon her pillow. Had any man ever needed such willpower as he was compelled to call upon at this tempting moment?

He regarded the siren for signs of the sprite who had, in turn, shadowed and vexed him through their growing up years. While he was grief-struck by the loss of that child, he was intrigued, no small bit, by the emergence of the woman. His first reaction was natural, his second, both unacceptable and a clear threat to his sanity.

As he rose, he bent to kiss her brow. “Sleep. I command you.” Then he stroked her cheek, snuffed her candle and left the bedchamber, shutting the door behind him.

In the sitting room, Hawk discarded his cane, his frockcoat, and untied his cravat before pouring himself a brandy with palsied hands. He made an awkward, confined pace about the room, twice or thrice, the better to tire to the point of exhaustion.

As he helped Alex from her clothing, he had ached for her corresponding ministrations, her cool fingers against his heated skin, as he had touched her, for her tenderness to be directed toward his comfort, her gaze toward his face, when all the while, she had been unable to bear the sight of him and looked away, instead.

Why had she said she was disappointed he would not ravish her? Was she teasing? Was she that angry with him?

Perhaps he was making a horrendous mistake in letting her go…. Once upon a time, she had liked him enough to marry him. Perhaps she had even wanted him, then.

Perhaps she wanted him still.

Hawk damn near laughed. Perhaps delirium had once again set in….

Was she toying with him? Being facetious? She had, after all, liked Chesterfield enough to marry him, as well.

Hawk cursed. Here he was worried about her, trying to do what was best for her, while she was shaking the foundation of his conviction and undermining his altruistic intentions. Why could he not sense what she wanted?

Likely not him. Not anymore. No, he must give her that annulment as soon as may be, and free her from his abysmal self, though not so soon that Chesterfield might still be unattached when he did.

That part of his plan, he must alter.

When he had returned to England, weak, scarred, and furious at fate, he assured himself that his family was well. And when he was convinced they were, he delayed notifying them of his return. He could not ask them to endure the daily reminder of his failure—his scars, his very presence.

He had gone to the aid of his sister-in-law, Sabrina, and of Gideon St. Goddard—another rogue of the club—the husband he secured for her when he thought he was dying.

To get himself declared alive again, Hawk petitioned the House of Lords, and parliament in general, even the Prince Regent and a score of his advisers and friends, Tory and Whig alike. Some, Prinny would have at his side, were it not for the mad King’s sane moments, had more influence than perhaps was good for England.

Since Hawk’s father’s solicitor was unavailable, he sought another to notify Baxter Wakefield, his cousin and heir, that he lived. Hawk did it all, anything and everything he could, to avoid facing his family with his disagreeable self. By then, he had concluded that for Alexandra’s sake, he must release her from their marriage.

Then he heard that she was about to remarry.

That she loved someone else was all the more reason to let her go, though he could not allow her to commit bigamy. And so he had gone to stop her wedding.

Now, for the sake of his nieces, he must take up his responsibilities as planned and proceed as if his marriage to Alex would continue. This would give Claudia and Beatrix a chance to get used to having him back. He would encourage them to depend more upon him and less upon Alex.

When the paperwork reinstating him as the Duke of Hawksworth bore fruit, and what was left of his wealth, title and estates reverted to him, he would move his family from Huntington Lodge, Alex’s family home, back to Hawks Ridge, his own estate. By then, his nieces would perhaps be dependent upon him again and less destroyed by Alexandra’s departure from the bosom of their family.

Also, by then, Chesterfield might have married another.

More than anything in this world, Hawk wanted to keep Alexandra for himself. Second to that, he would keep her for his family. But with no choice but to give her up, he must at least keep her safe in their marriage, until Judson Broderick, Viscount bloody Chesterfield was absolutely out of the running for her hand.

No matter her seeming indifference to his scars, Hawk would not sit back and let Alexandra’s apathy, in the face of his appearance, turn to valor, which would most assuredly fester into disgust, and destroy the entire family.

Alexandra stared at the burgundy brocade bed canopy above her while the scent of the snuffed beeswax candle remained a lingering reminder of one man’s penchant—her husband’s—for walking away without looking back.

The bridegroom she had thought sacrificed to the wages of war, relinquished to the vaporous vagaries of perpetual rest, had been, quite impossibly, returned to her. A literal miracle, she had discovered upon hearing Reed Gilbride’s story. And yet, despite the wonder, Bryceson Wakefield had, once again, deserted her. He had left her alone in the center of his bed, steeped in hurt, shock and disappointment.

All the time he undressed her, she had anticipated undressing him the same way. She anticipated more kisses like the one they shared in the carriage. She expected the leisure and the right to kiss her husband whenever and wherever she chose. She ached to kiss the scars on his face, to press her lips to all his scars, to all of him, and she wanted the same intimate attention from him.

After nearly two years of marriage, she was long past due his husbandly ministrations. As his wife, she had fulfilled every single requirement, save one, the marriage bed, that lack not having been her choice. She deserved a marriage, signed, sealed and consummated.

She wanted to go and shake him, scream and rant, but Alex bit her lip and tightened her fists, aware that she must conquer her tendency to be precipitate; else she would rush from the room with admonishment in mind and end up ravishing her husband as he slept.

‘Twould not do to let him see how much she wanted and needed him. If she had learned one thing about the male of the species, young or old, it was that if a female’s attention was difficult to secure, then a male continued tenaciously in her wake, attempting to secure it, or her. By the same token, she had observed that while males could be encouraged by any sign of interest, however slight or fleeting, they soon lost enthusiasm for the chase, if the female appeared easy or eager to be caught.

Well Bryceson Wakefield, Duke of Hawksworth—her husband, by God—would not be losing interest in her any day soon; she would see to that. She was due a wedding night, Alex mused, and she would have one … despite her bridegroom’s detestable reason for marrying her.

When she had learned the truth of it, she had nearly expired, herself, of sorrow. ‘Twas not said to her face, of course, but behind her back, by some of his friends, after Bryce had first left for the war.

She could have stepped away when she heard her name, of course, as she might have done downstairs when she heard Hawk’s, but she had not. That first time she eavesdropped, she learned that Bryce married her so she would care for his family while he went to war. One of his cronies said she would do anything for her husband’s pat on the head, “which is all poor old ‘Bry’ could bear to give her.” They said “It was too bad he had not lived long enough ‘to bed the beauty’ she had become.”

To the devil with beauty. What did looks have to say to anything? ‘Twas Hawk’s love she wanted, plain and simple.

Unlike the scores of women who had always flocked to the proud, handsome-as-sin Bryceson Wakefield, Alex had loved him despite his magnificence. All the while he had been trying to prove his worth to his father, and to himself, if he but knew it, Alex had loved the kind and gentle soul who dwelt inside the quintessential rogue.

Was she the only one who glimpsed that gentle man? Or had she been as blind to his faults as others were blinded by his beauty?

She wished she knew.

She was sorry, for Hawk’s sake, that his legendary good looks had been marred, but she hoped that without the outer trappings of perfection, he would discover and come to appreciate the good and gentle man he was.

That man, she yearned for, body, heart and soul.

That man, she loved.

Though her concern over Chesterfield’s reaction to their cancelled nuptials, and her anger at her husband, went a long way toward dampening Alex’s inclination toward celebration, she still wanted, more than her next breath, to walk into the sitting room, slip into his embrace, and weep with unmitigated joy at his return.

But she could not, she thought, swallowing her gathering tears. Not yet.

Hawk found himself standing outside a ruin of a manse, a dreamlike fog shrouding the night in ashen vapor, a ponderous regret cutting deep in his belly, for he bore the horrific sense that he had arrived too late.

At the sound of carriage wheels on cobbles, he turned to see Alexandra and Chesterfield driving away.

“No,” Hawk shouted. “No.” He could not allow them to live in sin together. Alex belonged to him, not to Chesterfield.

Hawk mounted his horse—miracle of miracles, he could do so without pain—and he chased the carriage for hours, it seemed, catching up only when the vehicle stopped at a lavish estate in the heart of the mist.

“Alex,” Hawk called. “Alex, I am here. No need to do this. Come, love. Come home with me.”

But she continued walking away, as Chesterfield stepped forward to block his path and keep him from following. “You gave her up,” the knave said. “Your marriage was annulled, at your behest, and now Alexandra is my wife. Mine.”

The blackguard laughed. He laughed until Alex called to him from an upper window, in that white diaphanous gown, her nutmeg hair flowing free and barely covering her sweet, lush breasts.

Alex, calling Chesterfield to her bed.

As if clamped in irons Hawksworth stood and struggled, unable to escape his invisible fetters, while Chesterfield entered the stately structure on his way to—

“No!” Despite his struggle, Hawk could not free himself from immobility. Neither could he reach Alex.

Soon it would be too late. “No!”

As if doom had risen from the depths of hell, his father began to laugh.

Alex awoke to a mournful cry and bolted from the bed. Bryceson was sitting up, trembling, elbows on knees, scrubbing his face with the flat of his hands, his shirt and trousers, even his bedding, drenched with perspiration.

She knelt before him and tried to take his icy hands to warm them between her own, but he grasped hers, instead, and brought them to his brow, as if none but her touch could soothe him.

“Bryce, what is wrong? Are you in pain? What can I do for you?”

“It was only a dream,” he said. “A bloody nightmare, like a fretful three-year-old.”

“Of the war?” she asked. “Was it terrible?”

He relinquished her hands. “Light a candle, will you?”

Alex did as he requested, then she poured him a brandy. “Was it terrible?” she asked again, handing him the glass of dark amber liquid.

He sipped it and laid his head against the back of the sofa. “Horrid.”

“Would you like to tell me about it?”

His sigh was heavy. “There was a huge, hulking dragon….” He paused and opened his eyes to regard her. “I believe it was purple. And scaly.”

Alex sat back on her heels. “You rat, you are toying with me.”

Hawk sat forward and fingered the hair coiled on her shoulder. “Toying with you, am I? If that were true, then I would be satisfied.”

Alex frowned. “What are you talki—”

“Your hair finally grew past your waist,” he said, extending the coil its full length. “You waited all your life for this.”

“You made fun of me, because I made you measure it.”

“Daily,” he added. “But I teased you more for your impatience, because it never grew fast enough. Nothing ever happened fast enough for you. You were so certain that one day your husband would adore your hair long and flowing past your waist.

Alex regarded her hands, splayed on her knees, reluctant to discover what said husband really thought.

An ember snapped in the hearth.

“You were right,” Hawk said, thrumming her nerves and speeding her heart. “Go back to bed, Lexy. You will take a chill. Did you bring nothing warmer for sleeping?”

Lexy. No one else had ever called her that. Hawk’s tone had gone from gruff to teasing and she dared to regard him. “I understood,” she said. “That a bride wore less … rather than more, to sleep during the honey-month, though I have no first-hand knowledge, you understand.”

“A pity, that,” he said, as if he meant it. “Did Chesterfield realize he was taking a virgin widow to wife?”

Alex bristled and felt cornered once again, as if a misstatement now might carry a price she could not fathom. “We thought you dead for more than a year, Bryce. What makes you so certain that I remain untouched?”

Hawk’s jaw set; the fire in his eyes leapt, and under her hand, the pulse at his wrist trebled. “Are you saying—” He shook his head. “I dreamed….” After a long moment of expectation, he nodded and said nothing more.

Alex rose and went to open his portmanteau, regarding its contents, rather than her husband, as she answered. “I am saying, in all fairness to me, that what I did after you died is not your concern—especially given the length of time between the event and your return.” She extracted a fresh shirt and went to offer her hand. “Come, sleep in the bed. You cannot stay here. The covers are soaked.”

“No, I am fine,” Hawk said, but he rose anyway, a measure of his nightmare-muddled senses, Alex thought, as he allowed her to lead him, much as he had led her earlier, into the bedroom. By her guess, the time must be going on two in the morning.

With the only light in the bedchamber coming from a candle left to drown in its own wax, and a scuttle’s worth of glowing embers, she sat Bryce on the edge of the bed and went for his shirt studs.

Stud by stud, Alex divested her husband of his damp shirt and replaced it with the dry one, though, neither of them sought to replace the studs.

Somehow they communicated without words that he would retain his trousers, though Alex ascertained, with a sweep of her hand along one tensely-muscled thigh, that they were not as damp as his shirt had been. Then he allowed her to tuck him into the bed, and after she went around to climb in on the opposite side, he even accepted her warmth beside him.

“Cold are you?” he asked, after a silence, more in derision than question. “I warned you.”

“Umhmm.” Alex sought his hand, clenched tight at his side and cupped the hard fist, despite his resistance, taking a good deal of satisfaction in stroking his knuckles with her thumb.

He sighed, then, either in relaxation or resignation, Alex could not be certain which, as she kissed his temple.

“Be still and let a man sleep,” he said.

Before long, Alex heard the soft rumble of his deepened breathing and she reveled in the beauty of the moment.

Somewhere near dawn, during that sweet drifting time between sleep and wakefulness, Alex thought she felt a hand in her hair, someone’s breath upon her brow, a butterfly-soft kiss, but before she could ascertain whether it was a dream or not, her husband left the bed.

Pleased to believe she had not been dreaming, Alex slipped back into the waiting arms of Morpheus.

Hawk woke her hours later, close to noon, gruff and impersonal once more. They departed Stephens Hotel before breaking their fast, with his promise that they would stop soon.

Alex surmised that his sullen, somber mood must have to do with his nightmare.

CHAPTER SIX

After traveling for nearly an hour, in the throes of a need to drive himself beyond endurance, Hawk ordered a stop at the Old Welsh Harp Inn, along the Broadway in West Hendon. Alex needed to stretch her legs and refresh herself, and Myerson needed as badly to water the horses.

Hawk realized that this was not a war game he was playing, that slogging on would not catch the enemy unaware. Neither would it drive them beyond the enemy’s reach, for in weak moments, Hawk very much feared that his worst enemy lived inside him.

He secured a bedchamber where he and Alex might both freshen up, but as soon as they entered, the great four-poster in its center loomed large, bright and boldly inviting, in counterpoint to the future, which loomed dark, narrow, and depressingly bleak.

Alex did not love him, Hawk reminded himself, and she deserved better, at any rate. He excused himself and stepped outside on the pretext that she could refresh herself at her leisure and in peace and privacy.

When she came down, he seated her in the private dining parlor he had secured, and took his turn upstairs. By the time he returned, the future seemed so grim, that any appetite he might once have imagined no longer existed.

While they waited to be served, Alex caught him up on his sister Rose’s daughters, now his wards, all the while keeping her aversion to his scars from her expression, even in the well-lit parlor, where his every imperfection must appear obtrusive and hideous.

Beatrix had been four and her sister, Claudia, fifteen, when their widowed mother died of consumption. Among the few remaining members of Hawk’s family—besides his sister-in-law Sabrina and her children—Claude and Bea had been his wards for a year, Alexandra’s for nearly twice as long.

Alex regaled him with homely tales that revealed just how much she had come to love his nieces, proving he had been right in his decision to go to war. They had been better off with her than they would ever have been with him. If only they could all remain together now that he was back.

But he owed Alex such a debt of gratitude, the least he could do was set her free.

“Bea has so vivid an imagination,” Alex said, “that we never know what she will fabricate next. Last month, she told us she was a fairy. And what must we do before every meal but carefully fold her invisible wings for all of ten minutes, so she could sit properly back against her chair to take sustenance. Claudia informed her in exasperation one evening, that everyone knew fairy wings were supposed to fold flat without help, but Bea replied sadly that hers were defective.”

As the meal progressed, Hawk actually felt the knots ease from his shoulders and the heaviness of dejection lift from his spirits.

“At one point,” Alex continued. “The imp insisted for weeks that she had been turned into a mermaid, though her tail fin was suspiciously invisible. She reminded us, of course, that mermaids have no need of baths.”

“Devil take it, you did not allow her to go without bathing for all of that time, did you?”

“Oh yes, but not without the requisite swims to keep her scales shiny and magical.”

Guilt halted his laugh somewhere deep in his throat, where it sat like a lump of stone. So many of his comrades had died, and Hawk knew, more than most, how they felt at the last, making mirth impossible to sanction. “You have been a good parent to the girls,” he said. “Thank you.”

Sometime while they talked, the Inn specialty, turkey and ham pie with Cumberland sauce, Oyster Creams, and assorted savories, had been placed before them hot and well-spiced. The service had been quick, the serving-ware and servers clean, and the ale smooth and dark. And despite himself, Hawk relaxed and ate the entire meal, even the Orange Fool—a dessert recipe likely filched from Boodle’s.

By the time they were ready to leave, the rain, which had barely begun when they arrived, was coming down in torrents.

“A good thing we are no more than an hour or so from Devil’s Dyke,” Hawk said, standing beneath the Welsh Harp’s small front overhang, watching their carriage shudder beneath the furor of the windy downpour.

“With the muddy roads,” Alexandra said. “That hour may very well turn into two or three.”

“Right. Shall we make a run for it, then?” They dashed toward the carriage, running between the raindrops, as the young Alex used to say.

After they set off again, they fell into a rather uneasy silence, Hawk dividing his time between trying not to stare at the agreeable sight of his wife, and gazing out the window. He no longer took any of the sights for granted, however, given the fact that he never expected to see her, or the town where they grew up, again.

“Nothing changes here,” Alex said, cutting the tension, as they drove through the center of St. Albans. “The old curfew tower stands yet.”

“As it has for centuries.”  He almost felt welcome just seeing it.

Alex chuckled.  “Remember the day I talked you into following that poor, keening sheepdog up to the top?”

“I remember every one of those ninety-three steps,” Hawk said, with a grimace, “I remember that somehow I got locked in at the top with her while she delivered six squealing pups.”

“Well, I went for help.”

“The pups were amazing,” Hawk admitted. “Though I still shudder over the scrapes you got me into.”

“I?” Alex said, using the same innocent tone that saved her satin skin that very day, though back then, he had not pondered her skin’s texture with such morbid and single-minded preoccupation as he had been wont to do today, Hawk mused.

“And there,” she said, with the excitement of a first-time visitor, “is a piece of the old Roman wall. My father said every other generation wanted to clean up those ruins.”

“Destroy them more like.”

“But somebody always managed to save the old city enclosure for succeeding generations.”

“I clearly recall the day a certain brat climbed that particular section, when she ought not, me at the bottom shouting for her to come down.”

“I told you there was a mewling kitten up there, and it was stuck, and I saved it, but you were such a scold, you made me fall.”

Hawk scoffed. “Did I also force you to tell your father that nothing hurt, until your wrist swelled like a hot air balloon, so a doctor must be fetched?”

Alex grinned.

Hawk shook his head. “As always happened, you charmed a chuckle from your father, while mine thrashed me with a birch cane for encouraging you.”

Drawn by the combination of sympathy and mischief in her eyes, Hawk was shocked anew by the desirable woman his bride had become, and discomfited anew by the tension churning in the pit of his belly because of it. Which made it doubly surprising to him, that any of the old ease in her presence existed, particularly with a war and two weddings now standing between them—never mind an annulment, if she but knew it.

This burgeoning physical awareness, however, was something new and as enticing as it was frightening. “How old were we?” he asked, “the first time you lured me into trouble?”

“I was three and stuck at the bottom of the Dyke. You were eight and tried to rescue me.”

“Slipping down a forty-foot slope of mud was easy, as I recall, getting back up, impossible.” When he spotted her, his clothes had been, as always, pristine. Her knees had been scraped bloody, her dress torn, and mud caked her short, curly hair.

When they were rescued, after the most fun ever, they were in the same sorry state. That had been the first time his father warned him away from Alexandra Huntington.

“It only took being stranded together that day for us to become fast friends,” she said. “If I remember correctly, we were inseparable after that.”

“Because, no matter how hard I tried, I could not shake my tenacious shadow, a bit of a sprite, but more of a spitfire. So small, I thought you might break, though I soon discovered that you were sturdy as a tree trunk, and thrice as stubborn as its roots.”

“And I made you laugh, you said. You loved having me around. Do not pretend otherwise. Stubborn, did you say? Me?”

Hawk shook his head, looking back. “In my arrogant maleness, I did not, for the most part, mind keeping in tow, a female who venerated the ground upon which I walked, until I learned that you had been warning other girls away.”

Alex covered her mouth with a hand, but the bright light in her eyes revealed not one whit of remorse. “You knew and did not try to thrash me?”

“By the time my indignation took hold, I was off to Oxford and it no longer mattered. What drove me most to distraction was your goading me into some lark or other that broke a corresponding rule, for which I, not you, would be punished. I suffered mightily for that penchant in you. Why were you always after breaking rules, Alexandra?”

“I only broke a rule when I had good reason to do so. Besides, you made up half the blasted rules, yourself, as if rules and the following of them were the be-all and end-all of existence.”

“They are more than that. Rules, whether written or unwritten, like honor and ethics, are the very backbone of a civilized society.”

Alex closed her eyes and laid her head back, as if overtaken, at once, by weariness. “Pity you did not follow any rules where your family was concerned.”

Hawk winced, for her blade struck bone. Having come from a long line of privileged rogues, he had always attempted to act more civilized than his less-than-exemplary ancestors. He had prided himself on following a code of ethical conduct that would keep him from wreaking the kind of havoc his father and grandfather, and scores of other male ancestors, had perpetrated before him.

He had treated his tenants with generosity and respect, bedded only those women who wanted bedding—lucky for him, a great many had back then. He had gambled only with rich, greedy, bird-witted men who seemed to want to lose, Chesterfield prime among them.

Against his father’s exhortations that he owed more to his name than to marry the penniless Alexandra Huntington, he had married his maddening hoyden of a neighbor, the plague and nuisance of his growing up years. Because she had no other chance for marriage, or so he thought, and would have a better future as a rich and titled widow. And because she was prudent, trustworthy, resourceful and penniless, and would appreciate the favor he did her.

He had married her, because she would take better care of his family than he, while he was off fighting Boney, a glory for which his father had offered everything a son could ever hope to have.

Glory, bedamned. His father bedamned. Waterloo had been worse than hell. He had gotten what he deserved, going off to war, but Alexandra had not deserved what she got, yet her life had been altered as well.

Hawk would never forget the look on her face when he bid her farewell at the church immediately following their wedding ceremony. God’s teeth, he had used her ill.

As if that had not been bad enough, he was so eager to fare off to glory that he married her and shipped off to France before the reading of his father’s will. He had known that all Hawksworth brides were well provided for at the time of their husband’s deaths. He had known it and counted upon it.

He still did not know what had gone wrong in the case of his bride, for his father’s old solicitor had also passed away, leaving everything in the hands of his nephew, who had been traveling since Hawk returned.

He had not known that he left his family to be cast off by his heir, without a farthing to their names or a roof over their heads. Or that they had been forced to take up residence in Alexandra’s ramshackle manor, between St. Albans and Wheathampstead. But, devil take it, she was right; he had not followed his own code of conduct where his family was concerned. God knew how they had managed, though he would learn soon enough.

Alex opened her eyes of a sudden, in something of a panic, as if to ascertain whether he was actually there.

“Did you fall asleep and think you dreamed me?” Hawk asked. “Or would that have been more of a nightmare?”

“I dreamed, but I did not sleep,” Alex said enigmatically. “And as to whether you might be a dream or a nightmare, if you do not already know that answer, then you do not deserve to know it.”

And what did that mean? With that faraway look in her eyes, Hawk had feared she was dreaming of Chesterfield, the bloody knave, but now he was not so certain.

“Tell me,” Hawk said, to turn her thoughts. “How stands ‘the house that Jack built?’”

“It stands.”

“Always a promising beginning.”

Alex nodded. “It is improved in some respects,” she said. “And worse in others.”

“I regret that I did not make provisions for you all,” Hawk said. “You were right. I ought to be drawn and quartered.”

Alex tilted her head, considering his offer, as if perhaps he ought, and Hawk felt that old need to suffer for his failures. What better did he deserve? “You must have wanted to trounce me when you found out.”

“When you believe someone has died, your thoughts do not usually run toward vengeance,” she said. “But you should have realized, Bryce, that you could die in the war and that your heir might inherit. What were you thinking?”

He could offer no excuse, damn his eyes. He thought only of pleasing his dead father, but if he told her so, she would despise him the more, which he would deserve.

“What did faring off to glory get you, anyway?” she asked, “but dead, which might more easily be true, than not.”

“You are not telling me something I have not told myself a score of times. Now I have to undo the whole blasted mess, and my countenance does not help. Few people, if any, recognize me, though my voice, in some cases saves the day.”

“Your voice frightened me witless, coming from a derelict off the street, or so I thought you.”

Hawk paled and sat straighter. “My sincere apologies, Madam, but my physiognomy is not something that can be altered. God knows, I would, if I could.”

Alex sighed. “I have no aversion to your appearance, Bryce, which is not entirely unpleasing, you may not know. You were simply unknown to me at the time.”

“A derelict, Alex?”

“Look at your hair,” she said. “Did you ever, in your stylishly-groomed life, wear it wild and flowing away from your face, for all the world as if it were a lion’s mane? Though it is too devilish dark to be any such thing, of course. And those clothes. They are not even yours.”

Hawk fingered the frockcoat he might have tossed on the flames a war and a lifetime before. “Do you not appreciate my stylish attire? Is the weave of the fabric not fine enough for you?”

“As if clothes ever mattered a jot to me.”

“These clothes were a gift from the peasant family who nursed me back to health, I will have you know.” Hawk shook his head, but he could not help looking back. “I remember that they were as pleased to present them as I was to receive them. I have nothing else to wear, as things stand, and by the time Sabrina told me of your upcoming nuptials, I had less than an hour to stop you. I could think of no better way than to go myself, my destitute appearance notwithstanding.”

His words furrowed Alex’s brow. “Had you been in London long? And Sabrina knew you were there?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Hawk could not precisely say why he had been back so long without contacting Alex, because he could no more explain it to himself than to her, but knowing the length of time would only hurt her, so he decided on a temporary half-truth. “I have been back long enough to discover that you were no longer living in my London house and that you did, in fact, sell it, for which I planned to teach you some vengeful lesson.”

“I most certainly did not sell your house. What kind of lesson?”

“I learned the truth before your lesson was ever devised.” He shrugged. “I soon discovered that my heir tossed you out and later disposed of the townhouse, that you were living at Huntington Lodge and taking excellent care of the family. Again, thank you.”

“It was my pleasure,” she said. “I love them.”

Hawk grew uncomfortable with his inability to say how much his family loved her, without including himself in the declaration. He cleared his throat. “For all my dastardly ancestors’ rule-breaking, I doubt any of them ever found themselves in the incongruous position of trying to wrest, or should I say, rescue, what little was left of their fortunes and estates from the greedy hands of their improvident, globe-trotting heirs. Nor did any of them ever have to stop their wives from marrying another.”

Alex knew Bryce was probing for the details of her alliance with Chesterfield, again, but if he thought she would reveal them, he had another think coming.

Even now, he regarded her in such a way as to invite her to take up his verbal gauntlet, but she firmed her spine and her resolve, and remained adamantly silent.

“Tell me,” he said, giving up. “How is your Aunt Hildegarde? She was always my biggest fan. Did she mourn me for long?”

“Aunt Hildy did not mourn you at all.”

Hawk’s arrested shock at her response made Alex chuckle. “She did not mourn you, because she refused to believe that you had been killed. We tried to tell her, but doing so was like speaking to a stone, so we gave up.

“On the rare occasions she still asks for you, we tell her that you are on a hunting trip, or taking care of business in London. I thought that, perhaps, my marrying Judson and moving everyone to his house might bring her around, but none of that matters now, does it?”

Hawk looked away, unable to tell how Alex really felt about the turn of events. But they were nearing the Lodge and the thought of seeing his family, and of them seeing him, knotted his stomach and slicked his palms. The arrogant rogue of Devil’s Dyke, as frightened as a schoolboy who forgot his lessons.

The carriage climbed Gorhambury Hill—along the River Ver—towards Devil’s Dyke and the house where Alex grew up. With the placement of their family homes, fate had merged their lives at so early an age, Hawk could not remember his life without Alex in it.

Hawks Ridge, the home of his birth, temporarily his heir’s, sat at the opposite summit overlooking Devil’s Dyke, which formed the valley between. Hawk gazed westward to catch sight of his estate, but nearly a mile separated the houses, and he had forgotten that, other than in the dead of winter, the very woodland they had romped in grew too lush to allow for even a glimpse from the hill.

Besides, night had long since fallen, and the looming Lodge claimed his full attention. A few windows shone with light but the rest remained dark. And though a half-moon shone, he could not tell whether the house was still as much a leaking, tumbling pile as he remembered, or worse.

“Should I go in alone, first, and break the news?” Alex asked, as the carriage came to a stop before a set of weather-beaten granite steps. “I would not want your Uncle Gifford to have a seizure.”

“You think my scars will come as that bad a shock to him?” Hawk asked. Apoplexy was very near what he expected the first time people who knew him caught sight of him.

Alexandra regarded him as if he were daft. “Of course not. But I think the ghost of his dearly beloved nephew walking through the door, more than a year after his death, might do the trick.”

Hawk felt himself flush.

“I perceive that your scars are a great deal more of a difficulty for you,” Alex said. “Than for the people who must look upon you.”

“Therein rests the crux of the problem. They must look upon me, but they would not, if they could help it.”

Alexandra sighed and shook her head, as if she might argue the point, but the carriage door was thrown open and Claudia and Beatrix scrambled inside, out of the rain.

Even as the interior grew bright with the light from their lantern, they began tossing rice in the air. “Hurrah for the bride and groom. Hurrah, hurr—”

Sound stopped as if severed by a blade.

Hawk braced himself, even as he consumed the blessed sight of them, Bea bigger, but still a halfling, Claudia, nearly a woman, but sadder somehow.

When Bea focused on his face, she gasped and stepped back, regarding him fixedly, her curly little saffron head tipped in concentration. “Do I know you?” she asked, her small voice wobbling.

“Do not be afraid,” Hawk said.

To his horror, she began to cry as she climbed into Alex’s lap.

Hawk felt the blood drain from him and went stone cold, inside and out.

Alex wrapped Bea in love and soothing words. The little one had taken one look at him and was frightened to death. His worst nightmare come true, or one of his worst.

“Muffin?” Alex coaxed. “What is it, Love? Why are you crying?”

“That man made me sad. I miss my Uncle Bryce.”

Claudia’s gaze shot to his face then, as if the scales had slipped from her eyes, and she saw him true, and understood the reason for Bea’s confusion.

Hawk gave her a half nod, and as quick as he did, Claude covered her mouth with a hand and her eyes filled to brimming, not for the first time that day, if he did not miss his guess. Her tears overflowed and spilled onto her cheeks.

Hawk wished he knew whether she wept with happiness, or horror, or both. At least he understood the little one’s tears. “Come,” he said, lifting Beatrix away from Alex. “Come, Pup, I am Uncle Bryce.” He hugged her close and smoothed her hair. “No more tears for missing me. I am here, Sweet. I am here.”

Bea looked up at him, taking her lip between her teeth, her eyes wide, sobs escaping at odd moments, her expression moving from doubt to wonder. “Uncle Bryce?”

“Bumble Bea?”

“Uncle Bryce!” she screamed, throwing her arms around his neck. Then Claudia was laughing and hugging him, too, and all his girls, Alex included, wept openly, laughing through their tears.

And as Alex reached for his hand, and the little one kissed him all over his face, scars and all, Hawk felt, amazingly, as if he had come home … for the first time in his life.

Beatrix had so much to tell him that they did not move from the carriage for fully three-quarters of an hour, and even then, Alex kept telling her that she would have the rest of her life to catch him up.

“Hello the carriage,” came a gruff, old, curmudgeonly shout from the darkness. “Where has everyone got to?”

“In here, Uncle Giff,” Alexandra said. “Come in, out of the rain.”

Hawk shrugged at Alex, as his stodgy old uncle squeezed into the seat opposite, so busy ordering Claudia aside that he had not yet regarded the seat across from him. And when, at length, he did, he simply furrowed his grizzled brow in bewilderment.

Hawk kissed Bea’s little head, firm against his chest. “I am Hawk, Uncle. I survived, after all.”

“No.”

“Truly, though I am a little the worse for wear, as you see.”

“No.”

Alexandra laughed. “Quiz him, Giff. You will discover that he knows all our atrocious middle names, including the most ridiculous of our secrets. No doubt about it. He is Hawksworth.”

“No.”

The girls burst into laughter and began talking at once, and Beatrix practically fell from the carriage, she was so excited, then she dashed for the house.

In the foyer’s dim light, Hawk noted that his uncle’s hair had turned the color of pewter in the intervening time, and that his manly physique may have thickened and shifted somewhat. But all in all the old boy looked fit and spry and he seemed much less a curmudgeon than Hawk remembered.

“Well what do you know,” his uncle said, quite belatedly slapping him on the back, at long last accepting the truth before him. “The dotty old magpie isn’t five feathers short a tail, after all, but wise as an owl.” Giff grinned. “Hildy,” he called, striding to the bottom of the stairs. “Hildy, you will never guess.”

“Alex?” Claudia asked, stepping near. “Did you find Uncle Bryce today? Or yesterday?”

Alex smiled. “He found me … before I married Ch—”

“Hurrah,” Claudia exclaimed twirling away from Alex and into her uncle’s arms. “I love you, Uncle Bryce.”

Hawk knew he had missed some pertinent component in that exchange, then he heard Alexandra’s Aunt Hildegard reproaching his uncle from somewhere on the upper floor.

Nothing had changed.

When Aunt Hildy started down the stairs, Hawk saw her focus on him right away. And she did not miss a beat, not even when she took his uncle’s arm half-way down. “Bryceson, you stayed away too long this time,” she chided, beaming, as if he had not changed a jot, as if she had been expecting him all along.

“But we forgive you, do we not, Alexandra? I am so glad you are back.” She stood on the bottom step, and still she barely reached his chin. “Though why your letters stopped more than a year ago, I cannot imagine. And it was too bad of the war office to ship you out a mere week after your wedding. Poor Alex wept for months about not even having your child with which to remember you. Now you have another chance, you can get on with having that family of yours while you are still young. I shall put in my order, now, shall I, for a big, noisy brood?”

His uncle Gifford’s sudden paroxysm of coughing turned into a strangled laugh.

“Ah, good to see you, too, Aunt Hildegarde,” Hawk said, feeling the tightening of his cravat.

The dear old lady bussed his cheek, but when she did, and he placed an arm about her shoulders, he realized, from the degree of her trembling, that she was a great deal more shaken than she was letting on. And when he bent nearer, he saw tears hovering on her lashes.

“Praise be,” she whispered.

“My sentiments exactly,” Hawk said, for her ears alone, kissing her cheek in turn. “Especially now that I have seen my best girl.”

Hildegarde swatted his arm but preened anyway. “Are you hungry?” she asked, stepping off that last step, and composing herself. “Thirsty? Have you dined?”

“I am fine,” Alex said. “How about you, Hawksworth?”

“Nothing for me.” Hawk felt all the nervousness of an imposter. Alex was treating him like Hawksworth, the stranger, rather than Bryce, the friend. His family believed good of him, when no good existed.

He had chosen to ship out immediately after their wedding, rather than risk leaving Alex with the child of a man she did not love. And he had not written, not to anyone, to sever their ties early, in hopes that when he was killed, which he daily expected, their shock and grief would be diminished.

Had Alex stayed somewhere else in London, alone for a time, to shore up a pretense of wedded bliss? Had she passed them news that supposedly came from him? Considering what her aunt had said, had Alex even pretended for a time that she might be carrying his child?

“Why has little Miss Beatrix not been sent up to bed, I would like to know?” Alex asked, cutting the tense silence, looking as uncomfortable as him, as she ruffled Bea’s curls. “It is gone past ten.”

“Because of your wed— Because these are special days,” his Uncle said. “Though we expected you yesterday.”

“Very special days, more than you can imagine,” Hawk said. To his mind, stopping Alex’s nuptials to Judson Broderick, Viscount blasted Chesterfield, offered a great deal more to celebrate than her marrying him might have done.

“Exhausting days, all the same,” Alex said. “And it is very late, past time for little girls to be tucked into their beds.”

“Time for all of us to go up,” Aunt Hildegarde said.

“But there is no bedchamber for Uncle Bryce,” Beatrix wailed in distress.

“Of course there is,” Alex said. “He shall have the master bedchamber.”

“But that is your b—”

Claudia had clapped a hand over her sister’s mouth. “You heard Alex, Little Miss Mischief, time for little people to be in their beds.”

“Big people, too,” Giff said, taking Aunt Hildy’s arm. “Let us all go up and allow Hawk and Alex the opportunity to, er, settle everything.”

That fast, Alex and Bryce were left standing at the base of the main staircase to regard each other. Alex wished the foyer did not seem so drab for his homecoming, while he appeared, for all the world, like a raw boy with his first girl, the way she was certain he had never appeared in the whole of his life.

“I do not want to put you out,” he said, wrapping dignity about him like a shield, much as he had done the evening before. “As you know, I do not sleep well these days. Any bedchamber will do.”

Plague take it, Alex thought. Was not a husband expected to sleep with his wife? They were home now. She was no longer in shock. And if she did not begin the way she intended to go on, then she would deserve the consequences. “There is no other bedchamber,” she snapped.

“There must be a dozen at least.”

“If they have beds, they have no mattresses.”

“Why ever not?”

Alex gave a long-suffering sigh. “When we were forced,” she stressed, “to return here, the mattresses had been turned into mouse houses, so we turned them out of our house, leaky and dilapidated as it is.”

Bryceson clearly bit back an oath, and that old impatient tic worked in his cheek. “The tower room in the attic,” he said, seeming to grasp at straws. “Isn’t there a chaise lounge, or a daybed, that would serve? When we used to practice our archery up there on rainy days, I am certain we proved the thing indestructible.”

“You are able to climb so many stairs, then?” Alex asked, hoping to discourage him.

“I climb better than I descend, it is true, but I can manage. Besides, I am convinced that the more I use my legs, the better they will work.”

Myerson cleared his throat from the door of the servants’ hall, self-consciously turning his dripping hat in his hands. “Excuse me, your grace, but the horses?”

While Bryce oversaw the stabling and feeding of the matched pair he had borrowed with the carriage, Alex carried a candle and bedding up three flights of stairs to the attic tower.

Sure enough, the huge, sparse circular chamber appeared dry as toast and looked exactly as it had the last time they played there, except for the additional dust. Everything as they left it, including their old archery equipment and the dratted daybed.

Thoroughly annoyed by the sight, Alex placed her candle on a table, and the bedding on the lounge. She went for a bow and arrow and set them up, crossed the room, and in a fit of pique, she let the arrow fly, hitting the target dead center.

“Rotten roof leaks everywhere,” she muttered, choosing another arrow. “Wouldn’t you just know it would hold above this one blasted room.”

She set the second arrow in the bow, but changed her mind about its destination and turned her sights, and her weapon, upward. “Bloody, stupid roof.” She sent the missile skyward.

The arrow disappeared into the darkened attic rafters, and almost as it did, a drip hit the floor, then another, and another, until rain dripped down in a vapid, steady rhythm. “Oops,” Alex said. “Must have been ready to give at any moment.”

Her mind worked and her smile grew as she chose yet another arrow and aimed it, unerringly, toward the rafters directly above the chaise lounge. But when she let it fly, nothing happened, and she could not tell exactly where it disappeared within the shadowed labyrinth of beams closer to the tower’s peak. “Drat.”

Hearing footsteps on the stairs, she stashed the bow, saw the daybed was dry, and sighed with regret. Doomed to spending another night alone. Double drat.

As Hawksworth entered, she beamed a bright smile. “Only one, small leak,” she said with feigned pleasure. “Your bed is fine. See.”

Even as they regarded the makeshift berth, an arrow dropped, flat on its side, dead center of the bed, and rain poured, literally, down, soaking the bedding and the lounge, rendering it completely useless.

Rainwater must have eased the arrow from the rupture where it struck and stuck, Alex mused as she bit her lip and regarded her husband.

He raised a brow. “Are we under siege?”

“I was … practicing,” she said, by way of feeble explanation. “And I heard … something. And I jumped … in fright. And, accidentally, my shot went wide … accidentally.”

“Very wide. Accidentally.”

Alex swallowed a knot of hysterical laughter, but she could not quite stop it from rushing forward, so she clamped a hand over her mouth.

Hawksworth regarded the source and sorceress of all his dreams, her turquoise eyes wide with trepidation, yet brimming with merriment all the same.

He shook his head. Behold the thorn in his side, his hoyden … his wife.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Sleeping with me will not be as dreadful as you seem to think,” Alex promised as they made their plodding way, arm in arm, down the stairs toward the family bedchambers. “My bed is big. You will not even know I am there.”

Hawk scoffed, feeling all the restrictions of a cage. “Well you will bloody well know I am there. If it were not so late, and you did not look so tired, I would fight you on this. You will be sorry when I push and kick and trample you in my sleep. You may end up more severely wounded than I.”

Alex bit her lip, appearing not the least worried or repentant. “Oh, Myerson,” she said when they saw his man in the upper hall. “Welcome to Huntington Lodge. Do you think you can bring up a tub and some hot water to my—our, dressing room? His grace will want a bath before I cut his hair.”

“His grace will not want his hair cut,” Hawksworth said. “And you would not be doing the cutting, if he did.”

“The bath, please, Myerson,” Alex said. “And thank you.”

Hawk followed Alex into a well-appointed bedchamber. The curtains and counterpane, like the upholstery on the two wingback chairs by the hearth, were covered in the deep turquoise velvet of Alex’s eyes. Pillows of gold brought the color, the very room, to life.

Upon her dresser sat a Roman pottery vase, one of the childhood treasures they had unearthed near the Dyke, though this one had always been Alex’s favorite. Colored pale tan to deep blue-gray, and looking as if someone had combed a staff of shallow half-circles in the clay before firing, the vase lent an air of reality to Hawk’s illusory sense of homecoming.

While the bedchamber was not rich by any standard, it was in better condition than he would have expected. “You expected to share this room with your husband, did you not?”

“On occasion,” Alex said. “Which is exactly what I am doing.”

Hawk nodded, hardly daring to believe it. He could be comfortable in this room, with very few adjustments, if only Alex would not expect him to play the husband— Correction, if he had the right, and the confidence in his ability, he would gladly play the husband.

With the manner of an artist evaluating a work of art, Alex regarded him critically. “Your beard is as wild as your mane. I will trim both.”

“You will not.”

“Hawksworth, do you want me to awaken in the night and scream because I have a beast in my bed?”

“You will have a beast in your bed, make no mistake.”

“The one now growling beside me?”

A rather foreign and uncomfortable bubble of mirth caught in Hawk’s throat, making it ache, making him angry. “Indeed.”

“There are beasts, and there are beasts,” Alex said, pointedly, shivering as if in anticipation. Damn.

“Just a little bit?” she cajoled, in the charming way that only Alex could. “I will only cut your hair a little bit. And after traveling all day, I am certain we would benefit from a hot bath.”

“We? One at a time, of course.”

“In a slipper bath? I should say so. As if there is any other—” Her grin shot an arrow of doubt straight to Hawk’s conscience. He was not the rogue of old and he should tell her so.

“There is another way, is there not?” she said, her ripple of mirth and sparkling interest speeding Hawk’s heart. “Chesterfield promised me,” she said, tapping her chin. “That he would teach me all manner of entertaining pastimes in marriage. Now I fear there will be no entertainment . . . unless you teach me.” She released a sigh, heavy with irony, if only she knew it. Or did she?

Hawksworth began to sweat. He had known she would be like this, even about the marriage bed, eager for new experiences, excited, and exciting, drinking of life in huge greedy draughts. Bloody hell.

To protect her from Chesterfield, he had no choice but to remain her husband, Hawk told himself, which eased the constriction about his chest, somewhat, and allowed him to breathe again, barely.

A sad day, he thought, when the Rogue of Devil’s Dyke became the lesser of evils. Imagine a man of legendary prowess being pleased about that.

Imagine him being grateful.

Lo, how the mighty have fallen.

Part of him was relieved, and pleased, and grateful, that he had not broken her spirit, by leaving her to bear such burdens, as he might have done with a less lively individual, but another part was frightened by the very liveliness he admired.

Hawk looked up and caught his breath at the sight of her absently pulling pins from her hair before her mirror—watching him, in the glass, watching her. Her arms raised, her lush and generous breasts all but bared in proud invitation, she presented the ultimate picture of bewitchment, and seemed totally oblivious to the fact.

He should be shot for what he was thinking.

Drawn by her mesmerizing, almost come-hither, gaze, her eyes in candlelight the very color and depth of the sunniest south sea, Hawk could not keep from approaching. He moved her hands aside to savor the sensation of his own in her hair, and removed her hairpins, himself. He had no sooner buried his fists, wrists deep, in the silken bounty, than the cinnamon mane tumbled down to her tiny waist and beyond in one long waving sweep.

Why not make her his in every way? They were married after all.

To the beat of his speeding heart, Hawk combed his fingers through the silken treasure, top to tail, literally, stroking her perfect bottom, twice or thrice along the way, almost by accident. The satin against his hands enticed him almost as much as those womanly curves beneath, so deliciously near that his palms itched to explore every gentle swell and graceful hollow.

He was in trouble. Big trouble.

He wanted her. He could not have her.

But he would be forced to lie beside her every night. All night. Sweating. Aching—if today was any indication—both a hopeful, and a dangerous, turn of events.

Alex turned her back on him then, and lifted her hair, presumably for him to undo the buttons down the back of her rose silk gown. Hawk closed his eyes, remembering how good she had felt in his arms yesterday in the carriage, how much he had wanted to hold her in the bed last night. He inhaled the scent of her—violets, woman, softness and need.

Joy. Willingness. Life. Alexandra.

And just as he bent to place his lips against that spot at her nape begging for his kiss, Myerson called from the dressing room that his grace’s bath was ready.

Hawk stilled, cursed himself roundly, and after undoing the last of Alexandra’s buttons with all due haste, he took the opportunity to flee.

Once inside the dressing room, he shut the door and locked it, certain he would fail at the goal he had set for himself—to let her go. He hoped beyond hope that he would not, because Alex would pay an awful price for all of a lifetime if he failed.

After Myerson left, Hawk undressed and lowered his awkward and scarred body into the warm, lapping, incredibly soothing water. As heat radiated to his limbs and deep into his marrow, sweet and numbing, his screaming muscles calmed and so, too, did his fast-beating heart.

Alex had been right. A bath was just what he needed.

“I was right, was I not?”

Hawk jumped all of a foot, splashing them both, and feeling like an idiot. “How did you get in here?”

“Through the door. How else? I thought you might need my help. I could scrub your back.” There she was, again, that innocent three year old, coaxing him down a forbidden hill with no more than that wide-eyed look.

“Go away.”

“Why?”

The string of oaths Hawk released should have turned her face crimson and chased her from the room.

She grinned. “If you did not want me here, you should have locked the door.”

Hawk closed his eyes, because to see her was to desire her. “I did lock the door.”

At her ripple of laughter, he opened them.

“I know.” She allowed another salacious giggle to escape without a qualm. “The lock is broken. Everything in this house is.” She beamed as she approached the tub.

At the glitter of purpose in her eyes, Hawk reared back.

“Relax,” she said. “My intentions are honorable. I plan only to wash your hair, not to ravish you.”

Hawk sighed, inwardly, remembering ravishment with a great deal of wistful fondness, wishing it were possible, wondering what would happen if…. “Be gentle with me,” he said, tired enough to allow the good-ship Alexandra to stay her course, however fraught the waters with peril.

“Oh, I will.” Like warm, soft toffee, her words melted on her tongue, rich and honeyed with promise.

It was the most glorious experience of his life, Hawk thought, as Alexandra worked his hair in soft soothing strokes, with lots of rich lather, turning the process into a seductive dance.

With her talented soapy fingers, she stroked his neck, his shoulders, a way down his back, a longer way down his front, her slow, creamy, circling strokes teasing his senses and bringing him pleasure with just her touch.

Almost as good as sex, Hawk mused, though after a year and a half, he had about forgotten what that was like. Almost.

When he became aroused, Hawk waited with baited breath, to see if his erection would last, but it diminished, or he nodded off; it was difficult to tell which happened first.

Ultimately, he must really have slept, because he awoke to the sound of clipping, except that he was still in the tub, afraid to move, lest he lose an ear. “Are you cutting my hair?”

“I think so.”

“I would rather you were certain,” he said. “How did you go from washing to trimming in one step?”

“You must be exhausted, because you slept as if you had not slept in ages. I rinsed your hair and trimmed your beard a bit, but you never woke.”

“I did not get much sleep last night.”

“True. Bryceson?”

He was almost afraid to respond. Her very tone made him skittish. “Alexandra?”

“I rather prefer your hair like a lion’s mane, albeit a tamer lion. Would you mind if I only just trimmed that as well?”

Hawk released the breath he had been holding. “Fine.”

“The longer length fits with your beard, I think, and makes you look wickedly piratical. I expect you are too sleepy to plunder and pillage?”

Hawk bit back a new flurry of mirth. “I am sleepy. I do not think I have felt this comfortable or this relaxed since— Very.”

“Come, let me help you step from the tub, so I can help dry—”

“No, I will step out and dry myself off, after you return to your bedchamber.”

“But Bryce—”

Hawk pointed toward the door. “Out.”

“But we were children together. We swam together. Your scars cannot be that bad.”

“They are.”

Like a heartbroken pup, Alexandra turned away.

Hawk caught her hand to stop her as she passed. “Lexy, you have seen enough of my ugliness. Leave me some dignity. Please.”

Alex sighed and grudgingly recovered her spirits. “Well, if you express it that way, what choice do I have?” She shut the door quietly as she left, and Hawk breathed a heavy sigh.

Never having owned a nightshirt in his life, he prudently donned his dressing gown, thinking that medieval armor might prove worthless with the tenacious Alexandra. He grabbed his cane, snuffed the candles, and made his toe-stubbing way to the bed, cursing as he went.

“Serves you right,” Alex said, from somewhere across the room. “Am I to bathe in the dark, then?”

Hawk climbed onto the far side of the bed and arranged the covers. “I humbly beg your forgiveness. Re-light the candles, if you wish. The light will not disturb my sleep.”

He heard her exasperated huff, and when the candles were lit, she, too, wore only a dressing gown, and that, not well fastened. Hawk both raged and salivated as he watched her delightful breasts, better fit to spring free than in her seductive nightrail the night before. And as she stepped into her dressing room, she gave him an amazing glimpse of one long and shapely leg, ankle to thigh, almost by accident.

Despite himself, Hawk imagined her dropping her dressing gown and stepping naked, about then, into the tub in which he had just bathed. If he had not vowed to set her free, he would go and join her, bedamned to his scars, her modesty, or anything else.

But he did not have the right, and no matter his bride’s reassurances, seeing each other through the gauze of wet garments at the age of ten, and seeing each other naked now, were nothing like.

Her innocence might remain intact, despite her denial to the contrary, but his certainly did not.

“I think you should come and wash my hair,” she called. “I washed yours.”

Hawksworth mentally applauded her tenacity and considered the tower room daybed with longing.

Accidentally, indeed.

He had been right, he mused, as he closed his eyes and drifted toward sleep, living again just might kill him. Then again, for the first time since the battle of Waterloo, living again felt rather … hopeful.

Hawk yawned. For a dead man, he had had a tiring day.

Alex was thoroughly disgruntled by the time she climbed into bed beside her husband. She was no expert, but she did not think that marriage beds were supposed to be tedious or dull as ditchwater. Neither did she believe that any of Hawk’s former mistresses had found him unconscious when they climbed into bed with him.

Though she was very much tempted to slip the bedcovers off and examine him at her leisure, she supposed that in fairness to his dignity, she should wait until she was invited, if the blasted day ever arrived.

She must, also, face the fact that Hawksworth had not chosen her as his bride in the truest sense, which might mean that he did not care to touch her, or could not bear to, which made her want to smack him as he slept, the paper-skulled jackanapes.

To be fair, however, ‘twas only a little more than a year ago that he had been so badly wounded, he was taken for dead, and he could still be recovering his strength. She had caught the pain in his eyes too often to count, today, though he tried to hide it.

She had not seen the damage to his leg, not yet, at any rate, but the limb might very well be festering still. Leg wounds often did.

When all was said and done, however, even though she was not his choice, Hawksworth was her first and only choice. In addition, they were already married—till death do them part. But life could seem a very long time, if one was feeling neglected and … needy.

If Hawksworth did not plan to seduce her, then, perhaps, she should try and seduce him.

If only she knew how.

She supposed there were worse schemes than to seduce one’s own husband. Though seduction seemed too good for him, considering his reason for marrying her, and the fact that he waited so blasted long to let her know he lived. Punishment seemed a better choice.

Just thinking about his offenses made her angry all over again. And sad, and hurt, and … devil it, she wanted him to know how much he hurt her. She wanted him to feel her pain.

What she should do, Alex thought, turning yet again in her formerly comfortable bed, was make him worship her, as she had always worshipped him, to the point that she might pay him back in kind.

Let him ache to have her and see her walk away.

To do that, she would have to make him think she wanted him, until he wanted her as desperately. Then, when she was certain of his adoration, she could tell him of her coldhearted plan to even the score between them. Better yet, she would get one of her friends, or his, to do the telling.

Let him see how that felt.

Then she could walk away.

CHAPTER NINE

Alex sat up in the bed, for it seemed, at once, obvious and clear, that only after Hawk understood how much he had hurt her would they be free to go forward with their marriage on an equal footing. In which case, seducing him just might turn out to be the smartest plan she had ever hatched … and she had hatched several noteworthy schemes in her time.

She would do it, she thought, as she lay back against her pillows. As soon as she figured out how one went about conducting a seduction, she would begin a captivating campaign.

Alex smiled in the darkness, wishing she knew who she could ask about seductions in general.

When Chesterfield had embraced and kissed her, sometimes at length, he would tremble and close his eyes, as if against pain, and tell her that he wanted her. When she questioned him, he promised that after their wedding, he would teach her everything about married love, to set her as afire for him as he was for her.

If she had married him yesterday, she might now be receiving her second lesson.

Alexandra knew from her lack of regret that she must be in a bad way, for she did not pine for Chesterfield or his lessons. No, she had rather lie needy beside Hawksworth till the end of her days, than be set afire in Chesterfield’s arms even once.

She rolled to her side to regard her husband, his marred, but no less striking features lit by the moon. He may no longer be perfect of face, but no woman capable of drawing breath would be able to resist his air of masculine danger and denied vulnerability. Especially not she, who had been unable to resist him at his arrogant worst, or best, however one considered it.

Then again, had there not always been something of a hurt-boy vulnerability about him, which had simply risen to prominence with his scars from the war?

Lord, had nothing changed? She loved him. She wanted to protect him, to heal his hurts.

She desired him.

His topaz eyes still shown more than the jewels themselves, especially when he gazed at her pensively or furiously, as if he wanted nothing more than to set her over his knee—the delicious way he appeared when she said she would live in sin with Chesterfield.

Alex shivered.

At the inn along the way, when Bryce left her to go upstairs and refresh himself, she noticed that he was as small of waist, as broad of shoulders, and as firm of bottom as ever—good form for a man, in her estimation. And in his black brocade dressing gown tonight, which formidable sight stole her breath, as he snuffed the candle, she could not help think him the most tantalizing rogue she ever hoped to make her own.

She tried to touch his leg with her foot, just then, but she could not quite reach. Sliding surreptitiously closer, so as not to awaken him, she stretched and tried again, but encountered his dressing gown.

Moving closer still, Alex slid her toes beneath the brocade silk and touched his bare foot.

He stirred.

She stilled, her heart beating as fast as a careening carriage.

After a minute, she moved her seeking foot further upward, a bit past his ankle and toward his calf.

Bryce moaned. Alex warmed. This could work.

Afraid to go further, lest she rouse the self-proclaimed beast, she was cheered nonetheless by the possibility of seduction as a form of vengeance, which came very near—in her mind—to eating one’s sweetmeats and keeping them, too.

With a smile on her lips, Alex slipped as near Bryce as she dared, without disturbing him, to savor the simple joy of sleeping beside the man she loved.

She longed for him to hold her; again, as he did in the carriage, but perhaps her forwardness put him off. Perhaps he had rather be the seducer. It was something to think about, she supposed, perhaps.

Right now, however, unable to resist temptation, Alex reached over to place her hand against his chest, atop the blanket.

To her surprise, at the contact, Bryce swept her into his arms, clasped her tight and spoke her name.

With a grin of triumph, heart singing, head tucked beneath his chin, top to tail against various and sundry parts of his firm torso, Alexandra reveled in her unforgettable rogue’s possessive embrace.

Tears filled her eyes for all her years of missing him and for having him back, beyond all imagining. And when she calmed and emotion turned to joy, Alex realized a little something about seduction. It must have to do with figuring out what those various and interesting parts were for and why one of them seemed actually to be pulsing.

Hawk woke to the light of bright morning, shocked and erect, and clutching a handful of titillating breast. Alexandra’s knee was positioned against his naked and vulnerable groin, her hand riding dangerously low inside his dressing gown.

More than anything, he wanted to explore the possibilities, but he had not the right, if he planned to let her go, which he must. Besides, since his bride was unused to having a man in her bed—please, God—he was afraid that if he took to exploring, he might surprise her into moving her knee a little too hard and a bit too fast, which could injure him the worse.

While he pondered his precarious situation, Hawk noticed, between the hanks of hair in her face, that Alex was watching him. “Do not move your knee,” he said, softly, so as not to startle her. But she must have realized just where it rested, because she jumped and did exactly what he tried to avoid.

“Oomph. Ouch! Alex, be careful.”

Like a spring-wound toy, she shot up and knelt over him. “Bryce, I am sorry.” She tugged on the bedcovers to pull them down. “Did I hurt your leg? Let me see.”

Hawk fought for his modesty, and won, barely. “My leg is fine.

“Are you certain? Because if it is festering, and I bumped it….”

“It is not festering, but fully healed and pain-free at the moment.”

Alex released her breath and lay back down beside him. “Thank God.”

Hawk shuddered at the throbbing soreness in his nether regions. “They should have put you in the bible—pestilence, flood, famine, and Alexandra Huntington.”

With a proud, man-slaying smile, his bride turned to face him across the pillow. “Make that, pestilence, flood, famine, and Alexandra Wakefield, thank you very much.”

“Sorry, I forgot.”

“You forgot?” Again, she shot up … and shoved him from the bed.

Caught off guard, Hawk grasped the blankets and landed with a curse.

Alex rose and stepped right over him. “I am determined to cure you of that.”

“Of what?” he snapped, closing his dressing gown beneath the blankets, and trying not to stare at her in that appallingly diaphanous night rail.

“Of forgetting that I am your wife.”

“Oh.” Giving up the fight, Hawk pillowed his head in his hands and crossed his ankles, while his unrepentant bride fluffed her hair into a billowy curtain of cinnamon silk and stretched like a svelte and contented feline.

Like a practiced coquette, mischief in her glance, she watched him as she untied her bodice ribbons, not entirely unaware that the light of morning, behind her, turned her gown to air, and revealed every scintillating freckle on her lush and feminine form.

Hawk became aroused just watching, another very good sign, indeed.

He used to worry that the London doctor he visited when he returned to England was offering hope where only despair existed, but the medical man had been right after all. Time and rest did help. Last night had been his best night’s sleep in ages, entangled with Alex, as it were, and this morning, he felt new again. Not that he should be making a practice of such entanglements in the future, but the novelty of his sexual awakening was worth the risk.

Alex arched a wry brow. “With no more than the hint of a smile lighting your eyes, you still remind me of the proverbial cat that ate the cream,” she said. “But you should be hanging your head in shame for forgetting that I am your wife and a woman grown.”

Hawk quirked a brow. “You may safely assume that your womanhood has been made abundantly clear to me at this juncture.”

She tried to kick off his covers, but Hawk caught her foot and stroked her shapely ankle, until she closed her eyes and sighed.

When he made to slide his hand higher, she squeaked in surprise and Hawk let her go, knowing it was best, but before he realized what she was about, she succeeded in uncovering him.

Her turn to quirk a brow as she regarded the evidence of his manhood, as stark as her womanhood, though better-covered. “Care to explain that?” she asked, with feminine satisfaction, of the arousal raising his dressing gown. “It used to happen to Judson all the time. Oh, but … where did it go?”

Shot with possessive fury, Hawk sat up. “You distracted me with your nonsensical chatter about your beef-witted suitor. I would have expected him to teach you what you wanted to know; though I am pleased I overestimated him.” His harsh tone surprised even Hawk, but before he could apologize, he saw that Alex’s eyes were no longer bright with mischief, but glistening with tears.

Even as she stepped away, Hawk wanted to call his words back. “Devil take it!” Hurting her had not been his intention. “Alex, I did not mean—”

A stifled sob escaped her as she ran.

“Wait, come back.” Hawk could not stand quick enough to stop her, before her dressing room door shut with finality.

Alex paced, attempting, at the same time, to catch her breath. What had just happened? What did Hawksworth mean, touching her ankle, her leg, in the way she would allow only a husband, only him to do, then insinuating that she might have permitted Chesterfield such liberties before their marriage.

She leaned against the door separating them and closed her eyes, tears slipping beneath her lashes, despite her attempt to stem the flow, despite her fury at herself for allowing them.

Her breasts ached and that place between her legs pulsed. There, she wanted Hawksworth, with a need, nay a desperation, the likes of which she had not experienced with Chesterfield, or anyone.

Had Bryce continued touching her, she suspected what might have happened had been the something wonderful Chesterfield enigmatically promised, but she sensed only Bryce could deliver.

After what he had just implied, however, how could she get close enough again to find out?

Alex turned and touched her brow to the door. “Why did you say such a horrid thing,” she asked, smacking her palm against the shuddering portal as if it were her stubborn husband’s chest. “Why?”

“Because I am a weak, jealous bastard,” Hawk said as faintly as her words had come to him. He closed his eyes, regret lancing him for causing her pain once more.

Why had he said it? Hawk wondered. Anger? Jealousy? Because he could not make love to her. Because if he consummated their marriage, he would bind her to him, without hope for her future, damn it to bloody hell.

She also deserved better than his abuse, which he had not intended.

He should grant her an immediate annulment and leave Huntington Lodge without looking back. He was too jaded for such an innocent. And still, he wanted to go to her, now, this minute, apologize until she granted him forgiveness, except that he must stand before he could take a step to do anything more.

Bracing himself against the agony of rising, Hawk realized that he deserved all the wretchedness God saw fit to give him, so he closed his eyes and pulled himself upright, be damned to the pain.

After anguish, at length, passed, he released his breath and opened his eyes … only to find Alexandra on the opposite side of the bed, horror etching her features and paling her skin to flour paste. “Lexy, forgive me. I can be a blackguard, sometimes.”

“You said you were free of pain, but in pushing you down, I hurt you by making you rise again.”

“Not as badly as I hurt you.”

“You move always with some difficulty; I noticed that. But rising from so far must be—

“Getting easier by the day. Alex, listen. About my unforgivable insinuation—”

“I am sorry I pushed you. I meant only to be playful.” Alex lowered herself to sit on the bed, keeping her back to him.

“I wish I could say the same.” Hawk came around to sit beside her. He tried to take her hand, though it turned out that he ended up fighting her for it and lost. “Damn it, will you not hear me out?”

She looked him full in the face. “Not now. Please, I do not wish to speak of it, right now.”

“So be it, then. But later, you will hear what I have to say, if I have to tie you to the bed.”

With the image his promise engendered, life shot through Hawk once more, and he cursed his fickle body as he rose.

“Breakfast in half an hour, your grace,” Myerson called from the dressing room.

“Just a minute, man.” Hawk handed Alex a more modest dressing gown, and once she donned it, he called his valet into the room. “Since I no longer have bachelor quarters, or even a separate bedchamber, I will not require your services as valet for the nonce, but I do believe if it is agreeable to you that her grace has tasks you might perform about the house.” He looked to Alex for confirmation.

She had composed herself admirably. “Thank you, Hawksworth. Yes, Myerson, we very much need your services, if you do not mind. Meet me in the kitchen in an hour and I will go over your new duties. Until then, and if you have already broken your fast, you may see if Mrs. Parker can use your help.”

“Very Good, your grace.”

After Myerson left, Alexandra went wordlessly into her dressing room, shutting the door.

Hawk dressed and made his way downstairs. Alex needed time to compose herself, and he required even more time to dislodge his very big foot from his very big mouth.

As he entered the breakfast room, conversation came to an abrupt, uncomfortable halt.

Hawk took the empty chair beside his uncle. “Good morning.” He nodded and took to buttering a piece of toast, aware he was cross as a bear. “Do not stop talking on my account,” he said, assuming that they must have been discussing his disfigurement, or his overlong absence, or any number of subjects for which he was heartily embarrassed.

“Come now,” he said. “We are family. I am certain you must have questions that have gone unanswered for far too long. Would you not rather ask than conjecture?”

To Claudia’s exclamation and Hildegarde’s gasp, a hedgehog ran from beneath the table.  Then Beatrix crawled out from beneath and popped up between them. “I have a question, Uncle Bryce.”

“Excuse me,” he interrupted, “but did I just see a hedgehog cross the room?”

“That’s Nanny.” Beatrix, the unrepentant eavesdropper, came around to climb on his lap. “Do not worry, she will be back.”

“Nanny?” Hawk asked.

Giff chuckled. “Bea wanted to give her hedgehog a name with hog in it, but all she could think of was Hogmanay, except that Bea calls it Hogmananny, so that’s what she named her hedgehog.”

“Nanny, for short,” Hawk said. “Good name, Bumble Bea. I approve. Have you shown Nanny to your cousins?”

Bea shook her head. “Aunt Bree says Damon and Rafe have a cat and a dog both, so they will not care for her.”

“Ah, but I think they will. Hedgehogs are such unique pets, after all.”

“Really?” Beatrix beamed, picked up the toast Hawk had just buttered and took a bite. “When can we move back to the London house, so I can show them?”

Hawk accepted a replacement for his toast from Hildegarde. “Thank you, Aunt,” he said, taking a bite to stake his claim. “Why do we not wait, Bumble-Bea, until Alexandra joins us before I tell you how things stand with my title and estate.”

“You mean you have not even told her yet?” the wide-eyed child asked. “Take care or you will make her cry again.”

“Make her…. Cry? What are you talking about?” Could Bea have heard them earlier?

The child of seven-going-on-forty gave a long-suffering sigh. “Before you died—or we thought you did—you wrote to Aunt Sabrina, Damon and Rafferty’s Mama, remember? They were staying with us then?”

Why did everyone suppose that he had forgotten the members of his family while he was away? “I remember.”

“You did not write a letter to Alex when you were dying, or even think of her at the last, and that made her cry.”

“Devil take it.” Hawk rose, taking Beatrix with him, and in silence he deposited her in his chair and exited the breakfast room.

Halfway across the hall, he saw Alex coming down the stairs and waited for her at the bottom. “Alexandra, we need to talk.”

CHAPTER TEN

“No, Bryceson, I told you, I am not ready to talk.”

“This is not about what happened earlier,” Hawk said. “This is something I insist we settle, something I can at least explain.” He took his stubborn wife’s arm and urged her into the library.

“What is it? What is wrong?”

Hawk possessed himself of her hand. Surprisingly callused, it was small and pale, as opposed to her spirit, which shone bright and strong. “I am concerned by something Beatrix said.”

“If you let everything Bea says bother you, you will be disquieted for the rest of your days.”

“You cried when I wrote to Sabrina, before I supposedly died, because I did not write to you? Is that true?”

Alexandra turned to gaze out the window, except that she did not see the rolling lawn gone to seed, or the home wood overtaken by bracken, but her own life, as she had viewed it the day that letter came, stretching barren and pointless before her, without Bryceson in it.

“I was emotional, devastated, because I thought I— I thought you had died.” She shivered.

Hawk placed his cane on a nearby chair and slipped his hands down her arms to chafe and warm them. “You should have worn a shawl,” he said. “This place is as drafty as a dovecote.”

Alex closed her eyes, immersing herself in his nearness, and in his touch.

“I wrote to you first,” he said, from close behind, absently stroking her arms. “Or I began to, but I … I feared that I would expire at any moment, and I knew that Sabrina’s very life depended upon the arrangements I had made for her. So I put your letter aside, unfinished, to write hers, before it was too late.”

Hawk gazed into the past, at that smoke-hazed, bloody day, the pain and the horror of the Waterloo battlefield, of dead friends and dying comrades. Of lying atop the heap. He saw the blood in his eyes, tasted it in his mouth, and smelled it clogging his nostrils.

He remembered well the stench of death, especially his own.

In many ways, he had died that day, or a part of him had, anyway … until he beheld Alex from the back of that church, and had begun to come back to life, whether he wanted to or not, minute by minute, piece by lost and broken piece.

“Because I was incapable of writing myself,” he said. “An old woman at the Waterloo Inn wrote my final words for me. When I finished dictating Sabrina’s letter, I had no strength left, nor did I wish to share with a stranger what I could not seem to find the correct words to express to you. The last I remember, I was being excruciatingly loaded onto a dray for a trip to the country. Your letter was never finished, Alex, and I regret that more than I can say.”

“Where is it?” she asked, not turning from the window, almost as if she did not believe him.

“I never saw it again,” he admitted. “I lay delirious for weeks, in and out of my mind, despondent for months. Once I returned to London, I looked for your letter among the few meager belongings left to me, but it had disappeared.”

“I am sorry,” she said. “I would have liked to receive it, even half written. I wish someone had sent it. I would have been comforted to know that you thought of me at all, especially after the way we parted.” Her sorrow broke in a sob for their dreadful parting, for his unfinished letter, and for his hurtful words of that morning.

Hawk put his arms around her from behind, placing a hand flat against her abdomen, feeling a need to mark her intimately as his, and pulled her close.

Her head rested against his coat-front, his cheek against her hair. He must give her this much, at least, he thought. She deserved some truth. “If not for thinking of you, Lexy, I do not believe I would have survived.”

She turned in his arms then, her wide eyes bright. “That is perhaps the nicest thing you have ever said to me.”

“In that case, I should be horsewhipped.” The temptation to kiss her was strong, stronger than Hawk could resist.

“Your grace.”

They pulled apart.

“Your pardon,” Myerson said, red-faced, when he saw what he had interrupted. He held forth a silver salver with a visitor’s card upon it.

“Thank you.” Hawk took the card, read it, cursed inwardly, firmed his lips, and handed it to his wife. “Myerson, is the, ah, gentleman in question still waiting?”

“Viscount Chesterfield is in the drawing room, your grace, but he is not asking to see you. He wishes to see her grace. He was very specific about that.”

“I am certain he was. Thank you. You may go. Alexandra,” Hawk said, after the retainer had shut the door. “I shall leave you to greet your lover in private.”

“No,” Alex said.

Hawk stopped and turned, releasing his breath, clutching at hope. “Am I to understand that you do not wish to see Chesterfield?”

“No. Yes. I wish—I must speak with him.” She bit her lip.

Hawk shuttered his eyes and closed his expression; he knew he was doing it, but he could not seem to stop.

“I owe Judson a great deal,” Alex said, her explanation more accurate than she would wish.

“Then see him, you shall.” Hawk bowed. “Good morning to you, Madam.”

Chesterfield appeared astonished when Alex entered the drawing room, though he did not take a step toward her, for which she was grateful. “I did not think he would let you see me,” he said.

Alex remained by the door. “I am so very sorry about our wedding.”

Judson firmed his lips, much as Bryce had just done. “What happened was not your fault.”

“I deserve your anger and more,” Alex said. “Five thousand pounds you gave me in exchange for my promise to wed you, but I failed to fulfill my part of our bargain, and I cannot repay you. Not yet, at any rate.”

“Why do you not let Hawksworth worry about repayment?”

“I do not want him to know about the money, Judson, please. He would be angry that I took it. Let me repay you, myself, in time?”

“For once in his charmed life, let Hawksworth face his responsibilities. Everything has always come so bloody easy to the rogue. Looks, money, a title, women, all handed to him on a gilded platter.”

“You are not being fair. Hawksworth fought for his country and suffered mightily for its cause. His looks are altered irreparably; his title and wealth have gone to another.”

“But as for women, he ended with the best.” Chesterfield bit off a curse. “You understand do you not, Alexandra, that he set off to play at war and left you to carry his burdens? That is why he was shocked out of countenance and damned near broken. He discovered that war was not a devilishly entertaining sport or particularly glorious, either.”

Chesterfield’s words resembled her own often-uncharitable thoughts after Hawksworth first left. “No, there you are wrong. Do not be angry with him.”

“I have lost my bride and my future, yet you do not want me to be angry with the man who took them from me.”

“You do not love me, Judson. You wanted a mature wife, and I wanted a secure future for my family. No matter what has passed between us, it is finished now. Let us at least be honest with each other.”

Chesterfield nodded. “So be it.” He turned to the window. “You are in alt, I take it, that your true love has returned from the dead?”

True as the words were, Alex did not appreciate the way Chesterfield sullied the sentiment with his caustic tone. “Hawksworth is well liked by everyone,” she said. “Why do you dislike him so?”

“For that reason, I suppose. Because everyone else likes and accepts him, without question, while I see him as a spoiled boy, who takes and takes, but never learned to give. The very same reason he despises me. I see him as he really is. Selfish.”

Alex had learned long ago that Hawksworth disdained Chesterfield as much as Chesterfield disdained her husband, and where they were concerned, emotions ran high and animosity had festered too long to give credence to much one said of the other. But in her mind, it all boiled down to one thing. “You have always been jealous of Bryce, have you not?”

Chesterfield gave her a half-smile and shook his head, almost in wonder. “Yes, but that does not change the facts.”

“No, but it does color them. Let us be friends. Please.”

“The three of us? No. But I will not tell Hawksworth about the money, yet. That is as friendly as I can be right now.”

“Thank you. I will repay you before you feel the need to tell him. Why are you here? Is there something that I can do for you?”

Chesterfield cursed again, and sighed, as if in resignation. “I came to make certain you were all right. You had not come around by the time he took you away the other day, and I was worried about you. I came yesterday as well.”

“I am fine, but I was in shock then, I think. Anybody would be.”

He stepped toward her. “Anybody, except you, my strong one.”

Alex stepped back. “Can we be friends?”

“If you find yourself in need of a friend, I would be a fool to apply for the position.”

Alex pulled her jilted bridegroom away from the door, where someone might hear them, and toward the center of the room. “I do need a friend, Judson. I need one badly. I need help.”

Chesterfield stepped closer and took her hand. “Tell me what I can do.”

“I need to stage a seduction and I do not have the least idea how, nor do I know anyone else I can ask.”

At the reverberating slam of the door, Claudia stepped from behind the drawing room curtains with a huff of frustration.

Alex exclaimed in surprise as she did.

“Drat,” Claude said. “I thought you had both left.” The seventeen-year old grinned. “You certainly set fire to his tail with that request.”

“You were listening,” Alex charged, partly in accusation, partly in admonishment, but mostly to hide her mortification. “You are worse than your sister.”

“I adore Chesterfield. He is my destiny. Of course I was listening, though I do wish he did not seem so broken by the loss of you. Do you not think that fate tore the two of you apart at the very last moment, so that I may still have him?”

“I think Hawksworth’s excellent recuperative powers were responsible, not to mention the little matter of our previous marriage.”

“Still I wish Chesterfield had been willing to discuss seduction,” Claude said dreamily. “I would dearly have liked to know how he would go about one.” Her gaze changed from otherworldly to worldly in a questioning blink. “Why do you need to seduce Uncle Bryce, anyway? I thought he was a master of seduction.”

“Who in the world told you that? Never mind, I do not wish to know.”

Claude giggled. “Do you want to know what I think you should do to seduce him?”

“Good Lord, no.” Alex lowered herself to the settee and covered her face with her hands, doubly chagrined. But as Claude sat beside her, she regarded the sagacious teen with a curious respect. “Claudia Jamieson, what do you know about seduction, anyway?”

“Not nearly as much as I would like, but— Does this mean that you are still untouched?”

“Claudia, really.”

“Oh, all right. I have often found that words alone can be very … stirring in the right circumstances. I was thinking you could tell Uncle Bryce that I have begun to ask some, er, rather embarrassing questions, which you, in your untouched state, cannot answer.”

“What good will that do?”

“Then you are untouched.”

“Claude.”

“Sorry.” The girl sighed in resignation. “Perhaps, if you can get Uncle Bryce to explain all the things every young woman wants, or at least needs, to know about dealing with the male of the species, you can, ah, ask a few more leading questions. You could even require a demonstration, which might, er, stimulate … things, enough to let nature take its proper course.”

“You devious little brat. Shame on you.” Alex grinned. “But you already sound knowledgeable. What do you know?”

“Only what I have garnered from watching the horses.”

“But horses are nothing like….” Alex regarded Hawk’s niece rather warily. “Of course they are not.”

“I do think they must be. I swam once with the Cruikshank boy—you remember little Harold—and everything on him, seemed a teeny, tiny version of, er, those things, on a male horse.”

Alex remembered Hawksworth as a child, though the word small had not seemed to apply even then. Then there was that growing something prodding her in the night, and standing as if at attention beneath his dressing gown this morning, which did seem to be very much like….

So much became clear to Alex of a sudden that she gasped. “But a man cannot possibly grow as long as a horse?”

“Well how the blazes would I know?” Claude spoke with utter disgust for her ignorance. “I hoped you would tell me.”

That absurdity sent Alex into peels of laughter.

“However long it might become,” the precocious teen said, giggling as well. “I would not know what in Hades to do with it, if it were dancing before my eyes.”

Alex composed herself as she straightened the pleats in her skirt. “I shall tell you when you are older,” she said, which set off a further bout of merriment between them. “Gad, what an inappropriate conversation.”

“Outrageous,” Claude agreed. “But nothing half so scandalous as the five thousand pounds you accepted from Chesterfield. How could you Alex? And what in heaven’s name did you use it for?”

Alex sat straighter. “My reason is not your concern. That I took it, and why, is between me and Chesterfield.”

Claudia narrowed her eyes and turned a becoming shade of envy-green. “Besides your promise, were you forced to give Judson anything else in exchange?”

“In exchange for what, pray tell?”

“Uncle Bryce!”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Alex and Claudia exclaimed in shock as Hawk walked in on their conversation about the money that Alex owed Judson. Claudia shot to her feet. “In exchange for, ah, dancing lessons,” Claude said.

Alex released the breath she had been holding.

Hawk’s jaw set and he leaned more heavily on his cane.

“I mean, you know, how to act when one dances. Chesterfield taught Alex,” Claude said. “And she was supposed to teach me—for when a man asks me to dance, if ever one does. I need to learn everything, and not just about dancing. I have just been asking questions, which Alex has been trying, and failing, to answer. Is that Bea calling?” Claude curtseyed and ran from the room.

“What was that about?” Hawk asked, seating himself opposite Alex.

“She has been asking questions is all, just as she said, things a young woman is curious about, and she was embarrassed that you walked in on us.”

“I see. I see, also, that your swain has left.”

“Do not mock him. Chesterfield was here because he was worried about me. Please remember that he would have rescued everyone in this house by marrying me, which he was very well aware of, and willing to do, anyway. If you had not survived, he would have made me a good husband, as I would have made him a good wife.”

“But I did survive.”

“Yes you did.”

“I am sorry, Alex, not so much for surviving as for every selfish thing I have ever done or said to you, including today, especially today.” Hawk cringed. “Perhaps I should apologize in advance for my every half-witted remark or action of the future we well.”

Alex rose and went to look out the window. “Do you feature a ride about the grounds this morning, to view the property?”

“First, you must forgive me, then you must break your fast, then we will take that ride.”

“You are right. I should eat something.”

Hawk sighed. “Eat then, after which we can tour the estate. He hooked his cane on his left arm, and took her on his right. They went to the kitchen, where their appearance together seemed to cheer the servants.

Hawk met Mrs. Parker, who served as both cook and housekeeper.

“Welcome home, your grace.” The woman bobbed a curtsey.

Hawk accepted a cup of coffee while Alex took toast and tea. “Have you spoken to your solicitor about your cousin and heir?” she asked. “The last I saw, Baxter was carrying on and spending money as if he might run through your fortune in a fortnight.”

“I did speak to my solicitor, but not to my father’s, who is the man that matters. My own agrees with you, however, that Baxter is like to squander it all. At least there is still Hawks Ridge. As far as the estate and title reverting to me, all possible petitions have been filed. It simply remains for them to be approved, signed and sealed, which, as you know, could take years, especially with my father’s solicitor having passed away as well, and his heir off in Scotland at the moment. Meanwhile, Baxter, himself, seems to be gallivanting in the American colonies.”

“Let us hope he gets stranded there.” Alex sipped her tea. “We are no worse off than we were.” Her expression softened when she regarded him, almost in wonder, as if seeing him for the first time, and incredibly happy about it, despite his earlier thoughtlessness. “We are, in fact, a great deal better off than we have been for some time.”

Hawk remained silent, afraid she was wrong and would soon realize it. That he had saved her from a dire fate and thwarted Chesterfield into the bargain, always a pleasure, was the best that had come of his return. What he feared most was that they had not even imagined the worst. “Ready for that ride?”

Alex rode Buttercup, a sorrel mare she had raised, herself, which served double-duty on the home farm. Since Hawk’s Arabian now belonged to Baxter, Hawk rode one of the field horses, Bumptious, a robust, light bay with three white stockings. A sad day for the horse set. If anyone from Tattersall’s saw him, Hawk thought, he would be forced to resign his membership in the Jockey Club.

Nevertheless, it was a fine, dry day for a ride, almost sunny, in fact. Bright enough for him to spot every cracked and broken window. Clear enough to see the gothic molding on the east tower as it fell to earth with a resounding crash, narrowly missing a mongrel that dashed away squealing, tail between its legs.

Once upon a young and selfish time, Hawk mused, he might have dashed away, himself, from this primitive and destitute situation in which he found himself—in name, in holdings, even in his own physical aspect.

Yet he could not look at Alex without realizing how very fortunate he would be, despite present circumstances, if he were worthy of her. In his weaker moments, Hawk wished to the devil that he had not sworn on his honor as a gentleman to set her free. But he had, and he must. He would not let her down this time, as he had let them all down when he abandoned them. He would not.

Hawk returned his attention to a perusal of the estate and pondered the ways and means by which it could be improved. For the safety of his family, the house itself needed immediate attention.

Given the clarity of the day, the damage seemed even worse. Paint peeled from molding, where molding existed. Bricks lay scattered on the ground, having fallen away in clusters. The manse looked as if a giant beast had gnawed upon it, taking several large bites from its corners.

As they rode, they saw deer feeding in flower gardens and wild ducks swimming in the huge bowl of a broken fountain. Ivy crawled along every surface of the house, and in some places, it had made its way inside.

At the bottom of the drive, near the gate, the sky shone bright upon the surprising sight of Alexandra’s Aunt Hildy leaving the abandoned gatehouse in the most furtive of manners.

Without words or conscious thought, he and Alex slowed their mounts and stepped within the trees, until Hildy passed. When they made to exit their cover, there came his uncle Gifford, out the same door, so over-easy in his gait and manner that he, too, caused suspicion.

As one, Hawk and Alex backed their mounts into the trees and waited for Giff to pass, as well, whistling, of all things.

Hawk saw his surprise reflected in Alex’s expression. “What do you make of that?” she asked.

“Ah, I had rather not conjecture.”

Her eyes widened before she shook her head, dismissing whatever notion entered it, and Hawk wordlessly followed her onto the drive.

Huntington tenants, he found, were few, but those in residence were hard workers, respectful, and protective of their mistress. Clearly, they adored Alex. Of him, however, they seemed to be reserving judgment, though most had the mistaken notion that he was some kind of war hero—another of Alexandra’s tales, Hawk feared.

Still most tenants had suggestions as to how he could alleviate his wife’s burdens by taking them over as soon as may be, and they were absolutely right.

“Perhaps when we get back to the house, you will allow me to go over the accounts,” Hawk said. “I may be able to find ways to improve the property and increase its yield.”

“I neither know how, nor do I have the time, to keep accounts, so there are no books to look over.”

“But, Alex, you must.”

“My father never did.”

“Which is precisely why the Lodge and estate are near ruin and have lost so much money.”

“Well, there is no money now to lose,” she snapped as she turned her horse. “So keeping books matters not a whit.”

“Alex, wait.”

She slowed her mount. “Perhaps you think you can do a better job than I have?”

Hawk slowed as well, and they trod along side by side. “Only in keeping accounts,” he said. “Those I will do better, for you never did them at all. But for the rest, given your obvious monetary restrictions, I am in awe of your accomplishments.”

Alex reined in her mare to overlook the property at the estate’s highest vantage point.

Hawk pulled up beside her. “You deserve commendation with thanks.”

Alex nodded, grudgingly acknowledging the compliment.

“There, down at the home farm,” Hawk said, “who are those workers in the field?”

“Uncle Giff is collecting the last of the summer vegetables, Claudia and Beatrix are weeding.”

“Good Lord. By themselves?”

“Of course not.”

“Thank God.”

“Aunt Hildegarde is catching the winged and multi-legged insects that eat the vegetation, and Nanny is helping by eating them.”

Hawk opened his mouth, but no words came forth.

Alex laughed. “They do not usually work alone. I am generally there working beside them.”

Bryce regarded her, as if she had turned green. “What have I done to you?”

“You have done nothing. I am grateful for our present situation.”

“Grateful?”

“To the lad who rescued you.”

“Ah, Gaston. A good lad, if a bit misguided.”

“How old is he?”

“Ten now, I think.”

“A baby? Robbing corpses?”

“A baby trying to survive. As are we all. Along that line, I have been thinking that besides keeping the accounts and managing the estate, I can also do most of the required repairs to the buildings, inside and out, I believe.”

“What we really need,” Alex said, regarding him from the corners of her unexpectedly mischievous eyes, “is someone to repair the roof.”

Hawk’s bark very nearly resembled mirth. “Roof climbing is out, at least for the moment. And do not say that you will do it, yourself, for I will not allow it.”

“Actually Beatrix is desirous of that position, the monkey.”

“Absolutely not.”

“My exact words. For the nonce, then, all leaks must simply … leak.”

Bryce nodded. “Unfortunately. How are we set for funds, Alex? Is there any money at all?”

This would be a good time, Alex thought, to tell Bryceson that she still had more than three hundred pounds left from the five thousand she had accepted from Chesterfield … under false pretenses, as it turned out. But she could not, for the revelation was not entirely hers to own, not to mention how angry Bryce would be.

“We have some little money,” she said. “With the planting, and the few animals we keep, we will not starve.”

Hawk frowned. He should have done better by them all. “I will write to Gideon this very day, to ask him to put in a good word for my petition with the Prince Regent, as regards the return of my title and property.”

“What about your military pay?” Alex asked. “Is there any of that left?”

“I can contribute the grand sum of one hundred and thirty-seven pounds, two shillings, and three. Rich, are we not?”

Alex laughed. “We are, indeed. And since we are, it is time Claudia had her season. What better time than now, for we can also reintroduce you to society.”

Hawk shook his head. “I hate the thought of all that blasted society fuss.”

“Do you? When women were swooning at your feet, I thought you rather enjoyed the bustle and fuss.”

Hawk quirked a brow. “You used to loathe it.”

“I guess we have switched places, then.”

The words seemed to steal the very air from Hawk’s lungs. “Let us put Claude’s season off for a year,” he said. “Until the spring, at least, so I can recover my ability to walk without the cane.”

Of a sudden, Alex understood, because she remembered Hawk’s lifelong yearning for perfection, acceptance, approval, what have you. But understanding his need to recover his steady gait did not alter the facts. “A season will cost too much in the spring. Claudia would need a larger and grander wardrobe then. Besides, she is very nearly a spinster already.”

“Claude is a baby, certainly no spinster. And you will need a proper wardrobe, as well.”

“My bride clothes should suffice.”

Thunder glanced off Hawk’s dark, furrowed brow. “Purchased by Chesterfield? I think not.”

“I purchased some things, myself.”

“Good. You will discard everything Chesterfield purchased and wear only what you chose and paid for.

“Fine, then, I shall go about London in my corset and stockings.”

Hawk was struck dumb by the image of Alex striding down St. James’s Street in nothing but her corset and stockings.

When she raised a brow, he recalled the point of their conversation. “No season,” he said. “Not this year. We cannot afford one.”

“I have been saving for this, Bryce. I believe that Claude’s season is among the necessities we must afford.”

“At the best, we might be able to purchase her a new wardrobe, since you already have your blasted bride clothes—every item of which I despise for their purchaser. But dressed like this, I am barely fit for a gentleman farmer, never mind escorting my niece about the marriage mart.”

“In regards to your clothes….”

“I told you,” Hawk said. “These are all I have.”

“But the ones you left behind may have been relegated to a trunk at Hawks Ridge. If Baxter kept any of your old retainers, one of them might be loyal enough to your family to search the attics for you.”

“Even if my clothes were returned to me, we do not have the money to fire Claude off properly, I tell you. The entire family can hardly be accommodated at Stephen’s Hotel, and we absolutely do not have the blunt to take a house in town, even for so short a season.”

“Let us just see what time brings,” Alex said, enigmatically, even then turning Buttercup toward Hawks Ridge.

Shaking his head, sure there was some salient point he was missing, Bryce turned his plodding beast in the same bloody direction.

Here, Alex thought, as they made their way along the poplar lined drive of Hawk’s stately family seat, the lawns were manicured and greening nicely, though the drive lacked that certain flair brought on by foot-high weeds.

As far back as she could remember the situation had always been thus. Hawks Ridge had shone bright where Huntington Lodge appeared tarnished.

In the opposite manner, however, her own dear father had always been everything a loving and doting parent should be, while Hawksworth’s critical, demanding sire had been a man given to furious wrath. Though she did not think that Hawk feared his father’s wrath as much as his rejection.

They stopped beside the rose garden when Leggins, the old head gardener, straightened and tipped his hat. “Blimey,” the grizzled man said, scratching his head as he regarded Bryceson. “Blimey, Guv, you ain’t dead.”

“Indeed not,” Bryce said, nearly smiling. “I do not suppose your new master is to home?”

“He is, your grace.”

“There is a pleasant surprise,” Bryce said to Alex. “We may get this settled much sooner than we expected. Good day to you, Leggins, and thank you. Alex, shall we face the lion in his den?”

“Now we may witness that seizure you worried about last night,” she said with a grin. “If Baxter does not yet know that you are alive.”

But Bryce did not smile. As a matter of fact, as they climbed the front steps, his jaw set decidedly more firm, and his lids lowered, shuttering his reaction.

When the door was opened, they saw immediately that Hawk’s old footman had been replaced. The current retainer bowed politely and did not so much as quirk a brow or twitch a face muscle when Bryceson gave his name, but led them directly to the blue salon.

“Everything is the same,” Bryce said, with stifled longing, as he gazed about the cerulean room, snowy clouds drifting upon its azure ceiling, and Alex’s heart near broke for his loss.

“Well, this is a surprise,” said a familiar voice from the doorway.

“Chesterfield? What are you doing here?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

Chesterfield raised a surprised brow. “I might ask you the same question. My man said you wanted to see me.”

“No. We came to see Hawk’s heir. Are you staying with Baxter?”

“I do not know where Baxter has run off to, but you must have asked to see the master of Hawks Ridge, and since Hawks Ridge is now mine—”

“No,” Bryce said without thought. Then he regarded Alex and raised his hand in a sign of defeat. “I know; I sound like my uncle.”

“This makes no sense,” Alex said. “How came you to be in possession of Hawks Ridge?”

“Hawk’s cabbage-headed heir wagered and lost it to me in a card game not six weeks ago. I do think I will be changing its name. To my ears, there is something decidedly annoying about its current appellation.”

Bryce cursed.

Chesterfield nodded. “Precisely how I felt at the church the day before yesterday.”

“Hawk loves his home,” Alex said.

“Alexandra,” Hawk warned.

Chesterfield regarded Hawk with a raised brow. “You want Hawks Ridge? I will trade you … for Alex.”

“Do not be an ass,” Hawk said.

“Judson, be serious. You cannot keep Hawk’s home.”

“Hawks Ridge was Baxter’s estate to wager at the time I won it, and unless someone can pay me the fifteen thousand pounds that whelp of Satan owes me, I am bloody well going to keep it.”

Hawk cursed again.

“It would be a bargain at double the price,” Chesterfield said, his gaze moving between Alex—very much aware that he thought of her as his lost bride—and her bristling husband, who would as soon strike the man as look at him. “Whatever you wanted of Baxter,” their unexpected host said. “Is it something with which I can help you?”

“Yes,” Alex said.

“No,” Hawk replied as fast.

“Ah, a stalemate then. Can I offer you refreshment, or shall I have my man show you out?”

“Judson, really, there is no need to be rude.”

“Is there not? Odd I thought I was being civil to the blackguard who took my bride from me. It might interest you to know, Alexandra, that were it not for your fondness for this estate, I would not have been so anxious to acquire it. It was to be your wedding present, you see. Half the countryside kept the secret of my ownership, so I could surprise my bride on our wedding day. Otherwise, I might have called Baxter out, rather than accept it.”

“And done us all a favor,” Hawk snapped.

“Hawksworth!”

“God’s teeth, Lexy, you cannot blame me for wanting to thrash the blighter. He has run my entire fortune into the ground.” Bryceson regarded Chesterfield. “Your pardon for airing our dirty linen in your home. We will bid you a good day.”

“Well I’ll be dashed,” Chesterfield exclaimed. “That was damned near polite of you, Hawksworth. Will wonders never cease.”

“Go to the devil!” Bryce strode from the room, barely using his cane, and gleaning a modicum of respect from Chesterfield, Alex thought, from their host’s approving look.

After seeing Bryce rise from the floor this morning, she understood the likely cost to him in pain for that exit, and because of it, she too experienced a frisson of pride.

Hurrying to catch up, she passed by Chesterfield, who caught her arm and stopped her. “I will send his personal belongings over later today. He looks as if he could use them.”

“Thank you Judson. You are a good man.” Alex stepped near and stood on her toes to kiss his cheek, but he turned his head and caught her lips, extending the kiss. By the time Alex got her wits about her, Chesterfield was pulling away with a grin.

Alex blushed and stepped back, and when she did, she saw that her husband stood not two feet away, straight and proud and looking fit to kill. Were she guilty of the crime for which he silently accused, the fury in his expression might turn her to salt.

He most certainly had witnessed the kiss, if not their discussion about his clothes, for even from here, she could see that frenetic tic working in his cheek.

Chesterfield chuckled. “I am not so good a man that I cannot find amusement in this situation.”

“Shame on you,” Alex said. “I do believe I misjudged you.”

“You did. But do you not agree that a kiss, in exchange for what is owed me, is not too much to ask?”

Alex gasped. “I most certainly do not.”

Chesterfield chuckled as Bryce left the house, seeming not to care whether Alex followed or not.

Having been abandoned by her husband, Alex left shortly thereafter, but took the long circuitous route home, hoping Bryce would wonder if she was dallying with Chesterfield.

Let the dolt be jealous, if he was fool enough to think she cared to kiss anybody but him.

When she got back to the Lodge, the letter from Sabrina, which she had been anxiously awaiting, had arrived. Except that, after Alex read it, her emotions were mixed. Yes, she received the answer for which she hoped. But she also learned something that made her so angry, she wished she had dallied with Judson, or at the least kissed him back.

Though she would rather trounce her husband as speak to him at the moment, she marched straight to the study.

The French doors leading to the overgrown garden stood open, curtains fluttering in the early fall breeze. A light scent of roses wafted upon the air from the few remaining blooms tenacious enough to have survived death by strangulation.

Hawk stood before the hearth, resting one elegant, booted foot upon the cool grate. He twirled a raised goblet of brandy before his eyes, examining it as if it held the answer to all of life’s mysteries … if only he could find a way to make it give them up.

Tall, dark and perilously devastating, he was Hawksworth, not Bryce, imperious, rigid, in control. Here, she saw for the first time, the man who had expected to be a Duke, cold, arrogant, a woman-slayer.

A ledger lay open upon the desk. Atop and all around it sat boxes of assorted estate receipts, as if Hawk had attempted and failed to make some sense of the monumental task. On the instant, Alex was sorry for her lack of bookkeeping skills. Then again, it served him right for staying away so bloody long.

When he bothered to look in her direction, as if he could care less where she had been, who she had been with, or for how long, he raised his secret-laden goblet higher in her direction and gave her an arrogant, brow-raised salute. Then he took a long, slow swallow.

She did not know whether he was angrier about the kiss or losing Hawks Ridge. Though she would place her wager on the estate as being of greater import to his mind.

Despite his show of nonchalance, there was something soulful lurking in her husband’s eyes that made him appear more human in his vulnerability. Grief, or sorrow, filled their topaz depths, and being allowed so much as a glimpse, jarred her.

But rather than step into his arms, which she longed to do—to ease those burdens and console him—Alex crushed Sabrina’s letter in her trembling hand and hardened her heart.

Damn the rogue.

He had let more than a year go by since Waterloo, with nary a word from him, and according to the information in Sabrina’s letter, he could have contacted her at any time for all of the past five months, at least.

He might be her long-lost husband, and a Duke of the realm, when he got his title back, but he had a great deal of explaining to do.

Yes, she had some little explaining to do, herself, but not on his scale. Oh no, nothing like.

Again Alex wanted to berate him. Again, she kept her peace. “I have had a letter from Sabrina,” she said, when the silence stretched—her, raging inside, Hawk, daring her with his look to let loose, almost as if he ached for a good brawl. “She sends news I think you should hear.”

Hawk sighed. “Then hear it I must, I suppose.” He poured another liberal brandy and slouched into a butternut leather wing chair to listen, more or less.

Annoyed by his cavalier attitude, Alex stepped closer as she perused the missive, deciding to give him every foolish bit of news, prattle and promise alike, for which he pretended indifference. “Sabrina says that Juliana is growing like a weed, and at the advanced age of ten months, she has her father even more tightly wrapped about her smallest finger.”

A near-smile altered Hawk’s expression for a blink.

Alex faltered but continued. “Since Gideon has been relating the story of the American Indians, as told by James Adair, and embellished upon by adventurous travelers to the American West, the twins have formed a passion for Indians and have been war-whooping about the house for weeks. Just the other day, they tied Gideon to the stake.”

Alex chuckled. “Not to worry, says Sabrina, the fire they set was quickly contained and barely singed his eyebrows. Though the boys may not be able to sit for a week, nor may they leave the nursery for as long, not to mention their trip to the Royal Menagerie, which has been cancelled.”

Alex took the chair across from her husband, enjoying the letter, despite her ire at his haughty arrogance. Suddenly, she could think of him as nothing less than a Duke. Where had Bryceson gone? she wondered. Had he never returned from war? Had she been deluding herself?

Only time would tell.

“Gideon is Bree’s new husband, I take it, the Duke of Stanthorpe? The match you made for her?” Alex asked.

Hawksworth nodded. “They are top over tail in love.”

“I do not believe it. Not Sabrina.”

Hawk shrugged. “I saw it for myself.”

“You saw that some time ago, as I understand it. About five months, as a matter of fact.”

“Ah. So that is your quarrel with me?”

“Quarrel? I have no quarrel with you, though I do wonder where we would be if I had not decided to marry and you had not been forced to stop me.” Alex held up her hand. “No, do not answer that. Spare me some dignity, please,” she said, using his words, gratified to see him wince.

“The reason I sought you out,” Alex said. “After your rude and abrupt departure from Hawks Ridge, was to tell you that Sabrina has arranged for Stanthorpe’s grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Basingstoke, to sponsor Claudia in London during the coming fall season. Since now is the little season and of shorter duration than the actual spring season, the cost will be much less and, therefore, easier to manage.”

Hawk sat forward. “We cannot afford either this year.”

“Did you know that Claudia has formed a tendre for Chesterfield?”

On the instant, a maelstrom of fury darkened her Duke’s brow. “The devil you say.”

Alex gave a half nod, satisfied she had made her point. “The Duchess is inviting us to stay with her at her townhouse on St. James’s Square, which eliminates the cost of taking a house. Sabrina arranged everything. We need only pay for Claudia’s wardrobe to fire her off properly.”

Hawk slammed his glass on the near table, dashing it to fragments.

Alex ducked to evade the spray of glass and brandy.

“God’s teeth,” Hawk snapped, coming to his feet in one furious and shocking lunge, his shout of pain for the move, as piercing to Alex as one of those shards might have been. Then he pulled her up and into his arms to crush her so close, she could feel him tremble, taste his fear.

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Did you get cut?” He held her away then, examining her face, her arms and hands, kissing her brow, her fingers, disregarding the glass shards and brandy defacing his frockcoat, the blood at the tip of his thumb. “I might have hurt you. God, forgive me. I might have hurt you.”

“What is the matter with you today?” Alex asked. “Your restlessness is contagious. I have never seen you like this before.”

“I am so … unsettled, unsure—”

“Of what?”

“Of—” He hauled her back into his arms and opened his mouth over hers, drawing a response from her, even as anger boiled inside him—anger through which she could feel his power. But she did not regard it any more than he did. She simply gave and took succor at the only source from which she cared to give or receive it.

“There,” he said stepping back, leaving her breathless. “There. I am calmer now. What was the question?”

“I … do not remember. Oh, of what are you unsure?”

“I, who used to be certain of everything, am now uncertain of same.” He ran his hand through his untamed hair, certainly not the first time in the last hour. “You ask me to accept charity when I am used to giving it. I do not care for my sake, but it is driving me daft that I cannot provide for my own niece’s immediate needs. All these changes are too devilish much to swallow.”

“Especially for a proud man like you,” Alex said. “I know. But I am going to ask you to swallow again, because your own clothes are being packed for you as we speak.” She examined his frockcoat. “And with the results of your fury now mottling your coat, it seems you have no choice but to accept.”

Hawk tore away from her, wavered in his balance, and grabbed up his cane as if he might break it in half. Then he smacked the thing hard against the floor, leaned against it, despite himself, and made his way to the open French doors. “No and again no,” he said, not looking her way. “I will go about in my under drawers before I take that man’s charity.”

Alex went and placed her arms about him, laying her cheek against his strong, unbending back. “Ah my prideful rogue. They are your clothes, purchased with your money, clothes that were relegated to the rag bag when it was thought you died. Surely your pride will allow you to wear rags?”

He turned to face her. “No.”

Alex stepped nearer. “If you could bring yourself to do so, Claudia might have her season this fall.”

Her final words, or her stroking the hair from his brow, appeared to snuff his ire. “I hate London Society.”

Alex pulled her hand away and stepped back. “I wonder you spent so much time there earlier this year, then.”

He cursed. “Leave it be, Alex.”

“How can I leave it be when you left us struggling for months without caring whether we were fed or sheltered?”

“Of course you were fed and sheltered. I knew you were, besides which, I had every faith in your ability to care for everyone, otherwise I would not have left them with you in the first place.”

“So I have heard.”

Hawk’s head snapped up at that and his eyes narrowed.

Alex shrugged away the question in his look. “Why Bryceson? Why did you not come home to us?”

“If I knew, I would tell you. I will admit, however, that Sabrina believes I was running away.”

“From us? There would be no reason. Now if your father were alive, I would understand.”

“You would understand what?”

At the fury in his tone, Alex firmed her stance. “You know, yourself, that your father acted the tyrant, much as you are doing right now. He would never approve of you, broken as you are. Your words.”

“Do not be ridiculous.” Hawk said. “My father has nothing to do with any of it. The man is long since dead.”

“But never buried. You scrambled for his approval your whole life, Hawk, and never received it.”

Hawk’s eyes narrowed at that and the light of challenge entered them, though he remained rigid and silent.

“I do not believe you went to war for the glory, as Judson thinks,” Alex said, “but for your father’s approval, however posthumous. He was a hard man, Hawk, cold and heartless … as is any father who would prefer his son dead, rather than imperfect.”

“We do not know that for certain,” Hawk said, desperate to forgive the unforgivable, Alex feared. “I simply supposed as much.”

“Where a parent is concerned,” Alex said, softly, “supposition is usually based on fact. I think your reason for speculation was just.”

Hawk gathered his dignity about himself like a shield, much as his father had been wont to do, but Alex did not think the son would appreciate the comparison. “You go too far,” he said.

“In that case, I apologize. Let us return to our discussion of Claudia’s season, then.”

“Claudia is not to have a season,” Hawk replied with so much icy dignity that Alex feared she had lost the man she loved. “And you will not be discussing me with Chesterfield, if you please, ever again.”

“Bryce—”

“That is the last I will say on the matter.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

When they sat down to dinner, Hawksworth looked twice into his soup bowl—belly up, soft and white, tiny little feet, spiny back, sleepy eyes. “Excuse me,” he said. “But there seems to be a hedgehog in my soup.”

“There you are, you naughty—” Beatrix’s expression melted with love, and she smiled. “Oh, how cute. Nanny is having a nice warm soak.”

Hawk raised a brow and made to scoop the complacent critter from his cock-a-leekie soup. “Ouch!” Not complacent now, but a hard, spiny ball.

“Do be careful,” Bea said. “You will hurt her.”

“Hurt her? She pricked me. Look, I am bleeding.”

Bea kissed the wounded finger Hawk held up for her inspection. “Do not feel bad. She will get used to you. Let her scent your hand and soon she will let you rub her soft little belly.”

Hawk barked a laugh. “Myerson,” he said as his man began to pour their drinks. “I fear there is too much meat in my soup.”

Bea gasped and Hawk winked as he slid his over-full soup bowl in her direction.

After a fresh bowl of soup was placed before him, Hawk cleared his throat and looked about the table. “I am afraid, Claudia, that I have some rather disappointing news for you.”

Claudia stiffened. “What is it?”

“We must postpone your season for this year.”

“Yes, Uncle Bryce,” Claude said stoically then she wilted for half a beat. “But if a girl cannot be seen in the places where eligible men congregate, how is a she to find a husband?”

“A husband?” Hawksworth said, arrested by the notion, his fork halfway to his mouth. “I had not thought of your come out in quite that way. You are too young, at any rate, and the marriage mart is a hornet’s nest. I promise you would hate it.”

“Which words can only be spoken by one who has experienced the phenomenon,” Alex said.

“I am as old as Alex was, when you married her,” Claudia said.

“Really?” Hawk regarded Alex, just then, with rather too much concentration, she thought, considering the fact that they were in company. Now if they had been alone….

Almost as if he read her, Hawk started and cleared his throat, looking away.

Alex thought life might get easier if he could read her. And she did not know who was being more stubborn here, the uncle or the niece.

What was Claudia hatching, anyway? To her willful mind, only one eligible male existed in the kingdom, and he now lived— “That reminds me,” Alex said. “Hawk’s heir has struck again. It seems that he lost Hawks Ridge in a card game.”

Giff turned to Hawk in horror. “Shoot the blackguard.”

“Baxter or Chesterfield, Uncle? Though I must say, the notion has merit in both cases.

“Gifford, hush,” Hildy said. “Bryceson, please, the children.” Then she patted Hawk’s arm negating her scold. “Forget about Hawks Ridge, dear. Huntington Lodge is as much your home as it is ours, is it not Alexandra?”

“By law, it is entirely his, Aunt.”

“Except that the Lodge is not really—” No. Yes. It could be, Hawk thought. Because Alex was here, and his family, the Lodge could become his home. He could try to make it so. He shook his head. “It is ours,” he stressed. “Every splintered plank and broken brick.”

“Do not forget the leaky roof,” Beatrix added.

“Thank you, Bumble Bea, but Alex has taken it upon herself, more than once, to make me that particular reminder.”

Alex kicked him beneath the table.

“Ouch.”

“Who won Hawks Ridge?” Giff asked.

“Oh,” Hawk said. “I thought you realized. Chesterfield is the happy new owner.”

“Chesterfield lives next door?” Claudia cried coming to life. “Famous. I shall go and visit him this afternoon and welcome him to the neighborhood.”

“You will not,” Hawksworth snapped.

“Chesterfield, by God.” Giff laughed. “Now I understand your willingness to pursue pistols at dawn.”

Claudia looked chagrined. “Oh, but Uncle Hawk, visiting him is the polite and neighborly thing to do.”

“If you set one foot on Hawks Ridge property, young lady, I shall have you locked in your room until you are thirty. And until that advanced age, you will not so much as exchange greetings with the blighter.”

“Why do you consider him a scoundrel? Is it because he won your estate? That was an honest wager, was it not? Or is it because he nearly married Alex? You must know that Alex does not—”

“Claudia!” Alex widened her eyes to display her plea with determined clarity. “That will be enough,” she said. “Enough!”

“Of course.” Claude bit her curving lip and gave her unappetizing plate of cold mutton and mashed turnips rather more attention than was warranted, drat the girl.

Within moments, however, she looked up. “Uncle Hawk, Chesterfield is our neighbor across the Dyke, like you and Alex were growing up. If I cannot go and visit him, can he not at least come to visit us?”

“Absolutely not. That man is not welcome here. You will not speak to him or look at him. You are not to wave, if he passes the gate.”

“But I … admire Chesterfield a great deal,” Claudia admitted, her face pink.

Alex leaned near Hawk to speak in confidence. “He will be a constant temptation living so near.”

“For Claude or for you?” Hawk straightened without her answer. “Claudia, there are a goodly number of better men than Judson Broderick for whom to set your cap.”

“But I love him,” she cried with all the drama of youth.

“You what?” Ashen faced, Hawk placed his spoon beside his bowl, as he gazed from his wife to his niece. “Do you, both of you, love the knave?”

“He is not any of the things you have called him,” Claudia said. “And I do love him.”

“Then you must find someone more suitable.”

“How?” Claude cried. “We live in the wilderness.”

“Bryceson,” Aunt Hildy said. “You will have the poor child mooning about the house, staring out windows, for the next year.”

Alex nodded. “With you know who passing by the gate thrice a day.”

“Give it up, Alexandra,” Hawk said. “You win.” He reached over to cover Claudia’s hand with his own. “Claude, if you can be satisfied with a compromise, the Duchess of Basingstoke has offered to sponsor you for the coming fall season. Sabrina and Alex arranged everything. When we reach London, however, you will be under strict orders from me to choose a more appropriate suitor.”

“Yes, Uncle Hawk,” she said, unable to hide the light of triumph in her eyes, making Alex wonder, again, what she was up to.

“Alex,” Hawk said. “You will write to the Duchess and accept her kind invitation first thing in the morning. We will depart for London in three weeks, and I, for one, will be glad to see the last of Chesterfield.”

“I like Viscount Chesterfield,” Beatrix said. “When I got sick in town that winter, he rode a great distance in the snow for a doctor. Alex said I might have died, if not for him.”

“Is this true?” Hawksworth asked, turning to Alex.

Alex nodded. “An inflammation of the lungs. Little Miss Mischief frightened us nearly to death.”

“Alex did not sleep for fully five days,” Aunt Hildegarde said. “I was afraid that she would become so weak and exhausted that she would contract the disease herself.”

“I was fine.”

Giff winked meaningfully at her before turning to his nephew. “You should know, Hawk, that no one could have taken better care of us all in your absence, than Alex did.”

“I doubt even you could have done so well,” Beatrix said.

Hawk nodded. “I knew she would take superb care of you all. We owe her a great debt of gratitude.”

“We do,” Aunt Hildegarde agreed, sending a prideful smile her way.

“Do not be silly.” Alex frowned, embarrassed. “Any of you would have done as much for any of us who needed you.”

“Except that you are always the one we go to when anything needs fixing or settling or deciding, dear,” her aunt said.

“Now I am home,” Hawk said. “You must come to me when you need anything taken care of. Together we must ease Alexandra’s burdens.”

Bea shook her head, doubtfully. “I do not think that will work, Uncle Hawk. With a cane, you will not be able to do half the things Alex does.”

Hawk sighed, rose, and dropped his napkin into his plate. “Then I shall have to throw the blasted thing away.” He bent over Beatrix and pressed his lips to her little brow. “I am glad you did not die that winter, Pup. I would have missed my Bumble Bea.” He straightened and cleared his throat. “Alexandra, do you care for a walk on the terrace?”

Alex was concerned that he had pushed himself too hard that day. “You perhaps did not walk or ride so much when you were in London, Hawksworth. Do you not think you have had enough exercise for one day?”

“I do not, thank you very much. I shall practice walking with, or without, your arm. If you care to join me later, you will find me on the terrace.” Hawk quit the room without another word, leaving them all to sit in an uncomfortable, almost palpable silence.

“He is bristling,” Giff said. “To head the family again. Though he is not yet physically capable.”

“Are you saying that I am being too … too managing?” Alex asked, certain she was.

Giff rose, kissed the top of her head and squeezed her shoulder. “You have been a darling and a savior to all of us, Lass, especially to me, after the way I barked at you all in early days.”

He regarded the rest of the family. “I am saying that we must be careful, when we praise Alex, that we are not disheartening Hawksworth. From my own experience, after my time in the colonies, I know that a man home from war has much to deal with that is not within sight of his family, but in his head and his heart. The demons of war can be dark and tenacious, distorting even the obvious goodness in life. Past and present become entangled with a soldier’s confusion and self-reproach for living when others perished, and with his need to make life as it once was. Except that he cannot go back, because time has passed and people have changed and learned to live without him.”

Giff smiled, easing the sad sobriety about the table. “Give Hawk time. Be patient with him. Let him know that he is loved and needed.”

Alex saw Beatrix up to bed, helped her wash and heard her prayers. While she sat with the child until she slept, she considered Giff’s words. Not only was he correct in everything he said, but she realized that Hawksworth’s burdens were worse for his having lost so much, including his heritage. No wonder he seemed unsure of everything.

Even she must seem lost to him, if he believed she loved Chesterfield, which she had encouraged to gain his attention. Gad, she wished she knew how she should proceed.

After Bea fell asleep, Alex went out to the terrace to look for Hawk.

When she arrived, Giff strode her way. “Enjoy the summer-like evening. It is beautiful,” he said as he made to climb the steps back into the house. “This old curmudgeon needs his beauty sleep. Goodnight you two.”

Acting stiff and unconcerned, perhaps somewhat upset with her for not joining him sooner, Bryceson silently laid his cane on a nearby bench and offered her his arm. Alex took it and squeezed. “Bumble Bea is all tucked up and sends good-night kisses,” she said, by way of apology, catching his nod of understanding, or forgiveness.

They began to stroll quietly, each lost in thought.

“I will not fail them again,” Bryce said, breaking the reasonably-comfortable silence.

“Oh, Bryce. Of course you will not. You never really did.”

“Did I not?” His grimace of self-derision was more felt than seen. “Do not patronize me, Alex. I failed you, royally, by marrying you and leaving you to mop up my mess.”

“What mess?”

“I am sorry, I misspoke. I left you as the sole support of my family, with no home, or even a living to provide for you all—no mess there.”

Alex smiled. “Our family.”

“Ours, then, though you should not have needed to care for them alone.” He hesitated and regarded her pointedly before walking on. “Not that you did, entirely, if Bea is to be believed. Judson helped, I take it.”

Alex bit her lip. “Not in the way you suppose. You know this is the first time you use his Christian name.”

“I must be softening in the head. Likely because of what he did for Beatrix. Lord, it makes me sick to think of nearly losing her.”

“Well we did not lose her, and yes, in that way, Judson did help.”

“Then I must be grateful to the man, and we do have a mess now, one I made myself. But I am here, now, to straighten everything out, though, God help me, if I had not returned I would have served you better.”

Alex stopped and turned to him. “If you do not stop feeling sorry for yourself, Bryceson Wakefield, I swear I will strike you.”

“I am sure you would, if you were angry enough. I expect you would beat me, or toss me off the terrace in much the same way you tossed me from the bed this morning.” But Alex did not laugh as Hawk intended.

He reclaimed her hand, placed it on his arm, and patted it. “I am not feeling sorry for myself, but for you, Lexy.”

To his surprise she threw off his hold and strode off in a rage, before turning to face him. “Stupid, stupid man. How can you not know?”

Hawk frowned in bewilderment. “How can I not know what?”

Alex began to advance on him, and sensing the strength of purpose in her stride, he began to retreat at the same pace.

She grinned. “You are running without your cane, Bryceson. Did you realize it?”

Hawk faltered for running at all, not for lacking his cane. He needed to face his ghosts, not run from them. He should ask Alex, right out, what she owed Chesterfield, and in exchange for what.

Except that he was not as yet ready to deal with her answer.

Her person, however, he was very much ready to deal with. Too ready. Eager. Hawk straightened his spine and remained in place.

“Good,” Alex said as she continued advancing. “You will allow me to catch you, I take it?”

“We will see who is caught,” Hawk said, reaching out and pulling his wife firmly into his arms.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Once Hawk had Alex well and truly captured, she raised her arms and feathered the hair at his nape with her soft, sweet fingers, kissing his scars and giving him her full, tantalizing attention. He responded by opening his mouth over hers at first opportunity.

Her response thrummed him to life, and he moaned and tasted a trace of mint on her lips and thought it never more delightful.

Hawk had barely acknowledged, even to himself, since his return to England, the strength and inevitably of his attachment to Alex, his overwhelming desire for her, yet suddenly the veracity of it seemed written, as if in blazing stars, across the darkening night sky above them.

She had always been his.

He wanted her more than he had ever wanted another woman in his life, and with an intensity that startled even him.

What a caper-wit he was, to perceive it, only now when it was too late and he could not have her.

She loved another. And he, her husband, who knew nothing of love, who had never wanted to, was broken of body and bound to let her go.

The rogue of Devil’s Dyke rides no more, he thought wryly.

Yes, the situation was laughable, but he could not laugh. For the first time in years, he was attracted to the irreverent brat who had teased and exasperated him their entire lives, to Alexandra, his wife.

The tardiness of his realization shamed Hawk, for he wanted her, almost to the point of madness. He sighed and kissed her again. Belated or not, the truth remained the same. They belonged together.

If only he could make her believe it. Now he had gone quite daft, for if he could make her care for him, if he was fool enough to try, might he not risk negating the likelihood of an annulment in the attempt?

Hawk set the quandary aside, for overriding sanity, his bride was eager and his body fit and pulsing—that worry answered to his relief and satisfaction. Finally, he was certain that, yes, he was physically capable of making love to his wife. Now he must simply find the strength to keep from it.

“Would that I could carry you up the stairs to our bed,” he whispered, his arousal firm and ready between them.

His bride smiled, coy, teasing. “And what would you do with me when you got me there?”

Hawk paused, sobering. What, indeed? “Excellent question.” He stepped back and ran his hand through his hair. What, indeed? Trap her in a loveless marriage with a disfigured rogue? Or set her free to choose the husband of her heart?

“Why do you not go up to bed,” he suggested when he saw her shiver. “The air has cooled and you will catch a chill. I will be up shortly.”

Alex sobered as Bryce stepped away and the brisk night air encircled her like the caressing talons of an icy villain. Her heart sank when she perceived that somehow, his mood had shifted and he no longer intended to make her his own, if he ever did.

Dispirited, she turned and without a word, strode toward the house.

“I am sorry,” she heard him say behind her, but what could she say to that? For she was more sorry then he.

In her bedchamber, Alex wandered aimlessly about, until her surroundings came into focus. A lush bedchamber prepared to receive a bridegroom, a moonlit night, perfect for seduction. What, after all, did she have to lose for trying when a mesmerizing web of sensuality ensnared her still?

Alex set tinder to flame in the hearth, producing a blaze that reflected the inferno raging inside her. By the time she finished bathing, she needed to open the windows to cool herself and the room.

From her dresser, she chose a most gossamer satin and lace negligee, sheer and striking. The cloth of pale jonquil shimmered even more diaphanous and alluring, with its threads of gold, than the white she had worn previously.

“Shame on you,” she had told Chesterfield, upon opening the box wherein the jonquil beauty nestled, and even with her betrothed’s passion-glazed eyes smoldering down on her, Alex remembered thinking that she would have liked for Bryce to see her wearing it, for him to see her as a bride bedecked for her bridegroom’s pleasure.

Poor Chesterfield. He never had a chance.

Her actions had been unforgivable where he was concerned. She should not have said she would marry him, for she never stopped thinking of Bryce, not even for a moment, not even as she marched down that aisle.

The gown and wrap fit like a dream and looked as if they were made of spun sugar. Before her mirror, Alexandra brushed her hair till it shone like polished mahogany, the glow from the fire reflecting the silver lights within it.

She expended a week’s candle allotment, placing lit tapers on every surface, small scattered tables, the tall dresser. She set several upon her dressing table, where the mirror reflected them double, a lush, enchanting image.

When Bryceson still had not come up, she glanced out the window, down to the terrace, and saw that he was making his slow way toward the house at long last.

Panic set in then and Alex wondered where he should find her when he came in. Not in the bed, for that was not romantic enough, by half, not in the truest sense. On the floor before the fire would be best, she thought, but why would she be sitting there?

She remembered Bryce coming to her the night before, to take the pins from her hair, and she went to pin it back up, shoving in hairpins, helter-skelter. Then she grabbed her hairbrush and hurried to sit on the carpet before the fire, her back to the door.

By that time she was so warm, she dropped her dressing gown from her shoulders, leaving her in the dangerously low-cut, cap-sleeved nightrail.

Looking down at herself, Alex noticed with pride that she overflowed the bounds of her bodice.

Even better.

When she heard the rattle of the door knob, she removed the first of her hair pins, brush in hand, as if she sat there, half naked, all the time.

The door opened and Bryce’s uneven footfalls stopped.

The silence pulsed.

After a dozen or more beats, Alex turned to see what was wrong.

Hawksworth the arrogant, tension investing his splendid frame, looked as if he had been turned to stone. Stubborn and craven, he wore an expression of cold horror but heated fascination.

A quick glance proved to Alex that that interesting portion of his anatomy had also taken note.

Better and better.

She returned her gaze to the hearth to conceal the light of triumph that she knew must be reflected there. “Come, Hawk, sit by me. I find it relaxing to brush my hair by the fire. Are the cool air and the warm blaze not a perfect combination?”

The mild scent of roses wafted up from the garden as the curtains billowed in the night-cool breeze, and the candle-flames danced. Close to the fire, warmth enveloped Alex, until she thought she might prefer no gown at all.

What a delightful notion. Except that if she threw off the gown as well, Hawk might turn tail and not look back. Her battle-scarred husband was definitely not ready for so advanced a stage of attack.

For half a beat, Alex wondered where the rogue of Devil’s Dyke had got to. What else had happened to him in Belgium that he had not brought his old self home again?

Perhaps she was pushing him too far, thinking to seduce him or die in the trying, so she relaxed and vowed to take her conquest a deal more slowly.

“Come,” she repeated, “sit by me.” She almost thought he would leave and go back downstairs, but he did not. Instead, he came to sit on the floor facing her, despite his obvious difficulty in lowering himself so far a distance.

“I am sorry,” Alex said when he winced as he did so. “I have hurt you, again.”

Hawk shook his head. “Stop reading my expressions and read my actions. I am here, where we both want me to be.” He took the brush from her hand and set it on the carpet.

As he pulled out her hairpins, she reached over to remove his diamond stickpin, the one he had worn at their wedding then given her to take home for safekeeping. She untied his cravat and removed it, feeling very much a wife with the simple but intimate task.

She encouraged him to shrug from his frockcoat and waistcoat and tossed them on a nearby chair. He let her remove his shoes and stockings. And after she did, she stroked his long, slender feet.

He took up her brush to run it through her hair as she removed several of his shirt studs and investigated the texture of the crisp, curling mat within the exposed vee.

His heartbeat quickened beneath her fingertips.

He shuddered and stopped her from removing any more studs, so as to keep his shirt. Then he moved closer, so close Alex lost her breath. As he leaned near, to bring her wrap up to cover her shoulders, his breath kissed her neck, his eyes bearing a spark so bright, she expected his lips to curve upward at the corners, and even when they did not, she might honestly say that he smiled.

When her hair was brushed to a sheen, Bryce pulled her down with him as he reclined upon the rug, bringing her full-atop him.

What an amazing place to be, Alex thought, looking into a hawk’s golden eyes, knowing they blazed with desire only for her.

As if to hold her in place, he filled his hands with her bottom, a satisfied sound rising from deep in his throat. Then he slid the skirt of her gown upward, ever so slowly, allowing the breeze to caress her ankles, her calves, her thighs and higher. And when he cupped her—bare hand to bare bottom—Alex gasped with the pure carnality of his claim.

He arched and pressed his firm male self against the place where she ached. If he grew any larger, he would be as big as a stallion.

Claude had been right. Men were just the same.

Lord, she loved her husband’s hands on her. She loved this decadent, intimate embrace.

“Like contented cats before the fire,” Hawk said, his lazy drawl animating the picture he created with his words.

“Is it your intention, then, to make me purr?” she asked.

Hawk nearly laughed. His bride had just issued a challenge, pure and simple, and she did so with a full compliment of lowered lashes and tongue-moistened lips.

God’s teeth, she was a natural.

He could do this, he thought. He could bring them both pleasure without consummation. How else would he know where their relationship stood? How else to make her care enough to stay … if he was so foolish as to try.

“Sorceress,” he said, as he learned her with his hands, from her bottom to her core. He took to planting kisses as he did, upon a singular brow, along her nape, the pulse at the base of her throat, her luscious and willing lips.

And when he raised a knee and slipped it between her legs, she cooperated to the point that arousal darkened her eyes to midnight velvet, and softened her kiss-swollen lips to a pout of sensual invitation.

Keeping a firm hold on her bottom, Hawk cupped a breast, and the seductress arched to fill his palm. He fingered the nubbin, rubbed the silk of her gown over the puckered tip, back and forth, until she was peaked to perfection, pouting and proud.

He made her moan, and he grew harder.

He slipped his hand inside her bodice, callused flesh, to flesh of silk, and he grew harder.

In counterpoint to his firmness, Alex slid bonelessly to the carpet beside him, and Hawk lost not a moment in the transition. Seeking greater access, he tugged a bodice ribbon and slipped her gown off a shoulder to expose her creamy skin. He laved the crown of a breast, continued between the full and luscious globes, and watched her eyes smolder with sexual awakening.

He must be her first. He must.

Laving her and taking her into his mouth, he took to suckling, encouraged by her hands in his hair, at first pushing him away, then pulling him closer, now holding him in place with a purr of pure contentment.

He eased her to her back and rose above her.

Her mewling sounds of awe and pleasure served to arouse him further, until he was the Hawksworth of old, the rogue of Devil’s Dyke once more.

And when he perceived she would welcome him, he slipped his hand up her leg, until her breathing changed to short, quick gasps as her womanhood wept in anticipation of his touch. And when he breached her, her tears had readied her to receive him.

Only a virgin, literally untouched, could be prepared so readily. A virgin … whose sexual initiation should be undertaken by no one less worthy than the man she loved.

The intrusive thought struck Hawk like an ice bath. He swore and moved off her like a clumsy schoolboy, like the thoughtless cad he had proved himself. “I am sorry,” he said. “Alex, forgive me. I did not mean to take it so far.” He would not touch her again. He could not be trusted.

Struck, as if with horror, she rolled to her side and curled into a ball, her back stiff, yet, somehow breaking under the weight of what she had almost allowed. He would swear that if he touched her now, he would be pricked by a score of invisible spines.

“Forgive me,” he said again. “You deserve better. You deserve the man you love.” If he did not put some space between them, he would break every rule he had set for himself concerning this wife of his.

In London, he would begin as he meant to go on. Separate bedchambers would make it easier, which surely the Duchess would afford them.

Alex said nothing as Bryce undressed and climbed into the bed.

An hour later, lying beside him, she wondered where she had gone wrong. He had almost broken her, changing his mind at such a time. But had he done so at her instigation? His words would not leave her. You deserve the man you love.

Had she made a calculated error in convincing him she loved Chesterfield? Had this entire debacle been her fault?

How could he not know ‘twas him she had loved forever?

She supposed that they had made some progress. He did want her, if only physically, as she most assuredly wanted him, though her want was more encompassing, for it included hearts and spirits, minds, even faults and imperfections.

At the moment when he had left her aching with need, she thought she might wither and die where she lay, and yet there had been such a ridiculous amount of relief as well. But why?

Because Hawk’s father believed she was not good enough for his son, and she believed it as well?

What was wrong with her when she did not even know what she feared?

Sabrina would understand about her fears. She would know how she should go about seducing Hawk, if she should.

Simply telling Hawksworth that she loved him, after pretending to love Chesterfield, would make him think she pitied him for his scars, especially since he thought the world saw nothing but the scars.

How could she make Hawk understand that she wanted and cared only for him? That he was worthy of love?

How could she undo a lifetime of harsh persuasion?

How could she keep from losing him forever?

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

During the night, Bryceson the rogue inevitably returned. Always, when Alex got near him as he slept, he clasped her close, as if she were his long lost love, precious and adored, and spoke her name before drifting back to sleep.

No matter how many times she approached him in the night over the next weeks, every time she did, she was taken aback with joy. Sometimes tears slipped down her cheeks unheeded as she drifted off in his strengthening arms.

If only he wanted her when he was awake in the same way he seemed to want her in sleep.

Blast it; she must spare no stratagem when it came to her seductive vengeance. Her goal was selfish, Alex knew, but she wanted everything marriage entailed, including a lesson in love for her husband.

A week before they left for London, Hawk threw his cane out a second floor window in a fit of frustrated rage.

Beatrix had slipped on a wet stair and landed on her bruised little bottom.

Because of it, Alexandra had climbed atop an old barn ladder in the second floor hall to replace the upper molding of a window, where rain had been driven in during another of the season’s torrential rains. The rising stream had floated down the hall and ultimately down the stairs.

While Bea had laughed at her flying antics, Alex had worried aloud that Hildy or Giff might be seriously hurt. And Beatrix made the mistake of adding that Hawk, with his cane, might also be, which bruised his fragile ego to begin with.

“Of course I would not,” he said. “It is for us to worry about the elderly, not the young.”

“But Alex says you are in pain sometimes and your leg is weak and we should be careful, Uncle Bryce.”

He raged all the while she and Beatrix dragged the ladder up to the landing. “Stop, I tell you and go away. I will tend to it, myself,” he charged them, but neither of them stopped to listen or do his bidding.

“Alex, do not climb that ladder, I tell you. Do not,” he shouted as he made his way up the stairs. But by the time he arrived at the base of the ladder, Alex was prying the rotted slat away and preparing to affix a fresh piece of wood to the spot. She was so preoccupied with her task, however, that when he spoke her name, she jumped and nearly fell from her perch.

That was when he swore, pushed up the sash and tossed his cane out the window. Then he slammed it shut, climbed the ladder, cursing all the way, grasped Alex by her waist and, with surprising strength, lifted her down to replace her, himself.

After that, without the use of his cane, Hawk walked with more discomfort and less grace, but he refused to take it up again from that day on, performing every single task anyone mentioned needed doing, no matter how difficult.

As good as his word to secure tenants and improve the estate, Hawk advertised locally and interviewed dozens of prospects. ‘Twas not difficult to find applicants, given the soldiers and sailors seeking employment now that the war was over. There were, also, mill-workers displaced by factory closings across the breadth of England, and farmers who lost their land because the summer rains and endless hailstones had ruined their crops, the wheat suffering worst of all.

Within two weeks, a dozen hard-working military men and their families moved onto Huntington tenant property. Some would work the home farm, completing the harvest, however sodden the crops. Two were ships’ carpenters, one a millwright and two others, bricklayers. They would make immediate repairs to the buildings, working in exchange for rent, and no monetary compensation, as there was no money, though Hawk gave each family a goodly-sized portion of land for their own use. Wives and children could work that for themselves and raise enough produce to feed their families and sell the excess at market for a respectable profit. St. Albans was a famous enough market town to make that effort more than worthwhile.

Hawk set himself up as Huntington’s estate manager. But in preparation for the time when he would take the family to London for Claude’s season, he taught one of their long-standing tenants to take over temporary management, for a lower rent and a larger cottage.

When Hawk found a widow offering two dozen black-faced Suffolk sheep for a pittance, he bought the animals to raise for wool. He secured several cows and a bull for similarly low prices, as more farmers were daily giving up and heading for the city. These he would raise for milk and beef.

Hawk’s diamond stickpin bought them a mare rumored to be in foal by Mercury, a prize-winning racehorse. The mare alone was worth more than the stickpin, for she was a prime breeder in her own right, and would produce fast, healthy, hard-working carriage horses. But if Mercury had sired her offspring that infamous day he broke loose and covered half the mares in Hertfordshire, then she was worth a dozen diamond pins for her foal alone. He named her Quicksilver.

If he was skilled at one thing—other than that for which he had become quite famous with the ladies—Hawk told Alex later, it was horses. And if he could not turn a profit with good horseflesh, then no one could.

Alex thought that if she could not get him to demonstrate his other famous skill, she was going to crown her gentleman farmer with his own pitchfork.

Several days before they were to leave for London, Claudia said that perhaps she did not need a season after all. Not this year, at least, and Alex laughed. “Do not even try to pretend with me, Missy,” she said. “You do not wish to go, because you have failed to talk Chesterfield into following us to town. Is that not right, or as near right as might be?”

Claude huffed and flapped a sheet to lay flat against Bea’s small bed. “Just because you are content to live without love, Alex, does not mean that I am.”

The words felt like a slap, and Alex gasped, looked into Claude’s stricken eyes, and exited the room at a hurried pace, only to plow into Hawksworth.

“Ho, steady, there.” Still unstable on his feet, he latched onto her for balance, and Alex pretended the same need, allowing him to hold her, treasuring the embrace. Between Claude’s harsh words and Hawk’s arms about her in the light of day, Alex began to weep. And, once the flood gates opened, she could not seem to close them.

Then Claude stood beside her apologizing, except that Alex could not focus on the girl, because of the wondrous look of concern in her husband’s eyes, which only made her weep the more.

Claude attempted to pull her aside, but Alex did not wish to be disengaged from Hawksworth’s embrace, and fortunately, he fought to keep her there.

Alex did squeeze Claude’s hand, however, giving her a look begging understanding, hoping the girl would realize that she could not miss this God-given opportunity with her husband.

Grateful for Claude’s dawn of understanding, Alex stepped with Hawk into the privacy of their bedchamber.

When he closed the door, shutting them alone inside, Alex fairly floated in the fixedness of his attention.

He urged her onto their bed and lay beside her, pulling her close. “Alex, Sweetheart.” He wiped a tear with a fingertip. “Tell me what is wrong.”

“Hold me, Hawk. Please hold me.”

His gentleness was almost too wonderful to bear. Perhaps he did not love her, but Claudia had been wrong about one thing—Alex was not content to continue that way. Oh, she was not.

Because Hawk shushed and rocked her in his arms, she cried the more. She wept for all the years without his arms around her, and for Claudia’s words, because they sliced too close to the bone to be borne.

Alex felt more alive than she had since the night they nearly made love beside the fire. She wanted more such experiences. But almost as much, she wanted to know why her husband had not come home to her. “Why, Hawk? Why did you not find us as soon as you returned from Belgium?”

He kissed her brow, her lips. He sighed and resettled them, pulling the corner of the counterpane over them, like a pair of Egyptian mummies.

Alex experienced heaven in his arms, but hell loomed in the weight of his silence. Her fear that he could not have borne to come home to her was so great, she wanted to weep the more for his hesitancy.

“If I could understand, myself,” Hawk said, several, long minutes later. “I could explain it, though my staying away had nothing to do with my father, I promise you.”

Silence held sway, until Alex initiated a second kiss, which at length came to its inevitable, breath-seeking conclusion. They looked into each other’s eyes, then, almost into each other’s souls, and she remembered how, over the years, he had a difficult time overcoming his natural reticence. And Alex understood, with sudden clarity and great relief, that his current silence might have nothing to do with her, but with the man he had become, at heart—as perhaps did his previous silence. “Just talk and I will listen,” she said.

Reluctantly, Hawk nodded, understanding somehow, that this might be the most important conversation of his life, though he was not certain why. “You might have noticed,” he said, closing his eyes against a hoard of painful memories, “that I was badly wounded in Belgium.” He looked to see if she would wince or pale.

She did not. “I had noticed.”

“I thought as much.” He sighed. “Blast it, this is impossible.”

“Just talk.”

He gave her a half nod, wishing himself anywhere but here, compelled to speak of things he’d as lief forget. “For months after Waterloo, I thought I would die at any moment. Then for a while, after I began to recover, I was sorry that I had not died.”

“Oh, Hawk, no.”

He crossed her lips with a finger. “Shh. You promised you would listen.”

She kissed the finger, humbling him. “I apologize. Go on.”

Hawk pulled her closer, settled her head upon his shoulder, and allowed himself the luxury of burying his face in her hair for a moment. Her violet scent soothed him. “I was ashamed, for one thing. Better men than I had died, you see. Braver men, smarter, stronger, worthier men, who had made something of their lives. What right had I to live, with them gone?”

Alex shook her head.

“I did not promise, Lexy, that you would approve, I simply promised that I would talk, and frankly it is deuced uncomfortable without your disapproval.”

“Forgive me.”

He nodded. “When I suspected I wanted to live again, I was, frankly, afraid.”

Alex bristled and Hawk regarded her. “I am admitting, here, that Sabrina might have been right. Never tell her so.”

“Never,” Alex promised solemnly. “Go on.”

“I might have used Sabrina and the boys as an excuse to linger in London. She is also family, never as strong as you, and they were in trouble. Ultimately, I was glad I stayed, because I helped them with a situation plaguing them.”

“Then I am glad you stayed, as well,” Alex said. “Perhaps she will tell me about it one day. Sabrina is another stubborn one, like you, who keeps her problems to herself.”

“And you do not?”

“Of course n— No. Perhaps. Sometimes.”

Hawk hugged her tight for a second.

Alex was uplifted by the beat of his heart at her ear and the strength and need in his crushing, almost desperate embrace. “After you helped Sabrina and the children, why then did you remain in town?” she asked, prodding him to continue.

“I think—I know—that I did not want to force my wretched presence upon you all, for then you would see how damaged I was.”

Hawk shook his head, for he could not even understand. “Inside, Lexy, I still feel, sometimes, as if I was broken in so many ways that I was not put back together properly, as if I … live now in someone else’s skin— I know it sounds fanciful, but I cannot explain any better. I am sorry.”

With the same tenacity required to ignore the abiding ache in her heart when she first believed him dead, Alexandra ignored the fact that Hawk did not mention missing any of them, not even Claudia and Beatrix. That he never seemed to have worried about them.

“Even on the day Sabrina came to tell me of your wedding,” Hawk continued. “I was not yet ready to face any of you.”

Alex felt him shudder inwardly. “Then, without knowing how I got there, I found myself standing at the mouth of hell, inside a church, and I saw you, a bride beside your bridegroom. A woman. Beautiful. About to be joined to another.” He kissed her brow and held her fiercely for several long, delicious moments.

“My first inkling that I wanted to live again slipped into my conscious mind as I began that everlasting trek up the aisle. I could not for the life of me imagine why I had been so eager to go marching off to war, in the first place, or why I stayed away so long after my return. I knew only that you were mine and I must stop you from going to another.”

Though they were not quite the words Alex wanted—that he had missed her, needed her, cared for her—they were a great deal more than she expected and she whooped in happiness, and tightened her arms around him, kissing him wherever she could reach.

Hawk wanted to tell Alex, then, how much he had missed her. He wanted to tell her so badly that to keep from admitting it, he kissed her. Otherwise, he would commit himself to becoming her husband in every way, and that, he could not do.

He kissed her slender fingers, her wrist, the pulse at her temple, her invitingly parted lips. And just when her eyes darkened and his body came to life, a hedgehog ran across the blankets.

Alex screamed in surprise.

“What the?”

They heard a familiar giggle.

“Beatrix Ann Jamieson,” Alex said. “You come out this instant.”

Bea rose from the floor on the opposite side of the bed and came around to their side.

Hawk held Alex close, while little Miss Mischief, behind her, placed her elbows on the bed and rested her chin in her small hands. “What’r’you and Alex doing up here in the middle of the day?”

Alex’s giggle was muffled against his chest, and as sanity returned, Hawk became more and more grateful to his Bumble Bea by the moment.

“We were, ah, taking a nap.”

“Oh, good.” Beatrix scrambled up onto the bed and climbed over Alex to squeeze herself into the tight place between them, crossing her shod feet and tucking her fists, as if to warm them, beneath her chin.

Alex removed Bea’s tiny kid slippers and pulled the blanket over her, tucking it up to her chin.

“Remember after Mama died, Uncle Hawk,” Bea said, snuggling in, “when you used to take naps with me, so I would not have bad dreams? I missed our naps when you were gone.”

“I missed them too, Pup.”

“Alex napped with me after you left. She sleeps quieter than you do, but I like napping with you too.”

“Thank you,” Hawk said, looking over at Alex, raising a brow at her chuckle.

“I like best having you both to nap with.” Bea gave a huge yawn. “It makes me feel safe and happy, like having a mama and a papa, both, again.” Then she sighed and closed her eyes, and before they knew it, she was snuffling like a contented hedgehog.

Hawk regarded Alex over Bea’s head. Just that easy, this little one had cracked the foundation of all his good intentions.

He reached over to take Alex’s hand and weave their fingers together. Then Bea turned on her side and buried her face between Alex’s breasts, sighing in sleepy contentment.

Lucky Pup, Hawk thought, Bea’s words playing in his head, whether he wished them to or not. Having Alex and him both was like having two parents again—a humbling but disquieting announcement from a six-year-old who had lacked parents for more than half her life.

Alex took Bea’s cue and fell asleep as well, her fingers still laced with his. And Hawk lay there and worried about them and watched over them.

His family … perhaps not wholly better off without him after all.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Days later, Hawk was still worrying Bea’s words like a pup with a bone. If he went ahead with his plan to set Alex free, what would losing her do to Beatrix, who had already endured the separate losses of her parents? Not to mention how she must have felt for losing him as well.

He recalled how she had wept for him when she had not quite recognized him. Now, here he was, back from the dead and planning to set Alex free, which amounted to the same thing as taking away her new mother. Poor Bea.

Poor Alex. She would never allow herself to be set free, if she thought Bea might suffer for it. So, how could he release her now, Chesterfield or no?

Hawk had detested Chesterfield for so long. For years, they had played some silent game, vying for the same stakes: women, money, and the respect of their peers. Hawk did not even know exactly when the game had begun or why.

He knew only that he had won, hands down, for the most part, until that fateful day at White’s, when Chesterfield and his father met by accident, apparently, and found themselves sharing a brandy and becoming fast friends. Later his father had said that Chesterfield was a good man, a man a father could be proud of.

The bitter taste of that pronouncement had lingered and festered inside Hawk, until the day his father contrived to offer him pride at the last, that fateful, consequential day.

After that, their old rivalry had been forgotten in the chaos of war and pain, until it flared anew, blazed, that day at the church, and worse since, until Hawk discovered that Chesterfield practically saved Bea’s life. Now he found himself trying to swallow an adjustment of his attitude toward his old nemesis.

To complicate matters, Chesterfield had come striding right up to him recently, there on Huntington property, while Hawk tried to help one of his seasoned tenants deliver a lamb, of all things. The lambing was not only Hawk’s first, but the delivery difficult at best, and out of season, so there was some worry that the lamb would be too weak and small to withstand a prolonged birth.

Chesterfield had ignored their struggle and ripped up at him. “Claudia is going to get herself into trouble visiting men at their homes, without a maid in tow, sending notes, inviting them to woodland trysts and unchaperoned walks,” the blighter shouted. “If you continue your lackadaisical guardianship in this way, Hawksworth, your niece will be ruined.”

“Do not presume—”

“It is one thing for her to be naturally-friendly and exuberant here in the country,” Chesterfield continued, ignoring Hawk’s attempt to respond, “but entirely another in town. If she continues to care naught for her reputation, she will run wild in London and find herself at the mercy of some blackguard who misunderstands her and accepts the wrong invitation, with no care to her safety or good name. I trust I have made my point,” Chesterfield said, even as he stormed off.

“Just see that you stay away from her,” Hawk shouted after him.

“I am bloody well trying,” Chesterfield snapped.

“Wait,” Hawk said, stroking the laboring ewe to calm her. “What did you give Alex, for which she owes you something in exchange?”

Chesterfield cursed. “Her freedom, damn you to perdition.”

No matter that Hawk called the blighter back for his foolish answer, Chesterfield did not so much as falter or turn, but kept walking.

Still Hawk wondered which piece of the puzzle remained missing, for the ones he had garnered thus far did not fit.

Now, as their borrowed carriage carried them smoothly toward London, Hawk could not decide if he was grateful to Chesterfield for his warning about Claudia, or furious with him over his mysterious exchange, of sorts, with Alex.

He did realize, however, that Chesterfield was right about one thing. Hawk knew less about raising girls than he did about birthing sheep.

He knew even less about grown women, wives in particular. One wife. His. He needed to talk to someone with experience. Perhaps Gideon, though his fellow rogue had less experience with children than Hawk. But he did have a wife, Sabrina—Hawk’s sister since his late and villainous half-brother married her.

Not that Hawk could not speak to Alex about Claudia. He could and did, to a point, but he would rather not bring Chesterfield into any of their conversations, if he could help it—no need to remind her of what she had lost.

Besides, he could ask Sabrina about Alex as well as Claude. Bree seemed to know instinctively what to do in most situations, and she understood him so very well, in the same way he understood her. So much so that Gideon had once imagined they were in love with each other.

Now that was a story he would have to share with Alex someday.

Alex was pleased that their two-hour trip to London remained for the most part uneventful. Hawk had dressed in his own clothes for the first time, a deal newer and more fashionable than the ones from his Belgian family. Though getting him to agree had taken a bit of cajoling and more than one satisfying kiss. He even agreed to have Weston take a few nips and tucks to bring his attire up to snuff, though he hated for the ton to become generally aware that his pockets were to let.

Claudia had pouted for days, because she failed to talk Chesterfield into following them into town. And Hawk was inordinately annoyed with her for trying, after the truth came out, though Alex wasn’t quite sure how he learned it.

What worried her now was that Claude’s pout had disappeared, only to be replaced by the spark of satisfaction lighting her guinea gold eyes.

As much as she worried about Claudia, Alex had to laugh at Bea’s requests to use, and examine, the necessary at every posting inn between Devil’s Dyke and St. James’s Square, though it gave them all more than enough opportunity to stretch their legs.

“I miss Uncle Giff,” Beatrix said mournfully as she climbed into Hawk’s lap for what Alex hoped might be a nice long nap.

Saying goodbye to Aunt Hildegarde and Uncle Gifford had been difficult for all of them. The older couple opted to remain behind and skip the pleasures of London. Hawk said he was glad that a male member of the family would remain at Huntington Lodge to oversee the estate. And Alex was glad, because some of London’s pleasures could be too much for certain people.

“You know,” Claudia said, prompted by Bea’s comment, “if I did not know better, I would think that Uncle Giff and Aunt Hildy were pleased to be getting the house to themselves.”

Alex recalled the gatehouse incident with speculation, and by the look of him, so did Hawk. It occurred to Alex, then, that she might have consulted her Aunt Hildegarde about seduction. Though since the woman had never married, she might very well have fallen into an apoplexy of embarrassment, if Alex tried. Hildy and Giff could have visited the gatehouse for a perfectly innocent reason, after all.

“They are probably looking forward to peace and quiet,” Hawk said, “what with our mischievous eavesdropper safe away. What do you think, Pup?” He tickled Bea until she giggled helplessly and screamed for him to be careful of Nanny.

Everyone groaned. “Where is she?” Hawk asked, stilling, on the instant.

Bea took her ball of a spiny pet from her pocket. “Here she is, see?”

“Did I not tell you to leave Nanny home?”

Beatrix shook her head adamantly. “No you did not, Uncle Bryce. You said that Damon and Rafferty would like to see her. Will you take the twins with us to Astley’s Royal Amphitheater? Tell me again what we will see there?”

Alex knew there would be no rest for any of them this trip, no peace either, not today or in the weeks to come.

As they approached St. James’s Square, Hawk thought that Basingstoke House stood out like a diamond in a tasteful cluster of lesser gems.

The Dowager Duchess herself appeared an exquisite in every respect, petite as a sprite, disciplined as a general, and generous to a fault. Her home seemed to run like a finely-geared French clock, and one hour in her company made him imagine that the twice-widowed Duchess might have been a great help to Wellington on the peninsular.

She appeared as if nothing could ruffle her, until Nanny scampered under her dress and over her slippered feet.

Upon being presented to the Duchess, Claudia curtsied prettily, making the older woman beam. “Enchanting.” She kissed Claudia’s cheek. “I vow that you shall be wed by spring, if not sooner.” And Claudia glowed.

“I made an appointment for us at Madame Suzette’s this afternoon to have Claudia fitted for her new wardrobe, if that is convenient for you both?” the Duchess said to Alex.

Claudia looked as if she might dance on air at the prospect, and Alex accepted with thanks for them both.

After tea, Hawk and Alex followed a maid up to their apartment. “The Duchess told me that we are invited to Gideon and Sabrina’s townhouse at Grosvenor Square for luncheon,” Alex told Hawk. “Afterward, Bea can remain there with Damon and Rafferty for the afternoon, while the Duchess and I take Claudia for her fittings, and you and Gideon can do … whatever it is that London gentlemen do of an afternoon.”

Hawk appeared amused by her words, until they entered their apartment, which consisted of two dressing rooms, a huge sitting room, and one bedchamber. The bed itself was smaller, if that were possible, than the one they had shared at Huntington Lodge.

Hawk stood thunderstruck as he regarded it.

Alex stood grinning beside him. “I love it.”

All the way to Grosvenor Square, Alex was in a state of excitement over seeing Sabrina again, for they had not seen each other in more than a year, not since they shared Hawk’s townhouse right after Hawk went to war.

Months before Alex and Hawk’s marriage, Sabrina had escaped the villain her first husband sold her to, and sought refuge with Hawk and his family.

After Hawk left for the war, Alex and Sabrina, along with their families, had continued to live together for nearly five months. Then Hawk was killed at Waterloo, and Bree received his deathbed letter saying he had arranged her marriage to Gideon.

When Baxter Wakefield inherited Hawk’s fortune and estates, and tossed them all out, Alex moved her family to Huntington Lodge, and Bree moved hers to Grosvenor Square to await her mystery groom’s arrival.

Damon and Rafferty, Sabrina’s twins, became best of friends with Bea when they lived together, the boys adopting Claudia as their big sister, too. And Hawk and Gideon had served in the Guards under Wellington, so Alex knew that the entire family was as eager for the visit as she.

The Dowager Duchess of Basingstoke was Gideon’s grandmother, by blood, though Sabrina told Alex in a letter that the Duchess treated her children—from her marriage to Hawk’s half-brother—as beloved great-grandchildren.

Sabrina’s youngest, Juliana, born shortly after her marriage to Gideon, had been named after the Duchess, a fact for which the older woman was inordinately proud.

Hawk thought that their arrival at Grosvenor Square was like to rival the Vienna Congress in the rise and fervor of their voices—even after the children dashed up to the nursery. He shook Gideon’s hand, pleased to see his fellow rogue again.

“Ladies, Gentlemen,” the Duchess said to quiet the raucous company milling about the foyer. “Let us have some decorum, if you please, and if we cannot, let us at least remove to the drawing room.”

Sabrina giggled and hooked her arm in the formidable Dowager’s. “Yes, Grandmama.” Together the two women led the group up the stairs.

Alex exclaimed in wonder upon entering an exquisite drawing room, complete with twin fireplaces of topaz marble.

“This is just the beginning,” Sabrina said. “Wait until you see the rest of the house.”

“I am in awe.”

Gideon turned to Alex. “As well you should be. Hawk, present me to your beautiful bride, if you please.”

Hawk took Alex’s arm. “Alex, another member of the Rogues Club, Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe.”

“Since Hawk and Sabrina are all but brother and sister,” Sabrina’s charming husband said, totally lacking the aristocratic air Alex expected, “and Hawk became my brother under Wellington, I shall consider you my sister.”

“Thank you, your grace.”

“Oh. Ouch. Please, may I call you Alexandra? And you must call me Gideon.”

“Or Uncle Stanthorpe,” Rafferty said joining them.

“Or Uncle Papa,” Damon added with a giggle.

Gideon scooped the twins off the floor, to dangle them one under each arm. “Ignore the scamps Alexandra. My name has become something of a family joke with them. And what do you call me now, you rascals?” he demanded, shaking them until they laughed.

“Papa, Papa,” they chorused.

Beatrix had entered behind them carrying the ugliest cat Alex had ever seen.

“What is that?”

“That’s Mincemeat,” Rafe said, as Gideon set him down. “Isn’t she beautiful? She keeps my feet warm at night and licks my fingers, and purrs soft and happy. And she is the best mama to her kittens I ever saw.”

“Then she is, indeed, beautiful,” Alex said as she petted the purring cat.

“Bea’s Nanny is something ripping, too,” Damon said. “But her quills hurt.”

“I told you to pet her in the direction they grow, not away from it,” Bea said. “She doesn’t know you yet, so she will curl in a ball and set her quills straight up to protect herself. When she knows you, she will let you tickle her silky belly.”

“Drizzle likes that, too,” Damon said, petting the short-legged beagle happily trailing behind.

The Dowager shook her head as she regarded her grandson. “Keep this up and we will have to open our own Menagerie.”

Gideon raised his hands in complete guilelessness.

“Do not act the innocent with me,” his grandmother continued. “If Juliana becomes enamored of an India tiger, you will find a way to get her one.”

Gideon grinned and Hawk chuckled deep in his throat.

“Alex, you should see the baby,” Beatrix said. “She looks ever so darling standing in her crib, with only one tooth, and a little blue dress and bonnet, and dark curls, and she giggles when she sees the twins, and calls everybody Papa.”

“Julie is a brilliant child,” Gideon said. “Papa is her favorite word.”

“Papa is her only word,” his grandmother said, bursting her grandson’s bubble.

Hawksworth barked a near-laugh, the first Alex had heard from him, since he had come home. How relaxed he looked. How at ease of a sudden.

The change would be good for him—for the two of them.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

They ate en famille, with everyone present but the baby. “I fed Juliana earlier, so she should be settling down for her nap, about now,” Sabrina said. “How pleased we are that you have come to town for the little season. I can hardly wait for a comfortable coze, Alex. Can you spend the afternoon?”

“Oh, no, I am sorry, but I cannot. We have an appointment for Claude’s fittings.”

“Nonsense,” the Duchess said. “Claudia, what say you to letting me take you for your fittings?”

Claudia beamed and the Duchess nodded regally. “It is settled then.”

Sabrina shook her head at her seventeen year old niece. “Claudia, I can hardly believe you are old enough to be entering the marriage mart.”

“Providing we can obtain entry into all the best balls and routs,” Alex said. “That is always a worry, is it not?”

The Duchess waved her comment aside. “Your entry has been assured everywhere, my dears. I told you I would take care of everything. Sally Jersey is an old school chum.”

After luncheon, Hawk and Gideon decided they would go to Weston’s for a fitting of their own then to see if any news had surfaced on Hawk’s father’s solicitor.

“We might stop by Stephen’s Hotel as well,” Hawk said. “I would like to inquire as to some possible military men who need work and a place to settle. We have room at Huntington for six more tenant families.”

“London is teeming with out-of-work soldiers,” Gideon said. “Spitalfields has thousands who are half-starved and unemployed, never mind the number in workhouses and debtors’ prisons.”

“God’s teeth, I had not realized the situation had grown so dire.”

Gideon nodded. “It is an abomination for England’s defenders to suffer so. Between the war’s end and the poorest farming weather in years, I fear we are looking at bad times ahead.”

“Let us take a drive through the East End, then. Perhaps we can find a few soldiers we know. By having them as my tenants, we can help each other.”

“Excellent,” Gideon said as they donned their many-caped greatcoats and accepted top hats and canes. “I could use a few good men on my estates as well.”

They kissed their respective wives with an awkwardness, at first, for the public displays of affection, then with devilish gleams in their eyes for realizing it.

“Wickedly-handsome rogues, are they not?” Alex said from the open front door beside Sabrina as they watched the carriage depart.

“They certainly are.”

Alex chuckled. “My goodness, you amaze me. You, the original man-hater—not without the best of reasons, mind. But still, it is such a turnabout.”

“I am so very happy and … contented.” Sabrina shut the door. “Though I never expected to be.”

“I envy you.”

“You will have your turn. Tell me what has been happening with you and Hawksworth.”

“Before I can, you must answer a question that has been plaguing me.”

“Gladly. Please, sit. Would you like me to ring for tea?”

Alex shook her head in response to both. “Hawk said that you told him I was marrying, but why did you never write to tell me that he was alive and living in London?”

Sabrina paled and lowered herself to the settee. “Oh, Alex, it is so complicated.”

“I thought we were friends, Bree. I know Hawksworth is more your brother than your brother-in-law and thinks of you as his sister. I have made peace with that, even with the fact that you received a last letter and I did not. But why did you not tell me that I was not free to marry? Would you have let me commit bigamy?”

“Of course not, which is the only reason Gideon allowed me to go that morning and tell Hawksworth—so Hawk could stop you.”

“Allowed you?”

“Gideon was adamant that I not interfere, and I agreed about Hawksworth, for the most part. Oh, Alex, you should have seen Hawk when he showed himself to us, which was not until we were all nearly killed.”

“Killed?”

Sabrina waved Alex’s worried question away. “That is a story we will save for another time, but worry not, for the danger has passed. As for Hawk, he was in a dark place, Alex, wounded, deeply, and not simply of body.  He was lost, almost of soul, as well. I might fancifully say that he appeared as if he had died—and gone to hell—but in returning, brought his demons with him, because they clung tenaciously to his inner spirit.”

“Oh, Bree.” Alex sat as well. “Sometimes I have glimpsed such darkness in him.”

“It was frightening. He was frightening. We worried about him, feared for his sanity, that he might do something rash.”

Alex rose, hands fisted. She wanted more than anything to lash out in anger at her old friend. “And you did not think I could help him?”

“Hawk is better now, which must be because of you, so I wonder if we might have been wrong to wait, but we did what we thought was best, Alex. Gideon fought beside Hawk. He held Hawk as he died, and he warned me that a man home from war must make his own way through his demons, or be lost to them.”

Sabrina twisted a violet grosgrain bodice-ribbon as she spoke. “I wrote twice to tell you, but I never sent either letter for fear of betraying my promise to Hawk, for fear of hurting him. After we knew he was back in London, Gideon made discreet inquiries, to be certain that he was taking care of himself. We invited him here several times, but other than on the day he rescued us, Hawk never came.”

Bree shook her head. “On that day, I advised him to contact you, and he promised he would. We owe him our lives, Alex, and we wanted to respect his wishes and give him the time he begged us to give him.”

Despite herself, Alex wept over the things Bree revealed. She could not help herself. Hawk had suffered so much more than she imagined.

Bree handed her a handkerchief, and Alex wiped her eyes and her nose, and smiled, finally, before stepping into Sabrina’s waiting arms. “Thank you for being so much his friend,” Alex said, “that you went against your instincts to be mine, rather than hurt him.”

“You love him still, even though you were about to marry Chesterfield?”

“Still, and more; am I not the fool?”

“Hawksworth is a lovable man.”

“You know that because you love him, too. I thought at one time that you and he....

Bree giggled. “So did Gideon. Jealousy can be a very potent apprentice in getting a man to pay attention.”

“I have tried that, but now I am afraid Hawk is staying away from me, because he thinks I love Chesterfield.”

“Men can be so pigheadedly noble.”

Alex smiled as did Sabrina.

“Now tell me why your frantic note said that you and Hawk should be given one bedchamber only at Grandmama’s, no matter what.” Sabrina raised a questioning brow. “I must confess it has had me imagining all sorts of intrigues.”

“You did not say anything to your husband, did you, about the single bedchamber?”

“Lord, no. Besides, he would tell me not to meddle there, either, and I do so love helping others, especially when it comes to romance, now that I have a romance of my own—which is certainly what your request for one bedroom seemed.”

Alex sat and covered her friend’s hand. “Do you, honestly, Bree? A romance? Hawk said so, and, oh, I am so happy for you. I am happy, too, that you want to meddle, because I honestly need your help. Our family’s happiness—Bea’s, especially, but Claude’s, Aunt Hildy’s, even Uncle Giff’s—is at stake.”

“What about your happiness, and Hawksworth’s?”

Unable to sit still, Alex rose to wander the room. Butter cream damask covered the walls, with pale yellow, robin’s egg blue and soft fern green in the upholstered furniture. The scents of beeswax and citrus freshened the air and calmed the spirit.

“My happiness must be Hawk’s happiness.” Alex turned to her friend. “But would it not be wonderful if they were one and the same?”

“Is that not your goal?”

Alex could only nod for the lump in her throat. She found herself having to swallow before speaking. “I … yes, but for that to happen … please, Bree, you must tell me how to seduce my husband.”

Sabrina rose to go to her. “Good Lord, you are having Chesterfield’s baby!”

Before Alex could answer, a hedgehog scurried across the drawing room.

Having had a great deal of practice, Alex caught the scampering critter and slipped it into her pocket. “Beatrix Jamieson, you little eavesdropper, show yourself this instant.” Muffled giggles and scurrying feet, on the opposite side of a second door, told them that Bea would not be showing herself anytime soon.

Shaking her head, Alex turned back to Sabrina “Chesterfield’s baby? What are you talking about?”

“Why else would it be imperative to seduce your husband, unless it was to make it appear as if he fathered another man’s child—”

Alex burst into laughter and threw her arms about her friend. “Gad, Bree, I have missed you. Of course I am not carrying Judson’s child. I am not carrying anyone’s child. How the devil could I be?”

“Do not say that Hawk has not touched you since he returned?”

Alex paled and looked away. “He has never touched me.”

“What, not even on your wedding night?”

“We had no wedding night. I lied to everyone and went to the St. James’s Hotel alone. Bryce said goodbye at the church after we married. He left for Dover that night and shipped out the next day. Sometimes I think he still finds me an annoyance, like when we were children. Do you think he does? I think he must.”

“I do not think so, not from the way he watched you during luncheon when you were not looking.”

“I wish he would touch me when I am not looking, or even when I am. I have tried to spark his interest, but I cannot. No, perhaps that is not quite right. I have sparked it, but I cannot seem to fan it into flame. God, Bree, when it comes to being a wife, I do not know where to begin.”

“In the bedroom?” Sabrina suggested.

Alex smiled. “I suspected as much.”

“Oh my.” Sabrina sat again and patted the seat beside her. “This is going to be very delicate, Alex, but if you want my help, you will have to share some of the more intimate details of your marriage bed with me.”

“There are no intimate details.”

“What nothing? Not even a tense moment when you thought he might devour you as if you were a cream pastry?”

“When he is asleep, he is very … friendly.”

“Excuse me?”

“He pulls me close and says my name.”

“Better than saying another woman’s name. And when he is awake?”

“There has been some interest, mostly when I am wearing one of the night rails Chesterfield purchased for our honey month.”

“Does Hawk know who purchased them?”

“Good God, no.”

“Then, perhaps you should tell him.”

“Are you out of your mind? Hawk and Chesterfield detest each other. Hawk does not even want me to wear my bride-clothes. He would be furious, he would—”

“Tear them off you?”

Alex grinned. “Like the beast he proclaims himself.”

“Exactly. It is called jealousy. Hawk might imagine Chesterfield seeing you in, or out, of one of those night rails and realize that if he does not claim you….”

“I … may have ruined the jealousy ploy. I let Hawk believe I might love Chesterfield and now I am afraid that he is thinking of letting me go.”

“Unless he cannot keep from touching you, himself…. Once he gives in to that inclination, it will be too late to let you go.”

Alex laid her head back against the cushions and closed her eyes. “Do you really think so?”

“We may have to dangle you before him for a time, however, and have you walk away when he gets close. What else has sparked his interest?”

“Sometimes the way he looks at me is very disconcerting. And there is that portion of him that … reacts. It happens often, but sometimes at the strangest moments.”

“Like when?”

“There was the time he said he would make me listen if he had to tie me to the bed. But he stopped talking and got an arrested look on his face and … that … happened.”

Bree squealed with delight. “Lord I have the perfect situation in mind. But we must start small and work our way up to the ultimate seduction. Fetch a paper and pencil from my desk and let us make a list of the possible ways to catch his attention.”

“I am not sure if seduction will work, you understand,” Alex said opening the mahogany secretary in the corner and searching for pen and paper. “I am not even certain he is fond of me.”

“Pish tosh. He is. Let me think about what you will need—”

“Money could be a problem, Bree, but do not say anything. Hawk does not want anyone to know.”

“Fine, you have your night rails. Do you have a lace corset in black?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you may borrow mine, though Gideon might miss it. But we will have to take that chance. I can distract him with another. I will lend you some scented soaps and oils, some ribbons, black too, I think. One for each of the bedposts in the bedchamber where I had Grandmama put you.”

As Sabrina spoke, Alex began to make her list. Then she looked up. “Ribbons for the bed posts? Ah, Sabrina, will I be tying something to the bed?”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Hawk and Gideon followed a gangly, red-haired young man into the beeswax scented office of Mr. Warren Fitzwilliams, Esquire, nephew to Mr. Malcolm Fitzwilliams, solicitor to Hawk’s father.

“Gentlemen,” Fitzwilliams, the younger, said as he rose from a well-worn, chestnut leather chair. “Won’t you be seated and tell me what I can do for you on this splendid Autumn afternoon.”

The young clerk interrupted to offer refreshments, and afterward, he backed, literally, from the room, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.

Hawk nodded to Fitzwilliams and turned to Gideon. “Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe, may I present Mr. Warren Fitzwilliams, nephew to my father’s solicitor.”

Gideon and the solicitor exchanged pleasantries, until their attention shifted to the subject heavy on Hawk’s mind. “Frankly, Mr. Fitzwilliams, I find myself mystified and vexed that my wife was not provided for, like all Wakefield widows before her, when it was erroneously reported that I died at Waterloo. How did this miscarriage of all that is proper come about?”

Fitzwilliams pulled at his beard for several long moments as he regarded Hawk with a furrowed brow, clearly at a loss. “I do not understand. Why would your wife be provided for?”

Hawk scowled. “Because I am, or was until my, ah, mistaken demise, the Fifth Duke of Hawksworth. I should think that would be answer enough.”

“Oh, but…. Oh my. Were neither you, nor your wife, present, then, for the reading of your father’s will? I did not preside, myself, you see, or even attend. My uncle handled everything, but I remember him apprising me, during his final days, of your father’s peculiar codicil.”

Gideon sat forward. “Are you saying there were stipulations to Hawksworth’s inheriting, of which he knew nothing?”

Fitzwilliams regarded Hawk. “Let us allow your father’s words to speak for themselves, shall we?” He rose and went to a cherry-wood cabinet, opened a drawer and shuffled through a series of yellowed and dog-eared records. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Here.” He withdrew a pouch of parchment, darkened with age and thick with documents.

Returning to his desk, he sat and sifted through the pouch, itself, until he came upon one sheet in particular, revealing less age than the rest, the writing upon it so spidery as to be barely legible. That sheet, he slid across his desk toward Hawksworth.

Aware that he regarded the thing as if it might rise up and strike, Hawk turned to Gideon. “You first.”

Gideon raised a brow. “Are you certain?” At Hawk’s nod, Gideon took up the document, almost with trepidation, read it once, then again. Shaking his head, he handed it to Hawk and sat back to await his reaction.

Hawk barely finished before he barked a harsh laugh. “Disinherited by God! The bounder died making certain I was willing to give my life for his bloody approval, handling me to the last, without honor enough to say that I would be stripped of all but my title, if I chose Alexandra as my wife.”

“I am sorry,” Mr. Fitzwilliams said, calling for his clerk to bring in the brandy.

Hawk watched the clerk pour. “Managed from the grave, by God.”

“And damned-near into it.” Gideon accepted a goblet, himself. “Insidiously controlled, if you ask me. Did your father never say that he took exception to Alexandra?”

Hawk took a sip, closed his eyes, opened them and nodded. “Oh, Father said. He said daily. But he took exception to so many people, who paid attention?”

“But why?” Gideon persisted. “What did he have to gain by disinheriting you? Or, perhaps I should ask what he had to lose, if you married Alex?”

“Status for his name, his title, his heirs. That was all he cared about. Alexandra’s family was not high enough on the social ladder to be considered worthy.” Hawk shook his head. “If he had but known it, back when he first objected, Alex was no more than the pest who shadowed me. He might have put the thought in my head, by forbidding it. Even when we married—” Hawk stopped. How he felt about his wife was immaterial, especially as he had come to care a great deal for her over the last year and a half. More than he had ever thought possible.

“As ruthlessly controlling as your father was—judging by what you told me and I have just heard,” Gideon said. “The man must at least have expected you to attend the reading of his will. He could not have known that you would marry and sail to France before the week was out.”

“If I did not marry Alex, I could not have gone to France. Every member of my family was the better for Alexandra’s care, better even than if I had stayed. If not for her, I could not have gone to fight Boney, for I had too many responsibilities.”

“It seems probable that your father had no more consideration for the members of your family than for you,” Gideon said. “He must have known you could die going to war, but he was willing to send you, anyway. I wonder if a place in history might not have been more important to him.”

“How could my actions affect his place in history?”

“Then power mattered, the power inherent in his ability to control you and the future, even after his death.”

Hawk cursed. “It no longer matters though, does it?”

“I wonder,” Gideon responded, regarding him so keenly that Hawk set his goblet upon the desk and rose.

“You are in the same place, are you not?” Gideon rose, also. “You would have married Alexandra, whether you knew about the will or not. What is the harm now?”

“My family’s strained circumstances might have been eased in advance, had I known. I might never have gone, had I known.” Hawk turned to the hovering solicitor. “The past cannot be changed. I understand that. But is there any way in which this codicil, or the results of it, can be overturned?”

“There are only two circumstances that might produce results, but none are guaranteed. We could attempt to prove your father of unsound mind at the time of the codicil. Or you might seek an annulment or a bill of divorcement.”

Hawk stopped himself from laughing outright at the solicitor’s words. An annulment, by God. If he let Alex go now, he might regain what little was left of his wealth. If he kept her, he would ruin her life, for she would certainly be destitute for the remainder of it. “My father was cunning,” he said. “But never insane.”

“If you do not mind my knowing, Hawksworth,” Gideon said, turning to the solicitor. “Were there any other disapproved brides named by the old Duke?”

The solicitor turned to Hawk seeking his permission to speak, and Hawk gave it with a nod.

“Only the bride you chose,” Fitzwilliams told Hawk.

“Ah, that is rich.” Hawk turned to leave.

“Oh, wait,” Fitzwilliams said. “I have something for your wife, obtained during the transaction she contracted me to perform for her sometime back. She was supposed to have picked this up on the day of her wed—er, ah….” The solicitor coughed. “She never came for it. May I send it along with you now?”

“Of course,” Hawk said, taking a sealed missive and placing it in the inside breast pocket of his frockcoat. He shook the solicitor’s hand, as did Gideon, and they made their way from the Leicester Square building.

At the top of the outside steps, Hawk placed his curly beaver atop his head and regarded Gideon “Say nothing to Alex of this. I need time to think. I do not want her to know that my father disapproved of her. She will blame herself for the loss of my fortune.”

“Nonsense. How could she blame anyone, other than your father?” Gideon said. “But it might be kinder to let her assume that Baxter simply squandered your wealth, which he has about managed anyway.”

“I would have done Alexandra a great service,” Hawk said, pulling on his gloves as they made their way down the marble steps, “if I had not married her in the first place.”

“When did you fall in love with her?” Gideon asked.

Hawk stopped. “In love with her?” Love? He knew nothing of love. “That is rather an impudent question, is it not?”

“We were comrades, we fought side by side. You died in my arms.”

“And saw you weep when I did.”

“Exactly.” Gideon shook his head, denying Hawk’s accusation of impudence. “I am sorry, but I shall retain the right of an insolent brother for the remainder of our days. You were fond of Alex at the time of your marriage. I know you were, but you did not care for her in the same way you do now. That is, also, very plain.”

“What makes you think so?”

Gideon held up a hand. “Do not prevaricate. You never revealed any of it, but I believe I came to know you well enough to realize as much. In addition, today I saw the way you regard her.”

“To use an old cliché,” Hawk said. “I am my father’s son and, therefore, incapable of love. To add another, I have learned that meeting Alexandra Huntington may have been the best luck I ever had. I simply did not know it, until my life passed before me. That really happens, by the way.”

Gideon shuddered. “You will forgive me, if I am pleased to have no such experience.”

“The problem is,” Hawk said once they were settled inside Gideon’s carriage. “I have been thinking for months that the best thing I can do for Alex is to let her go. But if I do, what is left of my wealth will revert to me. How is such a decision to be made?”

Gideon nodded wisely. “With the heart, my friend. With the heart.”

“Look who is speaking of hearts, the man who once said he had none.”

Gideon grinned. “Sabrina helped me grow one. And speaking of hearts, you offered tenancies and cottages to seventeen members of our old unit, when I distinctly heard you say you had, what, six cottages left unoccupied?”

“Right. Remind me to write to my manager today and have my carpenters begin building a dozen more.”

“But half of the soldiers and families you took on are leaving for St. Albans today. You heard them. Without your inheritance, do you have the blunt to build?”

“No blunt, but Huntington is enormous. We have a huge home wood and trees aplenty, stone for fireplaces, mud for mortar. And I warned the men, while you were speaking to Stewart and Guilford, that they would be three families to a cottage for a while. Their response was that they would have roofs and hearths, both missing from their lives at the moment. I feel badly that I was forced to take only men with families, however.”

“Those without have a better chance at the odd job anyway.”

“True enough.”

After making the rounds of their Clubs, Hawk and Gideon returned to Gideon’s late in the afternoon. They entered a favorite, small sitting room only to find Alexandra, curled up on a chaise with Juliana sitting on her lap, so totally absorbed that she did not even hear them enter.

Alex spoke to the babe softly questioning, while Juliana, herself, was so absorbed in Alex that she seemed to be trying to respond with little coos and gurgles, her hands waving excitedly in the air.

It was a sight, Hawk thought. A sight to warm the heart. It made him want … everything he could never hope to have.

“Do you see how Juliana loves Alex?” Beatrix asked coming in behind the men with an infant blanket that she brought straight to Alex. “Can we have a baby, Uncle Bryce? Would you not like to have one? Alex, can you get us one?”

When Bea mentioned getting a babe of their own, Alex looked up, and her eyes found Hawk’s, and when their gazes locked, something deep and ephemeral seemed to pass between them.

It was uncomfortable and tight, Hawk thought, though he could not put a name to it.

Whatever it was, he wanted none of it … or more of it.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

After dinner, Alex went upstairs to see what the Duchess and Claudia had purchased in one afternoon of dedicated and relentless shopping. But Hawk had too much on his plate to linger, so he excused himself and went up to their sitting room in search of a glass of brandy and a modicum of peace.

Just thinking about his father’s will, enraged him. He untied his cravat and tossed it. His frockcoat followed as he dropped exhausted into a chair.

Quick upon the heels of sitting, he saw the solicitor’s missive for Alex riding a whoosh of air toward the blazing hearth. With an oath, Hawk shot to his feet to rescue the charring note. He had forgotten the thing existed, never mind giving it to Alex.

Hawk plunged his hand into the flames, grabbed it by its sizzling sealing wax, and jerked his hand away, tearing it open as he did. “Blast and damnation!”

Hawk forgot his burned finger as he found himself staring at a paid receipt for four thousand, six hundred and seventy-five pounds sterling. A note was added by Fitzwilliams to the bottom. “All debts gathered and paid. All vouchers destroyed.”

What in the world had Alex to do with such a large debt? Vouchers? Gambling vouchers?

Had she taken to gambling? To support the family?

Nonsense. Even if she had gambled and lost, she did not have the funds to repay so high an amount. Devil it; what manner of predicament had she got herself into?

Her laughter far down the hall made Hawk scramble to hide the evidence of his knowledge. He looked about and secreted the paid receipt in his portmanteau, stuffing that into the back of the closet. Whatever trouble his wife had gotten herself into, he needed to understand to help.

Poor, Alex, he thought, what had he driven her to, marrying her and leaving her destitute? And to whom did she owe the great sum she had used to pay what seemed for all the world like a gambling debt.

Alex stopped laughing before she entered her room. Sabrina was right, she needed to concentrate. If Sabrina’s oil was to produce the desired effect, Alex must now appear uncomfortable and in need of her husband’s aid.

Her hesitation to carry out a set of instructions that seemed patently dishonest fled in the face of Hawk’s appearance—handsome, deeply furrowed brow, open-necked shirt, skin-tight inexpressibles, and a goblet of brandy cupped within his long, tapered fingers.

A lady-killer. A rogue. And all hers … if she managed to seduce him.

Alex stepped forward and winced. “Oh. Ouch.”

Hawk reached for her arm with his free hand and set down his glass. “Alex? What is wrong? Are you hurt?”

“I seem to have twisted my back, somehow, when I bent to place Juliana in her crib.”

Immediately, her husband’s attention was focused entirely on her, just as Sabrina said it would be. Alex did not even need to ask him to rub her back, for he began all on his own. Neither did she have to fake her sigh of pleasure, for that escaped of its own volition.

“Oh, that does feel good,” she said, leaning against him, and wincing again, lest he think he could stop too soon.

“What can I do for you?” her concerned husband asked. “Would you like me to help you undress?”

Would she like him to ravish her? Yes to both. “Bree gave me an oily salve that she said would ease the spasm in my muscles. Do you think you could rub it on for me?”

Hawk took a step back at the request and Alex wondered if he realized that he did. “Of course,” he said.

“I will need your help to undress, first, though. Even raising my arms increases the pain.”

Hawk swallowed as he nodded and walked her to their bed, where she remained standing, hoping he would take over, in much the same way he had done that night at the hotel.

He did, but this time when he unbuttoned her dress, she made certain to move in such a way that his hand must skim her skin, but only once or twice, not to be obvious. When Hawk reached for her garters, Alex tugged her skirt upward to allow him better access, and a better view of her legs.

By the time she bade him remove her shift as well as her stays; perspiration beaded his poor, beleaguered brow. “I do not wish to get oil on the fine lawn fabric,” she said. “We cannot afford to replace it; neither can we allow my undergarments to ruin my gowns.”

“Of course,” he said, though Alex was disappointed that he somehow managed to cover her within moments of removing the shift.

No matter. The scented oil would do its trick, Bree had promised. She said she knew from experience that the oil could work magic.

The jar that contained the waxy oil was made of a pale milky-green glass. As Alex lay on her belly, naked beneath the covers, she watched Hawksworth pick up the jar and examine it as if it might bite, his big, capable hands trembling.

She hid her smile with a painful sigh, all the while watching, until he finally stopped hesitating and came to stand beside the bed.

“You might wish to remove your shirt,” Alex suggested. “so the cuffs do not get ruined. Getting into bed beside me might help as well. Kneading as you rub the oil into the muscles will ease the spasm, Bree said, and you will certainly not be able to soothe my aches from up there.”

An understatement.

Hawk retained his shirt, but rolled up his sleeves, wondering what horrible sin he might have committed in his lifetime to bring him to this abysmal pass. He had grown erect from undressing her, never mind rubbing her silken skin with oil. Never mind doing so in bed.

Still, he hurt because she did, so he removed his shoes and climbed into their bed beside her. Uncovering the jar, the scent that rose from the thick, waxen oil was like to do him in for good and all.

Spice, flowers … seduction.

Sex, pure and unadulterated. Raw. Lusty. Potent.

“This does not smell like medicine?” Hawk cursed the tremble in his voice and the tightening in his groin. “Are you certain this is supposed to ease your pain?”

“From what I have observed, it promises to accomplish everything Sabrina said it would. I hope she is right. For the wait is exceeding torturous.”

At this moment Hawk well understood torture.

Alex squeaked when he placed perhaps a little too much of the salve on her back. “I did not expect it would be cold,” she said.

“It will warm against your skin,” Hawk said. God knew he would. “Are you certain you do not have a fever?”

“I think I might. The room seems very warm, of a sudden. Lower the blanket, will you, so I can cool down and you can reach my lower back, which I believe is nearest the location of my problem.”

The base of her spine was a most beautifully curvaceous and inviting location. Hawk wanted to place his lips upon the very spot, but he denied himself and turned to his wife.

He saw her in profile, the curve of her cheek, her firmly-set lips, and the globe of one breast, pressed against the mattress.

Would that she were pressed against him, anywhere.

Beneath his hand, her skin felt like satin, the more so for the oil easing his way.”

“Mmm,” she said. “I like.”

Then after a few moments. “Perhaps you could use both hands.”

Inside Hawk, heat flared like a pitch torch as he placed the jar on the bedside table and extracted more of the oily cure.

“Oh, that is good,” his wife said on a throaty sigh. “Yes. Right there. Oh. Mmm. Just a bit lower.”

If Hawk were not already afire, he might self-combust.

“Harder,” she said with a satisfied moan. “To the left. Oh, God, yes.”

She sighed, she purred, she moaned. “Ah. Yes. Mmm, more. All the way up … yes … all the way down. Again, up and down.”

Hawk was like to explode. If he had ever entertained the foolish notion that he could not carry out his husbandly duties, his doubts had been set to rest.

As a matter of fact, any more of this and he would explode without sheathing himself in Alexandra’s tight, silken— Think of something else. “Did you enjoy your visit with Bree?”

“Hmm?”

Hawk frowned. Was she not the least bit tortured? “Am I putting you to sleep? How is your back?”

“Everything feels good, as long as you are rubbing.”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

“Hmm?”

“I would feel the same, if you were tending me.”

“Nice. But Hawk?”

“Yes, love?”

“My upper back, toward the right and somewhat beneath my arm … I feel a slightish … twinge there as well. Could you rub me there?”

Hawk threw his head back and silently cursed all twinges to perdition. “Of course.” If she did not desist soon, he would show her how good a rubbing could feel.

Hawk ran his soothing, oiled touch from her shoulder to the side of her breast, almost to its tip, but not quite, garnering such a wondrous sigh of pleasure from his wife that he could almost imagine it as sexual. Not to mention what stroking her was doing to him. Her breast, he knew, would fit his cupping hand extraordinarily well.

“Alex? Would you like me to … ease you anywhere else?”

“Mmm hmm.” She purred like a sleepy cat.

Was that a yes? “What?”

She opened her eyes. “What?”

“You want me to rub you, where?”

“On my back, as I said.”

“I thought I heard you say you wanted me to rub oil on you somewhere else.”

“Do you think it would help?”

“Lord, yes.”

“All right. Go ahead.”

Hawk sighed feeling his frustration rise up with a need to throttle, never mind stroke. “Go ahead and rub … where?”

“Wherever you wish.”

Hawk damned near came. Then he stopped, because….

“Alex?”

“Mmmmm….”

“Do you want me to stroke your other breast, ah, shoulder? Would you like to lie on your back?”

But nothing could be heard save the ticking of the mantle clock. His wife had fallen asleep, naked; one oiled breast riding his knee, his erection somehow nestled against the small of her back, just below her tiny waist, and just above her beckoning bottom.

Hawk cursed, sighed, and blew out the candle before sliding perilously down in the bed, afraid to embarrass himself in the process, though he managed not. Then he tortured himself the more by wrapping his arms around his slick and scented bride, allowing his manhood to pulse incessantly against her as his hand cupped her beckoning bottom.

And before long, Hawk’s mind was so enmeshed in the puzzle of her charred receipt that his body calmed, quite of its own accord.

The following night, to protect his sanity, Hawk misplaced the jar of oil, not certain which of them was more disappointed, him or his wife.

Alex appeared so downhearted that he damned near unearthed the bloody thing from the drawer where he had hidden it, just to see her smile, never mind the splendid self-torture.

But sanity reigned, thank the heavens.

Alex curled up in the bed with a book and fell almost immediately to sleep.

Well, Hawk thought, there was still the puzzle of that paid receipt to solve, not the first conundrum concerning Alex since his return from Belgium.

He rose and went to his dressing room and just as he was about to don his dressing gown, Alex began to whimper as if she were frightened.

Hawk ran to the bed where she was thrashing and weeping and calling his name, so he climbed in beside her to take her into his arms and calm her.

She relaxed instantly, though she seemed to be trying to climb inside him, if that were possible.

That was when Hawk realized that he was stark naked and in bed with his now naked wife.  When had that happened? He could have sworn Alex was wearing . . . something when he went into his dressing room.

Devil take it, she coiled about him, now, like the roots of a tree, and heaven above, did he love it. Hawk ordered his excited body to calm, even as perspiration formed upon his brow.

Even without perfumed oil, he knew this was going to be another long, hard night.

Alexandra smiled in her sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Two nights later, as they were preparing to attend a ball, their first, at the Viscountess De Monteneiro’s villa in Kensington, Alex came to his dressing room wearing the most amazing black corset Hawk had ever beheld. That, and a pair of white silk stockings and matching brocade, heeled evening slippers.

Her breasts, pushed upward and outward by the man-straightening garment, looked as if they might spring, literally, free at any moment.

“One of my garters is twisted,” she said, studying his open shirt, while Hawk hoped that his scars did not show.

“It is one of the garters in the back,” Alex said. “And I cannot seem to fix or fasten it.” She turned her back on him then and bent over to brace herself on a chair, presumably to give him better access to her wayward garter, though she afforded him a most pleasant view of her delicious bottom as well.

Did she realize it? Hawk was beginning to wonder.

Probably not. That would simply be too perfect a situation to be possible.

Nevertheless, Hawk was appalled but enticed, and more interested than he should be in every satin inch of exposed skin and scrap of black lace.

Unable to stoop so low, literally, he placed a chair behind her and sat down.

No doubt about it, her garter was twisted beyond anything he had ever seen, not that he had seen that many up close. So close, he wanted to kiss the inner silk of her thigh. So close, he skimmed a finger, just there, and heard her intake of breath when he did, which was nothing to his own reaction.

“I like that,” she said.

Did she mean she liked him helping with her garter, or she liked his more-intimate touch?

No matter, for when he finished, she toppled gently backward onto his lap. Resting her head against his shoulder, she sighed. “This is nice.”

But she started to slip, and he grasped her to keep her from falling and ended up cupping her warm center, neither of them daring to breath.

They remained that way, until Hawk realized Alex was throbbing beneath his hand, as she must feel him against her bottom.

When he added pressure to his cupping palm, her sigh was real, her regretful thanks something of a mystery as she rose, straightened, and departed without looking back. “I will be ready in just a few minutes,” she said.

Hawk was hard as a pikestaff. “Well I am ready now!” he shouted. Let her come back and question that statement, as she had once questioned the evidence of his physical reaction to her.

“I will not be fit to be seen in company for at least ten minutes,” he groused to himself.

Damn. She was asking for it.

Was she? Asking? And did she even understand for what she asked? Or know she was doing it?

Impossible.

Half an hour later, to mark Claudia’s first ball ever, they stopped to see how she was doing in her preparations and found her as excited as a child at Christmas. After kissing her cheek and wishing her well, they left her to finish and went downstairs.

The Duchess had invited Gideon and Sabrina, Reed Gilbride, and the old Duke of Hazelthorpe, to make up numbers at the dinner she was giving before they left for the ball.

As they all waited for Claudia to come down before going in to dinner, Hawk stepped away to greet Hazelthorpe, while Reed approached Alex.

“C.S.M. Gilbride, how good it is to see you again.”

“Please, you must call me Reed.”

“Thank you, Reed. As titles go, both Squadron Corporal Major and C.S.M. are entirely too long.”

“Agreed. You are looking lovely and bright this evening. Not at all pale and peaked as you were the first time I saw you.”

“How ungallant of you to say so.” Having practiced social coquetry earlier that day with Claudia, Alex tapped his hand with her fan.

Reed laughed. “I am not a gallant,” the military man said, “which you will soon realize. But I do know a beautiful lady when I see one. A true lady.”

“Do me the honor of treating me as a friend, rather than a Lady, please, for I will never really be one of those.”

Reed nodded. “My pleasure.”

“Thank you. As a friend, may I ask what life was like during the war? Hawk has changed to a great degree and I have a need to … I do not know, help him, or simply be his friend and confidant, perhaps.”

“A wife who is a friend and a confidant.” Reed nodded. “A novel thought. Oh, do not frown. I am not making sport.” He took her arm to walk her toward the far end of the spacious salon. “I will tell you about Hawk, if you promise not to divulge whence you received your information; else he will have my head.”

“We have a bargain.”

“You must know that his father … taunted him, shall we say, into joining the Guards. You can imagine, then, that Hawk did not know what he was getting himself into.”

Alex nodded. “I feared as much.”

“When the fighting began, Hawk realized immediately that he was out of his depth.”

Alex felt sick, but she firmed her spine, and Reed was gentleman enough not to mention her weak moment. “Please continue,” she said.

He nodded. “Hawk rose to the occasion, and distinguished himself more times than anyone realizes. I do not know if Gideon is even aware of this, but your husband is quite the hero. The volley that nearly killed him was originally aimed at Stanthorpe. I saw it happen, from too far away, and with too many of Boney’s troops at hand, to make a difference. But Hawksworth was there, and he covered Gideon’s back as the enemy struck, and fought their attack, himself.”

Sabrina gasped. Until that moment, they had not realized she was approaching.

Gideon heard, saw her stricken look, and came to her.

Hawksworth was right behind him. “What happened?”

By then, Sabrina had stepped into her husband’s embrace, but she regarded Hawk. “You saved Gideon’s life?” She turned back to her husband. “Did you realize, Gideon? Reed saw Hawksworth step between you and the Frenchman who felled him, otherwise you might have been as badly hurt as he was in your stead. Or killed.” Sabrina’s eyes filled and she began to kiss her husband as if she would not stop.

In his turn, Gideon pulled her tight into his arms and kissed her soundly. As this was not an embrace meant for public exhibition, the rest of the company made their way back across the room.

“Perhaps we should go on to the ball without them?” Reed suggested.

“Nonsense,” the Duchess said, lacking her usual aplomb, for she looked as shaken by the realization of nearly having lost her grandson as Gideon and Sabrina were.

Alex was upset, too, and Hawk must have noticed, because he put his arm around her waist and turned them away from the room at large. She rested her head on his shoulder. “You never said anything,” she whispered.

“What was there to say?” Hawk shrugged away her words, though she liked the way he was looking at her, as if he were seeing her for perhaps the first time.

From behind them, Reed cleared his throat. “Ah, perhaps I had better go on to the ball, alone?”

Hawk tore his gaze from her—that was the only way to describe it—and regarded Reed. “We will all go. Claude would be crushed if we did not. If she ever comes down. How long can it take one girl to don one gown?” he asked, easing the tension.

Claudia did finally come down, but during dinner, Sabrina and Gideon announced their decision not to attend the ball, after all. It had been clear to everyone, and a bit uncomfortable, to see how in love they were, how badly they wanted to be alone, after learning how close Gideon had come to being wounded, or lost, at Waterloo.

During dinner, Gideon, Sabrina, and the Duchess, in turn, thanked Hawk for saving not only Gideon, but all of them, ultimately, with his battlefield heroism. Alex could see that the praise made Hawk uncomfortable, and by the time they were ready to leave, he was a bit snappish.

Wraps were donned and carriages called for in a rather brisk manner. There was nothing left to say to Gideon and Sabrina, after all, except good bye.

Since two of the Duchess’s carriages had been brought round, and because Hawk felt a sudden and inexplicable need to be alone with his wife, he suggested that Claudia and Reed, the Duchess and Hazelthorpe, travel in one coach, and he and Alex would take the other. Claude, in particular, embraced the idea, for Reed was a handsome rogue and being escorted to the ball on his arm would bring a newcomer like her a deal of admiring attention.

When the carriage moved off, Hawk crossed to sit beside Alex, in want of her nearness. He took her hand, raised it to his lips and wished he were worthy of her.

He also wished that he had as much faith in the institution of marriage as Gideon seemed to have.

“They are very much in love, are they not?” Alex said, gazing off into some romantic distance, likely thinking of Chesterfield. “I envy them.”

“Oddly, I do too, though I am not certain why.” He and Alex had been friends forever, Hawk thought. If she did not love elsewhere, she would be the best wife for him. He liked and respected her, admired her. After everything, he cherished her. If she were willing, he would happily take her to his bed every night for the rest of their days and be faithful unto death.

If they were not already doomed to parting, it seemed to him, that love—if the myth existed—might enrich what they already shared. But no matter how hard he tried, Hawk could not wrap his mind around the disappointing and insubstantial concept. “Do you think it exists, really?”

“Do I think what exists?”

“Love. My parents preached it, until my mother’s early death, but I do not think they practiced it, as happens in every ton marriage I ever saw, until Gideon and Bree’s.”

“I think love does exist. My father said it did. When he was last ill, he said that he had missed my mother for the entire sixteen years of my life, and though he was sorry to be leaving me, he was happy to be going to her.”

“Love beyond life?” Hawk said. “Does that not seem improbable?”

“Gideon and Sabrina appear to have such a love.”

“If I had not seen those two tonight, I would say you are wrong, but I begin to believe it. Between them, the elusive emotion seems very much alive and thriving.”

“With their children, the five of them epitomize what I have always supposed a family should—unity, caring, the sharing of even the smallest joys and sorrows.” Alex blushed and gazed out the window. “They are fortunate.”

“Yes.” Hawk yearned for something like, himself, the closeness of mind and spirit that Gideon and Sabrina shared. Oh, he had always had women, but never someone so much his own that she would breathe for him, if she could.

As Sabrina seemed willing to do for Gideon

As Alex had always seemed willing to do for him.

Hawk regarded Alex anew, then, as though….

He shied away from the thought, for the staggering power of Gideon and Sabrina’s love alarmed him, as did the corresponding responsibility, which only made him feel less worthy and more determined to let Alex go.

Yet despite that, he yearned to keep her hand in his and to walk beside her, however halting his steps, as long as fate, and Alexandra Wakefield, herself, would allow.

Beyond life…. Imagine.

As if sensing his mood, Alex leaned her head against his shoulder and looked up at him, and Hawk could do nothing but open his lips over hers.

He was going to unearth that jar of oil tonight and offer to rub her back for her, just so he could remove that black lace corset, himself.

The Viscountess De Monteneiro’s Kensington Villa was everything Alexandra had supposed a villa must represent—a fortune in marble and gold, art and artifice, glitter and glut. Gaudy. Uncomfortable. Hot. Crowded.

“A veritable crush. A sweeping success,” the raven-haired, husband-hunting Viscountess prattled effusively. Immediately they entered, she set her sights on Hawk, but when she realized he was taken, she turned her narrowed kohl-lined eyes upon the man in the scarlet tunic.

Reed winked at Alex, bowed over Claudia’s hand, made an irreverent comment about the power of a uniform, and gallantly escorted the Viscountess De Monteneiro into the middle of a verdant Italian marble dance floor, for the most scandalous of dances, the waltz.

Hawk’s injured leg would not allow him to participate in that dance, but Alex was just as happy to lend him her arm as they strolled around the perimeter of the ballroom greeting old friends and meeting new. Some of their acquaintances had already learned that Hawk survived, but were seeing him now for the first time since he went to war. Others, who had not known, were astounded and excited.

One matron fainted upon sight of him.

“It is my scars,” Hawk whispered, standing back, as others attempted to bring her around.

“It is your ghost,” Alex responded in kind.

His friends all seemed to hold him in high regard, Alex noted, though the ones she had long-ago overheard discussing beauty and his beast acted rude and knowing.

“I dislike that bunch,” Alex said as they moved away.

“I always knew you had excellent taste.”

She stopped. “But they are your friends, are they not?”

“Not,” Hawk denied with a firm shake of the head. “They are acquaintances to whom I had rather not give the time of day. Hangers on, the lot of them. They talk an impressive talk, sometimes, but drivel slides off their tongues too much of the remaining time.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Reed Gilbride bowed before Alex. “Alexandra, may I have the honor of this dance?”

At her husband’s urging, Alex allowed his fellow rogue to lead her onto the dance floor.

“You are preoccupied,” he said after a few silent minutes.

Alex nodded. “Guilty. I apologize.”

“Care to tell me about it?”

“It appears as if I might have made a judgment based on flawed information.”

“A common enough occurrence, and mostly harmless. Anything I can do to help?”

“Tell me more of Belgium.”

“Hawk’s time there, you mean? You are in love with your husband, I think. Is that not frowned upon in this Society?”

“You force me to say that you are impertinent and I must deny you an answer.”

“You must, because you do not want your avowal repeated, I think. I wonder why?”

“Tell me about the family who nursed him back to health? Did you ever meet them? What were they like? Did they live in a thatched hut or a brick manor?”

“I never went to their home, but I did meet the patriarch and the boy, in fact, on the day they brought Hawk to the ship to sail home. I had a commission to dispatch for Wellington here in England and we traveled home together, Hawk and I.”

“When was that?”

“About eleven months ago.”

Hawk had been back much longer than anyone knew, Alex realized, then, but he had not contacted Gideon and Sabrina right away, either. The pain around Alex’s heart eased, somewhat, for after speaking to Sabrina, she now understood that he had taken the time he needed. “What did you think of the people who saved Hawk’s life?”

“They were generous to house and nurse a man they did not know. The family was poor, that was apparent, though not so poor when Hawk left as when they took him in.”

“What do you mean?”

“As young Gaston accompanied Hawk, on his litter, aboard ship, the old man told me that Hawk had given them his gold buttons, his jewelry, everything he owned of value, including the greater portion of his military pay. The old codger tried to give it all back to me, so I could return it to Hawk. But I thought if he wanted them to have his thanks, then he would not take the gifts back, and I convinced the Belgian to keep it. Did I do wrong, Alex?”

“No. Oh no. I would have given them anything for what they did,” she said, aware that the only jewelry Hawk had taken were his signet ring and his wedding band. “You have answered a question that has been plaguing me, though. I will purchase him a new signet ring for Christmas, perhaps. Do you remember if it was the one set with rubies, or emeralds? I cannot seem to recall.”

“Hawk never wore a ring that I noticed in the months we fought together. I was surprised he had any to give them.”

And for Alex, that said everything. His wedding band had received no better treatment than his signet ring.

When Reed returned Alex to her husband’s side, however, the sight that met them made Alex feel as if the past five years had never happened, that they were back at the St. Albans Assembly Rooms, and she was a fool to love the Rogue of Devil’s Dyke.

Women buzzed around Hawk like bees in a summer garden. Except that he looked as if he did not enjoy his popularity as much as he used to, which improved her mood somewhat. Still, she could not help disliking the beauties in his entourage for their lash-batting and simpering.

“You might have discouraged them,” she told Hawk in the carriage on the way home.

“Discouraged who?” he said, taking her hand once more and cupping it upon his thigh, his atop hers, as if to keep it there. This time he had not even bothered to sit across from her, but beside her from the first.

“The women who were flirting with you?”

“Flirting? Are you daft? With this face?”

“Are you blind? They were all about you.”

“Reed or Claudia probably mentioned my catching the volley meant for Gideon, though I wish they had not. But there could have been no other reason, believe me, except a morbid curiosity for grisly details.” Hawk’s eyes lit with wisdom. “Are you jealous, Alexandra?”

Alex sighed with disgust for overplaying her hand. “Of course not.”

Hawk shrugged, philosophically. “I rather thought not.”

“You seem to think it impossible that a woman would find you attractive.”

“Alex, I am a fright. Of course it is impossible.”

“I will grant you that as opposed to your former perfectly chiseled countenance, your scars give your perfection more of a hard edge, but you—”

Alex thought Hawk would growl or laugh, he looked so incredulous. “There is nothing perfect about this face.”

“Perhaps not, but your appearance is striking, nonetheless. I am extremely sorry to say that your scars give you an aura of danger that will draw women like moths to a flame.”

“The Devil you say.”

Hawk and Gideon had an appointment at Gentleman Jackson’s the following day. Gideon suspected that a boxer’s footwork might strengthen Hawk’s leg, and Hawk thought anything worth trying.

“Listen, Hawk,” Gideon said before they stepped from the carriage onto the pavement before the boxing salon. “When Bree and I use that aromatic oil, I find that only sandalwood soap removes the telltale scent of its perfume. You might take a few jests this morning for that air of the boudoir about you.”

Hawk regarded his friend quizzically. “What aromatic oil?”

“The one you and Alex obviously borrowed last night. I would know that scent anywhere. It makes me randy as hell.”

“Well, stay the devil away from me.”

“Do not be cross. What games a man plays with his wife in the bedchamber are his business.”

“Obviously not, for you know more about it than I do. Tell me; are there any healing properties to this aromatic oil?”

Sabrina introduced Alexandra to the most amazing and decadent wonder in all England, a huge bathing tub wherein one or two people could immerse themselves to their chins.

Gideon had recently had them specially made in Edinburgh for all of his houses, including his grandmother’s. Sabrina said that some of her fondest memories had been created since theirs had been delivered.

Alex was afraid that by the time her seduction was complete, she would not be able to look Sabrina’s husband in the eye again.

She intended to use the tub that night and had come up to bed first, but she did not order it filled until she heard Gideon’s carriage depart. He and Hawk had been closeted together all evening discussing estate management and horse-breeding.

The last kettle of hot water was just being poured when Hawksworth entered his dressing room. “Here you are,” she said. “I thought that perhaps you would like a nice hot bath before retiring tonight. It is all ready.”

Alex left her husband to keep his dignity and undress in peace, while she, in her own dressing room, undressed and slipped into a peach silk dressing gown.

When she heard sounds to indicate that Hawk was settling into the tub, she waited another few minutes before returning.

Could his eyes have gotten any bigger, Alex wondered, than when he beheld her in the silk wrap that outlined her every curve?

“God’s teeth, you are breathtaking.” Hawk seemed less appalled, for once, than fascinated, which Alexandra thought a very hopeful sign, indeed.

“Thank you. Now close your eyes.”

“Why on earth would I do that?”

“So I may get in with you.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I do believe you are stuttering, Hawksworth. We seem to have misplaced the oil for my back, again, remember? And the hot water will ease my pain. Now close your eyes or I shall be forced to drop my wrap and offend your sensibilities.”

Alex suspected from that sound deep in his throat that Hawk fought a chuckle as he closed his eyes. Then she waited one tantalizing moment, to see if he would peek, before lowering herself into the heated bliss.

Hawk sprang to vibrant and willing life as his outrageous and seductive wife tangled her naked legs with his in the stroking water.

That was when he began to believe that across the tub from him sat a seductress, formidable, determined, no matter how innocent she looked with her cinnamon hair piled atop her head, loose wisps framing her face. A siren, with the crests of her breasts skimming the top of the water. A woman. His woman.

What would she do if he claimed her now? which he was beginning to believe she wanted. Of course she would wonder why he had not as yet made her his wife in every way. Except that, he would have thought, if she loved another, she would be relieved, not anxious for a consummation.

Why the aromatic oil disguised as a healing salve?

Where did he stand with her?

Perhaps it was time to find out.

“This is heaven,” Alex said, sighing and purring, her head resting against the edge of the tub, her eyes closed, a feline smile playing about her full and luscious lips.

“Much like when we were children,” Hawk said, “when we swam after digging in the mud for treasure, except that the sky is not blue above us and the water is a vast deal warmer.”

Alex opened her eyes and grinned—God’s teeth, hers was a lethal smile. “And we cannot catch frogs or lie in the sun to dry,” she said.

“How does your back feel?”

“The warm water does soothe it.”

“Come, turn around and I will soothe it the more.”

As he suspected, Alex was ready, with barely a surprised blink, to try anything. Hawk spread his legs and settled her between them, her facing away from him.

Kneading her torso beneath the warm water became an exercise in pure sensual pleasure, and the sounds and sighs coming from his wife only served to heighten the experience.

When Hawk brought his arms around and began to stroke her midriff, Alex relaxed against him. When he cupped her breasts, she stiffened for a moment, likely in shock, and then she arched to fill his palms. But when he skimmed his hands lower, she about stopped breathing.

He kneaded lower and lower … until he found her core, and she squeaked and reared back, encountered his erection, and surged forward, as if she planned all along to reclaim her original place across from him. “There,” she said. “That feels better.”

Hawk coughed to hide a bubble of laughter, surprised that mirth had claimed him so wholly. “How did you know this tub existed?” he asked, to alleviate her obvious chagrin. “This is not the one in which I bathed previous.”

“Is it not splendid? Sabrina said that the servants will always bring the small slipper bath, unless you ask specifically for this large one.”

Alex must feel more adventuresome at a distance, Hawk thought, for she was calling his bluff and stroking his inner thigh with her foot. He closed his eyes then, and suspended his own breathing, for she was definitely working her way higher and higher, until….

Hawk wanted to kill Sabrina for this fantastical notion she put in his wife’s scheming head. He could not even rise and leave the bloody tub, because if he did, then the most horrible of his scars would be visible, not to mention the size of his—

The moan of pleasure he heard must be his own, Hawk realized, which shocked him to the point that he opened his eyes, and met Alexandra’s very surprised ones. “What did I do?” she asked. “Did you like it? Or hate it?”

“Liked it,” he said. “But do not expect me to run, as you just did?”

“Did you feel as I did, before I ran?”

“I think it highly possible.”

“But you will let me do as I wish?”

Hawk nodded, trepidation skittering along his nerves. “No more running for me,” he said, reminding himself as well as her. “Do what you will. I am staying where I am.”

He expected she would rise on the instant, like a nymph from the sea, and make a startling exit from the tub. As a matter of fact, he looked forward to the sight.

But while she did rise like a pearl-glistening sea nymph, she did not leave the tub, but stood, perfect in every way. Then she took two steps in his direction and looked down on him, smiling, full and deadly, and lowered herself to straddle him, luscious breasts to hairy chest and pulsing core to rod of steel.

All Hawk’s fight left him as he surged to heartier life. He could do nothing but gape, and throb, and devour her mouth when she set her lips to his.

He kissed his brazen wife with the appetite of a man starved for nothing resembling food. He skimmed her every curve and hollow, in the same way she grazed every inch of him.

Every throbbing inch.

When she closed her talented hand around him, her instincts were flawless.

A year of celibacy and a week of hard torture … and Hawk came on the instant.

“Bloody hell!”

“Good Lord, did I break it?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Baxter Wakefield came back to town on the thirteenth of November, and the first thing he did was show himself at Basingstoke House to pay his respects to his no-longer-deceased cousin Bry.

Hawk would rather the blighter had stayed in America as enter polite society, but what could he do but allow his cousin to be admitted to the library, at least, wherein the Duchess kindly allowed them some privacy.

“Dissipation looks to sit heavy on your shoulders, cousin,” Hawk observed. “Or should I say that it sits dark beneath your eyes and heavy upon your person. Hard work depleting a fortune, is it not?” Hawk raised the decanter his way. “Brandy?”

Baxter laughed. “I may not have gotten the title, Bry, but the money’s a good sight more fun.”

“I daresay.” Hawk knew he could not ask his cousin to keep the conditions of his father’s codicil to himself, for if Baxter even suspected that Hawk wanted it kept from Alex, there would surely be a price for his silence. A price Hawk could not afford to pay … any more than he could afford not to.”

“What do you want?” Hawk asked.

The blackguard fingered a Bristol Glass brandy decanter and a French silver salver, before going on to examine the Rubens and Canaletto on the wall. “Believe it or not, I want to make peace with my family,” he said, though Hawk noticed that he did not say it while looking him full in the eye.

Hawk frowned. “Out of money already, are we?”

“You are, and though I have spent more than you will see in your lifetime, I am still a rich man.”

Bully for you, Hawk thought, as he considered the ramifications of one good, hard right to the solar plexus.

Baxter grinned as if he could read Hawk’s thoughts. “Since I am ready to settle down, however, I yearn to have my family about me.”

“You yearn for their respectability to net you a rich bride.”

The library door opened. “Oh, I am sorry. I did not know you had a guest.” Alex made to back out, and Hawk was grateful.

“No, wait,” Baxter said. “Present me, cousin, to this luscious wench.”

Alex stiffened.

Hawk set his goblet firmly down, lest he pour it over his cousin’s bumble head. “Alex, allow me to present my scapegrace cousin, Baxter Wakefield. Baxter, my wife, Alexandra, the woman you tossed out when you inherited.”

Baxter grinned and took her hand. “If only I had known, we might have come to a … satisfactory arrangement.”

Hawk stepped forward.

Alex scowled and retrieved her hand. “Your grace.”

“What?” Baxter said with a laugh. “‘Twas not me who got the title. That’s all Hawk’s and welcome to it. Much good it’ll do either of you without the blunt to make it sparkle.”

Alex looked from Hawk to his cousin and back. “Hawksworth?”

Already Hawk wanted to flatten his cousin, and he hated when Alex used his full title. It could only mean he was in trouble.

Baxter laughed at the obvious awkwardness of the moment and made his whistling way to the door. “Invite me to dinner,” he said, “and I will leave you to settle your differences in peace.”

“Not to dinner,” Hawk said. “Other plans. But to the Winkley ball tomorrow evening. You will accompany us?”

Baxter bowed. “My pleasure.”

When the door clicked behind him, Alexandra rounded on Hawk. “What was that about?”

“It was better than having to eat with him.”

She stamped her foot, a measure of her frustration, for she never had done, even as a child. “What did he mean by saying that you got the title?”

“Father played me dirty, Alex. The title has always been mine, but Baxter got the money, the houses, everything else.”

“How long have you known?”

Hawk picked up his brandy and stepped toward a shelf of gold-leafed books, as if he might examine them at length, but he took a sip of his drink, instead, and when he finished, he turned to her. “Since we arrived in town. The day Gideon and I went to do whatever it is that gentlemen do of an afternoon, we saw the solicitor.”

“And you did not tell me?”

“Fitzwilliams is looking into ways to break the will. I did not say anything because I had hoped I would not have to give you the bad news about our poverty.” Half-truths again. How he hated the need for them. Damn his father.

“Poverty is nothing new to me.”

Hawk stepped up to her and grazed her cheek. “I have proved to be a sorry provider, have I not?”

“No, it is not that. It is simply—” She sighed. “I thought husbands and wives were supposed to share the good and the bad. Instead, you and I seem to do nothing but keep secrets.”

“What? Are you keeping secrets from me as well?”

Alex examined his face, his eyes. “Keeping secrets, plural? As well, meaning: in the same way that you are keeping them from me? Do you have more?”

“I asked you first.”

“You asked me nothing.”

“How does your back feel?”

“There is a good question. Why?” Alex reached for his cravat. “Did you find the oil?”

“I did.”

She nodded as if everything was settled, and it was, in a way. They had silently agreed to hold their secrets, or at least the discussion of them, for the nonce, while they compromised to play this dangerous teasing game they both seemed to enjoy.

Perhaps it was a start, Hawk thought, his body tightening in anticipation of her sweet, sweet torture, as he followed her up the stairs.

* * *

Claudia and Baxter became great friends, in the same way that Beatrix and the twins were friends. They joked and laughed and shared secrets. Hawksworth relaxed his panicked guard, for they were cousins, however distant, and they acted like brother and sister.

When Claude had no escort, Baxter accompanied her wherever she needed one, always under Hawk’s or Alexandra’s or the Duchess’s watchful eyes, of course.

Baxter had either turned over a new leaf, Hawk surmised, or he was on his best behavior. Or he truly did seek the approval of his relatives, for he had not so much as committed a social blunder or gambled a single farthing since returning to the bosom of his family.

To Claudia, Baxter confessed his want of a wife, after much prompting by her, extracting her promise to keep his secret. He also confessed his want of an introduction to a certain Miss Phyllida Middlemarch, who just happened to be Claude’s new bosom bow.

“Did you know that Phyllida is the heiress to the vast Middlemarch fortune?” Claude asked.

“Really? No, I did not. Forget the introduction, then. I am sure that I am not good enough for her.”

“Nonsense. You are a prize catch.”

Baxter bowed. “I am humbled that you should think so.”

In her turn, Claudia confessed her wish to make Judson Broderick, Viscount Chesterfield, so jealous that he would lay himself at her feet and beg her to marry him.

“Perhaps,” Baxter said. “We could help each other.”

The following day, Claude wrote a letter to Chesterfield, in St. Albans, which she handed to Baxter for his approval. “My Dear Chesterfield,” Baxter read aloud. “You must not worry about me any longer, neither must you imagine that I will importune you further with my silly childhood infatuation.”

“Oh, not silly,” Baxter said. “Call it naïve. He will be charmed by the notion and less likely offended.”

“Lord, you are a sly one,” Claudia said, pulling a fresh sheet of stationery her way for a new draft.

Baxter grinned. “Thank you.” He continued reading. “London, it turns out, is great fun without you, as my cousin, Baxter Wakefield, has returned to the family fold and escorts me everywhere I wish to go. He is not only my escort, but my confidant and friend, perhaps even my knight in shining armor. He will play a key roll in my choice of husband, make no mistake, which role I had originally offered you, if you will remember. Consider yourself crossed-off my list of matrimonial prospects, and thank you for refusing.”

Baxter barked a laugh. “Nice touch that. It will lay in his belly like a summer apple, green and sour. And your vague wording is masterful.”

Claudia grinned.

“Enjoy your country solitude,” Baxter read Claude’s closing paragraph. “By the time you hear from me again, my name might have changed. Wish me luck. Your friend, Claudia Jamieson.”

A week later, Chesterfield appeared at the Wellbank affair, a fine specimen of a man in a black tailed frock coat and snow white linen. Claudia hoped she was not drooling as she marked his approach.

“Miss Jamieson,” he bowed before her, even as she noted her uncle, not too far distant, and hoped that he would not clamp eyes on her companion any time soon.

Calling upon every inch of sophistication she could muster, Claudia offered Chesterfield her hand, which he raised to his lips, shivering her to her marrow.

“Dance with me,” he said, in his own arrogant way. “Now, or your uncle will have you over his knee, and me meeting him at dawn.”

Claudia looked up and saw Alex, Uncle Bryce in tow, heading their way, so she stopped playing coy and took Chesterfield’s arm to accompany him onto the dance floor for the set forming.

“Just in time,” she said as she and Chesterfield clasped hands and turned to begin the dance. “Uncle Bryce is fuming. I can see the smoke from here. Oh, Lord, he and Alex are joining the set. He will hurt his leg.”

“He is fine. What did you mean by saying you were considering Baxter’s suit?”

“Why? Do you not think us a good match?” Claudia laughed at the appalled look on Chesterfield’s face as the dance separated them and they went off in opposite directions.

As Alex passed, she suggested that Claude leave Chesterfield to the older ladies. Her uncle simply leaned over to growl in her ear.

Claudia giggled.

As she awaited her turn to be accompanied down the strolling length of the dance line, Claudia gave her resistant suitor her undivided attention. “What I actually meant was that you need no longer worry about me, as Baxter has taken it upon himself to escort me wherever I would like to go.”

“What makes you think I was worried about you?”

“You spoke to my uncle and gave me away.”

“He should know better than to allow—” Chesterfield danced off on someone else’s arm, his eyes smoldering as, of necessity, he turned away.

“I like Baxter,” Claudia said when she passed Chesterfield.

When her uncle passed, she growled back. “I like Chesterfield.”

“You cannot possibly care for the swine,” Chesterfield said less than a beat later.

Claudia laughed and danced off with a soldier of the Royal Horse Guards, a handsome rake in a blue tunic.

“About Baxter,” Chesterfield snapped when they were partnered again.

“He makes me laugh and has taken me to shops and museums and introduced me to his friends, as I am introducing him to mine.”

“You do not want to meet the kind of friend that blackguard will introduce you to. And the parents of your friends will certainly not appreciate the kind of—”

“How else am I to find a proper husband?”

“There is nothing proper about Baxter Wakefield. What can your uncle be thinking?”

“He is thinking to marry me off and be shed of me.”

Chesterfield laughed aloud, catching the attention, and the admiring glances, of scores of women. “Do not pretend that giving you a season was Hawksworth’s idea. He would likely rather keep you chained to the schoolroom, as would I, if you were my—”

“If I were your what?” Claudia examined the look upon Chesterfield’s face with a great deal of hope. He appeared … arrested … uncomfortable, and very warm. “Why did you stop speaking?”

“Pay attention to the steps; you will trip me up.”

“When are you going back to St. Albans?”

“Tonight. Sooner.”

“The Duchess is giving a ball in my honor the day after Christmas. We are hoping to announce my betrothal that night.”

Chesterfield missed a step. “To whom?”

“I do not yet know. If I send you an invitation, will you come?”

“Probably not.”

“Will we see you at the Sefton ball this Saturday, then?”

“Certainly not.”

Alex approached Chesterfield as he returned a glowering Claudia to the Duchess of Basingstoke’s side.

“Stay away from her, Judson,” Alex said, after Claude was carted off by a group of young people. “You are too old for her.”

“I am not too old for you, and look where that got me. Dance with me.” Before Alex could protest, she was waltzed onto the floor with the man she had nearly married. “Believe me when I tell you that I am not old.”

“You are right, thirty is not old, but it is nearly double Claudia’s age. Claude will not be eighteen for three more weeks. She is too young for you.”

“Do you suppose I might corrupt her in ways that Baxter will not?”

“Keep your voice down. We are on the dance floor, for heaven’s sake.”

“Then let us get off the dance floor, by all means.” He waltzed her out the door and onto the terrace, but once he had her there, he simply tightened his hold and waltzed her closer and faster.

Alex pulled from his arms and stepped back to catch her breath.

“Let us have this out once and for all,” Chesterfield snapped. “I was good enough to marry you, if I would buy your way out of poverty, but not good enough to marry your niece? Is that not a double standard, Alex? I am disappointed, for I expected better of you.”

Alex held her hand to her hard-beating heart. “You are a good man, Judson. I know you are, but her uncle does not yet realize it. Besides, you are only giving the child your attention to annoy Hawksworth. I am more your age than Claudia.”

“And well I know it, but I thought we had already concluded that anything between us was impossible.”

“It was. It is,” she said, looking away. “I should never have said yes.”

“There is something you should know, Alex.”

She looked sharply up. “What?”

“I am not pining for you. I simply do not want to see her hurt.”

“Who?”

“Claudia. She is like the sunshine, that one, and she has the ability to slide beneath your defenses when you least expect it. She makes me want to make a pet of her one minute and throttle her the next.”

“Did you never experience that wild urge to beat me?”

Chesterfield shook his head. “Never.”

“You are in love with Claudia.”

“Do you suppose that wanting to beat someone is love? I had rather suspected not.”

Alex nodded. “I think any strong emotion is certainly a sign.”

“So of course you wish Hawksworth would become so enraged as to want to beat you?”

Alex turned away.

“Even in moonlight, I can see the glint of tears in your eyes. Are you that unhappy with the sorry state of your marriage?”

“The state of my marriage is not your business.”

“It is my business when you cannot repay me the money you owe me. Some marriage, if you must keep such things from your husband.”

Alex bit her lip in shame, because he was right.

Chesterfield took her into his arms. “Ah my poor Alexandra.” He removed his handkerchief from his pocket and wiped her eyes, then he kissed her, but more like a brother than a lover.

Yes, he cared for Claudia, Alex thought regarding him fixedly, but no good would come of it.

“Do not think that your pretty tears will get me to forgive the five thousand pounds you owe me,” he said.

As if she had been slapped, Alex stepped from his embrace.

“A good thing you let her go, Chesterfield, else I might have had to remove her by force.”

Alex shivered. “Hawksworth!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Hawk raised a brow. “Chesterfield, you seem to make a habit of kissing my wife.”

“I grew fond of the custom during the months before our wedding.”

Jaw set, Hawk took Alexandra’s arm and led her toward the garden, glad the Duchess chaperoned Claudia in the ballroom. His mind held no doubt now that Alex was jealous of Chesterfield’s attention to Claudia, and if he were forced to go back inside at this moment, and had to be civil, even once, he might do something rash.

Having also just learned that his wife borrowed five thousand pounds from her lover did not improve Hawk’s mood, though he supposed he should not be surprised. Whether the borrowed money paid the mysterious vouchers was another matter, though Hawk was willing to make an educated guess that it did.

The funds to repay Chesterfield would be hard to find, Hawk thought, though find them, he would. Why had Alex taken the blackguard’s blunt in the first place? And why did she not trust her own husband enough to confide in him?

He just might have to beat her later, Hawk thought, after he removed her clothes and slathered her with oil.

From the garden, they made their way around the Wellbank Mansion to the front. Hawk sent a note inside to the Duchess saying that Alex was ill and he was taking her home. Did she mind chaperoning Claude on her own?

Her reply was prompt. She would be happy to help. As a postscript, she added, “Get Alex to bed.”

Oh, he would. He certainly would.

In the carriage, Hawk pulled the curtains down before the vehicle had barely begun its trek across town. Then he pulled his wife onto his lap and took her mouth.

Hawk ran his hands through her hair, dislodging pins, holding her head still so he could ravage her mouth, suckle her tongue. “I am furious with you for nearly marrying him, for kissing him, and for taking money from him,” he said when he came up for air.

She seemed to revel in his less than gentle tactics but stopped to catch her own breath. “I am furious with you for leaving me after our wedding, for not providing for us, for not telling us you survived, for—”

“Shut up and kiss me.” Hawk made love to his wife with his touch, his tongue, and his lips.

Alex followed suit.

Why she suddenly slipped her hand into the front flap of his inexpressibles, Hawk knew not, he knew only that she had found herself a handful of randy man, hard, pulsing, and ready to spill. He covered her hand to stop her. “Do not.”

“But you said you needed practice to regain your staying power.”

“And so I do.”

“I want to help, and I want to touch and know all of you.” She knelt on the floor of the carriage, no matter that he kept trying to pull her upward, and she kissed him. There.

Hawk shuddered, he called her name, but he remained in control, and improved his staying power.

The carriage slowed. “Devil take it, he must think I called for him to stop,” Hawk said. Gathering his wits, he called for Myerson to go on. “Circle Hyde Park,” he added, and when he felt the vehicle change direction, Hawk knew his instructions were being followed. Myerson might suspect what they were about, but he would never reveal any of it.

Hawk pulled Alex from her knees, and brought her astride him. He wrapped her hand around him and gave her the rhythm. Then he played the same cadence, slow and easy, at her center.

Damn Chesterfield to hell. She was his.

Her head went back and she pulled air from her lungs. When he could tell from her moist, swollen bud how ready she was, as swollen and ready as he, Hawk shouted for Myerson to take them home.

Alex whimpered, she was so undone, as he redressed her. She laid her cheek against his shoulder while he put himself away, something of a challenge.

“We have arrived,” she said when they stopped.

“Not quite,” he said, and then he carried her from the carriage, and up the stairs.

The black lace corset was shed in a flash and Hawk laid Alex atop the covers, where he could devour the sight of her. Then he lay beside her to free himself and urge her astride him, but this time he rocked her and inflamed them both, until they reached a modicum of satisfaction.

Alex wept. Hawk understood. It was not enough, yet it was the best he could give her.

They were doomed. Whichever direction they went with their lives, together or separate, would be the wrong direction.

For days, Hawk rose before Alex and went up to bed after her, as well. He was confused, his mind filled with either taking her to bed, or murdering her lover.

Because he was thinking of returning to the country, he asked Reed and Gideon to join him in taking Beatrix, Damon and Rafferty to Astley’s Royal Amphitheater in Lambeth, as he had promised.

While Reed did not consider taking children anywhere a good idea for any reason, Gideon thought it a splendid notion and readily agreed. Eventually, so did Reed.

Hawk had not given his niece and nephews much attention since returning from Belgium. Besides, he desperately needed to turn his thoughts to something, or someone, other than Alex.

Beatrix was the daughter he never had, and he adored his nephews, scamps that they were. He had missed them all, and spending time with them held the promise of a certain peace.

Gideon generously procured a private box on the arena level, though the children might have swung from the rafters, as sat on their bottoms, they were so excited, making Hawk question his notion of peace.

Damon favored the performing monkeys, but Rafe much preferred the equestrian showmanship for which Astley’s was famous. Beatrix adored the bespangled dame who performed with a broadsword, cutting and slashing her way across the arena, though later, she said she saw Baxter across the way kissing that lady. Hawk stepped between Bea and the view, concerned that Baxter was slipping into his old ways.

Not even the boys were fond of the thunder, lightening and hail spectacle, and when the reenactment of the Battle of Waterloo began, the three men regarded each other with disgust, and left without another word. Hawk was glad, however, that they attended, almost as glad as the children, though Reed ended the evening more skittish about children than ever, after Bea vomited in his lap.

They got home late, and by the time Hawk got Claudia to help clean Bea up and put her to bed, he found Alex asleep, or so he thought. He had no sooner pulled the covers over himself, than she came and burrowed into him.

Hawk sighed with a mixture of satisfaction and frustration, and a need to speak, as he placed his arm about her, so as to pillow her head on his shoulder. “Why did you borrow five thousand pounds from Chesterfield?” There, it was said.

Alexandra’s sigh was impossible to gauge, though bowing to the inevitable seemed a good interpretation. “I did not borrow the money. I was never supposed to return it. We were supposed to be married.”

“Ah. But what did you use it for?”

“I cannot tell you that.”

“Why can you not be forthcoming with me?”

“I am being as forthcoming with you as you have been with me.”

“We are talking, again, about my not contacting you upon my return, are we not?”

“You are.”

“Imagine that.” Hawk sighed and tried to curb his irritation. “Alexandra….”

“Yes, Hawksworth.”

“Gambling … while seeming to be the answer to acquiring vast sums of money with little or no effort—”

“How did you guess?”

“Brilliant deductive powers … and a hot fire.”

“What?”

“It does not matter. Simply give me your oath that you will never gamble again and I will say no further word about it.”

“I can honestly say that I have not placed a wager since I asked Fitzwilliams to pay the vouchers, nor will I gamble in the future.”

“Thank you, I—”

“Will say no further word about it.”

“Right.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Why are you still awake?” he asked, barred from probing further into her gaming. “Are you unable to sleep?”

“I have been thinking.”

“Come to any conclusions?”

“Not a one.”

“I have,” Hawk said.

Alex rose and leaned on an elbow to regard him, though the light cast by the moon shone too pale to read her.

“Tomorrow, I am going home to Huntington Lodge.”

“You are leaving me?” … again, Alex thought.

His turn to raise himself. Had she sounded regretful? “Leaving you? Nonsense. I need to speak to the estate manager, or he needs to speak with me, I should say, judging from his letter. And I would like to check on the property, the progress of repairs, visit the new tenants, see how they get on, and make certain they have enough to eat.”

“You are a better man than the one who went to war.”

“Balderdash. Quicksilver is due to foal any day, and if the new cottages are coming along, I thought I might start the men on enlarging the stable. Gideon has offered me the pick of his breeding stock, you know, with the excuse that I would not have lost my inheritance, if I did not watch his back and die in his place.”

“And you are willing to accept his offer?”

“Of course not, but I am considering borrowing his best stallion to cover Quicksilver next spring. There is pride rooted in honor, but there is also a point where pride becomes stubborn and foolish.”

“I am pleased you finally realize it for the most part. You are going to make the estate profitable, are you not?”

“I certainly hope so. Will that please you?”

“Only if you are the one managing it.”

What a remarkable statement, Hawk thought, disturbingly intuitive. “Go to sleep.”

“How long will you be gone? Do not forget that we are invited to remain through Christmas. Gideon and Sabrina will come to stay as well.”

“I shall be home in plenty of time for Christmas.”

“Oh, Grandmama’s birthday celebration is the week before. Perhaps you can be home in time for that?”

“We will see.”

Alex wanted to weep. She wanted to beg him not to leave her again, but she could not bring herself to do so. He was sorry he had married her; she knew he must be.

His father had been right. She had never been good enough for Hawk

* * *

The Huntington Lodge estate might not be thriving, but it was a beehive of activity and progress. The most important repairs on the house were done, inside and out. No more roof-leaks, broken stairs or drafty windows. The house, itself, was still plenty ugly, but warm and dry and infinitely more livable.

Aunt Hildegarde and Uncle Gifford were not only grateful for the improvements, they were downright agreeable, so much in complete agreement, as to make Hawk almost as suspicious as he was pleased to see them.

The new cottages stood two stories high, thatched of roof and simple of design, but warm and cozy. The soldiers and their families worked hard—clearing land on the home farm for a larger spring planting, digging foundations for more cottages, repairing and whitewashing the old, building the new—whatever his manager set them to.

Most of the tenant cottages now housed only two instead of three families. Several of the male tenants, members of his old unit, could not seem to break the habit of saluting him, but Hawk was working on that as well.

Mrs. Parker baked bread and made soup daily to keep everyone fed, which Hawk had asked her to do, to see their tenants through the winter, until they could begin to plant their personal gardens and fend for themselves.

Hawk either observed the daily activity from atop Alexandra’s horse, or on foot, or he got right down and worked beside his tenants. Sometimes Giff rode with him.

Hawk spoke with everyone, man, woman, and child, alike, listening to their ideas to improve the estate. The fact that he was nearly as penniless as they were made them seem to want to work the harder.

One soldier’s wife suggested a pottery, and Hawk thought that might be a good idea, given the clay on the land. Another suggested a weaving loom or two, given the sheep, for blankets and wraps for winter. If they kept this up, Huntington Lodge would become a community unto itself.

Four soldiers brought horses they could barely afford to keep, so they were happy to lend them to the breeding pot, up at the stable, for winter hay and feed. Not that Hawk would use all of them, but he would make use of at least one.

Through all the positive progress, however, Hawk worried … about his marriage, about Alex, for he saw her everywhere. He worried about how he was going to repay her debt to Chesterfield. Five thousand pounds might as well be fifty thousand right now.

Why did she love Chesterfield?

Did she love Chesterfield?

A prosperous Huntington Estate would be an excellent gift with which to leave Alex. But working beside her for a lifetime, to turn it into a successful venture, would be the greatest gift of all.

But a gift for whom? Him? Or her?

He wanted to make their marriage work, but he did not want to assure his happiness at the cost of Alexandra’s. Except … how could she have gone from Chesterfield’s arms that night at the ball to practically mounting him ten minutes later in the carriage?

Which of them did she love? And was he an idiot for imagining he might be counted as a possibility?

His uncle approached him one day as Hawk was fretting over the problem and pacing the winter-barren orchard. “Would you like to talk about whatever is bothering you?”

Hawk shook his head. “I suppose it would be useless to say nothing is?”

Giff chuckled. “Sometimes I think you favor me in temperament more than you favor your own father.”

“Thank you. That is the nicest thing you could say.”

“You still ache to please him, though, do you not?”

“How did you guess?”

“I never succeeded, either, and as old as I am, a little part of me wishes I could do more than please him. Just once before I die, I would like to best him.”

Hawk nodded his understanding.

“Let me just say,” Giff continued, “that you did not fail your father. He failed you … with his inability to love. Do not make the same mistake.”

Hawk faltered in his steps then stopped altogether. “I want to do what is best for Alex.”

“It seems to me that you are already doing that.”

“But suppose she still loves Chesterfield.”

“If you do not know who the lass loves, you are a blind man.” Giff put his hand on Hawk’s shoulder. “The demons of war can distort even the obvious good in life. Do not let war win, Bryce. Open your eyes and see what you have. Do not let your father win, either. You are a good and worthy man, worthy of Alexandra’s love, and of so much more.”

Hawk swallowed, nodded and walked on, his uncle lending his silent support beside him.

“Uncle Giff,” Hawk said after a bit, stopping again. “You bested him years ago.”

Giff chuckled at the jest. “How’s that?”

“You have always been a better father.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

After nearly three weeks at Huntington Lodge, Hawk could not stay away from Alexandra one day longer. So he packed his bags, talked Hildy and Giff into coming with him for Christmas, bid his tenants farewell, and set off.

As their carriage approached London, Hawk fingered the carved acorns atop the small wooden casket Chesterfield had returned with his clothing. The cask contained Hawk’s father’s wedding band, signet ring, and a gaudy diamond he acquired on his grand tour.

Hawk kept his stickpins inside, as well as a few childhood treasures, like the Roman coin he and Alex dug up at Devil’s Dyke on the day they met, and the tiny alabaster bust they found near the water meadows sometime during the halcyon days of their childhood. Alex kept many more of their treasures, but Hawk had claimed only those two.

When they reached the outskirts of London, Hawk bade Myerson to take him to Bond Street, to Stedman & Vardon, Goldsmiths & Jewelers, and then to take Hildy and Giff on to St. James’s Street. Hawk would catch a hack home.

At the establishment of Stedman & Vardon, Hawk opened his cask and removed his father’s gaudy diamond, willing to sell every piece of jewelry he owned for the five thousand pounds needed to remove Alexandra from Chesterfield’s debt.

The jeweler was a jolly old man, bald of pate and cunning of brow. He popped in his jeweler’s eye and remained silent for far too long, examining the ring at every angle. “It is paste,” he said, tossing it Hawk’s way. “I hope it did not come dear.”

“It was my father’s,” Hawk said catching it. Perhaps the man thought to swindle him, though the establishment had a superior reputation in the ton.

Since Hawk knew what he had paid for his emerald stickpin, he offered that, as a test, for the man’s inspection.

“Seven hundred,” the jeweler said, which was honest, even generous, but not enough, and Hawk did not think the rest, together, would amount to that much again.

Nevertheless, he emptied the casket onto the glass case and pushed the jewelry forward, piece by piece. The childhood mementos, he tossed back into the box, but the man gasped and began speaking so fast, Hawk could barely understand him. “May I see them, at least,” he begged, and Hawk saw his gaze centered on the treasures in the cask.

Hawk relinquished the miniature bust, now lost in the man’s large hand, and the jeweler regarded it with awe, examining and running his fingers over all. “I will give you eight thousand pounds,” he said with nary a blink.

Hawk’s breath caught in his throat as he regarded the shrewd businessman. “Twelve thousand, cash, now.”

The man paled to the point that he placed the bust on a carefully-laid piece of black velvet, and took out his handkerchief to wipe his brow.

After a considering minute, he picked up the coin, rubbed his thumb over it, examined its surface, and narrowed his eyes. “Thirteen for both.”

“Sixteen,” Hawk countered, fisting his hands to keep their trembling from giving him away.

“Fourteen and a half.”

“Fifteen and not a penny less.”

The jeweler nodded and Hawk followed him into his back room.

Still quaking in reaction, Hawk went directly to Child’s Bank. After his business there was concluded, he went on to forty-six Berkeley Square.

Chesterfield entered his townhouse library less than five minutes after his butler had invited Hawk inside. “To what do I owe the honor, and all that rubbish?”

“Why did you not go back to the country, as Claude said you intended?”

“Excuse me?”

Hawk shook his head. “Sorry, I digress. Something in you gets me to bristling.”

“If you must know,” Chesterfield said. “I decided that, for the moment, the city has more to offer in the way of entertainment.”

“This should help finance your stay, then.” Hawk handed Chesterfield a bank draft for five thousand pounds and a receipt for same. “Sign the receipt, and Alex will owe you nothing more.”

Chesterfield nodded. “Come into some blunt, did you?”

“Just a deal of good luck. It started the day I met Alexandra.”

“I once thought the same,” Chesterfield said, handing him the signed receipt. “But a recent, interesting … diversion … is beginning to make me feel like a man of good fortune, once more.”

“I am glad to hear it. Good day to you,” Hawk said. “I hope that our paths shall never cross again.”

“I am sure you do.” Chesterfield followed Hawk down to the foyer and watched him make his way to the front door.

Hawk turned at the last. “You will notify Alex that she owes you nothing, but under no circumstances will you reveal that I paid you.”

“In that case, she will think I am being generous in forgiving the debt.”

“So be it, then.” Hawk tipped his hat and strode out the door, and Chesterfield’s respect for him grew tenfold.

Hawk arrived at Basingstoke House while the household was still in uproar. “They are getting married,” Claudia shouted from the stairs, as Hawk handed Myerson his top hat, cane and greatcoat.

“Who is getting married?”

“Aunt Hildy and Uncle Giff.”

“Good God.” Hawk made his way up the stairs to the drawing room and went straight to Alex. He squeezed both her hands, kissed her cheek and ached for her lips. “They never said a word to me.”

“Well, you were terribly preoccupied, dear,” Hildy said as she came and offered her cheek. “Wish us happy.”

“I do. Giff, you sly old bachelor. This will change everything, you know.” Hawk shook his uncle’s hand.

“It certainly will.” Giff coughed and leaned close. “I am too old for all this sneaking about.”

“We would like to lease the dower house, if you would allow us?” Hildy looked from Alex to Hawk and back, clearly unsure as to which of them she should ask.

Hawk looked to Alex for Hildy’s answer.

“You may have the dower house as a wedding gift.”

“I shall write today to have Davis set someone to doing the necessary repairs,” Hawk said. “When will you marry?”

Giff regarded Hildy. “Next Saturday?”

Hildy nodded, her smile radiant. “The day before Christmas Eve.”

“Immediate repairs.”

“A week,” Alex said. “Gad, we have a lot to do.”

Though the beauty of youth had long since deserted Hildy and Giff, and the years had left their mark, Hawk saw such love, such adoration, in both their gazes. Neither seemed to see anything but beauty in the other. In their own ways, they were as scarred as him, by time, but that did not seem to matter a jot to either of them.

Hawk turned to Alex then and found himself mesmerized by her smile. I missed you, he wanted to say. I want to take you to bed.

Without a word, she took his hand and led him from the room, as if she read his thoughts.

No one made a move to question or stop them. “Do not forget that we have guests coming for Grandmama’s birthday dinner.” Claudia’s words floated upon the air behind them.

Hawk allowed Alex to precede him into their apartment, and then he followed her in and shut the bedchamber door.

“I told you I would be back.”

Alex stepped into his arms.

Dinner was a frustrating affair to begin with, Hawk thought, for there were too many people. Besides him and Alex, Giff and Hildy, Hazelthorpe and the Duchess, Gideon and Sabrina, someone had included Baxter and Miss Phyllida Middlemarch in the invitation, along with Chesterfield, of all people.

“What the bloody devil are those three doing here?” Hawk whispered to Alex as he escorted her in to dinner.

“Claudia said that they will make Grandmama’s party as merry as mice in malt.”

Hawk wanted to kiss her again, even though they had kissed for all of an hour. First just standing there, the door at his back, then with him sitting and her in his lap, then on the bed. And just when things began to get interesting, the bell rang and it was time to dress for dinner.

Hawk wished to the devil that Chesterfield would find a wife of his own. He wanted to be free to ask Alex the question he ached to ask—whether she would stay or go—but he did not feel safe doing so with Chesterfield available for her to go to.

Hawk now knew that he could be brave in the face of war, but in life, he was still a coward.

By the time he grasped the conversation going on about him, the Duchess had invited Baxter and Chesterfield to spend Christmas with them, and when Hawk realized it, he nearly swallowed his deviled kidney whole.

Claudia, the brat, smiled with satisfaction. “If you arrive on the morning before Christmas Eve,” she said, “you will be here for Aunt Hildy and Uncle Giff’s wedding, then for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and my ball the night after. Chesterfield, you will come?”

The man had the audacity to look from Hawk to Alex and grin, then he winked at Claudia. I would be honored.”

“And you, Baxter?” the Duchess asked. “It has been a long time since you spent Christmas with your family.”

“I look forward to it,” he said, too cocky by half.

Alex had decided before coming downstairs for the birthday celebration that she had teased Hawksworth long enough. Tonight she would stage her ultimate seduction. She even wore her mother’s cameo on a black silk ribbon as a signal to Sabrina.

Between them, they made certain Hawk’s glass was always full. Bree said that spirits would relax him so he would let down his guard, promising it was nothing like drugging him. Hawk would know what he was doing. Then she explained in great detail, from careful observation, said she, how a man would respond to each enticement.

Making love seemed to be something of a refined game with Sabrina and Gideon, besides an expression of the profound feelings they shared. Sabrina said their spirits and hearts became closer with the physical expression of their love.

More than ever, Alex wanted that experience. She wanted Hawksworth as her lover, as well as her husband.

Everyone wanted to play cards after supper. Vingt-et-un or Whist. A table was set up for each. Chesterfield and Claude would be partners, and Miss Middlemarch and Baxter.

Alex heard her aunt ask Giff to partner her.

“You hate playing cards, remember?” Alex told Hildy, who laughed at her sorry memory and sat with the Duchess for a comfortable coze.

Alex took Giff by the arm to be escorted about the room. “I am so pleased that you will be my real uncle now.”

“And I thought I would die a lonely old bachelor.”

“You were never a lonely old bachelor. You have always had Bryceson. He thinks the world of you. We all do.”

Giff grinned. “Imagine that.”

“Have you and Hildy had an opportunity to talk?”

“Us? We talk all the time. Hildy and I have no secrets from each other.”

Alex smiled. “I am glad to hear it.”

Hawksworth’s and Gideon’s after-dinner-brandy goblets emptied fast and often. The rogues sat across from each other, Gideon telling Hawk about his first shocked sight of the pregnant bride Hawk had secured for him.

Alex caught Sabrina’s eye. Both men had imbibed enough, they agreed with a nod, especially as Sabrina seemed to have a special night planned, herself.

Alex dubbed Bree the queen of seduction then, for even as Alex watched, all Bree had to do was walk up behind her husband and skim the shell of his ear with a finger. Like a shot, she had Gideon’s undivided attention, and almost that fast, they said their good-byes and were on their way home.

Someday, I would like to be that married, Alex thought, as she approached Hawksworth. She tried stroking his ear, but he batted the air as if she were a pesky fly. Then she sat on the footstool by his chair and took his hand. And while he played with her fingers, he was engrossed in a story Hazelthorpe was telling.

“It has been a long day,” she said, and Hawk nodded. Perhaps he was too relaxed. Was that possible?

Drastic times, Alex thought. “Hawk,” she said. “My back aches.”

And that was all it took. They were on their way within moments, Alex feeling cherished, for she caught the possessive look Hawk tossed Chesterfield’s way before escorting her from the room.

She had also caught the look Chesterfield gave Claudia then, which bore looking into, and nipping in the proverbial bud, but not tonight.

Tonight was for her and Hawk and she intended that it would be spectacular.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

While Hawk undressed in his own dressing room, Alex undressed in hers. She set lit candles about the bed, and stepped from her gown before getting in. She lay on her stomach and made sure the bedclothes were barely covering her, before she hugged her pillow and closed her eyes.

But when she heard her husband approach, she opened them, for Hawksworth in his black brocade dressing gown was as gorgeous as a mythical god. And, lo and behold said myth climbed into bed with her.

He skimmed a hand down her back without the oil, as if for the simple pleasure of touching her, with nothing, not even oil, between them.

He could have no idea how badly she wanted to do the same, to open his dressing gown and let her hands wander at will, which she would do, before this night was over.

They kissed and kissed before even opening that pale green jar. Then the oil, or her reaction to it, or both, did its magic. Alex was not certain which of them was more ready. She did know who was more stubborn. Hawk would not give in to his need any more tonight than in the past, so when she pretended sleep, he lay beside her and throbbed against her forever, until he slept.

Lord, she hoped Sabrina’s theory was correct, that he would sleep deeply and be easy to seduce when she woke him.

Alex slipped carefully from the bed, to be certain Hawk did not wake. The black ribbons on her dressing table were already tied with the necessary knots. All she need do was slip the loops over the bed posts, which she did with dispatch, and then over Hawk’s wrists and ankles, and pull, tight.

Except that he needed to change position. Drat.

Whatever she tried, she could not get him to move. At length, she touched his ear, and he rolled to his back, swatted air, and let his arm fall, leaving it extended.

A good thing Sabrina gave her long and sturdy ribbons. Within minutes, Alex had her husband bound, wrist and ankles to the bed, and what a picture he made.

She climbed in beside him, giddy as a child at Christmas, with the most marvelous black brocade package before her, just waiting to be unwrapped.

First, she untied the sash on his dressing gown. Next, she opened it, one side at a time, until the beauty of her husband was fully, finally, revealed to her.

Except that beauty was not what she saw first. His wounds were, and they were hideous.

Sorrow rose in Alex and she swallowed several hard times to overcome her need to weep for the pain he must have endured. His scars were formidable, wide, thick, ruddy. His left thigh was all one big knotted scar narrowing to a burst of long thin scars, as if the bayonet’s blade had gotten caught and must be thrust up and down to free it.

A whimper escaped Alex as she bent to kiss the marked flesh, which must be sensitive, because Hawk moaned and tried to shift away. Alex panicked. She had barely begun, and if he woke, her seduction would be finished.

As she watched, he calmed and remained sleeping.

Alex sighed. No wonder he limped. ‘Twas a wonder he was a man whole. And he was. She had seen and felt his magnificent manhood. Ah and he was beautiful there, too, even at rest, as was his chest, which she dared not as yet touch, and his face … and his soul.

Alex examined everything at length, all his various and sundry man parts, the one that would become hard was soft as silk, the soft ones were squishy.

She cupped his ballocks as she fingered his length, and just like that, the little devil came to life. Hawk sighed with her every stroke.

He gasped and she jumped, then she fingered the sudden droplet that appeared and rubbed it over the tip, and Hawk moaned and grew two lengths on the instant.

Ah yes, like a horse.

She closed her hand around him, as he taught her in the bath, and she felt his ballocks firm and tighten, felt his entire torso start and stiffen.

Prickles chased up her spine and along her nape and Alex looked up … and saw that he was watching her, his topaz eyes hard as flint, but bright as fire.

Her heart tripped, while lust and fear fought for dominance. “Ah … now that I have it in my hand,” Alex said. “I do not know what to do with it.”

Hawk tried to move and saw that he was bound, and the fire in his eyes leapt.

Alex got scorched.

“Mount me,” he said, growing impossibly larger, his voice deep and demanding. “Have your siren’s way with me. But do it now, by God. I have waited too bloody long as it is.”

Her heart about to pound from her breast, Alex swung a leg over Hawk, but given his current size, mounting him seemed physically impossible. “I do not think it will fit.”

“If you wish to take the lead, then do so, if you wish me to lead the way and make it easier for you, free me.”

“No, you have been too skittish to follow through, and I will not go one more night untouched.”

Hawk groaned and Alex saw that tic working in his cheek. He seemed actually to be suffering.

“I am coming. I am coming,” she said.

“So had I better be, and soon.”

Alex giggled, but she nearly managed at the same time to fit him to her, except that. “Really, you are enormous. Is this normal?”

He grinned. Hawksworth grinned. For the first time in years, she saw his smile.

Alex grinned as well, so happy of a sudden, she could hardly bear it. “Prepare yourself,” she said. “Because this is going to be wonderful.”

“I expect nothing less.”

“Ouch. Drat.”

“Wait. Do not hurt yourself.”

“Can I do that?”

Hawk sighed. “Release me so I can at least prepare you to receive me.”

“Absolutely not. How would you prepare me?”

“I would make certain you were … fluid.”

“Wet, you mean? Oh, I am. Touching you always does that to me. It is a good thing then? I did not know.”

“It is a good thing.” Hawk pulled against his fetters and cursed. “Set me free, so I can make you mine, once and for all, damn it.”

“No. I will make you mine, instead.”

“Be gentle with me.” That spark of mirth was back in his eyes.

Oh how wonderful it was to see. “Ah,” she said, finding the right place for everything suddenly and impaling herself, ever so slowly upon him. “There, that did not hurt, did it?”

Hawk hissed and bared his teeth.

“It did hurt! Do you want me to stop?”

“Good God, no!”

“What should I do now?”

“Push harder, I have not breached you yet.”

“Can you not help?”

Something akin to a groan and a pained laugh escaped Hawk as he arched and impaled her in one deep thrust.

Alex screamed, but as the scream died, her shock turned to wonder, then joy, and she smiled, because…. “You are all the way in. I am no longer a virgin! We should celebrate.”

“Move from that spot and I will strangle you.”

“Yes, Bryce. What would you have me do next?”

“Ride me.”

“Pardon?”

Hawk used his hips and urged his wife to follow as he went, and when she did, and they began to move with more speed and greater unity, wonder struck, and she learned what men and women had known through the ages. Making love with the mate whose soul touches yours can be a most incredible experience.

Half way to heaven when she made the discovery, Alex continued to climb toward the firmament, her wonder growing apace with her pleasure, until Hawk called her name and she answered, and followed him up and over the precipice.

She dozed astride him, her face against his chest, his arms around her, until the feel of him hardening inside her alerted her to her position and his growing need.

Alex sat up, pushed the hair from her eyes, smiled, and they made love, again.

“When you set me free,” Hawk said, “be prepared to spend a month on your back.” He thrust upward, and upward, prepared to love her in whatever position she wanted. In the tub or out. At Huntington Lodge or at the bottom of Devil’s Dyke—there was a thought.

Thrice more she took him, or he took her, and thrice more they rode toward the stars, until Hawk was so desperate for the freedom to love her as he wished, that he all-out yanked at his tethers … and snapped a bed post.

Alex screeched as it came down.

“Are you hurt? Alex?”

She was not hurt, but laughing, laughing so hard that she could not catch her breath. And when he saw, and realized what they had done, Hawksworth began to laugh as well, full bodied and throaty. It was … not a bad feeling.

That lump for his dead comrades still clogged his throat, but a yearning for life, for Alexandra, filled him as well, so he stepped from his bonds, the inner bonds of sorrow, first. Then, as he regarded his hysterical wife, he divested himself of the outward bonds of black satin, took her into his arms and loved her again.

This time Hawk led the loving, slow and easy, gentle and sweet. It was everything beautiful living could offer—touches, kisses and soft warm strokes. He was marking Alex as his, when he should not, God help him … for he could not help himself.

Alex opened her eyes at about noon the following day and looked into the sultry, satisfied cat’s eyes of her lover.

Hawk’s somber expression relaxed then and his eyes crinkled at the corners … and his lips…. A smile she saw growing there. And tears filled her eyes, but good tears, of wonder and happiness.

“I … missed you, Lexy. I missed you so much sometimes that I could have shouted for wanting you.”

“Why did you take so long to say so? Why not make me yours?”

“I did not want to chain you to a marriage with someone you did not love. I wanted to be able to set you free, if that was your wish. For your own good, I kept from you.”

“For my own good? My good?”

“Well not for mine. I have been aching to have you.”

“You have been aching? What about me? What gives you the right to decide what is right for me, to make up rules in my name? Who do you think you are?”

“Your husband.”

“Oh, of course. And husbands have that right.”

“They do.”

“But you have decided that you might no longer be my husband. Then you would lose your right to make decisions in my name, correct?”

“Correct,” he said, wavering, unsure of himself.

“Fine. Then our marriage is dissolved in all but the signed documents. You have no more rights over me.”

“Wrong. We can no longer annul the marriage. You are stuck with me.”

“In that case, I want a bill of divorcement.”

Hawk paled and panic infused his features. “Then you shall have it.”

“Good. Now I may make my own decisions. Can you guess what I have decided?”

“No, I cannot.”

“Since you have no say in the matter, I have decided to take my former husband as my lover.” She mounted him, and Hawk offered no resistance, as a matter of fact, that look of panic left him and color returned to his features.

“I may no longer have you tied to my bed,” Alex said. “but I am going to have my wicked, seductive way with you, anyway. And you are going to—”

“Pull you into my arms and suffer the consequences.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Alex barely got downstairs that afternoon before Sabrina arrived with the children to return Beatrix who had spent the night at Stanthorpe House.

She and Sabrina watched the boys chase Bea up to the nursery, and then they went into the small salon for a comfortable chat. The minute they were alone, Sabrina put a fretting Juliana to her breast to suckle and calm her. “Now, tell me what happened,” Sabrina said. “Every detail.”

“I will tell you my every detail, if you tell me yours.”

Sabrina gaped, wide-eyed for a moment, then they both dissolved into laughter.  Sabrina smiled. “Your seduction was … satisfactory, I take it? You are positively aglow.”

“As are you.”

“Ouch! Do not bite, Mama, sweet. I wish babies did not get their teeth quite so soon.”

“Is that not the time to wean a babe, then?” Alex asked, sincerely curious, since, after the night past, she could very well find herself in the family way.

Sabrina closed her bodice and sat her daughter on her lap to pat her back. “Yes, it is. I love the connection that nursing gives me and my babies, but I will have to stop soon.” She smiled. “I am expecting Stanthorpe’s child.”

“Ah Sabrina,” Alex said rising and going to hug her friend. “I am happy for you. I hope you are pleased, since this is your fourth.”

“I am thrilled, because it is Stanthorpe’s first, though you would never guess it to see him with the others, would you? And still he is as excited as a schoolboy on holiday. More so. But I think you have been avoiding my question.”

Alexandra rose with a dreamy smile. “In response to your question, let me ask a question of my own. What do you think the Duchess of Basingstoke will say when she discovers that we broke the bed?”

Sabrina whooped. “Oh, good show! Gideon will be green with envy, for you have managed to do something that we have not.”

Alex giggled.

“Ah, you are happy.”

Alex sighed. “I am, and yet … Do you think I am good enough for Hawksworth? His father once told me that I would not be a fit wife for him.”

“That man was a self-centered bully. He cared for none who suffered for his cause. Oh, Alex, I am so certain that you and Hawk care for each other, and yet, you seem at cross purposes the better part of the time.”

“I have always loved him—you know that—but I assure you that Hawk is only making the best of a difficult situation. He would never have married me, if he did not need someone to care for his family while he went to war. I know that. But he is a good man and he will be a good husband.”

Sabrina shook her head and seemed about to argue when Hawksworth came in. “I saw Demon and Rapscallion upstairs,” he said, kissing Sabrina’s cheek, “and knew you would be about. How is the little one?”

“Asleep, thank goodness.”

“Here,” Alex, said, taking Juliana, “let me take her up and put her in a crib, so you two can talk.”

Hawk watched Alex leave. “She looks a treat with a little one in her arms, does she not?”

Sabrina shook her head. “How long have you loved her?”

“Love? I am quite certain that I am incapable of love. Why do you ask?”

Sabrina threw her hands in the air. “Blind the two of you.”

“I do not know about blind, Hawk said, but I must be stupid.” He regarded her earnestly. “I know, because I have done a very stupid and unloving thing.”

Sabrina scoffed. “What, pray, is that?”

“I have ruined Alexandra’s chance for happiness.”

“How?”

“I have made it impossible to give her the annulment she deserves.”

“Deserves? Annulment? What nonsense is this?”

“She merits better than a broken man like me. She should have the man she loves.”

“Who is … Chesterfield … who … you hate.”

“All right, then, she deserves the man she loves, as long as he is … other than Chesterfield.”

“No wonder she needed to—”

“Needed to what?”

“Who the bloody devil would you consider good enough for her?” Sabrina shouted. “No one, I say.”

“You are overwrought and talking nonsense.”

“I am? Do you remember how downhearted I once was about not having Gideon’s love? Remember what you told me? ‘Learn to trust,’ you said. ‘Trust is everything.’ You also knew instinctively that love must be earned and returned, if one wished to keep it.”

Sabrina patted his arm. “It is past time you learned your own lessons, Hawksworth. You were running from life when you told me those things, and I am sorry to tell you, but you are running still.”

On Saturday, the Vicar arrived for Hildy and Giff’s wedding at quarter to one. Hildy arrived at one fifteen. At two, Uncle Gifford was yet to be found.

While Hawk went off in search of his uncle, Baxter took Alex to one side. “I must say that I understand my cousin’s determination to keep you, no matter the cost. I must also say that I very much appreciate your help.”

Alex stiffened. “What are you talking about?”

“It must be grand to have so much power as to accomplish what so many men tried and failed before you.”

“What have so many tried and failed?”

“To bring down the great Hawksworth, of course. Ruin him. How does it feel to have been the one to finally impoverish him and … bring him to his knees, so to speak?”

Baxter’s tone was so filled with innuendo, and his demeanor so forward, that Alex took a step back, but he stepped closer. “You do know that I inherited in his stead, because his father disinherited him for marrying you, do you not? That there was a codicil to the will?” Baxter shook his head in disbelief. “The funny thing is, Hawk might annul the marriage, or divorce you, and get his inheritance back, but he refuses.”

Despite her horror at the revelation, Alex knew she faced the true Baxter Wakefield, a blackguard, as they once suspected. “I am afraid that I must ask you to leave.”

“You have no say in this house.” Baxter smiled, though his eyes did not. “Ah, there is my dear Claudia.”

Not two minutes later, Hawk came for Alex and Hildy. Giff was waiting to see them in the library, and Alex would do or say nothing to spoil her aunt’s wedding.

Hildy trembled as Alex and Hawk escorted her into the book-lined room. “It is all right if you have changed your mind,” Hildy said to Giff as they entered.

“My dear,” he said from across the room, looking quite forlorn.

“Be happy, Giff. That is all I care about. Changing your mind will not break me. I am a tough old bird, remember?”

Giff cursed and crossed to her then she was in his arms. “My tough old bird.” He kissed her brow. “And if I were worthy of you, I would be honored to be your husband. But, Hildy, I am not. You are better off without me.”

“What nonsense is this?” Hawk asked, even as he remembered Sabrina asking him the same question, even if Giff’s unworthiness rang another familiar alarum.

Alex touched Hawk’s hand to calm him. “Giff, what is this about? I think my aunt has a right to know, even if Hawk and I do not. Do you wish the two of us to leave?”

“No, Lass,” Giff said, seating Hildy and sitting to take her hand. “I want you to hear what I have to say.”

Hawk and Alex sat.

“I am an old reprobate,” Giff said. “A scoundrel, a rakehell, worse. Put simply, I do not deserve you, Hildegarde Huntington. While it might appear that I have put my profligate ways behind me, I have only recently laid the last to rest, and even then, I was not capable of doing so on my own.”

“Giff, no,” Alex said.

The old man shook his head. “Enough of protecting me, Lass.” Giff regarded Hawk. “You have been the son I never had, and I wanted you to be proud of me, so I have kept my counsel since you returned, but I must speak now, because Hildy and Alex deserve my candor. You deserve it.”

“Giff, honestly—”

“I am a lousy gambler. I have always been, but it is Alex who paid the price. Your wife paid my gambling debts, Hawksworth. Your niece, Hildy, who was already responsible for the lot of us, got me out of debt. To the sum of nearly five thousand pounds. I do not know how she paid it, but I have been so afraid that the cost would break her.”

Tears filled Gifford’s eyes. “Forgive me Alex, Hawk.” He bent to kiss her aunt’s hand, humbly bowing before her. “Forgive me, my love.”

Hildy cupped his face and brought it up to hers. “There is nothing to forgive. But thank you for telling me. I have always been proud of my niece, but never more so than at this moment.”

“As am I.” Giff smiled. “If you care to take this old reprobate in hand, you tough old bird, I wish very much that you would do so. If you cannot, I understand.”

Alex rose and led Hawksworth from the room, shutting the door behind them.

“Why did you not tell me?” he asked, when they were in the hall. “Why did you let me chastise you and make you vow to stop gambling?”

“What was there to say?”

Hawk seemed surprised at her hard tone.

“Those were your words to me, remember, when I asked why you had not told me you saved Gideon? You and I talk all the time, Hawksworth, but I swear to God, that we manage to do so without speaking one word of significance. And frankly, I do not think deceit, or conscious omission, is something I can live with. As to that bill of divorcement … I was not joking. Please seek one as quick as may be.”

Alex knew she left Hawk reeling when she went to ask the Vicar and the rest of the guests to be patient.

When at length Hildy and Gifford arrived, their wedding was perhaps the most beautiful Alex ever attended. So beautiful, she could not stop weeping.

Twice Hawk tried to pull her aside to speak to her, twice she managed to rebuke him. “Fine,” he whispered at the last. “Giff and Hildy’s wedding is not an appropriate time or place for the conversation we need to have.”

The thought and ramifications of which skittered up Alex’s spine like a portent of doom.

“But we will talk,” he promised, “and before this day is done.”

The house reverberated with wedding guests and Christmas guests. It rang with the whoops of two little Indian boys and a small Indian princess, named Beatrix, all of them excited by the notion that in two days time, gifts would be brought in the night by a Saint named Nick.

“Baxter, stop encouraging them,” Claudia said.

“Shh,” Baxter whispered, pulling Claude aside. “I am trying to create a diversion, so we can escape.”

“Are you certain this is a good idea?”

“What, Claude, crying craven?” Baxter laughed at the whooping children. “That’s right, Rafe, see if you can scalp that blighter by the wassail bowl.”

While Rafe and Damon performed a war dance nearby, a barking beagle and an ill-favored cat chased a hedgehog beneath a table upon which rested said wassail bowl, nearly knocking the bowl and at least one guest off their respective pedestals.

Despite Claude’s consistent warning, Baxter encouraged the marauding savages, increasing their overabundance of energy.

When war inevitably broke out, very little got broken, except an iced Christmas torte and the temper of a certain Vicar who did not appreciate the notion of wearing same.

To calm the guests, and the bride and groom’s nerves, Hawk and Gideon were encouraged to accompany three Indians up the stairs, each savage carrying a cat, a pup, or a hedgehog.

“You will never guess, Uncle Bryce,” Damon said, “But Papa tells the most amazing stories.”

“A story it is, then,” Gideon said.

Bea climbed into Hawk’s lap to cuddle and listen to the story of a blue fairy and a handsome prince, until she got drowsy and yawned and Hawk kissed her brow.

“I love you, Uncle Bryce,” she said, patting his bewhiskered cheek. “You will always be my most handsome prince.”

Hawk felt a hard old knot of sorrow melt at her words and he looked up and saw Rafferty, with the ugliest cat in the Kingdom draped over his shoulder, petting it with devoted care. That boy did not see a stub tale, scarred fur the color of mud, or a torn ear. Quite simply, he loved that cat so much, he was blind to its flaws. As Bea seemed blind to his scars.

Hawk stood, nodding for Gideon to continue his story, and went to place Beatrix in her little bed. She woke when he laid her down and asked him to take a nap with her, so he lay down beside her.

When he woke, the color of the sky outside her window had changed to smoke. As he rose, Beatrix woke as well.

“Did you have a good sleep, Pup?”

She stretched and nodded. “I dreamed that instead of having Chesterfield’s baby, Alex was going to have a baby for us. Would that not be nice, Uncle Bryce?”

Hawk stopped moving when Bea’s words penetrated, and now he could barely breathe. He kissed her nose. “Stay with the twins and Uncle Gideon, will you?”

Hawk went downstairs to look for Alex, his heart beating a wild tattoo.

He found, not a mob of guests in the drawing room, or anywhere, but the Duchess of Basingstoke pacing the gold salon, wringing her hands. Alexandra’s Aunt Hildegarde, with tears in her eyes, was trying to calm the woman.

“What has happened?” Hawk asked, feeling as if he stepped into a nightmare. “Where is everyone? Where is Alex?”

Hildy began to weep. “Alex has run off to Gretna Green with Chesterfield.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“You know, Alex, you can ride inside the carriage,” Chesterfield said. “You do not need to sit up here on the driver’s box, and freeze, just to keep me company.”

“We should have taken the horses,” Alex said. “Then we could have gotten there faster.”

“We could not take the horses. I told you, after we catch up with Claudia and Baxter—and after I shoot Baxter—we will need the carriage to take Claudia back. I suppose I shall have to wait to beat her until we get her home.”

Alex scoffed. “Tell me again what Baxter’s note said.”

“That he was taking Claudia to Gretna Green to ruin her reputation, and if I did not arrive with ten thousand pounds before morning, he would ruin her in truth and separate us forever.”

“Even Baxter knows you love her.”

“He is a fool. A dead fool.”

“Do not be rash,” Alex warned.

Chesterfield laughed hard and self-mocking. “I was not rash when it came to you, Alex. I did not want a simpering miss nor a green girl who would bore me to tears. Neither did I want a social butterfly who would spend all my money. I wanted a rational, mature, unspoiled female to give me an heir and grow old by my side. I was not rash when I chose you, and look where that got me.”

“Point taken,” Alex said. “But will you have the patience for a girl like Claudia?”

“Claude has more wisdom and maturity than we sometimes credit her for. She has been forced into growing up, has she not, having lost her parents and then her uncle, for a time?”

“I have seen her maturity, yes, but I have also seen the little girl, the child who wants what she wants.”

“And how does that make her different from you?”

Alex laughed. “She overheard us that day, right after our near-wedding, when you came to the Lodge.”

“She told me.”

“When did she? You have hardly had a moment to talk.”

“Alex, once Claudia knew I lived at Hawks Ridge, she used to sneak over there at every opportunity. We went for walks, we played billiards. She even helped me deliver a foal. We have talked; believe me, though never more thoroughly than on the night she climbed in my bedroom window at two in the morning. That was the day you came to London.”

“The little twit.”

Chesterfield grinned.

“Judson Broderick, what did you do?”

He look affronted. “I remained on my best behavior, I assure you.”

Alex squeaked. “I know your best behavior. I was betrothed to you.”

Chesterfield cleared his throat. “She remains untouched, I promise you.”

“Look at me.”

He did, but he failed to infuse his look with the depth of innocence she would wish. “Hah. Just barely, I think. Drive faster.”

“Hurrying now will not change anything.”

Alex paled. “But you said—”

Chesterfield cursed. “That is not what I meant. I meant that hurrying would not change the past, and we should probably worry about what Claude will do to Baxter,” but Chesterfield urged his matched pair on, nevertheless. “When I know she is safe, I really am going to beat her.”

“Ah, Judson, you do care for her.”

“Do you think Hawksworth will let me have her?”

“Not in a million years.”

* * *

As Hawk began his trek through the shrouded fog of the chill December night, he knew that Alex was lost to him. He knew it, yet he could not stand aside and let her run off with Chesterfield.

He had not looked back when the Duchess and Aunt Hildy called to him, but walked faster than he thought possible. Continuing on to the stables, he found a guest’s saddled Arabian, ready for imminent departure, which he mounted, and rode, hell for leather, down the mews road.

He had not even slowed his pace when Myerson and the horse’s owner tried to chase him down. He simply headed north toward the outskirts of London and straight for Scotland.

Where the devil had he gone wrong?

Alex, of course—she was where he went wrong. Not by marrying her, but by being so stupid as to leave her after he had been so brilliant as to marry her.

Because of that—because of his running off to war and getting himself killed—she had become desperate enough to accept Chesterfield. But had she found it necessary to seduce the man to get him to offer marriage? Was that how she got herself with child? If she were with child, which Hawk could not bring himself to believe.

Seduction—that was laughable, when it was exactly what he suspected her of attempt—

No, with him, she had succeeded in her passionate, single-minded, effort to … make it appear as if the child she carried was his?

The probability hit Hawk like a blow, sharp, breath-stealing and … still impossible to believe.

She had been a virgin when he breached her, said she was and appeared to be—though there must be ways to make it appear— Hawk cursed, nearly as muddled now as when he woke to discover that she had tied him to the bed. Even then, he wished he had not drunk so much that night—that glorious, incredible night.

Again, Hawk urged his horse to greater speed.

Damn it to hell; no one was going to have Alex, but him, baby or not. No one. He was certainly not going to sit idly by while she and Chesterfield lived in bloody sin together.

Hawksworth shouted a curse into the night. He was her husband, damn it, and he would bloody well remain so. No one could possibly love Alex more than he did.

Did he? Was he capable? Love?

Yes, by God, and he would not let her go. How could he? How did one cut out one’s own heart? Which must explain why he had not finished his deathbed letter to her. Could he not bring himself to say goodbye?

Devil take it, had he loved her even then? Before then? When?

As Hawk rode neck or nothing along the Great North Road, he tried to mark the events in his life that led him to fall in love with the scourge and shadow of his growing up years.

He looked as far back as that tiny mud-drenched urchin standing at the bottom of the Dyke, looking up at him as if he were a bright silver knight, her very own.

He saw a young girl, all arms and legs and big turquoise eyes, warning other girls away from him. He saw the joyful look on her radiant face when he asked her to marry him, then her broken expression when he said goodbye after the ceremony, her chin raised despite her pain.

He saw Alex, the woman, seduction-bent, who bound him and loved him in a fever of passion, with a physical abandon he never imagined married love could embrace.

Hawk shook his head. No single event had made him love her, but all of them, everything about her—faults and strengths—had nurtured and grown his love, not to mention the sense of worth with which she had endowed him upon sight.

To Alex, from the beginning, he was everything.

To him, now and for eternity, she was everything.

He must tell her so, finally, in the event that he was the most fortunate of men and she loved him, as he once, long-ago, suspected, but denied.

No more putting it off, even if, after he was finished slicing open his heart for her inspection, she chose Chesterfield after all.

If she had the courage to run off with the blighter, for whatever reason, then she damn well had the courage to leave him, if that was her choice.

And if it was, he must let her go, once and for all.

Hawk did not know why it had taken him so bloody long to realize the possibility of love. He only hoped it would not take Alex as long.

He hoped, beyond hope, that he was not too late.

“I am no longer certain that this is a good plan,” Claudia told Baxter, “pretending we are eloping so Chesterfield will be drawn into following. Perhaps he will not realize how much he loves me, but that he had much rather live without such pranks. Perhaps we should turn around.”

“This is a brilliant plan,” Baxter said. “Chesterfield will think so, too, once he has you in his arms.”

“And you are certain we will be home by nine? Uncle Hawk insists upon it, even though I am nearly eighteen.”

Claudia turned to regard the inn they had just passed. “Oh, wait, that was the Georges Inn where you said a maid would be waiting to chaperone me. You said we would wait for Chesterfield there, and there is where I said, in my note, he could find me. Baxter … tell your man to stop the carriage.”

When he remained silent, Claudia crossed the interior of the vehicle to touch her cousin’s arm. “Baxter, what are you doing? We cannot leave London so late in the afternoon. It is gone past four.”

Baxter looked at her as if she had sprouted horns, and for the first time, Claudia saw a man she did not recognize, a stranger she began to fear.

“You are worse than a baby,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that the note I left for Chesterfield in place of yours was worded a bit different. I mean, shut up and let me think for bloody sakes.”

At about two in the morning, Hawk entered the Gretna Hall Hotel, just over the Scottish border, the second inn he’d tried since reaching Scotland. As he did at the first inn, Hawk went straight to the bedchamber the maid said was occupied by an English couple, hoping that, this time, the occupants were not positioned in the bed so as to stop his heart.

Again, Hawk pushed the door open without knocking. “Alexandra Wakefield, I do not care if you carry the cad’s child, I will not allow you to live in sin with him.”

Alexandra and Claudia gasped.

Chesterfield barked a laugh, even as he held a pistol aimed at Baxter’s ballocks. Baxter, himself, on the floor, gagged and bound.

Everyone began speaking at once.

“Cease!” Chesterfield shouted until nothing could be heard save Baxter’s muffled pleas.

“I take it I am the cad in question?” Chesterfield drawled. “And that somehow you have it in your head—”

“Do not even say it,” Alex snapped. “It was Beatrix, was it not? The eavesdropping little hoyden.”

Hawk felt himself go cold. “Then you are—”

Alex raised her chin. “Of course, I am.”

Again, Chesterfield laughed. “Damn, I have not had this much fun in an age.”

Chesterfield’s words and his mirth relieved Hawk of worry. Alexandra could not be carrying the man’s child.

Claudia even grinned at the comment, though Chesterfield rounded on her for it. “Do not think you are off the hook, Miss, for you will be turned over my knee, the minute we get home.”

“What is going on here?” Hawk asked, assimilating the scene: Chesterfield standing over Baxter, the tears in Claudia’s eyes, Alexandra’s arms about her, Alex’s worry. “Alex? Claude? Are you all right?”

“I have a bruised jaw and bloody knuckles,” Chesterfield grumbled. “But do not ask if I am all right.”

“Baxter kidnapped Claudia,” Alex said. “Of course we are not all right.”

Claudia shook her head in denial. “Not exactly kidnapped, Uncle Bryce, but I did not know that he planned to take me this far. I swear I did not.”

“I told you, Hawksworth, to take care of her,” Chesterfield said. “This is exactly what I predicted would happen, otherwise.”

“I suppose you think you can do better?” Hawk asked.

“I bloody well can. As a matter of fact, I expect permission to marry her for my part in this.”

“She is already married to me, damn it!”

Chesterfield looked to the heavens in a bid for patience. “Stop being love-bit for a minute and listen. This is not about you and Alex but about me and Claudia.”

“If I cannot think for seeing Alex, it is her own fault, for she has been single-minded—”

“Hawksworth, do not.”

Claudia grinned and nodded for Chesterfield to try again.

“Hawksworth, I respectfully request your permission to marry your—”

“Permission denied. You are not half good enough for her.”

“Uncle Hawk!”

“No, Claudia, your uncle is right,” Chesterfield said. “I am not half good enough for you. And since you are not half obedient enough for—”

“I will second that,” Hawk said, scowling at his niece.

Chesterfield nodded. “Good, we are in agreement.”

“We are, for once.”

“Fine then. While we wait for the law to come and claim this cod-head, let us play a game of cards.”

“Cards? Now? Are you out of your mind? Besides, you know I always win.”

Chesterfield shrugged. “My skills improved while you were away. Let me prove it with one hand. The winner gets Hawks Ridge.”

“Of course I will not play for those stakes.”

“Why not?”

“Look at the way Alex is grinning. Even she knows that you are trying to give the estate back to me. You will let me win, and I do not like to be let win. I do not want my home handed back to me on a gilded platter, nor will I accept it as a bribe for my niece’s hand.”

“You think I am a card cheat then?”

“Of course not. You are simply not as good a player as I am.”

“You as much as said that I would throw the game, which makes me a cheat in your mind.”

“I know you are not a cheat, but I believe you would— I do not know what you would do, but … you are not to be trusted right now. Lust will do that to a man.” Hawk regarded Alex with a raised brow and stern expression. “I should know.”

Chesterfield smiled. “Perhaps I am simply a good man who would like to see you have your home back.

Hawk looked annoyed. “Perhaps.”

“Perhaps, I am a good man who loves your niece and will take excellent care of her.” Chesterfield looked pointedly at Claudia. “I will certainly keep her too busy to get into trouble.”

Hawk noted the way his niece and his nemesis regarded each other. Hope, love, filled their gazes. Was this what happened when one loved? One could recognize the emotion in others? “Damn.”

Claudia screamed in victory and tore from Alexandra’s arms to fly into Chesterfield’s. The kiss Hawk witnessed made the uncle in him bristle and want to do harm. He went over and slapped Chesterfield on the back, hard. “We had best find a parson.”

Chesterfield looked up, eyes aglaze.

“To the parson,” Hawk repeated. “Now.”

“What, now?”

“Either that or we take Claudia home. I will not have you kissing my unmarried niece in that unseemly manner.”

Chesterfield focused on the blushing Claudia, the light of awareness entering his eyes. “Now is a very good time.”

They left Baxter in the taproom to await the law, and after they did, Chesterfield stopped to face Alex. “I did not forgive the five thousand pounds as I let you believe. Hawk paid the debt, but he did not want you to know.”

Hawk cursed.

Alex ignored him. “When did he pay it?”

“A few days before Giff and Hildy’s wedding, the day he returned from the country.”

“Thank you Chesterfield, for telling me.”

Chesterfield nodded. “Now my conscience is clear. Claudia, will you have me?”

Ian McGillivray married them in a quaint corner of the hotel itself, making their wedding a deal more special than the two-minute, over-the-anvil ceremony that might have taken place at the old thatched and white-washed blacksmith shop down the street.

By then Baxter had been carted off, and all four made their way back upstairs to spend what was left of the night. They would set off in a few short hours, so they could be home in time for Christmas Eve with the family.”

“Goodnight, Alex,” Chesterfield said, kissing her cheek and shaking Hawk’s hand. “Goodnight, Uncle.” Chesterfield grinned, put an arm around Claudia, hugged her close, and laughed all the way to their bedchamber.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Hawk escorted Alex into their own chamber, his jaw so rigid by the time the door closed, she half expected him to hand her that bill of divorcement.

“You are not carrying his child,” he said.

The phrase—as much of a query as an order—struck like a clap of thunder, echoing off the walls and shivering Alex to her roots.

“Will you raise it as your own? As your heir, if I have a son?”

Hawk paled and wavered, but firmed his stance. “I will.”

That her confirmation did not bring his instant consent to a divorce infused Alex with sorrow and hope, for if she did not force him to dissolve their marriage, he would lose everything … as she would gain everything. If they did divorce, there might be enough of his inheritance left to regain Hawks Ridge. “Why?” she asked.

“I realized, on my way here, that even when I could not step from my father’s control, I found a reason to marry you that was more important than him, and more important than me … Beatrix and Claudia. They needed you, so I married you, despite my father.”

Hawk fixed his regard on her then, with such deep concentration—or was it longing?—that Alex began to pace, for she could not stand still. She wished he had opposed his father for his own sake, for if he did that, she would know that he was free and spoke the truth from his heart.

“Bea still needs us both,” he said.

Alex sighed, aching for the one who would suffer most for their parting, but even Bea would suffer if their marriage stood on so rocky a foundation. “I know she does.”

Hawk nodded. “You once said that we must remain together for the sake of the family? Do you still believe it? Though it is a great deal to ask.”

The dart went straight to her heart. “Is it?”

“God’s teeth,” Hawk said. “I mean it is too much to ask of you.”

Alex saw from his appalled expression that he spoke true. “Are you certain that staying together is what you want?”

“More than anything.”

That surprised her. “The rogue of Devil’s Dyke for a lifetime? I do not know. Do you think you can manage me?”

“No one has ever been able to manage you.” Hawk’s eyes actually smiled. “But if you mean, can I bear our remaining married? I can, if you can.”

They were still playing games, of a sort, and Alex despised it. “I would have a promise.”

“Then you shall have it. I am in your debt for at least a dozen.”

She wished she could collect every one. “This is more of a demand.”

“Name it.”

“No more secrets.”

Hawk bent to a hearth framed with delft tiles to light the fire. “What do you want to know?”

The sight of him performing the homey task made Alex want a life with him so badly that she had to swallow twice before she could speak. “Why did you not tell me that you lost your inheritance, because you married me?”

Hawk set tinder to flame then rose to face her. “I did not know about the codicil to my father’s will, until I saw the solicitor, and then it was too late.”

“It was not too late,” she said, her voice rising. “We could have gotten an annulment back then. And you are still speaking in half-truths.”

“Alex, shh.” Hawk stepped forward to take her by the shoulders, as if she must hear him. “That it was too late had nothing to do with our consummated, or unconsummated, marriage. It had to do with my unwillingness to let you go.”

“Too stubborn to give up?” she asked stepping away, for her resolve could vanish in such joy, and then she would have no strength left to let him go.

He raised a brow. “Among other things.”

Alex could not bear an elaboration; she carried too many unanswered questions. “Where did you get the five thousand pounds to pay Chesterfield?”

Hawk’s quick smile weakened her knees, boding ill for her cause. “Remember the tiny alabaster bust we dug up near the water-meadows a hundred years ago?” he asked.

Alex could not stop her smile. “You love that piece.”

“I love it even more now. I sold it for a tidy sum. My good luck, I should have realized, began the day I found you. I will tell you all about the sale later, but know that, even after paying Chesterfield, there is enough left to set the Lodge and property to rights and begin breeding horses.”

“How much were you able to get for it?”

Hawk grinned. “Fifteen thousand pounds.”

Alex gasped. “But that was enough to buy back Hawks Ridge! Why did you not give Chesterfield the money for your estate? Why pay my debt?”

“It was not your debt.”

“You did not know that at the time.”

“Freeing you from Chesterfield was more important—no, that is wrong. You were more important to me.”

“But Hawks Ridge is your heritage, your home.”

“Alex, my home is wherever you are, whether in a mansion, or at the bottom of the Dyke. Besides, I find myself looking forward to the challenge of bringing Huntington Lodge back to its former glory.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. “Which is something I want more than my next breath for us to do together.”

Alex might rejoice at Hawk’s words, if not for his father’s will. “Your father warned me,” she said, turning away, fingering a blue damask bed-curtain. “He said I would be the worst possible wife for you.” She looked up. “I should have listened, for now I have made you turn your back on your birthright.”

“My father was a heartless schemer, whose machinations served only him, his plans, his power to control. You are the wife for me, Alex, the best wife, the only wife I want.”

Beguiled by his words, Alex pulled away. “No. Listen. If I had not married you, you would not have been able to go to war, so you would not have been wounded and scarred, or lost your home and your wealth. Hawk, you have lost everything, because of me.”

“I have lost everything, only, if I have lost you. Why will you not believe me?” he asked, stepping once forward for each of her steps back. Catching up, he placed his hands on either side of her face. “Listen to my words, Alex. I love you, and I want to stay married to you. In so saying, I am fully cognizant that I repudiate my father, thereby burying him and his hold over me—over both of us—once and forever.”

Alex nearly shouted for joy. Hawk’s declaration was everything she dreamed, but it was time for her to be honest as well. “You should know,” she said, stepping to the window and looking out, “that I planned to seduce you as a form of revenge.”

Hawk wanted to tell her that hers was a sweet revenge, but he could see that she was serious, and this was no time for levity. “Why did you?”

“After you left for France, I heard your friends talking—though you recently said they are not your friends. Still, they knew that you married me only to care for your family. They said you could not bear to touch me, and since you had not … touched me, I thought they knew what they were talking about.”

“Oh, Alex, I am so—”

“Do not say it. I am sick unto death of people being sorry for me. When you came home…. No, you never did come home, did you? When you stopped my wedding, and still you did not touch me, I vowed to seduce you, until you said exactly what you just did, that you wanted me, loved me, and then I was going to walk away. And because I learned your true feelings from someone else, I was going to have someone else tell you mine.” She did not say that she planned for them to go on with their marriage afterward, because now they could not.

“How could you learn my true feelings from someone else, when I did not know them myself?” Hawk shook his head. “I cannot believe that you thought of vengeance as you seduced me? As we loved, Alex?”

She looked away.

“So,” he said, “is it finished then? Are you planning to leave me now?”

Alex looked at the door and knew she must, but before she took two steps, Hawk blocked her path. “I meant what I said; I love you, though you have never said as much to me.”

“And have it thrown in my face? I think not.”

“Then you do love me?”

Alex laughed, mocking them both. “Only forever. Only since I looked up from the bottom of Devil’s Dyke and saw you coming to my rescue.” She raised a hand at his step forward. “No, do not come any closer. My admission does not mean that I will fall at your feet. Besides, I was never good enough for the handsome-as-sin Rogue of Devil’s Dyke. Why am I now?”

“Alex, you are—”

“Is it because people say I am … no longer unattractive. Is that why you think you love me? Because Hawk, beauty fades with time. Always.”

“I have learned a great deal about beauty since my return. I have seen it, first-hand, in a little girl’s adoration. In a little boy and his motley cat. An elderly couple’s love.” He smiled. “I saw beauty every time your back ached.” He touched her lips with reverence. “I see it in the way you kiss my scars.”

Alex’s eyes filled. Hawk wiped away a tear. When had he stepped close enough?

“Let me tell you something else. I never saw beauty in the man you termed a handsome-as-sin rogue. What I saw in that man was worthlessness. My father approved of rogues, so I became one, and I enjoyed the role, for a time, but I am not that man. Not quite. I am the man you have encouraged me to become. The man you see before you.

“As, layer by layer, everything I once thought important was stripped away, I saw, revealed to me, what was truly important. You, the girls, Aunt Hildy and Uncle Giff, Gideon, Sabrina, and their children. Us, working and making a home, together, caring for our family … together.”

Alex made to speak, but Hawk stopped her with a finger to her lips. “Let me try to explain why I could not bring myself to come home to you. If I never thought the handsome rogue worthy—and I did not—imagine how I felt about the beast, who, by some foolish blunder of fate, cheated death.”

Alex sobbed and stepped into his arms. “You are not a beast, you are n—”

Hawk opened his mouth over hers and kissed her with passion, with hunger and wonder, desperate to make her understand how much she meant to him. To take her love and give it back, to connect with the mate to his soul.

“Beauty,” he said, looking into her eyes, “resides where gentleness and love are the most wondrous of gifts.”

“And within one who would give his life for a friend.”

“I fell in love with you,” Hawk said, “while I was healing in Belgium, long before I saw how beautiful you had become … or so I thought. But sometime during my long ride here, I traced my love as far back as that mud-spattered urchin at the bottom of the Dyke.”

Alex toyed with his cravat. “Perhaps you love the memory of me.”

Hawk urged her toward the canopied four-poster, the fire in his eyes reminiscent of that night-stalking lion. “I am certain that is not the case, for I am in love with a hoyden,” he said, “who would shoot an arrow through the roof to get her husband into her bed.” He began to undo the buttons at her bodice with single-minded determination. “I am in lust with a siren who would tie said husband to her bed to seduce him … exquisitely.” He kissed her neck and nudged aside her bodice to kiss the crown of a breast.

“I cherish the woman who gave a mother’s heart to the orphaned daughters of another.” He kissed her brow. “I thank and honor the Lass who kept a curmudgeon’s greatest secret to give him the gift of his family’s respect.”

Alex bit her lip as tears blurred her vision.

“Do not go out that door, Alexandra Wakefield, for I would only follow. Do not walk away from me, please, I beg you. I could not bear to lose you.” He tried to pull her down on the bed with him, and despite her attempt to resist—to do the right thing and let him go—she toppled, landing atop him, her gown’s skirt settling over her head like a veil.

Hawk’s eyes darkened as his hands traveled the length of her body. “Will it hurt the babe, if I make love to you?” he asked, melting her to her marrow and making her his for good and all.

“Ah, Hawk, I can resist you no longer. You think yourself unworthy of love, but you are so worthy, you would raise another man’s child as your own. But there is no need, my love, for no man has touched me, save you. How could you not know?”

He became endearingly sheepish. “I fear I imbibed rather a lot that night.”

“Ah … speaking of secrets….”

His eyes widened. “Damn. You drugged me.”

“Never, but I did make certain that your brandy glass stayed full.”

“Sorceress.” He nuzzled her breasts, and rolled her onto her back, to rise above her. “This bed is too bloody big,” he said with a grin. Then he bent to her and threaded his fingers through her hair, on either side of her face and brushed her cheeks with his thumbs. “How would you feel about giving Beatrix a mama and a papa, both, for Christmas? We could adopt her, if you—”

“Oh, Hawk, yes. And we could give her the baby she wants.”

“This Christmas, she will have to settle for a mama and papa.” The fire in his eyes leapt and his body surged to life. “Though, if we begin now, and try very hard, perhaps we can fulfill her second wish next Christmas.”

“Yes, yes, and ye—” He stopped her with his kiss, unable to wait a minute longer to have her mouth again.

Some while later, Alex cupped his cheek. “I love you.”

Hawk was humbled and so grateful he could hardly draw breath, and neither the lump in his throat nor the speck in his eye mattered. “You will keep this wreck, who—all the king’s horses and all of his men failed to put together again?”

“I should beat you for doubting it.”

Hawk shook his head. “I should have known that you would accept me, broken as I am, but you deserve so much better, that I had the devil of a time asking it of you.”

“No need to ask.”

“I do not deserve you, but God help us both, I love and want you. Please, will you forgive this unforgivable rogue for waiting so long to come home?”

“Not unforgivable, but unforgettable. Even as I walked up the aisle to marry another, I thought only of you.”

He kissed her.  “Now, about that baby.…”

THE END

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The Rogues Club, Book Three

UNMISTAKABLE ROGUE

by

Annette Blair

PROLOGUE

Painswick, The Cotswolds, England

Vicar Clive Pomfret remembered the smell of blood in the Sunnyledge tower that night....

He’d gagged as he descended the dank stone stairs to inform Edward St. Yves, Earl of Barrington, of his wife’s passing. At the salon door, Clive stopped at the sight of his sister, Thea, kneeling before the Earl. Thea—a Vicar’s sister and a devil’s mistress—replacing a wife about to give birth, shaming him before his flock.

“Poor Clive,” Thea drawled, her smile spiteful. “Papa always said you had a mean scowl.”

“He said you would be a whore, and he was right.”

The Earl cursed with impatience. “What about my heir?”

“Your wife is dead.”

Barrington shrugged. “See to the burial. The child?”

Clive fisted his hands. “Twin boys.”

Barrington grinned, and Clive knew that the devil would raise those boys to be just like him. “Both dead,” Clive said, the justice of his pronouncement confirmed by Barrington’s vulgar oath.

Half way back up the tower stairs, Clive ordered a maid, big with child, to follow him. He could not save his sister’s soul, but he would save those boys, body and soul, and if Barrington suffered in the saving, so much the better.

To the maid, Clive presented the twin with eyes as dull and gray as the English sky. To the midwife, he gave the active twin suckling a fist, his eyes as bright as hellfire—devil’s eyes.

Clive fixed the serving women with his gaze. “Name and raise the boy you hold as your own. Tell him nothing of his roots or of his twin’s existence. Leave Sunnyledge tonight, and go your separate ways. There’s a fat purse for each of you, now, and another yearly until they are grown.”

The maid’s eyes widened at the mention of money.

“It is the will of God,” Clive intoned, a Vicar calling upon the fire of righteousness, “that the events of this night remain forever sealed. His wrath upon you and yours for eternity should you reveal them!”

“Thea? Thea?”

At the sound of her name, coming as if from afar, Thea tore herself from her brother’s deathbed memory—and her first shocking glimpse of that thirty-year-old scene. In the present, once more, she knew, finally, that Edward’s sons had lived.

She thought she heard a babe’s cry that night—an omen that the Barrington line must continue through her.

But Edward had never married her.

“Right my wrong,” Clive begged, now, with hellfire so near, he must surely feel the heat of it. “Tell the boys who they are.”

She laughed in his face. “No one will believe their father’s whore, Clive.”

“I have proof,” he said, fighting for every breath.

Thea rose so fast, she spilled a ewer of water all over him then she grasped his sodden shoulders and shook him. “You have proof where? Damn you.”

With the shock of cold water, he began to cough. “Book.” He coughed up blood. “Cask—”

Thea stepped from his entreaty and watched, unaffected, as he gasped, gurgled, and slumped over . . . dead . . . finally.

“If you do not go straight to hell,” she said, turning to rifle through his desk, “then the place does not exist.”

She found their names and directions, and there beside her brother’s dead body, Thea Pomfret wrote identical, anonymous notes to Reed Gilbride, Essex, England, and to William Somers, Beaupre, France.

“April 4, 1817. You are the missing St. Yves, Earl of Barrington, heir to Sunnyledge. See Everard Sennett, Executor, Gloucester, England. Beware there is one who would steal your heritage.”

CHAPTER ONE

Gloucester, England, May 1817

“Are you stealing those children?”

Caught at a second-story workhouse window, Chastity Somers swallowed a scream and gathered the little ones close. The moonless night, perfect for her scheme, became her foe. She could discern nothing, no one, save darkness in the alley below.

The owner of the deep, disembodied voice seemed to linger, but she dare not. She must get her new and unexpected brood to safety, or fail her husband’s young cousins the way she had failed William, himself.

With no choice but to brazen it out, Chastity nodded her hood further forward and readied her best English accent. “Do not be ridiculous. You cannot steal what is already yours.”

The intruder made no reply, so she lifted the last of the four children out the window and shut the sash.

“Kitty?” Luke’s version of her name echoed loud and alarming as he tugged at her sleeve. “You are stealing us.”

“Hush, Luke.”

“It’s all right, Sir,” Matthew called down. “We wanted stealing.”

Galvanized by the boy’s defense, Chastity shook herself. “Mark, take Bekah’s hand. Stay by the window, all of you, and hold the sill.”

They would not be taken away from her, again, Chastity vowed, as she lowered herself from the attached shed’s eaves and dropped the remaining distance to land on her bottom in the dirt.

Amid a discord of giggles, a hand grasped her upper arm, racing Chastity’s heart, trapping a scream in her throat, but her captor must sense her fear, for he gentled her, somehow, with the same touch that alarmed her in the first place.

His nearness, his scent—horse, leather, and man—put her in mind of . . . rescue and . . . sanctuary, as William had once done, except that her sense of well-being seemed stronger now than it had ever been with—

Chastity shook off the foolish notion. “I did not hear your horse approach,” she said, seeking the ordinary in an extraordinary situation.

“I call him Stealth,” the man said. “He served me well at Waterloo.”

Relieved by her fancy that the military man meant no harm, Chastity allowed him to help her stand. She should be afraid, she supposed. He had fought her people at Waterloo, but her sheltered convent background—hardly conducive to a judicious caution—taught her that all men were all God’s children.

Besides, she’d judge him as trustworthy by the tone of his voice alone.

“The children are not afraid of you,” he said, revealing his surprise.

“Of course they are not. How do you know?”

“Frightened children rarely laugh.”

Neither lonely ones, Chastity knew from personal experience, hoping she employed the same faultless instincts as the children, where this man was concerned.

Reassured, yet unnerved, by his hand on her arm, Chastity nevertheless regretted the loss of human contact when he released her. But she had no time to regard it, for Bekah’s cough urged their removal from this unhealthy place, and fast, lest the children be incarcerated, again.

Fact was, she would bargain with the devil to keep her little ones safe. “I have to get the children down,” she said. “Thank you for your help, but we can manage on our own.”

The devil had the impertinence to laugh.

“Be quiet,” Chastity hissed.

“You are sixpence short a quid,” said he, “and will get exactly what you deserve for this night’s work. Children are nothing but trouble.”

“Children are gifts from above.”

“Hah! Vengeance, more like.”

Chastity perceived some vexation in the man, but no real threat.

For all his curious notions, he seemed of a mind to let her and the children go. “We shall be fine. Truly. Thank you for stopping, but you may be on your way without further concern for our welfare.”

“‘Tis not concern detains me, but astonishment. Why would anyone seek the encumbrance of children?”

Shaking her head, Chastity turned toward the four atop the workhouse shed. “All the world and his wife would step over a dead body in the middle of St. James’s,” she snapped. “But I do something the least . . . uncommon, and am observed by someone who investigates. Matthew, lower Bekah to me.”

As she received the littlest one, Chastity hugged her close. “Good. Now Mark, then Luke.”

“Kitty, I’m hungry,” Luke said, as she set him on his feet.

“I know, darling. Hush, now.”

Deep within the bleak bowels of the parish workhouse, a bell began to toll. “Jump, Matt,” Chastity ordered, thrusting Luke into the stranger’s arms. “You’ll have to help,” she said, scooping Bekah into her own arms. “Hurry.”

Reed Gilbride heard, rather than saw, the woman hasten away, her stolen brood hard at her heels. Then he realized that if he failed to follow, he would be stuck with the urchin dangling before him. “Damn.” Reed slung the lad under his arm like a sack of grain and gave chase, his horse trotting behind.

Despite being carted off by a stranger, the lad’s giggles over his tumbling ride testified to the rare joy in his short life.

Reed had to give the woman credit, pluck to the backbone, she was. Either that or daft, he thought, as he followed her through noisome village by-ways, dodging running steps and reeling vagrants, all the while wondering why he’d got involved.

Previous to finding them, he had reached Sennett’s office hours too early, and gazed about, thinking to find a light at an inn, when in the alley across the way, a cloaked form in the window, silhouetted against the dim interior of the workhouse, had caught his attention. A matron of the asylum, he thought, until he noticed the children’s profiles atop the attached shed roof. A curious sight, yes, but he should never have stopped. What cared he for a flock of raggle-taggle street brats and their provoking protector?

The bell from the workhouse faded in the distance, and when the woman slowed, Reed set the lad in her path. “Here, you snatched him, you take him. I’ll not be left to foster somebody’s brat. I’ve had enough of children to last forever.”

“You need to have that ice chipped away.”

Birds called their first good mornings. Too bad it needed an hour or more ‘till full light, for he conceived an urge to see her face, discern her age and examine her features. Her words and manner contradicted his impression of her as a matron of any kind. “What did you say?”

“The ice around your heart,” she repeated. “You should have it removed.”

If he owned a heart, her honey-warm voice might melt said ice on its own, Reed mused, before stifling the maggoty thought. “What the devil are you about?”

“Watch your language around the children. We were running because . . . because of a—”

“Fire?”

To his surprise, she laughed, the sound a balm to his senses. “I was rescuing them.”

He damn near laughed with her. “What a whisker.”

“Oh, no, not at all. Telling falsehoods would set a bad example.”

“And stealing children would not?” He winced at her gasp. “Pardon my lack of faith in your mothering,” he added by way of reparation.

“Kitty ain’t our mother.”

“Hush, Luke.” She ran a hand through the rag-mannered lad’s hair and brought him close for a quick hug—not the action Reed expected of a reprimand.

Even if he managed to peel away her hood, as he itched to do, dawn was still too far away to make a glimpse worthwhile. Yet something about her, with her odd accent, and odder notions, called to him, which he liked not a whit. “Where are you bound?” he asked.

“What difference does that make?”

“None, make no mistake, but it will matter to someone before long. You have money, of course.”

She hesitated a fraction too long. “Of course.”

Reed shook his head. “Of course not!” He took her hand and slapped a guinea into it. “Feed them. If you scuttle down back alleys, you’ll get pinched, but if you stroll hand in hand, as if you haven’t a care in the world, no one will notice you.”

They would not come looking, Chastity knew. Fewer mouths to feed would trouble no one, not in that hellhole. “Why should I take your advice, and why would you give a perfect stranger money?”

“Perfect, no. Daft, more like, stealing children in the middle of the night. Damned if I know why I bother, or you should listen, except that you seem to care about them.”

“While you care about nothing.”

“I’d care if I got tossed into Newgate with you. Nevertheless, if you keep from getting pinched, I think you might do right by the brats. Good-bye,” he said, “and good luck.” Reed saluted, grabbed Stealth’s reins, and walked away.

“Come along, children,” he heard the daft woman say.

That their footsteps kept time with his, Reed found alarming. He stopped.

They stopped.

Shaking his head, he turned. “Are you following me?”

“Of course not.”

“Yes we are, Kitty.”

“Hush, Luke. Which way are you going?” she asked. “Toward Eastgate or the Island?”

“Which way are you going?” he countered.

“Eastgate.”

“Ah, well then, I am going toward The Island.” In truth—as directed in his odd, anonymous note—he was returning to see Mr. Sennett, the solicitor whose office sat diagonally across from the workhouse. “Good day to you.”

“God go with you,” the woman said, “whoever you are.”

Reed stopped and turned with a laugh. “Sorry, Kitten, God and I do not keep company.”

A moment of dismay held Chastity as the stranger’s chuckle faded, and she resisted an urge to call him back. An enigma was he, that faceless man who professed to dislike children but would foster a lad rather than abandon him.

Chastity watched until dawn broke over the horizon, and he disappeared from sight, his benevolent guinea warming her palm.

With her four exuberant charges, she began the seven-mile trek from Gloucester to Sunnyledge in Painswick.

As they walked, Chastity thought back to her previous day’s meeting with the solicitor to whom William had been directed in his anonymous note.

“Where did you get this?” Mr. Sennett had asked after he finished reading the note.

“It was sent to my husband, William,” she said. “And it prompted us to travel here from France. He wanted to settle an injustice, which I assumed amounted to claiming the inheritance due him, except that he was taken by a wave in a channel storm on the way, and drowned.”

“Please accept my condolences, Mrs. Somers.” Mr. Sennett shook his head in dismay. “While I am the executor of the Barrington Estate, I have no idea what this note means or who might have sent it.”

“I had hoped it meant that Sunnyledge belonged to my husband, and now to me.”

“Even if your husband was the Barrington heir, which I doubt, the claim would now be that of his son. Is there a son?”

“No.” Chastity sighed. “I wanted the estate for a children’s home, Mr. Sennett.” If she had remained a nun and taken vows, she would have opened such a home at the Abbey. Now, for the sake of William’s young cousins—the children God had surely placed in her keeping—she must make it happen.

Chastity raised her chin. “Though an inheritance would have helped, I will open a home for orphans. Workhouses are a disgrace, you see, and no child should be raised without love. Perhaps you can direct me to someone with a philanthropic nature? The sisters who raised me care for the sick with such contributions. Or perhaps one of your clients has a house?”

Mr. Sennett frowned as if startled. “Fancy Barrington’s estate coming to light, now. And fancy you having the one argument in the kingdom that could move me.”

He sat forward. “According to the will, if no heir is found, twenty years from the date of the Earl of Barrington’s death, which is three months from now, I am to award the estate to a charity of my choice.”

The solicitor settled into his big leather chair. “Tell me about your children’s home, Mrs. Somers, every detail.”

So she did, his interest encouraging her to elaborate. “The opportunity to love, and have that love accepted and returned, is essential to all of us. My home will be special, as my children will feel wanted.  They will have a sense of belonging by working toward its upkeep. The older children will care for the younger. In that way, they will become close.”

“Family members are not always close, my dear. As a solicitor, I have seen many a family rift.”

“Do you not think that abandoned children would be more inclined to appreciate familial relationships?”

At his approving smile, Chastity opened her reticule. “I listed the cost per child, per week, month, and year, for food and clothing. I have added a bit for dolls and— I do not know what little boys play with.”

“Tin horns, toy drums.” He smiled. “Boys are noisy.”

“I—” She almost said she knew—she had learned as much at finding the children in William’s aunt’s cellar. “I imagine so.”

“Your ideals make me fear for your practicality in this matter,” Mr. Sennett said. “You have listed nothing for a caretaker, a housekeeper, nursemaids, tutors.”

“I will do what must be done. The children will help.”

“I haven’t seen a child yet who could run a house. Listen to me in this. If I allow you to have Sunnyledge....”

Chastity thought her heart would leap from her chest.

“On a trial basis,” the solicitor cautioned. “You must hire the necessary help. The caretaker left about a fortnight ago; hire another. As you will no doubt set the house to rights, I will pay you a housekeeper’s wages and give you a monthly allowance for upkeep and maintenance. You will need supplies, though the house should provide much in the way of necessities.

“I cannot believe you would— Are you a philanthropist?”

Mr. Sennett chuckled. “Hardly, my dear, but there is little likelihood that an heir to Sunnyledge will be found at this late date. I must find a worthy charity soon. Who knows? Your children’s home might prove to be the very one. As a boy whose mother drowned in gin, I met the worst and best of men. Helping to fund a children’s home may be the way for me to repay the gentleman who took me in and raised me.”

The solicitor sat forward. “In asylums, in workhouses, everywhere, there is greed, cruelty, evils I will not name; I doubt you know of their existence. But I occasionally come across a person of caring and compassion. The man who raised me was such a man. I believe that you are such a woman.”

He held her gaze. “But you must understand what I want, nay, demand of you, and why.”

“I am listening.”

“You must know, clearly, right from wrong, and teach those precepts to the children. Only in that way can you nurture them properly.”

Chastity considered the workhouse, where children died daily. She knew right from wrong, and leaving Matt, Mark, Luke and Bekah in that workhouse would have been wrong.

“If I find that you have acted in other than a moral, conscientious or lawful manner,” Mr. Sennett had continued. “You will lose Sunnyledge, and I will see that you never open a home for children, anywhere, ever.”

Chastity’s heart had raced as he spoke those words.

It raced now an entire day later, but she buried her guilt and worry. She had acted conscientiously and morally by telling the parish beadle she would raise the children. Taking them would have been legal, but for him, a corrupt church elder who sent them to the workhouse because she would not pay his wicked price.

All would be well, she reassured herself as they continued their trek toward Sunnyledge. No man, save one, knew what she had done, and that man, she would never see, again.

In time, clustered cottages gave way to sprawling farms. Grasslands, divided by dry stone walls, became hilly uplands. Hillocks grew forested; roads narrowed.

By the time the valley before them revealed the jaunty jumble of structures, requisite to bustling village life, dusk streaked the sky with lavender. “This is it,” Chastity said, her sense of destiny so intense, a frisson of alarm stepped on its heels. “Painswick.”

By virtue of the steep cobbled track descending into the village, the children gamboled headlong hand in hand, Luke laughing all the way.

Amid hawkers’ songs and hot, spicy scents, Chastity admired a bonnet placed in a shop window by a barrel-bellied, frock-coated merchant. “Two pounds, three? That’s highway robbery,” she said.

Luke shifted the satchel that contained their clothes and William’s medical bag, and tugged at her sleeve. “I’m gonna buy that for you someday, Kitty.” As she bent to kiss his cheek, he ruffled her hair, freeing the powder she’d used to disguise and drear its chestnut hue.

After buying food and supplies, she bought her giggling band each a ha-penny pie and a peppermint stick for a thruppence. They ate while they watched village children roll misshapen hoops in the wheelwright’s dooryard.

Afterward, Chastity sought directions to Sunnyledge.

“Oh my, no,” said a buxom matron, all agog. “Not that God-forsaken place. It’s haunted, don’t’cha know. Many’s the night they’ve heard her pitiful wail, that lost soul searching for her missing babes. They died with her, some say, but their wee bodies were never buried.”  She whispered the last part.

Chastity held Bekah closer. “If you could direct us.”

The matron shook her head. “If you insist.” She pointed. “There it is, top ‘o the hill.”

A honey-gold manse stood guarding the valley, its chimneystacks straight as parade soldiers at full attention. Mullioned windows—as tall as the first floor, and wide as they were tall—reflected the sun, bright as that off the stone itself.

“It’s a bloomin’ castle,” Matt said.

“Magic,” whispered Luke.

Mark snorted. “Where our dreams will come true.”

“It is splendid,” Chastity said. “As if it’s made of gold.”

“That’s the sun on the stone—Painswick stone. The old Earl’s dead. That’s his house. You kin?”

“If you could tell me how to get there.”

“Go left at the yew row and take the hill straight up. Been abandoned for years. Except for a daft caretaker, now and again, most won’t go near the place.”

Chastity gave her thanks and they went on their way, the villager following. “It’s farther than you think. You got a key? Can’t get in, if you don’t have a key.”

Chastity kept walking.

“You’re braver than I,” the tenacious woman called from a distance.

Luke blew the shepherd’s horn Chastity had saved for him. WARRONNK!

Mr. Sennett was right. Boys were noisy. She would never be able to thank the solicitor for giving her the use of Sunnyledge—though if he ever learned that she rescued the children after he set down his rules— Well, just imagining the consequences of her actions made Chastity shudder, even as Rebekah began to wail.

“How old is Bekah?” she asked the boys.

“Three ‘cept we dunno’ when we’re gonna’ be the next number,” Luke said.

“Don’t mind that noise she makes,” Matt said. “She does that lots. Wish she would talk, though.”

“She’s dumb.”

“That will be enough, Mark,” Chastity said, coming to a faltering stop with a shiver.

Sunnyledge may have looked warm and inviting from the vale, but up close, after dark, it looked decidedly bleak, forsaken, and forbidding.

The key was useless. A mere nudge opened the door, the wind taking it the rest of the way. With the children attached to her skirts, Chastity stepped inside, stifling a nervous urge to giggle. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

WARRONNNK!

The sound made Chastity shriek and fall against the door, a hand to her fast-pumping heart. “That will be enough, Luke. Anyone here has expired from fright by now.”

Chastity tried to lock the door, but the keyhole turned with the key, so she pushed a chair against it, cutting off the last sliver of moonlight. “Bother, I am such an idiot. I do not even have a candle.”

“I can see in the dark,” Matt said. “We hid in Aunt Anna’s cellar so long after she died, we never saw the sun.”

“Do you think you can find the kitchen?”

“I’m good at finding things. Be right back.”

Chastity sat on the floor, Bekah, Mark, and Luke, cozy and warm, nesting in her black wool skirts. For once, she was glad William had not seen fit to replace her religious habits during their short marriage. She had, however, removed all symbols of her religious life, so that her gowns looked more like widow’s weeds.

“Found the kitchen, Kitty. And candles,” Matt called.

A short while later, the children ate some of the bread and cheese she’d bought, as exhaustion overtook them, and a sense of destiny, profound and peaceful, enveloped her.

Settled for the night with Zeke, their lame rabbit, on a mattress plumped with Chastity’s aprons and nightshifts, one old habit and one Sunday best, Luke said they hadn’t been so comfy since Mum left.

“I worried,” Matt said with a yawn. “That you wouldn’t come for us at the workhouse, like you promised.”

Mark scoffed and rolled to his side, presenting his rigid back. “We would never have gone to that horrid old place, if you hadn’t turned us in.”

If she failed to breach that barrier Mark kept erected around his heart, Chastity feared it would become as hard as the stone in these Cotswold Hills.

How could he be so angry, yet cuddle his baby sister so lovingly? Perhaps this child, who professed to need no one, needed her even more than his brothers and sister did. One thing was certain; Mark would never forgive her for trying to gain their custody through the proper channels first.

After she arrived on Britain’s shore, she had gone on to William’s Aunt Anna’s as planned. There, she found that his aunt had died, leaving his young cousins, abandoned at her passing, hiding in her cellar to keep from getting separated or going to the workhouse.

Chastity had marched them to the Vicar to say she would take them. The Vicar passed her to the Curate, the Curate to the Beadle.

Chastity shuddered remembering the Beadle’s lustful suggestion as to how she could purchase them. Since she refused to pay his price, however, the Beadle had relegated her children to the parish workhouse with nary a blink.

So much for following the rules, Chastity thought, unable to forget Mr. Sennett’s words, “If I find that you have acted in other than a moral, conscientious or lawful manner, you will lose Sunnyledge, and I will see that you never open a refuge for children anywhere, ever.”

At the workhouse, children younger than hers, died. She thought about the baby girl born the week she worked there, while trying to get hers back. How she’d wanted to take that babe as well. She thought of Matt’s protectiveness, Mark’s anger, Luke’s trust, and Bekah’s cough.

In taking them, she had acted conscientiously and morally. Except for the Beadle’s lust, her guardianship would be lawful as well.

Mr. Sennett said he tried to bring the conditions of asylums and workhouses to the notice of people who could improve them, and their lack of interest angered him.

“Do you never get so incensed,” Chastity had dared to ask, knowing she planned to rescue William’s cousins the next day, “that you wish to take matters into your own hands?”

“We cannot give in to such,” he said. “To have lasting effect, reform must be undertaken in a lawful, orderly manner. There is never an excuse to breach rules.”

Chastity sighed. Having been an orphan, the solicitor lauded her wish to open a home where children without parents would be loved. She only hoped that he would come to understand that taking these few had been necessary.

She bent to them now—warm, safe, unafraid, bellies full—covered a shoulder, stroked a brow, and prayed, for their sakes, that all would be well.

Then found a chair in which to take down her hair, and examined the kitchen, aglow from a fire in the old stone hearth.

Sunnyledge—a haven—someday perhaps, a home.

* * *

The hell of it was, Reed Gilbride thought, rubbing the back of his neck, looking up at Sunnyledge, the house was so damned big, he could search for years and never find the truth of his birth. As for secrets, the place fairly reeked of them.

Even the cryptic note he had received added to Sunnyledge’s aura of mystery—a note that roused an anger, tempered oddly by hope. Such anger, he usually reserved for the people who gave him life and threw him away. And the hope? Well, that just made him madder . . . until Sennett killed expectation by saying the note must be a hoax. The solicitor said he’d seen more than one, worded exactly the same way. He also suggested that a Barrington by-blow had no claim, here.

Still, Reed could not give up. As a child, he would have settled for knowing who his parents might have been. Now he bloody well wanted to know why he had not been good enough for them to keep. Who gave a helpless babe to the Gilbrides, of all people?

He led his horse around back to find it shelter.

Why did the woman who raised him—if you could call it that—refuse to talk about Sunnyledge? Why act as if the devil would swallow her whole, if she did? Could this place hold the key to his past? Him, the Earl of Barrington, as the note suggested?

Reed mocked himself with a chuckle, raised his collar against a cold drizzle, settled Stealth in a rickety old stable, returned and picked up his satchel.

He might be a bastard in more ways than one, but with or without Sennett’s approval, he needed to find out.

Now that Boney had been defeated, and he’d retired from the Guards, Reed looked forward to a life of peace and quiet, and the occasional willing woman. But first he must search for his roots, this being the place to start.

“Damn, it’s cold.” As if fate heard, a blast of wind and rain smacked him in the face and opened the door with a flourish—the thunderous crack of it hitting the wall loud enough to wake the Sunnyledge ghost herself.

Reed saluted and stepped inside, a sense of inevitability filling him, as if he had arrived after a thirty-year sojourn, turned an invisible corner, and could not return the way he had come.

What was more, he did not want to.

In the kitchen, Chastity jumped at the thunderous sound, and shot to her feet. After a frozen heart-pounding beat, arms and legs prickling, she located a meat cleaver in a kitchen drawer and closed her trembling fingers around its smooth bone handle.

CHAPTER TWO

As Reed knelt and searched his bag for a candle, the room seemed actually to brighten. He raised his head to see shadows shivering in slow motion. “What the devil?” He rose to his full defensive stance, and the room grew brighter still.

Silhouettes of stags’ heads stretched into grotesque shapes as a phantasm holding a candle appeared from behind the stairs.

Two things became etched on Reed’s brain at once; she had a face so white, she might be a specter, and the knife in her unsteady hand, sparkling off her candle’s flame, was not a figment of his imagination.

Did the mystical goddess, with an artless halo of russet waves, mean to end his journey here and now?

Not bloody likely.

She stopped, keeping between them the breadth of a stately foyer in decay, and she lifted that blade higher, her brazen scrutiny of his person gaining his grudging respect. “Who are you?” she asked—bold demand and stroking whisper in a French accent, her beguiling voice bringing him an unsettling sense of reliving the moment.

That her aspect bore a true netherworld quality, Reed dared not contemplate. “Who are you?” he countered.

“I— It isn’t polite to answer a question with a question.”

Despite her spectral beauty, her trembling response firmly adjoined her to an earthly plane, which moderated Reed’s disquiet and slowed the thumping beat of his heart. “What are you, a governess?”

At his question, the candle in her hand trembled the more, but she conquered her trepidation—he saw the effort it took—and squared her shoulders. “Teaching children is a noble calling,” she said, her voice aquiver. The wind from the open door whipped her cumbrous ebon skirts about her legs, calling for her shiver, and his . . . awareness.

Any number of pleasant ways to warm her entered Reed’s addled brain, but he shut the door, instead. “Then you are a governess.”

He took a step in her direction. “No, and you are?”

She raised the knife and halted him in his tracks. “Not a governess either,” he tried, but failed, to charm her. He would more than frown if a stranger invaded his house, though it could not be hers. “You do not look as if you would steal someone’s heritage.”

“What?”

“Not important. My name is Reed Gilbride and I could use some work.” A position in the house would allow him to search—a place in her bed would not come amiss, either. Reed cursed his idiocy, even as his body began to rise to the challenge. “I intended to knock,” he said, to turn his thoughts. “But the wind opened the door before me.” He bent to examine the latch. “The lock is broken.”

“Thank you for the keen observation.”

Tongue as sharp as her blade and just as earth-bound, a tongue he would like to— “You’ll need a hand to repair it,” he said, “especially with a storm gathering just beyond. If you send me out on a night like this, I’m apt to catch my death.”

Reed envied that bite the goddess gave her full bottom lip, as she worried it with perfect white teeth.

“How do I know you are not a madman, escaped after years of grisly confinement?”

His next forward step, or his laugh, rattled her. “Listen,” he said. “If the Gilbrides taught their chil—the people under their roof, anything, it was honesty. I am no criminal.”

“Exactly what a criminal would say.”

“All right, I am a criminal, and all I need is an honest post to reform me. Is this your house?” She dressed too poorly for it to be so, but it should be abandoned, after all.

“I’m . . . caring for the house.”

“You seem young for a housekeeper.”

Her chin rose. “I’m new to the position.”

That explained it; the note-sender did not know about the housekeeper, but why? His every turn, of a sudden, mired him in questions. “I need work.” Reed nodded toward the drunken staircase. “This place needs a caretaker.”

“I have nothing for wages.” She bit that poor, luscious lip again. “But I could use the help.”

Another forward step . . . and Reed tumbled headlong into a pair of wide violet eyes. “I’ll work for a roof over my head and food in my belly,” he said, drowning happily in her amethyst gaze.

“You are hungry? I have food.”

So she knew hunger, did this ethereal creature with the heavenly voice and brave carriage, this woman unnerving him at every turn. Never mind this kinship he felt, though they only just met.

“What can you do in the way of work?” she asked.

As the oldest on a farm with more children than a schoolhouse? “I can do anything— I do not know your name.”

She lowered the knife a notch. “Chastity Somers.”

Chastity. That figured. He had known her five minutes, found himself ripe to seduce her—she had already seduced him—and her name was Chastity. He should take it as a sign, but in her voice, with that accent, her name sounded more like music than a warning. “I can do anything, sweet Chastity Somers. I can build it, fix it, grow it, weave it, thatch it.”

“Mr. Gilbride, you are a gift from above.”

That threw him. For a moment there, she reminded him of—

“You shall be the Sunnyledge caretaker. Heaven knows the house needs attention. Find yourself a place to sleep down here for tonight. I do not yet know where the bedchambers are.”

A very new housekeeper, and naïve. She would let him sleep in the house? Reed grinned.

Chastity stepped back. “I thought it best to explore in the light of day,” she said as she turned to go.

Disappointment gripped Reed.

“Oh.” She stopped. “Put one of the chairs against the door to secure it for the night.” Her chin rose again. “And Mr. Gilbride, I will be keeping this knife by my side all night.”

“Lucky knife.”

Her eyes widened as she turned away, again, and the light followed her from the room as the shadows’ dance slowed to a bleak stop. That she brought light into a room she entered crossed Reed’s mind. That he was an addled idiot followed.

After he chose a parlor in which to sleep, he found the library—where secrets go to hide. At the number of books it held, excitement and dismay warred within him. He could spend a lifetime searching here and never find out who he was.

Chastity fought to keep her knees from buckling all the way back to the kitchen. She placed the candle and knife on the table and fell into a chair. She had been frightened when she heard the noise, and saw him standing there, a Greek God with piercing topaz eyes, his height and breadth huge. But when she heard his voice, his laugh . . . again.

Reed Gilbride—the man who caught her taking the children, who knew more than was safe for any of them—here at Sunnyledge. How could fate be so fickle as to bring to her door the one man she wished never to set eyes upon again?

Hiring him made sense, for if he stayed, he would not meet Mr. Sennett, or the authorities, anytime soon. Once he got to know the children, he could not help but understand that she had taken them to keep them safe. He would see that she loved them, that they needed her.

She would make him see.

He had not recognized her—of that she was certain—or he would have left posthaste. He disliked children that much. When hers woke, she would put them on their best behavior.

Panic struck then. Was she daft? Accepting a house, for heaven’s sake, on the basis of a home for . . . stolen children? Allowing a strange man to move in?

In the last week, she had committed every sin she had been warned against her whole life—imprudence, willfulness, deceitfulness, vanity. What made her think the children would fare best with her? Four young lives were at stake, here. Chastity moaned and covered her face with her hands. Nightmares and she had not yet slept.

Perhaps that was it; she acknowledged her exhaustion. Everything would make sense in the morning. Closing her hand around the knife on the table, Chastity snuffed the candle and pillowed her head with her arms.

* * *

WARRONNNK. WARRONNNK.

Reed made to jump from the settee on which he slept, but knocked it over in the attempt, rolling from its tapestried back to the floor, tangled in his blankets, his ankles somehow caught.

On all fours, he shook the cobwebs from his brain, looked about him, tried to move, and realized he must be bound in some way.

In the dim, unfamiliar room, he saw a boy with a horn and reached, as the scamp prepared to blow the infernal thing again.

Ppfffft. “Hey! Let me go!”

An older boy grabbed Reed’s boots and ran. A tiny girl took an armful of his clothes and scurried past.

“Damnation!” Grabbing horn-blower by the back of his trousers, Reed caught the girl thief’s dress, and she set up a wail set to pop his eardrums.

“I’m caught!” horn-blower bellowed. “Let go, you big bully!”

“Let them go,” a third boy yelled. How many were there?

Something struck him on the shoulders, rattling him to his bones. “I’ll let go when you lower your weapon, shoe thief returns my boots, and she-thief drops my clothes.”

The weapon—a chair—fell beside him. His clothes got tossed in an arc. Reed cursed and tried to shrug a shirt from his head. Horn-blower, despite Reed’s hold, gave another blast. She-creature wailed louder. Reed saw that he held a hank of her hair with her dress and let go. His hand free, he took the blasted horn and tossed it behind him, cringing at the sound of breaking glass.

Chastity woke with a start to the sounds of an uproar, her heart pounding with a need to protect, but the children were gone. She lit the candle, grabbed her knife, and ran toward the chaos, arriving in time to catch Rebekah sinking her teeth into Reed Gilbride’s thigh.

“Damnation!” the man swore as she bit him, and Chastity noted with grudging approval that he actually pried the child gently free, though Bekah held his flesh in her teeth like a dog with a bone.

“I’m going to thrash the lot of you, you miserable pack of scruffy bast—”

“Mr. Gilbride!” Chastity shouted.

Caught in the act of raising a table above the man’s head, Mark had the grace to stop and look sheepish when he saw her.

“These dirty little beggars tried to rob and assault me!” Reed shouted.

Rebekah had pulled away when Chastity spoke, but with the man’s insult, she bit into him again.

“Damnation!” Reed wound his arm about her little waist and pried her from his flesh, setting off her ear-splitting wail. “Believe me, Missy. That hurt me a hell of a lot more than it hurt you.”

“Unhand those children, you disagreeable man!”

“Believe your eyes, woman. ‘Twas I who was set upon, here. Look, the man-eater’s drawn blood.”

Chastity regarded his thigh as he knelt there, mostly covered by his blanket, and though it was still not quite dawn or light enough to discern details, he must be naked. He seemed to realize it at the same moment.

With a squeak, Chastity turned her back and blew out her candle, Mark dropped the table, and several sets of small arms closed about her.

Putting down her knife and candle, Chastity hugged each child in turn, reassuring herself, and them, that they were safe. “Who is missing?”

When the fourth hug came, she released her breath.

As dawn broke, Reed Gilbride stepped before her, hands on hips, now wearing nothing but a pair of well-worn buckskin trousers. His wide shoulders and hair-matted chest, his furrowed brow and whisker-shadowed jaw, put her in mind of a dark angel . . . bent on revenge.

“Such a big brute,” she said, trying to regain her scattered wits in the face of his potent masculinity, “to be overset by a few, small children.”

His look turned incredulous. “Bedlamites! I’ve wandered into an escaping band of Bedlamites. They bound my ankles! Where are my boots?”

“Give Mr. Gilbride his boots,” Chastity demanded. “Now!”

No one moved.

“Return those boots this instant, or I will let Mr. Gilbride have at you.”

Matt pulled the boots from behind a cabinet and offered them with a long stretch of his arm.

“Thank you.” Reed took them none too gently. “Are these your children, Madam?”

“No.” Chastity felt Mark stiffen. “Yes!  Yes, they are.”

“No we’re not, Kitty.”

“Hush, Luke.”

Reed stepped back as if struck. “Good God, it’s you.”

“Oh, bother,” Chastity said.

“I can’t believe it. Damnation, woman, I thought you were alone, here, but . . . children of all things.”

“Go away then, because we don’t like you, either.”

“Mark!” Chastity snapped.

Reed ran a hand through his hair and gazed out the window. “Children! Can’t abide the little beggars.”

“Do not speak of them in that insolent manner.”

“Ill-mannered children deserve insolence in return.”

“They have been abandoned.”

He faced her. “That does not give them the right to rob and assault. If it did, half of England would be thieves. Life is hard. They’d best learn that and be honest and upstanding, despite their misfortune. Punish them if they do wrong, like anybody else.”

“I will thank you to allow me to handle the children, Mr. Gilbride. They are my responsibility, after all.”

“On whose authority?”

She thought of her failure to save William, of the similar result if she failed the children. “On God’s authority.”

His laugh mocked her, the dimples in his left cheek and the center of his chin deep and . . . woman-slaying.

Chastity’s anger became interest.  She swallowed and tried to ignore the pull. For the sake of the children, she needed to turn him up sweet. “These children are my family. Matt, take your brothers and sister to the kitchen. We will discuss your behavior later.”

They filed out, Bekah’s hand in Matt’s.

“Told’ja not to blow that stupid horn,” Mark said.

Matt sighed. “They were mighty fine boots.”

“Lizard’s eyeballs, Mark, why’d’ja hit ‘em?” Luke asked.

After they left, Chastity shrugged. “They’re only children.”

Reed righted the settee, knowing he should go. “Why did you take them?”

“They needed me.”

He snorted. “If you want children, get better-behaved ones. You know, there are more pleasurable ways to— Never mind. Why them?”

“I went to . . . Aunt Anna’s, and found the children, abandoned at her death, hiding in her cellar to keep from getting separated or going to the workhouse.”

“Anna’s?”

“Anna’s cellar, yes. I just told you that.”

He looked disgusted. “No. Are they Anna’s children?”

“Heavens, no. She was old as Moses. She was their great aunt. Their mother left them with her.”

“You do not seem saddened by Anna’s passing.”

Anna was, in fact, William’s aunt. “I had only just learned of her existence. The children had been on their own for weeks, sleeping during the day and, ah, foraging for food and supplies at night, which is what they were doing now. They find it hard to believe that I will provide for them.”

Reed chuckled. “Quite a fairy tale you spin. You stole the brats from the workhouse. You forget; I saw you.”

“First, I found them at Aunt Anna’s, then they were taken from me and put in the workhouse, then I rescued them.” She should tell him what children endured there, about the ones who died the week she worked there trying to get hers back, about the newborn she had wanted to take, but he would not believe her.

“And why may I ask were they taken from you?”

“The Beadle said I had no means to provide for them.”

“Did it never occur to you that he might be right?”

“He cared naught for their welfare. He said if I were to . . . perform a certain . . . task, I could keep them.”

Reed raised a brow. “I find it difficult to believe that you let him take them without a fight.”

“I— Before I left, I nearly-accidentally dropped a bust of Jeanne D’Arc on his foot, and I am not sorry.”

Reed coughed and turned away, and Chastity supposed she deserved his contempt for assaulting a man of the cloth, despite his depravity. “The children need a home, Mr. Gilbride. They are alone, lost. Surely after all they have suffered, you could find it within yourself to forgive their misdeeds.”

“Misdeeds?” He turned in disbelief. “They’re street-hard. I should take a paddle to their tough little hides. Children are locked up for less than they did, tonight.”

“That’s barbaric,” Chastity said.

“People are heartless where hunger and poverty are concerned. Children are sent to prison, or worse, for stealing bread. That, Madam, is barbaric. Their short, grim lives are not even regarded in pronouncing sentence.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you of another world, Chastity Somers, that you are unaware of such things?”

Yes, she thought, I am, but she remained silent, and shocked to her soul.

“Life is brutal,” he said. “So gather your cold and hungry cygnets under your feathers, sweet, sheltering swan, for the world outside your nest can be worse than hell itself.”

How cynical, how hard he could be. “Could you not think of the children as people, like us, but smaller?” she asked.

“Small ones are the worst kind.”

Chastity raised her chin. “Do you stay then, Reed Gilbride, or do you go?”

CHAPTER THREE

He’d dreamed of sweet Chastity Somers last night.

That morning, after bathing in the river, Reed made his way back to the house recalling the odd jumble of fancies, chaste and not, that had troubled his sleep before his assault. After his rude awakening by the blonde brigands, however, his dreams turned to nightmares he’d rather not recall.

As he made his way back to the house, Sunnyledge shone gold against a bright morning-glory sky. He caught the song of a Lark, thought the buds on the trees had swelled overnight, and was filled with a rare sense of hope.

WARRONNNK.

Ah. Horn-blower had found his instrument of torture outside the parlor window. His veneer of hope burst like a soap bubble.

What a horrid jest, with the answer he sought so near to hand, that he should be given an obstacle in the guise of children. He scoffed and shook the excess water from his wilding hair, thinking that perhaps sweet Chastity Somers—so innocent, she’d let a stranger share the house—could trim it for him.

Damn, that woman needed locking up, or looking after—but not by him. Reed rubbed his thigh. Her brood might be protection enough for her, though. He had the teeth marks to prove it. As to whether her virtue was safe, however, was another matter entirely. Reed fingered his bristly chin, and grinned. Perhaps ferocity would keep all the beggars at bay.

As he entered the kitchen, Reed came face to face with the objects of his musings, the smallest male heathen dancing clean and naked, horn in hand—WARRONNNK—his two brothers cavorting beside him in like state.

Bent over a small tin tub, Chastity struggled to keep the man-eater in her bath. Reed knelt to help by holding the little one’s tiny shoulders, to keep the she-devil down, but his touch set off her god-awful wail.

Chastity glanced at him with apprehension.

“Are you afraid of me?” Reed asked, and when she bit her lip, he guessed she had not as yet decided. “I am no villain.”

Humor filled her eyes. “Just what a—”

“Villain would say, I know, but you have nothing to fear.” He regarded the children. “Any of you.”

How easy Chastity’s trust—instant and unquestioning; there on her face for all to see—but how weighty a burden to receive it. And he had been right; her smile did brighten a room.

Even with a topknot of sagging curls, she was a beauty, though water spots dappled her gray striped apron. But the rest of her clothes? Beneath the wide sleeves of her hideous black dress hid a white undergarment, one he could not name, its sleeves wrapped and pinned tight at the wrists, their edges soiled and wet.

Like a true rogue of the club, seducing her played in his mind, a notion he should quell, and fast. Something about her, innocence perhaps, he was loath to destroy.

Even as the man-eater’s keening continued, Reed could not take his eyes from the woman, nor she from him, it seemed. She pushed a damp, springy wisp of russet hair from her face leaving suds on the tips of her long, thick lashes.

Reed warmed and nodded toward the man-eater for distraction. “Best wash her and quick, or we’ll lose our hearing.”

WARRONNNK.

Reed regarded horn-blower. “Sorry, did I forget to give you credit for your portion of the din?”

“Hush, Luke,” Chastity said.

The scamp called Luke, and his brothers, watched their sister get the scrubbing of her life, and when Chastity sat back and blew hair from her face, those suds clung to her lashes.

“Done?” Reed asked.

“Done.” She sighed.

Reed released the small, bony shoulders, and up came the water-sprite, to run wet from the kitchen, three brothers at her heels.

“Bother,” said Chastity, kneeling in a puddle. “I suppose they’ll be back sooner or later.”

“Afraid so.”

Chastity frowned and rose to throw the bath water out the kitchen door. “How sad that you dislike children. They have so much love to give. Do you dislike them all, or just mine?”

He passed on questioning her custody any further. “Suffice it to say that I do not dislike every child as much as I dislike their company, especially in groups.”

“How big a group?”

“Two?”

Shaking her head, Chastity refilled the tub with water that had been heating, and threw in a bar of the lye soap. “Why did you help with Bekah?”

“Self-defense. She smelled.”

Yes, Reed thought, Chastity Somers was even more beautiful when she smiled. He watched her gather the children’s clothes, toss them into the soapy water and push them under.

“It’s been an age,” she said, “since their clothes saw soap; they need to soak.” She brushed the damp curls at her nape upward. “Are you ready to break your fast?”

“Here, wait,” Reed said, stepping near. Close your eyes.”

Her widening violet eyes a treat, Chastity finally did as he bid, making Reed wonder how far her obedience would go. Those lashes fluttering against her porcelain-pale cheeks, however, said that she fought obedience, while under his hands, her shoulders trembled.

Her breath fanned his face as he blew on a sudsy lash, and his lips grazed her cheek, almost by accident—a kiss, but not, light and fleet as butterfly-wings, skimming skin of smooth cool silk. His own skin warmed, as did his stone-cold heart, but he ignored the elemental warning.

‘Twas the most chaste, yet the most erotic of kisses—if it could be termed so—of his life. God’s teeth, he wanted to do it again.

Reed resisted the urge, his body strongly disagreeing with his decision.

Chastity opened her eyes, wonder in her look.

“Close them,” Reed whispered. “There’s a girl.” He blew on her lash again, ousting the suds this time, wishing there were more.

Yearning filled Chastity at the warmth of the stranger’s touch. A simple stroke, a heart close by; new and wild sensations. She had been born parched for human contact, for gentleness, succor. William had sensed and voiced it but never touched her.

Unlike William, Reed Gilbride, this seemingly cold, hard man created a purling of warmth within her, to the point that even her soul knew the wonder. She looked into his eyes, as golden bright as fire, before his mouth came again for hers, soft, swift, but steely with purpose, a startling sensation, pleasant and tingling, swelling and radiating to her breasts, her—

Chastity squeaked and stepped back. She should be frightened. She should demand that it never happen again, but she could not, because, God help her, she liked it.

So strong was her sense of loss when Reed Gilbride released her, Chastity fought an urge to cover her face to hide her disappointment.

She raised her chin and covered her thrumming heart, instead.

“Was that your first kiss?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you.”

His look changed to . . . horror? “You should not—that is, someone more worthy—I mean, I am not—”

“I know.” As mortified as on her wedding night, Chastity gazed somewhere beyond his right shoulder. Not attracted to her, of course. He would prefer someone more worthy; she should not be surprised. “Do not concern yourself. It will not happen again.” She’d displayed the kind of behavior the sisters warned her against.

Reed Gilbride became for her, a danger. Around him, she must tread wary.

He ran a trembling hand through his coal-black hair, mussing it. “Look I—”

“The incident is behind us, Mr. Gilbride, and will not be repeated, especially around the children.” She spoke for her own benefit as she rolled down her black wool sleeves. “Where were we? Oh, yes, would it not make a difference to how you felt if a child loved you? Do you not desire that kind of love?”

“One does not desire what one has never had.”

“Oh, that is not true,” she said in complete earnest. “It is not true at all.”

“Ah,” said he. “Now each of us knows something of the other, and of desire, and yearning, and the need for love, or of not regarding the lack of it. He cleared his throat. “Must be time to eat. You mentioned breakfast?”

Relieved to keep her hands and mind occupied, Chastity nodded and opened the tin-lined bin where she put their bread, but it was empty. She tried another, then another.

“Is something wrong?” the man standing too near for her peace asked.

She stepped back. “I cannot seem to find our food.”

“Where did you leave it?”

“In that bin, which is empty now.”

“Well, well, well.” Reed leaned against the sideboard, his arms crossed, his smug smile revealing the dimple in his chin. “What could have happened to it?”

“Oh.” Chastity bit her lip. The children had once again proved to be the brats he named them. “Once they know I will provide, they will stop saving against disaster.”

“They are little pilferers who will grow up to become hardened thieves, mark my words.”

Hand in hand, spanking clean, naked as the day they were born, the pilferers in question stepped into the kitchen and stood like blond-haired, blue-eyed stair-steps.

“Did any of you move the food I put away last night?” Chastity asked.

Matt shook his head, then Mark, then Luke, then Bekah.

“They’ve done this before,” Reed said near her ear, making her shiver, and want . . . she knew not what.

Mark pointed an accusing finger his way. “He did it. He stole our food.”

Reed laughed, surprising even himself. “I do not usually find children amusing. I must be sickening from something. Hunger, mayhap?”

Chastity sighed. “Best make the introductions. Children this is— Shall they call you Reed?”

At his nod, she continued. “Reed, in order of size, these are the Jessops, Matthew, age about 10, Mark, 8, Luke, 6—he plays the horn.”

Reed acknowledged the musically-gifted child and vowed to banish said instrument to shepherd’s-horn heaven. “What, no John? As in Matthew, Mark, Luke and—”

“John died.” Mark’s narrowed eyes filled with hate.

Reed groaned. That would teach him not to drop his guard. He could take a lesson from Mark: Remain poised, fists clenched, protecting heart and head, stance defensive, the way he had faced life before war softened him.

Around this seductive woman and these small insidious weapons she wielded so masterfully, he must remain strong.

“You mean you had another brother?” Chastity asked.

“He died when he was small. Mum cried a lot.”

Chastity knelt to hug Matt.

Reed’s mother had never hugged him, Reed thought, though the Midwife Gilbride had not been his real mother. Then again, neither was Chastity Matt’s real mother. Could his notion of a cold-as-steel world be wrong? Could he adapt his hard-edged attitude to a softer, warmer existence without landing on the sharp edge of the blade, or finding the dull when he needed the sharp?

Chastity opened her arms to the others.

Now that he had held her, even for a minute, Reed resented the children’s place in the circle of her embrace, and he detested himself for it. Who was this woman, who gave love and comfort to the children of another? Comfort . . . had she sought that from him earlier? What did she mean about wanting something one never had? Did she need succor so badly that she bore a keen sense when others needed it?

If that were so, he was in trouble, for he did not bloody well want her sensing his needs, not when he worked so hard to hide them.

Above the four small heads, she regarded him with enmity. And why the devil it troubled him, Reed could not say, because he did not care a rat’s tail what she thought. “They’re shivering, damn it. Dress them. You’re not being a very good mother, if you ask me.”

Bloody hell. She looked as if he’d slapped her. Pale as a tallow candle, she rose and looked about. “Oh my God!”

“What now?” Reed snapped, his mood foul.

“Their clothes are all wet!” She picked up a satchel to rummage inside. “I must have something that will serve.”

“Damnation!” Reed stormed off. A scourge on her and her brigands for muddying his goal. After he found out who he was—if proof existed—he would send them packing so bloody fast—

Chastity emptied her bag to sift through her clothes. Her children were naked; there were no clothes. They were hungry; there was no food. She knelt to put more logs on the fire. “I can provide for you and I will, by God!”

Luke patted her shoulder. “Course you will, Kitty. We’re better already since you took us.”

The rogue came storming back with four homespun shirts. “Put these on them, damn it. What the devil is that?”

Chastity looked behind her, gasped, and snatched her veil off Bekah’s head. Any other time, the sight of the little one wearing a wimple would be charming, but this was the worst possib—

“Let me see that.” Reed took the veil and examined it as if he expected it to change form, spew venom, and slither away. Before Chastity knew what he was about, he set it on her head, stood back, and whistled. “Holy—your accent? French? A Papist, right? Ugly black dress, vows. No, ah, men. You’re some kind of nun! Are you?”

Perhaps this was best, Chastity thought. Her old life could provide a deal of protection—from herself and him. His look of utter helplessness, when he saw her hug the children, had made her want to beguile him into accepting affection, himself—the children’s as well as hers. Dangerous thought, that.

“Well, are you?” he wanted to know.

“Am I what?”

“A damned nun.”

“Damned? I certainly hope not. I have been led to believe that nuns are usually saved.”

“A nun!” He had lusted after a nun, which would get him nowhere, except into hell. Reed looked at the nun again. He thought about her lustrous hair, now hidden from view by her ridiculous headgear, the feel of her against him, even for that moment. Seduction, again, came to mind—the seduction of Sister Chastity.

“Damnation!” This was not the road to hell, this was hell itself.

Chastity settled the odd headgear about her face and shoulders and tucked her hair inside, a sacrilege. As Reed watched in horrid fascination, he silently called down the wrath of any number of pagan spirits upon fate for placing him here with this woman and these children.

“Mr. Gilbride, I fail to understand your anger. Nothing has changed. You need a job and a place to stay. I need your help around Sunnyledge. We have a bargain.”

“A bargain, then, for good or ill.” Reed released his breath, and to turn his mind from the woman mocking him with her crow-like presence, he regarded the shirts in his hand.

A nun. Chastity was a nun.

Chastity . . . of course.

Shirts. He was holding shirts. God, he could not divert his mind, or his body, from the nun’s earlier response. He looked about. Children, naked children who needed clothes. He did not know how to talk to a nun, but taunting her might keep her mad enough to keep him at a distance, which would suit them both fine. Reed handed the nun his shirts. “A good thing, is it not, Sister Chastity, that I did not let the brigands get away with my clothes last night?”

Much as Chastity wanted to throw the shirts in the rogue’s face, she could not. She imagined the first thing a mother must learn is humility. And she would learn it, by God, and anything else necessary to care for her children.

Reed’s exit to the scullery could be termed no less than an escape, which Chastity understood.

With little adjusting, Reed covered and warmed the boys, but Rebekah seemed such a lost waif in Reed’s homespun finery. Little hands disappeared in sleeves that touched the floor, little feet, beneath trailing shirt tails. Chastity rolled up the sleeves and tied her rosary sash around Bekah’s teeny middle. Then she tugged above the waist to raise the garment and fold the excess over the makeshift belt.

Bekah’s eyes widened, reflecting the smile her lips refused to form. When Reed returned, Bekah did a pirouette, like a lady in a fine silk gown seeking her gallant’s favor.

That the little girl sought the rogue’s approval did not surprise Chastity. She understood only too well. “She looks beautiful, does she not, Mr. Gilbride?”

“Beautiful,” he said, and Chastity melted again.

“Kitty, I’m hungry.”

Yon rogue crossed his arms and raised his brows. “So am I, but our food seems to be missing.”

Chastity ignored the innocent looks the children gave him. “I have money to purchase more,” she said.

“Which will not feed them, now. Besides, you will need enough for flour, sugar, salt, grain and meat.”

“I have enough.” Chastity dug into her apron pocket but came up empty. “Oh, Reed, the money is gone, too.” She grabbed his arm, surprising them both, and dragged him into the foyer. “The children,” she whispered.

“They have got to be broken of this stealing business and soon, Sister Chastity, you know that.”

“I know,” she said. “Please call me Chastity.”

He did not know if he could. “There must have been a caretaker here recently. I found oats and dried apples in the scullery, which I left on the sideboard. Cook that for now. We can look out back later. We might find some root vegetables that survived the winter.” He regarded the tilting staircase. “There’s bound to be a nursery with children’s clothes.”

“We cannot take what is not ours.”

“You took the children.”

“I rescued them from a hard, cruel, and likely, short life of illness and deprivation. They are human beings.”

Reed nodded. “Exactly. And they need clothes.”

How had he used her argument against her? Chastity narrowed her eyes, vowing to be wary in future.

He failed to quell his triumph. “Look, those human beings, as you insist on dubbing them, are, to be blunt, naked. It is your task to clothe them. If there are children’s clothes upstairs, they are so outdated that no one who could afford to live here would want them.

He was right. How could she hope to provide for anyone, when all her life, her every need had been seen to? As a child and as a nun, she had been taught to care for her soul, while food, shelter, clothing, were provided—poor training for the task before her, but she would learn.

As she watched him climb the stairs, she relived those moments in his arms. Affection had ever been her need. As a child, she hugged Sister Superior once, only to be chastised. The same happened on her wedding night with William, and today, with Reed, who had been as appalled, and nearly as reproachful.

Chastity sighed. She would reserve her affection for the children, as needy in that respect as she, and it did feel so very good to be embraced. Reed Gilbride, the temptation, she must avoid. She would rather send him away, but she needed to keep him from revealing her secret, and to teach her how to care for the children. She only wished she did not want him to stay as much as she needed him to.

In due course, bowls of oatmeal and apples sat on the table tempting four very-hungry children, and when Reed returned, finally, small hands reached eagerly for spoons.

“Wait until everyone is seated,” Chastity admonished, but Bekah scooped a handful, and wailed at its burning heat.

“It did not burn you,” Chastity said. “It has cooled down by now.” It needed only that for Bekah to devour the fistful, after which Chastity placed a spoon in her hand, scooped, some oatmeal, and brought it to her little bird mouth, stopping short of allowing her a taste. “That is how I want you to eat.”

Bekah wailed again, at being denied her handful.

Reed shook his head and regarded the rabbit sitting in the center of the table. “Supposed to skin and roast it first.”

Throwing a hateful look Reed’s way, Mark grabbed his pet. “His name’s Zeke, and he’s mine. Don’t touch him.”

Reed sat. “I would not dream of it.”

“That will be enough, Mark. Mr. Gilbride.”

“Animals on the table are meant to be eaten,” Reed said. “Next time I see him there, he will end up in a stewpot.”

Seeing the hate in Mark’s eyes, Chastity kicked Reed under the table. At his startled exclamation, she bowed her head. “Let us give thanks.”

The children lowered their heads as Reed began to eat. “Tasty,” he said when Chastity looked up.

“We must first thank God for the food He has provided.”

Reed continued eating. “I do not pray. Besides, I provided the food.”

Chastity pursed her lips. “Then we must thank the Lord for providing you.” She all-out laughed that they should be grateful for the bully. “Sorry,” she said. “The absurdity tickled.”

“You should be grateful. Go ahead; hearing you pray will not bother me.” Reed ladled another helping into his bowl.

Mark took a bite and smacked his lips, his siblings regarding him with a blend of envy and respect.

“Mark, dear, wait please, until after we say grace. Mr. Gilbride’s heathen habits are of no concern to us.”

The boy licked his spoon with relish, eyeing each adult in turn. “Don’t like to pray neither.”

Chastity wished Mark had not picked this moment to become a child again. If his rebellion were over any other issue, she would rejoice. She glanced around the table. Matt, in particular, was wavering, so Chastity decided to cede the battle, rather than lose the war. “We shall trust that the Lord knows we are thankful.”

Reed grunted—a nod of approval, she supposed, to her good sense. Resisting a renewed urge to kick him, she pondered this absurd new need of hers to inflict pain.

Only the murmur of contented diners and the chatter of birds in the eaves outside the kitchen broke the rhythm of spoons scraping bowls.

“When did your mother leave you with Aunt Anna?” Chastity asked.

“‘Bout a hundred years ago,” Luke said.

Reed set down his spoon.  “What do your parents do, Matt, which takes them away for so long?”

“Da’s a missionary, but he’s sick, and Mum went to get him.”

Chastity dropped her spoon. “Matt, you did not tell me that.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Yes, I did.”

Matt’s brows furrowed in concentration. “You asked if I knew where my mother went.” He shrugged. “I don’t.”

“What else do you know about your parents?”

“Nothing.”

Reed swallowed wrong and choked.

Chastity gave him water, and after he took a grateful sip, he attacked his gruel with new zest.

After a while, he regarded her. “You never told me the man-eater’s name. Spunky little thing, but she doesn’t say much.”

“Bekah don’t talk,” Matt said.

“Did she have an accident?”

Matt put down his spoon, as if he had lost his appetite of a sudden. “Ain’t said a word since Mum left. Just makes that silly noise. We know what she wants, though.”

Chastity touched Matt’s hand. “You have taken very good care of your brothers and sister, Matthew.”

Matt squared his shoulders and regarded Reed. “I was sort of hoping, since this is a magic house an’ all, that maybe she would get better here.”

Chastity braced herself as Reed stilled. “Magic houses have their limits,” he said after a thoughtful moment, his voice firm, yet kind. “Do not expect too much.”

Chastity regarded him with shock.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.” His gentle caution did not belong to a self-named rogue who disliked children and believed in teaching them life’s hard lessons. He had fostered Matt’s hope in the same way that he would foster the child of another. As if he had no choice but to care for that child. As if he had no choice but to be kind.

Yes Reed Gilbride’s status as a rogue was unmistakable, surly one minute, sublime the next, teasing and seducing with eyes that could set tinder to flame, but he was more as well. He was a puzzle she itched to solve, for she had glimpsed in him a gentleness hidden so deep, that even he did not know it existed.

Even now, Matt regarded Reed as if their caretaker held the answers to life’s mysteries. “But I can hope,” Matt said.

And Reed nodded. “You can hope.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Reed checked the children’s bowls to see if they were finished eating. “Take your brothers and sister to explore the house, Matt, but stay on the first floor and do not go outdoors.”

“Yes, sir.” Matt led them from the kitchen.

Reed stood. “Come,” he said, and Chastity stood as well, pretending not to see his extended hand, for she could not place her hand in his. She should not allow him to touch her again. Just the notion warmed her.

She followed him outside and across the yard, where weeds and oat grass filled a small flower garden, threatening to strangle the budding roses within. The privet hedge was alive with mayflowers and wild hyacinths dipping and swaying in the crisp spring breeze.

The song of woodlarks in the ash trees above them tempered the crunch of gravel beneath their feet as the grand manor gave way to the no-nonsense, bare-bones home farm, also abandoned.

“The London Missionary Society could find their parents,” Reed said, slicing open her heart, before kicking a rotten bucket from his path. At the resounding crack, a thousand larks fled the trees as one, like a cacophonous umbrella above them, cutting off the sun and further darkening her world, before gliding back to the budding boughs.

For minutes after, silence held sway, while Reed’s words, the shattering wood, and the birds’ screams, battered Chastity in diverse and rudimentary ways.

Her heartbeat quickened.

“Chastity, did you hear me?”

The London Missionary Society or the parish Beadle, she thought, what difference? The children would be at the mercy of a score of men who cared naught for their welfare. If their parents failed to return, they would go to a different workhouse . . . perhaps to die.

She had to find another way.

“Chastity?”

“You’re right,” she said, to placate him, but she must not forget that this man disliked children. She shook her head. “I appreciate your help this morning, Mr. Gilbride, but you have to go. This is not going to work.”

Something hard and inflexible came into his eyes, of a sudden, obliterating her earlier glimpse of gentleness, making her think she imagined it.

“You may as well know right now,” he said, “that I have no intention of leaving.”

Chastity stopped walking. “But I must insist.”

He stopped to face her. “Why do you think you have the right to turn me out?”

“This is my house.”

“It is not,” he said with the authority of knowledge.

Chastity raised her chin. “I have been given the use of Sunnyledge for three months, at which time the house will be deeded to me for a children’s home.” Three months, she thought, to show Mr. Sennett what she could accomplish, and if successful—which she could not be without Reed Gilbride’s help and silence over her stealing the children—she would get Sunnyledge.

His expression revealed bafflement. “Why three months? Why not today or tomorrow?”

“It wants but three months for the estate to revert to a charity of the executor’s choice.”

“I repeat, why three months?”

“According to the last Earl’s will, if no heir is found within twenty years from the date of his death, Sunnyledge is to be deeded to a charity of the solicitor’s choice. It has been nineteen and three-quarter years, and there appears to be no heir. Sunnyledge is practically mine.”

“I am afraid you are wrong, there, Sister Chastity.”

Feeling weak in the knees of a sudden, Chastity lowered herself to the dry stone wall, clasping her hands to hide their trembling. “What makes you say so?”

Whatever emotions crossed Reed’s brow, he overcame them, straightened, and became the man who disliked children once again. “I am the Barrington heir.”

With that fatal pronouncement, another of Mr. Sennett’s statements rang in Chastity’s head. “There is little chance that a Barrington heir will be found.” Little chance, not: no chance. Shock turned to stubbornness. For the sake of the children, she could not accept Reed’s claim. Besides which, he could be the very “one who would steal” the Barrington heritage, as warned in William’s anonymous note. “You are no more Barrington’s heir than I am.”

That snapped him back from cocky. “I have been told that I am.”

Panic ran neck or nothing with anger inside Chastity, but ire was gaining ground. “Do not toy with me, if you please. Are you, or are you not, Barrington’s heir?”

“I have been told that I can find proof here, though it seems, I have a paltry three months in which to do so.” Reed rubbed the back of his neck and gazed at the horizon.

He had not convinced himself, either, Chastity thought as she resisted an odd notion to comfort him.

“Thirty years of not knowing,” Reed said. “And now I must race a clock ticking so loud, I can scarce hear myself think for the noise.” He shook his head, as if shaking off hopelessness. “I have three months and every bit as much right to be here as you, and whatever I accomplish in helping you will be to the good, since the place belongs to me.”

William too had received a note saying he was the Barrington heir. Had there been two notes? More? Would a score of hopefuls descend upon them? Would Reed become discouraged and leave them in peace, if she told him about William’s note? Or, would he become angry and go to Sennett? She would have to explain William, if she mentioned his note and Reed would know she was no longer a nun.

Now that they had kissed, she feared dropping her last defense, and she could not name William as anyone but her husband. She had already done enough dissembling to trip herself up. Given the situation, for the children’s sakes, some prevaricating had been necessary, but outright lying was simply wrong. If she thought William’s claim could negate Reed’s, she might throw her last defense to the wind, but she did not, so she had best bide her time.

Chastity caught Reed’s bemused look. How long had she been woolgathering? Could he see the lies tinting her cheeks? “If you find proof, the children will have no home,” she said, sitting again.

Reed sat beside her. “They have parents, Chastity.”

“That is not the point. If not these children, then others who need shelter and love will not have my children’s home to come to. Besides, what guarantee do I have that you will not fabricate proof?”

Reed stood, insulted. “What guarantee do I have that you will not destroy what proof you find? Nuns are supposed to be honest, I know, but you did steal those children.”

“Must you keep reminding me?”

“What a bright color your face has turned. Do you need reminding? Do you ever forget?”

As if she could. As appalled as she was by what she had done, Chastity experienced something akin to pride over it as well, though she would never admit as much to him. The man was aggravating in the extreme. From the moment she heard him in the alley outside the workhouse, he had been nothing but trouble. Worse and worse trouble.

Chastity rose and spread her arms in a gesture of frustration. “You provoke me to my limits, Mr. Gilbride, and now we seem to be at an impasse. Your success is in direct opposition to mine, though a home for children is infinitely more important than a foolish quest for—”

“Wait a minute. My quest is more than—”

“I say we search together.”

That halted him to the point of silence. Even the Woodlarks ceased their song. “What did you say?”

Chastity captured his amber-eyed gaze, refusing to react to the shiver that raced through her at his piercing regard. “Com-pro-mise,” she said, as if to a dull-witted child, stepping back, too much warmed by their proximity. “We will search together at specified times. There can be no crying foul, if we do that.”

Reed nodded. “We will share the tasks of setting the house to rights, and, blast it, caring for the children.”

“And plan a time to search, side by side, room by room,” Chastity said. “The children can help.”

“If my claim is found to be true, you will leave, taking your troupe of traveling troubadours with you, and leave me to a life of peace and tranquility?”

“If no proof is found, you will leave and seek solitude elsewhere,” she countered.

“We have a bargain. Damn it, must I call you Sister?”

“Chastity will do. A bargain, Mr. Gilbride.”

“Reed will do. Come.” As he pulled her along, Reed wondered when he had reached for her, and why she placed her hand so easily in his, to follow behind him, like a pup after its master.

She must have read his mind, for she stopped dead, pulling him up short, and reclaimed her hand. “Where are we going?”

“To search the outbuildings for food. Perhaps we can find a stocked smokehouse, or—”

“Proof of your heritage?”

“Or proof of my heritage. Did you say there was a caretaker here a while back?”

“Until a fortnight ago, I believe.”

“Good. Then we may find something.”

Beyond the disreputable sheds, they emerged into a weld now empty of grazing sheep. A denuded garden, furrows littered with rotted vegetation displayed more evidence of desertion. Conditions did not bode well for their foraging.

“Smokehouse is empty,” Reed told sweet Sister Chastity with her big, hopeful eyes as he stepped from the weatherworn building. Not that he expected to find food for the taking; he knew better. Break your back; that was the way to provide, but damn it, he wanted to be a hero for the pretty lady. Pretty nun, he had best remember.

He shrugged. “We have to keep looking.” He entered the stable where he left Stealth with the two large draft horses inside. “Shire horses,” he said, stroking a nodding head, “with fresh, clean hay. Someone’s been caring for them. Likely a lad from a nearby croft.”

“They’re beautiful.”

She meant it. She thought these big ugly bounders were beautiful, and she did not know that she was, even in a heavy wool habit. He took her hand and examined her wrist. “Such a tiny wrist, such a young woman, but that medieval garb makes you look matronly.”

“Matronly!” She reclaimed her hand with due haste. “My garb is not your concern, Mr. Gilbride, and for your information, never tell a woman, no matter her age or way of life, that she looks matronly. It makes one feel decrepit!”

“Is vanity allowed in the convent?”

Her surprise at his question turned to a winsome grin. “Allowed? No. Tolerated? Barely. Censured?” She sighed. “Constantly.”

“You are speaking from experience.”

She lowered her head and nodded. “I am.” But too soon, she gave up the charming pose and raised her sparkling violet eyes. “Can we make use of the horses, do you suppose? Is that Stealth?”

“How do you know?”

“He’s sleeker. Handsomer than the others. You mentioned him at the workhouse.”

Reed nodded. “We can use the Shire horses for plowing and harrowing.” When the hell had he decided to work this fool farm? Damn. He slammed the stall gate, and dust thick as flour enveloped them. Choking and gasping, he dragged Chastity into the fresh air.

After catching her breath, she shook out her skirts. “That was stupid!” She slipped her hands beneath her veil to release the dust from inside.

Guilt filled Reed as she made matters worse. The more she struggled, the more dust slipped beneath her outmoded headgear.

“Damnation!” He tore the veil and wimple off in one angry sweep, relief filling him—her as well, he suspected. He hated her wearing that. It reminded him of dungeons with barred doors and dark cells. He examined the veil—just cloth, innocent, except for what it represented. He supposed that bothered him most, the wall it placed between them, a barrier he did not appreciate, much as he should. If he had brains, he would dust it off and give it back. “This has got to go,” he said, proving his lack.

“Give it back.”

“You cannot honestly want to wear it.”

She wavered and her chin came up. “I do.”

“Chastity?”

She lowered her eyes, though her chin remained stubbornly firm. “I should.”

“But do you want to?”

She shook her head, sighed and lowered it. “No.”

“Pitch it, then.”

Her eyes lit, though she tried to remain sober. “I will leave it off . . . for now.”

“Good.” Reed wiped her brow and cheeks with the corner of his homespun shirt, trailed a finger down her nose, tapped the end twice, remembered her mouth against his, and stepped away. “That really was stupid—slamming the gate, I mean.” With sudden inspiration, he grinned and impaled her veil on a rusty nail. “What do you suppose is in the next shed?” He walked away, telling himself that it mattered little whether she followed or not, but when she did, he began to whistle.

“The storage shed,” he said as they entered. “No better than the rest.” He swatted the air before him as she followed. “Cobwebs.”

“You could have warned me sooner.” Chastity pulled a web off her face and tried to shake the sticky substance from her fingers. “Besides tormenting me, what did you hope to gain with this trek?”

“Food for the children.”

Chastity released her breath. “Thank you. I do not mean to be cross.” She scrubbed her face with her hands. “I did not think I could feel grimier than I did this morning, but I do.”

Reed lifted a hand to her hair. “Spider,” he said. “Now let me get the other—”

“Spiders!” Chastity slapped his hand away. “Did you have to tell me?” She combed panicked fingers through her hair tumbling her topknot into a splash of cinnamon waves. “Are they gone?”

“What?”

“The spiders.”

“Oh.” Reed had lost track of the conversation in light of the burnished copper shimmering all the way down to her— “There was only one and I got it. Sorry I teased you.”

Chastity rolled her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair a few more times before she began re-pinning it.

“Leave it down. You look more comfortable.” And seductive as all hell.

“I am more comfortable, but it gets in my way.”

“Turn around. I’ll show you what my sister does.”

“Nothing helps but pinning it up.”

“Be patient.” Reed lifted the fiery strands to plait them, enjoying the silk in his hands.

“How fortunate you are to have a sister,” she said.

“Fortunate? With five sisters and seven brothers? But Peg is special.” The blasted braid would fall past Chastity’s waist. Reed wiped his brow with his sleeve. The day grew warmer, the air thinner. He cleared his throat. “They’re not my real family. Peg is the only one I care about.”

Chastity turned to regard him, tugging her hair from his hands in the process. “What do you mean?”

“Stand still. Now I have to start over.” He feigned exasperation, because, heaven help him, he liked what he was doing . . . to a nun.

“Reed? What do you mean?”

“When I was five, my drunk old man—well, I thought he was mine—said that they had been stuck with me since the day I was born.”

“Oh, Reed.”

There was a world of caring in those two words, words that nudged a heart Reed thought stone-hard. He should fear the power in that nudge. He should run, and fast. But, God help him, he could not. Not yet. “For a while, after I found out, I thought my real parents would come for me. By the time I was ten, I knew better.”

He brushed his cheek with a hank of Chastity’s hair, as if by accident, to see if it felt as good against his face as it did in his hands. It felt better, like corn silk, but softer, better than newborn kittens, better than anything Reed could remember.

Something so deep stirred in him, he dropped the braid as if it burst into flames. “It’s impossible. Put it back up.”

Chastity pulled the hank forward and examined the half- braid. “This is perfect. Finish it, Reed. Please?”

Against his better judgment, Reed complied. When he was done—and his body had risen gloriously to the occasion—Chastity took an empty grain sack, tore off a strip and fastened it around the end of the braid. “I like it.” She slapped his arm with the thick, silken rope. “Thank you.”

In a bid for modesty—and self-preservation—he turned away. “Enough nonsense; we have work to do. Good, an old cheese press, still usable.” He spotted some sacks and moved a barrow with such force, Chastity jumped, and guilt filled him as he slit a sack open. “Beans.” He sifted them through his fingers. “Dry and edible.”

She touched his shoulder. “I do not know who my parents are either.”

Reed looked up, his heart—despite his resistance—warming with the new nudge. “Leave it be Chastity.”

“You and I, the children, we were all abandoned—”

“Listen!” he snapped, though she had no choice. “I do not want to connect with you or those children—no shared pasts, no common ground.” He did not want her heart to speak to his. He would not listen, if it did. He did not want to nurture children. He did not want to . . . want.

He gave the second bag a vicious slit and peas poured into the dirt. He swore, stopped the flow with his hands as he pulled the bag together, and hefted it to the barrow. “Let us see what else we can find.” He walked along a shelf, opening and slamming wooden bins. “Seeds for spring planting. We should think about that. Ah, the old caretaker did not like parsnips.” He wiggled a wilted bunch. “Know how to make soup?”

Chastity raised her chin. “Certainly.”

“Certainly not.”

She scowled. “It cannot be difficult. I made gruel.”

“Was it luck?”

“Not entirely. I watched the Sisters, sometimes.”

“The Sisters?”

“The nuns who raised me.”

“They raised you?” Blast. He did not want to know about her childhood. “Ever watch ‘em make soup?”

She shook her head in reluctant denial.

“As with gruel, you put a pot of water on to boil and throw in everything we found.”

“Oats and apples too?”

“Damn. Just put in what we found out, here, and some herbs from the kitchen garden, with a pinch of salt.”

“I can do that.” Her smile filled the empty places inside him in the way that sunrise and birdsong filled him with hope for a new day, a sensation he lapped up like treacle, for too long, before he realized the danger in falling under her spell. When he did realize it, he frowned and returned firmly to the problems at hand. “What about milk for those children? Did you think of that?”

“Well, no, but—”

“You can see their bones beneath their skin, Chastity. They need to eat vegetables, bread, and meat. You need to find their parents. You cannot provide for them.”

“Yes, I can.”

God she was stubborn, and beautiful, and if he stayed, that bucket load of naïve self-assurance she carried around just might convince him she could. “Write to the Missionary Society, Chastity.”

“The children need me. I can love them.”

“Their parents will love them.”

“And so will I . . . until their parents return.”

“Then you will write that letter?”

Chastity could not answer; she was too disappointed. She supposed that Reed’s dislike of children did not make him bad, just dangerous. She watched him push the barrow from the shed. “Zeke will like the parsnip tips,” she said, finding the silence awkward.

“Throw the tips in the soup as well, Chastity. We cannot afford to waste them. Put Zeke out to eat clover.”

“He’ll run away.”

“With his bad foot, he could not go far, though he would do best in a pot.”

“What?” Chastity stopped dead.

Reed nearly mowed her down with the barrow. “The children need him in their bellies.”

Her wide eyes narrowed to dart points. “How dare you suggest such a heartless, cruel— The children love Zeke.”

“If they starve, love will hardly matter.”

“Do you have no feelings? Did you never have a pet when you were a child?”

No feelings, no pets. “On a farm, animals are for work, selling at market, slaughtering to provide necessities, like clothing and blankets.  And they are for eating. We could not afford the luxury of pets and neither can you.”

“Go to the devil, Reed Gilbride.”

“That, I will, Sister Chastity. That, I surely will.”

CHAPTER FIVE

No doubt about it, Sister Chastity was still furious. Even from the library, Reed could hear her slamming pans, and he guessed that Zeke stew was out of the question.

He gazed about the cherry-paneled reading room. He could not search, of course, not yet. They’d made a pact, after all, he and Chastity, but he liked to read—no harm in reading.

Hundreds of books taunted him with centuries of secrets. Reed swore, chose two, and sat behind a mahogany knee-hole desk in the center of the once-treasured but well-used room, a sense of connection, of . . . belonging, filling him for the first time, since . . . since welcomed by the rogues into Wellington’s army.

Sinking against the soft buttery leather, Reed marveled at the anticipation filling him. Here, he might find what he had craved his whole life—knowledge of his past, except that he had promised not to search.

“To the devil with promises.” He cursed. He should be looking through family histories. He did not have time to work a farm or care for a hoyden nun and her band of marauding vagabonds. The woman stole children for heaven’s sakes. So what if she had a honey-warm voice and a heart to match? So what if she needed him, and they needed him? Somebody always needed him, but damned if the needing had ever warmed his stone-cold heart before.

Why did Mark’s haunted look haunt him? And Rebekah’s wail? Sure, he would like to throw Luke’s horn in a tarn, but he, at least, was open and trusting. Luke made him smile.

Reed sat forward. Blast it, no one made him smile, especially not someone of the stripling variety. He slapped the first book shut, and opened the next. Children who make you smile; now there was a dangerous thought. He slammed the second book as well.

“Why are you mad all the time?” Mark asked, catching Reed mid-scowl.

“Who are you to talk?” Reed countered. “Why are you mad all the time?”

Mark folded his arms. “I asked you first.”

Matt came in and stopped beside Mark.

Reed regarded them earnestly. “Life is like that. Something happens to make you mad, and if you can, you do something about it. If you cannot, you learn to live with it.” Reed did not like one bit that his words seemed to cause Matt some painful inner struggle. Neither was he pleased to recognize it.

“What if it happened, like, last year?” Matt asked, worry etching his young features. “And you cannot change it.”

Reed sighed. “Sometimes, all you can do is go on and make the best of the situation, of yourself, and of life.” Reed scowled. Damn, he sounded like a preacher, worse, a father, God help him.

“I always feel better when Kitty hugs me,” Luke told Reed, as he came from the corner of the room, book in hand. “Maybe she should hug you too.”

“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a smart boy?”

Luke grinned. “All the time.”

Mark snorted and left; Matt followed.

Reed suspected that he had not given Mark or Matt the right answers, and he regretted that, but blast if he knew what the answers were. He wished to the devil that he understood the questions.

Luke sat on the floor beside him and opened a book.

Reed chose another and did the same.

“What is a B-A-S-T-A-R-D?” Luke spelled, breaking the silence with a vengeance.

“What the devil?” Reed extended his open palm for the book. “What are you reading?”

Luke rolled his eyes and reluctantly placed the book in his hand.

Reed caressed the well-worn cover of a book whose match once gave him hours of rare pleasure. “The Life and Inventions of Leonardo DaVinci. Of all the books in the Squire’s library, this was my favorite. Judging by the look of this one, some St. Yves held a similar fondness.”

Luke’s smile acknowledged this shared bond of theirs, and Reed felt another tug at the granite center of his chest. He cleared his throat. “Here, forget his life and take a look at his inventions. Can you read?”

Luke nodded. “Me ‘n Matt ‘n Mark, but not Bekah. Ma taught us, but she said I was best.”

“Congratulations.” Reed stifled an urge to ruffle the lad’s hair. “I made a catapult like this once.” Reed tapped the drawing. “One of the boys used it to shoot a goose into the pigsty.” Luke laughed while Reed remembered the old man strapping him for putting ideas into the lad’s head. He handed the book back, with less regret for his rotten childhood than for Luke’s churning in his gut. “But my favorites of DaVinci’s inventions were his flying machines.”

“I want to build a flying machine,” Luke said.

“Yes, well, if you do, please do not tell Chastity where you got the idea.” Reed returned to his own book, to hide a grin, of all things. Half a page later, a bit of foot shuffling distracted him. Again.

On the other side of the desk stood Matt. Beside Matt, barely cresting the desktop, Reed saw a tiny pert nose, wide, solemn azure eyes, and a thatch of curly blonde hair. ‘Twas none other than the wild she-child, who now raised Luke’s horn like a declaration of war.

“Do not blow that infernal thing,” Reed said.

“When can we?” Luke asked.

“When I find what I’m looking for, you can blow it.”

“How will I know when that is?”

“I’ll tell you.”

Reed regarded his book but he did not bother to read, as another imminent interruption seemed inevitable.

When it did not come, he regarded the enemy with suspicion. This was worse than the interminable wait for the first cannon shot at Waterloo. Matt and Bekah stood there, in sight, unmoving—feisty little urchins feigning innocence, but Reed knew better. “Did you want something?”

Two blonde heads shook, two pairs of blue eyes watched. Luke continued reading, and Reed swallowed an urge to tell them all to get lost. Besides, if he gave into the impulse, they would take him up on his suggestion, and Chastity would strangle him.

Mark returned, his demeanor militant as he took his place beside Matt and Bekah. “You’re to fix that door this instant or there will be no soup for you!”

Look at the brigands, wearing his shirts, because their provoking protector could not clothe them. Who the devil did she think she was, giving him orders? “If not for me, there would be no soup, and you can tell Sister High and Holy that,” he all but shouted.

Rebekah wailed and ran, Matt followed. Reed was shaken by the look of disappointment Luke threw his way before he left as well. Mark remained, staring him down.

Reed remembered giving just such a look, as if it were yesterday. He could feel the pain that went with it. He should say something. Something. But what? Before he could figure it out, Mark left too.

Reed slumped into his chair, hating himself as much for not helping Mark, as he used to for being in the same place as Mark—angry at everyone for not loving him, while understanding exactly why no one could.

Matt, Reed suspected, had a serious problem; Mark, he knew, was in deep soul-searing pain; the she-devil uttered not a word; and if those three had not gotten to him, then Luke, with his trusting smile and infectious giggle, sure as hell had. Reed fled his chair to look for a family bible. To the devil with pacts; he wanted them out of here, fast, and the only way to accomplish that was to find the proof he sought.

In due course, he found a family history, bound and dusty, recounting who built, re-built, and destroyed what portions of Sunnyledge, and when. The book also gave a brief overview of the family’s titles, which were impressive, but he found nothing remotely resembling a clue to his past. “And if finding the answer was as simple as looking in a book,” he said to himself, “would it have gone nineteen and three-quarter years with no heir?” What a fool he was, aye, and a cad, too, for he had made a pact that he expected Chastity to keep, and so must he.

Damnation! Would he never know?

Reed gave up his clandestine search and found himself wandering toward the kitchen, seeking out—horror of horrors—the brigands and their warder.

As he approached the doorway, he saw Chastity place a bowl of soup on the table. Mark and Luke played with a tin regiment of dragoon guards on the floor, while Matt held a forgotten cavalryman in his hand as he stared off into space. Rebekah silently spun a toy top into a kaleidoscopic blur beside them.

Chastity looked up and saw him lingering in the doorway, and when their eyes met, a frisson of something resembling joy seemed to pass between them. Reed saw it in her eyes, only because he knew it for a reflection of his own amazing reaction to the sight of her. She recognized it as well, he suspected, but with a bit of silent communication, they agreed not to acknowledge it, thank goodness.

Chastity looked away first, her neck and cheeks the pink of the lady slippers that grew wild on the downs. “Children, put the toys in the bottom drawer while we eat,” she said. “If you do not take care of them, there will be no more.”

Surprisingly, the brigands did as she bid.

“I followed the unusual aroma,” Reed said, his voice emerging as a gruff croak. He cleared his throat. “Soup?” he asked as he sat at the table, the children following his example.

“Of course, soup. You said to make soup.” Chastity bristled then she bowed her head. “Thank you, Lord, for another wonderful meal.” She raised a victorious brow his way and he saluted her with his spoon.

Chastity grinned. Silly that his approval, however mocking, should warm her, she thought, chiding herself for such foolishness. “I found bed-linens in a cupboard on the second floor,” she said, taking charge of her wayward self. “I made the beds and left the windows open to air the bedchambers. They need a good cleaning, which we will do tomorrow.”

“How many bedchambers are there?” Reed asked.

“I prepared three. Bekah and I will share one. The boys will take one, and you shall have a bedchamber all your own. Bekah and I will be quiet as mice. But I thought the boys might be noisy, so I put you and them on opposite sides of us.” An image of Reed in his bed, dressed—or undressed—as she had seen him at dawn, brought more heat to Chastity’s face. To hide the telltale warmth, she looked down at her bowl of soup.

Reed cleared his throat. Did he sense her confusion? “I never ate soup flavored with—he took another spoonful—spearmint?”

“What? Oh.” Chastity took a taste. “Is that what it is? I wondered.”

Reed shook his head. “Different herbs go with different foods, Chastity. Some blend better with certain tastes than with others. Now, beans, peas, parsnips, and mint are perhaps not the best combination. Basil, bay leaf, or even sage might have—”

Chastity put down her spoon with a vehement thud. “I strongly dislike this tendency in you, Mr. Gilbride, to point out my errors. You said, ‘use some herbs.’ You were not specific as to which I should choose. How should I know one from the other? If you knew which herbs to choose, why did you not—”

Luke slurped. “Bestest soup I ever ate.”

“More,” Matt said, raising his bowl, as did Bekah and Mark.

As Chastity collected their bowls, she kissed each head. “Thank you, you sweet things.”

“I only said that it was unusual.” Reed took seconds as well. “I’ll help you collect cooking herbs from now on.”

“I would appreciate that.”

Luke gazed at Reed with speculation. “If you say her soup is the bestest ever, she might kiss you, too.”

Reed looked at her with such single-minded speculation, Chastity’s cheeks caught fire. “I think you might be right,” he said, finally, and Chastity thought she might go up in flames.

* * *

Grinning, the Vindicator hid in the dumbwaiter and waited while caressing the proof she had found that the St. Yves line had not ended, and she resolved to end it, herself.

The sins of the father would finally be avenged.

One of the puppets stood no more than a few short steps away.

They called him Reed, though his voice was not quite right, but where was the other, and who were the woman and children? The Vindicator hoped they were not St. Yves as well, or things could get messy.

With rapt attention, like a child at a Punch and Judy show—though lacking the ability to view the performance—the vindicator waited for the perfect time to spring the trap.

Events should fall into place of their own accord, but a prod now and again could be entertaining. The sport would truly begin, however, when the second puppet arrived, and the two fought to the death for the prize.

Though fate had never intended Edward to witness this performance, she wished he could know of her due revenge. When all was said and done, events would always go as fate decreed.

One could, nevertheless, hurry destiny along.

* * *

The children slept, finally, and even the old house seemed to breathe a soft sigh of relief. For all that she wanted the care of children, Chastity found herself more tired than she ever remembered. Despite her fatigue, however, she felt a sense of exhilarated accomplishment, as she followed the shaft of light spilling into the hall behind the stairs, compelled to stop and regard the man in the kitchen, unobserved.

The sight filled her with a, heretofore, unknown contentment. Did it flow from the warmth of the fire in the stove? Or was it this stranger who had invaded their sanctum—who brought such inner peace?

Candlelight cast a welcoming glow and lent a hazy perfection to everything it touched, even the nicked and lackluster pots hanging from a center beam. The huge black cook-stove stood like an age-old retainer, as if on guard, and the scarred worktable held a silver candle-branch, no less tarnished than the pans above.

In the way the moon gilds an indigo sea, the light stroked a spill of rich violet brocade heaped atop the table.

Chastity’s heart expanded. Sunnyledge felt like home—her first and only home—the place she was meant to be, with these children and this man.

This man? He had rolled up his sleeves to fill a huge copper slipper bath with hot water. The muscles in his arms, thick and taut, corded when he lifted the kettle from the stove, and in the rising steam, a dark spiral of hair had fallen to his brow.

All that potent masculinity both uplifted and frightened Chastity, yet the wild sensations flowed as much from her as because of him. That Reed Gilbride might be a missing piece of the puzzle of her life, she found daunting. But she supposed she should not be surprised that he caused emotions to churn within her. She had already shared two of the most amazing events of her life with him—yesterday, saving the children, and this morning, her first kiss. Memorable events. Dangerous.

Chastity reined in her wayward thoughts to keep a blush from climbing her neck, and not until she held herself in check did she step into the room. “What are you about?”

Reed looked up, an unfathomable expression in his topaz eyes. An awkward, self-conscious grin etched his chin and dimples into deep prominence and made her think that he might once have been a shy boy.

He bowed, a lad no longer, but a rogue with mischief in mind. “A bath for milady,” said he, “with my compliments.”

Chastity grinned as well. “I have gone to heaven.”

“Not yet . . . but soon, perhaps.”

What he meant by that, she dare not ask. Silence reigned for a taut span, and when she did attempt to speak, no sound emerged from her throat.

As if to help, Reed cleared his. “Since I caused your bath in stable-dust, I thought that a soap-and-water bath was the least I could do. Besides, unlike the rest of us, you had no opportunity to bathe today.”

Chastity was less embarrassed over sitting naked in a tub he had prepared for her, than she was delighted by the decadent prospect—which caused a corresponding dart of self-reproach . . . that she ignored. “Bother the guilt, I can hardly wait.”

Reed grinned. “You can be private in here with the children upstairs. And me,” he added on a rush. “I’ll be up there, as well.” He searched the room with an anxious gaze, relief washing over him as he grasped the violet brocade like a lifeline. “I found this.” The unfolded length became a dressing gown, which he held before her, presumably to gauge its fit, and he whistled.

“Not too matronly, I take it?”

Reed groaned. “I have expunged the word from my vocabulary. I thought it would be perfect, I mean, you could wear it after.... He wadded it, thrust it her way, and turned to check the heating kettle.

Chastity supposed it was best they remain uneasy in the intimacy of a candlelit setting. Their arrangement was no more than a temporary convenience, after all.

Reed poured the last of the steaming water into the tub. “I secured the front door for tonight and will fix it properly tomorrow. Oh, I almost forgot.” He handed her a bar of soap.

Chastity cupped the fine-milled satin-textured cake, brought it to her face, and inhaled. “It smells like a rose garden after a summer rain.”

Reed stood as if lightening-struck. “I, ah, found it in the same trunk as the dressing gown.”

“Thank you. I can think of nothing nicer than a bath in roses and rain.”

CHAPTER SIX

Reed hit his thumb for the third time. “Damnation!” Anybody would think he had never held a hammer before. If he did not stop thinking of Chastity’s naked body covered in roses and rain, he would bludgeon himself to death.

Balancing atop a less-than-sturdy ladder, he leaned against the broken door to cradle his throbbing thumb.

“Damnation!” Luke exclaimed, working at ground level, directly below him.

Reed looked down to watch the cussing child pound a ha’penny nail into the door, choose another and poise the hammer to strike again. “Damnation!” he repeated, before smacking the second a good one, and Reed had to swallow his grin. He damned near liked that boy.

He was getting a good handle on this cussing business, which meant that Reed would not need a hammer to do himself harm, Chastity would do it for him, for teaching the children bad language.

“Damnation!” Luke’s cussing was picking up speed and enthusiasm.

“Luke, we have to stop using that word.”

“Why?”

That boy could really look innocent. Talk about deceiving. “Chastity will be angry.”

“Why?”

Reed’s frown deepened. “It’s considered vulgar.”

“What’s vulgar mean?”

“Bad, nasty, as in getting your behind warmed by a wooden spoon for saying it.”

The child looked troubled. “But you say it.”

Clever brat. “I know. I’ll stop saying it, as well.”

“Cuz you don’t want Chastity to warm your behind?”

Now there was a question. “We are both going to stop saying it, from now on, right?”

Luke shrugged and went back to work. He pounded a nail, shook his head and looked back up. “Works better when I say somethin’ nasty. Makes me hit it harder, you know?”

Here was one of the reasons children annoyed the hell out of him. “Then find another nasty word,” Reed all but shouted. “Just not that one.”

Luke shrank at his anger. Damn.

After a minute, the boy shrugged and picked up a nail.

Reed was cross and he knew it. He had not slept for thinking of Chastity, soft and naked in a summer garden. It had been all he could do not to come down to see if she was wearing that violet silk dressing gown, the very shade of her incredible eyes, which would do incredible things to his body, if he saw her in it. Or out of it. Hah. Who was he kidding? Incredible things had happened to his body all night, as they were happening now, for just thinking about her wearing it.

“Brussels sprouts!” Luke said as he gave the nail a good whack, and Reed understood exactly how he felt.

Luke looked up with a disarming grin. “It was the baddest thing I could think to say.”

Reed might have laughed, but he saw Mark against the wall, watching. Ah, that look. Mark wanted to belong, but when he saw that Reed noticed his yearning, his expression changed to indifference.

Reed suspected that his banter with Luke had brought a burning need to Mark’s gut—a need as strong as Mark’s determination to deny it. Reed experienced it all over again just remembering. “Luke, go upstairs and get Chastity. I need to ask her a question.”

Luke dropped his hammer. Lit by shafts of sunlight filtering through the huge mullioned windows, the boy crossed the foyer like a living pawn on a huge board, as he made his way across the white and black marble checkered floor, choosing to land on some squares, jumping others.

The foyer, itself, must once have been a source of pride to the St. Yves family, yet here amid a musty pile of rubble, he, an unlikely claimant, stood nailing the front door shut. Generations of Earls would spin in their graves, if they knew.

Reed returned to his project, hit a nail thrice, and dropped his hammer. “Mark, get that for me, will you?” He held out his hand, waiting expectantly for the hammer.

Seconds ticked by; but his reaching hand remained empty. “Mark?” Reed made a come-along motion with his fingers.

Tentative steps, then the hammer weighted his palm, and Reed breathed an inner sigh of relief. Like with a filly or a woman, no acknowledgement of accomplishment could be made. “Thanks,” he said regarding the boy. “Can you help me for a minute?”

“How?” Anger, distrust, longing, were all evident in the one word.

“Drag that chair over here, grab some nails and climb up, so you can hand them to me.”

The chair scraped. Reed knew better than to show Mark his response mattered. More than reaching out, Mark dreaded failing, or being failed.

Too many hidden memories—of being on the outside, wanting in, pretending he didn’t want—resurfaced around Mark, and Reed didn’t like it, not one damn bit. “Where the devil is Chastity?”

Mark jumped.

Reed shoved his hand through his hair, and apologized, and the boy shrugged as if Reed’s bad temper mattered not. Big surprise.

Where was Chastity? But for her decision, he was nearly done, yet she was nowhere in sight.

Rebekah, he saw, sat beneath a hall table hugging a tiny quilt, watching him, as she had watched at breakfast.

Reed checked his work, took some more nails from Mark, hammered them, and looked back at Bekah, her blue, blue eyes still trained on him. Jeez he was getting skittish.

His sister Peg, six years younger than him, at about Bekah’s age, spent her early years shadowing him, like Bekah was doing now. Watching, following. At first it made him furious, and then of a sudden, he had liked having her around.

If not for Peg, Reed thought he would have no capacity to care at all. He sighed and regarded the wide-eyed man-eater, so frail, she might break. She needed milk; they all did. As soon as the door was repaired, he would go to the village and see what he could do. He needed to get the hell out of this tomb, away from these come-hither hoodlums and their roses-and-rain protector.

The London Missionary Society should know where the children’s evangelizing parents went. Children should grow up with the parents who gave them life; Reed knew that better than most. For the children’s sakes, he would send a letter to the Missionary Society today when he went into the village.

Of course, if their parents came for the children, he and Chastity would be left alone, which might be interesting . . . and perilous. “Damnation, where is she?”

“You told Luke not to say that word!”

Grateful Mark spoke at all, Reed raised a brow. “Brussels sprouts! Where is that woman?”

Mark scowled, rather than smiled, until the sound of laughter drew their gazes upward, to Matt and Luke running down the stairs, Chastity in frolicking pursuit. Skirts raised, she descended the drunken stairs at a run, infusing Reed with a combination of panic over the danger, and desire over . . . a mere glimpse of ankle?

Devil it; he was in a bad way. Her laugh, like music, made him want, and the wanting made him mad. “What took you so long?” He aimed his question at her, his harsh tone, at himself.

All smiles vanished. “I ran down two flights at your summons. I think—and I could be wrong, because I have no experience—but I think that since I employed you, you should have come to find me. You have a question?”

There must have been thorns in those roses. From atop the ladder, Reed bowed. “My sincere apologies, your ladyship.”

“Do not be a nodcock. Ask your question so I may return above stairs.”

He was used to giving orders. He had run the farm and his twelve non-siblings, after the old man died, even before that, when the only dead the blighter was, was drunk. He had been a Major in Wellington’s Life Guards, where he gave a great many more orders. But she was right, and damned if he didn’t applaud her spirit. “I do not have what I need to fix the door,” he said. “I’ll need to go into Painswick.” He held up a mangled door hinge. “If the iron monger does not have one for purchase, I will have to go to the smithy and have one forged. The best I can do for now is nail the door shut.”

Chastity nodded. “We can use the servants’ entrance off the kitchen. We spend most of our time there anyway.”

“And there’s a set of French doors in the library,” Reed said.

“And lots of windows,” Luke added.

Reed raised a brow, applauding the scamp for holding true to form.

“I will thank you to use the doors, if you please.” Chastity shifted her gaze from child to child, before gazing back at him. “Fix it as best you can. Now if you no longer need me, I am going back upstairs.”

Were needing and wanting different? Reed wondered. “Chastity? If you come upon anything . . . interesting, while cleaning, you will show it to me, will you not?”

“You are beyond annoying, Reed Gilbride,” she said, before turning to climb the stairs in a huff.

Four innocent-looking, but oh so dangerous, little people preceded their provoking protector up the stairs, while Reed watched Chastity’s single braid sway as she climbed, speculating as to which spot the tip of burnished rope would stroke at each tilt of her perfectly-rounded hips.

His body found such diversion delightful, while his mind knew it for a danger to his sanity. Blast him for a fool for showing her how to fix her hair in the first place.

She had asked him to braid it again this morning, because she washed it last night—in roses and rain, he could not forget. When he complied, its sweet rose scent had nearly cut him off at the knees.

The children had watched with interest as he took the russet thickness into his eager hands, plaited and braided it. Angry at his physical reaction to the task, Reed had snarled at their running commentary, theirs and hers.

Chastity frowned, looking hurt and angry, and apologized for arousing his ire.

Oh he had been aroused all right, but ire was not the issue. “Turn and let me finish,” he had snapped, forcing his mind and body under control. If he could not hide his peevishness, he was no better than the wide-eyed ragamuffins who watched.

Rebekah, he remembered, took a hank of her own long hair, examined it, and then twirled it around her finger, as if considering a braid of her own.

When he finished Chastity’s, Reed had stifled an annoying, thoroughly surprising urge to offer Bekah his services. What was he, a lady’s maid? “I have work to do,” he’d said, too loud, once more.

“Then by all means, Mr. Bear, remove that thorn from your paw with due haste so you may proceed.” Chastity had marched from the kitchen, and he had been out of sorts since, the children adding to his restiveness.

When the door was finished, for the time being, Reed put the ladder in the shed then returned to the library to pen a missive to the Missionary Society, haunted by thoughts of sweet Chastity Somers. Her effect upon him was profound, more so than any other woman he had known, even in the physical sense. What in bloody hell was he doing, lusting after a nun?

Always, when he sought physical succor, willing women stood in line. Where were they now, when he needed them most? Reed nearly laughed at the jest fate was playing on him. He would not want a one of those women, if they wound themselves about him. He wanted sweet Chastity Somers, Sister Chastity of the gentle touch and warm smile—he wanted . . . to take a nun to bed.

Damnation—literally.

Perhaps, if she wore her veil, he might . . . what? Be disinclined toward so virtuous a sight? Be persuaded to ignore his physical needs?

Not bloody likely.

What he wanted was to remove all signs of her virtue and proceed at a languid pace to remove innocence itself . . . the innocence of a nun.

Reed cursed. What sorry sin had he ever committed to deserve this fate? He shifted in his chair, his arousal hard testimony to his decadence. With a curse and a flourish, Reed proceeded to inform the Missionary Society where to find the Jessop children. That way, when their parents returned—soon, Reed hoped—the family could be reunited.

Before signing the letter, he experienced a surprising need to add that the children were being well and lovingly cared for. When he finished, he went outside to saddle Stealth. He left for town, his mind set on providing milk for Chastity’s unruly brood, the letter she wordlessly refused to compose, herself, setting fire to his pocket.

Only a few hours after Reed left for town, Chastity hated to admit that she missed him. In a small room adjacent to the bedchambers she chose for them all, she sat before a trunk with waves of fabric spilling into her lap.

She did. She missed him. Double bother.

Well, she had best stop it. He would be leaving for good before long, anyway. Enough was enough. She had work to do.

She examined the rich fabrics, some of which would serve for children’s clothing. But the red striped, the blue flowered damask, along with the violet sprigged muslin, were put to one side as impractical for that purpose.

She could hear the children whispering secrets beneath a tent of Holland covers, draped over a jumble of furniture pushed into a corner, an adventure she would have adored as a child.

Hearing Reed’s name, Chastity listened shamelessly.

“He watches Kitty all the time,” Luke said, not so much in secret as like an actor on a stage.

“Kitty smiles in her eyes when she looks at him, too.”

Did she? That unnerved her. She edged closer.

“If they got married, they could be—they could take care of us ‘till we’re grown.”

Chastity straightened. What a surprising thing for Matt to say.

“What about Mum and Da?” Mark asked, his tone chiding and questioning, much like the words at the tip of Chastity’s tongue.

“Kitty and Reed could take care of us ‘till Mum and Da come back, then,” Matt said. “But we should remember that missionaries don’t always come back.”

Chastity was touched and proud of Matt, trying to prepare his brothers and sister, in case something happened to their parents.

“Member, Mum and Da said that losing them is a sacafice we might have to make for the heathens,” Luke said. “We gots to be grateful we were borned.”

Despite herself, Chastity’s eyes filled. Luke spoke of his parents’ deaths in too world-wise a way, then everything became hushed, the silence heavy.

A soul-deep sigh. “Maybe we’d best not trust anyone, but us, to see us grown?” Matt said, somehow unconvinced.

Poor child. As oldest, and self-appointed protector, he was afraid to trust even her. Chastity supposed his caution should not hurt; he had ample reason not to trust. “Kitty’s nice,” he said. “She would make a fine mum, but Reed gets awful mad sometimes.”

“I like him. He likes Leonardo Avichi, like me.”

“Leonardo Avichi.” Mark’s echo belittled Luke.

“Kitty is soft and smells good,” Luke added. “But when Reed’s nice, I get to smiling inside.”

“Yeah.” Matt revealed surprise. “Me too.”

“They’re already like Mum and Da, sort of,” Luke said.

“Maybe if they get mushy like Mum and Da used to,” Matt said, stopping Chastity’s heart, “they would want to keep us.”

“You’re all a bunch of stupid babies,” Mark returned in tones of hushed anger. “Nobody wants us, but us. Another thing, if they get mushy, they’ll get babies of their own, then they’ll like theirs better and won’t want us anymore.”

Chastity wanted to reassure them, but she dare not. She would simply have to show them how much she loved them. Besides, the notion of Reed and her, and babies, was too absurd to contemplate, except that it shivered her from her warm cheeks to her curling toes.

“Since Kitty already wants us, we need to get her and Reed mushy like parents,” Matt said, “so he’ll want us too. You don’t have to help, Mark, but you can’t tell, or you gotta do a deed.”

“What deed?” Mark’s wary question made Chastity hope he might someday find his childhood, if he ever lost his anger.

“Somethin’ bad,” Matt said. “I Know. Raise your hand and repeat after me, “I promise on the dead body of gramma’s cat, Patsie—”

“Why not on gramma’s dead body?”

“You don’t swear on your gram’s dead body, stupid, it’s dispecful,” Luke scolded. “Now pay tension.”

“I promise on dead old Patsie,” Matt continued. “Never to reveal this pact, or I have to—”

“Eat mouse’s tails and hedgehog toes,” Luke said.

“Yuck!”

“Swear Mark. You too, Luke.”

“I swear.”

“I swear. You swear, too.”

Matt repeated the oath he had composed.

Chastity did not know whether she should be sad, angry, or crawl beneath the sheet to hug them. Daily, she learned what a huge responsibility were children, and she prayed she was up to it.

“So, what do we do now?” Luke asked.

“All right. Here’s the plan....” Their voices lowered, until Chastity heard nothing but the beat of her own heart, while she resisted an urge to tiptoe nearer.

‘Twas likely best that she not know anyway.

* * *

Sunnyledge was a sad house, the Vindicator always thought. Children might have changed that. Except the ones here, now, were the wrong children.

She would have to fix that.

The woman—Kitty they called her—had taken this small room above the scullery as her workroom, which was perfect. Now everything could be heard from right here in the dumbwaiter.

The Vindicator loved this small closed space. As children, she and Edward had eavesdropped on everyone from here, even Edward’s father and his housekeeper . . . and learned some surprising new lessons. Intimate lessons.

She and Edward had been inseparable for a time. But after he went to Eton, Edward was only happy when he came home on holiday, and they could be together.

Yes, Sunnyledge had always been a sad place, but soon, after Edward’s sons destroyed each other over the Barrington title and estate, joy would once again fill this house.

* * *

Matt stood on an attic trunk looking out a small round window when he saw someone cresting the rise. “Kitty, someone is coming.”

Chastity came and raised her apron to wipe the grime from the pane.

“Who is it?” Luke asked, as he and Mark scrambled to join them.

“A stranger is coming up the hill.” Chastity lifted Rebekah to press her tiny nose to the glass beside her brothers.

Matt whooped. “It’s Reed and he’s leading a cow, with Stealth trotting behind.” Matt jumped off the trunk and ran for the stairs.

“Are you sure it’s a cow?” Chastity asked, but no one answered; the room was empty. They had all followed Matt.

Chastity ached to follow with the same enthusiastic speed, but she wavered, her urge to hurry giving her pause. “Bother, it’s getting late anyway,” she said, ignoring her true motives as she followed the children, excitement beating in her breast.

CHAPTER SEVEN

By the time Chastity stepped outdoors, Reed had cleared the rise and the children were running toward him, but instead of throwing themselves into his arms, as their forward surge predicted, they stopped dead, as if waiting for a sign. Had Reed shown some welcome, they might have continued in the same joyful way, Chastity thought with regret, but he must be addressing them with some interest, because their stances relaxed as they turned to walk beside him.

Then Rebekah came running back, clearly upset, and Chastity bent to receive her. She pressed her face into Chastity’s neck, her little body all atremble.

Chastity lifted her and returned the pressure of her grip, a burden she welcomed but worried over.

Reed and the boys were still laughing by the time they reached her.

“I would like to know what you think is so funny,” Chastity asked. “What did you do to frighten your sister like this? And you Reed? A grown man frightening a little girl?”

Four idiotic males laughed harder, the dimple in Reed’s chin deepening with his mirth. “I brought my lady a cow,” said he with a bow like a courtier.

His play warmed Chastity, and while she wished she could bottle the twinkle in his topaz eyes, she was angry with him for laughing at Bekah. “What frightened Bekah?”

“The cow will produce milk for the children,” he said evasively.

“Of course. Thank you.” Ignore the twinkle, she told herself. Look away from the dimples. “Why was Bekah crying?”

“Reed said the cow was for her and she got that scaredy-girl look and ran.” Luke gave an imitation of Reed’s superior-male grin. “She’s just a silly girl.”

Renewed male laughter made Bekah whimper. Chastity stroked Bekah’s nape to shush her. “Bekah doesn’t know what to do with that big ugly cow, do you, baby?” She kissed the girl’s furrowed brow. “It’s all right. You can stay as far away from the beast as you want.”

Still tucked into Chastity’s neck, Rebekah slid a one-eyed peek at the bovine in question.

Reed patted it. “A hearty Devon cow is old Buttercup.”

“I want to call it Leonardo.”

“Stupid Luke. That’s a boy’s name.”

“Stupid Mark. How do you know it’s not a boy?”

“It doesn’t got a pump handle.”

“Oh.”

Reed grinned at Chastity. “Leonardo will give us milk for drinking and sweet cream for making butter and cheese.”

“Am I supposed to know how to do that?”

“It’s quite simple.”

Avoiding Reed’s gaze, Chastity approached the cow and took Bekah’s hand to stroke the animal. Then she looked at Reed and raised her chin. “I never made butter and cheese.”

“I’ll show you. The butter churn and cheese press we found in the shed will work fine. The children will help.”

“I never milked a cow, either.”

“I didn’t expect that you had.” Reed took her arm. “Come along. It’s getting dark. Let’s have dinner—I’ll cook—then we’ll have an early night. Morning will come sooner than usual with Leonardo to milk.

Before dawn the next morning, Reed prodded five yawning individuals toward the night-dark barn, lantern in hand, ignoring his need to take a certain sleep-warm woman into his arms for a proper good-morning. To regain control of his body, he refused to consider what a proper good-morning might entail, but wouldn’t sweet Sister Chastity wake up fast if he made an attempt? He chuckled.

“What?” she asked, stopping to look up at him.

He allowed his free hand to slide to the small of her back. “You’re a scruffy pack of sluggards, but entertaining as all get out.”

“Guess I need a bell to wake me properly.”

Or a kiss, Reed thought, or more. All conditions were ripe for seduction, save one, or should he say four. Reed took a deep steadying breath and looked about. He hated to admit it, but walking into a barn of a cool, gray dawn, amid sweet hay and warm animals, was something of a comfort. For years he wanted to get away from farming, but today, for some reason, he anticipated the chore he once thought tedious. He looked forward to . . . something, though he dare not ask what, or why, or who was responsible.

Reed patted the cow. “Chastity, you should know how to milk, even though it’ll be Matt’s chore, since he’s oldest.”

Pride became evident in the set of Matt’s shoulders, as he accepted a responsibility, Reed hoped, for once in his young life, was not too heavy a burden.

Reed demonstrated the chore by squirting steaming milk into a pail. When he was done, he looked from one to the other of the sluggards and nearly laughed at Chastity’s alarm. He rose and indicated the stool. “Chastity.”

Hiding her chagrin, she sat, reached for an udder, hesitated, and snatched her hands back.

Reed held his chuckle, but Matt did not.

She reached again and hesitated. “Stay calm, there, Leonardo,” she said with a soft, silken rasp that Reed wished she would use on him. He enjoyed watching her experience life anew at every turn; she must have lived a sheltered existence in that convent. Not for the first time, he wondered what odd quirk of fate had brought them together, and was it as bad a stroke of fortune as he first imagined?

Reed wasn’t certain of anything anymore.

Chastity looked to him for encouragement and he gave her a nod.

She took a breath, curled her fingers around an udder, screeched, and jerked her hand back. “They’re warm and spongy.” With a look of horror, she wiggled her fingers as if to shake away the feel.

Reed’s choked response dissolved in Luke’s giggling tumble to the ground.

Chastity regarded the scamp in disgust. “Luke Jessop you have an absurd notion of what is amusing, and I do not appreciate it one bit.” She examined each face in turn, and Reed masked his humor as none of them dared to smirk.

“Try again and do not think about how it feels. Think about poor Leonardo who is uncomfortable and will feel better after you milk her.”

That settled it for Chastity. Leave it to her to put a cow’s comfort first. “That’s right, like that,” Reed encouraged. “Hold tight now and firm your grip. Fine. Pinch the top, then squeeze.”

Nothing happened. Chastity raised her hands in resignation. “I tried; I can’t.”

“Try again. Squeeze harder.” Jeez, he was reacting physically to her milking a blasted cow.

Chastity pinched the top, squeezed the udder, looked to see what was wrong, and a spray of milk hit her in the face. “Yeek!” Evading the shower, she toppled from the stool.

Smack on her bottom in the dirt, again, Chastity tried to wipe her face with her hands, while the boys fell over each other in helpless laughter—even Mark.

Before Reed realized it, a chuckle from somewhere deep inside him grew into a belly laugh. He tried more than once to suppress it, but his mirth got the best of him every time. Even as he raised Chastity’s apron to wipe her face, he laughed the harder.

The near-smile on Bekah’s face, as she watched her brothers, stayed his hand, but the girl was more in harmony with her protector than the rest, because she knelt and patted Chastity’s back.

“Thank you, baby,” Chastity said, kissing her cheek. Gathering her dignity like dented armor, Chastity rose from the dirt, ignored Reed’s hand, slapped the back of her dusty black dress, and righted the stool. Taking a deep breath, she reclaimed her seat. “I can do this.” She regarded her audience, pointedly daring them to dispute her. None would consider it. She had shown them time and again that she could do anything she set her mind to.

Reed knelt to help.

Warmth raced through Chastity as Reed hunched down behind her and took her hands in his. “I know you can do it, but let me help,” he said, his faith almost her undoing. His face beside hers became an unwanted distraction, yet she could not move away. He shaped his hands over hers and around the cow’s udders, and time seemed to stop.

Chastity forgot what she was doing, until Reed manipulated, with sure touch and a surer knowledge, her hands on the cow’s udders. By some miracle, milk began to fill the pail.

She thought Reed would let go once the milk started to flow, but he did not, and Chastity closed her eyes to savor the moment. The rhythm, almost harsh, went on, mesmerizing in its slow endless drone. Steam rose to warm their clasped hands. The earth smelled new, mixed with hay, animals, man.

Reed leaned closer, his arm abrading the side of her breast with each pull. Chastity bit her lip to stifle the moan rising in her throat. His hands, moist from warm steam, caressed hers. He turned his head, to regard her, and she saw every facet—in every shade of gold God created—in eyes that would make an artist weep to capture.

His breath stroked the side of her face; she shifted to feel it along her neck.

Had he noticed? Had he moved just a bit closer, himself?

Milk filling the pail became a soothing pulse, no longer harsh, but calming. Chastity’s heart trebled its cadence. She had never been more aware of herself as a woman, of her body, her heart, than right now. She turned a fraction to examine Reed’s face. Devil’s eyes. Bold brows. Rugged features, extraordinary, handsome, dark. The dimple in his chin drew her regard. She was glad her hands were occupied, or she might dip a finger in to see how deep it went.

Was he, too, affected by their proximity? Did she read . . . awareness, admiration, in his eyes? Good Lord, could he read it in hers?

She looked away, focused on the milk bucket. Nearly full. When had that happened?

Matt and Luke gave each other a knowing grin, which brought Chastity up short. These young innocents were more knowledgeable in the ways of men and women than she. Of course, they had grown up with parents who loved each other, so they did have some of the experience she lacked.

Was this part of their matchmaking scheme?

Was she succumbing, even now, to the machinations of children? Or was Reed the true schemer? Lord, she was confused. Distance, she needed between them. Now. “Let me try,” she said, unable to disguise the quiver in her voice.

Reed seemed to have trouble looking away, moving away. But before she was ready, he stood.

Mourning the loss of contact, she continued milking on her own, her pride in the accomplishment growing, overcoming her earlier confusion. The boys cheered her success, earning her forgiveness for any and all matchmaking ploys.

Chastity looked to Reed, hoping for his praise, but he scowled, instead. “Let Matt try,” he said, any wonder over their experience, gone.

Matt took her place. Chastity chewed her lip, waiting for him to struggle, hoping he would not. He would be embarrassed if he did. It wasn’t as easy as it seemed.

Squirt, squirt, squirt. The rhythmic sound began and continued uninterrupted, and shame filled Chastity. Matthew milked Leonardo as if he had been doing it his whole life.

“Matt can do it,” Luke said. “Kitty’s just a girl.”

Reed clapped Luke on the shoulder. “That’s right, Luke. There are some things men do better than women. Isn’t that so, Matt?”

Chastity straightened and raised her chin. “You men can do it, then.” She shuddered at the feel of those udders in her hands, and headed for the house, until Rebekah’s keening began. Chastity stopped, extended her hand, and waited for the girl to catch up, before they continued on, heads high.

“That’s right, Chastity,” Reed called after her. “You and Bekah can cook breakfast while we men finish the hard work.”

She squeezed Rebekah’s hand, smiling despite herself, at Reed’s taunt. “I suppose I should not be cross at him, no matter how maddening he is, should I, Sweetheart?” She was trying to make Bekah smile, with no results. “After all, he’s teaching me what I should know about running the house and taking care of you and your brothers. Hard to believe that because of Reed Gilbride, I will be able to give you a good home, as soon as Sunnyledge is mine. But let’s pretend we are angry for a while. It’s what those men deserve.” But when she saw how much the children enjoyed the milk, Chastity was so grateful, she couldn’t even pretend anger.

By the twinkle in Reed’s eyes, she guessed he sensed that she forgave him. “I also bought flour, salt, and corn meal in town,” he said.

Chastity stared at her work-sore hands. He had spoken with pride, as if he wanted to be applauded, except that all she could think of was the fact that her money was gone. “I cannot repay you, until I receive my next allowance.”

When she looked up, Reed shrugged. “No repayment necessary. I’m eating, too. If I teach you to provide for yourself and the children, I can live my life in peace knowing you’re able to care for them when you leave.”

“Of course.” Chastity ignored the pain his words caused, wondering why it existed at all. She wanted free of him, as much as he wanted to free of her and the children. “Now I have all the supplies I need to bake bread.”

He all but gaped. “You know how to bake bread?”

“I’m not stupid.”

“But you did not know how to do anything else.”

“I can do a great many things, Reed Gilbride. It’s just that most of them have nothing to do with cooking. The sisters baked bread every Saturday to distribute to the poor. I helped. It was the most fun ever, growing up.”

“Sounds like a delightful childhood.” Like mine, Reed thought, reminding himself not to allow an affinity with the provoking sister and her bandit brood to take root. “If you can bake bread, you can bake corn cakes. Tomorrow I would like corn cakes dripping with fresh sweet butter for breakfast.”

Reed went to the scullery to get the butter churn he had repaired and scrubbed. While they watched, he skimmed the heavy cream from the top of the milk, poured it into the churn and replaced the lid. “This is all you have to do.” He pumped the plunger a few times. “Who can do that?”

Luke jumped up and down. “Me, me.”

“How about Rebekah. Do you want to do it first?”

She whimpered and hid behind Chastity.

Reed’s frown relaxed. “All right. Luke, you do it. Good, now put some force into it. That’s right. When you get tired, give Mark a turn, and later maybe Matt will want to try. As the cream turns to butter, the mix gets thicker, and the handle gets harder to move. It takes time, so do take turns.”

Chastity followed Reed to the scullery while the children worked the churn, inspiring each other to speed. “Is that all there is, and we have butter?”

“We drain off the buttermilk and save that to make cheese.” Reed laughed at her grimace. “After you master butter-making, we’ll try cheese. When the children are done, we’ll put the butter in a bowl, throw in some salt, and as the old lady used to say, we knuckle and knead.”

“Old lady?”

“Old lady, old man. That’s what I call the people who had no choice but to raise me. I could never think of them, much less call them, my parents. Still and all, they taught me to take care of myself and brought me up as best they could, I suppose, despite a dozen children of their own. One thing that puzzled me about my childhood, though, but now gives me hope, is the fact that the Squire tutored me.”

“Why would your education puzzle you, and why should it give you hope?”

“No one tutored the other children. I always wondered where Old Man Gilbride got the money to pay the Squire. They were dirt poor, let me tell you. Then there was the amazing sum of four-thousand, two-hundred pounds that they gave me to buy my commission in Wellington’s army.”

* * *

The Vindicator knew the answer to the puppet’s puzzle. His high, holy, miserable self, had paid—Clive bloody Pomfret, Vicar, sinner, whatever he had been, ‘twas best the crow was dead.

Clive had been worse than Papa.

Despite her father’s ire over her friendship with the Barrington heir, Edward St. Yves had been her best friend . . . until she turned sixteen. When Edward came home from Cambridge that time, things changed between them. As they listened to his father and the housekeeper panting and moaning, Edward had begun to stroke her in places that liked his touch, at first through her clothes, then before long, inside them, against her skin. Then he took her hands and placed them on him.

Heady pleasure. Wicked. Wonderful. Incredible, that first time in the dumbwaiter, better the second time, in the loft.

Before Edward left for school, again, their play went beyond touching. He took her virginity and they became lovers.

The only happiness she had ever known had been with Edward. Then his father died and he took his place as the Earl of Barrington—an Earl who could not marry a Vicar’s daughter. Promising he would always love her, Edward married within his class, and she became the most petted and spoiled mistress ever, daring to live openly with her lover in his own home. Edward’s wife had become nothing more than a slave to Edward’s ruthless determination to beget a legitimate heir.

Edward lived his life as he wished—with her. And she had been happy for a time.

The shock of their open alliance had given her father a fit from which he never recovered. After Papa died, Edward liked baiting her brother, Clive, the new Vicar, even more. Sometimes she feared that Edward did not love her as much as he loved lording it over her holy male relatives.

She should have known, when Edward caused her downfall that his reasons had less to do with her and more to do with thumbing his nose at piety.

Edward never married her.

For that, she would repay him in coin more precious than her fall from grace—by pitting his sons—his longed-for legitimate heirs—one against the other, to the death, and ending the St. Yves line forever.

* * *

Standing beside the table, an empty wooden milk bucket between them, Reed’s revelation of his education and costly military career, made Chastity fear that she might lose Sunnyledge, after all. To be fair, however, he was helping her in ways she had not known she needed, and for that she would always be grateful, no matter where she and the children ended up. “Whichever one of us gets Sunnyledge,” she said, “though I have faith it will be me and the children, thank you for enabling me to mother them and any others who come along.”

Reed gave a derisive chuckle. “Wonderful, I have enabled a woman to become a mother. Quite an accomplishment, though I took no pleasure in the service, nor did I ever know a mother worth emulating.” He quieted, regarded her hand on his arm, then he scanned her face, and lost all sign of mirth.

Chastity wondered, yet again, if he were as drawn to her as she, to him, the quandary prompting her to sidestep temptation. She pulled a handful of tin soldiers from her pocket, with the intention of turning away, but he held her gaze with such pointed heat, the toys fell from her fingers, and scattered on the floor.

Rebekah disentangled herself from Chastity’s leg with a happy trebling whine and dropped to the floor to gather the bounty.

Free of Reed’s spell and the child’s awkward but pleasant shackle, Chastity lowered herself to sit at the table before her legs buckled. “How do I make cheese?”

Reed seemed to require a gathering of his own thoughts.

“Cheese?” she prompted.

“Oh.” He rubbed his nape as if it ached. “Boil the buttermilk till it curdles, wrap the curds tight in a loosely-woven cloth to mold them and remove the moisture. After a few weeks, you have a chunk of cheese.”

Chastity felt no inclination to accept the quick monologue, for she liked the easy camaraderie of the moment. “Why do cheeses taste different, then, if all are made the same?”

“Depends on where the cows graze, highlands or low, what they eat, time of year, temperature, weather. Our cows broke into the onion patch one summer and the milk tasted terrible, but it made the best cheese I ever tasted. You can also work bacon fat into the curds for a different taste, or smoke the cheese as it dries. Herbs can also be added—not mint.”

Chastity smiled, despite herself. “You know so much.”

Reed sat and stretched his legs beneath the table. “By the time I was tall enough to reach the underbelly of a cow, I was milking, mucking out stalls, working the fields. I kept track of the Gilbride brood, as well. The days were long. Foster life can be hard, but I learned some valuable lessons.”

“The life you describe is the kind I want for my children, except that I will add love to the mix and hope they grow up happy, rather than bitter.”

Reed stood as if insulted. “Bitter? Damned right, I am. With cause.”

Chastity motioned him to sit. “Bitterness kills joy, Reed. Can you not see that? You were fortunate growing up, whether you believe it or not, because you were part of a family. You have no idea how lonely a child can be.”

“Were you lonely? Or peaceful? Think about it. Your life might have been downright serene.”

“Solitude is not necessarily peace,” Chastity said, trying not to feel as sorry for herself as he did for himself. “I often ached for someone to talk to, someone to . . . embrace,” she finally admitted.

“You can be lonely in a crowd,” Reed said. “There is no isolation sharper than when you are surrounded by a dozen people who ignore you.”

“I know that from a thousand silent meals, chores, hours in chapel, working beside— Working with the sick.” Beside William, she had nearly said. Doctor William Somers, her husband. “Life is stark, nursing the sick.” She married William to get away, to enter the real world. “I do not believe that alone and peaceful are equal. Life has to be more rewarding with people you love by your side.”

Reed shook his head, mocking her. “Perhaps.” He remained quiet, hands steepled before him, his mind far away, until he regarded her fixedly. “Families do not always love, Chastity. Sometimes they hate, and the people around you are not your family simply because you live in the same place.”

“In a way, I understand what you are saying.” She shrugged. “But I do not accept it. Sorry. Love is the key. It really is. You have to believe that.”

Looking away, embarrassed, Reed bent to right one of Bekah’s soldiers. Placing it just so, he caught the child’s wide blue gaze, tapped her pert little nose . . . and wondered, for less than a beat, if Chastity could be right, but he knew better.

When he sat up, he shook his head in firm denial. “Love, my dear, is a myth.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Love a myth? Chastity rejected Reed’s outlandish notion out of hand. How interesting that he should all but whisper it, though. Was he trying to protect the children, or soften the blow for her?

He so frequently tried to remove himself, emotionally, if not physically, from her and the children, she wondered why he would take such care. In his heart of hearts, where he kept the gentle rogue, did he want them to prove him wrong?

At this moment, a silent tug of war seemed to be taking place between them. If she could name the game, she might be able to gird herself against its outcome.

She had often needed to distance herself as a child, to withdraw into the safe haven of her mind, so she understood his unrealized intent. For an adult, Reed had a lot to learn about opening one’s heart. But if she must be the one to teach him, someone had best teach her, and fast.

As disturbed by their conversation, as he seemed to be, likely for a different reason, Chastity scooped Zeke into her lap as he came hopping by.

After several charged minutes, she knew she must shatter the tension, but for the life of her, nothing came to mind, save the subject from which they’d strayed.

She sighed. “If making cheese is so easy without a cheese press, what is the press for?”

Reed had been watching her pet Zeke, but when her question brought his attention to her face, he appeared surprised, even embarrassed that she noticed.

With all the awkwardness of a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he fetched the press, placed its parts on the table, and named them. “This speeds the process and shapes the cheese. The cloth-wrapped curds go here.” He pointed to the cavity. “This large round stone goes over it; the lid goes on top. Because the cheese shrinks as it dries, the center screw is turned daily to push the stone against the cheese and squeeze the moisture out.” He pushed the flat of his big, strong hands against each other to demonstrate.

He had just spent an inordinate amount of time watching her stroke Zeke. Now she imagined those capable hands of his doing the petting. Unfortunately, in her mind, he was stroking her.

Heat filled Chastity’s face.

Reed raised a brow.

Had she been caught?

The children’s bickering drew their attention, cooling her face, distracting them both, praise be. “Luke, stop teasing. What is the matter with you?”

He leaned against the table and heaved a sigh heavy with boredom. “Can I have some cloth and string?”

“What for?”

“I’m impressed. He asked, rather than pilfered.”

Chastity ignored the comment and the commentator.

“Reed knows what I want to do.”

“I do?”

“Sure you do. I want to build a flying machine like Leonardo Avici’s. Remember?”

“A flying machine?” Chastity squeaked.

“DaVinci,” Reed corrected, as he leaned toward Chastity. “Makes a boy proud to build something,” he said for her ears only.

A flying machine sounded dangerous to her, but Reed seemed to think it was important. “When I go upstairs,” she told Luke, “I’ll see what I can find.”

“Whooppee! Matt, I’m gonna build one. Told’ja!”

Something intangible had just passed among them, something . . . familial. If she were not so worried about her reaction to Reed, she would likely applaud it. She indicated the press. “It has a hole in the bottom.”

“Excess liquid drips through and into the bowl you set beneath.”

Chastity nodded, but there were no more words, only a pulsing silence, wherein each of them scrutinized an aged cheese press with acute but unwarranted interest.

“Kitty, the handle’s getting hard to move. Your turn.”

Chastity took her turn, pumping the butter-making plunger fast, to entertain her brood. “Now we’ll have all the food we need.”

“Not quite.” Reed petted Zeke. “We need meat.”

Mark marched over and grabbed Zeke. “Not rabbit!”

“Guess I have to go hunting, then,” Reed said as he walked out the door.

Disappointed by his abrupt departure, Chastity went to look out the window, Matt right beside her.

Reed was glad he had left. Chastity was playing him like a musician with a flair for her instrument. He played women; they did not play him. The reverse made him nervous, which made him mad. Blast, he was glad to get away.

Unless somebody was poaching, the Sunnyledge Chase Preserve—which he saw on a map in the book he should not have been perusing—should be teeming with game. He glanced back toward the house and wished he had not. Matt stood in the kitchen window watching.

That boy wanted a man’s influence, and Reed understood, only too well, but he could not be that man. The boy needed someone with a sense of identity, of purpose. A father.

Reed knew then that he should leave and not look back. He was no closer to finding his heritage today than yesterday. He had been too busy providing for Chastity and her brood, damn it.

Nevertheless, he went hunting, bound and determined to put meat on the table.

Two hours later, relaxed, and satisfied with his jaunt, Reed placed a skinned and cleaned animal on the sideboard in the Sunnyledge kitchen.

Chastity bent over the open oven door, revealing her slender neck, the wisps of hair at her nape, her slim waist, while Reed’s hands ached to shape that neat little bottom begging for his attention.

“Oh, you’re back,” she said, catching him by surprise.

He fisted his hand, wondering if his face was as red as hers and what excuse he would give, if she asked why.

“I could not bake bread, because it needed time to rise,” she said. “I’ll do that in the morning.” She slipped a pan of thin, dark wafers from the oven. “But my oat-cakes are perfect, see?” She wore pride like a halo.

Oh they were done all right. “Are they supposed to be so dark?” Reed knew instantly that he said the wrong thing.

Chastity blew a wet tendril from her brow. “Do you never think to say something like, thank you?” She slammed the pan on the sideboard. “Matt told me how his mother made them and I followed his directions exactly. Yes, they’re supposed to be this color.”

“They’re not very thick; perhaps that’s why they seem so—”

“Matt said they were supposed to be thin.” Chastity nibbled her bottom lip the way Reed would like to nibble it.

“Fine.” He shrugged and turned away to save his sanity.

“Would it hurt to say, ‘Well done,’ or, ‘Good for you,’ something nice?” Her voice rose with each word.

Reed grasped her upper arms to calm her. “I am proud of you, truly.” He gazed into the sultry violet eyes of a temptress—a nun—stroked her with his thumbs, and could feel himself swell with each stroke. Nuns should not have wicked eyes that challenged one to widen them with pleasure, or close them in exhausted satisfaction.

He damn near told her so before he lowered his arms, cleared his throat, and stepped back. “Here now, let’s see what you can do with this.” He pushed the cleaned and skinned animal her way.

“What kind of animal is that? Did you kill something cuddly?”

“Surely you know what it is?” Reed’s mind raced.

“Is it a chicken?”

“You guessed it!” He grinned. “It’s a chicken. All you have to do to roast a chicken is—”

“It doesn’t look like a chicken. Why would you hunt for a— Do chickens roam wild?”

“You want to feed these children?” Reed snapped.

Chastity placed her hands on her hips, her breasts swelling with indignation. “Of course I do!”

He damned near reached for her, thought better of it, grabbed the animal, and slammed it into a pan. “Then, cook this chicken.”

As he directed, Chastity sprinkled parsley, salt, and rosemary on the meat and placed parsnips and wild onions beside it. Then she covered the pan, and set it in the oven.

He should stop watching her put things in the oven, Reed thought, but he sat right down to supervise, instead, making sure she checked that chicken often.

As the children devoured the meal, Reed bit into an oat cake and crunched. Far be it from him to tell her they were burned, though the children did not seem to mind. But her chicken, now that was delicious.

“Mark,” Chastity asked, “Where is Zeke?”

Reed took another bite.

“Can’t find ‘em,” Mark answered, his mouth full.

Reed looked quickly up. Nah. He turned to Chastity.

She chewed more slowly as she returned his gaze, then she stopped entirely, forgetting to swallow.

Mark turned ashen.

“Saw Zeke s’afternoon,” Luke said. “Him and another bunny was playin’ leapfrog in the yard.”

Reed almost choked. Lucky Zeke had found a willing lady bunny. He checked Chastity’s reaction and saw that she did not comprehend the nature of Zeke’s frolic.

“Took Zeke in after that,” Luke said. Seemed awful tired. Sleepin’ in the liberry last time I saw ‘em.”

Mark fled the kitchen at a dead run. Reed watched Chastity swallow hard and put down her fork.

“Got ‘em,” Mark yelled, reappearing to plop Zeke on the table, in direct defiance of Reed’s edict. The boy returned to his dinner then, daring Reed with a shrewd look to make anything of the rabbit on the table.

Mark knew what they were eating.

Chastity took a long slow breath and patted Zeke’s lop-ears before resuming her meal.

Reed and Mark shared a knowing look as Reed speared a piece of meat and raised his fork in a salute. “Wonderful chicken.”

Mark damned-near smiled.

For the next week, they, all of them, plowed and seeded the garden, though it was late by farming standards. Reed taught Matt to put the leads on one of the shire horses, then to hold them while Reed guided the plow. Rebekah dropped seeds where she was told; Luke covered them. Mark, who’d softened with their conspiracy over the chicken, watered the seeds. Reed hated to admit that the children’s laughter lightened his mood enough to make him forget his inability to search. With vegetables planted, he would be able to hunt for game in earnest then he would be free to search.

A hunting trip would bring peace, Reed realized as he ate warm bread, dripping with butter and honey, the next morning.

When Chastity licked honey from her fingers, his gut tightened and the blood coursed fiercely through his veins, centering low and heavy. He wanted to lick that honey from her fingers, her lips, from inside her mouth.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, his reaction warned him away from his foolish thoughts.

Peace. He needed it badly. “I need to go hunting,” he said, “to bag some bigger game, something that will last while we search.”

Chastity frowned at the reminder of his purpose.

“I might be gone for a couple of days,” he added, the thought alone bringing a semblance of longed-for peace, except that Matt’s attention had become riveted, his eyes wide. And Reed sighed as a notion took root. “Matt, I’m gonna need help. Think I could persuade you to come along?”

The boy nearly fell from his chair in his eagerness, his breakfast forgotten. “I’ll get my things. Overnight did you say?” He bolted before he heard Reed’s answer.

“Mark, you’re the man in charge while I’m gone.”

Mark nodded once and returned to his breakfast, and Reed hoped the boy’s lack of enthusiasm was due to a concealed pleasure. Reed regarded Chastity to see if she was insulted, because he had not left her in charge, but she gave him a warm, dreamy smile, as if he had given her the world.

Blast. The rush her smile gave him settled into all the wrong places, even his heart, before he could erect a barrier. Bad, bad, bad. Except that it felt good. Quite good. He could live on Chastity’s smiles, if he did not want so badly to exist on a more physical plane with her.

After the three months were up, and one of them was forced to leave, would he be able to exist without her smiles? If he tasted her, if they soared together, could peace ever be his without her? Which wrong-headed emotion would dog him the more in the end; remorse over having her, or regret over not having her?

With that burning question gnawing at his gut, Reed rose the second Matt returned. “Mark, take care of Chastity and your brother and sister. Chastity, don’t forget to milk Leonardo.” He headed for the door, and peace, and sanity, and . . . regret? Because he was leaving her? Damnation.

As Chastity followed him out, he did not want to look at her, but he did, and was lost. Before she could speak, he kissed her quick and stepped away. Then he went back for more. The second kiss was hard but fast. He pulled back for good this time, examined her face, her amazing violet eyes, and kissed her hard and long.

“The children,” she whispered when he came up for air.

The children, he thought, looking around, were enjoying the show, judging by their grins. Reed left, pretending to ignore Matt’s chuckle.

* * *

When Edward died, she had assumed her revenge complete. His twin sons, she thought, as did he, died with their mother. But because her brother hated Edward, Clive had played God.

When he confessed, on his deathbed, that Edward’s sons lived, she had been shocked. Elated. They should have been her sons, hers and Edward’s, so she had written those notes and called the boys’ home.

Only one had arrived so far. Reed. But that was alright. Enjoyment could be found in anticipation. Each boy would have his moment, and each would be sweet.

Thea pulled the rope, lowered the dumbwaiter to the basement, and took the tunnel to the Vicarage, her mind full of plans. She would write a letter to Mr. Sennett first then she would set off on a hunt for big game.

* * *

On the second morning of their hunting trip, Matt walked beside Reed, grain sack in hand, hiding his excitement, pretending not to enjoy himself, so nothing would end his pleasure. Reed understood, because Matt and Mark were like him in that way.

He hoped Matt might learn to trust. He wanted to help with the problem bothering the boy, but so far, Matt was giving only single-word answers to Reed’s questions. Perhaps if he told Matt about his life, the child would share his own. “I was the oldest too,” Reed said.

Matt shifted the gunny sack but made no comment.

“It wasn’t easy taking care of twelve children, keeping them safe. Sometimes I’d get so mad. Imagine four each of Luke, Mark and Bekah.”

Matt’s horror said it all. “Did your parents leave you behind with all of them?”

Reed thought his childhood had been bad, but Matt’s was worse. “The people who raised me were not my real parents,” he said. “Their children were not really my sisters and brothers, but I was still the oldest, though, unlike you, I did not get left with them.”

Matt stopped. “Where did your real parents go?”

“I never knew. I do not even know who they were. The people who raised me got me the day I was born.”

“Did you cry sometimes, when you were small?” Matt examined his face closely as he waited for Reed’s answer.

Reed needed to be honest for the boy’s sake, he knew, but when the anguish he had kept inside took hold, he nearly gasped. That Matt experienced the same stopped Reed in his tracks. He sat on his haunches to look the boy square in the eye. “Yes, Matt. I cried sometimes.”

Matt nodded his understanding, uprooted a blade of grass and chewed it as they walked. “We were with Mum most of the time, until she left us with Aunt Anna.”

“Then you were luckier than me, because I never lived with my real parents. How did your mother know your father was sick?”

“She got a letter then she went to get him.”

“Do you have the letter, or know where it is?”

Matt considered his answer carefully. “I never saw the letter, and I really don’t remember where she went.”

“Did she tell you?”

Matt’s eyes filled. “I don’t remember,” he said. “And it makes me mad at myself, and at Mum for going, and I’m worried about Bekah. She used to jabber and say silly things, words I thought would be real, someday, but I’d tell her to be quiet.” He looked up, pain in his big blue eyes. “Now she is.”

Matt would not want the same kind of comfort from him that Chastity would give, so Reed squeezed a small but heavily-burdened shoulder. “Bekah’s silence is not your fault.”

Matt forced a half-smile and turned away. “Did you feel bad if something terrible happened to your sisters and brothers after you wished they were never borned?”

“More often than I’d like to remember.”

“Are we gonna bag some rabbit like we ate yesterday?”

“You knew?”

Matt’s smile was real this time. “Kitty thought it was chicken. She’s nothin’ but a silly girl.”

Reed did not agree. Chastity was a warm, vibrant woman, though not his, he should attempt to remember. Never his.

Judging from her reaction to his kisses yesterday, she needed to remember as well. “Hungry?” Reed sat on a rock and pulled some oatcakes from his bag, because they had not as yet broken their fast. Matt grimaced and Reed grinned. “They’re not supposed to be this brown and hard are they?”

“Nah, but I wasn’t tellin’ Kitty.”

“How do you think she did milking this morning?”

“Mark probably helped. He knows how.”

Reed held an oat-cake half-way to his mouth. “If he knows how, then you did, too.”

The boy chuckled. “Yeah, but it was fun watchin’ Kitty get mad ‘cause I learned faster.”

“If she finds out, she’ll give you what for.”

They sat grinning, crunching oat-cakes, beside a mossy bank where fern fronds reached for the sun. A cuckoo sang boldly while two hares frolicked in the brush. Chastity was right; they were cuddly. Everything here seemed too beautiful to disturb with a gun. He did need to feed the children, but Chastity would be happier cooking something ugly.

That woman sat under his skin like a cocklebur, a burr who had taken vows. Damn.

Matt stretched out in the grass and closed his eyes.

Reed did the same and pictured Chastity, ready for her bath. He had prepared one for her nightly, which she appreciated and enjoyed, while, upstairs in his bed, his imagination kept him awake. Except last night when he dreamed he made love to her.

He had lifted her from the tub and sat her on his lap to dry her, inch by glorious inch, stroking each dusky nipple to erection. He took one into his mouth and she throbbed against his seeking hand, whimpering when he found her. He taught his innocent passion, entered her slowly, watched as she reached her first fulfillment, his own release imminent, so much so—

Reed opened his eyes on a curse and rose to walk off his frustration. He had never endured such a pervading need before, so fierce that it almost surpassed the physical. Not even as a raw lad had he felt as stimulated as when he was sparring with sweet Chastity Somers. None of the women who chased him, not even the ones he caught, had driven him this mad with lust.

His fascination with a nun was beginning to frighten the hell out of him. If his imagination made taking her that good, what would the reality be? Could he bear it?

Devil take it, he wanted to find out.

Except that she was not free, and he did not want to be tied to a family. With or without a veil, Chastity spelled family, which spelled noise, chaos, the opposite of peace. She was not one to accept release and go her merry way. She probably thought she would go to hell if she did. He, too, had been warned about hell, and with lusting after a nun, he guessed it was now a fairly certain destination.

One thing for certain; he’d had enough of standing around here thinking about it. He touched Matt’s shoulder to wake him. “Let’s do us some hard hunting.”

The boy’s smile brought his own. He taught Matt to sight down a barrel, and while he gave step-by-step directions, the boy shot . . . a tree limb, dead.

Half an hour later, Matt pointed toward the underbrush. “Look, Reed.”

“It’s a fallow deer,” Reed whispered. “Want to give it a try?”

Matt shook his head. “I’d feel awful if I missed.”

Reed nodded and took aim, the buck foraging far away, blissfully unaware of his possible doom, when a loud thwack came from nowhere. Something whizzed by Reed and passed a hair’s breadth by Matt, before it came to a thrumming stop in a tree trunk. An arrow! Reed knocked Matt down, and covered him with his body, shouting for the archer to stop. A second arrow hit the same tree. In a vague and rusty litany, Reed prayed for Matt’s safety, while trying to keep him safe. He raised his head, gauged distances, and thought perhaps—

Pain stabbed into his side, caught fire. A whirring filled his head. Matt screamed from afar. Reed tried to rise, but the earth below him and the trees above him dipped and tilted. His side flamed and bile rose in his throat.

He’d set off a hunter, and ended the hunted.

Had he? Ended? Had his time finally run out?

The notion that he would never see Chastity again, stung more than his possible demise. “Chastity,” Reed whispered as the world turned to blue smoke and he wished darkness would hurry. “Matt? You crying?” Reed tried to focus.

Matt wept. “There’s blood all over you.”

Reed touched Matt’s face. “You all right?”

The boy threw himself at Reed, the pain of his landing damned near dragging Reed under. The best he could manage was to stroke the lad’s hair. Greening branches shifted in the wind above him. When had he hit the ground? The day grew bright then dark; light swirled near and away. “Get . . . Chastity.”

“I love you . . . love you.”

Reed heard Matt but couldn’t see him anymore. A thumping invaded his brain. Running feet. Matt was leaving. “Be . . . safe.” Reed closed his eyes.

* * *

Laughter—a loud, coarse, cackle, inhuman, almost on top of him, woke Reed some time, later.  He found a narrow-eyed crone looking down on him. Gray hair, kohl-lined eyes, bright red cheeks, a wild caricature, she raised a hand like a zealot on a pulpit. “The sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons!”

She stroked his cheek, ran her fingers through his hair, caressed him . . . boldly. “Do you remember, Edward?”

Reed tried to escape her vile touch, but he could not move for the pain, the dizziness.

She touched her lips to his, and he turned his head as his stomach heaved.

“Dearest Edward,” she said. Then her eyes narrowed, and all semblance of sanity slipped away, leaving her eyes empty and terrifying. “Sleep, my puppet,” she said on a laugh, and Reed welcomed oblivion.

* * *

Rebekah stood on a chair, while Chastity adjusted the child’s new blue muslin pinafore. “Stand still, while I take a stitch to raise the straps. You’re tinier than I thought.”

Bekah wound her arms around Chastity’s neck and kissed her cheek, and Chastity closed her arms around the child, aware that she might have lived her entire life without such heart-swelling affection. Had she known it existed, she might have felt she was dying without it.

When Bekah pulled from the embrace, Chastity marveled at her pink cheeks and shiny gold ringlets. “You look like a princess.”

Bekah spread the skirt and curtseyed while Chastity took a last stitch and broke the thread. “All done.”

Bekah leapt to the bed to jump up and down, humming.

If only she would smile.

Chastity heard the boys on the stairs before she saw them. “Butter’s ready, Kitty.”

“I said I’d tell her; I’m in charge.” Mark, for once, acting like a child.  Good.

“You milked,” Luke said. “Making butter is my job.”

“Well, you aren’t as strong as—”

“That’ll be enough. What a mess. Not an hour after your baths and— How did you get hay in your hair?”

“We found a loft.”

“With a lot of hay.”

The kitchen door slammed. “Kitty? Kitty, where are you?”

“Matt?” Chastity ran down the stairs in reaction to the panic in Matt’s voice. They met in the foyer, and when she saw his tear-stained face, the blood on his hands, her heartbeat trebled, and she began to examine him for wounds.

He swiped at his eyes. “No. This is Reed’s blood. Not mine.”

“What?”

“Kitty, Reed’s dying.”

CHAPTER NINE

Chastity regarded the blood on Matt’s hands and sat on the bottom stair, willing her head and stomach to calm. She’d worked as William’s nurse. She was not fainthearted, but Reed’s blood? All the training, the rules, meant nothing in the face of Reed Gilbride’s life.

“He called your name, Kitty. He said to come and get you.” Matt began to cry.

He’d called her name? Chastity rose to embrace Matt, wipe his tears, and take his hands in hers. “Calm down and tell me what happened.” The blood from Matt’s hands now covered hers—Reed’s blood.

Matt pulled on her arm. “C’mon. We gotta go.”

Chastity raised her head, anguish discarded. “Tell me how you left him.”

“With an arrow in his side.”

Chastity gathered her wits and straightened. “Mark, stay with Luke and Bekah. We’ll need you when we return. Matt, get Stealth.” She would need to keep Reed warm. “Mark run upstairs, fetch blankets, and bring them to the stable.”

“Wait,” Matt grabbed her hand as she made to leave the house.

“What is it?”

“Shouldn’t we bring bandages?”

Good Lord. She was losing her mind. She kissed Matt’s head. “Remind me to thank you later.”

“I’ll get the horse.” He ran.

“Mark,” Chastity yelled up the stairs. “Bring a length of bleached muslin from the fabric chest.” She fetched William’s medical bag, a jar of water, and some spirits, and continued to the stable. There, she stood before Stealth at a loss. “Do you know how to put those strap things on him?”

Matt nodded. “Reed showed me.”

“Thank goodness.”

“Matt repeated his lesson as he saddled Reed’s horse. “There,” he said when he finished. “He’s a right one, is old Stealth.” He spoke and even patted the horse in an imitation of Reed, and Chastity’s eyes filled.

“Here’s everything,” Mark said, winded, pushing blankets and muslin her way.

Matt led the horse from the stable, and Chastity turned to the waiting children. “Stay in the kitchen. No matter how long we’re gone, do not leave that room. Mark, you’re still in charge. Luke, Rebekah, do as your brother says.”

When all three nodded, she sighed. “Good. We’ll be back soon. I promise. Take good care of them, Mark.”

They had walked a goodly distance when Chastity stopped. “Do you remember where you left him?”

Matt regarded her as if she were daft. “I wouldn’t forget where I left him, Kitty.”

“I thought you might have trouble finding your way back, but I should know better. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“You’re worried. So am I. But he’ll be fine.”

“Poor Matt—ten years old going on forty. I hope someday you’ll have time to be a child.”

“Aw, Kitty.” Matt pulled from her hold, embarrassed by her praise, and by the tears in his eyes. His responsibilities must often be difficult to bear yet he did so with such strength of character. Now with Reed’s accident sharp in his mind, Chastity could see that Matt’s strength was wavering.

For his sake, she put her own trepidation aside. “Tell me exactly how it happened, every detail.”

“I don’t know.” Matt wiped his eyes with a quick, angry hand. “An arrow missed us, and when Reed pushed me down to protect me, he got hit. He was hurting, Kitty.”

Chastity could do nothing but will herself to take one step after another. “Tell me about the blood.”

“There was lots.”

Prickles assaulted her, fanning inward from her arms and legs, tightening her chest, weakening her, forcing her to face the truth. Like it or not, Reed Gilbride owned a piece of her heart, a place no one had ever breached, not even William. If anything happened to Reed, she would remain empty forever. Reed Gilbride, her destiny; what a frightening thought. “Where was the blood coming from?”

“His side. Didn’t I tell you? The arrow’s sticking out of his side.”

Oh yes. One foot in front of the other. Please keep him safe.

Chastity felt as if she had been walking forever, but when she saw, from a distance, Reed lying there, unmoving, her energy returned tenfold, and she ran. Kneeling beside him, blood soaking his shirt, she wanted to rage at heaven, but she wouldn’t let Matt see her fury or her crippling fear. “Reed, can you hear me?”

His eyelids fluttered but remained closed. She was so relieved, she was giddy, but she could not faint now.

She unbuttoned his bloody shirt and laid it open. The arrow had gone in at a reasonably forgiving angle, above his waist, yet close enough to his heart to make her dizzy. “Matt, give me that jar of water.” Keeping herself from giving in to hysteria, Chastity washed Reed’s side to survey the damage. Her first flash of hope came when she saw that the bleeding had slowed. “Now give me the shears.” She opened her hand.

“Kitty?”

“I’m going to cut off the shaft, so the end doesn’t get caught and tear the wound any further. I’ll leave just enough to grasp when I have to remove it later.”

When she accidentally touched the shaft with the shears, Reed moaned. When she clamped the blades tight against it, his moan became guttural.

The strength she needed to cut the arrow was more than Chastity expected. She screamed in frustration, and strength came, enabling her to sever the shaft, finally, though her scream became silent beneath Reed’s. The broken end flew up, glanced off a branch and showered them with desiccated leaves. Would that Reed’s strength were as great as those leaves, clinging against all odds.

Matt dusted her off, picking bits from Chastity’s hair, the simple act soothing her.

She poured whiskey on Reed’s wound and he cursed, and because she had caused the pain, she forgave the profanity. “If I thought it would help, I’d swear too,” she told Matt.

She needed to stem the blood-flow, while keeping the shaft as immobile as possible, so she wrapped the bandage in a loose figure eight, over his stomach to his back, and around the shaft, again and again.

Reed groaned through the process and Matt wiped the perspiration from his brow.

“How are we going to get him on Stealth?”

Chastity wished to God she knew. “He’ll have to help.” She bathed Reed’s face with a cool wet cloth to rouse him and held brandy to his lips. “Not too much,” she cautioned. “We want to dull the pain, not make you sick.”

She could have sworn, he smiled.

Barely able to grasp the reality of his injury, his blood everywhere, she kissed his hand. “We need to get you home.”

“Pretty Kitty, take me home.”

Matt smiled through his tears. “He’s drunk.”

Reed clutched the boy’s hand, his grip bruising. “You all right? Didn’t get . . . hit?”

“I’m fine, Reed.”

“Thank God.” He closed his eyes.

“No, Reed,” Chastity said. “Stay awake. We need your help.”

He licked his lips, tried to move, fell back. “In a minute.”

“We need you on Stealth, but we cannot get you up there, alone. You have to stand. We’ll help.”

Reed nodded but didn’t open his eyes. “Have a care. Arrows.”

They rolled him to his good side and lifted him to his hands and knees. Breathing hard, he looked at her through pain-glazed eyes, and she allowed him to see how much she cared. His own eyes widened and he cursed the more.

“We’ll help you,” Chastity said, “and when I tell you, straighten your knees to stand.”

Reed nodded again.

They did get him standing—more or less—while Reed cursed a streak of expletives that warmed Chastity as much as it entertained Matt.

“This will be the hardest,” Chastity told Reed. “You need to mount Stealth.”

He looked at her as if she were the devil incarnate. “Bedlamites.” He swayed toward her. “Kiss me first.”

Matt all out giggled.

“Reed Gilbride. Just when I’m worried you might die, you inspire this urge in me to drop you on your head.” Chastity rested her tear-stained cheek against his.

“Part of m’charm.” He swooned.

“Catch him, Matt.”

They caught him together.

“Sorry.” Reed labored to pull in air. “Can’t play right now.”

Chastity bit her lip until she tasted blood, and she and Matt regarded each other, two hearts aching.

“Wait,” Matt said. “I have an idea.” He pushed against Stealth’s forelegs. “Down, boy, down.”

Chastity held Reed upright, expecting it was useless, but Stealth responded to the imprecise command by kneeling, lowering himself for Reed, who gazed at Matt with new respect.

With Chastity’s help, Reed tried, God help him, his perspiration soaking her gown, his shuddering chills rocking her body. But he could not raise a leg even that high.

Matt dragged a rotted tree trunk over. “Step on this, then mount.” He sat on the log to brace it while helping to steady Reed’s legs.

Reed mounted the log, and in a difficult, ungainly move, he managed to mount Stealth as well, cursing the archer to perdition before blacking out.

Chastity threw the blankets over him. “It’s just as well he’s out,” she said. “The ride will be easier on him. Take the reins, Matt, and lead us while I keep him from falling.”

“Please forget everything you heard,” she called a few minutes later.

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Her words had been part order, part request, and foolish, she supposed, but she and Matt needed something ordinary to think about. “Reed will be fine,” she added.

“Yes Ma’am.”

Chastity tried to equate the unconscious man with the brute who’d stolen her breath just yesterday. His first parting kiss had been quick and soft. The second carried more strength and lasted a good deal longer, and before he was done, he had stamped her with some invisible brand, as if she belonged to him, now, because of it. Did she?

Chastity admitted during the second hour that she would be proud to belong to Reed Gilbride, no matter how foolish the notion, except that no one could, for he liked being alone.

It was just that he had kissed her with such . . . enthusiasm.

Had he experienced then the kind of hard wanting that was a man’s lot? The nuns were vague about that, except to say she shouldn’t allow it. Men were beasts where it was concerned. Their need was strong, sometimes brutal. A woman was never the same after. Ruined.

Did the nuns even know what they were talking about? Was she ruined for being kissed?

Perhaps, somewhat, for there now existed a new yearning in her, though she might not be ruined in the precise way the sisters meant. Not yet at any rate. If she were, she suspected she would know it, though for the life of her, she could not fathom the process by which ruination came about.

Since the nuns who raised her were also the ones who taught her nursing, there’d been no one to ask. To make matters worse, they ran a children’s hospital. No other women. No men—except Doctor William Somers, who failed to enlighten her, even after he married her.

She knew only that she had not been the same since Reed’s kisses. If she were ruined, she had enjoyed it. If she had not yet fallen, she was likely beginning the tumble, and what a ride. She wondered if Mark had noticed any indication of ruin on her face, but he seemed oblivious.

Nothing could come of a relationship between her and Reed, she knew, though they had never, in actual fact, discussed it. He thought she was a nun—untouchable—though his actions would indicate that her calling mattered little.

There were other reasons. He hated children; she was responsible for several and wanted more. He knew she stole them, and could destroy her with the knowledge. Chastity sighed. So many reasons to stay away from him, yet being kissed, touched by Reed was like a banquet for her starving soul. She could no more stop accepting his attention than she could stop one of those new locomotives on a downhill track.

Shaken by the realization, Chastity turned her thoughts to Reed’s care, reminding herself that he was now her patient. A human being in need of healing. She would tend his wounds, and when he was healed, she would release him from her care.

But could she ever release him from her heart?

With no answers forthcoming, she kept Stealth at a sedate pace, to keep jarring at a minimum, and re-tucked Reed’s blankets when the wind uncovered him. She wiped his brow and soothed him with tender words.

The sky graced them with its first silent droplets at around mid-afternoon. The wind picked up, the temperature dropped. Stealth walked on, undaunted by the lightening, which surprised Chastity, until she remembered that he had been a war horse, trained to continue through a barrage of cannon fire. Chastity and Matt changed places, to rest sore muscles and use others. The boy held Reed steady then, as she held Stealth’s reins. To keep Reed’s pain at a minimum, the going was slow and tedious.

“Make certain he’s well covered, Matt, or he’ll take an inflammation of the lungs.”

“He was trying to protect me.” Matt’s voice cracked.

“That makes Reed a man of valor, but it does not make his injury your fault,” Chastity said. “Do not blame yourself or he will give you what-for when he’s better.”

Matt chuckled. “He warned me earlier that you would give what-for over something else. You sound like Mum and Da.”

“And why might I be expected to reprimand you?”

“No reason.”

It was late when they approached the house. Chastity was glad they were back before full dark.

When she and Matt cleared the rise, Mark, Luke and Bekah came running, despite the drizzle. “What are you doing outdoors? I told you to stay inside. You’ll be sick.”

“A lady told us you were coming,” Luke said.

“What lady?”

“She said she lives there,” Mark pointed. “Near the chapel. She said she cared for the horses until we got here.”

Chastity’s unease vanished. The woman must have seen them from the upper floor of the vicarage. She should visit her later just to thank her.

“Run up to the bedchambers, boys, and drag two mattresses down to the kitchen. Pile them one atop the other beside the stove. Bring sheets and blankets too.” She would put oilcloth beneath the sheets to keep the bed from getting soaked with blood.”

Bekah began to weep silently when saw Reed doubled over on Stealth. She took his hand, the one hanging limp against the horse’s side, and held it all the way back to the house.

At the back door, Matt got Stealth to kneel again and put a stool beside him. Getting Reed off was easier than getting him on. He swore less, perhaps because he saw the little ones watching. She and Matt helped him into the kitchen, where he sank onto the bed with a moan. Pain etched his colorless face and compressed his lips.

He smiled at her, but the pain never left his eyes.

“Mark,” Chastity said, “see to Stealth, and give him some extra oats and molasses for his hard work. Feed Breezy and Smokey too. Children, dress warm and go help Mark to give Reed some privacy. Stay in the stable and out of the rain. I’ll call when you can come back.”

Matt herded them out, throwing a last concerned look Reed’s way. “He’ll be all right, won’t he, Kitty?” He waited for her promise before he left.

After he did, she set a pan of water to boiling and tried to give Reed a cool draft to sip. He pushed it away. “Brandy.”

Chastity lifted the bottle of amber liquid to his lips once again. “You’re going to be inebriated.”

Reed chuckled and swore. “Hurts to laugh.” He took the bottle into his own hands, winced, and drank until she reclaimed it.

Blood matted his hair and stained his hands. He must have grasped his side, and then shoved his hand through his hair, as he was wont to do, unless he had a head wound as well. She checked to be certain but found no other injury.

She removed his shirt and washed his broad shoulders, his muscular arms. Her hand slowed as she moved the washcloth through the whorls of dark hair on his chest and found his nipples hidden in the thatch. She had never seen a man’s body before and could barely take her eyes from the sight.

Neither did Reed remove his gaze from her perusal, she was disconcerted to realize. His dimples gave away the smile he tried to hide. Injured, and still he beguiled her.

She might have gone up in flames, if he’d remained awake. If he ever mentioned this, she would tell him he must have been dreaming.

After he slept, she took her time washing his upper torso, appreciating every inch of male perfection.

“Chastity, love, if my side didn’t hurt so bad, I’d show you how much I like what you’re doing.”

Chastity slapped her hand to her heart. This drifting in and out of consciousness, the way he was doing, was going to give her a seizure. “What did you say?”

“Could we do this, again, in a few weeks?”

“Certainly not.” She rinsed the cloth with efficiency, ignoring his smile and her disquiet. She had put off removing the arrow for long enough. She could delay his pain no longer. For the moment—a short moment, unfortunately—he was as comfortable as could be.

She rubbed lye soap against a fresh clean cloth and despite her trembling fingers gently cleansed around the wound. Then she forced herself to tend the worst of it.

She placed a hot cloth, around the arrow’s shaft.

“Damnation!”

“If you did not feel the burn, you would be dead. Be quiet and thank your Maker for the small favor.”

“Told you; He and I do not keep company.”

She rinsed the cloth and repeated the process.

“That’s too damned hot!”

“I know how hot it is,” Chastity said. “My hands are on fire, but I have to clean the wound as best I can with the hottest water you can stand. Then I’m going to pour brandy over it.”

Reed remained conscious and glaring. “Put in a good word for me with your Maker, will you?”

“I have been, Reed, since Matt came to find me.” Wherever life took them, she would pray for this man until she could no longer pray. God knew she would never forget him. She wiped his brow. “He might like to hear from you, though. Give it a try.”

Reed’s eyes closed, and she did not know if he heard. She pressed the back of her hand to his brow. No fever. She set another log on the fire, and opened William’s medical bag for supplies.

She would not lose Reed, too.

When she found what she needed, she put everything back—powders, shears, tonics, even a packet of yellowed documents. She checked the scalpel’s blade and washed it with hot water and lye soap.

“What are you doing with that . . . weapon?”

“Washing it. I worked with a doctor who was ridiculed for believing in clean surgical procedures, but I think he was right. When it’s clean, I’m going to cut a slash about this long.” She marked the length with two fingers. “On each side of the arrow’s shaft. I can tell where the head is widest by the shape of the wound.” She examined him as she spoke. “I’ll cut just enough to remove the arrow’s tip without causing more damage. The angle’s bad, so it’s going to hurt.” It would hurt both of them, she did not say.

“Where the devil did you learn such torture?”

“I was a nursing sister. Did I not say so?”

“But you looked at my body as if you’d never seen—”

“I nursed children. You’re my first man.”

“I wish.”

“No, really.”

“When I am your first man, you will smile when you say it.”

Chastity straightened when she caught his implication, prickles skittering through her body like branches sprouting everywhere. Ignoring him, she picked up the knife. “Pray you recover, and—”

“Kiss me for luck.”

Chastity fit her lips to his, and Reed kissed her in a way that made her suddenly aware of herself as a woman, almost as aware as she was of him as a man.

They stared into each other’s eyes for too long afterward.

“Do it,” he finally said.

Chastity nodded, took a breath, and grasped the arrow’s shaft. Shutting out his gasp, she made the first slice into his flesh, keeping strict control over her trembling hands, and her knowledge of who she cut.

Beads of sweat formed on his upper lip and brow, even as Chastity blinked to clear the sweat from her own eyes. Night sounds invaded the silence—wind, rain, children playing; Matt trying to distract his brothers and sister.

Reed passed out, and after wiping her brow with her sleeve, she made quick work of the opposite cut, where the arrowhead’s second wing lay deeper beneath his skin.

Reed swore when she tugged the projectile free, then he went limp. Chastity swallowed against a rising nausea, and held clean padding to the wound, applying pressure to stem a fresh flow of blood. She took the bloody arrowhead and tossed it in the fire, where it hissed and crackled like a serpent.

Allowing her knees to buckle, she knelt by the mattress, keeping the padding against the wound. The gash was smaller than expected, including the cuts she made.

Blood did not soak the padding, which encouraged her to remove it and stitch him up. Mother Superior used to say that her samplers could not hold a candle to her surgical stitches. For that, Chastity had never been more grateful.

After she stitched, she sprinkled basilicum powder over the wound to keep it dry and help it heal. Then she bound him with a wide bandage to hold the clean padding secure.

Reed roused, his voice thick with pain. “You’re white as the ghost I met that first night.”

“You’re just a hint shy of green, yourself.”

Reed’s chuckle ended in a moan. “Do not make me laugh. I do not feel well.” He shifted and grimaced. “I hate to bring this up, you being a nun and all, but would you remove my trousers?”

CHAPTER TEN

Reed looked to be as uncomfortable with his request as she.

“I would not normally ask,” he said. “But my trousers are pushing against the wound, and it hurts like the devil. If you’re afraid, can you unbutton the placket at least, and ease them down a bit?”

“I am not afraid; I am appalled that I did not think of it.” Biting her lip, taking care not to touch anything questionable, her fingers trembling and clumsy, Chastity unfastened his placket, astonished that beneath the fabric, a generous endowment of male parts seemed to spring to life.

“Dreams do come true,” Reed rasped, his words slurred, “with God-awful timing.” His gentle snore allowed her to release her breath.

Blessedly free of his probing gaze, she slid his trousers down his legs, refusing to examine him at length, despite a strong temptation to do so. The male body may not be precisely new to her—there were the boys—but she found Reed’s a good deal more daunting than she expected.

She turned her attention, praise be, to removing his boots with a steady hand, lest she cause more pain.

Finally, she divested Reed of his trousers and dropped them on the floor.

She replaced his wet socks for dry ones, shocked at the size of his feet, and covered him with extra blankets, all with barely a peek at his man parts.

His snores, not always soft, filled the kitchen. He did not rouse during supper, not even when the children giggled, not when they outright argued about going to bed. With all of them worried about the growling grizzly in the kitchen, she led her surly troop up the stairs.

“Who would want to hurt Reed?” Mark asked.

Wanted to? “Did you not consider it a hunting accident, Matthew?”

He tilted his head, considering. “We yelled loud for them to stop, but those arrows kept coming.”

“Perhaps the hunter stood too far away to hear you? I cannot imagine anyone wishing Reed harm. An accident, I’m sure. Pray for him to get well quickly.” But the worry seed had been planted in her.

After good-night kisses, two of them were asleep before she quit the room.

After such a day, Reed’s nightly tub of hot water would be especially welcome, but alas, sticky with blood, she washed in a scullery basin.

Afterward, feeling exposed in her modest white nightrail, she slipped into the violet brocade dressing gown for propriety’s sake, allowing the garment to comfort her as his arms might do. Her fear and exhaustion came to an end when he began thrashing about. Afraid he would open his wound; she went to him and whispered calming words. No fever, she gratefully realized testing his cheek, finger-combing the hair from his brow.

“Thirsty,” he rasped, eyes closed and sipped greedily from the cup she held to his lips.

Encouraged, Chastity ladled soup into a bowl. “Reed can you hear me?”

He opened his eyes. “I like you smiling down at me, but waking to you beside me would be better.” He raised his arms to her, but they fell to his sides as if they were weighted.

“You’ve slept the better part of the evening. Eating will help you regain your strength. I warmed some soup.”

He groaned.

“You need not be sour-faced. The children loved it.”

“They will eat anything you set before them.”

“Yes, and they’re grateful too. You, sir, could take lessons from them in the matter of manners.”

He chuckled and groaned. “Manners? From them?”

At her chiding look, he swallowed two spoons of soup, then he promptly went back to sleep.

After hours in a hard-backed chair, Chastity gazed with longing at the empty half of Reed’s makeshift bed.

She should not, she knew, but what harm? Reed would never know.

Chastity cautiously positioned herself straight as a board beside him, and as she grew sleepy, he caught her hand in his. In that way, she let exhaustion overtake her, the warmth of him beside her, lulling her.

The pain in Chastity’s arm, it being tugged from its socket, woke her. Amid a heap of tangled blankets, their clasped hands skimmed a hairy leg, her pinned against him. Heat penetrated her sleep-fogged brain—waves of heat emanating from his fevered skin. She needed to sponge him down with cool water to lower his temperature, but she must first extract herself from his grasp, and his bed, without hurting or waking him, please God.

She attempted first to reclaim her hand, but Reed held tight. She tried easing from his embrace, but it was useless. “Stubborn damn man,” she whispered, “even when you’re sleeping.”

Luke’s giggle announced his presence beside the bed. Despite the trace of a smile on his face, his eyes were red. He wiped them with his sleeve when she noticed. “I have an idea,” he whispered, making a tickle-bug with his fingers and going for Reed’s ear, an impish light in his eyes.

Reed tossed his head to evade the nuisance, and Luke’s tickles followed, until Reed released Chastity to swat at his ear.

Luke’s delight made Chastity chuckle inwardly as she scooted from the bed. With a finger to her lips, she beckoned the child to her side. Luke must have been too worried to sleep, and as she embraced him, his tears burst forth. When he calmed, she led him from the kitchen.

In the foyer, moonlight cast a path across the tiles, as if directing the way to the stairs. Chastity kissed the boy and urged him up the first step. “If you do not get some sleep, you will not be able to help me tomorrow, and I will need you, Luke. Honestly.”

“I love him, Kitty.”

And that she understood. “I know, Sweetheart.” She finger-combed his hair. “He’ll be fine. Thank you for helping me just now.” She made a tickle bug of her own, so Luke scurried up the stairs and out of range.

Chastity ran a cool cloth over Reed’s face and neck, his upper body. Throwing the quilt aside, she continued down his torso. When she got to that very male part of him, she stopped, for she had never seen the like. That was no little thing, nothing like the boys. Reed was huge, breathtaking.

Once again, he made her think of a mythical god, though perhaps all men looked the same there, though the breadth of William’s shoulders had not matched Reed’s, so perhaps not.

Reed’s blatant masculinity, hard muscles, and sturdy build reminded her of a magnificent purebred stallion. What, about this man, had stirred her at first sight and made her yearn for things her husband had not?

Chastity no longer hesitated but continued his fever-cooling bath by moonlight, noting that where she bathed, he pulsed.

“Siren.” His husky voice sluiced through her in waves of hot embarrassment . . . or exhilaration. So many emotions churned in her, Chastity grew almost dizzy.

“Are you all right?” he asked

“No. Yes.” She looked away. “I do not know how to be a siren, but if you show me, I’m certain I could learn.”

“Wonderful time for that to come out,” he said, “with me, weak as kitten.” He tried to rise, failed, and fell back, closing his eyes with a chuckle, his breath short.

“What exactly would you like to learn?” he asked a moment later.

“You.”

From his groan, and the light in his widening eyes, he liked the idea.

Seconds passed, and neither spoke. And if one more log fell before he broke the silence, she might have to scream.

“I’ve ached to teach you everything,” he finally said. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Chastity nodded. “Why did you call me a siren?”

“You are, you know. You call to me like a siren’s song calls a sailor to the sea.” He smiled ruefully. “Forgive me if I’m not up to beginning your lessons.” He closed his eyes. “To my deep regret.”

As she settled the blanket over him, she found that part of him no longer as magnificent as a moment before. “Reed, your man part is shrinking, and I do not know how to fix it.”

His eyes flew open, humor lighting them. “Oh, yes you do.” He chuckled and winced. “Chastity, sweet, had I not been felled by an arrow, your first lesson would already have begun. My male pride has taken the worse beating, but none of my man parts are in danger. When I’m better, you shall have lessons aplenty. Come, sit beside me. You’re upset and I can do nothing to help. I’m sorry. Truly.”

She placed her hand in his. How good it had felt to fall asleep that way. “I’m worried about you,” she confessed.

“Thank you,” he said. “For once in my life, I’m glad I’m not alone. I never thought the day would come.”

“Does it not seem odd?” she asked, trying to forget his body and her reaction to it, “that you were alone, I was alone, and the children were alone. All of us, the house included, were once abandoned, but here we are, together.”

Reed shook his head as if she did not comprehend some basic tenet. “Chastity, do you not see that you are never more alone than when you are with others but you do not belong?”

“Oh, Reed, you do belong, perhaps not forever, but for a time. Do we not make you feel a part of us?” She cleared her throat. “I hoped we did.”

“You and the children are a family, and I stand off to the side, here to help for a time, never to be a part of. It is not my lot, and I am content.”

Chastity wanted to weep, but he would not appreciate her feeling sorry for him. She pulled her hand from his and touched his brow. “Sleep. You need to heal.”

The next morning, Reed burned with fever and never fully woke. Cool baths helped. The children fretted and fought, sometimes right beside his bed, but he reacted to none of it. Chastity feared they would lose him.

He swore every time she changed his dressing and applied a fresh poultice. The wound festered. His fever climbed higher. He spoke her name, something about roses and rain, and kissing raindrops from petals.

She made no sense of it.

The second night, after the children slept, she bathed him and spooned soup into him, but worried about his restlessness. So she decided to wash quickly, beside the stove fire, to be near if he needed her.

She kept her back to him and washed under her gown. At his indrawn breath, she turned. He’d raised himself on an arm, trembling with the effort, his expression rapt. “Every time I wake, you find a new way to torture me.” He fell back, exhausted from the effort.

Chastity tested his cheek. “Not as hot. Good.”

His gaze, however, scorched and stroked her. “Burning hot,” he said. “I am an inferno.” He raised a hand—to touch her cheek, she thought—but slid it in the vee of her gown, to cup a breast and finger a nipple.

Liquid lightening, wild and writhing, licked at her belly, her womb, places she did not know were connected.

In a bid for self-preservation, she grabbed his wrist to still it, then arched and filled his palm with her aching breast. His look of torture and need must mirror her own. She closed her eyes to escape it.

When she opened them, he slept.

For the rest of the night, Chastity could not get his anguished look from her mind. God help her, she craved his touch, yet sanity told her to deny it. He would be gone soon, she told herself. Nothing could come of succumbing to this attraction between them.

The next day, Chastity let Luke sit by Reed, while she made dinner and he read aloud about DaVinci’s flying machine. Matt and Mark did chores upstairs; Bekah undoing them.

“Kitty,” Luke said. “Look at this.”

“How’s our patient?” Chastity asked. “Has he stirred?”

“Naw, he just keeps sleepin’.” Luke flattened a piece of paper. “Chastity what does H-E-I-R spell?”

“Heir.”

“What does that mean?”

“An heir is someone who inherits money or an estate. What have you got there?”

“It says, “You are the miss-ing St. Yves, Earl of Bar-ring-ton, heir to—”

“Sunnyledge,” she finished absently, sitting beside him. “Where did you find that?”

“Here by Reed’s bed. Must’a dropped from his clothes. What’s it mean?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s not Reed’s.”

“Ask him?”

“When he’s better. For now, let’s keep it to ourselves, until we know what it means.”

“Sure, but why don’t you ask him now?”

“Because he’s unconscious.”

“Yeah, but he answers neat questions. He says you’re beautiful and lots’a mushy stuff like that.”

“Watch your matchmaking young man, or I’ll be the one to make you eat mouse’s tails and hedgehog toes.”

Luke’s eyes widened until he remembered to look innocent.

Chastity ruffled his hair. “Go tell your brothers and sister that supper’s nearly ready.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” The boy bolted.

Chastity went to her room to see if William’s note was missing, but it was there, and identical to the one Luke found. She had suspected there were two because of Reed’s claim. But it would serve nothing to tell Reed, and the fact remained that if she did, it would come out that William was her husband and Reed would know she was not a nun. Now more than ever, until she was certain something lasting could exist between them, she must use her vows as a shield.

The vows had existed once; she’d simply omitted the fact that they were no-longer binding.

When she checked Reed’s fever, he shoved her away. “An arrow! Matt!” He looked right at her. “Matt wants a man’s influence.”

“I know, Reed. You’ve been good for him.”

“Not me. It cannot be me.”

She could have wept as she kissed his cheek. “Sleep.”

He urged her down, against his good side, despite the pain that accompanied his movement. She hated to fight him, and liked where she found herself, so she stayed for a bit and kissed his cheek. He stroked the small of her back, played with the hair at her nape, and sighed in contentment. “Sweet Chastity Somers,” he whispered, stroking the side of her breast. “What have you done to me?” he whispered . . . and slept.

She pulled away. “Rest now.”

Reed opened his eyes and saw Chastity asleep in the chair beside his bed, a veiled virgin, minus the veil—the woman he lusted after, more fool he.

He must have slept again, for this time when he opened his eyes, an apparition of Satan stood looking down at him, in the benighted form of a woman. Black-rimmed eyes, wild gray hair, uneven red lips, bright red cheeks. Hideous smile. The cloying odor of lilies, of death, clinging to her.

Memory surfaced. Vague but frightening.

Chastity? The children? They needed protecting.

Reed wanted to weep, for he could not protect a mouse.

Satan’s mistress grinned as if reading him, and grasped his injured side, squeezing until pain seared him, until he fought blacking out. “I will not fail again,” she whispered near enough for her scent to make him gag. “Mark my words, I will not.”

This was no dream, this crone, this evil canker spouting retribution. Her grip gained strength. His side flamed luring into a numbing miasma that he fought.

That demented laugh spiraled as the archfiend hovered over Chastity, asleep in the chair, and she fingered one of Chastity’s silken curls, resting too near her breast. The hag looked Reed straight in the eye, and grinned—evil incarnate—then she was gone.

No door or window creaked, but a cool draft cut a swath through the kitchen. Could the crone be a specter after all, or a figment of his fevered nightmares?

When he opened his eyes, again, daylight flooded the room, sunshine checkering his bed like a quilt of well-being.

The memory of evil surfaced, but he pushed it away. Only children succumbed to night terrors. Reed turned toward a rustle of sound to find a serious baby face—Bekah on her stomach, beside him on the bed, her tiny hands cupping her chin, her silent as ever. Watching.

Impossible to imagine the man-eater in her present guise—brows furrowed over curious eyes, gold ringlets framing full cheeks. Milk and good food had done wonders.

“Good morning, Poppet. Are you watching over me?”

Chin in hands, she nodded.

“You’re doing a good job.”

As if reminded, she rose to a kneel, pulled the quilt over his shoulders and tucked it up to his neck. Taking a great deal of time and an inordinate amount of concentration, she walked on her knees toward the foot of the bed tucking his blanket about him as she went.

He ignored the pain her movement caused.

When she waddled back, she examined his face, much as Chastity did. After due consideration, she pushed his hair from his brow and felt it for warmth. Nodding, she stroked his cheek with the back of her little hand.

Warmed to the tips of his toes, and even in his hard rogue’s heart, Reed turned his head the littlest bit to kiss those soft baby fingers.

Incredibly surprised, shocked more like—though no more than he—Bekah scrambled off the bed and ran from the room, faster than when he’d yanked her teeth from his flesh.

Reed chuckled, but it hurt.

He closed his eyes to ride out the pain, and the next time he opened them, the sun slanted into the kitchen at a new angle. Matt, Mark, Luke, and Bekah stood staring down at him. When had children ever looked, not exactly sweet, but welcome, to him? He knew better than to chuckle, though the temptation was strong. “If you’re waiting for me to do something interesting, you’re in for a disappointment.”

Matt and Luke laughed. Mark nodded, and Bekah’s features bore the same bland expression as always, though she did not back away, not even when he tweaked her nose.

“Kitty’s milking Leonardo,” Mark said.

Reed grinned. “Think she can handle it?”

“She’s been doing it a lot lately. She lets us stay and watch you when she does. We’re to call, if you wake.”

“Or if you die,” Luke added.

“So that’s what you were doing?”

Four heads nodded.

“Do you know where my clothes are?”

Mark indicated Reed’s folded clothes on the table. “Clean and mended. You had more tears in your britches than a five-year old . . . Kitty said.”

“Mark, take Luke and Rebekah out to the barn and keep Chastity busy, will you? I’m going to get dressed. Matt will come get you when I’m done. Don’t tell. Let Chastity be surprised when she finds me at the table.”

They ran, conspirators the lot of them.

When Reed stood, pain and dizziness overtook him for but a moment. Time to be well and searching for his past.

True, Matt needed to hold him up as he buttoned his trousers. Sure, the boy had to search for his socks in the bed and put them back on. And yes, he struggled to stand straight when the room dipped, but he must finish teaching Chastity . . . to care for her brood . . . and nothing more. The children seemed more dangerous now that he liked them. And Chastity, well, talk about danger.

Matt helped him to sit. Reed caught his breath, and waited for the room to settle. “In case I did not already say it, Matt. Thank you for saving my life the other day. I’m proud of you.”

Matt nodded. “I’ll get Kitty.” He ran as fast as Bekah had that morning.

Chastity laughed, a sound akin to music, as they led her into the kitchen, eyes closed, one child holding each hand, and two pushing from behind. “Can I open them now?”

“Not yet,” Luke said, hopping on one foot when he saw.

“One more step, Matt said. All right. Now!”

The look on Chastity’s face could only be termed exquisite, her astonishment just reward for his hard labor.

Grinning, Reed stood, and like a knight before his lady fair, he bowed, kissed her hand with a flourish . . . and the floor rose up to greet him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Back in bed, Reed’s head throbbed, his side flamed, while he found himself in awe of Chastity in high dudgeon. She might be breathtaking in her righteous fury, but she spoiled the effect when she slapped a cloth against the knot on his head.

“Damnation, that hurt!”

“Which is no more than you deserve!” She unbuttoned his trousers to alleviate the pressure against his wound to such a degree that, despite his determination not to prove her anger just, Reed sighed in relief.

“Big stupid fool,” she snapped. “What in Hades did you think you were doing? Strutting like a peacock, bowing like a jester, you with a hole in your side, and only yesterday a raging fever.”

“You were supposed to be pleased.” Why was that so difficult to understand? “I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well you succeeded, make no mistake. If your fever returns, I’ll beat you.”

Reed lost track of her tirade, remembering another fever, one that could only be relieved with her hands upon him, or his upon her. “Beat me, please,” he whispered.

She ignored him.

Had he really stroked her breast? Or did he dream the erotic moment? Would she have allowed him? Likely not, since she thought tempting him was dangerous. So true.

Reed shifted in discomfort. If he continued this line of thought, she would get a different surprise—a new display of his raging need. With an effort, Reed turned from earthy speculation. “How long have I been ill?”

“Four days.” She tugged his trousers the rest of the way down, testament to her mood, and threw the blanket over him, dropping the offending garments with such ire, he expected her to stomp on them—to show what she wanted to do to him—which bore no kinship to what he wanted to do to her.

Warm memories, with which he could not bear to part, returned. “Was I dreaming, or did I? Did you let me—”

“No!” The violet depths of Chastity’s wide eyes became dark and fathomless. “Give me your shirt.” She looked everywhere but at him, so when she tugged on his shirt, it caught on his ear.

“Damn it, Chastity, you’re giving me a worse beating than I took when the floor hit me.”

“You are no gentleman, Reed Gilbride.”

“I never said I was.”

Chastity nodded toward their wide-eyed audience. “Do you want soup?”

Reed pushed himself up in the bed. “Did I dream a certain moment?”

“What do you want, Reed?” she asked with a controlled anger she could not be charmed out of. He was treading dangerous water, he realized, unsure of how to retreat and keep his skin.

Luke and Matt giggled, the rats. Mark smirked, and Bekah went to stand by Chastity, lending support in her own silent way. Women did tend to band together, a fact of life, Reed supposed. He only wished the boys had made a similar statement. He would have a talk with them. Men needed to stick together, too.

Wait a minute. What was he doing, setting himself up as their teacher, as if they were a family? Blast it, he had to get the devil out of here. “I need to get up. Give me my shirt.”

“Fine.” Chastity tossed it, hitting him in the face with decided satisfaction. No doubt about it, the nun enjoyed a good fight. “Hungry?” she asked in all innocence.

“Hell, yes. I could eat some chicken right now.”

“How about a wing?”

Did she know? He examined her expression, but her countenance remained bland, unrevealing. He had best remember not to play piquet with her.

“You are out of luck,” she said. “The one you bagged the day you got hurt got roasted and eaten two days ago.”

She did know. He hid a smile. “Who skinned and cleaned it?”

“Matt did, but he showed me what to do. Funniest chicken I ever saw.”

She’d put her prejudice aside so the children could eat. He should have realized she would do anything for them—even steal his heritage, no doubt—if he gave her half a chance.

Matt sniggered. “Said she knew it was a rabbit all along . . . just before she threw up.”

“Matthew!” Chastity pointed a finger toward the door. “Out. Take your brothers and sister with you.” She scooted them out and came back to slam pots.

“Such a sweet woman; such a tart temper.” Reed held his side as he chuckled.

“I hope it hurts.”

“Do you have any idea how pretty you are?”

Chastity pushed a bowl into his hand. “Eat and don’t go making up to me. If you had reopened your side, you might have bled to death. You make me so mad, I could beat you.”

He had been liking that idea. “I did not know you were such a crosspatch, but give me a few days and you can beat me all you want.” He winked. “What did the nuns think of your temper?”

“I am not a crosspatch.”

“Really? What did they say when you raved and threw things?”

“They never saw such a display.” She raised her chin a mite higher.

“Didn’t they now?”

“This was the first time my indignation—provoked by your idiotic behavior, I might add—ever got the better of me.”

“Should I be honored then, Chastity Somers, to have caused such a passionate display?”

“Reed Gilbride, you’ve a rare talent for stupidity.” She made for the door. “Passion has nothing to do with it,” she said in parting and left him for the rest of the day. Fit punishment that bored him to distraction.

That night, after she tucked the children into bed, she fluffed his pillows and assured herself of his comfort, before she sat in a kitchen chair with her mending.

“I have to get out of this bed, or I’ll go mad.”

“It’s too late,” she said then cut a piece of thread with her teeth. “You’re already dotty. I knew it the moment I saw you.” She placed that mended shirt atop a neat stack.

“When you climbed out that workhouse window, the first time I saw you, the situation seemed rather reversed.”

“That was not the first time; it was too dark to see anything that night. Besides, rescuing the children was a rational, intelligent act.” She pushed a chestnut curl back into the confines of her braid.

Reed itched to untangle it all and let it fall free. “Brilliance and madness are two sides of the same coin.”

She turned her attention to a half-made pinafore.

“The first time I thought you mad,” said he, “a specter greeted me, hair blazing down her back, knife in hand.”

Chastity tilted her head. “I judged you mad when I saw you fight off a bevy of children as if they could do you harm. A big brute of a man with ten times their strength, afraid.”

“Not fear in the sense you’re implying, and I take exception to your tone, but to speak truth, they do scare the bejesus out of me, more often than not.”

He caught her smile, though she directed it toward her sewing. Chastity?” he said, and waited ‘till she looked up. “You mean that big, naked, brute of a man you saw that night they robbed me?”

That’s what they both remembered, he had no doubt.  Talk of madness forgotten, their gazes locked for as charged a moment as when he slipped his hand inside her gown.

Her in-drawn breath revealed her physical reaction to the memory. She looked away, then toward her lap, as if she could not identify the items in it, or why they were there. She examined the needle in her fingers as thoroughly.

“It’s a needle,” Reed said.

Nodding, she chose a tiny stocking, speared it with a vengeance, and gave a startled exclamation. As she sucked her injured finger, her color returned.

Reed chuckled, an odd contentment catching him unaware. He liked this time of day, the children in their beds, sexual awareness sparking between them—heat lightening without rain—no rhyme or reason, just a bolt from the blue. He had never experienced the like.

Sex had always been physical—for taking and enjoying. He never equated it with verbal foreplay, which happened often with Chastity and brought pleasure in the form of heightened awareness and anticipation. A danger, this side of sex; it could lead down perilous paths, toward a time when he would pull her beneath him and bury himself in her silken sheath.

He failed to stifle his groan.

Chastity looked up, a question in her expression.

He needed a diversion from this painful sparring, at least for him, with such a formidable opponent. “I will concede we have both appeared mad on occasion. But the last two days, you wavering between sweet compassion, and the stubborn end of a French dragoon, has seemed a form of madness in itself.”

“You have hardly inspired compassion. Of all the fool things, rising and hurting yourself. When I got you off the floor and saw you bleeding again, it was all I could do not to—”

“Enough!” Reed held up a hand. “I misjudged my abilities, I admit, but nothing can change that.”

“I’m sorry.” She came and sat beside him on the bed, her apology surprising him, her nearness making him ache. “You frightened me,” she said. “The thought of you hurt. Again.”

His emotions, he hated to note, tangled with his physical reaction to her. She cared that he had been hurt. Did she? Devil it, he was going mawkish—just because it mattered to her what happened to him?

Damnation, he liked it better when no one gave a bloody bedamn; he was less confused, more in control.

She didn’t care; she likely wanted him stuck in bed, so she could find and destroy the evidence of his birth. She might already have it. She’d had ample time with him unconscious.

Just because they decided to search together, did not mean she would keep their pact. She already admitted she would do anything for the children, he had best remember. “I have got to get out of this bed.”

“How about a compromise?”

That she seemed unperturbed by his surliness aggravated and confused him as much as everything about her did. Whenever he thought he understood her, she baffled him. He would not like her so-called compromise; this he knew.

“Stay in bed one more day, to heal,” she said. “I’ll feel better and so will you.”

“Done,” he said, but he would not give her the satisfaction of leaving him for a minute. Search behind his back, would she? “But I will not stay in bed alone.”

Her eyes widened. He shook his head. “I mean, stay with me, here, in the kitchen. I do not care how you spend your time—cooking, talking to the children, sewing, whatever. Just keep me company.”

Chastity nodded, seeming at a loss for words.

They argued for half that last day. And when things calmed, Reed baited her again; he could not seem to help himself. “Why do you need to open a children’s home?” he asked. “There are orphanages and workhouses all over England.” God he wanted to take her into his arms.

“Not like mine, Reed.” Her voice was as soft as her look. “Here, the children will be loved. Finding these four was like God’s personal blessing. I knew that my dream would become a reality. I love them, already.”

“Love. Bah!” Suddenly all his frustration—emotional, physical, sexual, finding her here with the children, his accident, his parentage, his whole bloody, God-forsaken life—melded in a rush of ire. “Who do you think you are? Some kind of angel sent by God?  “Damn it, there is no such being, no such thing as love.”

She backed away, her horror fueling his frustration. “You’re doing it for yourself, Chastity. Face it. You’re just as selfish as the rest of us. You’re opening a home, not to give love to the children, but to get it for yourself.”

As if he slapped her, Chastity placed her hands on the counter, seeking support, as if she might crumble without something solid to cling to. Lowering her head, she took a trembling breath.

“Chastity,” Reed whispered, hating himself, hurting with her, angry he had fallen into the trap.

After a horrible silence, she raised her chin, straightened her back, and turned to face him, again. “Yes,” she said, quite clearly. “Yes, I’m doing it for the children’s love. Damn you and thank you, Reed Gilbride, for showing me. I do need them to love me. Yes. I need love desperately. Until this moment, I did not know that about myself. But, Reed, they need me to love them just as much. Perhaps more, because they are children. And children, for some reason, expect to be loved.”

“I, however, did not expect it,” she said. “It has been a surprise to discover they love me in return. At least, I think it was a surprise. Your words confused me, and yet you clarified a perplexing matter at the same time. “But I think they need to love me. I think, more than to receive love, children need to give it. They do it naturally and demonstrate it, often. Even Mark, though he tries not to. They are willing to love you, if you let them.”

Her words made him queasy and fidgety. She had pierced something inside him, something he believed impervious, and he almost hated her for it. “There is no such dim-witted thing as love!” he snapped, voice thundering and blade sharp. The louder he spoke, the stronger he believed, and the more relieved he became. “Love is a myth, a legend begun by mindless females in and out of convents. Even this ridiculous home of yours is a myth. Where will you be when you lose your dream? You’ll fail, if you ever get the chance to try, and I am going to stay and watch.”

He closed his eyes to purge the sight of her pain, the result of his words, as he’d purged himself from her concern, though he took no satisfaction in either. Truth to tell, despair all but choked him.

He heard her approach and looked up. She held her chin high, her shoulders back. “You will not watch,” she said, “because you will be gone from here. Get out.”

“You have no right.”

“I do. I have the authority of the executor of the St. Yves estate.”

Reed stood, allowing the covers to fall away, wanting to shock, seeking the upper hand, the strength to walk. He grabbed his clothes as she watched.

After an astonished moment, Chastity turned her back, wishing she could stare him down, no matter his state of undress. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

She ached at the thought. “I did not mean—”

“You did, and as far as the executor of this estate is concerned, we will see what he thinks about your having stolen the children from the workhouse. We’ll see which of us is forced to leave.” Reed walked, or rather limped, toward the kitchen door.

Losing Sunnyledge was not Chastity’s greatest fear at that moment; Reed and his precarious physical condition, was. “Reed, do not— Wait. Let us—”

“Too late, sweet Chastity Somers.” The door shut behind him with a single, final clap.

“Godspeed,” Chastity whispered.

After minutes, or hours, of watching the door, she stretched out on his makeshift bed, buried her face in his pillow, inhaled his scent, and wept.

* * *

Thea lowered the door to the dumbwaiter. Foolish, foolish woman deserved no better, coming here, expecting to get Sunnyledge for herself. ‘Twas tantamount to robbery. If anyone deserved Sunnyledge, it was her, for all the years she put in here.

She lowered the ropes to the cellar and ran through the underground passage. Edward was getting away without paying. She had to follow him, find out where he was going. No, wait! She faltered. Edward had already paid. It was his son she had to stop. Reed, he was called. She needed to keep him here, by fair means or foul. She could not let her plan go awry. She had waited too many years for satisfaction to slip from her fingers now.

‘Twas for the best that she failed with the arrow. She had been too eager. Slow revenge was sweeter than quick. She could accomplish much, given time.

She needed to be more careful. If she rushed her fences, she might keep her lover’s other son away. She wished he would arrive soon.

Did he resemble Edward as Reed did? Clive said they had not looked alike at birth, but who could tell with babies? She was only glad that Reed bore no resemblance to the simpering twit who bore him.

The Vindicator spent the next few days following her wandering puppet while gathering wolf bane and hemlock. When she was certain he planned to stay nearby, and she had all the ingredients she needed, she would return to bake cakes and cookies for the children.

* * *

Chastity had missed Reed for three days, and she feared he might go to Mr. Sennett, after all. Yet, beneath his hard exterior, something good and worthy lived. She sensed it from the beginning. Before ever setting eyes on him, in the dark of night at the workhouse, she knew she could trust him, yet with his threat still echoing in her heart, how could she be certain?

She supposed she was a fool. She could not bring herself to tell the children that her time and theirs, together, might be over. Whatever time they had left, she wanted to make special. To do that, she needed a diversion, or the lot of them, her included, would sit right down and bawl.

When her allowance arrived from Mr. Sennett that morning, Chastity decided to take the children on a jaunt to the village, to take their minds off missing Reed.

On the way, they plodded listlessly behind her, until the village came into view, children’s laughter drifting on the crisp spring breeze, and then they passed her and urged her along.

After a few shy minutes—for all but Luke—they played hide and seek with the locals, and a rough-and-tumble game of tag. Despite her regret for instigating Reed’s departure, despite missing him, Chastity enjoyed their play.

Later, she bought crimson thread and a length of ribbon to make Bekah a dress. They lunched on sausage pasties, hot potatoes, and jam tarts beside the Painswick Stream, before heading home. On the way up the hill, she told them she bought a surprise and showed the wrapped parcel. They wanted to know what it was, but no matter how much they cajoled, Chastity kept silent.

So as not to be reminded of the time they spent with Reed, they ate in the formal dining room that night. But Chastity wished she had purchased more food in town, as there was not as much left as she thought. Dinner was quick, and just as well, considering the children’s rabid curiosity.

She took the mysterious parcel from the highboy and lit a candle for each child. “Come along now and I will show you the surprise.”

Bekah’s face appeared animated for the first time since Reed left. Mark said, often in the last days, that they didn’t need Reed, so she knew he missed him, too. Whether that was good or bad, was difficult to say.

Upstairs, Chastity opened the doors to the long Gallery, a majestic hall with floor to ceiling windows at one end and gilt-framed St. Yves lining the walls. Ancestors in facing portraits seemed to scrutinize each other, as if to ascertain whether their blood ran true.

Early evening shadowed the elegant salon, fingers of waning light stroking claw-footed tables and tapestried chairs set in intimate groupings along the periphery. Despite the room’s size, the overall effect was warm and welcoming, and though their candles were tallow, Chastity imagined the bees wax tapers that must once have brightened the splendid room in years gone by.

She sat on a damask settee and arranged her skirts with flare, setting the scene for a grand event. “Ladies and gentlemen, do be seated,” said she, in her best English accent, as she snapped open a fine lace fan.

Giggles said she achieved her tone. Bekah sat beside her and pulled a piece of Chastity’s wide skirt over her little legs, and with a surge of love, Chastity pulled her close and presented her with the fan. The boys sat on the parquet floor, backs straight, awaiting something grand.

Reed would have been proud. Whatever his purpose, her life and the children’s had been enriched by their time together.

Chastity revealed her surprise to oohs and aahs, and held it to the light to catch a sparkle on the glistening silver surface. For as long as she could remember, she had played the flute at vespers. So this cherished instrument sitting on a shelf in the mercantile had called to her. She had, perhaps, spent more of her allowance than she should, but music would cheer the children and bring peace to their hearts. That it held no connection to Reed was another reason she considered it a timely diversion. “What do you think?”

“What is it?” Luke asked.

Chastity looked from one face to the other and smiled. “It’s a musical instrument. A flute. Since Luke misplaced his horn, I thought he should take the first turn playing.”

“Dunno how.”

“Watch and listen.” Chastity put her lips to the mouthpiece and drew a sweet sound as she moved her fingers along the pipe to play a melodious hymn while she experienced a rare phenomenon—their full and silent attention.

When she finished, Luke and Matt clapped and begged for more. Bekah waited wide-eyed. Luke wanted his turn. The sounds he made were varied and original. Chastity taught them to dance the way she supposed ladies and gentlemen might at a ball in such a house, though perhaps her brigands danced more robustly. What she knew of the titled rich, she learned from reading, and the rest she improvised with a care toward her audience.

She curtseyed to each. “When I was the Countess of Honeysuckle....” She used her haughtiest accent. “And I danced with the Baron of Primrose at Lady Daffodil’s Ball, this is how we went.” She took Matthew’s hand and led him to the center of the floor. “Bow, Sir Matthew.”

Luke snickered.  “Don’t you mean, Sir Dandelion?”

“Very well, then, Sir Dandelion.”

Matt groaned and bowed.

“Now, Sir Lavender, play us a melody.” Luke played slowly at first, allowing Chastity and Matt to turn and dip, as if they knew what they were doing. Then he picked up the pace, and Chastity and Matt got tangled, and ended on the floor.

Except for Mark, laughing children fell atop them, Bekah with a glint of amusement in her eyes.

Chastity rose still laughing. “Now, Sir...” She worried her lip. “Violet,” she said to Mark. “It’s your—”

Chastity’s voice failed. The children’s gazes followed hers.

Reed stood—not smiling, not scowling, either—framed by the Gallery arch, his height and breadth diminishing the impressive entry. Chastity’s heart beat faster than when she danced. He looked good, healthier, though he needed a shave, and his expression conveyed a silent question. “Did you miss me?”

Yes, she attempted to respond in kind. Yes!

She was being foolish. He could not have asked with a look, and she could not have answered.

He nodded. “Guess it was . . . a bad idea to come back. Looks like you’re doing fine, Sister Chastity.” He turned and limped away.

Chastity made to go after him, but Matt’s words stopped her. “Is he going to stay?”

“I wish I knew.” Had he returned only to tell her they must leave? Were the children to be returned to that horrid workhouse? She covered her tortured reaction. If they were, they would remember the fun they’d had this night, by God. “Play yon flute Sir Lavender. A celebration. Our lord and master is back among us.” She wanted to cry, but from happiness or sadness, she could not say.

Luke played better and faster.

Matt laughed heartier.

Bekah watched the doorway, unmoving.

Mark reacted not at all.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Reed sat in his dim bedchamber.

Imagine such a simple sound as laughter piercing his heart, the organ Chastity once thought frozen. Well, she’d penetrated it, by God, weakened it so much, it had taken to bleeding.

Their laughter, though wonderful to hear, ate at him. They were happy, all of them. He had not been missed, as he had missed them.

Had he? Missed the brigands? Horror of horrors. But they had stopped dancing and laughing when they saw him, and resumed only after he left.

Why would they need him, anyway, when they had Chastity? A more nurturing woman, they could never find. He bloody-well did not need them, either. He did not!

Zeke hopped by his chair.

Angry at himself for wallowing in self-pity, Reed lifted the rabbit and settled it in his lap. He scratched behind a floppy ear and Zeke appeared content. At least someone, or something, was glad he was back.

He tried to turn his thoughts from the scene he had just witnessed, to think about anything, anyone, but sweet Chastity Somers.

He failed.

She looked good. More beautiful. Or had his days of yearning simply made her seem so? No, Chastity was beautiful, of face, of form, of heart and soul. She was sunshine and calm, warmth and renewal. No ice around that heart. Pudding, more like, sweet, warm and rich. Plum pudding, perhaps, spicy and delightful.

He was stormy, cold and dark, within and without. Chastity saw that from the first. Get that ice chipped from your heart, she said. At least she believed he owned a heart.

There, but inaccessible, unfeeling, inflexible. He did not deserve their welcome back. But oh, Lord, how he wanted. He supposed it should be enough to be here with them again, for a time. This was, after all, an episode, temporary.

Fine. He would take what he could get.

If only she wanted him to stay.

He looked up to find Rebekah standing in his doorway. Watching. Always watching.

The man-eater who’d taken a bite of his leg and cracked his icy heart in the process, walked toward him, stopping just short of close.

Reed smiled; he could not help himself.

She took another step, still watching him, her features passive.

He experienced a palpable draw, felt the pull, like an invisible thread connected them, her testing it, tugging slightly, to see if he would respond.

What did he imagine, here? Some emotional awareness, an elusive yearning for fatherhood? If so, why the devil with Bekah, who watched, as if she feared his every move?

She stunned him further by turning her back on him and folding her arms. You do not turn your back on someone . . . unless you trust them.

Reed knew elation, but he did not know how to respond. Was she angry he deserted them? Was this, then, a symbolic punishment? Eloquent, for one who never spoke. He wanted to congratulate her for her delivery, to haul her on his lap with a cheer and a hug.

The need appalled him.

Bekah grabbed a hank of her hair in each hand and waggled them his way.

Reed straightened, comprehension dawning. “You want me to braid your hair?”

The poppet nodded without turning. Amazing.

“Come a bit closer,” Reed whispered, afraid to break that invisible thread.

She backed up until the heels of her slippers touched the toes of his boots.

Reed braided, realizing he’d never expected to be this comfortable with a child. He liked it. He liked Bekah. When he finished the single braid, identical to Chastity’s, except for its flaxen color, he tied it with a shoelace. Then he grasped Bekah’s shoulders gently and turned her to face him. “Beautiful,” he said.

Her eyes glowed. He’d swear a smiled lingered there, only for him. Certainly no one else could see it.

He opened a hand to her.

She placed hers in his, melting that last chip of ice.

As if he had come home, Reed tugged her forward.

She shocked him by climbing into his lap, poking him in the belly with her elbow, and setting fire to his side with her foot.

He saw stars but said nothing.

She nudged Zeke over and curled up in his lap, cheek against his heart, patting his chest with her little hand.

Reed experienced . . . contentment, a foreign emotion, wonder of wonders, in the embrace of a child. His world tilted in a way that it would never hang straight again. But this was not to be examined too closely. It should be enjoyed as temporary. An aberration. Still he would revel in it for a time.

He realized that Bekah must have noticed his hurt when he saw how happy they were without him, and she offered him comfort. He cradled her like a babe, the pressure of her head on his heart a blessing. “Sleep Poppet,” he whispered. “I’ll keep you safe.”

Chastity gazed about the gallery in panic. Lord, she had been so wrapped up in her roiling emotions, Rebekah wandered off.

Leaving the boys to play, Chastity went to search. Bekah, timid as a mouse, would not go far.

Not in the boys room or in their own.

Shivering with expectation, or trepidation, Chastity glanced through Reed’s open door. The sight took her breath. That big, dark, compelling man, frowning and angry minutes before, now looked like a beast tamed.

The hint of a smile sparked in his deepening dimples, charming indentations that told more of the man’s emotions than he could know. Early on, he had had a way of holding back, making her question his reactions. But that only worked until she realized he could not stop his dimple from forming, if he experienced the slightest struggle to school his features.

Yes, a tamed beast, its master a slip of a girl who’d taken a bite of his leg and ended with his heart in her tiny hands.

Reed held Bekah as if she were made of porcelain. He patted her back, hummed as he rocked, for all the world like a . . . father. He would hate being caught like this. If not tonight, then tomorrow, at the latest.

If only he would stay with them, and become the man these children needed, the man she needed, but she could not make him, not if he wanted to go.

She longed to change his needs. She had fallen under a spell cast by a hard-hearted man—though softer-hearted than she expected, if the picture before her was any indication—and she would never recover.

She crushed the idea of being held as gently. God what she would have given as a child to be rocked like that, even once. She prayed Bekah would come away from this with a memory to last a lifetime, rather than regret that it happened.

“Reed?” Chastity hated to interrupt, but she must get Bekah safe away before remorse overtook him—as it would—and he hurt the child with rejection.

To her surprise, Reed did not seem distressed to have her witness the moment, nor did he try to hide his vulnerability. “She’s asleep,” he whispered.

Chastity stepped closer. “I cannot believe she let you pick her up?”

“Let me?” Chastity felt the warmth of that proud smile to her toes. “She climbed up here, I’ll have you know. I think she was trying to make me feel better.” He stroked Bekah’s baby curls and she made a contented noise in her sleep.

“Feel better about what?” Chastity asked.

A scowl replaced his smile. Reed shook his head. “I cannot imagine what got into the man-eater.”

Chastity tried valiantly to keep from smiling, recognizing his words and manner as another indication that his bluster was often a result of his self-erected wall. A boundary. False. Weak. But a barrier, nonetheless. For protection? From them? “I think she’s happy you’re home.”

On Reed’s face, shock turned to wariness then to fear. He was obviously both pleased and frightened to be welcomed back. This, Chastity understood.

He felt as if he had been pole-axed. Home. Was he home? With Chastity? And her brigand-brats? Could these two warm, soft, frustratingly caring females mean home to him? And the boys, the happy, trusting scamp; the man-child determined to protect; and the boy afraid to need?

The notion that wherever Chastity was, was home, did not bear close scrutiny. Reed tossed the vagary aside to be brought out and examined later, perhaps. Home or not, her scent filled him with promise, like roses after rain.

Chastity, bringer of a new and better life? Could blue skies and sunlight be the result of the storm they weathered? “And you? Are you happy?” He could not finish his sentence . . . happy that he was home? Home. Had he ever had one? Was home, as Chastity suggested, not a place, but a sense of belonging?

“I’m happy.”

Did she have the same wary sense of inevitability as he? Like they were falling, together, doomed to having their goals dashed, yet curiously happy about it? God he was losing his mind.

“Yes, I’m happy too,” she answered, as if he had questioned her again. “Happy we’re all together, again. For a time.”

For a time. He tried not to let the foregone brevity disappoint, but failed.

Chastity chewed her lip. He imagined her nibbling his, but must have watched too long. She firmed and straightened. “Is she bothering you?”

“It’s nice holding her. You’re right, Chastity, about the need to be close to someone. I think she needed to comfort me.” God the word love came to mind twice there. Could she tell he was trying to say that he was beginning to understand her reasons for taking the children? He knew mothering sat uppermost in her mind, love-giving ingrained in her. Her actions in taking and caring for them were as basic and simple as an act of love.

“Where did you go?” Chastity asked.

“Not to Sennett. There’s no reason for you to leave. Yet.” Why the hell had he added that? As if he could not bear his happiness or hers.  Or he did not trust it to last? Must he muddy every worthy moment? It certainly seemed so. He could not stop himself.

She covered his hand at Bekah’s back. “Thank you. I’m glad you’re back.”

He nodded once. “Me too.”

“I’ll put her to bed,” she said as she bent to take Bekah.

When had she stepped so close? Perhaps he had been too intent on her expressions to notice. “Put the boys to bed and go, yourself,” he said. “I’d like—” He cleared his throat. “I’d like to hold her a bit longer. I’ll bring her to you in a while.”

Chastity wavered.

“Please?”

“Fine,” she said.

He hated that he begged. Thank God she did not seem of a mind to point that out.

More than an hour later, Chastity laid in her bed conscious of the fact that she waited for Reed to come to her. She had unbraided her hair and fanned it carefully on her pillow, wondering how she would look when he came in.

Why should her appearance matter? What foolishness.

She smoothed the blanket, again, arranged her hair over her shoulders and breasts and placed her arms at her side, over the blanket, then under it a few minutes later.

Time crept at the pace of a garden snail going uphill.

He was only bringing Bekah. She was being foolish. She was not imagining him lying beside her. Not imagining him along her length, seeking her lips. Especially not him reaching for her when she put her arms around his neck, pulling her against him, crushing her to his hard, beautiful chest.

The fact that he kissed her that first morning was proof he would not pull away, if she reached for him, thank God. Lord that kiss haunted her almost as much as the ones he gave her before he went hunting. What would such kisses feel like, here in her bed, his body against hers, head to toe? Without the restraint of blankets? Clothes?

Chastity huffed and rolled to her stomach, undoing all her preparations and tangling her hair. Hot as she was, she pulled the covers over head and muffled her scream in her pillow. Let him find her cowering under her blankets like a frightened waif, blast it.

Chastity pictured Reed’s view, should he come in now and realized that the most prominent lump would be her bottom. Emitting a high pitched squeak, she flipped to her side, facing away from the door. Except she could not bear not to watch for him, so she flipped to her other side.

She could not bear watching either, she soon discovered.

Returning to her original position, she refused to fuss with her hair. Placing her arms over the covers to rest at her sides, she decided she would not move from this spot.

Lord it was warm in here.

What was wrong with her?

She was beginning to believe she really did have the proclivity of a wanton. Worse, she was beginning to be glad. She was pretty sure she would be willing to accept the certainty of hell just for a minute in Reed’s arms, here in this bed. She ached to know where his kisses would lead. She only wished she understood for what she ached.

When she finally heard movement in his room, her heart beat so fast, she feared a whisper would make her scream. When he pushed her door open, quiet as he was, she thought her heart would jump from her chest.

She was as surprised as him when she sprang from the bed with a yelp and stood at attention.

He stood framed in the door for a long beat, examining her nightgown with interest, regarding the buttons at her collar with . . . speculation?

Mortified at her reaction, Chastity wanted to melt from sight. What a fool she must seem. ‘Twas a wonder he did not laugh.

“Get into bed, Chastity.”

His words purled heat and shivers through her body, made her warm and pliant, cool and needy. How in heaven’s name could she be hot and cold at the same time?

Lord, she was going to faint.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, she remained standing. “Where is Bekah?”

He smiled. “Sleeping. I put her in my bed for a few minutes, so we could talk.” His eyes were darker and deeper, more intense than she remembered.

“Oh.”

As if her yearning called to him, he walked slowly toward her. When he stepped before her, he reached for her top button, slowly, perhaps to see if she would stop him. She did not. He undid all four buttons and examined her, as if waiting for her to speak.

Nothing in life had prepared her for this moment. She had no wellspring from which to draw a response to his questioning look. Yet at this moment, she would not trade her life with another’s. That shocked her. Never had she been content to be her.

This man changed her. She could spend forever with him and be happy. Could she?

As though she floated above the room and looked down at them, Chastity knew with sudden and clear certainty that she loved Reed Gilbride with all her heart.

He placed his hands at her waist and stepped near enough for her to inhale his scent, earth and man, fresh and clean. Intoxicating. Where the tips of her breasts touched his chest, hot prickles burst and traveled to the most ludicrous places. Body to body they stood, touching even at her core and she turned molten. His body fit well against her own, their contours flowing toward and away from each other, as if they were made for each other.

Did he sense it too?

Life, the wonder of it, new and fresh, filled her with a physical thrumming. Within her, yes, but without as well. She stepped the merest bit closer. “I missed you.”

Reed groaned, swooped, and opened his mouth over hers, his kiss deep and hard, almost desperate. His hands flowed upward, from her waist to the sides of her breasts.

Aching for more, she placed her arms around his neck, giving him easier access to herself. Now he almost . . . almost cupped her breasts, yet his hands remained beneath them, as if not daring to move closer.

Lord if he did not touch her soon, she would perish.

Reveling in the freedom to do so, she stroked the hair at his nape. His mouth opened again, as did hers. He became her teacher, she his eager pupil.

One of them moaned as Reed grasped her bottom to pull her tight against him. She sought more with the movement of her hips.

Reed swore and stepped away, far enough to separate their bodies, but close enough to rest his brow against hers. He clasped her hands tight in his at their sides and took several long, deep breaths. Then he stepped away and urged her into her bed.

Much as she wanted to pull him down beside her, her bravado failed.

He tugged the covers to her chin and tucked the blanket around her feet, her legs, her waist, slowly, gently, against the sides of her breasts. His thumb stroked farther, but not far enough.

He bent lower, until his lips hovered just above hers, calling silently, begging. “Once more,” he said, and kissed her again. Long and slow. Wild, yet serene. Exhilarating and comforting. “I’ll get Bekah,” he said before he left.

Reed Gilbride made her yearn and he made her content. And he made her want to scream.

“Sleep well,” he whispered a while later, after he placed Bekah beside her. And she wanted to call him back, but she did not. It was going to be a long night. She could not possibly sleep after what had just happened between them.

The light of a gray English morning finally beckoned. Chastity opened her eyes and stretched languorously. She had experienced a sweet, dream-filled sleep wherein the possibility that she could give and receive love seemed real.

A sense of teetering on the brink hummed in the air and infused her with anticipation as she rose. For the first time, her life might come about as she directed it, rather than as a consequence or act of another. As someone who came into this world as the result of another’s mistake, she had dreamed for years of a new beginning, and here it sat, waiting.

She hummed as she dressed, remembering the night before. As she left her room, neither the children, themselves, nor their usual raucous greetings were to be heard. Reed must have started them on their chores outdoors or, at the least, promised dire consequences should they speak above a whisper.

As she went by his room, she could not help gazing about. His door was open, his bed neat, and the room empty.

Trepidation filled her. Had he left? For good, this time? Was last night’s kiss a good-bye? Without thought, she ran down the stairs, coming up short at the bottom.

There Reed stood, at the open front door, affixing two shiny hinges into place.

Even at this hour, light threw shadows across the foyer. Here gray, there bright, a mirror of her emotions.

“Running from another fire?” he asked. His rogue’s smile, his winking dimple, could undo her firmest resolve not to be charmed, and she found herself cross at the notion. “No,” she said. “I slept too long. I need to prepare breakfast.”

She waited with less unease than anticipation as he approached. “Chastity, we have to talk.”

“You’re not leaving, again, are you?” She hated herself for asking. Her emotions, where he was concerned, frightened her. Was love always so? But daylight brought sense. Chastity Somers and Reed Gilbride had no future. He would never want the children and she would not venture forth without them, even into a life with the man she loved.

He touched her cheek. “I will not go unless I am certain you no longer need me. I still have much to teach you.” He seemed to wince.

“And your heritage to prove.”

Relief softened his features. “And my heritage to prove. Would I be here if I were not on a quest? More to the point, how would you be doing, if I had not come along? Be grateful for small favors.”

“I’d hardly call your presence a favor,” she said, stung by his reminder of her incompetence. She had forgotten that he could be more knave than savior sometimes.

“Oddly enough, I have moments, fleeting though they be, of considering this interlude as something of a favor granted. Would that you could, also.”

Lord, and what did he mean by that? Certainly he felt no boon to be among them. “Where are the children?”

“I need to speak to you about them.”

His gravity shot fear through her. “Where are they?” She turned toward the kitchen in panic. “What have you done to them?”

“Only what they deserve.” He took her arm gently. “They have got to get over this pilfering business.”

“What’s missing now?”

“Everything.”

Chastity laughed. “Reed Gilbride. Did they, or did they not, take something?”

“There is not one morsel of food in this house—no butter, nor the bread I saw cooling when I returned last evening. No meat. Nothing. In the barn, Leonardo has been milked, but I can find no milk.”

“The children have more than enough to eat, now. They cannot possibly be hungry.”

Reed acknowledged the truth of her words with a nod. “I found Matt scampering up the ladder into the shed loft with a full bucket of milk. Mark, Luke and Bekah were hard on his heels with everything else. Most of the food they pilfered has already spoiled. They have been stealing it and letting it turn, wasting supplies. Chastity, they cannot—” He regarded her, wondering if he should continue.

She nodded for him to go on.

He shrugged in resignation. “They are being punished.”

“No!” Chastity remembered the workhouse, the sound of leather striking flesh, the smell of festering sores, fever, death. “If you hurt my babies, Reed Gilbride, I will strap you myself, until—”

She was in his arms. He was shushing her, kissing her tears. “Sweetheart, shh, they’re all right. God, what have you seen to warrant—”

“In the workhouse, Reed. I saw—”

He kissed her brow, pulled back to gaze into her eyes. “You were saving them.”

He hugged her, again, when she nodded.

“Now, I understand.” He gave her his debilitating smile and took her hand. “Let us confront the looters. If you do not agree with their punishment, you may thrash me.

“I may anyway, for scaring me like that.”

The children sat at the kitchen table, food piled in each of their plates. Rebekah looked startled when she saw Reed, and she took a quick gulp of milk. Mark sat back, arms folded mutinously, plate full. Matt, head in hands, looking pale, a half-eaten cookie in his hand that Chastity had not baked. Luke was stuffing himself with four-day-old oatcakes.

“The bandits,” Reed said. “In my opinion, if they steal food, they should eat it. I have told them not to move from the table until they consume every bit of what they took.” He looked from one child to the next. “All of it.” He let that sink in for a minute.

“You’ll no doubt come to the conclusion that you’ve taken more than you need,” he said at Chastity’s nod to continue. “With no food in the house, Chastity and I might have gone hungry. Was it your intent to harm us?” He held up his hand when she made to interrupt, revealing that he intended his exaggeration. Please, he begged silently, go along with me.

Chastity hesitated and sighed, letting him know she would, at least for a while.

He turned back to the children. “If so, you’ve done right in hoarding food, because if we starve, we shall no longer be able to provide for you. Sooner or later, your own food would run out, though, and without us to provide more, you too would starve.”

Bekah began to sob. It was all Chastity could do, not to stoop down and pick her up. There was not an ounce of guile in Bekah, though she was fiercely loyal to her brothers, and would commit any crime they suggested.

Luke stopped enjoying his oat-cakes. Reed had made the right impression, there. Mark lowered his arms, and for Mark that was a concession. Matt paled the more. Whether he understood the repercussions, or realized she would not rescue them this time, she could not tell.

She started to issue a protest, but Reed pulled her aside. “They said they found those cookies this morning, but I’m concerned they stole them, elsewhere.”

“Oh dear.”

“I tossed the food that spoiled, though I made them take a whiff, so they would understand that they deprived us all.

“Oh Reed.”

“If they’re ever hungry, again, they should remember what they wasted.” He raised his voice. “Come along, Chastity, so they can finish eating breakfast. If they do not make haste, they will not be done in time for lunch.”

Rebekah set up a wail. “That will not work,” Reed said ruffling her hair. Then he took Chastity by the arm and led her from the kitchen.

“They are going to be sick,” she said as soon as they were out of earshot.

“I will not let it go that far. You can rescue them in a little while. If you had not come down, I would have gone to get you for that purpose.”

They were both remembering last night, she thought, wondering what might have happened, if he had come to her room this morning.

Reed cleared his throat. “I think their punishment fit the crime. I needed to balance their fear of being hungry against a sad waste of food. And they need to learn a proper respect for our hard work in providing for them. They have to learn to trust that we will provide.”

He acted as if they, together, would keep the children. “I was prepared to argue with you on this,” she said, “though I suppose you are right, but I am worried about them.”

“They’ll be fine,” Reed promised, just before Mark’s frantic shout.

Chastity arrived in time to see Matt toss up his just desserts all over Reed’s trousers and boots.

Luke laughed, Bekah stopped wailing, and Mark cracked a smile.

The victim of his own punishment fits the crime scheme, Reed cursed his unknown antecedents and children in general.

Chastity pulled his shirt from his soiled pants while he kicked off his boots and undid the placket on his offensive trousers, which landed at his feet at the same moment a sudden throat-clearing startled them.

Reed looked up and Chastity whipped about.

“Ah, excuse me, Chastity. I, ah, seem to have arrived at an inconvenient time.”

“Mr. Sennett!”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Chastity could not help note that the children, for once, had been struck silent, not unlike Mr. Sennett.

Reed pulled up his pants on the instant, all of them trying to ignore the foul stench.

Above reproach at all times—Mr. Sennett’s warning on the day he gave her Sunnyledge—on a trial basis—echoed in her head as she realized that she had been caught with a red-faced man, pants around his ankles, in front of the children.

She stepped forward. “Mr. Sennett, please do not suppose that this kind of thing happens every day . . . except when Reed was ill, and—”

Reed’s look warned her to stop. Now.

Afraid her home might already be lost, Chastity raised her chin. “How pleased I am to see you, Mr. Sennett.” Keeping her smile, she cleared her throat. “Mr. Gilbride is our new caretaker. Mr. Gilbride, Mr. Sennett is the solicitor who gave me the use of Sunnyledge.” Had she sufficiently conveyed the man’s importance?

Reed reached for something to wipe his hands, barely stopped his pants from falling, again, and bowed. “Your servant, Sennett.”

Mr. Sennett grimaced, or stifled a smile, cleared his throat, and returned Reed’s greeting in kind.

Chastity thought she might cry. What must her benefactor think of her disastrous stewardship? Sick children, unclothed retainers, chaos. If she did not lose Sunnyledge after this morning’s work, she never would.

Sennett narrowed his eyes upon Reed. “We’ve met.”

Reed nodded. “I apologize for not accepting your suppositions regarding my heritage, but I felt compelled to come and find out for myself.”

Mr. Sennett nodded at Reed and turned to her. “Is he a good caretaker at least?”

Chastity cursed her blush. “He has already fixed the front door, and the stairs, purchased a cow, and planted a garden.”

Mr. Sennett nodded thoughtfully.

Chastity told Mark to open the door to air the room and sent Matt and Reed to change their clothes. Then she ushered Mr. Sennett to a small salon. She introduced him to Luke, Mark and Bekah. “I’ll let these three entertain you while I make certain Matt is all right.”

After warning them with a raised brow, Chastity was reasonably certain the children would not rob and assault Mr. Sennett in the light of day. Still, she felt compelled to accomplish her tasks with due haste.

After guiding the conversation to safe ground, namely her accomplishments since arriving, Chastity reluctantly left her charges with the man who held their fate in his hands, and prayed that all would go well.

* * *

The Vindicator cursed. Only one of the children ate her cookies, and so little as to make no difference. But worse than that, she feared that Sennett would banish her puppet.

The solicitor seemed none too pleased to find Reed Gilbride in residence. How could she pit Edward’s sons against each other, if they did not remain at Sunnyledge?

After the woman they called Kitty finished cleaning the kitchen, and left, finally, the vindicator slipped from the scullery dumbwaiter and made her clandestine way through the house toward the room adjacent to the salon, where she could hear them talking.

* * *

After changing his clothes, Reed came downstairs wondering if his quest for his heritage would end before his search ever began. ‘Twas clear Sennett did not appreciate his presence. How much power did the man wield?

Since his untimely arrival, Reed experienced a disquieting notion that change would soon be wrought; he only wished he knew how it would affect Chastity and the children.

He shook his head at that. Fancy him being more worried about them.

When Chastity stepped into the hall, tea tray in hand, a fierce need to keep her safe came over Reed, but safe from whom? Himself or Sennett? Yes, or anyone who would harm her, except, protecting Chastity was not his place. He did, however, take her arm as they approached a moment that could amount to their doom.

Childish chatter and Sennett’s laughter escalated, as they got nearer. “Leaving Sennett with the rascals might have been dangerous,” Reed said beneath his breath. “I hope he carries no food about him.”

Chastity gave him a grimace.

Reed chuckled. “Sorry, just trying to lighten—”

“He threatened to eat Zeke,” Mark said, clear as day, stopping Reed and Chastity dead.

“But he bought us a cow,” Matt added. “For milk.”

“Leonardo,” Luke added. “Reed taught Kitty how to milk it, and she screamed when she tried, and squirted herself in the face.” Luke giggled and Sennett laughed.

“Reed’s nice,” Luke added. “He gives Chastity a bath every night.”

Reed caught the tea tray as it slipped from Chastity’s fingers, scalding himself in the process. “Damnation!” he cursed in a furious whisper.

“Precisely!” Chastity made for the salon posthaste, her neat bottom—

Reed cursed one more silent time, as he entered the salon behind her and put the tray safely down. He wiped his stinging hand with his handkerchief.

Her convoluted explanation of how he filled and heated buckets of water for her evening bath seemed an unfortunate matter of the lady protesting too much. Reed wished he knew how to end her diatribe without adding to the impression.

“Afterward, he goes up to his room,” Chastity said, the silence heavy with the echo of her words.

“Up to his room?” Sennett said. “Up . . . where?”

The man was nothing if not single-minded, Reed thought, as he folded his arms and braced a shoulder against the acorn-carved mantle.

“To the third floor, to bed,” Chastity said, looking around, as if for escape.

“Your caretaker sleeps in the house? Where, precisely?”

“Next door to Kitty,” Luke said. “We use the doors between the rooms to go—”

“Hush Luke!”

Reed stifled a chuckle at the forceful tone his sheltering swan had finally employed on one of her cygnets.

“Rebekah and I share a room, Mr. Sennett,” she said. “The boys use the room on one side of us, and Reed, ah, Mr. Gilbride sleeps in the room on the opposite side, so the children do not disturb him,” she added in a rush.

The solicitor raised a brow. “My dear, you are aware of how impressionable young children can be?”

Reed tried to warn Chastity, with a look, to stop while she was ahead, and he could almost hear her groan as she silently begged for his help.

Sennett cleared his throat and regarded them fixedly.

Damnation, now the man had more to ponder. Did casual acquaintances, like him and Chastity, normally communicate without speaking? Either the ability they shared was a prime example, or they were in trouble.

“The two of you, sharing the house—why, it’s practically indecent,” Sennett said. “I think you must leave, young man. I meant for Chastity to hire female help.”

On Chastity’s visage, Reed saw fear and panic taking hold. “But Reed is doing so much,” she said. “Surely a woman could not repair a roof or plow and plant.”

Though she had never admitted that she needed him, Reed thought she must finally realize it, else she would not argue to keep him.

“Still,” Sennett said. “I see no way for such living conditions to continue . . . unless you plan to marry?”

Chastity gasped.

Reed straightened. Was the man daft? “Mr. Sennett, you do understand that Chastity’s present situation precludes the possibility of marriage. Certainly that is reason enough for the world to see our living arrangement as harmless, and for the sole purpose of setting up her children’s home.”

Reed paced away, sighed, and returned to his position by the mantle. “I’ll move into the barn. I should have insisted at the start. My own greed for comfort allowed me to accept living conditions I knew were not quite—” He looked Sennett in the eye. “Chastity has no notion, you must see, of the pitfalls. Do not hold her accountable for that which she does not understand. You do take my meaning?”

Sennett nodded somewhat grudgingly.

Did the man question even a nun’s innocence? He must, Reed thought, for now he was shaking his head. “It simply will not do,” Sennett said. “The world takes a dim view of a man and woman living together under any circumstance.”

“But Chastity is a—”

“Bereaved widow, I know, but a woman, nonetheless. And you, Sir, are a man.” Sennett glanced from one child’s rapt expression to the next, then back to Reed. “What more can I say?”

Reed found it necessary to sit. His equilibrium seemed to have deserted him. Chastity was a widow? Not a nun? He looked to her for denial, but her expression could not be more confirming, or more awash with crimson, were she bent over a roaring fire. Yet with a disarming look, she implored him to understand.

With a glancing glare, he ignored her plea. He had been lied to by a woman who spouted verity at every turn. What had she once said? ‘Telling falsehoods would set a bad example?’ The impostor. The liar! But she did not lie, not really. He remembered the conversation. He had assumed and she had not corrected. He had demanded answers that she had skirted. There was no other explanation. She had wanted him to believe her a nun, by God. Well, to be fair, God had surely not entered into it. She did have her standards.

Reed groaned inwardly at explaining her innocence to Sennett, more fool he. Yet he could not help but consider her naive, even now, though why he should, her being a widow and all, he did not know.

By all that was holy, Chastity was a woman of experience. A wife. She had received her husband’s kisses, his touch, had taken him into herself. Reed’s groan almost escaped then. For weeks he had held back, dared not touch. He sidestepped the act of seduction at every turn, though the notion dogged him like a love-struck hound. Last night, he had left her willing and wanting.

Last night he had been noble.

Well, no more.

Sennett’s cough made Reed look up, surprised, to find the roomful of people, all watching him. Had he spoken his thoughts aloud? By the look of Sennett, Reed’s musings were at the very least, suspect, though Chastity seemed none the wiser.

There it was again, the contradiction—world wise and without guile, all in one package.

Well, her innocence, or her lack of it, mattered no more. For the first time in days, what mattered more to Reed were his own goals, and he was relieved. Glad. Delighted.

He made a resolution then and there. Despite Sennett’s protestations, despite Chastity’s perfidy, he would stay to find the proof of his birth. If Lady Innocence suffered from his methods, fair or foul, then so be it. If he must become betrothed to Sister Virtue-Gone-Astray, then betrothed he would become, by damn.

Reed regarded the vixen, then, from the top of her cinnamon crown to her perilously pallid complexion, her expression screaming fear—and so she should be terrified, for he would make her pay.

Regarding her in such a way as to shiver her in her slippers, he examined, not her religious habit, but her widow’s weeds, as she clasped and unclasped her white knuckled hands in her lap.

Reed denied his need to console her, and he forced a slow-growing smile, to make her devilish uneasy, as he turned to the solicitor with purpose. “The fact is, Mr. Sennett, if I may be so bold, I have grown to—”

As Reed regarded Chastity, she grew paler, and he was forced, once again, to stifle his need to take her into his arms. How dare she wring gentleness from him. “Mrs. Somers would make an excellent wife and mother.” No false ring there, he was pleased to note. “So with your permission ...” Reed waited for Sennett’s sanction.

The solicitor nodded.

“I would be perfectly willing . . . nay, delighted, to betroth myself to her.”

“Absolutely not!” his high-and-mighty, no-longer-cowed but suddenly-self-righteous, non-celibate lady snapped.

Reed knelt before her in the way of a gallant, Chastity shrinking against her chair, as if he were a viper come to dine . . . on her. And so he would.

He took one of her cold, delicate, trembling hands in his, and massaged the palm with his thumb, gazing into her spring-violet eyes, telling her silently, privately, what he would like to do to her—after he beat her.

He conveyed so much passion, as to bring heat to her face and a swelling to his loins, and when he realized they had both been stirred, he winked.

Chastity gasped and made to pull away, but Reed would not allow it. She tried crushing his fingers but found he owned the greater strength. Her embarrassment turned quickly to anger. Fine, he was stronger, she silently admitted.

Reed loosened his hold just enough to remind her which of them held the trump hand. “Why do you refuse?” he asked, knowing her answer should not matter. This was nothing more than a business arrangement, after all, a matter of expedience, and forced at that. Though there could be benefits.

Chastity made to push him away as she stood.

Reed teetered on his haunches, but rose with recovered grace, never releasing her hand.

She struggled to reclaim it, to remain calm. “I cannot marry. I am in mourning for the better part of a year yet.”

“I request only that we become betrothed,” Reed said with such sweetness, he wanted to laugh. “You do need my help.”

“I can manage without you,” she said chin high.

“You cannot. You need more cooking lessons.”

“Chastity cooks good,” Mark said, stepping aggressively forward in his first defense of anyone.

Rebekah nodded so hard, she bounced her braid against her bottom, and warmed a place in Reed’s thawing heart.

“My cooking will do,” Chastity said, to convince herself as much as anyone, Reed thought.

“Be that as it may, your farming and gardening skills are nonexistent.”

“I can sew,” she said, chin raised, lips aquiver.

“You sew beautifully.” Reed cursed himself and ran a hand through his hair, annoyed at his weakness. “Admit it,” he said. “You needed me from the minute you climbed through that wind—

“Yes! All right! I’ll marry you!” she shouted, and then she looked from one astonished face to the other, and took a breath. “I mean that I will become betrothed to you.”

Reed believed they understood each other. No question in either of their minds that this would begin and end with a betrothal to appease Sennett. No marriage. Fine.

Fine, Chastity thought, heart racing. Reed had nearly revealed—to Mr. Sennett of all people—that she stole the children. They would never marry, of course, praise be. She could not believe she had, just last night, dreamed of marrying him.

She sighed; she had forgotten how hard he could be. A betrothal might work, though, as it would enable her to get a firm start on her children’s home in the same way it would enable Reed to search for his heritage. Why was everyone watching her?

“You do agree; do you not, Chastity, my dear?”

“Agree?”

“That you need a chaperone,” Mr. Sennett obviously repeated.

Lord, she must appear a half-wit. “A chaperone?”

Reed stopped his chuckle with a cough. His dratted dimple gave his merriment away, and it rankled that she amused him. “Of course we need a chaperone,” she said, Reed’s instant chagrin turning victory her way.

“Good, good. You will hire your neighbor, Miss Thea Pomfret,” Sennett said, issuing an order. “She wrote to me just recently, seeking employment.”

“As cook.” Reed grinned. “And housekeeper.”

“The locals are afraid of the Sunnyledge ghost,” Chastity said. “None will come and work here.”

“This woman lives in the vicarage on the property. Her father had the living once, then her brother.”

Chastity went from suspicious to relieved. “The Vicar’s sister?”

Reed shook his head. “This is a woman we’ve not so much as glimpsed in all the time we’ve been here. Sounds like an odd fish to me.”

“We saw her,” Luke said.

“I don’t like her,” Mark added, and Bekah nodded her vehement agreement. Matt simply shrugged.

Reed grimaced. “There’s a glowing recommendation.”

“Nonsense,” Sennett said rising. “She sounds perfect. I’ll go for a jaunt, shall I, and see if she is amenable?”

“Let us all go and see this paragon.” Reed suggested.

The white-washed, thatched-roofed vicarage did indeed sit at the edge of the Sunnyledge property, not twenty feet from a small chapel that Reed decided he surely must search. An earthen path to the vicarage door, well-trod and blue-bell-lined, led almost the entire way from Sunnyledge. Odd that the path should appear so well used, when no one ever did use it, Reed thought.

Sennett rapped the knocker against the scarred arched portal.

An elegant, older woman, her rich, dark hair arranged in a loose bun at her nape, skin pale as porcelain, answered. “Hello,” said she, more than a bit short of breath. Her voice was refined, and a flowery scent that Reed liked not at all, wafted about as she examined them. When she fixed her gaze on him, her smile brightened and she placed her hand on his chest.

Reed stepped from her touch.

“I have missed you,” she said, her eyes awash with tears. “Why did you—”

“You mistake me for someone else,” Reed said, feeling skittish and uncomfortable.

“Miss Pomfret,” the solicitor broke in, “I am Everard Sennett, to whom you wrote seeking employment. This is Mr. Reed Gilbride, the Sunnyledge caretaker, and Mrs. Chastity Somers, who is planning to turn the house into a children’s home. The children are her wards.”

Chastity saw that the woman kept her regard fixed on Reed, her look filled with longing. Then she touched her brow. “Oh, but you cannot be, can you?” She closed her eyes, and opened them again, her smile different, still in place but detached, her eyes duller. “Years have passed, have they not?” She kept only Reed in her sights. “Please call me Thea. What did you say your name was?”

“Gilbride. Reed Gilbride.”

“Ah, yes. Do come in. All of you.”

Thea Pomfret was no housekeeper, Chastity thought, feeling vindicated for her own lack in the kitchen. They followed her into a small cluttered sitting room with low, thick-beamed ceilings. The woman, herself, was elegant and aristocratic in bearing. Her ornate, satin peacock dress—better worn for a ball—must once have cost a King’s ransom. Chastity wondered at Reed’s odd silence and questioned him with her regard.

He shrugged. “Miss Pomfret, do I remind you of someone, the previous owner perhaps? Did you know him?”

“Lovely man was the old Earl, but no, you remind me of no one.” She turned to the children. “I can bake cakes and cookies,” then to Chastity, “Need help, do you? Mr. Sennett, you remembered my letter; how kind.”

Chastity felt a distinct unease in the flighty woman’s presence, but hoped that would change in time. If a chaperone would keep Reed at Sunnyledge, then a chaperone they would hire. “I understand you’re the old Vicar’s sister?”

Thea nodded. “And the older Vicar’s daughter.” She wiped away a nonexistent tear. “Papa and Clive have gone to their just rewards and now I must seek employment.”

She could hardly say no, now, Chastity realized. While the woman’s proximity to Sunnyledge was astonishing, and her own discomfort real, they were hardly reasons to hesitate. “I cannot believe we have never met,” Chastity said.

With a huff of impatience, Mr. Sennett took matters in hand. “Fine, fine, it is settled, then. When can you move in?”

Move in? Chastity thought, as surprised as Reed looked.

“I shall be there within the half hour. Oh, Lord,” she said as they were leaving. “I have so much to do.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Chastity grudgingly conceded that Thea’s oatcakes were lighter in color and considerably more so in texture than hers, though the children, particularly Matt, passed on breakfast. The bread she brought was light, the cheese fresh and tasty, and the very mention of apple tartlets made Reed vocally anticipate luncheon, for which Chastity wanted to thrash him.

Mr. Sennett said his good-byes after Thea’s morning meal, so they were free to explore and search for Reed’s heritage with no thought to running Sunnyledge or feeding the children. By late morning, scents from the kitchen, apples, cinnamon, sage and roast duckling, rose as high as the third floor where they worked.

Reed sent the children to search the trunks in another room, and now he advanced on her. “I want an answer, Chastity. Why did you pretend to be a nun?”

Chastity lowered herself to a shrouded chair, aware that the question was due, but unprepared nonetheless. “Believe it or not,” she said, raising a wide black sleeve. “This is a religious habit. I really was a nun, until the day I married William.” She raised her hand when Reed made to protest. “What I said was true; I was raised by nuns in France at Notre Dame Abbey, where I became a nursing sister at the age of sixteen. Eventually, I worked beside Doctor William Somers.”

If not for William’s anonymous note, they might still be there, with William alive and her, a nun. Chastity shivered at the notion of never meeting Reed or the children, of never giving or receiving love. “William only married me because he wanted a traveling companion for his trip home to England.” And because she had asked him to.

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“Nevertheless, we sailed for England the day after we wed.” Her, in despair, having once again been denied the love she craved, “William, filled with excitement and lofty expectations. But during a channel storm, William went on deck, against orders, to tend some injured sailors, and he was washed overboard.” Chastity regarded her trembling hands.

Reed’s hand covered hers. “I am so sorry.” He placed his arms around her. “I did not mean to make you relive the horror.”

“You deserved an explanation.”

Reed stepped away and ran a hand through his hair. “I do, but you have not yet given it. Why did you want me to think you were a nun, still?”

“Oh, that.”

He nodded. “That.”

“Well, you kissed me and—”

“I kissed you?” He cocked a skeptical brow.

“Hush. I thought I’d be safe from . . . improper inclinations.”

“On whose part?” He chuckled when she colored. “You can stop wringing your hands now,” he said. “I understand, but Chastity, there’s something you need to understand.”

His intense look made her shiver. “What?”

“You did not succeed in stopping me from having improper inclinations; you simply stopped me from acting upon them. Now there is nothing to stop me.”

Chastity turned to the window so he would not see anticipation beating in her breast.

For Reed, luncheon turned out to be uncomfortable more than delicious.

Thea patted Bekah, but she whined and raised a shoulder to shake their chaperone off like a pesky fly, but the woman ignored rejection and continued to fawn, until Bekah went to hide her face against Chastity’s skirts.

Chastity offered Thea an apologetic smile. “Bekah is shy.”

“Or ill-mannered.” Thea’s flash of malice made Chastity haul Bekah on her lap.

Meanwhile, it raised the hair on the back of Reed’s neck. “She is shy,” he said, wondering what ailed them all. Why could they not be grateful for Thea’s help with cooking and cleaning? He could, now, look for the proof he needed, Chastity with him, as planned.

If he believed in such things, he might call Thea a Godsend—and if he believed that, he would be a happy man, but he was not, damn it. He was uneasy. “Thank you, Miss Pomfret,” he said, accepting a plate of roast duck and parsnips, trying to give her a chance. “It smells delicious.” He took a bite. “And it tastes better.”

The woman preened as if he had given her diamonds. “What do you think?” she asked Chastity.

“It’s good,” Chastity said, almost reluctantly. “Very good. Delicious.” She smiled. “Thank you, Thea.”

The children’s appetites spoke of their enjoyment, but Reed could see that they were reluctant to hurt Chastity’s feelings, and he decided that their manners were better than he thought.

“I do love a man with a hearty appetite,” Thea said, watching him. “You eat with the same enthusiasm as Edward.”

Reed looked up in surprise. “Edward?”

Thea colored. “Edward St. Yves, his lordship.”

“You did know the Earl of Barrington, then?”

“I did, yes.” She looked into the distance as if gazing into the eyes of a lover, and Reed rubbed the back of his neck, again.

“Did he have a son?” Chastity asked.

“We grew up together, but I can tell you nothing of his life after his marriage.”

Chastity looked puzzled. “Your family moved away?”

“No, but neither did we move in the same circles. There was talk of children, but it was foolishness, and we at the Vicarage never pass gossip, you understand?”

Thea had just put Chastity in her place, Reed thought, and lost her chance to win his, or the children’s approval in the bargain.

Stunned speechless, Chastity wished her unease in the woman’s presence did not already lean toward a strong dislike. Thea seemed fond of children, but did not know how to relate to them. To be fair, the woman did know her way around a kitchen. So what was there about her that seemed so . . . off-balance? She was pleasant and pretty, with smooth alabaster skin, despite her age, in stunning contrast to her ebon hair. She bore the kind of figure often compared to an hourglass. Each of her movements seemed planned, however, to display her body, as if it were her greatest asset. Chastity had never seen the like. Even Thea’s smile seemed perfect, except that it did not reach her eyes.

No matter how Chastity tried, she could not like the woman. “Delicious dinner, Miss Pomfret. Was it not, children?”

“I s’pose,” Matt said, while Bekah shook her head in denial, and Mark shrugged.

“I like Kitty’s cookin’ better,” Luke said.

“They’re trying to make me feel better,” Chastity told Thea, “but they ate your tarts, rather than stashing them.”

Reed chuckled as he ushered the children out to work in the garden. “What time is dinner?” he stopped to ask, but Chastity hauled him out the door before he got an answer.

“Reed, come see my flying machine,” Luke said.

“No time to play; we have chores to do in the garden.”

“Aw Reed, we never have time to play, anymore.”

“You have more time than I ever did. Come along, now. We need to work together.”

“Alright,” Luke said, so disappointed, Chastity felt sorry for him. But Reed was right, they must work together.

“I need help getting the barrow and tools,” Reed said.

“Kitty will help you.” Matt proceeded to the garden, looking better than he had since he’d been sick all over Reed. “We’ll start weeding.”

“Come, my betrothed.” Reed took her arm in his.

Chastity opened her mouth to protest and changed her mind. Though their betrothal was a sham, a game of sorts, it would be fun to be courted, to see what he meant about his inclinations. A shiver of anticipation coursed through her as she remembered him in her room the night before.

Reed was still smiling when he knelt in the rich moist earth some time later. He should not tease Chastity over their betrothal, but she deserved it. He had forgiven her rather easily for trying to make him believe she was a nun, after all.

He reached for a handful of beans at the same time she did, and when their fingers met, he’d swear they set off a spark that surprised them both.

He liked working beside her, and was amused by the children’s ploys to throw them together. If Chastity knew how he encouraged the imps, she would skin him like a chicken for the pot. He grinned.

“Pull that small plant, Luke, to allow the larger one beside it to flourish. There you go. Be careful not to take the strong with the weak. Sometimes they’re so close, the roots tangle.”

Mark looked up, but said nothing. That boy would not reveal any of his needs, not even for a gardening lesson, but there was no doubt in Reed’s mind that Mark listened to his instructions and followed them to the letter. Mark must learn to trust—though he would never admit it—that he and Chastity had his family’s best interests in mind.

Luke returned with the barrow, now empty of weeds, and set it down. “Wow! What’s that?” He leaned down and placed his hand under Reed’s chin to direct his gaze.

“Wow is right.” Reed stood, unconsciously seeking Luke’s hand. “It’s a hot air balloon. Amazing the way it hangs as if suspended, like one of DaVinci’s drawings, come to life.”

A miniature man leaning over the basket waved. “Ho, the ground,” he called as the amazing contraption floated past, heading in the direction of an abandoned pasture.

“Ho, the balloon!” Reed yelled, cupping his hands about his mouth. “Bring her down!”

The man waved in answer. “Clear the way.”

“Oh my,” Chastity said, catching Reed’s attention. If her eyes got any wider or brighter, he would be too captivated to function.

Reed expelled a breath of appreciation. A man could get lost in such a wondrous expression. “I have a mind to soar today,” he said, not taking his gaze from hers. “Let’s go.”

Chastity blushed and Luke shouted, “Yes!” and ran toward the descending airship, his brothers right behind.

Reed sought Bekah with his gaze and found her beside the garden, where she sat watching him. The single braid he had put in her hair that morning—she never let Chastity braid it—touched the grass behind her. Her eyes were as wide as Chastity’s, as she gazed at the marvel of design floating above them.

Reed dashed over and lifted her like a sack of grain, his arm about her middle, her head and feet dangling. Then he ran and caught Chastity’s hand, pulling her behind them.

An odd sound, like a snicker, caught Reed’s attention, until it became what could only be termed a full-scale giggle, and he saw that it was not Chastity, though her smile was wide and her breathing quick.

Reed stopped so fast, Chastity ran into him, and was knocked to the ground, escalating the giggle, but by the time Reed got Chastity on her feet, the laughter had stopped. “Did you hear that?”

Chastity raised her chin. “What?”

Chastity had said damnation when she hit the ground, but that was not was he meant. Reed grinned. “Not that. I thought you were laugh—” And then it hit him. He winked at Chastity and ran a circle around her, jiggling his tiny passenger for all she was worth.

The snicker commenced again and grew into a giggle, the likes of which expanded his heart to such a degree that it ached, and rose to form a lump in his throat.

Chastity’s eyes filled.

Reed stopped running and the lovely sound slowed to hiccupping snickers, which escaped at intervals. He hooked his arm with Chastity’s and they ran in circles together, until they were, all three, laughing so hard, they could hardly breathe.

Reed stopped to toss Bekah in the air, and her laughter trebled. Then the mite closed her arms around his neck and he was hugging her, her tiny face soft against his cheek, her giggles magnified in his ear. And Reed thought that he could regard the joy on Chastity’s face, and listen to the giggle on Bekah’s lips, for the rest of his days and never tire.

He was shocked, however, when Chastity’s laughter turned, for no reason, to tears, which explained why and how someone could weep with joy.

Reed pulled Chastity close and kissed her brow, then he held Bekah so they could both see her face, but when she saw Chastity’s tears, her smile faded. So Reed dangled and jiggled her again, took Chastity’s hand, and they ran toward the boys, waiting up ahead.

“Listen up boys,” Reed said when they got there. “Have you ever heard this sound?” He shook Bekah like a sack of grain, upsetting her brothers on the instant.

Mark took an aggressive step forward, until he heard the giggle.

Luke lay himself down on the grass beneath Bekah’s face to watch. “She looks stupid upside down,” he said. “But that’s our Bekah, all right, makin’ all that noise.” He rose grinning. “Mark, Bekah’s laughing. Our Bekah.”

“Thank you, sir,” Matt said to Reed.

Mark ruffled Bekah’s hair and gave Reed a nod, and Reed realized that Bekah was not the only Jessop who could speak without words.

What a day.

The balloon navigator’s name was Giles Laporte, from Canada, and he loved his rotund air ship.

“Our father went to Canada,” Mark said.

“Did not,” Matt said.

“Did too. I heard Mum say so.”

Reed held Matt and Mark apart, stopping a fight before it began. “We will discuss our manners before others, later.”

“Did you fly your balloon over the ocean?” Luke asked.

“No, young man, I did not. I packed it up and brought it on a voyage so rough, it made me worry that I’d end up beneath the sea rather than above the clouds.”

Though Chastity was struck at the reminder of her husband’s passing, Reed saw that her sadness passed with the children’s questions.

Giles explained to Matt that you couldn’t see much from above the clouds, except cloud-tops, like mounded goose-feathers, said he, and the children laughed, except Bekah who would only do so if shaken.

Reed didn’t care. He would shake on demand anytime.

“One cannot breathe well up there,” Giles said. “I rose above the clouds, but once, close enough to know I’d not go that far again, merci beaucoup.”

Giles agreed to let Reed take each child up for a short ride, but he was superstitious and could not be talked into letting the family go up together. “Tempting fate,” he said. “One at a time, s’il vous plait, with Monsieur Reed, while I hold the drop line like a tether.”

Matt asked a dozen questions, and being the man of his family insisted upon going first to make certain it was safe, after which, he gave permission for his brothers and sister to accompany Reed in turn.

Mark all-out smiled during his ride, and Reed felt as if the day had been a gift.

Luke never stopped talking as Reed took him up—about flying machines, of course—though Luke’s talking non-stop was nothing new.

When Reed took Rebekah up, she held his neck so tight, he thought he would choke. At first, he was afraid he would have a difficult time maneuvering, but he need not have worried. Bekah’s grip was strong enough for both of them.

And then it was Chastity’s turn. Reed wanted to take her higher and further. As the balloon rose, the boys’ cheers grew dim. The brisk wind slapped Chastity’s braid—fiery from the sun—against her cheeks and his, making them both grin, excitement sparkling in her amethyst eyes.

When a strong gust tilted the basket, she screeched and reached for him, and Reed slid his arms around her, pulling the soft length of her full against him. “The children are getting smaller and smaller,” she said looking down, holding tight. He slid his hand down her spine till he cupped her bottom and molded her closer. She gazed into his eyes. “I feel as if we’re the only two people in the world.”

“I would venture to guess we’re the only two in the heavens.”

She smiled and he kissed her, softly at first, but with a pressure to parallel their ascent, except, for Reed, desire soared much more swiftly. The day for them had been one of laughter, discovery, and wonder. Reed could think of no woman he would rather share them with. Could another, anywhere, have made him yearn for things he never wanted?

If solitude and peace equaled happiness, as he always thought, then he should be happier if he were up here alone, which was wrong. His old notions now seemed as insubstantial as the clouds close enough to touch.

Life before Chastity had been dull, though, truth to tell, he had never remained celibate so long. He kissed her pink nose, held her in his arms, while from heaven, they watched the world drift silently by.

To keep the perfect moment from coming to a quick end, Reed fired the engine. As the gas heated, the balloon rose swiftly. “Hold on my sweet seductress while I fly away with you.”

At first, Chastity seemed enchanted by the prospect, then doubt dimmed the spark in her eyes, and paled her smile’s brilliance, and Reed mourned both.

She shook her head. “We’ve gone too far. The children have stopped laughing. They’re afraid to lose us.”

“They will lose me,” he said, reminding himself as well as her.

“They will never lose me,” she countered, the nature of the kiss she initiated revealing her warring emotions. “We have to go back,” she whispered against his lips some time later.

“The proverbial return to earth.” Reed pulled a bit away, but did not let go. “Not until I prove that heaven is better.” He initiated a second kiss, so potent, he hated to come up for air.

“You’re right,” Chastity said, breathless some minutes later. “Heaven is better, but earth is where we belong, for now.” She removed her arms from around his neck and stepped back.

‘Twas for the best, Reed thought. The seductress was destroying barriers better left in place. If he let her, she would make him forget his need for peace in a twinkling, and he could not make that mistake again.

Lord, what would his future be like without her? He touched her cheek. “Farewell.”

Her eyes dimmed. She shifted her gaze downward, toward earth, and only smiled again when they heard the children’s cheers and could see their excitement.

When Giles bid them farewell, Reed expected long faces, but the festive mood pervaded, one he was loathe to dispel. As they made their way back, he stopped walking. “I proclaim this a Sunnyledge holiday, to be celebrated yearly on this date.”

“What holiday?” Chastity asked.

“Why, it’s . . . Everybody’s Birthday Day.” His date of birth, of them all, was the only one known, and that was suspect. “I believe a picnic observance is in order. I shall fetch blankets. Chastity, I’m sure Thea can prepare something delicious for a lazy picnic.” He prodded her with a two-handed nudge against her bottom, to the children’s delight. “Go quickly, I say. Our festivities cannot begin without our Lady fair.”

“Or that delicious food?” Chastity said, coyly turning to him, one brow raised.

“We shall meet by yon lake. Rebekah, go and help Chastity. Boys, come with me.”

“We’ll wait by the water,” Luke said.

Chastity and Reed both laughed. “You mean in the water.” Reed ruffled Luke’s hair. “Not bloody likely. Oh, sorry, Chastity.” He turned back to the boys. “You’ll go in when we’re watching you, and not a minute before.”

Later, with Thea’s picnic a fond memory, the boys begged for a swim and Reed allowed them a dip, after making certain the water was reasonably shallow.

Rebekah slept, thumb in her mouth, and Reed pulled the corner of the blanket over her. Chastity too looked sleepy, so he leaned against the tree under which they spread the blanket and pulled her against him. “Close your eyes,” he whispered in her ear. I’ll watch the boys while you sleep.”

Wind whistled through the oat grass, bees’ hummed their busy song, and children’s laughter floated on the breeze, as awareness filled Chastity. Reed caressed the underside of a breast, sending spirals of life to the most absurd places. How odd to awaken to a contentment akin to the bliss of sleep, though infinitely more stimulating.

When she opened her eyes, she saw that Rebekah slept still, though in a position as changed as that of the sun in the sky, while the boys still frolicked in the water. Chastity turned in Reed’s arms to face him. “The boys are playing differently, less like they’re stealing something, and more like happy children. Thank you for that. For today.”

“I guess I lost my childhood when I learned that I did not belong to the people I thought were my parents, and I never had one since. I did not realize I was taking theirs away by making them work all the time. You’ve taught me to see life in a different way, Chastity, though I’m not certain I should let you know you have such power.”

If he knew his power over her, Chastity thought, he would know how small was hers in comparison. “Is that why you’re determined to take your place in society?”

“Society, be damned. I need to know who I am. What kind of parents did I have? Why was I not good enough to keep?”

“Did it ever occur to you that perhaps your parents had no choice? Or that they did what was best for you?”

“Certainly, anyone in their right mind could see that the Gilbrides would make wonderful parents to a child to whom they begrudged every scrap of food and inch of space.” He shook his head.

Chastity took his hand and ran her thumb over his fingers. “When I was thirteen, and sad that my mother gave me away, Sister Bertha said that sometimes our greatest sacrifice can be disguised as our greatest failure.”

“That makes no sense,” Reed said, his voice gruff, perhaps uncomfortable at having revealed so much, but Chastity wanted him to be comfortable telling her anything.

“I think she meant that my mother might have wanted to keep me, but she knew the sisters could take better care of me. At least I choose to think she meant that.”

“You probably ate well, wore warm clothes, and slept inside the house. I do not imagine you worked ‘till you dropped or were beaten regularly.” He sighed. “I’m not looking for pity, but I want you to understand why I need to know who I am. It’s as if . . . I cannot be whole, until I know.” Clearly embarrassed, he regarded the boys in the water.

Chastity touched his cheek to regain his attention. “I always wondered about the woman who left me on a convent doorstep. Why not keep me? Was I wicked?”

“Wicked? You? Are you serious?” He examined her expression. “Good Lord, you are. A sheltering swan with the hatchlings of another safe beneath her wings, wicked? Unwanted? Ask those children. They damn near refused to eat the best, ah, they loved you too much to enjoy—”

Chastity shrugged.

“Tears?” Reed said aghast, because you’re worried about being wicked, something so far from possible, it’s laughable, and I would laugh, except for the look of you. You’re the best woman I have come upon in my entire misguided life. You could no more be wicked than I could be a saint. Good, a smile.”

“I’m crying because I’m such a bad cook.”

Reed’s laughter lit his countenance, making him more handsome than any man had a right to be.

Chastity probed his dimple and stroked his lips. He licked her wandering finger and she snatched it back. Then his mouth came for hers, and her breasts tingled as she moved closer.

What sweet heaven, to lie in Reed’s arms and be held, body to body, heart to heart, heat purling inside her like a swirl of sun-kissed wind on a summer day . . . until the children’s shouts penetrated her euphoria.

Reed threw her off and ran.

The boys, all three, stood lined on the bank gazing into the pond, frozen in place.

Chastity made to protect Bekah . . . and saw the blanket was empty.

Before she could command her legs to move, the boys separated, making way for Reed, wet, trembling, carrying Bekah.

Chastity’s tears spilled over as she ran.

Reed’s palpable fear clutched at her heart as he stopped, offering a limp, unmoving baby girl.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Seeing their sweet girl, pale and still, pulled a sob from Chastity, and a strangled echo from Reed.

Bekah opened her eyes.

Chastity sobbed again, in relief and gratitude, and opened her arms, but Bekah reached for Reed, instead, and closed her shivering arms about his neck. “Weed,” she said, clear and sharp, and thrice as earth shattering as a thunderbolt from heaven.

Reed kissed her brow then cupped her tiny head and held his cheek to hers—water, or tears, on his face. “You’re safe,” he whispered, as if sand abraded his voice. “You’re safe, Poppet.”

Trembling of a sudden from more than fright, Chastity wondered which of them would be more hurt by the breaking of that promise, the man giving it, or the child he’d already vowed to leave?

And who was she to judge? Chastity thought. Her actions were less honorable than Reed’s promises. She had been so wrapped up in him, she had not noticed when Bekah woke.

As if he sensed her anguish, Reed placed an arm around her, released his breath, and touched his brow to hers. “I have never been so frightened in my life.”

Bekah kissed Chastity’s cheek.

The boys stood frozen yet. Chastity beckoned to them with an open arm, and they came, all three, completing the circle, forging a bond of sorts, among the six—like a family, heaven help them.

That night, Reed tossed and turned in his bed, listening to the thunder in the distance, his heart full after the extraordinary day: Mr. Sennett’s ill-timed arrival. The mock-betrothal. Bekah’s laughter. Balloon rides.

Reed shivered as he pictured Bekah floundering, going under, and not coming up, then he remembered the first sound of her voice, and he grinned like a fool at his name on her lips. If he believed in miracles, he would dub the entire day a miracle of outstanding proportions.

Through it all, he learned something about himself that frightened the devil out of him. He cared about Chastity and the children. He had been so cleverly seduced into it, he did not know when caring struck.

In actuality, he supposed nothing had changed, except that it would be more difficult to leave when the time came, which it would, soon. It grew closer every day.

He hated that Chastity blamed herself for Bekah falling into the pond. He thought he’d talked her out of it, until her corruption came up, again, after they’d put the children to bed, while he filled the tub.

“I told you I was wicked,” she had said, looking and sounding guilty, needing to be talked out of it, once more.

“Wicked people are dishonest,” he said.

“I lied about being a nun. Lying about something as pure and noble as religious life must be the lowest form of dishonesty. And let us not forget my stealing the children. Stealing is dishonest, and you cannot tell me different. I am not stupid, you know.”

“You were saving them.”

She ignored him. “And there is Mr. Sennett’s—” She’d stopped, shocked at her words.

There was something he did not know, which frustrated him, because she would certainly consider it worse than in truth. “Wicked women care only for themselves, Chastity. Look what you’re doing for the children, giving them a home, keeping them safe, warm, well fed.”

“Who was I caring for when Bekah woke and wandered off? I nearly let her drown, Reed.”

“Wait a minute. If fault must be placed, then it is ours to share.” He held up a staying hand. “No arguments, I am right, and you know it.”

“But you said that my reason for taking the children was to get love for myself. Now that is selfish.”

Reed slammed the empty pot on the stove, furious with himself for fueling her self-blame. The sound of her weeping shocked him then, for she had not broken beneath more difficult circumstances.

He marched over and stood her to face him. “Listen to me. You think you’re wicked in the same way I fear that I made my parents want to give me away.

“You were only a baby,” she said.

“As were you,” he countered. “Your mother leaving you does not mean that you must be wicked.”

“I have proof.”

“What proof?”

“I just told you. Lying, stealing, selfishness.” She ticked them off on her fingers.

“Chastity that only makes you human. Humans are selfish. They lie, cheat, and steal, on occasion. Now, I’m not up on your Deity or anything, but does it not say somewhere that He forgives, especially if we try to do better?”

Her smile revealed relief, and it brought his smile.

“Do you think we would have been brought to this place and time, together?” she asked, “without our unfortunate beginnings?”

“I cannot see how. You were right, you know, when you said we had all been abandoned, even Sunnyledge, and now we’re together.”

She sighed. “Sometimes I believe this was all meant to be.”

Sometimes he, too, thought he belonged with them, but those times were rare, and frightening. More often than not, standing apart seemed his lot. But Rebekah speaking, today, saying his name, changed that. She’d . . . humbled him. He had not been sure if he should cling to her, or run fast and far. “She called me Weed,” he said on a chuckle. “An appropriate name. A rogue plant, the one not belonging, the one best plucked so as not to taint the rest. My old man sure wanted to pluck me from their midst.”

“I don’t want to pluck you,” Chastity said. “I’d like to plant you and see if you take.”

That’s where their discussion had ended. To go on would have been painful for them both. “Take your bath,” he had said. “The water’s getting cold.” Then he kissed her brow and left.

That had been hours ago. It must be nearly one in the morning, now. He would have to do some serious searching tomorrow. With only a few weeks left until one of them got Sunnyledge, he had started to worry . . . that he would find his proof.

He mocked himself with a chuckle, rolled over, and closed his eyes, but the storm outside his window did nothing to calm him. He wondered if it kept Chastity awake. He could not seem to calm either storm, neither the one outside, nor in.

Chastity threw off her blankets, rose to light a candle, and sat at her desk to pen a letter.

Dear Mother Caritas, I have much to say. Pray be patient with my questions and forgive my previous lack of communication.

First and foremost, I am more sorry than you can imagine to have to tell you that William lost his life during our voyage from France. I miss him daily.

You told me, Mother, that he would explain everything I needed to know about our journey, about life and love. He never had the chance. I know he took ship in response to that mysterious letter, because he felt he must correct an injustice. Please, if you know anything about the nature of that injustice, the future of others may depend upon my knowledge.

Of life and love, not enough paper exists for all my questions. Suffice it to say that I have found a man to love, though not in the same way I loved William—as a dear friend or brother. This love is all-consuming and frightening. Mother, does love acquit abandon? I am losing a part of myself to him, but I cannot seem to stop, nor do I want to. This concerns me.

I will leave you with happy news. Do you remember how often I suggested we open a home for children at the Abbey? Well, I am doing so, here, in a manor called Sunnyledge. I have four children at this time, three boys and a girl. They are among those whose lives depend upon your response. Write soon. Pray for us.

I remain, respectfully yours, Chastity Somers.

Chastity snuffed her candle, the rain as furious as the wind, lightening flashing quick upon the heels of thunder.

Rebekah slept fitfully, and when Chastity climbed back into bed beside her, she cuddled close. Chastity considered waking her to calm her, but she might be more frightened if she witnessed the storm.

As if to fortify her concern, thunder struck fit to wake the dead and lightening brightened the room to daylight.

Bekah sat up screaming, bolted from the bed, and threw open the door to Reed’s room. At the same moment, the boys came through the opposite door. With the next quick clap, Luke dived into bed with Chastity.

“Scaredy baby,” Mark accused in a wobbling voice.

Thunder and lightening came simultaneously, Matt and Mark white and terrified. “Where’s Bekah?” Matt asked.

“In here,” Reed called.

They made for Reed’s room posthaste. Chastity followed, Luke as well. In the next flash, she saw Reed sitting up in bed, shirtless, a blanket to his waist. Bekah in the safety of his arms, her face tucked against his neck. Though his hair was charmingly mussed, he looked as if he had not yet slept.

As thunder clapped, again, Chastity wondered if questions without answers, and problems without solutions, also plagued him. In the light that followed, Reed grinned, as if he had been waiting for the right moment to do so. “Climb in,” he suggested, his voice silk as sin.

Luke needed no second request. He climbed over Reed with alacrity.

“What the heck?” said Matt.

She and Mark stepped close, but neither joined them. “Reed?”

“Yes, Chastity?”

“Your clothes?”

Thunder cracked. The room brightened. Reed’s smile looked angelic. “It’s nighttime, Chastity. I have no need for clothes.”

Luke giggled.

“But the children—”

“Are in their nightshirts.”

A strangled sound from Mark ended in a cough.

“I’m—”

“In your nightrail, and looking lovely with your cute pink toes peeking from beneath your hem.”

Luke giggled again. Matt and Mark snickered.

“It’s too dark to see such things.”

“I have a wonderful imagination.”

Chastity sighed, fighting beguilement.

“Sounds like the storm is right over us, and staying for a visit, if I do not miss my guess. We’re nice and comfortable here. What about you two?”

Mark walked around the bed and climbed in. “I do not give a fig what he’s wearing. I’m tired.”

“Chastity,” Reed said, his voice sultry of a sudden. “We’re simply a man and a woman with a flock of children between us and nothing but good intentions.”

She knew better. “I think only one of us has good intentions.”

“I am forewarned and shall try not to succumb to your wiles.”

The boys all out sniggered. Chastity sighed.

“It’s going to be a long night,” he cajoled.

“Oh, all right.”

“Great,” said Mark, who moved over, followed by Matt, Luke, then Reed, who made room for her beside him.

“Now wait a minute,” Chastity said, hands on hips.

Reed tut tutted. “Get in Chastity. I’ll keep you safe.”

Ignoring the warmth filling her, Chastity marched around the bed and shoved Mark over. “Move, you rat. All of you, or I’ll send you back to your own beds, let thunder blow the roof off.”

Reed chuckled but complied, his army of matchmakers doing likewise.

Far from temptation, Chastity snuggled down, feeling safe, despite the frenzy beyond the battlements, Reed’s proximity keeping drowsiness at bay.

“Chastity?” he whispered.

She tried to ignore him, though her heart refused.

“Chastity, reach over here.”

There was something good in reaching for him, in lacing their fingers together, and resting their arms on the small ones between them. Chastity closed her eyes and pictured them snuggled there, all six, like a family.

“Chastity,” Reed called softly.

“What?”

“I’m wearing trousers.”

“Jeez,” Mark said. “Go to sleep.”

Reed knew when morning arrived, though he had not yet opened his eyes because the children woke him telling each other to shush.

Luke was wiggling beneath the blankets, toward the foot of the bed, presumably to escape without causing a disturbance. Reed almost laughed. As if anyone could sleep now.

Bekah nestled close, her tiny finger scraping his night’s growth of whiskers. Reed smiled despite himself, and when he did, that same finger embedded itself into his dratted chin-dimple. His chuckle rose without volition, erupting into a belly laugh.

That was all it took, and the brigands set up a cacophony of gargantuan proportions. He wanted to join them. Damn, they were getting to him. He raised his head to regard their provoking protector, far across the bed.

She looked innocent, beautiful, her smile radiant, her eyes glowing, a lazy contentment beckoning, which seemed to have the same effect on the children. They charged her, laughing and tickling.

He threw on a shirt but didn’t button it. By the time he headed around the bed, he could barely see Chastity, for the pig pile scrambling for her attention.

Her screams were as delightful as her laughter. “Reed. Reed, save me. Please.”

“I’m here, fair maiden. Your knight in shining armor.” He swooped down, lifted her in his arms and ran away with her, the children in hot pursuit. As they followed him down the hall, Reed wondered who was having more fun, but it must be him.

Into the gallery, he ran, and jumped on the ballroom dais, setting Chastity down behind him, while he wielded an imaginary sword.

Her pursuers fell giggling to the floor.

He threw his sword down in disgust and placed his hands upon his hips. “At least give me a good fight, you scoundrels.”

Rebekah raised her arms, “Weed?”

“And the rogue knight’s stone heart turned to mush,” he said as he lifted her to accept her morning kiss. Then he herded everyone toward their bedchambers. “Wash, dress, breakfast and chores, and then we’re off on a quest. I’m going to search this place from hidden cellars to musty attics, and you’re all going to help. Now scoot.”

More than an hour later, they’d still not begun their quest. They were searching instead for Luke, who’d gone missing.

Reed headed toward the smoke shed, a building they had never used. He hated the hooks hanging from the ceiling and had forbidden the children entrance. It was the last building to search and he dreaded going in.

When he heard the shouts, he was glad they hadn’t come from inside. But relief disappeared in a hail of frantic calls. Matt came running. “Reed come quick.”

“What’s wrong? What is it? Where’s Chastity? Did something happen to Chastity?”

“No, Luke says he’s gonna’ fly, but I’m afraid he’ll fall off the roof.”

The roof? “Oh, God.”

The sight above—three stories above—stopped Reed’s forward surge as if he’d run into a Cotswold stone wall. “Damnation,” he said. “Luke Jessop, do not move. Do not bloody well move an inch from that spot. Do you hear me?”

“No, I’m gonna fly my machine,” Luke said. “Watch.”

Damned DaVinci! Reed cursed inwardly. “Grab that cornice and do not move! I’m coming to get you.”

Luke stood outside a window near a tower Reed never noticed from inside. “What part of the house is that?” he asked Mark and Matt.

“We don’t know,” Matt said. “If we knew where to look, we wouldn’t have searched so long.”

“Chastity,” Reed called. “Where the hell is Chastity?”

“Up there,” Matt said.

Reed knew before he saw her. “Do not!” he ordered, knowing it was useless. “Double damn. Bloody, damn foolish—”

The minute Chastity stepped onto the window ledge beside Luke, she teetered, and spread her arms for balance.”

“Damnation!” Reed began to climb.

Luke dropped his flying machine to grab Chastity’s flailing arm, and it took several terrifying moments for her to catch the edge of the ledge and steady herself.

Luke’s machine landed on the dormer above Reed, nose down and wing torn.

The boy would have broken his neck. As if to prove Reed’s theory, the wind picked up the bloody machine and tossed it into a downward spiral. Judging from the sound, it must have hit ground and splintered on impact.

Luke wailed and bemoaned its fate.

“Lucky that wasn’t you!” Reed shouted as he climbed, desperate to reach them before the boy’s arms gave out. “You’ll be lucky you’re not in as many pieces when I’m done with you.”

If he did not remain furious, Reed would remember how much he hated heights. He wished he’d never told Luke about DaVinci’s flying machines. And Chastity. If she got hurt— Reed took a deeper breath as he neared the dormer that temporarily held the flying machine. Closing the distance between him and Chastity, he knew it would only be a bit further to Luke. If he got a good foothold, he could grab Chastity by the waist and raise her enough to get her safe inside.

He’d appreciated the vine he hauled himself up on, until it tore free of its limestone anchor and dropped him.

He fell half the length of it, clinging for dear life, until it brought him up short so fast, his bones rattled. The screams, Chastity’s and Bekah’s, that accompanied his descent, stopped as well.

His injured side flamed as he pulled himself back up the vine. A jagged piece of stone cut his cheek. Blood, dripping warm along his neck, helped him identify the sensation in his side. He had opened his wound.

After what seemed like an eternity, he joined Chastity, teetering on her perch, aimed her toward the window, and gave her bottom a shove to get her through it.

“Reed Gilbride!”

“No time, woman. Get the hell inside.”

Luke giggle had lost its punch.

“You’re next, Luke. Stay put for one more second. Thanks for holding Chastity,” he added, to distract the boy. He’d beat him later.

He had to climb farther than he thought to Luke’s perch, and then he could barely reach him. Reed’s side was killing him, and he was running out of strength, but he needed to see Luke safe.

Chastity stood at the window, thanking him for saving Luke, and by God he would not let her down.

With a last burst of strength, he pulled himself up to Luke, and his side tore the more. He groaned with pain, surprising them all when he grabbed the boy and shoved him through the window in one swift, ungainly move.

When they were all three safe inside, Reed looked out the window, down at the others, far below them on the ground, and the world took to spinning. His buckling knees set him on the floor with a decided thud.

He stayed in that spinning place, head against the wall, trembling like a child, his side throbbing, him fit to pass out or throw up.

“Reed?”

He could not open his eyes.

“Reed, what are you doing?”

He could not, because he had to keep his breakfast down. He took two deep breaths. “Just wondering who to beat first.”

“Oh.”

Luke’s sobs penetrated his fog; the boy must be feeling better. He heard what was going on around him. Chastity consoled him with words, and Reed didn’t need to look to know she held him as he cried.

Fear had nearly stopped his heart, and now it was past, he found he was angry and proud of them. Luke bore a thirst for knowledge that rivaled his own—except Luke’s was open and joyful. Reed hated to discourage him. Chastity loved so well, she would risk her neck, without question, for any of them. What child could want for more?

He did not know which reaction to their foolhardy bravado bothered him most. His rage at their stupidity? Or his raw terror that one or both might have been killed.

He opened his eyes to find them watching and fought an urge to take them over his knee, though he did not have the strength. More shocking: the need to pull them close, and keep them safe, forever.

Forever? He’d worry about that, later. He hurt too much right now. He touched his face and his hand came away bloody. Then he touched his side and found it worse.

He looked at Luke and Chastity. “I’m a bloody mess.” Then his breakfast made a return appearance.

When Chastity urged him to lie on the floor, he appreciated closing his eyes, again.

She unbuttoned his shirt. “Luke, get a wet towel, soap and bandages.” Her orders slowed his sobs, the sound of him running quieted to silence.

Eyes closed, stomach calming, Reed let Chastity minister to him.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, wiping his face with his shirt. He enjoyed her attention, especially her hands running over him to find his injuries. He considered sending her on a mock search, but he was too sick to play doctor.

He started to chuckle at that but he hurt too much to laugh.

When Chastity’s hands left him for too long, he opened his eyes to see her toss his shirt out the window. If his head were not so badly spinning, he would tease her about her foray down his body.

Tear streaks shown on Luke’s face when he returned. He should reprimand the boy, but he did not have it in him. He still felt might pass out, though it mattered little, with him flat on his back. Chastity tended his wounds, bathed his brow and side, and applied bandages.

“You’re a good nurse,” he said.

Luke sat cross-legged beside him, wiping Reed’s face with a wet cloth, his tears still hovering. Reed guessed guilt was enough. Silence often said more than words.

After his dizziness passed, he took it slowly down the stairs, almost on his own.

“Thea, wait until you hear about the exciting adventure we just had,” Matt said as he entered the kitchen.

He stepped forward so fast, Matt backed up, and he damned near blacked out. “It was not exciting!” Reed snapped. “But frightening. Dangerous.”

Reed turned to Luke. “You climbed out a window to fly a machine made of twigs and put others in danger.” But Luke was too young to carry the guilt of knowing they might have been killed. “Enough said. It is finished. We will not speak of it, again. The next time you want to build something from DaVinci’s drawings, we’ll do it together. Is that understood?”

Luke tried to look contrite. “Yes, sir.”

Reed grimaced. Probably a bad time offer a boon.

“Sounds frightening,” Thea said.

“I saw you in the other window,” Matt said, “trying to pull Reed up by that vine.” He turned to Reed. “That was when it broke loose, and you fell.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Thea blushed crimson. “Trying to do my . . . part. No thanks necessary.”

“Nevertheless, we thank you,” Chastity said, with less gratitude than Reed would have expected.

“What do you know, Thea?” Reed asked. “About the tower you can see from outside? I seem to remember one of the locals mentioning it.”

Thea’s eyes fairly danced with excitement. Seeming to forget her place, she sat at the table with him. “You’ve heard the stories, then, of the ghost searching for her missing babes. That’s the tower where the woman Edward was forced to marry gave birth. Twins, my brother said. He prayed that night at her bedside.”

The children were entranced, Reed saw. Chastity’s look said she remembered Thea’s set-down yesterday, but gossip or not, Reed needed to learn all he could about the St. Yves family and their offspring. “I saw no tower when I explored the house,” he said. “Today, I walked the outside perimeter. How do we get to it from in here?”

Thea rose awkwardly. “You cannot. Edward had the entrance bricked up the day they buried that woman.”

Chastity’s brow furrowed in confusion. “What woman?”

“The one he was forced to marry.”

“That he was forced seems important to you.”

When Thea’s eyes narrowed on Chastity, Reed got the impression of having met her, before.

“Edward loved elsewhere,” she said, “but he had no choice in his wife.”

Though Chastity seemed less than sympathetic, she shook her head. “How sad. Who did he love?”

Thea nearly dropped a teacup, and she turned her back on Chastity—no doubt about it—to give him her full attention. “On the fourth floor of the east wing,” she said very softly, as if others should not hear. “At the far end of the hall, hidden by a window curtain, you will find a brick wall. “The stairs to the tower is behind it. If you pull it down, I will be pleased to take you up to the tower, but it would be best if we go alone.”

Reed thanked Thea, and to try and smooth Chastity’s ruffled feathers, he herded her and the children from the kitchen.

Chastity ranted all the way up the stairs, but Reed received the sharp edge of her tongue. “I do not appreciate the way she looks at you, as if you are a prime bit of roast and might be her first meal in years.”

Reed chuckled.

“Laugh if you will. That I care naught for her is of no importance, but it worries me that the children do not.”

“I have to agree with you, there. But we must give her a chance. If she leaves, Sennett will send me away faster than you can replace me.”

Chastity sighed. “I suppose.”

Seeing the children far ahead of them, Reed took Chastity’s arm. “Tell me I’m irreplaceable.” He crossed her lips with a finger when she made to protest. “Do you know how worried I was about you today?” If words could describe his fear, Reed did not know them, so he kissed her, as if she were made of porcelain, never to be replaced if broken or lost.

He’d wanted her from the first, but his need had turned reckless, like longing run amok. Physical desire, he understood, but worry that marched with panic . . . that gave him pause.

Nevertheless, Reed deepened the kiss to meet his desire, in so many ways. He kissed her until he burned. Then in self-preservation, he pulled away, and Chastity’s smile said he succeeded with the kiss where his words had not.

It was enough. It was frightening.

Their time could run out, he reminded himself. And once they parted, he would probably see that his desire for the vixen had overshadowed his common sense, yet when he looked into her eyes . . . time seemed to stand still.

He kissed her, again, harder, longer, almost forgetting the world around them.

On the landing above them, four small matchmakers cheered, and he broke the kiss, and shook his head. “Time to find my heritage.”

Chastity relived Reed’s kisses in her mind. They made her feel . . . cherished, a new and wondrous experience.

“Over here,” Luke said. “The bricks behind this curtain are different. I been wondering about them for weeks.”

Reed shook his head. “Right, you were hanging off the roof when I asked your brothers about the tower.” In moving the curtain, the fabric turned to dust and revealed a wall ravaged by neglect and shoddy craftsmanship. Reed removed pieces of crumbling mortar and loose bricks with his hands. He peered inside and whistled. “I’m going to see what the farm sheds will give up, in the way of tools,” he said. “Boys, follow me.”

It did not surprise Chastity at all, that they did, without question.

Taking down the wall took hours. Reed’s wound slowed his pace. He loosened mortar while the boys removed and stacked bricks. Chastity and Bekah swept. The boys wanted to squeeze through the minute the opening was large enough, but Reed ordered every brick removed first, so none could fall on them, later. The boys’ moans were laughable when Reed called a halt for lunch, just when they were free to ascend the old stairs.

With a hearty laugh at his joke, he relented and insisted on going first.

Her heart beating doubly fast, Chastity realized she wanted Reed to discover his heritage, to have Sunnyledge, if it belonged to him, even if that meant she and the children must find another place for their home.

Guided by slits of daylight and Reed’s single candle, Chastity took Bekah’s hand and followed him and the boys up the tower’s circular stairs, one worn stone step after another, a cold draft swirling about them. Damp and dust made breathing difficult.

Reed spoke of ghosts and frights, and the boys ate it up, but the higher they climbed, the more silent they became. They found another curtain hung at the top, and Chastity feared another wall, but behind it, they found a door that opened on screaming hinges.

Candlelight caught rats skittering from nests in a four-poster, and cradle, scurrying through holes gnawed between walls and floor.

Chastity screamed and Bekah clambered into Reed’s arms so fast, Chastity didn’t know how he caught her and kept his candle. Matt flanked Reed and took Bekah’s hand. Mark and Luke closed in, nearly knocking Chastity over, but truth to tell, she felt safer with them around her.

The dank in the stairs was nothing to the stench in the room. Dark stains on what remained of rotted bed linens suggested blood. A wooden cradle told its own story. The grotesque childbed death scene revealed so much, yet nothing at all. No sign of Reed’s past.

Matt shivered and startled them all.

Bekah screeched and Luke laughed.

“You alright Poppet?” Reed kissed Bekah’s cheek.

She hid her face in his neck.

Matt took a bible from the bed-table. “To Lady Clarissa St. Yves born this day,” He looked from Chastity to Reed. “It doesn’t have names and dates like Mum’s bible. It just says ‘baby boy, born dead,’ and, ‘baby boy, born dead’ again. Why is it written twice?

“Two baby boys died,” Luke said. “This is where the Sunnyledge ghost lives, memba the woman searching for her missing babes? The lady in the village said so.”

“No such thing as ghosts,” Mark said.

“No!” Bekah said.

Reed regarded the room deep in thought. “Why would a wife be relegated to a tower in an abandoned wing to give birth?”

“Hate, punishment, revenge,” Chastity said. “Bricking it up might have been an attempt to deny loss, pain, regret, or memories, good or bad. Who can say so many years later?”

The event purported to have taken place in this room seemed to stun Reed as much as it did Chastity, but in him there seemed to dwell anger. He might have been born, here, except the bible said the boys died. “What was the date?” Chastity asked, but Matt only shrugged. “Doesn’t say.”

“She might have been locked up here and had no choice about what happened to her children,” Reed said to no one in particular.

Chastity placed a gentle hand on his arm. “This might not be where you were born. She might not have been your mother.” Two babies, two notes, Chastity thought, except that Reed and William looked nothing alike.

Reed’s eyes turned hard. “Right, though it appears as if someone was born, or died, in that bed. Somehow I—” He shook his head. “Foolishness. Let’s go down.”

“Good!” Bekah said.

Reed shivered. “Nothing about anyone’s heritage, here. Wait.” He handed Bekah to Chastity and with distaste, pulled what must once have been a baby blanket from the cradle, tossing a hair nest in the process, and then he turned the cradle over. “Nothing.” When he started pulling away what was left of the four-poster’s mattress, the boys scuttled out the door almost knocking each other over in the process. Bekah squealed and hid her face against Chastity.

The boys’ echoing steps on the stairs ended with a bloodcurdling scream.

“We’re all right,” Matt yelled up. “We just scared Thea in the stairs.”

The call of reassurance echoed and stopped Reed’s rush to the door. “Anybody hurt?”

“Nobody. Thea went back down and we’re going, too.”

“Stay out of trouble,” Reed said, but no one answered. He turned back to the room, took the bible and snapped it shut. “Let’s get the devil out of here. As far as I’m concerned, this place can be bricked up again.”

Chastity tried to console him, but he became distant, though he took Bekah when she reached for him.

Chastity wanted to help him deal with his disappointment, but for the rest of the day, little cheered him.

At bedtime, Bekah coaxed a few smiles from him, before the children fell asleep, though ‘twas a wonder they did not all have nightmares.

Chastity could not sleep for the sound of Reed pacing next door.

In his room, Reed called himself ten-times an idiot, grieving for a woman not like to be his mother. He needed—wanted—to speak to Chastity, like a friend.

Is that what they were? Friends?

Yes. He sighed. Friends, but sometimes, like now, they seemed more, much more.

As if she sensed his anguish, the door between their rooms opened and she stepped inside, wearing the violet silk dressing gown—over the modest cotton gown, he now knew buttoned up to her neck. Still and all, he found her captivating, and desirable.

“Do you not wonder,” she said, leaning against the door frame, crossing her arms over her breasts, too late to hide their pouting anticipation, “how the rumor of the woman searching for her missing babes began? I remembered just now that the villager I spoke to the night we arrived said, ‘their wee bodies were never buried.’”

Reed sighed, feeling as if a weight had been lifted. “I knew I needed only to talk to you. That’s the most uplifting statement I have heard since Bekah ordered me to spank Luke for teasing her.”

Still grinning, Reed locked the door to the hall, took Chastity by the shoulders to move her aside, and locked the door between their bedchambers as well. “There, that’s better,” he said, leading her by the hand to his bed.

Watching her eyes widen, he unfastened her violet sash and slid her dressing gown off her shoulders. Then he tugged on the ribbon at the neck of her nightshift.

Her hand covered his. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to make you more comfortable?”

She took such a deep breath, her breasts pushed against the linen of her gown, reminding Reed of when he was ill. He had not been delirious, he now realized, because he knew exactly how her breast felt swelling against his hand, the nubbin taut and proud. And he remembered the look in her eyes when it did.

Yes, he wanted more. He slid his hands upward, from her waist to just beneath them. Then he kissed one of those pouting buds through the gown. When she cupped the back of his head, almost to keep him in place, he closed his lips around the nubbin, and suckled her.

Chastity’s sigh, the growing pressure of her hand at his nape, the weight of her as she leaned into him, told him she craved his touch, almost as much as he craved hers.

Reed lifted her into his arms and laid her in the center of his bed, took in the sight, and knew that, here, she belonged. “No children between us tonight, Chastity. Just you and me. For starters, I want to hold you. I’ve dreamed of having you in my bed, since you met me at the door with a knife in your hand.”

She sighed and entered his embrace as he reached for her, fitting so well, he could slip inside her, with there no clothes between them, and if he were totally witless.

Nevertheless, his body thought the notion grand.

Chastity adjusted herself to accommodate his need, paying no mind to his pulsing clamor for entry, while he learned her with his palms. Concave here, convex there, soft, warm, satin. He cupped her bottom, stroked a thigh, made a daring dip inward, inching closer and closer to her core.

She froze.

He grinned. “Question?”

She shook her head, uncertain but curious.

“More?”

She hesitated, but nodded.

His body did an impressive dance of joy, considering its restraints, and he pulled her closer. She raised her knee against him, and he bit off a groan at the blessed friction.

Beneath her gown, he returned his attention to her inner thigh, stopping short of intimacy. “Sweetheart, what you’re doing is driving me daft, wonderfully so, but I want you to feel the same. Do you want that? Will you let me touch you?”

“The children?”

“Are asleep for the night. You know how the boys fight over the covers, and there’s that board in their floor squeaks.”

“I know, but how do you?”

“I can hear them from here. They’ll be fine. We’ll hear if even one of them wakes.”

“Yes, but . . . it isn’t fair. You’re touching skin, and I cannot reach any.”

No need to unbutton his britches; he was about to break free and have done. With a groan, he kissed her, hot and hard. “You want to touch skin, you go right ahead. Nobody to stop you.”

She grinned. “Don’t move your hand while I do,” she said. “I like where it is.”

“I have died and gone to heaven.”

“Oh, please, do not bring heaven into this,” she said, as she unfastened the placket on his pants. “It will make me think.”

Reed chuckled. “We cannot have that.” No woman had ever made him laugh like— “Aaahh.”

Sweet Chastity Somers learned some contours and textures of her own and with great attention to detail.

“Do not stop,” he breathed against her neck.

She pushed his trousers off his hips. “They’re in the way,” she said.

He thought of heaven, again, but kept it to himself. His pants were gone, his shirt open. She failed to remove her gown, however, and he decided not to push. When she settled down, he put himself in her hands and floated above the clouds.

“You’ve a rare talent for this,” he said on a gasp.

“I cannot imagine why. I never did it before.”

Not even to her husband? Stunned, Reed took her mouth, stroked her core, and asked no questions. Her sweet warmth spread like spilled honey on a hot summer day. Her short gasps, the way she shifted and opened to him, humbled him so much, he nearly let her go. He was not near good enough for her, after all, but his honorable thoughts were lost in wash after wash of blessed pleasure.

Need drove them as their strokes melded and hastened, the two of hem moving against and along each other, climbing apace, one with the other.

She called his name, and he saw stars, even as she reached them, not once, but three slow-rising times. He wanted inside her so bad, ‘twas a wonder he did not die of it.

When his turn came, she watched, he knew, as he soared in increasing pleasure to the point he thought he might expire after all.

‘Twas some time later that he knew he’d lived, as he relaxed, sated and replete, and pulled her close, his hand on her bottom, hers on his, skin to sweat-slick skin.

They’d watched each other. Amazing. Intimate. He had never made love, before, where his partner could watch, and never by candlelight. And who was he trying to fool; he had never made love before.

Even a sexual encounter with Chastity was different, enhanced, remarkable, and he had not yet entered her. He wanted to, however, to make love to her, really make love to her, all through the night. He swelled again imagining it. But if they did become one in the truest sense, he would never be able to let her go . . . and that would be the greatest sin of all.

Reed woke later in the morning than usual, but alone, as always.

He found Chastity washing clothes in the kitchen and admired the blush working its way up her neck when she saw him. He kissed the top of her head as she bent over the tub, and she placed her cheek against his for a beat. “I have an idea,” she said, studying the wet clothes in the tub.

“Oh, me, too,” he practically purred, though she did not react to his quip.

“What say you to seeking the local gravedigger, to learn what you can about the ‘wee bodies,’ never buried. He might know of Lady Barrington’s death. Seems the kind of story people pass down,” Chastity said.

And so it was that Reed found himself at the Turtle and Hare, quaffing ale and awaiting that formidable Painswick personage known as “Old Duncan the Digger.”

“Old Duncan,” according to the burly innkeeper, “buried ‘em all so far back, he prob’ly planted them as missed the Ark.”

“Do you know where I can find Old Duncan?” Reed asked.

“All but lives ‘ere,” said the pub owner. “Sleeps ‘ere sometimes too, when he canna’ lift his head from the table. A drinker is Old Duncan. M’best customer. Due anytime.”

By ten in the morning? When? Reed wondered. Did Old Duncan find time to dig?

He came stumbling in a bit late; must have drunk a larger breakfast than usual. After taking his seat, he near fell off, at which point Reed almost left, but Chastity was right. Who best to answer his questions?

“Innkeeper,” Reed called, sitting across from the sot. “Give my friend a bucket of your best coffee and a hearty breakfast.”

“Ale,” Duncan said. “Give me ale, I say. And who the bloomin’ devil are you?”

“Reed Gilbride, friend. Eat breakfast and I’ll pay for your day’s drink.”

Duncan’s eyes widened. “I can guzzle, if you can pay,” he said, assessing his benefactor. “What do I have to do?”

“Answer a few questions.”

Reed watched Old Duncan dig into his kidney pie. By the looks of him, he’d drunk his meals for years. A second helping was called for, before he’d talk. Then the digger refused to answer questions until his dessert of ale arrived. When it did, he took a swig and sighed like it was the nectar of life. “Give me questions, I’ll give you answers,” said he, cackling at his muddled wit.

“You know the house on the hill, Sunnyledge?” Reed asked.

Duncan’s eyes widened and he stilled, his nod imperceptible. He emptied his tankard and called for more.

“Did you ever collect a body from the tower, there?”

Duncan’s tankard trembled, so the digger set it down. “Aye.”

“From the tower?” Reed repeated. “And just one body?”

Duncan nodded, again, guzzled again.

“About thirty years ago?” Reed persisted, determined to get the facts straight, considering his source.

Duncan looked at each corner of the room, each customer, and leaned so near, Reed thought he’d gag from the stench. “Aye.”

“No babies? You collected Lady Barrington’s body, but no dead babies that night?”

Duncan began to weep like a babe, himself. “Eternal damnation, said he. Eternal damnation, if I told. Three caskets there were. Three. I buried three bloody caskets. One big, two small.”

“So you did take three bodies from the tower?”

Duncan sobbed, wiped his nose on his sleeve, and swigged ale. “I’ll go t’hell if I tell. God’s man promised.”

“God’s man?” Reed repeated. “Who is God’s man?”

“Gone,” said the drooling digger. “He got eternal rest. Would that I could.” Duncan shook his head.

“If he’s dead, he won’t know you told.”

“I . . . s’pose.” Duncan looked about again. “Spittin’ mad, God’s man, ‘cause Barrington took his sister.”

“All right,” said Reed, getting closer, despite the stink of spilled ale and unwashed body. “God’s man was crazed. Is that why he did it?”

“Did what?” The digger put down his drink and fisted his palsied hands.

Reed ran an impatient hand over his face. “Let’s back up. The Earl of Barrington took God’s man’s sister. Right?”

“Aye.”

“Where did he take her?”

“Ta hell!”

“She’s dead then, too?” Reed winced at his rising ire.

Duncan shook his head in a slow parody of denial. “Might as well be.”

Reed wanted either to introduce Duncan’s slack jaw to his fist, or wring the inebriate’s neck. Why waste his time? Nothing to learn from a man, offensive in every way.

Duncan shook his head. “‘E took the sister of a man of God as his mistress, while his wife watched.” The last ended in a whisper.

“What? Who? Damnation, I sound as daft as you.”

Duncan looked offended. He slammed his tankard on the oaken table and gave Reed a narrow-eyed stare. “Daft?”

“Sorry old man. Ho, the innkeeper. More ale, here. God’s man is the man of the cloth you spoke of, isn’t he?”

“He was a bastard.”

“Literally, or figuratively?”

“Huh?”

Reed shook his head. “Never mind.” Reed spoke slowly, “Barrington took the sister of this man of the cloth as his mistress, and it made God’s man mad? Real mad?”

“How’d ya know?”

Reed slapped Duncan on the back. By God he was beginning to enjoy this. “Which woman died in childbirth, the wife or the mistress? Or did they each give birth to one of the babes?”

Duncan sucked in his breath and stood in outrage. “Blasphemy!”

Reed rose as fast and grasped his shoulders to shove him back in his chair. “The babies, Duncan. The babies the Sunnyledge ghost seeks. Why are they missing? Where are they?”

“Eternal damnation, if I tell.”

“Do you know?”

“Do I know what?”

“Where the twins are?”

“If I did, I couldn’t tell. He would know.”

“Where is he?”

Duncan smiled. “Dead.”

“Then he cannot harm you. Besides, how can a mortal send you to hell?”

“He’s God’s man.”

“Ah. That explains it. I think. God’s man, also known as the man of the cloth, said you could not tell what happened to the babies. All right. Let me guess. Two of the caskets were empty.”

Duncan shook his head in denial.

“There were dead babies in the caskets?”

The digger shook his head, again. “Thirsty.”

“Innkeeper, roll the keg over will you? All right.” Reed rubbed his hands together. “There were no babies buried, but there was something in the small caskets?”

“In one,” Digger whispered close to Reed’s ear. “‘Twas a book,” “Look for yourself.”

It took Reed a minute not to gag from the stench. “Where is the casket that holds the book?”

“St. Yves Chapel. Careful o’ the witch. Somethin’ frightful, that one.”

Reed stood and dropped a goodly number of coins before the man sobbing into his ale. “Take a bath, get some new clothes. I thank you.”

“Aye,” Duncan said. “Pray for me.”

“I’ll have Chastity do that,” Reed said as he left. He climbed toward Sunnyledge, his mind awhirl. God’s men and ghosts, books and empty caskets, mistresses and witches. “Bloody hell, the tale reads like a Gothic novel.”

He found a dozen pieces to a puzzle that needed a hundred, and returned with more questions than he took, but when Sunnyledge came into view, despite his frustration, Reed had the odd notion he was come home. And when Chastity came out to meet him, he forgot the riddle and opened his arms. Home.

She ran to him, and he nuzzled her the way she had nuzzled him in the kitchen this morning, until she sought his lips, and he kissed her the way he’d wanted earlier. She uplifted him.

“Did you learn anything?” she asked.

He steered her along the side of the house toward the shed. “Same grave digger for the past hundred years or so, according to the locals. Drunk as a lord, always, weeping like a babe when I left. He talked a ridiculous muddle. As near as I could tell, a woman did die giving birth to twins in that tower. The babies? Who knows? The old codger was scared to death—of God’s man, said he. I think he suggested I dig up the caskets.”

Chastity pulled away. “Good heavens, you are not going to desecrate a grave?”

“According to the Digger, no one’s there.”

“Oh, but Reed. You cannot.”

“Chastity, I need to know who I am.”

She touched his cheek, and gasped. “Oh!” She slapped a hand to her heart. “Thea, you frightened me. Did you want something?”

Thea’s smile made her look beautiful. “I have a task that needs tending,” their housekeeper said, “one long past due. It may take a day or so before I can return.” She practically skipped away.

Something about Thea still bothered Reed.

“Do you not think she’s . . . strange?” Chastity asked.

“As a chaperone,” he said, “she leaves much to be desired, then again, I thank her for last night.” He kissed her, and she kissed him back.

The children’s cheers brought them back to earth.

Laughing at Chastity’s chagrin at being caught, once more, by the children, Reed went on to the shed and returned with the barrow, a shovel, chisel, and pickaxe. “Go and care for your cygnets, my sweet sheltering swan. I’ll be grave-digging at the chapel, if you need me.”

Chastity his Reed with a clump of sod as he walked away. He turned to her. “I understand your reservations, but I have to do this.”

Except for the steeple, the exterior of the small boxy structure hardly looked like a chapel. The plaque on the door said it was built in 1136 by a St. Yves who might have been his ancestor. Fancy that.

A hesitation to . . . desecrate . . . tugged at Reed as he entered a place of worship with an intent to ravage. But he had lost all choice when he received that note.

Inside, angels knelt weeping over alabaster St. Yves laid out in effigy. On one sarcophagus, a man and woman lay side by side, hands clasped for eternity. He found an armored knight, sword over heart. A small girl, carved in rose marble, made him think of Bekah’s dip in the pond, and he shuddered.

He found the woman who supposedly searched for her missing babes, toward the back, in a dark corner, set apart, as in life. Why search, when here they were, tiny and perfect in snowy alabaster, one in each arm?

Emotion filled Reed; it clogged his throat and blurred his vision, as he knelt and touched the woman’s cold hand.  “Peace,” he whispered.

He examined her face, and wondered why the beat of his heart did not echo about the chapel as loudly as it echoed in his head.

For her babes, he did not know what to feel, until he saw that the date of their deaths matched the date of his birth. Reed’s hand shook as he raised it to trace the numbers. Did this mark the end, or the beginning, of his quest?

He examined the sarcophagus, beneath them, housing their caskets, and grabbed his pickaxe. With regret for his destruction and a plan for reparation, he loosened the slate tiles on the floor around it.

Muscles straining, side throbbing after yesterday’s frantic climb, he lifted the hollow case enough to wedge a tile beneath. Continuing around, he lifted and wedged, until he could hook the pick itself full beneath. He groaned, and cursed, and overthrew the sarcophagus. The stitch in his side gave warning, but nothing could stop him now.

Dizziness came when Reed saw the three caskets, one large, of fine mahogany, below floor level, two small atop it, covered in decayed white velvet.

Reed ran his hand along the large casket’s preserved surface. His mother’s final resting place? Did she leave him unwillingly in death? If so, he’d blamed her all his life for naught. Still, he could not have survived without anger through the dark days of his childhood. What did it matter now, at any rate?

Suddenly forgiveness was within his power to give, so he did.

He experienced a freedom of spirit then, an elation he wished he could share with Chastity. If these two small caskets held remains, he would happily hand Sunnyledge to her.

If they were empty, or held a book, he would continue to search, but whatever the outcome, he would see to it that Chastity got her children’s home . . . somewhere. Though nowhere, but here, with him, seemed right.

Had he gone utterly daft over this horrific search?

He lifted a tiny casket—too light—took a breath and grasped the lid, until panic seized him. Looking about, he sat on a front pew, the casket on his lap. He wished he knew how to pray. He feared it empty, feared as much that it held the remains of a babe. Neither sight appealed.

Did he want to be one of the St. Yves twins? Had anyone, before Chastity, ever cared what he wanted?

Reed tore off the lid, his unwitting shout of anguish disturbing the doves in the eaves, their fracas of flapping fit accompaniment to his find. Empty—as empty as his life—of all but a few desiccated beetles on a bed of white satin, a bed that never bore the body of a babe.

Neither did it hold a book.

He rose to fetch the other and opened the second with dispatch, his reaction no less intense. As empty as the first. Yet, when he looked more closely, he found dust of a different sort. Paper dust. Yellowed, and thick like flour, with grainy particles.

The beetles, when he compared them, were of a different ilk. Paper-eaters. He had seen their damage in the squire’s study. This coffin had held a book, but where was it now?

His heart raced with anticipation and loss. If he was a missing son of Clarissa St. Yves, where was his brother? Which of them was heir? Did he care?

He had a brother. Blood of his blood. “To the devil with Duncan for keeping his own counsel all these years.”

Reed heard a shuffle and a step, then Chastity’s call.

She stopped in the doorway, sunshine making of her hair a fiery halo.

“Come and see what I—”

A scrape from behind, and Chastity screamed.

A woman’s laugh. Familiar. Frightening.

An alabaster angel, huge, wings spread, toppled his way.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Reed rolled into the overturned sarcophagus for cover, as if his mother would keep him safe, a thought as disconcerting as an angel shattering upon the spot he just vacated, the reverberation deafening.

A severed wing flew in his direction and glanced off Clarissa St. Yves’s haven. Two stained glass windows shattered at impact, and a second statue fell.

The abrupt silence became a shock.

The sound of Chastity weeping moved Reed to action. He found her on the cold stone floor, her face buried in her arms, and lifted her in his embrace. “Chastity, Sweetheart, where are you hurt?”

She struggled against him at first, lost in grief. Then she looked up and saw him. “Reed!” She kissed his face, his hands, her tears anointing him.

Dazed from the roar of fracturing stone, Reed sat in a pew and took her on his lap to prove her unhurt, so relieved, he caught her against him and kissed her, there, amid open caskets and fallen angels.

Chastity—a woman for staying with. It frightened Reed to wonder if that’s what he wanted. Chastity and the children, forever?

There was a question.

She kissed his cut hands and traced the gash on his temple, exclaiming at the blood on her fingers after she caressed his nape. “I thought I’d lost you forever.”

That word, again.

Her tears began anew, wetting his neck, his collar. He held her till she calmed, then led her from the chapel.

“A blessing,” Chastity said, sharing her thoughts of necessity. “A step from gloom into sunlight. A sky blue, the earth moist, the grass lush. It all gives testament to life and hope, does it not?”

Strangely silent, Reed kept his arm around her all the way back to Sunnyledge. He had nearly been killed. Between that, and her wonder of the night before, she was suddenly afraid if she spoke again, she would say the words he did not want to hear.

She loved him. She could not live without him.

He must never guess. She must be free to go, or to stay.

Their time together was coming to an end. Two weeks left. According to their agreement, if he found no proof of his heritage, he would leave. And if he was the Barrington heir, she and the children would go.

Once she got him to the house, she urged him to the settee in the library, her folded apron beneath his head to stem the blood. His side bled, as well.

“Matthew,” she said, noting four worried faces. “Fetch my medical kit. Take your sister and brothers with you.”

“Want Weed,” Bekah said, sitting mutinously on the floor beside him. When she saw Chastity wouldn’t send her away, she took Reed’s hand.

Matthew went for the kit, Luke and Mark arguing over who would carry it.

Reed smiled and closed his eyes. His head must be throbbing.

The war that raged inside her since she learned of his purpose at Sunnyledge waned. Had he uncovered some vital piece of information? He should know who he was.

He opened his eyes when she probed the cut on his temple.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

“Everything,” he said on a sigh, “and nothing.”

She smoothed his furrowed brow. “Explain, please.”

“They died the day I was born, Chastity, the woman and her babes, but the small caskets were empty. I believe Lady Barrington rests in the large one. I left her in peace.”

If Reed was one of the twins, William must be the other, though she saw no reason to bring up her husband’s note at this late date. His quest ended with his death. “What will you do now?”

“Continue to search in the house, I suppose. The book Duncan said he buried in one of the caskets seems to have gone missing.”

Chastity accepted her medical kit from Matt. “It’s good to know what you’re looking for, I suppose.”

“Ouch! That hurt.”

“Sorry.” She cleaned the gash on the back of his head. “What do you expect to find in the book?”

Reed sighed when she lowered his head to the settee. “I haven’t the slightest idea. I might be one of the twins. Mayhap, if I find that book, I’ll find that Clarissa’s twins did not die with her.”

“They might have died at any time over the years.”

Reed mocked himself with his laugh. “Nobody could have called me a dreamer growing up, Chastity, but I’m willing to bet you were. Yet your pragmatism is like a splash of ice water.”

She sat back. “Sweetheart—”

The children giggled, and Reed regarded Matt fixedly.

“Were going,” Matt said on a sigh.

Reed got Bekah to stand by tugging her hand and urging her near. “I feel better, Poppet. Thank you for helping. Do you think you could go and play with your brothers, now, so Kitty and I can talk?”

“Dolly?”

Reed regarded the boys. “Sure, they’ll play dolly with you.”

The three groaned in unison, but two of them were holding Bekah’s hand as they left.

“I did not intend to discourage you,” Chastity said.

“Neither did I mean to chastise. You are the most beautiful devil’s advocate, ever. And though I hate to admit it, you’re making me see that I’m wearing blinders. Any more common sense to impart?”

“Do you not wonder who removed the book from the casket and why?”

“If there was ever a book. More likely a figment of Old Digger’s ale-addled mind.” Reed chuckled but stopped to hold his head. “I’m sick of being dizzy.”

“If you weren’t so accident-prone—”

“But I’m not. Never have been, until—”

Chastity winced. “The arrow?”

“One might have been an accident, but two makes me wonder, or were there three?”

“Climbing the house to fetch us caused you to reopen an old wound, so I guess that doesn’t count, and as for this one, you probably dislodged the angel when you overturned the sarcophagus. I saw the mess you made.”

“I did not think the sarcophagus hit the angel.”

“Reed you were so determined, it’s a wonder—”

Rebekah’s wail arrived before her. She held her doll, the body in one hand, the head in the other. “Weed, fix?”

“What happened?” Chastity asked.

Bekah stamped her foot. “Luke.”

“What a surprise,” Reed said, sitting up to accept the doll in two parts. “That’s how I feel right now.” His smile belied his words as Bekah climbed into his lap.

“Do you think I can fix anything?”

At her nod, he sighed and examined the broken toy.

Here sat a man, Chastity observed, who could not abide children, but she knew better, and so did the children. Did he?

She could not help compare the old Reed Gilbride to this one, with an adoring child in his lap—whose hair he braided every morning—his large capable hands repairing a bisque doll. Why? Because Bekah believed he could, because he would do anything for her.

Chastity knew that Matt, Luke and Bekah loved Reed as much as she did. With Mark, it was difficult to tell. Mark never let on that he cared about anyone. Oh, his actions revealed concern. He loved his brothers and sister, though he did not say so, but he did not seem as angry, in general, as he used to.

Reed managed to reconnect dolly to her head and hand the cherished toy back to Bekah. “All better.”

Bekah showed it to Chastity with a smile. “Weed make dolly better.”

Reed whispered in Bekah’s ear, and she nodded, jumped from his lap, and ran from the room. “She’s going to tell the boys to wash for dinner. I wanted a minute.”

“Something you were afraid to tell me in front of her?”

“Something I was afraid to do in front of her.” Reed locked the door and approached her, his topaz eyes hot with purpose. In keeping with the way they’d kissed and touched the night before, he took liberties, with his hands, his lips. He cupped her breasts and she turned languorous and needy, her body reacting in new and shocking ways.

“I need to make dinner,” she said between kisses. “You told them to wash. We’ve got maybe five minutes before—”

“Now I remember why children annoy me.”

“I could tell the way you beat Bekah off.”

“I’m a beast.”

“Stop pretending, Reed Gilbride. You’re a good and thoughtful man.”

“High praise. How many men have you known?”

“Two, no, three, if you count Mr. Sennett.”

“And the other was your husband?”

She nodded.

“And you lost him when, nearly three months ago?”

“Nearly four. Why?”

“Could you be with child?” Reed spread a palm over her abdomen. His hand fit well, warm and right.

She shrugged. “How does one get with child . . . and why are you looking at me as if I have two heads?”

“The sisters told you nothing? Of the marriage bed? You— Last night was a new experience, you said.”

“I’m not certain what you mean, Reed, but frankly, I’m glad you’re the man who taught me everything.”

“Everything?” She meant that. She thought last night was all that happened between a man and a woman. Reed’s body readied for another lesson. “Did William never—”

She had no idea what he asked; that was certain. Lord, he would need to be gentle. Had he ever taken a virgin before? “Chastity, I’d like to finish our . . . talk, after the children are in bed. There’s more I’d like to teach you, if you’ll allow me?”

“I cannot imagine what, but I want to know all of it, if you’re willing?”

It took forever to settle the children that night.

As if they knew this as the worst night to test his limits, they did everything to be allowed to stay up. To appease them, Reed acted out a story he made up, about Harry and Harriet Hedgehog and their house in the giant pumpkin in farmer Digger’s patch.

Chastity was still wiping tears of laughter from her eyes when he left her to settle the children. She would put Bekah in a small nursery bed in the boys’ room and fetch her later. If Reed had his way, that would not happen until the wee hours.

Preparing her bath, he lit more candles. Usually, he took a dip in the lake, or went up to his room, while she bathed, but he wanted tonight to be special.

By the time the tub was full and Chastity stood in the kitchen doorway, Reed was glad he planned to stay. He could not bear the thought of leaving her, even for her bath. “Come here,” he said.

She came without question and stood before him, biting her lip, a sign she sensed the heat between them. He did not open his arms, because he wanted to take it slow, but that seemed to confuse her. “I want to unbraid your hair,” he said as he turned her. “Then I need to run my hands through it, if you do not mind.”

“I like your hands in my hair. I like—”

“Me too,” he said, a hoarseness in his voice. Easy, Gilbride. Take it slow. This is not a bugle charge, and she is not a member of the French Cavalry.

He savored as he undid the copper braid, every glorious strand, until he ran his fingers through it to memorize the sensation. He let a hank glide across Chastity’s cheek. “Feel how soft,” he whispered, nuzzling her neck.

She leaned against him with a sigh and he reached around to undo her buttons while making a meal of her neck. He opened her bodice and slipped a hand inside, felt the rapid beat of her heart. With the other, he wielded her hair like a powder puff, caressing her face with it, between her breasts. “Tonight, I’m going to spread your hair across our naked bodies while I make you soar.”

“Oh Reed.”

He splayed his hand over her abdomen and pulled her against him. “Feel what you do to me.”

The scent of roses and rain enveloped him, and he turned her to dispatch her buttons. He considered suggesting they share the bath, but she did by reaching to undo his buttons, her heightened color giving her intentions away.

Tonight, they would make memories.

He watched as she opened his shirt and worked his trouser buttons free. “Are you certain, Sweetheart?”

She blushed. “Yes, but no one has ever seen me—”

“Naked. Try, you can say it.”

“Other than you, last night, and you really did not see much.”

“No, but I touched what I could not see.”

She moaned and hid her face against his chest.

She was an untried virgin and he had been granted the pleasure of teaching her. Of love, she knew. Of pleasure, she did not.

He took the opportunity to divest her of several layers. Unfortunately, or fortunately, he got distracted because she started kissing his chest and when she slipped a hand inside his pants, she damned near ended the game.

Her clothes were gone so quick, she hardly knew what happened. He took advantage of her shock to undress himself. “Maybe we should be using cold water,” he said, as he lifted her into the tub.

Their sighs mingled as hot water sluiced over them. They chuckled, untangling legs and other parts.

Reed took the soap and washcloth and removed Chastity’s hands from her breasts to lather them. “You have a lot to learn, tonight. I want you to know pure pleasure.” Lord how he wanted. Not that I could not have taken you standing, but you want some slow pleasuring.”

Reed lost the cloth, but kept lathering the creamy froth against her creamy breasts. Chastity did some rubbing of her own, making him so randy, he gasped. “Lord, maybe this was not such a good idea,” he said, as she washed right on down past his stomach. “Then again....”

“You like that?” As Chastity delighted in her power, Reed leaned back, closed his eyes, and reveled in the hot sensations licking at his insides.

She did some two-handed exploring. “Ah, and you like that, too, and that. Oh! Kind of soft, there.”

Reed pulled back. “Kind of important, there.”

Chastity giggled at his stern look. “I have an idea,” she said, turning and snuggling her back against his front.

He kissed her nape, nuzzled her ear, and washed her, everywhere. She took to lathering his legs around her waist. “This is fun. We should do it more oft— Reed, something’s poking me. Hard.”

“Good description,” he drawled.

She turned to look up at him. “Is that?”

“Mm hmm.”

“The boys do not.”

“When they’re older and find a seductress who smells of roses and rain, who has a fine bottom, and breasts that say, ‘here I am,’ the boys will have their turn.”

Chastity turned to face him with a frown. “How many women have had this effect on you?”

“Aw Sweetheart, no woman’s ever had quite this strong an effect on me, and frankly, it scares the hell out of me.”

She should not be so delighted. She turned all the way into his arms and kissed him, not a quick kiss, but a deep, hungry, take-me-to-bed kiss. Funny, how she knew that’s the kind it was. Judging by the way he moved his hands over her, and the way he pulsed against her, she guessed she was getting into the spirit of this seduction business.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he said against her lips. “I want to take my time, so you’ll remember everything.”

Chastity closed her eyes and wondered how many nights of memories there would be. Five, ten. What did it matter? She would take what she could get. She loved him and knew that tender, quiet moments would be as memorable, in years to come, as wild pleasure-filled ones.

They dried each other off, and as he brushed her hair before the fire, Reed explained that what he wanted for them, tonight, held the possibility of getting her with child, though he would take care. But rather than deter her—as he seemed to expect—the thought of having his child, made Chastity want him more. “Nothing you can say will stop me,” she said.

With an oath, he swept her exuberantly into his arms.

He was in trouble, Reed knew, but he could no more stop wanting Chastity than he could stop a runaway stallion. He winced at the analogy as he carried her up the stairs. In his room, he left the fire lit, and fresh bedding turned down. He dipped so she could reach the door-lock. Then she slid down his body, stirring them both the more.

Reed sensed this would be more than physical with her, more like soul mating; his already seemed to be reaching for hers, whether he wanted it to or not.

No matter a lifetime with one fixed goal in mind, he began to have difficulty imagining life without her, and without Matt, Mark, Luke and Bekah. Except that with Chastity, there would always be more, and more, children.

He already lived that life; he could not live it again. Besides, he bore no name of his own, he owned no past. Before he could join his life to another’s, he must be someone.

He would take her tonight in a way that would be impossible for either to forget. It would be all they could have and must last their whole lives.

Unlike the night before, he removed her nightrail and she stood before him splendidly naked. He admired her every subtle curve, cresting just right here, dipping gently there. “You are exquisite,” he said, a rare gift that he did not deserve, but would humbly accept with gratitude.

“Your turn,” she said. “I want to look my fill, too.”

“I did not doubt it for a moment.”

Chastity remembered comparing him to a Greek God the first time she saw him. But now, like this, naked, basking in firelight, she could appreciate the truly magnificent creature before her—lean, fit, muscular, shoulders wide, stomach flat, waist trim. She walked around him to admire the whole, and he chuckled when she patted his bottom. As she stood before him, he became thicker and more erect. “You’re beautiful,” she said, with awe.

“Chastity, sweet, a man is never beautiful. He is—”

“Adored.”

Reed pulled the blankets from the bed and dropped them on the rug before the hearth, where he took her down, his lips on hers.

She sifted her hands through his hair, from his temple to his nape, enjoying the remarkable experience of caressing at will.

“Does it feel as good to you, my love,” he asked, “to lie naked together, as it does to me?”

Chastity swallowed her sob. He called her his love. If he but realized it, he gave her the greatest of gifts.

He teased her with swift-nibbling half-kisses, upper lip to lower, lower to upper, urging her to open for his assault, teasing her nipples with his fingers, taunting and tantalizing her—both where he touched, and where he did not.

He slid along her body and raised her foot, kissed an arch, an ankle, a calf, making his way up her leg in torturous-slow measure. Emotions she could not name coursed through her, intertwining, in some odd way, with a string of sizzling physical currents.

When he nuzzled her inner thigh, she was embarrassed, humbled. She moaned and, trying to deny herself, closed her eyes, but the pleasure was too great. She let her head fall back and took short, quick breaths to ride the sensations seeming to radiate outward from her core, where last night, he had only put his hands, he now placed his mouth. It had been wonderful, then, unbelievable now.

She should be appalled. She should stop him, but this was Reed, her love, her other half. Chastity knew it as she arched, reaching for burst after starburst. She cried his name, and he was there, kissing her, swallowing her cries, gentling her by stroking her, a paradoxically soothing counterpoint to the maelstrom he had created with the same velvet touch.

He was hers. Hers.

Reed touched his brow to Chastity’s, breathing hard, caressing softly where his mouth had just been. She was so incredibly sweet, it almost hurt. He feared for a moment that this gift was too great to accept. But accept it he must. He must or perish. “Are you all right? Do you want more?”

“More, please,” his love begged, barely catching her breath.

His love? Was she?

Yes, damn it. Chastity had become his love. God’s teeth, he was in for it now. No more could come of it, but he knew, by God, that she would belong to him, even after they parted, for as long as life held them on this earthly plane, longer perhaps, if Chastity had the right of it.

With the knowledge came a flash of understanding for his old friends, Gideon and Sabrina, Hawk and Alexandra, the rogues and their wives, famous for escaping from evening company. Gideon had once said that his love for Sabrina transcended life, and Hawk had later corroborated the sentiment in speaking of Alex. Love explained this communion of souls that couples sought at every opportunity.

Reed rose and led Chastity to the bed, lay them down, and sighed with a new contentment.

He laved her breasts, suckling forever, while she stroked and relished, as well. He had intended this as a tease, a hint of what was to come, but his treacherous body found near release with the act, and he was not alone in rapture. The pinnacle they teetered upon carried them so near the edge, ‘twas a wonder they did not tumble headlong into oblivion.

If this was a taste, then he was in heaven. Her lips sought his, even as she shuddered, and when he found her, nothing could mask the nectar of her sweet desire.

“Ready for your next lesson?” he asked, breath short.

“There’s more?” Chastity tried to sit up but fell back. “I’ll never survive.” But a minute after, she grinned and surprised him by coaxing him to his back and rising above him. “I want to learn more of you first. May I, and will you answer my questions?”

Now he felt virginal and unsure—laughable, he supposed, though he could not, for his wonder in the moment seemed sacred.

No shrinking miss was this, as Chastity’s gaze made straight for that part of him which most intrigued. When she reached and stroked the length of him, he nearly lost control.

She took him into her hands, from his ballocks to the tip of his thrumming shaft. “It’s . . . wet,” she said, “at the tip. I’m wet too.”

“That’s because I . . . want you,” he said, between clenched teeth, as she manipulated him, “and you want me.”

“Is it?”

He could not believe the question. He could not think. “If you do not stop—”

Chastity cried out and leapt from the bed.

He caught her, weeping, as she reached the door and pulled her close. “Shh.” Something serious had just happened, but what? He wanted to wrap her in the safety of his embrace and prove that no fear could intrude.

“Chastity? Sweetheart, look at me.” He held her face between his hands. “I liked what you were doing. It was wonderful. You were wonderful. I liked it so much, that if you had not stopped, I would have spilled my seed too soon. I wanted that to happen at the right time, to the two of us, together. Do you understand?”

“I guess.”

He guessed she did not. “Come back to bed. I want to make love to you.”

“Are we making love?” she asked, and his heart skipped.

He carried her and kissed her all the way back to the bed, even as he set her down, and she settled herself perfectly against him. “There, that’s where it’s supposed to be, is it not?”

“For now,” he said, gauging her reaction.

She moved against him. “Why does it throb?”

He pulled away, looked into her eyes. “Chastity, you were married. Really, truly married? In every way?”

She nodded. “Yes, of course.” She blushed. “Can we do what comes next, please?”

He forgot his concern over her contradictory innocence. “God, yes,” he said as he moved over her, but the look in her eyes stayed him. Was it fear? She had been married for a mere two days, so she might remember only pain.

He smoothed his hand gently down her body, to ready her and she arched. On the instant, her breathing quickened, and as he poised to enter her, she raked his back, his buttocks, with her nails, and Reed had no choice but to thrust; neither of them prepared to accept less.

In that fateful moment, Reed understood the true depth of her innocence, but it was too late. No turning back, for innocence had fled, and in its place, a woman.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He said the same, or he thought he did, before he lost all sense of self, aware only of her, soaring with him, hearts beating as one.

Chastity, the woman he loved.

Gold-crested wrens chattered their good mornings in the sprawling beach tree outside the window. Chastity rolled over, and found a solid wall—Reed Gilbride’s naked chest. Her heart quickened as his arms closed around her, his lips upon her brow, his sex stirring to life.

They made love all night, a pleasure beyond any she could have imagined. She was sore, and glad after all that Reed called a halt to their play, though God knew he wanted to continue as much as she. At her initiation, he had let her stroke him to release one last time before they slept. Now she understood what he had meant when she was learning him, about not wanting to reach release too soon.

“As much as I’d like to make love to you again,” he said, “the children will be awake soon, and perhaps it’s best they do not find you here, naked, when—”

“Good Lord!” She jumped from his bed so fast, she left him laughing.

Later, in the kitchen, her warm face foretold her color, she knew, as Reed entered and she stirred the gruel.

“Thea hasn’t returned, it seems.”

“I like Kitty’s cookin’ better anyway,” Luke said.

Reed ruffled his hair. “So do I.”

Chastity laughed skeptically.

“I’m ravenous. I’ll eat anything.”

“That’s more like the Reed, I know.”

“Your fault.”

Rebekah came in dragging the bottom half of a tiny white casket, her doll tucked neatly inside.

Chastity dropped her spoon. “Good God!”

“Where the dev— Ah. “ He knelt and tapped Bekah’s nose. “Where did you get that, Poppet?”

She pointed. “Luke.”

“I found it and knew it would make a fine cradle.” The well-intentioned boy looked from Chastity to Reed. “What?”

“I’ll make you a new bed for your baby this afternoon, Poppet,” Reed promised Bekah. “But I have to put this back where it belongs.” He regarded Chastity. “I have some cleaning to do. I’ll be back for lunch. Boys, finish breakfast and do your chores. Help Chastity, Poppet,” he added before he left, half a small casket tucked under his arm.

Chastity knew Reed was upset about what he had not found, and her heart went out to him. He needed to know his roots and she hurt for him, especially now.

Now that they’d made love, they were part of each other, forever, though they’d not be together, she knew, not on this earth. One of them would leave, but she would always remember.

She smoothed a hand over her abdomen. She understood now, about having a child, and wished for one more gift, a child of his to love and cherish, as she would not be able to love and cherish its father.

She frowned. What would Mr. Sennett think? Then she remembered that none of it mattered. She put her fate in greater hands. Whatever happened, none could sever the love she and Reed shared. She would accept what fate decreed. God saw fit to give her Reed, after all, and she would be grateful to the end of her days. She gazed beyond raw oak beams and plaster ceiling. Please.

After dinner, Rebekah placed her baby in its new cradle, half of an old oak barrel.

“She doesn’t seem to mind the switch,” Chastity said.

Reed tweaked Bekah’s nose. “She didn’t mind a casket, why would she mind a barrel?”

“This one rocks,” Luke said.

Matt and Luke played house with her. Mark refused, arms folded, and remained stubborn and unmoving, while they played around him. Bekah minded not at all, she simply patted his head and said, “Good doggie,” every so often.

Chastity took Reed’s arm. “Let’s go for a walk. Matt, watch your sister and brothers, and make sure Bekah’s doggie doesn’t make a mess in the house.”

Mark could not hide the near-smile in his eyes.

“Stop worrying,” Chastity said. “I am not sorry about last night.”

“Neither am I.” He kissed her.

“I’m concerned about what your search is doing to you. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

He sat on a stone wall and pulled her down beside him. “If I’m a St. Yves twin, why not two notes? Why did my twin not come—if I am indeed one of them—unless he’s dead?” Reed ran a hand through his hair.

Chastity’s heart hit her ribs, the way it had on that moonless night when Reed’s voice split the darkness outside the workhouse. Perhaps, this too was for the best. She had already decided to give Reed William’s note, and now she removed it from her pocket and handed it to him. Why had she fooled herself into believing it did not matter?

“I wondered where it went,” Reed said. “Where did you find it?”

“Luke found your note after you were shot. I’ve had it since.” She bit her lip and pulled another from her pocket.

Reed gazed from one to the other, turned them over and read the names on the back. When he looked up, foreboding skittered up her spine. “I’m sorry.”

Reed shook his head. “This was your husband’s?”

“We were on our way to Mr. Sennett when William died.”

“How many times, Chastity, have you lied to me?”

“No, I never did. I never actually—”

“You never actually said you were a nun. You never actually said you were married.  His voice rose with every word. “You never said there was another note, that you were untouched. You never told me who you are, Chastity Somers, and I do not believe I know you at all.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Chastity raised her chin. “I’m glad William did not touch me. I’m glad it was you—”

“Do not,” Reed said. “Do not corrupt what we shared by adding it to your pack of lies. Damn it, you never actually told Sennett you stole the children, did you?” Reed ran his hand through his hair. “And Sunnyledge? By God, he would take that back if he knew. Now I understand. That’s why you agreed to our betrothal, because I damned near threw you in deep water. I can be such a fool.” Reed stood to pace, every step seeming to take him farther away. “Why, Chastity? Why did you keep William’s note from me?”

She did not know where to begin.

“Never mind,” he went on. “I know. You wanted to keep Sunnyledge. You knew I could be one of the St. Yves twins, because you knew there was a second note, whereas I kept thinking that if only there were two notes, then perhaps— Blast and damnation, Chastity, why?”

“How much more conclusive is your evidence now that you have William’s note?” she asked. “Does it make a difference, really? Mr. Sennett said the day I met him that William’s claim had ended—if one existed—with his death. That note made no difference to your search at all.”

“It made a difference to my conclusions! Two notes equals two sons, equals twins, equals two empty caskets—which I have. Do not even pretend you cannot see that.”

He would never believe that she had not seen it that precise way, until this moment. She sighed. “You and William look nothing alike, by the way, but I withheld the information at first, because if you had known about his note, you would have asked who he was.”

“What the bloody damn difference would that make?”

“I would have been forced to admit the truth, that he was my husband.”

“The truth?” Reed’s expression went from incredulous to cruel. “Oh, I forgot, telling falsehoods would set a bad example.” He shook his head. “Why, Chastity?”

“I was afraid. There would have been no barriers between us, if you knew that I had been married, but if you thought I was a nun, living together was safer. I was . . . drawn to you from the first. I had always craved human contact. I needed the barrier.”

That she had his interest for the first time since she handed him the note, gave Chastity courage. “The sisters rejected affection, and I began to think touching, hugging, kissing was wicked, that I was wicked.” She could not bear to see revulsion on his face, or worse, confirmation, so she looked away, though she saw nothing save the man she loved slipping from her life.

“On my wedding night, when William got into bed with me, I put my arms around him and kissed him, and he pulled away. I will never forget his disgust as he turned from me. Later, he mumbled something about nuns and damnation, and I assumed he was talking about my wicked self. He died the next day.”

At the glimpse of reluctant understanding in Reed’s eyes, Chastity continued. “When I kissed you that first morning, you were appalled, but I liked the kiss, and hated myself for it. Then fate stepped in and you saw my veil. To keep us at a safe distance, I allowed your assumption.”

Chastity raised her chin, tried to laugh, but failed, and only achieved sorrow. “In the end, it mattered not. You proved too much of a temptation, after all.”

Reed clenched his fists and took a breath, fighting the pull, but he would not be duped again. He walked away, but turned back. “You know, Chastity, I used to think that being given away by my parents was the ultimate betrayal. But I have come to discover that being betrayed by the woman I—by you—is worse. I will be gone come morning.”

This time, he kept walking.

“Do not pretend that you ever intended to stay, Reed Gilbride. My betrayal just gives you an excuse to go. How bloody-damned convenient!”

* * *

She would succeed this time, the Vindicator promised herself, and not miss, again. If she had to follow him every cursed mile for the rest of his life, she would thwart Edward and bring him to his knees.

‘Twas one thing to get an heir on his wife, but now he had dallied with the Somers chit right there in the kitchen. Low as a gin-guzzling blighter, Edward was.

She had heard his voice, husky with passion. She remembered those sounds he made. Was a time only she could bring them, but now, he would rut with anyone.

Well, she had had enough. Edward must die, and soon.

* * *

Reed urged Stealth onward, his journey taking him farther away from Painswick, from Chastity and the children, each mile weakening his resolve, tearing him apart.

He saw Gaudy Green, surprised he had reached Gloucester. The city teemed with activity. And something spooked his horse, sent it into a gallop. He nearly ran down a pie-man, and knocked over his cart before getting Stealth under control. When Reed looked back, the hawker was shaking a fist at him. He didn’t much care.

At Leather Bottle Lane, near the Quay Street Workhouse, he thought, again, of Chastity. Everything reminded him of her since he left this morning. He heard her pace into the night, her every step a new wound. She approached the connecting door between their rooms almost as often as he did. In the end, he realized their break had best be quick and clean. He hoped she knew it, too, else she would be devastated by his note.

Gone to Sennett, he had written. Have a good life. Then he added, Love to the children. He hoped she did not need to hear that he loved her. Then again, he hoped she did, and hated him for not saying it. Life would go easier for her, if she hated him.

Shocked to see Reed led into his office, Sennett sat straighter. “Chastity?”

“Fine sir.” Reed wished it were true.

The wizened visage held relief. “Children fine?”

A nod.

Sennett placed his hands on his hips. “Do not say that we need to hurry the wedding.”

Reed blushed, surprised and chagrined that he could.

Sennett nodded sagely. “Cannot say as I’m surprised.”

“No, sir, that’s not the problem, though, it’s worse to my mind.”

“Well, spill it, man.” Sennett settled into his chair. “I cannot be expected to guess.”

Reed told him everything—mostly—about the notes, the empty caskets, his date of birth matching the twins’, so he was likely the Barrington heir, though he had found no actual proof.

He did not say that Chastity took the children from the workhouse. She had rescued them. She loved them. Until their parents were found, they would need her. He did not lie, he simply failed to mention it—much as Chastity had done—something to ponder in the lonely days ahead.

Reed sighed. “I’m relinquishing my quest. I’m done with searching. I would like Chastity to get Sunnyledge for her children’s home. I have no right to ask, I know, but in my heart I feel it’s mine to do with it as I see fit. I want her to have it. No strings. Free and clear. Will you do that, Sir, for Chastity?”

“But you are so close to learning who you are. I thought that meant more to you than anything. Does this mean that you are placing her happiness above your own?”

“Her happiness is my own.”

Sennett nodded. “So be it.”

Reed requested Sennett’s promise in writing and agreed to send his direction as soon as he settled. Then Sennett said something that turned Reed’s blood to ice and killed every bit of hope left in him. It was done then; he and Chastity could never be together.

Reed headed north, towards Scotland. May as well be as cold outside as in, and as far from sweet Chastity Somers as possible. As he rode, he composed the letter he would send her, someday.

Chastity dusted the highboy in the putrid-green drawing room, not sure if the room, or her thoughts, were more depressing. The children had behaved badly for every one of the six days since Reed left. They stole food this morning. Chastity had snapped and sent them to their rooms. Reed was right. They needed to be punished.

The twenty-year anniversary of the old Earl’s death was fast approaching, less than a week to go. Mr. Sennett would either decide that Reed found enough proof to give him Sunnyledge, or—if Reed did not tell him she took the children—Sennett might yet award it to her. She did not think Reed would tell, though she believed in her heart that the estate belonged to him.

She guessed she had known it all along.

Maybe she withheld William’s note to keep Sunnyledge. She did not know anything anymore.

The only way to show Reed that she wanted him to find his heritage would be to find the proof, herself, she supposed. And the children might be cheered by a race against time. Lord knew, none of them could be any more miserable.

Chastity went to the bottom of the stairs. “Children, come down here please? Matt, Mark, Luke?” Silence. “Rebekah?” Chastity took the stairs. “Where are you?”

Laughter, giddy, guilty, she heard. What were they up to now? With no one to rob or assault, how bad could it be?

Bad. She stopped in the doorway to Thea’s room in shock. “What have you done?”

Matt and Mark stopped snapping garters at each other, and leapt to right a broken pitcher, dribbling water off the dresser. Matt slipped in the puddle it made.

Rebekah and Luke stopped jumping on the bed, but several more books fell onto the floor, adding to the debris. Clothing, jewelry, gloves, spilled from drawers. A crushed hat retained the shape of a small shoe—a very small one. Ribbons were tied around bed posts. Zeke sported a red one, Bekah, a blue.

“You are brigands!” Chastity snapped.

“We don’t need that bastard,” Mark said, dashing from the room.

Luke slid from the bed and pushed his face against Chastity’s apron. “I miss him.” Bekah whined in agreement.

If this had to do with Reed’s leaving, why take their anger out on Thea? Was it because they disliked her and loved him?

“Mark, come back. I have to talk to you, all of you.”

Surprisingly, Mark came. Chastity tried to explain, as best she could, what she had done to destroy Reed’s trust, to make him angry enough to leave. “I’m sorry that I hurt you all.”

Matt sighed. “We understand, Kitty.”

Bekah patted her back.

“It’s all right, Kitty,” Luke said. “We love you, too.”

Chastity burst into tears. The children tried to make her smile, so she did. If they could disguise their hurt, so could she. “Guess what we’re going to do.” She needed to breathe some life into them and teach them a lesson. Pleased at their interest, she nodded. “We’re going to clean this mess.”

Their moans were pitiful. She held up a hand. “Do not fret, there’s enough damage for everyone to have a go at it. I want you to fetch brooms, mops, rags, soap and water.”

They stood like statues, more uncertain than stubborn.

“You’d best get moving.” She prodded them, hands to their backsides. “Scoot. Thea could be back anytime.”

Chastity did not mind admitting that no one would be happier than her, if they never saw Thea Pomfret again, but it would be terrible if the woman returned to this.

To form a path through the debris, Chastity righted some objects and moved others. She picked up and sorted a childish assortment of cockle shells, dolls and dry flowers, treasures a girl would save and a woman would pack away. She turned over a red velvet box, catching a handful of documents. The topmost bore a broken Barrington seal, arresting her movement, but accelerating her heart.

Brittle with age, the document recorded the marriage of the Earl of Barrington to Lady Clarissa Hartfield. Ravaged not only by time, the leaf was riddled with short, random slashes, as if someone had stabbed it. Chastity shivered. Why would Thea Pomfret keep St. Yves records? Had their housekeeper been stealing while living among them?

Box in hand, Chastity went to the top of the stairs. “Matt, Mark? Children, what’s taking so long?”

“Comin’ Kitty.”

Remaining alert to their approach, Chastity opened the next document. Lady Clarissa’s death certificate—alleluia scribbled in huge letters across it—had not been desecrated like her marriage lines. What kind of person approved death and defaced a marriage certificate?

Clumsy with foreboding, Chastity unfolded the next, and when the children reached her, she was startled. “Matt, Mark, go down and secure the locks on the doors, would you?”

Luke and Bekah helped her drag in an empty trunk to fill with whatever survived their rampage, unless it was books or papers. Those, she put aside to examine. A smaller trunk, they would fill with whatever was damaged.

She found a death certificate for Vicar Clive Pomfret, Thea’s brother, ‘Repent!’ written across it in the same hand that scrawled alleluia on Lady Clarissa’s. The hair rose on Chastity’s nape. “Lord help us.”

The children crowded ‘round. “Find somethin’?”

What had Reed said about God’s man? What did it mean? Regarding the children, she shook her head. “No, I didn’t find anything. Something surprised me is all.”

When Matt and Mark returned she had them strip the bed and replace the linens.

“What about me, Kitty?” Luke asked.

“Go through that pile of books, but bring me those papers sticking out.” Chastity made to put the earlier documents back in the box. But it had an unstable bottom, beneath which she found a stack of letters to ‘My dear best friend,’ signed ‘Your best friend,’ written by a boy and a girl, who continued corresponding into adulthood. Chastity saw sexual references she would not have understood two weeks before. An affair, for the man had apparently been married. The signatures did not change, but the handwriting matured, one of them seeming somewhat familiar. Was it the same hand that wrote the word Repent?

Chastity felt sullied for the little she read, but what could an intruder expect? Except this was her house, however temporary. Though the contents of the box were not hers, the documents, other than the Vicar’s death certificate, should not belong to Thea.

Chastity tucked the St. Yves documents into her apron pocket. The box, she pushed to the back of a shelf. If Thea did not return, Chastity would burn the letters. If she did, Chastity would return her things, tell her they no longer needed her, and pay for whatever the children broke.

“Look, Kitty.” Luke sat on the bed with a book, his brothers and sister looking over his shoulder. “It’s got people who lived in 1622, see. Then when their children grew up, it’s got them, and their children, over here. This says 1757, and this one—”

“It’s a parish register,” Chastity said, wiping her damp palm on her skirt before taking it. She wished she could remember Reed’s age. “But I cannot.”

“Cannot what?” Luke asked.

“If I knew the date the St. Yves twins were born, I could look them up.”

“May 4th, 1787,” Luke said.

“How do you know?”

“I saw it on a stone in the chapel when I got the cradle Reed didn’t let Bekah keep.”

“You’re too smart for your own britches.”

“Mum always said so.”

Mark snorted, and Luke took exception. Locked in combat, they rolled to the floor.

Chastity ignored the spat and continued to search for 1787 listings, the beat of her heart, her only distraction.

When she found the entry, prickles raced up her arms and legs. She sat on the bed, her fingers trembling as she traced the words. Born this day to the Lady Clarissa St. Yves, twin boys, rescued and given into the sacred keeping of Emily Gilbride, midwife, and Lily Somers, maid. Under penalty of eternal damnation, neither boy will know of the other’s existence or the manner and location of his birth. May 4th, in the year of our Lord, 1787. God’s will be done.

Chastity’s sob emerged as a strangled combination of elation and regret. Reed was the Barrington heir. She could barely take it in. He had been born in the tower. She remembered his pain as they stood there. He knew, even then. Somehow, in that place, he sensed the truth.

The next entry made Chastity want to weep the more. Given up to God this day, the Lady Clarissa St. Yves, born April 9, 1769. Died May 4th 1787. She suffered mightily for her sins.

“She was only eighteen years old,” Chastity wailed.

“Kitty, look, this letter is addressed to y—”

“Bekah, let me up. I have to send Mr. Sennett a note.”

“But Kitty, this is your—”

“Find Bekah’s shoes, Mark, will you. We’re going to the village, as soon as I— I have to copy something.”

“It must be good,” Matt said. “You’re smiling.”

Chastity hugged him. “Yes, I’m smiling. And yes, it’s something good. Wonderful.”

“But Kitty—”

“Hush, Luke.” She had never been as happy about anything, except finding the children and loving Reed, as she was to discover Reed’s heritage. Yes, this meant that she and the children would lose Sunnyledge, but he deserved to know who he was. She wished he were here, so she could throw herself into his arms and shout the good news.

As soon as Mr. Sennett received her copy, he would locate Reed, while she and the children looked for another house. But she could not tell the children yet. They would worry about where they were going to live. They had worried enough in their young lives. She would tell them after she knew where they were going.

On their way to the village to send the copy to Mr. Sennett, Chastity imagined they were being followed, but on their way back, when a pheasant went screeching into the air, Bekah said, “Luke did it,” making them all laugh and cutting the tension.

Upon their return, Chastity put them to bed, donned her wrapper and went to the library. Her mind was so full of questions; it would be hours before she could sleep.

One minute she was elated over finding the proof of Reed’s birth, the next, thoughts of Thea intruded. As far as the woman was concerned, Chastity had gone beyond dislike and was well into frightened witless.

And Reed. She loved him so much, she could not believe she would never see him again. She swallowed a rising sob. For the sake of the children, she could not mourn. She must look to their future. The memory of his love would always be hers, but she wished—oh how she wished—that Reed’s son slept below her heart, even now. She closed her eyes and placed her hand there, still awed by Reed’s explanation of conception. She imagined herself rocking a babe with honey gold eyes, until a noise outside shot her to her feet.

Fear, panic, the children’s safety, all filled her mind as she ran to the kitchen for a knife and returned to watch the door. ‘Twas a wonder her teeth didn’t chatter. She had not been this frightened that first night, though she had not known Thea back then.

The doorknob turned.

If not Thea, then who? Was a known evil better than an unknown one? She prayed Reed’s locks would hold. Despite herself, she crept forward, knife raised.

A sudden beating on the door frightened her into a scream.

“Damnation, Chastity, let me in.”

With shaking fingers and a sob of relief, she unlatched the door . . . and a body hurtled across the foyer, and came to a sliding stop at the base of the stairs. Reed rose on an elbow. “Why do you greet me with a knife every damn time I come through that door?”

Chastity dropped the knife with a glad cry and threw herself into his arms.

“Just once more,” Reed said between kisses. “I needed to love you one more time.”

“Yes,” Chastity said. Before I must leave you forever. She would tell him tomorrow about her find and his heritage. Tonight was for loving.

Reed carried her up the stairs and into his room. They said little; no time between kisses. “I could not leave without saying good-bye.” He peeled away her clothes.

“I thought I’d die if I never saw you again. This will do. It will do,” she kept saying.

“It must,” he confirmed, adoring her with his mouth, knowing he would take his final leave in the morning. “It will.” It was out of their hands now.  He would tell her tomorrow that he was giving her Sunnyledge, that they had no choice but to live separate lives. Tomorrow.

Tonight would be theirs.

Reed made his way to her breast. How he loved to suckle her. He was hard and ready. She rocked against him, but he slowed their pace. “Wait, love. Let’s make it last. Tonight, I want you to know all the possibilities.”

“Good Lord, there are more? What sweet suffering.”

“Incredibly sweet,” he whispered against her mouth, between her breasts, along her belly, and lower still, until she called his name.

“Come inside me.” Give me your son, she dare not say.

With a moan, he did, and when she received his seed, she wept with joy, and then she wept for what could never be.

They loved in that hungry way the whole night through.

She was gone from his bed when he woke. A bittersweet loving, it had been. A joyful sorrow, she would be to remember.

Chastity . . . stepping out a workhouse window in the middle of the night, dignified, righteous, four urchins in tow . . . soapsuds on her lash, arms around his neck, an innocent seductress.

... cobwebs and spiders in her hair . . . milking a cow named Leonardo . . . bathing his wound in tears.

... hugging four grubby, dishonest, wonderful children.

... cooking a rabbit disguised as a chicken.

... burning bread, kissing him, loving him. Making him want, and want. Teaching him to give, and love, and share, and care. She had even taught him that a successful seduction—though he would be hard-put to say who seduced who—does not negate need, but increases it.

If only she had taught him how to go on without her.

Bekah came dragging in, head down, shoulders shaking. “Want Weed,” she sobbed.

“Come here, Poppet,” he said, making sure he was covered.

Bekah looked up, shocked, delighted. “Weed!” She launched herself into his arms. She was a lot like Chastity, as she rained kisses on his face, and he laughed under the onslaught. Surely his tears were from laughter, he thought, as he wiped them away.

The boys came running. “Reed’s back.” They were all over him. Another pig pile. He laughed again.

“Are you naked under there?” Luke asked, lifting the blanket.

Reed slapped it down. “Of course not. A gentleman never asks, or answers, such questions.”

“A gentleman don’t sleep naked. Does he?”

“When he’s a grown man, sometimes he does.”

“When will I know I’m grown enough?”

“You’ll know.”

“Will Kitty let me?”

“You’ll be too grown to need her permission. She’ll know when the time comes.”

“And if she doesn’t, you’ll make her, won’t you Reed?”

Reed sat straighter, blanket secure, feeling at a disadvantage having such a conversation, unclothed. “I will not be staying, Luke. I cannot.”

“Because Chastity didn’t tell you she had a husband who is dead, and he had a letter,” Luke said. “We know. She told us. She cried a lot, but she’s sorry, Reed. She really is.”

“No,” Reed said, squeezing a shoulder, tweaking a nose. “I forgave her for that. She did not mean to hide anything. I know it, now. No, it’s because of something that cannot be changed.”

“Dumb reason,” Matt said.

“Mark said we don’t need you, anyway,” Luke said. “He called you a bastard.”

Reed chuckled. “I probably am.”

Mark raised his chin and crossed his arms. “We don’t need you. We don’t need anybody.”

“You do, but you’ll probably be a grown man before you admit it. I hope you admit it some day, though.”

“We got somethin’ to show you,” Luke said. “Don’t move.”

“As if I could,” Reed said, Bekah in his arms. “As if I’d want to,” he said kissing her nose.

Mark snorted in disgust. “Mush.”

“Yeah.” Matt grinned and kissed Bekah’s nose too.

Bekah giggled and scratched her nose against Reed’s chest.

“Here it is,” Luke said. “A church register. Kitty said it’s got important stuff. It even says Gilbride, right there. See.”

Reed couldn’t catch his breath. There it was staring right at him. Had Chastity had it all along?

“Where did you get this?”

“It was hidden, but I found it.”

“Does Chastity know you found it?”

He nodded. “She took it away, but I can read good.”

Reed ruffled his hair.

“Then Kitty wrote a letter and we went to town and—”

“Thanks, Luke. Go do your chores, now, all of you, so I can get dressed. And send Chastity up, will you?”

They left subdued. Hell, he had splashed disenchantment over them like hot wax, and they got burned, but not any worse than he did.

He dressed quickly. He would not be caught naked, not for this. He needed his wits, aye, and his armor about him too. He was angry. Damned angry. Mad. Furious.

And hurt. Achingly, painfully, hurt.

“Ah, there she is,” he said as Chastity walked into the room. “The savior of all children.”

She stopped, her brows furrowing.

“She who stands all-knowing, she who decides fates—the children’s, mine. Who else’s life have you destroyed, Chastity? Mr. Sennett’s? Mother Superior’s? William’s?”

Chastity paled but straightened her spine. Then she saw the parish register on the bed. “You found it,” she said. “I’m so happy for you.” She hesitated, aware how this must look. “I . . . wanted to surprise you.”

“When were you going to give me this so-called surprise? You did not know I was returning.”

“I thought to surprise you this morning.”

“Did you? But you would do anything to keep this place for your children’s home. You said so, yourself.” Reed ran a hand through his sleep-mussed hair, feeling at a worse disadvantage now, which only added to his frustration. “I did worry a bit at first that you would withhold whatever evidence you found, but before long, I—you’ll laugh at this—I trusted you. Right now, I’m just plain disappointed in you. Mortally disappointed.”

Chastity stepped close, made to put her hands on his chest, but Reed stepped from her touch.

Tears filled her eyes, but she kept her chin up. “Whatever you believe, when I found that register, I was happy for you. Had you been here, I would have run to you with the news, I—”

“Forget the theatricals, Mrs. Somers. I have already seen Sennett to withdraw my claim. Sunnyledge is yours. I wish you joy of it. Knowing the solicitor’s fondness for you, the paperwork is likely done.”

“You’re willing to give up your heritage for the children?” Chastity asked, not certain she understood.

“For you, make no mistake. I did it for you. Noble of me was it not? And stupid, but it’s yours, as I said.”

“I do not want it.”

“What did you say?”

“Sunnyledge is yours, my lord.”

“My Lord?”

“You’re the Earl of Barrington.” Chastity curtseyed. “You said, yourself, you were noble.”

“God’s teeth, woman, you are the owner of Sunnyledge.”

Chastity shook her head in denial. “I hope you will be happy here, alone with your dead ancestors.”

“Oh, and whose heritage do you plan to steal to get a new place?”

“Mr. Sennett will give Sunnyledge to you,” she said.

“Mr. Sennett believes you own Sunnyledge. I just left him a few days ago.”

“Soon enough, he will know that I no longer want it.”

“What the devil do you want?”

You, she thought. “To open a children’s home, as ever, but not here.” Her head came up. “You did not tell Mr. Sennett I took the children? Oh, Reed, if you did—”

“You ungrateful wretch. What kind of cad do you take me for?”

Chastity wanted to weep. She wanted to crawl into a corner and disappear. He thought her a wretch who would make love with a man while stealing his identity. As mortally disappointed as he, she regarded him. “I take you for the kind of cad,” she whispered, “who seduces a woman when he knows what he’s doing, and she does not.”

Chastity turned from the guilt in Reed’s eyes to go to her room, closing the door between. She muffled her sobs in her pillow, almost wishing her pain were as mortal a wound as it felt. She cried so long, she lost track of time, and thought perhaps she slept.

She heard footsteps on the stairs. Running. Not the children’s. Reed burst into her room, knelt beside her and took her into his arms. “I’m sorry, so damned sorry.”

“It’s too late,” she said.

He shook his head. “They must have heard us. They must have followed you upstairs, and we were so angry.”

“If the children heard us arguing, they must be upset,” Chastity said. “Afraid of being homeless, again.”

“It’s worse. They don’t know who will care for them.”

“I will, of course. We did not argue over who would take them. We argued over Sunnyledge.”

“As if a house was more important,” he said. “But it wasn’t the house we argued about, was it?” he said. “It was honor, or the lack of it.”

“No, Reed. It was trust, or the lack of it.”

She saw that she had given him pause, but they did not have time to settle it now—as if they could settle it ever, she thought. “We’ve got to tell the children how much they mean to us, convince them that I will be there for as long as they need me. Come with me. It’ll take both of us to make them feel secure again. We handle them well when we do it together.”

Chastity was instantly sorry for saying the last. Neither of them needed reminding.

“It’s too late, Chastity.”

“I know. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

She examined his face. “What do you mean, too late?”

“They’re gone, Chastity. The children are gone.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“What do you mean? Where would they— Thea! Oh, God, Thea took them. I never trusted her, Reed, if she hurt—”

He grasped Chastity’s shoulders. “I have every reason to believe they ran away. They must have been upset after hearing us argue like that.” He, too, harbored reservations about their chaperone, but now was not the time to discuss it.

“What makes you think they left on their own?”

“Smokey’s missing, and there’s no food left anywhere, not even in the loft. Our brigands took the food.”

Chastity started up the stairs. “They are not ours, Reed. They’re mine.”

“They have parents,” he said as he followed her into her room.

“Damnation. Now is not—”

“Chastity Somers, watch your language!”

She stopped stripping the blankets from her bed.

He held up a hand. “Sorry. We never argued about who’ll take them, because we know you will, but they did not know that.” Daring to draw her near, touching her brow with his, Reed closed his eyes. “Ah, Chastity. If anything happens to them, I’ll never forgive myself. I’ll find them, I promise.”

“I’m going with you. Do not even try to argue. They need me, Reed. They’ll be frightened.”

He gave in with a sigh, still shaking his head. “Fine. I’ll go borrow a wagon. Finish gathering what you think we’ll need. I’ll be back shortly.”

Reed returned late to Sunnyledge, expecting to find Chastity frantic and furious, but she was not to be found. “Damnation, Chastity, where the devil are you?” She knew the children could be in danger, and they should hurry, except it must have seemed to her as if he had not.

She must have thought he left without her, which hurt, but there was no other explanation. If Chastity thought she was on her own, he knew what she would do. She would go looking for the children, herself. Exasperating notion, but he expected nothing less. Neither had he expected her to hide the evidence of his birth. At one time, perhaps, but not now that he knew—

Realization hit Reed on the instant. She would not have hidden the evidence of his birth. He laughed aloud. As sure as he knew he loved her, he knew there was an explanation for the register.

He ran to the stable. Damn, the other draft horse was missing now, too. Foolish, idiotic, woman. She might have been gone an hour or more already. The wagon would slow him down, but he would need it when he found his brood.

His brood. If only. Reed stopped along the way to ask after them. People thought him daft, but he learned enough to keep to the Painswick road toward Gloucester.

About noon, for the second time that day, fear clutched him. By the side of a river stood Chastity’s horse. Abandoned. Hurt. Bleeding. Reed tore off his shoes and jumped in the water, searching until his lungs hurt. When he surfaced, he heard her laugh and treaded water until he saw her.

“Are you fishing?” She stood at the water’s edge wringing out her skirts.

He would like to do some wringing of his own—her neck—first chance he got. “Damnation, woman, I thought you drowned.” Water poured off him as he approached her.

For each of his steps forward, she took one back, until she came up against the wagon and he took her in his arms.

She pushed him away.

He could not blame her. “Chastity, I—”

With a sob, she threw herself into his embrace.

Holding her felt so good, but they dare not tarry. “You’re shivering. Come on.” He wrapped a blanket around her, tucked her up tight, and wiped droplets from her face with his fingertips. “Warmer now?”

“Some.”

“Good. What the blazes were you thinking of, to set out alone like that? Are you daft?”

She grabbed a blanket and tossed it at him. “The children are missing, and you taking your sweet time. Where the devil were you?”

“A gunshot spooked the wagon horses. They bolted, tipped the wagon, and I got caught beneath. Old man Kendrick and a couple of locals pulled me out. I thought they’d never find me.”

“Another accident?” She looked him over, ran her hands down his arms, pulled his blanket closed and laid her head against him. “You’re not hurt?”

“Bruised. Might have been worse, but for the way the wagon landed. My side hurts but it’s not bleeding.”

“I knew nothing less would keep you. I really did, but I couldn’t bear waiting.”

He got them underway. “What happened to you?”

“A fox chasing a rabbit crossed our path.”

“Our rabbit?”

Chastity shook her head. “Too small.” She touched his sleeve. “I’m really worried about the children.”

“They’re heading for Sennett. I’ve heard enough to know they’re fine and together.”

Chastity’s eyes filled with tears of relief, and he took her hand. “Sennett made an impression, saying he was their godfather and to go to him, if they needed anything.”

Chastity shivered and Reed sighed. “We’ve got to get you dry,” he said.

“I am not as wet as you. Just the back of my skirt and my feet, and the edges of my sleeves.”

“Oh, only there.” Reed drove faster. “There’s an inn up ahead. You can sit by the fire while I ask after the children. Morning fog’s burning off. The sun will dry us.”

“Who do you think is causing these accidents?”

“The real heir?” Reed chuckled, but it was not funny. “Damned if I know,” he said as he stopped at the inn.

The Pig and Whistle reeked of old ale and smoked ham, the furniture as scarred and beaten as the public room was warm and dry. Reed settled Chastity by the fire and spread her wet skirts to dry. “Just a minute, mind, until we get answers. Then we’re after the rascals.” He kissed her brow and set the blankets near the blaze. “We might need them for the children.”

He brought her brandy to warm her, and then went in search of the innkeeper. “Barmaid’s looking for him,” he said as he returned with a meat pie. She took a bite and pushed it away. He took two bites. They were too worried to eat, but needed strength to search.

The innkeeper’s scent arrived before he did. Chastity put her hand to her nose in a feigned cough. Judging by his apron, the man had been butchering chickens. “Here now, wot can I do for you?” he said, wiping his hands on the apron.

Reed moved Chastity downwind. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“Ain’t of a mind to be answerin’ questions. Been pummeled by a pack ‘a brats.” He rubbed his leg. “One of ‘em bit me. Run off w’out so much as a thankee for the mutton chops and cabbage they snitched.”

Chastity bared her teeth. Reed was surprised she didn’t hiss. “How long ago did they leave?”

“More’n an hour gone now.”

“How many children?” Reed asked.

“Three boys and a witchling.”

Reed took the blankets and followed Chastity out.

“Here, wait now, be they your brats? You owe me for the food or I’ll be havin’ the magistrate on you.”

Reed threw the man a handful of coins.

“If she gets sick from biting you,” Chastity shouted, as the wagon left the yard, “I’ll have you put down.”

“I hope she bit him good,” Reed said, rubbing his thigh. “She can do it.”

* * *

Mr. Sennett had never been so entertained. The mite sat on his lap while her brothers told some tales.

“And Reed said, ‘You take Sunnyledge,’ and Chastity said, ‘No you take it.’”

“They didn’t argue over who would take us,” Mark said, arms crossed. “Only the house. To the devil with us.”

“You’re just mad ‘cause you think Reed’s a bastard.”

“Will you stop saying that,” Matt snapped.

Rebekah looked at Mr. Sennett. “Want Weed. Want Kitty.”

Sennett hugged her. “Eat your ginger cookie. There’s a lamb.”

“Poppet,” she said.

Sennett smiled. “Poppet. I stand corrected.” He held the dish of treats out to the boys.

Reed had given up his cherished quest to give Sunnyledge to Chastity for her children’s home. While she was willing to give up Sunnyledge, so Reed could have his heritage. They were both unselfish and loving. Too bad about that law.

“We never had cookies in the workhouse.”

“Eh?” said Sennett. “You were in the workhouse?”

Luke nodded. “Not long.”

“Luke,” Matt warned.

“What?”

Sennett burrowed into his big leather chair. “Matthew,” he said, holding the boy’s gaze. “Tell me about the workhouse, every detail.”

“First sir, I’d like to tell you how we got there, shall I?”

Sennett nodded and tucked a sleepy Rebekah into the crook of his arm, liking this godfather business. “Go on.”

Chastity rushed into Sennett’s office and came to a dead stop, bringing Reed up short at her back.

The oh-so-dignified Mr. Sennett was sitting on the floor with the children, Zeke on his lap, laughing so hard, he had to wipe his eyes.

Mark wore a kerchief draped over his head, the ends hanging to his shoulders.

Luke stood pointing at the headpiece in horror. “You’re a damned nun.”

“I certainly hope I won’t be damned,” Mark said in a high pitched voice.

Reed’s laugh gave them away.

The children got hugged while Chastity cried.

When Rebekah finished getting kisses from Chastity, she walked up to Reed, turned her back, folded her arms, and tapped her foot. “Weed?”

That was as close to a royal command as Reed could imagine. With a lump in his throat, he knelt to braid her hair, then turned her in his arms and picked her up.

Chastity’s tears were disconcerting. Reed led her to a chair by the fire. The boys climbed up with her, and he set Bekah square in her lap.

Reed and Sennett regarded them. “Meant to be together,” Reed said, making certain, whatever the children revealed, that the solicitor understood.

“Perhaps,” was all the commitment Sennett made.

“I stole them,” Chastity wailed.

“Damn it, Chastity.”

“Mr. Gilbride, watch your language.”

“A bit late to be calling me Mr. Gilbride, don’t you think?”

Chastity’s eyes widened.

“Because we’re betrothed,” Reed said.

She groaned. “A bit late for a lot of things, I think. Mr. Sennett, I understand that I will not be allowed to open a children’s home, but could I keep these four, until their parents are found.”

Matt went to Sennett. “Please, sir. Let her keep us.”

Mark raised his chin, but said nothing, and Luke put an arm around her. “She did rescue us, and she cooks good.”

Rebekah scrambled off Chastity’s lap and went to Reed, raising her arms.

“Why don’t you marry Chastity and adopt us?” Luke asked him. “Then you can both have Sunnyledge, and us.”

“Mr. Sennett,” Reed said. “Since there’s no proof I’m the Barrington heir, how can that law apply?”

“I received the proof this morning,” Sennett said. “Chastity copied the register page she found and dispatched it to me immediately. Did you not tell him, Chastity?”

Chastity examined the toe of her wet boot.

Reed grimaced. “Chastity,” he said. “Look at me. I do not suppose you might accept an apology?”

“I do not suppose you consider that an apology?”

“Children, children,” Sennett said. “And I am not talking about the small ones.”

Reed knelt before Luke. “We cannot adopt you. You already have parents.”

Matt left Chastity and looked about. “I . . . it’s that law, remember Luke.”

“Will somebody tell me what law, please,” Chastity said. “Not that I’d marry—”

Sennett regarded Reed. “You should have told her.”

“I did not have a chance.”

“What law?” Chastity repeated.

“Chastity, you were married to Reed’s twin. That makes you Reed’s sister-in-law. Under English law, a man cannot marry his sister-in-law.”

Chastity could not help the tears that filled her eyes. She had hoped all along that somehow, some way, she and Reed.... It would be easy to think nothing mattered right now, except that she needed to settle the children. “Mr. Sennett, the children.” Her voice broke, and she was mortified. She raised her chin. “Please do not send them back to the workhouse.”

They gathered around her again, offering comfort.

Sennett sat behind his desk and rubbed his chin. “Go on, all of you, and let a man think.”

Reed approached the desk. “Sir?”

“Take them back to Sunnyledge. I’ll talk to that blighted Beadle and find out what I can about their parents. Let you know. Go, go.” Sennett shuffled paper and called for his clerk.

Chastity and the children stood as Reed made to usher them out.

“Do not leave them, my Lord, until you hear from me,” Sennett said, regarding them over the rim of his glasses. “Chastity, stay at Sunnyledge. Hear?”

“Yes, Sir.” She dared what she had not months before, and bent to kiss his cheek. “You’re an old dear.”

Sennett blustered. “Tell no one, b’God. Reputation to keep and all that. Go along now. There’s a good girl.” He patted her hand and turned back to his papers, except that he had to stop for Rebekah’s kiss.

When Reed pulled the wagon over for them all to rest, the children were too excited to sleep, though he made the wagon bed quite cozy. Rebekah kept them entertained with silly stories, sometimes using the wrong word in the wrong place.

Reed held Chastity in his arms as they lay beside their brood. “She has a lot of catching up to do in the talking department,” he said, “but she’s getting a famous start.”

The tired bedraggled group arrived at Sunnyledge before dawn the next morning. Reed carried the boys in, one by one. Chastity tried to tuck Bekah in, but she would not lie down. Instead, she knelt in the middle of her bed, arms folded. Later, when Chastity returned, Bekah looked as if she had fallen asleep that way and fell over.

After washing and changing, Chastity and Reed met in the kitchen, sitting across from each other, drinking tea, until the silence lengthened to uncomfortable proportions.

Reed reached across the table, and after staring at his open palm, thinking how much she loved his hands, Chastity placed hers in his. She wanted to talk about the fact that they could never marry, but she could not bear it.

“I owe you an apology,” he said. “I’m deeply sorry for having doubted you, and I humbly beg your forgiveness.”

“Forgiven.” She squeezed his hand. “You had reason for believing the worst. I had withheld much. I suppose that not speaking is as good as a lie.”

“Not necessarily.”

“You need not make excuses for me. I do that quite well on my own. Would you like some breakfast?”

“Are you cooking?”

“You cook, nasty man.”

Reed rose. “Now that you’ve forgiven me, I feel as if I could eat a whole . . . chicken.”

“Zeke is off-limits, so you can make cornbread. I’ll get the honey.”

Reed used every manner of pan imaginable, and Chastity shook her head. “It’ll take six people to clean this mess.”

The children were none the worse for their foray into the world. Chastity gave them a talking to about running away, and Reed threw in a few bruising comments.

Luke described their confrontation with the innkeeper, turning Chastity white with fear, then red with anger. When he mentioned Bekah biting the man, Bekah gagged.

“Guess I tasted better.” Reed laughed. “From now on, no biting strangers.”

Bekah nodded. “Only you.”

The children fell asleep early that evening, after their day and night on the road, but Reed and Chastity, by tacit and silent agreement, did not remain upstairs. They went down to the library where they each chose a book and sat in opposite chairs before the fire.

Such good intentions, such a homey scene—as if they had been married for years, except that she may as well be holding her book upside down. Besides, if they had been married for years, she would still want Reed Gilbride as much as she did at this moment.

Some law said they could not marry. A law for the sake of laws, not people.

She studied him, memorizing his features. Before she met him, she would not have thought it possible to call a man beautiful, but he was. Strong enough to overturn a marble sarcophagus, gentle enough to braid a little girl’s hair. He had grown up angry enough to survive in a world that hurt him, yet he loved enough to give up his dream.

She understood, for she loved him enough to give up her next breath, or toss the law to the devil. Oh, she would not break it and marry, but the law said nothing beyond marriage and there were too few nights left. Those she would not toss. “Reed.”

He looked up, raw hunger in his look.

He had read no more than she. His words, his look, shivered her. “Make love to me.”

His eyes leapt with fire, yet he shook his head. “We should talk about—”

“No. My head aches from taking it all in. I do not want to talk about today or tomorrow, or what life is, or was, or never will be. I want you to hold me and make love to me all night, for every night we have left.”

He rose and leaned over her in the chair, and she began to unbutton his shirt, planting kisses where she could. She ran her hand inside the band of his trousers, hardening him on the instant. “I want you, now. Here by the library fire,” she said. “Please.”

“Let me lock the door. It’s a bit early in their young lives for this kind of education.”

Chastity giggled as she watched him return to her, aroused and embarrassed by it. He groaned as she undid the placket on his trousers to free him into her waiting hands.

Before she knew it, they lay on the rug before the fire, Reed kissing her bare ankle, behind her knee. He removed her dress, her shift, and his own clothes.

She could watch the play of muscles along his torso all day. She loved the dark curly hair on his chest, especially when it grazed her nipples, the length of him pressed intimately against her.

No other man could feel as excellent against her as did Reed Gilbride. No other could fit her so perfectly or knew so well how to make her soar as did he. If only he were not the heir. If only— Chastity sat up like a shot. “Good God, you’re an Earl.”

Reed chuckled and pulled her back. His kisses became bolder, hotter. “Wait till you see what this Earl can do.”

“Oh, Reed.” But the sensations purling through her made words impossible. His tongue did fascinating things. Her breath got away from her, and a new world rose up to greet her. Incredible, unbearable. Too high, impossible to reach.

Yet just as she thought she could fly, he stopped, and he stopped her scream with his mouth as he slipped inside her womanhood and rekindled her fire with slow, smooth strokes.

His lips left her mouth and she whimpered, then he suckled her, and she whimpered the more. He took her deeper and faster, until they spun and spiraled, reaching beyond the sun and all the way to the stars.

Chastity held on as they drifted, stroking his sweat-slick back, his arms, kissing his chin, listening to the rasp of his breath near her ear. She wanted the moment to last, but forever would not be long enough.

“I’m heavy,” he said and made to slide from her.

“No. Stay.” She held him tight, tears slipping down the sides of her face.

He sighed and kissed her ear, tugged her lobe between his teeth. She did the same, memorizing the play of muscle beneath her hands. She licked his shoulder, tasted salt.

She slid her hand between them and stroked him at his base, and he chuckled, nearly dislodging himself.

“Do not move,” she said. “I want it to happen again.”

“That’ll be easy. I’ve pretty much been hard since the day I tried to get suds off your eyelash.”

“Have you?”

He raised his head. “You’re crying.”

“No. Tell me what you were going to say. Please.”

“When you were trying to milk that cow, I thought I’d scream with the pain of how hard I was. Don’t cry.” He kissed her tears.

“When you were hurt and I washed you, you were hard, then, and I wanted to touch you, but my need frightened me. Do you know something else?”

“What, love?”

“I got wet just looking at you, then, and that frightened me too.”

His body surged, and he took her on a slow journey back to heaven.

She gave herself over to his incredible talent, and somewhere between the soaring and the gliding, they slept entwined on the rug before the fire.

The knob on the library door jiggled. Reed heard it, but he did not want to open his eyes.

“Where do you s’pose they went?” Mark asked.

“Maybe they ran away this time,” Luke said.

“Weed?”

He heard them talking as they walked away. The fire was out, the room cool, but Chastity slept on.

Dressed in yesterday’s clothes, Reed left the library, shutting the door behind him. The children sat on the bottom stair, chins in hands, side by side.

“You know, Mark,” Reed said. “I think you’re going to be taller than Matt. You’ll have to start taking first place, if you want to keep that great stair-step line you present as you stand in a row.” Reed held his hand at an angle to demonstrate.

“No,” Matt said, looking keenly at his younger brother.

“Yes!” Mark displayed a rare smile, surprising Reed.

“Where’s Kitty,” Luke asked. “Did she run away, too?”

“Kitty’s tired from chasing you all over England. She fell asleep in the library last night and she’s still there. If you even think of disturbing her, I’ll skin you good and hang you by your toes.”

Rebekah giggled.

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you,” he said lifting her and running with her to the kitchen, luring her brothers from the library.

He stood Bekah in the middle of the kitchen table.

“Put her on the table, gotta roast her,” Mark said.

“Oops.” Reed swept her up and set her on the floor. “Matt, milk Leonardo. Mark, check the garden, Luke, get the barrow for Mark’s vegetables. Bekah, you make breakfast.”

Bekah and Luke doubled over laughing. Matt and Mark chuckled their way out the door.

Reed put water on to boil, cut a loaf of bread into slices and placed them with butter before Bekah. He handed her a spoon and showed her how to use the handle to butter the bread. “See, you are making breakfast.” He kissed the top of her head. “Butter them all. I’ll be right back.”

He ran upstairs for Chastity’s clothes, checked on Bekah, gave her more bread to butter—she was quick—threw soap and water into a pan and took it to the library.

Half an hour later, Chastity joined them for fresh milk, and bread, thickly buttered.

Rebekah was so proud, no one had the heart to scrape the excess off their bread.

“You all right, Chastity?” Reed asked.

She grinned. “Pretty all right. You?”

“Very all right.” He grinned back.

“The church register said that you and your brother were rescued. What do you suppose that means?”

Three quick raps of the front door-knocker sent the children running to the foyer. Matt opened the door before Reed had a chance to stop him.

Two men in religious garb waited to be invited inside. Reed’s heartbeat trebled.

“Hey. You’re missionaries,” Luke said. “Like papa.”

Chastity stilled and paled.

Reed swallowed his trepidation. “Won’t you come in?” Avoiding the library, he led them toward the salon.

The taller of the two men turned his hat in his hand as he looked from Reed to Chastity. “We’re from the London Missionary Society. We’ve come for the children.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

“There must be a mistake,” Chastity said, a swan sensing danger to her cygnets.

“No mistake,” the younger missionary countered. “Got a letter right here.” He handed it to Chastity then turned to Reed. “Reed Gilbride, I presume.”

Reed nodded and extended his hand. “This is Chastity Somers. She’s been caring for the children, until their parents return.” He indicated the children. “Say hello to Matt, Mark, Luke.” He sighed over his stupidity in bringing these men here and picked up Bekah. “And this is Rebekah.”

“Pleased to know you all. I’m Zeb Perkins,” the shorter man said. “This is Ebenezer Hill.”

“A pleasure,” Ebenezer said.

“Ebenezer the sneezer,” Luke sang as he danced.

“Luke,” Reed coughed to hide a laugh.

“Sorry we could not come in response to your letter sooner, Mr. Gilbride.” Zeb Perkins looked down his nose at the children. “Not enough missionaries to go around, and we did not know where to place them.”

“These children are special, talented. Cannot have just anyone caring for them. Luke,” Reed said. “Get your horn and show the Reverends what you can do with it.”

“Can’t find it.”

Reed snapped his fingers. “You know where I noticed it the other day? In my room, at the bottom of the wardrobe, inside my travel bag, beneath some blankets.”

Luke ran, and Mark’s bark of laughter brought surprise. For once, it was not Luke who was first to catch on. As a matter of fact, Luke had looked downright confused.

Reed sought Chastity’s reaction to Mark’s laughter. Despite her smile, sadness and disappointment clouded her expression. Damn. The letter she held condemned him with its existence.

How could you? her look said, and she had a right.

The letter made sense the day he wrote it, but he should not have sent it without telling her. The children’s parents might be looking for them without knowing where they were, but he did not know, then, what the children suffered in that workhouse. Blast him for an idiot; he should have given Chastity a chance to explain.

I love you, he tried to make her understand.

Right, her derisive look clearly said.

He raised his chin. “Trust me.”

She turned to the window, likely seeing none but the end of her dreams. If sorrow were lethal, she would wither and die, and the children would follow for losing her.

The clerics looked from one to the other of them. Zeb cleared his throat. Ebenezer shifted in his chair.

Reed wondered if his heart could bear the pain in Chastity’s. “Gentlemen, we want the children to stay with us until their parents are found.”

“Well for Gawd sakes,” the sneezer said. “If you were willing, why’d you send the demn—sorry Miz Somers—why’d you send the letter?”

“So the children’s parents would know where they were.”

Perkins took the letter from Chastity. “That is not what you said a’tall.” He slapped the paper. “They’d be best with someone from your organization,” he quoted.

Reed cleared his throat and tried to disregard the fury in Chastity’s eyes. “Since then, I’ve had the opportunity—”

WARRONNNK! WARRONNNK! WARRONNNK!

“Ah.” Reed said. “That would be Luke with his horn. Quite accomplished, he is. Play us a song, Luke.”

“Huh?”

“Play!” Reed said. “Boys dance to your brother’s tune, and sing. Poppet, sing like you used to.”

Matt and Mark caught on and made a hell of a racket. Luke’s horn bellowed, Rebekah gave her ear-splitting wail, and Reed’s thigh throbbed just remembering.

He grinned and Chastity smiled, despite herself.

“Gentlemen,” Reed said over the din. “I wrote the letter when I arrived, but since then, I have come to appreciate their talent, and Chastity’s gift in caring for them. She is more than capable. As a matter of fact—” He looked pointedly at the subject of his discourse and winked. “She not only loves them as if they were hers, she is the only one who can keep the little devils under control.”

At which point, his sheltering swan calmed her cygnets and hustled them from the room. Mark laughed. Matt congratulated Luke on his playing and Bekah on her singing.

Reed approached the sideboard and raised a decanter. “Port, gentlemen?”

They accepted, and Reed offered to have Sennett called, so the papers could be drawn up for temporary custody.

The Reverends wavered, so when Chastity came back, he invited them to stay for a day or so, until Sennett arrived. Out of hearing, he suggested that rooms be prepared on each side of the children.

The missionaries retired to rest while Reed oversaw a game of Blind Man’s Buff. When that was done, he taught the children a game he remembered from childhood, called Cockfight. The recreation took place in the foyer, at the base of the stairs, where sound carried best.

Reed prayed his ploy would work. He hoped that after two days of this, the missionaries would leave the children with Chastity. And he wanted Chastity to speak to him, again. She had not, since the Missionaries arrived.

After the men retired for the night, to the rooms adjacent to the boys, Chastity went to a bedchamber down the hall, and Reed held Mrs. Daffodil’s ball in the boys’ bedchamber, without her.

He had a grand time at that ball, and the goodnight round of tickling was a brilliant touch, until Luke hit his head when he fell off the bed and got blood all over the blankets. This caused Bekah to set up a wail.

But except for the fact that Luke had a slight crack in his hard head, Reed thought everything turned out well. Who knew that playing with children could be so much fun?

He knew by the time he settled them down that Chastity was really angry with him. She had not even said good night, and that was more than an hour ago.

Now he sat brooding, staring at his bed. His bed, damn it. Except that it was otherwise occupied. Zeke snuggled in the center, fluffs of fur making quite the nest for four mewling bunnies. If the children had not just settled down after being excited beyond bearing for hours, he would fetch them. He hated to wait till tomorrow to show them.

It was odd, he thought, how badly he wanted to wake the little devils. You’d think he needed them or something.

He chuckled. Zeke looked up. “Zeke, huh? Playing leapfrog, huh? Luke never said which of you was leaping. I had the mistaken notion that you were on top old boy—I mean old girl.”

He wanted to show Chastity, too. Not that he was looking for an excuse to go to her or anything. Yes, he was, but he really did want to show her Zeke’s babies.

He suspected, from her footsteps in the hall a few minutes ago, that she waited to be sure he left the children before she said good-night to them. She was kissing everyone, except him.

He heard her return and wanted to go after her. It took an act of will to stay, but that had always been a weak thing. “I want my kiss, damn it!” He abandoned his chair. “And I’m bloody well going to get it. Take the bed for tonight,” he threw over his shoulder as he left.

Reed stormed the portal. Well, he pushed her door ever-so-gently open, at any rate. She looked tiny and hurt curled up in the bed. The big bed. Big enough for—“Zeke’s got my bed,” he said, but Chastity remained unmoving. He guessed it was not the right time to tell her about the new additions to their household. He pushed her door further open, hesitated, and went as far as her bed. “Chastity?”

She gave him a look that spoke more of apathy than hate, which clearly hid a great deal of pain, which he had caused, and he was sorry, but she knew that. Nevertheless, she rolled to her side, facing away, and curled into a tighter ball. “Get out.”

He placed his hand on her shoulder.

She sighed, put her hand over his, left it for a second, a blessed moment when he thought she might forgive him, and then she lifted it away. “Please leave.”

“Not even, ‘please leave, Reed.’ Just, ‘please leave.’ I’d probably do anything you asked right now, except that.” He knelt beside the bed. “Chastity, Sweetheart. I did what I thought was best for the children.”

“You did what you thought was best for Reed Gilbride. You dislike children, you said so, and you wanted to be rid of them. Congratulations, you succeeded. Did you write the note the first morning? When did you send it? The day you came back with Leonardo? And I thought you a caring man.”

“That I disliked children is true, though ours—”

“Mine.”

“Your children are special. And my motives might once have been true. But the truth is that the brigands—pardon—the darlings, have nudged their rowdy way into my heart. Don’t look so surprised. No one is more so than I.”

“You have no heart.”

“As you wish. Are you all right? Can I get you anything?”

She looked as if he had sprouted horns and a tail. “You can get my babies back.”

“They are not gone, and they are not yours, damn it.”

She moved to look at him. “I love them.”

Reed shoved a hand through his hair in frustration over his inability to erase the pain he caused. “As they love you.” He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to take her hand, but she would not allow it. “Chastity, you’re a wonderful mother. I had no idea such love existed, until I saw you with them. Children without parents will benefit from your home, but not ones with parents.”

“If I have a children’s home.”

“You will. You are one determined woman and you deserve your dream. Sennett is clay in your hands; he’s not going to stop you. I’m trying to say you’ll have children.”

Chastity shoved him off the bed and rose. “Damn you to hell, Reed Gilbride. We are not speaking of replacing the curtains. They are people. Abandoned, helpless.”

“Never helpless.”

She almost smiled. “Their names are Matt, Mark, Luke and Rebekah, and they need me. I would have loved them until the moment I turned them over to their parents.” She bit a trembling lip. “Reed, I’m so frightened they’ll end up in that horrid workhouse.”

If his heart was breaking, hers must be shattered. “I promise you, I’ll make those men see that the children need to stay with you, until their parents are found.”

She turned away from him once more. “Thank you.”

He placed his hands on her shoulders, ignored her attempt to shrug him away and turned her to face him. He kissed her forehead, inhaled roses and rain, and knew he loved her more than life. “I am so bloody sorry,” he whispered before he left.

After two days, Chastity wondered where Reed had been sleeping, but suspected he was with the boys. Though she was beginning to feel as if she might be allowed to keep the children, she wasn’t of a mind as yet to forgive him.

Mr. Sennett was on his way. He promised in a note that it would be no problem to draw up papers so she could keep the children until their parents were found.

Chastity harvested a handful of beans while Rebekah and Luke played nearby. Mark was giving the poor missionaries a tour of the garden, expounding on the importance of manure, a perfect recitation of Reed’s gardening lesson.

The Reverends were kind souls who simply could not abide children, but would deny it till doomsday, while Reed had spelled it right out. You always knew where you stood with Reed—one of the reasons she loved him, despite everything.

Matt helped her in the garden. He would be a good and gentle man someday. She hoped she would be somewhere nearby to see it. Perhaps his parents would allow her to visit on occasion.

“Chastity.” Reed stopped beside her “The Digger sent me a note. He says he has information about my birth that he cannot keep secret any longer. I’m going to meet him at the Sunnyledge chapel.”

“Be careful. You know what happened the last time.”

He turned back. “I’ll take that to mean you care.”

She plucked a handful of weeds and threw them at him. “Go on, get attacked by an angel. See if I care.”

He threw the weeds back. “Promise to nurse me back to health, and give in to your inclinations along the way, and I’ll throw myself beneath the first angel I find.”

Matt watched Reed go. “I think he loves you.”

“Careful, Matt, or I’ll make you eat mouse’s tails and hedgehog toes. And, no, I do not know how to cook them.”

“That’s all right. Reed will teach you.”

“Rude child.”

“I love you, Kitty.”

“Oh.” Her heart swelled and she made a sound that was part hiccup, part sob, as he hugged her. “I love you too, Matt.”

“Look,” he said. “Reed tossed his note with the weeds.”

“I don’t suppose he needs it, anyway.” Chastity frowned at the scrawl. “Matt. This handwriting, it’s—” She rose and ran toward the house.

It occurred suddenly to Reed that he owned the bloody chapel. A house of worship, a haven for prayer and peace—an accursed tomb that gave him the shuddering fidgets. He was glad he was giving it to Chastity, not that he would, if he really thought it was dangerous. If he were keeping it, though, he would put in more windows, separate his dead ancestors—gruesome thought—from the area for the living.

He stopped to regard the gothic structure. If not for its history and architecture, he’d raze the thing.

A covey of doves flew from the belfry as he watched.

“Duncan,” Reed called going in, but no one answered. He stepped inside and allowed his eyes to adjust to the light, or rather the lack thereof. “Are you here, old man?”

Not Duncan, but an old woman, veiled in black and weeping, knelt at the foot of his father’s tomb.

Reed wished he had brought a weapon, then wondered if he was daft, looking to protect himself from an old woman. He tried for sanity, but that was unlikely; her very scent turned his stomach. What the devil?

She wiped her tears with the corner of her veil as Reed moved closer. She was speaking to his father, calling him Edward, using the words of a lover, reserved for dark of night. Embarrassed, apprehensive, Reed turned to leave.

“Do not go, son.”

Son? Reed could barely discern her features, obscured by her veil as they were, but her face seemed ashen. “I was speaking to your father,” she said. “I remember the night you were conceived. He made such beautiful love to me that night, then we awaited your birth together.”

The hair rose on Reed’s arms and the back of his neck.

“I waited for you to return, you and your twin. Then I heard you say your brother was dead. I’ve been mourning his loss for days. How could fate be so cruel?”

Reed shuddered. He and Chastity had just made love in the library when they discussed William’s death—the death of his only brother.

“You’re as lusty as your father, do you know that?”

Reed closed his eyes, bile rising in his throat. He had not felt this ill and degraded since— This was the crone who stood over him in his nightmares, no figment of a fevered imagination, but flesh and blood, and pure evil.

“Your father should have married me,” she shouted, “but he lied to me and married your mother, instead.”

Reed released his breath. She was not his mother. Thank God.

“I was good enough to be his mistress, but never his wife. You should have been mine!” She slapped his father’s tomb to emphasize each word.

But he was not, praise be.

“I brought you back so you and your twin could follow your father and the bitch he married to hell. I expected you to fight to the death for your father’s title and wealth, but dreams die hard.” Her sigh turned to a hiss. “You’re weak like her. She did not even have the pluck to survive your birth.” Her voice rose with agitation. “Damn her to hell for eternity. And you too, Reed St. Yves.”

Her knife came from nowhere.

Surprise kept Reed rooted.

He dove behind a pew as she raised her arm to strike, but the knife glanced off his shoulder and fell beside him. The warmth of blood spread with his pain.

All was silent. He heard not a breath. When he glanced over, the crone had turned back to his father’s tomb. She spoke of bringing their family together, again.

Chastity stepped from behind the pulpit.

Reed’s heart near-stopped as she approached the crone.

“No!” he shouted as he stood.

Chastity shook her head. “Trust me,” her look said.

What choice did he have? But he now had her knife, which he would use, if he must, to protect Chastity.

“Thea, dear,” Chastity said, her voice gentle. “The children want you to come and play with them.”

Thea? It could not be.

The crone slid her veil off, straightened her spine and the years seemed to drop away from her. Yes, Thea. She opened her arms to embrace Chastity, and Reed shuddered to see Chastity wrapped in evil.

“Where are my pets?” Thea asked.

This evil had lived with them. It seemed more than possible that she caused his accidents as well.

The Reverends Hill and Perkins came up behind Chastity. “Guess you didn’t need us, after all,” one said.

Thea rushed them. “Papa! Clive!” She kissed them, growing younger still. “You’ve come back.” She took the shorter one by the hand and led him over. “I did it Clive, I righted your wrong. I brought Edward’s son back.”

Reed felt light-headed—probably the loss of blood. He had no choice but to sit.

Thea thought the missionaries were her father and brother. It made sense, in a way. They were dressed like men of the cloth . . . God’s men. St. Yves took God’s man’s sister . . . Thea....

“Sit, dear,” Reverend Hill said. “And tell everyone what you did. I want them to know about your sacrifice. And please introduce me, for I do not know everyone.”

With the manners of an aristocrat, Thea introduced Reed and Chastity to her Dear Papa and her brother Clive, both Vicars.

“Thank you, dear,” Reverend Hill said. “Now tell us everything, please. From the beginning.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Reed could not have moved for the world as she revealed the details of his beginning. How many people re-lived the first horrific moments of their lives? How many can see so clearly into the souls of men writhing in hell?

But Thea did not end her tale with his birth and rescue. “I heard a babe cry that night,” she said, “and thought it an omen. If I bore Edward a living son, he would marry me.” She laughed until she wept, and they waited until she recovered. “I bore him four stillborn sons, before I knew he would never marry me. Then I began lacing his wine with Oleander. If the St. Yves line did not continue through me, I would see its end.”

Thea looked up, as if surprised to see them, especially Reverend Hill. She examined the chapel and shook her head. “You’re not dead, Clive? Was it just a dream?”

Reed wanted to roar with fury, to gather Chastity and the children and hold them close. Her Vicar-brother’s interference was horrendous, outrageous. He had his revenge on Barrington, but he scarred and destroyed many other lives in the process, including his own sister’s.

Reed’s life was altered, too, but he might never have met Chastity and the children, otherwise. Put in that light, perhaps the Vicar’s act had been predestined.

Thea’s look centered on him, again. “You there.” She pointed at him. “Your twin did not live for our reunion. Soon you will join him.”

The missionaries increased their hold on her. “I still have arrows left,” she said on a demented laugh.

Chastity’s gasp caught her attention, and the madwoman wailed. “She nursed him back to health! It wasn’t my fault, Clive. I’m sorry I disappointed you, Papa. I try so hard to be what you expect.”

As the clerics gave Thea their forgiveness, Chastity took Reed’s hand, but Thea focused on him again, and he shuddered at the evil that had visited him in the night.

“I tried to end the line before you were born, but your mother would eat nothing from my hand. I thought she was starving, until I found her milking a cow in the middle of the night. She told me she would protect her child, until she breathed her last.”

Thea laughed. “That’s when I had Edward put her in the tower. She was too weak to take all those stairs. But the bitch bore you, anyway. She even bested me from the grave, protecting you in her tomb, the way she protected you in her womb when I sent the angel for you.”

Thea looked about and began to weep. “Poor, sweet angel broke her wing.”

Reed felt the salty warmth of his own tears. The mother he had hated, gave her life for his. He looked over at her final resting place and opened himself to a mother’s love for the first time.

The children came timidly in, silent, worried.

Thea screeched and struggled in the Reverend’s hold. “Those brats stole the poisoned food and let it rot!”

Poisoned? Food he had nearly made them eat.

Reed heard a roaring in his head. When he opened his eyes, Chastity was leaning over him, squeezing his hand, and the Reverend Hill was applying pressure to the wound on his shoulder. “Lost a lot of blood,” he said.

Reed allowed them to help him sit, the children hovering. He urged them over. “I am so sorry,” he said. “So bloody sorry about the food. You do not have to forgive me, because I will never forgive myself.”

“We forgive you,” Matt said. “You taught us good that day.” Matt tried to laugh but his gaze was pinned on Reed’s wound. “Chastity that blood’s kind of making me sick.”

“Me too,” Reed said, ruffling Matt’s hair.

Thea was escorted from the chapel by Reverend Perkins. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Your work here is finished, daughter. You’ve made your Papa proud.”

Thea looked around. “You too Clive? Are you proud?”

“Very,” Hill said, his voice cracking. “You’ve been a good sister and now you deserve to rest.”

“Edward was not nice to me, Papa.”

Reed almost wished he had never gotten Thea’s letter. He might think this the worst experience of his life, but for the joy of his life weeping into his shirt. She and her brigands were the best gift ever, even if he must give them up. “Shh, love, everything is all right now,” he told her.

“Is Kitty all right?” Luke asked.

“She’s fine. She’s just worried because I’m hurt.”

“No,” she wailed, “that’s not it.”

“You’re not worried about me?”

“I am, but— You do not understand. The Vicar played God. He rescued you and ruined you.”

“But I’m fine now.”

“Do you not see?” she said. “His actions were the same as mine.”

“What?”

“As my rescue of the children.”

When they got back to the house, Mr. Sennett was waiting, wide-eyed and silent as they filed in, two clerics with a weeping woman between them, Chastity holding a blood-soaked cloth to Reed’s shoulder. The children’s grisly, disjointed, and sometimes erroneous, explanation turned the solicitor white.

Thea was made comfortable and locked in her room. The missionaries would take turns sitting with her. Only they could calm her. Tomorrow, she would be brought to the magistrate.

Everyone else adjourned to the library.

While Chastity cleaned and bandaged his shoulder, Reed recounted for Sennett Thea’s bizarre chronicle of his birth, including her Vicar brother’s deathbed confession, telling him that Thea had written the notes that brought Reed and Chastity to Sunnyledge.

“Did you realize, Reed?” Chastity said. “That you tossed me Duncan’s note with the weeds?”

“That’s how Kitty knew you were in danger,” Matt said. “The handwriting. She compared it to Thea’s notes and a dead thing—”

“Your mother’s death certificate,” Chastity explained. “The word alleluia is written across it in the same hand.”

“Kitty said, then, that your accidents were not accidents, after all.”

“I knew you were in danger, and the Reverends agreed to help, thank God.” Chastity cast a jaundiced eye on the children. “Our brigands, however, disobeyed my orders to wait in the house.”

Reverend Perkins cleared his throat, and placed his hands behind his back. “The woman’s machinations, though for the worst reasons, seem to have been providential.” He nodded at Reed and Chastity. “You’d never have found each other and the children, otherwise. You’ve obviously become close, else you’d not have worked so hard to make Hill and I dread the thought of taking your brigands.”

Reed was stunned. Sennett laughed. Chastity’s smile was forced.

“Mr. Sennett,” Reed said. “Chastity is convinced you’ll stop her from opening a home for children.”

“I might,” he said. “She’s wise to be concerned. I cannot abide a breach of rules, which she knows.”

“I’ll just go check on our guest, shall I?” Reverend Perkins said, making his way to the door.

“No wait, please,” Chastity said. “I’ve come to a decision. Pray, hear me out.” She gazed at each child with love. “I learned today that interfering in someone’s life, no matter the reason, even if it appears just, can destroy lives, cause turmoil and upheaval.”

She turned to Reed. “In your case, as in the case of your brother, my husband, your lives were altered to such an extent as to make me weep. The Vicar should have left you with your father.”

“Edward St. Yves was cruel and heartless,” Reed said. “He abused the woman who loved him, twisted and tormented her mind. You would have condemned me and William to that?”

Taken aback, Chastity, nevertheless, persevered. “No one has a right to play God.” She turned to her benefactor. “Mr. Sennett, you were right. There is never cause to breach the rules. I am sorry to have disappointed you.”

The solicitor nodded, but said nothing.

Chastity addressed the prelate. “Good Reverend, t’would be best for the children to await their parents with the Missionary Society. I give them into your keeping.”

“T’would be best for them to be loved!” Reed shouted.

Matt launched himself at Chastity. “Don’t send us away, Kitty. Please, don’t.”

She stroked his hair and held him close, her eyes closed, tears coursing down her cheeks.

“Please keep us, Kitty.”

Mark tugged on Matt’s arm. “Don’t be such a baby, Matt. Come on. We don’t need her. We don’t need anybody.”

Luke took Bekah’s hand and came to Reed, which humbled him. Luke’s arms, as they came around him, and Bekah’s about his neck, as he picked her up, brought such a rush of love, Reed feared his knees would buckle.

Matt swallowed convulsively. “You still want us, don’t you, Kitty?”

“Baby!” Mark yelled.

“Of course I want you. I love you. But I was wrong, Matt. Taking you was wrong.”

“You tried to take us the right way, but the Beadle wanted you to do bad things. I heard him. You wouldn’t have needed to take us if he wasn’t low as Lucifer.” Matt regarded Sennett. “Mr. Sennett knows; I told him.”

Chastity took Matt by the shoulders. “But your parents, Matt. You should be in London waiting for them when they come home.”

Matt pulled away and looked at his brothers and sister. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Mum and Da are not comin’ home. Never.”

“Liar!” Mark shouted. “Take that back.” He threw Matt to the ground.

Reed gave Bekah and Luke over to Chastity. Having once been so inwardly wounded, he knew Matt and Mark needed to beat the tar out of each other, to feel pain and inflict it. But Chastity’s demands that he put a stop to the fracas won out and he pulled them apart.

Matt sported a bloody nose, and though Mark took the worst of the beating, his angry shell remained intact.

“They died,” Matt told Chastity, “both of them. I got the letter upstairs. It came to Aunt Anna and she gave it to me.” He looked at his brothers and sister. “Mum got the fever nursing Da. I didn’t want you to be sad, so I didn’t tell you. Then Aunt Anna died and you had more reason to be sad, so I still didn’t tell you.”

He turned back to Chastity. “Then you found us in Aunt Anna’s cellar, Kitty, and I was afraid you wouldn’t want us, if you knew we needed keeping ‘till we’re grown. It’s gonna be a long time ‘till, you know,‘specially for Bekah. But,” He wiped his bloody nose on his sleeve, “she talks and laughs now and all, so we know she’s happy and—” He threw himself at Chastity and started to cry. “Bekah needs you, Kitty. She needs you, bad.”

“Me too,” Luke said, worming his way into her embrace.”

“Need Weed, too,” Bekah said, regarding him from under her lashes.

Reed’s heart broke. If Chastity didn’t say something soon, he was going to sit right down and bawl with them.

Everyone turned to Mr. Sennett who blustered and sniffed. “No other aunts, uncles, grandparents?” he asked the children.

Matt shook his head and his siblings followed suit.

Mr. Sennett cleared his throat. “Matthew will please give me his letter,” he said, “and I will do the paperwork, and follow the proper channels.” He regarded the children. “My recommendation will not be questioned. If Chastity wants you, you’re hers ‘till you’re grown.”

Chastity stifled a sob. “I want you,” she shouted. “I would not give you up for anything. I love you, and . . . I need you to love me back.”

“Sniveling babies,” Mark shouted. “Keep those sissies, if you want, but I’m leaving first chance I get.”

Chastity and Reed talked through the night, but every conversation ended the same way. If he stayed, they’d be breaking the law, breaking rules, teaching the children the wrong lessons. He loved her. She loved him. No doubt, no qualifications. He wanted Matt, Mark, Luke and Rebekah. He wanted her. He wanted them to have children together.

She wept. So did he. He could not flout the law and marry her; he could not live with her and not touch her.

It could not be. They could never be.

They made tender, incredible, exquisite love, then held each other, wakeful, sorrowful, through the longest night of their lives.

The next morning, Chastity and the children stood in a row beside Sennett’s carriage. Reed was leaving with him. “You’re the man in the family, Matt,” Reed said. “You have to keep them out of trouble. No more pilfering, mind. Make sure Luke doesn’t build an ark or something. If you discover two of every animal missing, you find that boy.”

Matt’s smile wobbled. “Yes, Sir.” He threw himself at Reed, who held tight for a minute, firmed his stance, shivered, disentangled himself, and stepped before Mark.

“I don’t need you,” Mark said.

“Then you’re the lucky one, because I need you.”

But Mark turned and walked away.

Reed moved to Luke whose sobs had been consistent since they stepped from the house. “Don’t go.”

Reed knelt, closed his eyes and held the scamp. “The lot of us have broken enough rules and laws to last a lifetime, son. There is just no more room on our list of accounts for even one more breach. Someday you’ll understand.” He pulled back and looked Luke in the eye. “I’m giving you my most important job.”

“What?”

“Braid Bekah’s hair every morning for me, will you?”

“Weed?” Her arms were open and he fell in, getting squeezed so tight, Chastity felt the pressure closing her throat. “Love you,” Bekah said, as if she understood there was nothing more that could be said.

“’Till the day I die,” Reed whispered, clearing his throat, handing her to Chastity, looking now into glistening violet eyes. “’Till the day I die.”

Then he was sitting beside Sennett and the carriage was moving.

Chastity’s heart raced; it withered. She and the children stood unmoving long after the carriage disappeared. Not until she realized that the moisture on her face was rain did she see that the sun had gone with the morning.

* * *

Reed had been gone for days. The children ate little. Nothing seemed to cheer them. Chastity rose to clear off the table. Bekah and Luke helped. Mark and Matt sat beside Zeke’s box petting her babies. Where was Luke?

“Luke?” There was no reason to panic. Thea had left with the missionaries. Chastity went to the bottom of the stairs. “Luke, where are you?”

“Here I am.” His gallop down the stairs matched the beat of her heart, but she was too relieved to be angry. “Kitty, these letters are for you. You were too excited to listen before, but—”

“Letters? Where did you find them?”

“‘Member the papers with the books? When we were cleaning Thea’s mess?”

“Your mess, you mean.”

He nodded. “I tried to tell you, this one’s from that Abbey you told us about, where you grew up. I thought it might make you happy again.”

Chastity knelt down. “Ah, Sweetheart. You make me happy, you and your brothers and sister.” She put the letters in her pocket, until she sat with them in the library, that night. The one already open was from Mr. Sennett. It contained a draft for her allowance and announced that he was arriving the day he found Reed with his pants down.

Chastity thrust sorrow aside for after the children were asleep. She wondered why Thea had stolen her correspondence. Did she want Mr. Sennett to catch them unaware and demand they have a chaperone? How long had she been watching and manipulating them?

Mother Superior’s letter made Chastity think someone might have died, so she opened it with trepidation.

My dear Chastity. I write in response to your disquieting letter. There is so much to address, I hardly know where to begin.

Chastity relaxed. Everyone was fine. Though it hardly mattered now, she read on.

Please accept my condolences on William’s passing. He has surely gained everlasting reward. But, my dear, I find it disturbing that so little time has passed since his death. Too little for you to have found an all-consuming love. Yet if, as you say, you loved William only as a friend, then I must understand, for William was, as you know, my own friend.

Does love acquit abandon? you ask. Since this is a question I thought never to have put to me, I found it necessary to consider my answer thoughtfully.

It is good and right for a woman to love one man, heart and body, when he is the man intended as her mate, within the sanctity of marriage.

Chastity’s face warmed for the love she and Reed had shared without the benefit of marriage. Yet it was all they would ever have, and she would not change it for anything.

William, we both knew, was a man and a doctor of integrity. He further proved this with his determination to travel to England to right a wrong, which he intended to explain to you during your journey. He carried with him, he said, papers that must be given to the St. Yves solicitor, without delay.

Chastity rubbed a sweaty palm on her skirt. William had wanted to talk to her about something important. He’d tried several times, but she was afraid it had to do with his turning from her, so she kept him from speaking. Now she could barely hold the letter steady to read it.

The injustice William wanted to correct was committed by his mother. In order to receive money under false pretenses, the woman passed William off as a child who’d been given into her keeping, but died days before William’s birth. In his medical bag you should find—

Chastity dropped the letter and ran for William’s bag.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Every soul in the Green Dragon Inn seemed to be sound asleep. “Uh, Kitty, this is scary, like the workhouse that night, ‘cept we’re breaking in, instead of out.”

“Hush, Luke.”

“This is stupid,” Mark said, hugging Zeke, regarding the tree branch on which his older brother precariously perched. “What are we doing here, anyway? It’s the middle of the night.”

“That’s why I said it reminds me of—”

“Hush, Luke. It’s a surprise, Mark.”

Mark snorted. “Some surprise.”

“Can you get the window open, Matt?”

“Not yet, Kitty, but, that’s Reed, sleepin’ in there. I’m sure of it.”

“Does he sound kind’a’like a hungry bull?” Luke asked.

Matt chuckled. “That’s how I know it’s him.”

Chastity’s heart sped and fluttered. Reed Gilbride St. Yves, the Earl of Barrington, was her destiny, even if he did snore like a ravening bull.

The children loved him as much as she did, and they might all be together soon—if he wanted them and they didn’t get pinched first—if Matt ever got the window open. “Perhaps we should wake the innkeeper, after all,” she said.

“Got it!” The window opened with a squealing screech.

“Mark, is that Zeke? How did you manage to bring her without my knowledge? Where are her babies?”

“Sleepin’ in the back of the wagon.”

“Honestly,” Chastity said. “Go on up. Watch that branch. Now climb in and stay quiet. Your turn, Luke. Got your horn? Good. Bekah, are you sure you can climb— That was fast.”

Chastity hauled herself up the tree as well. Her grin so wide, she could hardly contain it, as she slipped into the room where Reed slept.

She examined the figure in the bed with longing, and barely kept from throwing herself at him.

The children muffled their giggles at his snoring.

“All right, my loves,” she whispered. “Go to it.”

Matt bound Reed’s ankles and wrists, and Mark made to pull down his blankets.”

“Wait!” Chastity caught his arm. “Best not.”

Matt chuckled. “Definitely best.”

Bekah stood watching him sleep, with so much love in her expression, Chastity might have wept, if she wasn’t so happy. “All set?” she whispered, wondering who among them was more excited, her or the children. “Ready, attack.”

Bekah climbed on Reed’s chest and plucked at his chest-hair, Matt tickled his feet, and Luke’s tickle-bug got hold of an ear. Chastity couldn’t keep herself from touching his hand. Then Mark made a snort of disgust, and Luke blew his horn. WARRONNNK.

Before Reed opened his eyes, a sense of having lived this moment before, hit him. Confusion disarmed him. He tried to shake the cobwebs from his brain. “Damnation!” he said as he tried to rise from the bed, but fell to the floor.

WARRONNNK.

He sat up stunned, silent, until his eyes adjusted to the darkness. “Oh, no. Oh, God. Either this is a nightmare or the best of dreams. My ankles,” he said on a laugh. “The brigands have bound me, wrists and ankles,” but they were untying him and hugging him even as he spoke.

Then he saw Chastity, the light of dawn behind her. “The best dream, ever.”

“We came,” Chastity said. “To rescue you.”

His laugh was pained as she knelt on the floor beside him. “We want you to marry us.”

“No!” Mark shouted.

“I’ll marry you,” said a man rising from an easy chair. Had he been there all along? “I need a wife. Yesterday, if not sooner.”

Reed chuckled. “Not this one. Chastity, this is Ashford Blackburne, Earl of Blackburne, Ash to his friends, a fellow rogue and former member of the Guards. We fought together at Waterloo.”

“And drank half the night away,” Ash said.

Reed nodded. “He just arrived last night. We commiserated over a few drinks, and he fell asleep in the chair.”

“Nice to meet you,” Chastity said, wondering if all the rogues were as handsome as these two.

“I’ll play you for her,” Ash said.  “Winner gets . . . Chastity did you say?”

“You’d play your granny for her last farthing. No,” Reed said. “No dice.”

“I have dice.”

“Forget it, Ash. I mean it. If I cannot have her, neither can you.”

“Hey, Reed’s wearing britches,” Luke said.

“Because I spent the better part of the night wide awake, telling myself that I could live without you all.”

“And telling me that he could not,” Ash said. “He’s been miserable. It’s true. He’s a morose drunk.”

Reed ignored Ash and concentrated on Chastity. “When I left you, I thought I’d go mad. For the love of God, what are we to do?” He helped her from the floor and took her into his arms. “If we had not vowed to obey the law— “ He spotted the open window. “Did you break in?”

Chastity laughed. “We break in, we break out. We’re the brigands of Sunnyledge.”

The boys began to sing the words, until a rap at the door hushed them.

Ash opened it to Mr. Sennett, in cap and nightshirt. “Noise fit to wake the— Kitty? Children?”

“Mr. Sennett? What are you doing here?” Chastity asked. “‘Twas your maid told me where to find Reed, but she did not say you were together.”

“Reed insisted we look into that foolish law,” Sennett said, “to see if we could break—”

Chastity laughed and waltzed the rotund solicitor, cap tassel bobbing, around the room. “I haven’t lost my wits,” she said, noting the bemused looks on all three men. “But I have the answer.” She produced William’s documents with a flourish and presented them to Mr. Sennett, along with the Superior’s letter. “Here.”

While Mr. Sennett perused William’s birth record, and Reed’s twin’s death certificate, Chastity stepped into Reed’s arms. “I am not your sister-in-law,” she said, and kissed him. “Now you have to marry us.”

“Devil take it,” Ash said. “I suppose I’ll have to find my own bride, now.”

“I’ll be dashed,” Sennett said.

“Are we free to marry?” Reed asked.

“You are, my boy.”

Reed regarded the children. “I’d like your permission to marry Chastity and make you my children, to care for and reprimand and tickle and love.”

“Yes!” came Luke’s response, echoed by Bekah and Matt.

“I don’t need you,” Mark shouted. “I don’t need anybody. I mean it. I’m going.” When no one made a move to stop him, Mark raced out the door.

“I know exactly how the lad feels,” Ash said.

Reed chased Mark out and to the back of the inn, where he found the boy sitting against a woodpile, Zeke in a stranglehold, his face against her fur.

Reed felt his chest constrict at the memory of himself in such a state and at so young an age. If he did not help Mark now, the boy would become so mired in apathy, he’d deny love for the rest of his life. Not everyone is lucky enough to find a woman who can wring love from an iced-over heart.

Reed sat on the ground beside Mark and dredged up some of his most painful childhood memories to illustrate the way he had kept from being hurt.

After a while, Mark raised his head.

“If you do not accept love,” Reed said. “There’s no pain when it’s taken away, which you know will happen.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Your father left. That was a pretty awful thing to do, leave his family like that.”

“My father was a good man.”

“Yes, I think he was, which you need to remember, so you can stop being angry at him for dying. His life is gone, not his love.”

Mark shrugged but with less of an edge to the movement. “Da went to bring God to the heathens. We should be proud. He wasn’t s’posed to go forever.”

“He left you with your mother, but then she left you.”

“She said Da would die if she didn’t. She didn’t want to leave; I could tell. She cried.” Mark turned away and wiped his face with an angry fist. “She cried like when baby John died.”

“Then Aunt Anna left you.”

“Matt took good care of us, we don’t need anybody else.”

“Matt did a wonderful job of caring for you all, but Chastity did a better job.”

Mark thought about it. “I didn’t think she would come for us at the workhouse.”

“But she did.”

“It was her fault we were there! She could’a taken us right off, but she marched us to that hairy old Beadle.”

Reed coughed. “Chastity loves you.”

“Yeah, so what?”

“I love you.”

“Shut up! Shut up, you bastard.” Mark jumped up, sending Zeke scurrying. “You hate us. You hate all children. You wrote that letter to get rid of us. You wanted to send us away, so you would have Chastity to yourself. You hurt her and I’ll kill you. I will.”

Reed should have expected the blow, but he did not, and he got his jaw cracked. He protected his face after that, and certain parts to which Mark’s boots came perilously close. But for the most part he allowed the boy to beat the devil out of him.

“I hate you!” Mark shouted.

For every avowal of hate, Reed offered one of love. “I love you. Chastity loves you.” He named Matt and Luke, and Rebekah. Reed even told him that Mr. Sennett loved him, but Mark was persistent in lashing out.

“I want to be your father.”

The boy stopped, fists poised, breath coming hard.

“I know exactly how you feel,” Reed said. “‘I don’t need anyone’ were the words I lived by, until Chastity fell off a shed roof and landed on her bottom at my feet.”

Mark nearly smiled.

“I love you all,” Reed said. “You’re right about love hurting, but it can be better than great, if you let it. And, if you’re lucky and work at it, the hurt part is small compared to the joy. I’d venture to guess that with Chastity caring for us, we’ll be very lucky. I haven’t always known it, mind. I learned it recently. Chastity taught me, in the way she taught you. Admit it.”

Mark said nothing.

“Everybody needs love, Mark. I need it so much, I want Chastity to marry me. I want to adopt your brothers and sister. And you, especially you, because you’re so much like me, I have this need inside to teach you there’s good in the world while you’re young enough to have a childhood. I want you as my son, Mark. Chastity does too.”

Mark remained quiet, his tears hovering.

“You can hate me until you’re a man grown,” Reed said, “but I’ll never stop loving you.”

Mark threw himself against Reed’s legs, almost knocking him over, his sobs soul-deep and wrenching. Reed knelt to embrace the boy, and they stayed that way for a time, silent and holding on.

“You’re going to think I’m out of my mind,” Reed said after a while. “But not only do I want a woman who can’t cook a bean, and a flock of raggle-taggle street brats who’d steal a man’s pants right out from under his, ah, nose, I want more children.”

Mark pulled away in surprise.

“I know,” Reed said, shaking his head. “I must be sick or something. But I want children with Chastity, and any others she brings home that need keeping till they’re grown. I even want to keep Zeke—we have got to find that rabbit another name—and her babies. Where are her babies?”

“In the wagon.”

“Ah. Will you have me as your father?”

“You had better find him a mother first.” Chastity stood at the corner of the shed by the wood pile, Luke and Matt beside her, Bekah in Mr. Sennett’s arms.

“I do not suppose you’re applying for the position?”

“I do not suppose you’re proposing?”

Reed reached her and snatched her against him, bending her over his arm in a mockery of a romantic embrace. “I do not suppose you’re accepting?”

“What was the question?”

He let her up, took her hands, and kissed them. “Will sweet Chastity Somers marry Reed Gilbride St. Yves, and become parents to Matt, Mark, Luke, and Rebekah . . . and any others who come along . . . one way or another?”

WARRONNNK!

“Perfect timing, Luke.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” said sweet Chastity Somers.

EPILOGUE

May 1818

“You can blow your horn now,” Reed told Luke as he entered the nursery playroom where the children waited, with anything but patience.

WARRONNNK!

Gathered round a horde of worn tin soldiers stood Matt, Mark, Luke and Bekah with their brothers Harry and Sidney. Sidney’s mother died at his birth a year before. Four-year-old Harry was brought to them when his only living relative perished in a mill accident.

Two-year-old Brenna clung to Luke’s hand. They’d fetched her in response to a note from her nurse who’d kept her since her parents died. The old woman lived just long enough to hand the mite over and tell them her name.

Clarice, clinging to Brenna, had been born at the workhouse the week Chastity worked there planning her fateful rescue.

They’d gone for Clarice the day they married. Ash took them in his carriage that very morning, procured a special license, and witnessed their wedding, complaining all the while that he should be the groom.

Then nothing should be done but Chastity must return to the Quay Street Workhouse on their way home, to rescue the babe she had wanted to take in the first place, and give the administrators a piece of her mind.

Reed gazed from one sweet, tiny face to the next.

What cared he about a band of raggle-taggle street brats? Oh God. He loved them. He sat in the nursery rocker, while his eight—God help him—older children gathered round, faces wide with awe to view the newest additions to their household. Giggles erupted when one of his bundles gave an abbreviated wail. What a delightful sound.

“Two of ‘em?” asked Luke.

Reed nodded thinking he just might pop his buttons with the pride swelling his chest. “Twins, like me and my brother,” though these would never be separated.

Mark indicated them with his chin. “Boys, right.”

Reed cleared his throat. “Girls.”

Bekah whooped. “Good thing you like to do braids, Papa. How’s mama?”

“Tired, but happy.”

“Both girls?” Matt asked, back to the original subject, as if a horrible error had been made. “Two girls?”

“Jillian and Meggie, your new sisters.”

“Don’t worry, Matt, we still got more boys than girls,” said Luke. WARRONNNK! “Better get more so we stay ahead.”

Reed groaned.

One of the babies began to wail, then the other.

Reed laughed. Matt joined him, as did the rest of his brood, a contagious, deafening sound amid the babes’ wails.

“Let’s go see Mama.” Reed and the babies led the parade, a cacophony heralding their arrival.

Chastity sat up in bed, supremely content—a love beyond imagining, and ten children. How could she be so lucky? Tears spilled down her cheeks. She could not seem to contain them, so she laughed as she cried.

Sidney and Clarice—her cuddlers—climbed on the bed and burrowed against her.

Matt, Mark, Luke, and Bekah, hugged and kissed her, in turn. Then her unmistakable rogue, her beloved husband, handed a twin each to Bekah and Matt and sat beside her on their bed. He took her hand, raised it to his lips, kissed it, and winked. “Can’t abide the little beggars.”

Chastity touched her rogue’s face as he pulled her close. “I love you,” she whispered, her heart overflowing.

“None of that now,” said Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe, as he entered with his wife Sabrina on his arm. “Mr. Sennett said we should come up,” Gideon added, as Sabrina claimed the babe Matt had been holding. “He’s watching our five.”

Bryceson Wakefield, Duke of Hawksworth, nodded his hello right behind them. “It’s this kissing business that keeps getting us into trouble,” he said, patting the evidence of his wife’s imminent motherhood.

Alex claimed the second babe.

“Meddling rogues,” Reed said with a grin, as he looked into Chastity’s eyes, his dimples winking with his smile, melting her as ever.

“Sabrina kissed the babe she was holding, and squeezed Reed’s shoulder. You went looking for your heritage, and look what you found, besides.”

“Salvation,” Reed said.

“Thank God I did something the least bit . . . uncommon,” Chastity said, “And got caught by a rogue who investigates.”

THE END

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The Rogues Club, Book Four

Untamable Rogue

by

Annette Blair

CHAPTER ONE

London, March, 1818

Ashford Blackburne, Fifth Earl of Blackburne, did not care where he married and planted his seed, as long as he did both before Christmas, when his tyrannical grandfather’s archaic ultimatum ran out.

Awash in the stale scent of incense, aware of a mortifying rigidity in his spine, Ash fixed his gaze upon the claret marble altar before him, and acknowledged, if only to himself, the unlikelihood of his bride’s arrival.

Given his first jilt six years before—due to his lack of funds—Ash thought surely today’s bride would show, for he had paid her well to be here. But her absence proved her as greedy and dishonest as the rest. An actress of some talent—simply regard the way she’d taken his money and run—she might have played the role of loving wife well enough to satisfy even his grandfather’s skeptical eye.

Now he so obviously faced a second jilt that none but a strangled cough dared pierce the weighty silence behind him, only to be trapped in the gothic eaves, like a fluttering ribbon of echoes in an unending wave of mockery.

Ash glanced about, as if for escape, and though his groomsman, Myles Quartermaine, seemed loath to speak, the portly, plum-cheeked cleric stepped timidly forward. “My Lord, I … do believe that your bride—” The parson plucked at his strangling collar. “She must have—” He blotted his brow with a palsied hand and opened his mouth like a fretful fish.

Ash cursed and sent the vested craven scurrying from harm’s way like a crab before the tide while the resonance of his expletive filled the rafters, and the craven turned crimson.

“Devil it, Ash,” Myles whispered. “She has taken your money and run.”

Ash firmed his jaw. At this moment, he’d rather fight another horde of bayonet-wielding Frenchies than face any of his gossip-greedy guests. Nevertheless, he turned to regard the vultures. “There will be no wedding today,” he said, and before the surge of speculation broke, he’d stepped through the vestry arch, twice-jilted and thrice as furious.

The warble-voiced vicar barely offered a blessing before Ash cleared the north nave exit, leaving Myles to the mercy of its ravening jaws.

As the two reached the front of the huge steepled edifice, Hunter Elijah Wylder, Marquess of Wyldborne, another battle-scarred rogue of the club, quitted the church and fell into step beside them.

In a gesture of impotent fury, Ash waved off his coachman and together the three strode down Piccadilly and straight through the rotting portals of McAdams’s Pickled Barrel Inn. There they always ended when dissipation came to mind, and there they sat now to drink and forget the scandalbroth to come.

“McAdams,” Ash shouted. “Your best whisky, and bring the bottle.”

“Bring three,” Myles said.

“Hell, roll the barrel over,” Hunter added.

Larkin McAdams had seen him coming. Him—the man who’d filled her dreams since childhood, foolish, wistful, impossible dreams, he who dominated them since he lifted her from the floor, wiped her tears, kissed her scraped knuckles and called her a brave little lady—the most handsome and forthright being ever created: Ashford bloody-beautiful Blackburne.

If only he were not of the lowest and most feeble-brained of God’s creatures … a man. Practical to a fault, Lark sighed and admitted that for dreaming purposes, Ashford Blackburne’s manliness did not seem so much a failing, as an advantage. His male shortcomings paled in comparison to his masculine strengths, as exhibited by her nightly fancies, in which he played a leading role.

Ashford—as she dared call him in her mind—sat now in his favorite chair at his favorite corner table from which he liked to survey the room at large. And she, on the far side of the enclosed stair-wall behind him, sat on the bottom step, her temple against the rough wall board, as near to him as she dared get without being seen.

If she closed her eyes, she could ignore the stench of ale and tobacco about her and remember the special scent of him that day eleven years before, like the most exotic of spices. And when she did recall it, a yearning for more than she could ever have overtook her.

As always, she fought the pull. Being so near the object of her fancies never failed to rush her blood and pummel her heart with the kind of wild sentiment she hated, yet at this moment, there existed no place on this earth she would rather be.

Her dissatisfaction with life would pale with his departure, she knew, and reality would return, however rude and unpleasant, though her yearnings never seemed to end.

Lark slid to the floor just behind him and stretched her arm as far as she could reach, far enough to touch the hem of his frockcoat, bold unworthy creature that she was, and stroke its fine and fancy cloth between her callused fingers. Too greedy by half and ignoring the risk such abandon wrought, she slid her hand into his pocket, and out as fast, for nobody picked pockets better than she, not even her Da.

She palmed a silver snuffbox with curls that might be letters cut into it, a glove the color of wheat, and a perfumed lady’s calling card. Lark’s jaw set at the sweet, cloying scent of the card, but she brought Ash’s butter-soft kid glove to her face, let the wash of his nearness shiver through her, and forgave him. ‘Twas the spicy scent she remembered from that long-ago day mixed with a strong touch of … lavender, as if he’d crushed a sprig in his gloved hand.

Lark slipped the calling card between the stair treads and watched it disappear from sight with utter satisfaction. Ash was only a man, after all—human, weak, selfish and self-serving, like the rest—but kinder than most, infinitely more honorable, and much, much better on a poor maiden’s eyes.

Lark pushed the remainder of her bounty into her trousers’ pockets and sat in the stairwell so long, her legs cramped. The drinkers, Ash and his two cronies, at first rowdy, then silent, then morose, in turn, called for three more bottles, then three more.

For a while dust motes danced in the slant of daylight piercing the grimy bay window near Lark’s perch, then the light changed direction, lost its brilliance, and disappeared altogether.

Ash stopped swilling whisky long enough to belch and grin, and Lark was glad he was coming out of his sulks. Something must have gone terribly wrong, for Ashford Blackburne could be a rogue of a charmer when the world went his way.

The friend he called Myles caught his mood, winked, and slapped him on the back. “You’re running out of time to get you a bride, old boy.”

Ash clutched his friend’s neck cloth and pulled him strangling close. “No bloody fooling,” Ash said with another belch and another charming grin.

“God’s teeth,” Myles said, pulling from Ash’s hold and loosening his neck cloth. “If you cannot persuade someone to marry you—”

Ash growled at that and Myles reared from harm’s way. “I meant … what the bloody chance do I have, I’d like to know?”

“Not a chance in Hades,” said the third rogue—Hunter, Ash called him—his whiskey-induced grin rather endearing, if also a danger to the female population. “Though I do think your grandfather’s ultimatum is rather absurd, not to mention, damned-near impossible to achieve. At this rate, you’ll never inherit.”

“Stubble it, Hunter,” Myles said to both the personal slight to himself, and the discouraging commentary on Ash’s dubious future.

Hunter shrugged and returned his attention to Ash. “Devilish bit of bad luck, there, getting yourself jilted again.”

Again? Larkin sat straighter, ignoring their banter as it escalated toward disagreement. Jilted? Ashford Blackburne had been left at the altar? More than once?

Were society women daft?

“Does the first count as a real jilt?” Hunter, with his whiskey-grin, put in. “You ran off to fight Boney without a word, after all, and Ellenora was desperate to marry; we all knew that. She could hardly be expected to wait and see if you would survive. Ames was a Duke with a fortune as big as hers, so she would take him.”

Ash leaned over the table, fisted a quick hand, and knocked the sot of a speaker on his arse. “Thank you for the patronizing reminder, but she took the man too bloody fast, if you ask me. She did not even wait two months and that I cannot forgive. Fact is, I’d rather run this pub than be stuck with the fickle likes of either flighty jilt.”

Whoever the women were, they must be lacking in wits, as well as eyesight, to deny their hands in marriage to a handsome rogue like Ashford Blackburne, Lark thought, ignoring the talk of trade and pub profits that ensued.

She would have waited for Ash, however long it took him to return, Lark admitted to herself, no matter the issue of low funds, for Ashford Blackburn would know how to treat a lady. Then again, she did not need much—a cot, a warm blanket, a monthly bath.

“Well now, I don’t feature sellin’ ye me pub, me fine Lord, but I’d sure like a go at playin’ ye for it.”

At her father’s words, and no small shot of panic, the warm haze of Lark’s musings popped. What? What had her Da just said? Rat’s whiskers, she wished she’d been paying attention.

“Name your stakes,” Ash said.

Oh no. Lark sat straighter and peeked around the stair-wall as Ash rubbed his clean, strong hands in glee, the fool. He’d had a great deal too much to drink, if he was thinking of playing her Da for The Pickled Pigsty.

Lark sighed as her father called for Toby, his barman, to bring a “fresh” deck—properly marked, of course. She supposed she should be glad Da hadn’t tried to add her to the pot.

“If ye win, ye get me fine pub,” said her Da, spelling out the terms and entertaining Lark with his wit. No doubt he’d also add his secret recipe for mystery-critter stew, and call it ambrosia. “If ye lose,” he said, shuffling the cards fast enough to make the sots dizzy, “I get a thousand gold guineas. And just so ye don’t go home empty-handed,” he added, generous as a Lord, “I’ll throw in me beautiful daughter for wife, as a consolation.”

Ash gave an inebriated laugh and took another swallow of his whiskey, as Lark rose with a silent screech and made to leap to her own defense … until her father shot out with a right, and liked to blacken her eye.

She hit the floor behind Ash and scampered back to her walled stairwell as he looked up from his drink. “Did you hear that?” Ash asked no one in particular.

“Rats,” said her Da as he dealt the cards. “To keep the cats out.” He shuddered. “Hate the mewling things.”

Lark cupped her throbbing eye and refused to acknowledge the sting. She had once seen her sister on her knees, weeping and groveling at the feet of a bloody cur, and vowed there and then that no man would see tears in Larkin McAdams eyes … especially not Ash, the man who’d once called her brave.

Testing her vision, Lark saw him pointedly regard her father with speculation in his red, drink-dazed eyes.

Myles cleared his throat with authority. “The daughter of an innkeeper is hardly a suitable wife for an Earl, old man.”

No bloody fooling, Lark thought, but her father rose, as if in indignation. “Her mother was the daughter of a duke, I’ll have ye know,” he said in all truth, though he failed to mention that Mum had been born on the wrong side of the blanket.

Ash’s laugh raised Larkin’s hackles in an odd, unsettling way, as if she must prove her worth, when she knew bloody well she had no worth to prove.

“How old is this unexpected blue-blood?”

“Twenty-two come May.”

Ash choked on his drink. “A bit long in the tooth.”

Larkin took offense, wishing she could fight for her aggrieved honor, for no one else would.

“Look at it this way,” Myles said. “Win or lose, your problem is solved.”

“I bleeding well wish he would lose for a change,” Hunter said, retaking his seat and tossing a handful of coins on the scarred oak table. “Might as well throw my blunt in a cesspit.”

Ash regarded his friend Myles with intoxicated bewilderment. “What problem will be solved if I win or lose?”

“If you win the game, you win the pub, so you won’t need a bride or your grandfather’s blunt when you’re turning a profit. If you lose the game, you get the bride you need to fulfill your grandfather’s requirements. Either way, you win.”

Ash seemed to ponder some thorny quandary, and after a stupefied minute, in which Larkin found herself holding her breath for some odd reason, Ash nodded, as if with respect for his friend’s wisdom. Then without thought to the consequences of the shoddy solution, he returned his attention to the cards in his hand—a measure of his whiskey-soaked brain.

Why did a man like Ashford Blackburne not have brides clawing at each other to get him to the altar? Lark wondered.

Though Ash took her father’s “gracious” suggestion to heart, that he “start the bloody betting,” Ash’s brow remained furrowed throughout the better part of the first hand.

“A consolation prize for wife,” Myles repeated, his chuckle harsh in the deep silence. “Lose and you could have a woman with no choice but to marry you.”

Ash cursed and Larkin’s eyes widened, but even as she tried to work up the proper measure of indignation on his behalf, or imagine her hero losing at anything, a rather pleasant lethargy stole over her at the very notion.

Ashford Blackburne for husband … she should be so fortunate.

“Is she a virgin, at least?” her erstwhile hero asked, sending a shaft of fury through Lark, and lowering him mightily in her esteem, partly for the intimate nature of the question, and partly because he attended more to arranging his bloody cards than either her Da’s answer or the cheatin’ glint in her sire’s eyes.

Before he deigned to answer, the guinea her Da tossed into the pot spun and rolled dutifully back into his lap with none the wiser. “Me daughter is as pure and virginal as me Inn’s snow-white bed linen,” said he.

CHAPTER TWO

Two hours later, Larkin knew that Ashford Blackburne, womanizer, spendthrift, card sharp, was as good, or as bad, as his colorful reputation painted him. He was like to win the game, hands-down, despite her father’s treachery, and the knowledge made her sweat.

She had started thinking of little Micah, alone in the country—no mother, save her, God help him, not that she managed to see him above twice a year, if that often.

What would it mean to Micah to be brought up in the home of a wealthy man like Ashford Blackburne?

With growing apprehension, and that thought in mind, Lark watched the game’s every turn through the eyeball-sized hole she had bored between the planks in the stair-wall over the years.

Only two players remained now—her father and Ash. The others had long since fallen into whiskey-induced sleeps, Myles with his head on the table, Hunter curled on the floor—snorting and snoring fit to rattle the rafters, the both of them.

This last hand could decide Micah’s fate, Lark realized. Until today, the boy might have spent his adult life on the streets, at worst, or running the Pickled Barrel Inn, at best, if her father ever relented and acknowledged his grandson’s existence.

At seven, Micah was too young to care which sad future he faced, but Larkin cared. He was a good boy, was Micah, living in a foster home without complaint, asking for nothing save a warm blanket and a daily scrap of bread, but Larkin wanted better for the boy.

The more she considered his wretched prospects, the more she knew that this fool’s game of chance might very well be his single hope for a decent life. If only she could tip the scales….

Her Da rose and went to nudge Toby, none-too-gently, toward the door and Ash lowered his cards to take a left-handed swig of the inferior ale just poured him. The drunker her Da’s customers got, the lower the quality of drink he served, and Ashford Blackburne and his cronies were plenty damned drunk.

Larkin regarded the cards dangling from Ash’s loose grip as something akin to a gift from the gods, and she had never been one to refuse a gift. With Micah’s future in the balance, she reached over and plucked at the fabric of Ash’s right sleeve.

His cards hit the floor and scattered.

While Ash blinked and looked about, as if to identify the sound, Lark replaced his Ace with her father’s two of hearts, the card Da had earlier switched for the Ace up his sleeve.

Lark had originally pocketed the switched card as evidence of her father’s cheat, with a thought to proving her sire’s deception and setting Ash free. That she was now attempting the opposite, Lark considered minor compared to Micah’s needs.

Later— Later, she would fix everything. She would set Ash free, she promised herself, but not until Micah’s future was secure.

When Ash gathered his pickled wits enough to retrieve his cards from the floor, and she knew there was no turning back, panic and remorse rose in Lark, until she reminded herself that her switch was no worse than picking pockets to keep a boy—a babe, really—fed and sheltered. She loved Micah enough to do murder, if she must, so what mattered a little fast and fancy card shuffling in the harsh game of daily survival?

When Ash crowed, Lark cowered and covered her head, certain she was caught and about to be trounced. Prickles raced up her arms and down her legs, but the blow never came. When she raised her head, and looked through the peep hole, all Ash had done, as her father took his seat, was fan his cards on the table with a flourish. “Looks like I win,” said the cocksure Earl, brain addled and smile bright.

At her father’s greedy-eyed behest, Lark watched her toppled hero focus on his “winning” hand with slow-dawning surprise. He scratched his head of dark mahogany, and examined his cards again. “I’ll be damned.”

“Damned or married, same difference,” said her Da slapping his own winning hand onto the table. “Arky!” he bellowed.

When Lark could not move a trembling limb, could not for the life of her believe what she had set in motion, her father’s beefy fist appeared to drag her by the scruff of her neck into the morning light. “Behold yer bride, me lord. Ah and here’s the vicar, as fetched by me good man Toby.”

“Wait just a bloody minute!” Ash rose like a vengeful god, no longer a victim, but the Earl of Blackburne once more. He towered over the group with haughty disdain, and looked ten times more glorious for it, in Larkin’s opinion.

Of a sudden, his alert predator’s eyes, however red-rimmed, were fixed upon her, as if he knew the depth of her deception. Black and furious as thunder, dangerous, Ashford Blackburne looked. Menacing. And more handsome than a racing heart could bear.

Lark told herself she could stop this foolishness now. Ash deserved better than a stinking, street-smart pickpocket for wife, but for the life of her, she could not make her throat work enough to speak the truth and set him free. For Micah’s sake, she dared not.

Ash could not collect his thoughts or gather his scattered wits. He knew he must terminate the twisted jest at once, but could not seem to push an intelligent word past his drink-furred tongue and muzzy brain.

He shook his head again to clear it, and damned near retched, for his stomach had set up a furious roiling since the last tankard he’d drunk, and the taproom dipped almost faster than he could keep his balance to ride it. What had he brought himself to?

McAdams pushed a stinking gutter rat of a stable boy in his general direction, a lad who swore like a sailor, but with a shriek too high to vouch for even the smallest set of ballocks. No….

“Whatever it is, it smells,” Ash said.

It swore as well, he soon learned, and had a spitting aim that could win a trophy.

Ash echoed it’s vulgar profanity and planned to return the favor in the exact same way that he—she?—it had expectorated on his own champagne-bright boots, but he could not bring himself to besmirch the smallest pair of mismatched shoes he had ever beheld.

Whatever “it” was—and Ash was almost certain it was not male—it skewered him with eyes of gold and green bearing as many facets as a gem-cut emerald surrounded by shards of topaz, tiger’s eyes that could see far deeper into a soul than a man cared to allow.

Ash regarded McAdams and attempted to focus him into one unwavering entity. “Who did you say this was?”

“Me daughter. Larkin McAdams. Arky. Yer bride.”

Hunter snorted and grinned like the sot he was. “The Lady Arky.”

Ash squinted in the girl-boy’s direction, wishing his faculties were not quite so pickled, and holding the whiskey responsible for the horrendous sight before him. “A girl? Are you certain?”

Before Ash knew what hit him—and it hit hard—the smelly scrap of humanity the innkeeper called his daughter jumped the table and toppled him, chair and all, to the floor, and proceeded to try and beat him to a bloody pulp.

Hurling guttersnipe invectives at his head, she left him no choice but to give her the lead, while he evaded her every blow, for she was a girl, after all—she’d proved it, flat atop him as she lay—boasting a surprising number of curves in most of the right places.

Before Myles and Hunter managed to rouse themselves from their respective stupors to come to his aid, Ash felt as if she had blackened both his eyes and broken his nose in the bargain. In rising panic, he knew bloody well that she was trying to knee him where it mattered most, all the while cursing like a sailor.

When her knee did hit target, Ash took up her briny chant, himself, stars dancing about his eyelids, stomach churning fit to cast up its accounts, and the knife-pain in his ballocks like to bend him over double.

When Myles and Hunter finally rose to the occasion to focus on his dilemma, the sots found it amusing that he refused to fight, but as a gentleman, what else could he do but try to survive the she-cat’s onslaught? He had been taught never to strike a woman, though this might be the time to begin.

“Get off me, Hellcat, or I’ll turn you over my knee,” Ash said at her ear, and when they held each other at bay, so that neither was able to move, her cat’s eyes boring into the fury in his own gaze, he upped his threat. “Stop now, or I’ll bear your arse before the lot, I swear I will, and spank it crimson just for sport. Do not make the mistake of doubting me, for I am the man who can.”

That made her falter enough for him to get the upper hand, which landed on a firm little bee-sting of a breast, which went a long way toward healing Ash’s manly pride, though it did nothing for his bruised ballocks.

Under something of a struggle to decide which of them won the battle, they tried untangling arms, legs, and sundry parts, while the reeking guttersnipe got in a bit more knee pressure, until Ash tried to match her might with a gentle, but unsatisfying nipple-flick.

Deafened by her screech, nonetheless, and with the help of his two former friends, Ash and the boy-girl rose, the two of them scrapping like gutter rats over sustenance, her face as bright as a bleeding pomegranate.

Separated, finally, Myles and Hunter holding them at bay, Ash tried to compose himself, to straighten his screaming body, his torn and bloody clothes, and get himself the devil out of there, while on the command of the wily innkeeper, and to the sudden cocking of four—count them: four—pistols, a scrawny, gin-sot cleric opened his book and cleared his throat. “Dearly beloved….”

“You need a special license for this kind of thing,” Ash announced with all the haughty disdain he could muster, despite his fight to remain upright with the taproom turning about him.

McAdams laughed. “Hell, I’ve had me one of those for two-year now. Didn’t do me much good, mind. Haven’t shed the baggage yet, but I guess this is me lucky day. A thousand guineas, and her trussed like a goose for the stuffing.”

The innkeeper’s grin revealed his rotting teeth. “I guess me fine Lord, you’ll be the one doing the stuffing,” said the fetid fellow. “But not, mind, ‘til the vows are spoke.”

Ash gave up his scant veneer of refinement. “Bloody hell, I am not going to marry this stinking scrap of rags!” He called himself craven for picking on the weakest of the lot, but hoped the filthy scrapper might have some influence with her sire, if the scoundrel were indeed her father.

Ash supposed the girl had been in on his fleecing from the start, but she might change her tune, if she got a sample of what she could be in for with him.

Despite the fact that one of McAdams’s thick-necked poltroons raised his pistol and cocked it Ash’s way, he dared to clasp the girl’s arm and turn her so as to force her to look directly into his eyes. “I’ll beat you,” he said. “Every day before breakfast.”

Bloody hell. She didn’t believe him. That was when he saw a spark that made him think for all the world of … hope and … redemption, for he glimpsed a shimmer of something amazing in her eyes, yearning perhaps, but for what? To be taken away from all this? And who could blame her for that?

Ash shook himself, and her, physically as well as mentally, and tried again to make eye contact, hoping not to see anything more worthy than he wanted. “Call them off,” he said, more gently than he planned, and sensed the desired effect, not as a result of his threat, but of his tenderness. “Please,” he added.

“Da,” she said, now more than willing to comply, for Ash had unfortunately caught a fast flash of raw, naked fear in her eyes, not when he had acted the beast, oddly enough, but when he had gentled his touch, softened his voice, and pled for mercy.

What ilk of womanhood did brutality strengthen and gentleness disarm? he wondered, but he had no time to consider answers or causes, nor did he wish to, for McAdams’s henchmen were closing in, pistols at the ready.

“Repeat the Vicar’s words, me girl,” the innkeeper ordered, “or me fine Lord won’t need him a bride, but a pine box with a tight lid, and a deep hole in the churchyard dirt.”

Ash watched untold emotions transform that begrimed genderless countenance, made up of a surprisingly aristocratic mix of gull-winged brows, high cheekbones, heart-shaped lips, and a nose upon which he counted three freckles and enough soot to keep a chimney sweep busy for a week.

Regret, he saw ton that promising visage, dreams flaring to life one minute, taking flight the next. Hope and the death of hope. They all came and went in a blink and left behind them nothing save the ashes of regret, sorrow, and a loss the likes of which Ash could not begin to fathom.

While mired in confusion, Ash faltered in his resolve, until one of the innkeeper’s flat-faced toadies stepped nearer still. The barrel of his pistol kissed Ash’s temple and brought a rush of cool sobriety, but the depth of it was nothing to that brought by the cocking of its trigger.

“I, Larkin Rose McAdams,” the guttersnipe said in a rush, then waited for toady to release the trigger, “take Ashford Edward Blackburne, Earl of Blackburne, as my lawfully wedded husband….”

Something in her voice—sweet, melodic, almost reverent—as she said his name, her concern for his safety, and her own name, Larkin Rose, of all the feminine appellations, all seemed to soften Ash’s pickled brain.

How had she known his middle name? Why did he perceive some vague mirrored kinship in the lost-soul depths of her gilded verdant eyes?

“Fine,” Ash said more or less accepting his fate, “but only because I am desperate for a wife.”

His words brought a renewed surge of fury to his grimy bride’s face, and he was forced to fight her to take one of her hands in his, then he found himself looking for something in the way of reassurance in her eyes. But when all he’d previously glimpsed now seemed closed to him, Ash called himself a fool and ran his thumb along her jagged fingernails to root himself to earth.

Her father relaxed, as did his toadies, and Ash knew if they could get away from here alive, married or not, they had choices, a future.

He could scrape the incrustation off her and see what he found beneath. He could get to know her and see what he found inside. And if she turned out to be as dreadful as she appeared, there was always banishment, or at the worst, annulment.

At the improbable best, he had himself a bride he could get with child before Christmas, which would fulfill his grandfather’s requirements and save the estate for his mother. Revenge and repentance at the turn of a card, imagine that. Had he been offered as much when he quitted his botched nuptials earlier, he might have accepted with gratitude.

Prodded and further sobered by a second kiss of the pistol barrel, Ash repeated his own vows with a slur he could not seem to shake and in a discordant voice that echoed as if it belonged to another.

Once the stipulations to grandfather’s will were fulfilled, if he and his bedraggled bride did not suit, he could set her up with a small house and an allowance. Either way, she would live better in the future than she had in the past.

However, if the depth of her hidden need, the sound of her voice, and her willingness to marry him to save him, was any indication of what lay beneath the crust, then perhaps, with some effort on both their parts, they might make a decent night’s work of this, after all.

Likely not, Ash cautioned himself, but devil it, alive they could find a way to make it work. Dead, neither of them had hope at all.

“I now pronounce you man and wife.”

The room swayed again, not so much from drink as shock, Ash feared. “Tell me this is better than being dead,” he begged Myles … and Hunter belched.

CHAPTER THREE

At the finality of the vicar’s pronouncement, Ash and his bride seemed to pale as one, Ash uncertain as to which of them seemed more like to retch.

The cleric placed the parish register before them for their signatures, but McAdams shoved it aside to get Ash’s signature first on his thousand-guinea voucher.

Ash wished his head was not so muzzy or his stomach so unsettled. If he had his wits about him, he might refuse this final step for a chance to think, but the pistols rose again, aimed again, and the thought of getting himself killed, in this intoxicated stomach-sick condition did not sit well with him. He signed the voucher, then the register, vowing to God on High that he would never drink again.

After that was done, and his bride had made her mark—God help him—beside his name, the big-bellied innkeeper slapped his filthy apron, laughed and offered a toast. When his henchmen lowered their weapons to get their share of life’s nectar, Ash’s former friends belatedly relieved the thugs of their weapons. Not that the pistol-wielding poltroons seemed to care any longer, for they seemed more interested in drinking now, than killing, and well, the harm had already been done.

After the parson filled his tankard, McAdams raised his own. “To my daughter,” said he, “the Lady Blackburne.”

Ash groaned and rolled his eyes as Myles and Hunter cocked the pistols they had confiscated—now that the bloody horse had escaped the bloody barn!

McAdams raised a brow at the sound, but he tipped his tankard back for a good long, greedy swallow. At length, when he finished swilling the stuff, and slammed his empty vessel on the table, he swiped his mouth with a grimy sleeve, belched, and nodded at the pistol-wielding pair. “No powder, no balls,” said he with pride. “Empty as me till, those pistols. Worthless as the bloody pair of you.”

Aiming at the ceiling, Hunter tested the revelation only to prove it correct. Myles and Hunter cursed as one, and Ash began to laugh. “This farce is over,” Ash said, thinking the parson and the marriage might be as empty as the pistols, set to test the theory and see if he could escape after all.

“Thank you McAdams, for an interesting … exchange.” Before donning his curly beaver, Ash tipped it to the “lady,” picked up his cane and headed for the door.

McAdams’s roar behind him did not hasten his retreat, for he willed himself to remain calm. Not so, his inebriated friends, who quit the premises, faster than stones shot from a boy’s sling. “Mewling idiots,” Ash said beneath his breath as he walked sedately on.

Then he heard a screech, a somewhat familiar sound now, and kept walking, not certain what to expect. When he cleared the door, Ash breathed a deep draft of fresh night air, felt almost sicker for it, but heaved a sigh heavy with relief at any rate. Perhaps he would be forced to suffer neither an annulment nor his guttersnipe bride’s overripe scent a minute more, if she were indeed his bride.

His elation was short lived. No sooner had he stepped from the curb than McAdams’s henchmen carried the screaming hellcat out the door, and deposited her in his path. And there she sat, on her arse, beside a pile of horse dung, his reeking, blushing bride, Countess Arky.

Ash shook his head, extended a hand to help her up, and she bit it. “Damnation! That will be enough,” he shouted.

Catching his breath and scooping her into his arms, Ash carried her, surly as ever, hissing and fighting, mad as a wet cat, back to the pub, where he opened the door and threw her back inside.

Again, he departed, and again, he breathed a tentative, though more cautious, sigh.

“What the devil are you going to do with her?” Hunter asked as they made for Ash’s carriage at a quickened pace.

“I just got shed of her, didn’t I?”

“Don’t look now, but she’s catching up.”

“Stuff it, Hunter,” Ash said. “How the bloody devil should I know what to do with her, but I can tell you one thing, strangling her ranks right up there with giving her a bath.”

“I’m not deaf,” Larkin snapped coming up beside him. “Nor am I stupid,” she said. “He kicked me out then locked the door, by the way. I’m yours.”

“You might have a sense of hearing, even a modicum of intelligence, I’ll grant, but do you have no sense of smell?” Ash asked. “Because I damn well wish I did not. Stand back, will you, and give a man some breathing space.”

“What, no perfumed hanky?” said she, throwing her hips out of line and mincing like a bleedin’ fop. “I thought all the prancing dandies carried them.”

“I do not prance. Nor am I a dandy. And the day I place a perfumed hanky under of my nose is the day I’m daft enough to bed you.”

“Bloody hell,” Myles said. “Don’t tell me you’re not going to?”

Ash stopped and his bride slammed into him. “He turned, stopped her from falling and regarded his friend with a growl. “Not going to what?”

“Bed the wench, damn it,” Myles said. “You can hold your breath and keep your eyes closed, can you not?”

“I said, ‘I CAN HEAR YOU!’” Lark kicked Myles in the shin for his crude suggestion, and Ash jumped back in time to evade a similar fate, though it was her knee she raised his way, and his stomach churned for remembering the consequences.

Hunter stepped behind Ash, for safety’s sake, and chuckled.

“You needed a bride, and now you have one,” Myles said, as he hopped and tried to rub his shin. “Just get it done man.”

“You mean, before she kills one of us?”

“For the love of God,” Hunter said, “Myles, do not be an idiot. Ash has to clean her up first. The wench is a reeking disgrace.”

Another screech, another wounded friend. Some days did not go the way you expected, Ash thought. Like wedding days. If this were, indeed, his wedding day.

“Parson, parson,” Ash shouted to halt the man reeling down the street, a huge book beneath his arm.

The intoxicated cleric who’d performed the seedy ceremony turned and waited for Ash to catch up. Ash took five guineas from his pocket and held them palm up. “They’re yours if you answer a question in God’s own truth. Are you or are you not a man of the cloth?”

The parson shrugged. “An unworthy sot to be sure, but a man of the cloth all the same.” He showed his closed book and there on the cover etched in gilt Ash read the words, “Parish Register, St. Adelbert Church, London.”

“You are married in the eyes of God, my son, though I will regret my part in your downfall until I take my next drink, and forget you exist, and that’s the sordid truth of it. I pray you will someday forgive me.”

“If downfall I face, seek God’s forgiveness, never mine.” Ash opened the cleric’s shaking hand and dropped the coins into it one by one. “For the poor box not the drink.”

“You trust I will do as you say?”

“Inasmuch as I consented to my own marriage,” Ash said, and though the parson flinched, he pocketed the guineas and turned to walk away.

Ash returned to his carriage. “I’ll thank the two of you to wish us happy,” he said to Myles and Hunter. Then he turned his bride toward his open carriage door and pushed her trouser-clad bottom up and inside, to her mortified screech and sailor’s curse. He climbed in behind her and tipped his hat to his friends. “I’ll thank you to stop calling my bride a wench.”

Said bride’s face filled with mottled fury, her posture poised to bolt, so Ash tripped her on her hastening way. By the seat of her trousers, he pulled her back in, and shoved her to the seat opposite. “Sit, wench, and shut up, while I decide what the bloody hell to do with you.”

“You told them not to call me, wench.”

“But I can call you anything I choose. Brinks,” Ash said as his coachman made to shut the carriage door. “Home to Gorhambury, if you please.”

For the first full fifteen minutes of the two-hour journey, Ash regarded his bride, and she him, with a mutually murderous rage. For the next half hour, they both looked away and out their respective windows, though Ash peeked her way at odd intervals.

Truth to tell, he’d needed a bride and now he had one. Problem was—getting up enough courage to bed her. “Hunter is right. You need a bath,” he said, regarding the unexpected fulfillment of his grandfather’s maniacal will—the bloody devil of a bad night’s work—hell a bad life’s work, more like.

Thank God for a closed carriage, he thought, for he would not want even a servant, to espy his consolation “prize” of a bride. Hair the color of … a dirty floor … though somewhat less tidy, and much less appealing—sooty of face, bruised of eye—though not his doing, much as he’d considered it—she stood nearly as tall as him. She stood reed-thin of body, but for a fine flair in her hips, which he’d discovered with his hands while rolling on the filthy taproom floor.

Her tiger’s eyes, he must admit, were amazing and possibly her best feature. Her heart-shaped lips, he thought, might be her best, though he would reserve judgment on that score until after her bath.

No wonder he’d thought her a boy at first glance, though suddenly he could barely mistake the curvaceous hips he’d so recently handled, the feminine arch in her brow, the tilt of her nose.

“Are you certain you’re nearly twenty-two?” Ash asked, opening a window against the sweat and stale-pub stench of her before settling himself more comfortably against the squabs, trying to calm his roiling stomach even as he tried to catch a glimpse of her faceted eyes in moonlight.

“So he says.”

“He, who?”

“Me Da. Who else would know for certain?”

“Your mother?”

“Dropped me an—”

“On your head, I must conclude.”

The way his bride narrowed her eyes made Ash cross his legs to protect himself from further attack.

She caught the move, however, and raised her chin, rather regally for a filthy urchin, while she pretended for all the world that another wash of pomegranate was not working its way up a neck that appeared suddenly swanlike. He must be drunker than he thought.

“I didn’t know Tobe and Da had the pistols,” she said, nearly beneath her breath, a dozen silent minutes later. Then she looked up, regarded him full in the face with so much … longing, Ash nearly blushed. “Guess I wouldn’t be here else.”

“You bloody well would not!” Good God, she must have rattled his brains with that right hook Jackson would applaud. Something around his heart ached, or got nudged, or prodded, perhaps. However he looked at it, she had managed to touch some cord that he bloody well did not want touched, or he had not, to his knowledge, until this very moment.

“You don’t smell so good yourself,” she said out of nowhere. “And don’t think you’re such a bloody blue blood of an agreeable bridegroom, you selfish sot.”

Ash realized then that he must have gone plain old daft; for he could swear that he was half-charmed by the worst mistake he had ever made in his life.

When he opened the other window to let in a cross breeze and dilute the stink, her curse on him and his descendents, in perpetuity, made him chuckle. “Take care, they could as likely be your descendents as well,” he said, and looked toward the heavens to beg almighty deliverance from that ghastly possibility.

He lived in a bleedin’ castle.

Lark wished she had not tried to bolt when they exited his carriage on arrival, or she would now be walking beside her unfathomable new husband, rather than thrown over his shoulder like a grain-sack, an empty one for all the ease he made of it, though he teetered now and again and she feared she would get dropped. “I wish you would put me down. You are drunk as a lord.”

“Am a lord.”

A lord, stuck with her, she thought, amazed anew. After such a terrible deed as cheating him into marrying her, she had decided in the carriage to give him his freedom at first opportunity by disappearing immediately from his life. But not only had she failed when she tried to bolt, she had managed to turn him into a thundercloud.

Larkin sighed. She did not want Ashford to be angry. Idiot that she was, she wanted him to like her. How would it feel, she wondered, being his friend, viewing his handsome face over the breakfast table every morning, having the freedom to touch his hand, take his arm, brush that unruly lock of hair from his temple?

Lark shivered at the intimate thought, but she was too dirty for any of it, too dirty to lie in any of his pretty beds—not that she had seen them, but they must be special, judging by what she’d seen of his home so far.

From this vantage point, she examined a set of mulberry carpeted, bees-waxed stairs, and the bottommost portion of a gold striped wall, with a fancy mulberry-colored key design along its bottommost edge, and the most amazing railing ever imagined—all of it too good for her.

She stank, said he, as if she had not known this. He regarded her as if she were lowlier than dirt beneath his bright-polished Hessians. As if she were … pig mud, infinitely lower than dirt, and exactly what she smelled of.

Lark wished she could see his face right now. As things stood, all she could see of him was—

She allowed her hand fall into slapping his nether end at every step, almost by accident—and a fine and firm nether end it was. She took great delight as they climbed in this blatant, almost intimate act that he had forced upon her.

“Stop that!” he said, giving her own nether end a stinging slap.

Larkin screeched, and fought to be free, and he slapped her again. “Keep it up, Larkin Rose,” said he, and I will slap you, every time you slap me.”

She kept it up. He did too, slapping her harder than she could ever slap him, until she stopped, and he took to keeping his hand there, flat against her, bold as brass, if you please, his rising movement making it feel as if he were stroking her, there, on her private bottom.

Lark stopped touching him at all then, so he would remove his own hand, for his touch had started a kind of wild rebellion inside her body, an insurgence she did not take to the shivering likes of.

“Put me down,” she said, with less command and more plea in her voice. “I do not like being up here, any more than you like having me here. I promise not to bolt again.”

Ashford snorted. “Tell me another.”

Being draped over the man who had been the center of her dreams for years gave new meaning to the word “intimate” as it had been imagined, once upon a time, as regards to Ashford, himself, and the role he played in her own secret world.

“You have no right—”

“As your husband, I have every right. You are my property now to do with as I please.”

“As you belong to me,” she said, taking a path that surprised even her, “according to the laws of God, and man, and that means all of you, including your hind end.” She slapped his bottom again, hoping to get him to put her down.

“As every part of you is mine to slap, or beat, or stroke,” he stressed, letting the word linger, though Lark was not as afraid as she thought she should be, but exhilarated and … cast as if afloat.

Panic and something more rose in her. Yes, her bottom was his to touch. As all of her was his to do whatever husbands were wont to do with their wives. If she knew what that was, precisely, and if she could be sure that a great deal of blood must not be involved, she might breathe easier again … or perhaps she would not.

CHAPTER FOUR

As she remembered the brutality her sister had suffered at the hands of the man she thought she loved, panic rushed Lark in bold strokes. She prayed that her faith in Ashford would be confirmed, no matter how dangerous he had appeared at several moments during the course of the evening just passed, and that he would not hurt her in the way her sister had been hurt.

Ash must have sensed her fear in some way, because he held her tighter of a sudden, almost as if with the reassurance of a protector.

No, she thought, denying her own foolishness, he held her in that way, only to keep her from sliding off his shoulder and down the bloody stairs.

Before another minute passed, he carried her into a chamber Prinny himself might happily occupy. The marble around the fireplace shone a tawny gold, a rich color that perfectly matched the veins in its cream marble trim. Did God create matching marble for the gratification of the wealthy? Lark wondered.

“Here we are, my gunpoint bride,” he said with obvious resentment. “The master bedchamber.”

Oh, she did not like his tone, Lark thought. “Why did you seek a wife if you do not actually want one?” she asked, to turn her skittering thoughts from bedchambers, especially his.

“My grandfather’s money will not come to me unless I have a wife.” He set her on her feet. “It appears as if destiny meant for you to take on that exalted role.”

“Money,” she said, with as much disdain as he had employed. “I should have known. There must be a great deal of it in the offing, then.” She was thinking of Micah again, realizing he might now have a decent future. What would the boy think of this place? The main stair-rail alone would make for some superb sliding, safe landing and all, carved as if to bow and kiss the floor.

“Money, yes, of which I have little at the moment,” her bridegroom admitted. “Fortunately, however, I do have enough to purchase a nicety or two, like soap, praise be. Grimsley, good man,” Ash said, as his valet appeared. “Have my big copper slipper bath filled at once.”

His valet looked her up and down, and narrowed his nostrils, as if he could smell her from where he stood, though he was too polite to say so. “Your bath, My Lord?”

“Do we have a problem, Grimsley?”

“No, My Lord. That is to say, ah … of course not, but I would dare to offer … Cook or Mim? Either, could set up a bath in the scullery, say, or before the kitchen fire?”

“Here, said I—” … Ash struggled against the spinning in his head. “And, here, I will say again. At once, whether you please or not. And bring the brandy.” Ash regretted his swollen head, a remnant of his evening’s entertainment, but what could a man do in such a case but raise his chin and scowl?

Grimsley regarded him as if he were daft, then he regarded his bride, with no less horror, and gave up the fight. “Very good, my lord.”

His bride, Ash saw, regarded her new husband as if he had sprouted wings and taken flight. She retreated as far as the wall at her back. “Had me a bath just last week,” said she, with so much humility, he would be a fool to lower his guard.

“Nevertheless, you stink, and if you fight me on this, well, your clothes, I could throw on the fire, but you, I might be forced to drown.”

“You cannot burn my clothes; you’ll leave me without a stitch? What kind of depraved man are you?”

“I am the degenerate who married you at gunpoint. Have you never heard of a husband’s privilege?”

“I do not recall hearing that wife-drowning was a husband’s privilege.” Lark dropped her arms to her sides in an expression of futility. “The stink-maker was Da’s favorite sow. She got loose before you come today. Had to chase her all the way up Market Street. Lost her twice, before I got me a riding hold on her. Slippery, don’t’cha know. I don’t usually smell so terrible bad.”

“Only half so bad, then? Happy to hear it. You rode a pig, you say?” Ash coughed to hide his grin, cringed at the pain in his head, and knew he must still be sotted. “No wonder my eyes watered all the way up the stairs. We will throw your clothes in the fire.”

His bride bit her lip, charming the muzzy bejesus out of him, while a swift swing of emotions—shock, awareness, curiosity—marched across her tri-freckled nose and furrowed her gull-winged brows. “I can hardly appear naked before the world.”

Ash raised a brow, bringing that pomegranate stain to her cheeks in the process, and chuckled, while she took to tracing a fleur-de-lis in his carpet with the toe of a tattered slipper.

“You do know that you’re wearing two different shoes, and that the rest of the world wears matched pairs?”

That brought her Scot’s temper to the fore. “They’re shoes, ain’t they? They keep me feet warm, don’t they? Try fighting a rag-picker and see how many matched pairs you come off with!”

“I’ll buy you a dozen matched pairs,” Ash said, surprising himself. He cleared his throat and shook his head free of the surge of sympathy that had overtaken him on her behalf. What cared he for the smelly schemer? “You can wrap up in a bed-sheet for all I care, until I make other arrange—no, wait, I can spare a dressing gown.”

At her look of gratitude … or adoration, Ash felt a burst of warmth that radiated outward, until he could hardly bear the burn. He moved a safe distance away and regarded her curiously. “What do you look like under all that soot?”

“My mother, I’ve been told.”

As Ash made to reply, Grimsley and two maids arrived with buckets of hot water. “Fill my bath and be quick about it,” he ordered, and his bride yelped and made for the hall. “Catch her, damn it!” Ash shouted then he swilled the brandy Grimsley had poured and took chase.

After a lengthy dash around the third floor, and a side trip to the fourth and fifth, Ash carried Lark, screaming, kicking and pummeling, down the hall and into his dressing room, where he unceremoniously dropped her, stinking clothes and all into a bath full of steaming water.

Ash knelt and tried to keep her there. “Quick, Grim, throw in as much soap as you can find. The way she’s thrashing, she’ll whip up a froth and wash herself, clothes and all.”

Ash had never noticed before that Grimsley could not stand without swaying, or did the room or floor tilt? Ash pondered that.

The room, he thought, since he had the same problem, his stomach churning fit to rebel again. Drat the woman; she was already discomposing him. He was exhausted from chasing her and his head throbbed from the sound of her screeching.

Ash dunked her under, just for a moment silence.

“You might be sorry for this night’s work tomorrow, my lord,” Grimsley dared as he dropped three bars of French milled soap into Larkin’s bath. “If you do not mind my saying so, you are somewhat in your cups.”

“Do you think so?”

“About which, my lord?”

Ash laughed. “I already regret it, Grim, but what can a man do. I married her you see.”

Grimsley paled and Ash made to explain, until he realized that he’d nearly forgot to let Lark surface, and when he did, she rose like a vengeful sea goddess and knocked him flat on his arse.

“I have had a great deal of experience with the male of the species,” she screamed like a fishwife, rising fully dressed, soaked and shaking with rage, “and you Ashford Blackburne are of the lowest variety.”

Ash met her head on then ducked to evade the facer she tried to plant him. “I won her in a card game,” he shouted to his valet above her screech of indignation.

“I am no prize,” she shouted.

“Obviously.” Ash pushed her back under.

“Good God,” Grimsley said, clearly unsure as to how he could extricate his master. “You won, my lord, and got that, er, her?”

She rose and tried to stand but Ash forced her to sit. “Uh … no, I lost. She’s a consolation, of sorts.” He held her by the shoulders to keep her sitting.

“What … what are you going to do with her?” Grim asked above her sailor’s curse.

“Bathe her … to begin with.”

“And send her away?” Poor Grimsley, he looked and sounded so hopeful.

“Ouch!” Lark had landed a blow to his jaw. In retaliation, Ash poured the remaining contents of the hot water bucket over her head. “I suppose I could, though I have need of her if you will remember. Here, help me unfasten some of these clothes.”

His hellcat bride did not agree with the notion. Though thrice wounded, Grimsley nonetheless persevered and attempted to help, without success, so Ash sent him away.

For good or ill—ill more like—Lark was his wife, and in the event he actually succeeded in his current quest to rid her of her clothing, he would not be flaunting her in the flesh before another.

Grimsley, of all his staff, would never speak of this night’s work. Loyal to a fault, Grim had been with him through his bloody days under Wellington’s command. He’d evaded bullets and bayonets and helped Ash off the field after his horse went down, when he might otherwise have been left to perish. Loyalty was Grimsley’s motto.

Ash attempted to strip Larkin himself, wishing he had a whip and a chair to hand, as he’d seen at Astley’s back when he thought his worst problem was finding a bride, before he knew that taming one could be the death of him.

Him? Wed to a guttersnipe, a smelly, foul-mouthed pig-chaser, a card-sharp’s scheming daughter? On the other hand, a schemer might understand his scheme to win his inheritance; a schemer might be more than willing to strike a bargain.

He needed to fulfill the will. Would Larkin Rose McAdams—no, Larkin Rose Blackburne, now—God help him. Would his new wife help him in his ultimate pursuit, he wondered, once she knew all the requirements?

Unfortunately, before he could inherit, he would first have to prove to his grandfather that he had made a good match, never mind getting his bride with child before Christmas, which stipulation said bride had yet to learn, and which blessed event would never take place if he could not bathe her before he tried to bed her.

He must also find a way to convince his bride to act the part of devoted wife, at least in the presence of his grandfather, if Ash decided to keep her, that was.

He stopped dunking her and tried to scrub wherever he could reach, which was impossible in the face of her struggle to get free, her screams, bites, kicks, and the occasional poke in the eye.

When soaping every available inch of her fully dressed did not work, Ash tried tearing her clothes off, which worked as regards to her socks and shoes, though her man’s shirt was a bit trickier. When he finally pulled her second arm free of the shirt, and won the tug of war over that piece of clothing, he tossed it over his shoulder as she crouched low in the water.

The hiss and sputter from the hearth, and sudden loss of light, told him her wet shirt had snuffed the fire. “Bloody brat.” Ash pulled her trousers over her hips. “These are miles too big for you,” he said, tugging and pulling so hard, he dragged her under again.

Her head and shoulders emerged and she sucked in air.

“Another rag pick, I suppose?” Ash said, holding her trousers by two fingers, and she slapped the water with both hands and splashed him like a tidal wave.

“I have never laid an angry hand on a woman in my life,” Ash said, wiping his face, “but in your case, I’ll make an exception.”

“Go to hell,” said his blushing bride, then she screeched as his hand chanced upon something that felt like a band about her breasts.

“Fancy this,” he said, learning the shape of it like a blind man. “Hiding our light beneath a bushel, are we?” He located the tucked end of the binding between her breasts. Thence began the fight to unwind her, and when he succeeded—though she tried to cover her exposed breasts at every turn—he found two hands-full more bride than he expected.

“Perhaps tumbling you won’t be as difficult as I supposed,” he said, testing her breasts as if he’d be using them for two plump pillows, a pleasant surprise given her willowy structure. “You’ll need fattening up, but not here,” he said. “Here, you are amazingly perfect.”

His bride took one of his happy hands from her breast and bit it … hard.

“Blast and damnation!” Ash pulled his hand from the jaws of death. “I think you’ve drawn blood.”

“Good,” said she, as she rose like a vengeful goddess, escaped her bath with a graceful leap, ran naked through his bedchamber and into the corridor. Hair in a wild, wet tangle, she knocked Grimsley on his arse, his pot of tea spraying the upper hall in puddling circles as it twirled like a dervish.

“Start the fire in the dressing room,” Ash said on his rushing way by, realizing as he ran up the stairs that he should have helped his man up, though he couldn’t spare the time.

He cornered his bride in a bedchamber housing two screeching maids, Nan and Mim, trying to cover themselves in their night-rails. “What are you screaming about?” Ash asked. “The mistress of the house is more naked than you are.”

That shut them up, for this was the first they’d heard of a mistress.

Ash had her now, cornered between a bed and a wall, and so he took off his shirt and threw it at her. She took it, half surprised, half haughty, and put it on, and then he lifted her into his arms and carried her out with all the dignity he could muster, given the fact that his chest was bare, his clothes soaked, and his temper near to exploding.

“I’m going to win every time,” he said, which words seemed to take the fight right out of her. Though she squeaked in token protest, she let her head fall to his shoulder, sighed as if with resignation, and said nothing more.

When Ash got Lark back to his dressing room, the hearth had been cleaned out, dry wood and kindling set, and the fire flaming to life. This time Lark let him undo her shirt buttons—his shirt buttons—then she climbed into the tub of her own accord. “Give me the soap,” she said, grabbing it from his hand with as much force as she’d previously used to fight him.

Ash reared back. “Is this a trick?”

“I had forgotten how good it feels to be clean,” she said. “You should put some dry clothes on.”

“Right, and leave you alone? Since I’m daft, of course I will do exactly as you suggest.”

“You’ll catch your death.”

“You wish.” He knelt and grasped her shoulder to try and wash her face, only to have her knock him off his feet, not for the first time that night, and wash her face herself.

As he righted himself, he saw emerge from beneath the grime, skin of lucent cream porcelain and eyes so deep and clear, they showed all the facets of a mystery and all the hope of a bright new dawn. Damn.

Her exposed innocence so tied his tongue, he did fetch dry things, but remembered the danger, grabbed them fast, and came right back, only to find she hadn’t moved. She was washing her hair, and the more she lathered, the more appeared a rich mass of cropped honey, gilded in firelight by licks of ivory and strands of pure gold.

Ash had been right; she had not stopped fighting. The minute he dropped his trousers, she stood screaming again, this time as if he were about to commit bloody murder.

Ash clamped a hand over her mouth. “I’m changing into dry clothes, nothing more, and I’m doing it here, so I can keep a close watch on you. Do you understand me?”

Larkin nodded, her eyes wide and fearful.

“I’m only changing, as you suggested. Sit back down and finish washing your hair. Just turn your head if you do not wish to see anything more of your new husband than that for which you are prepared. I will be dressed in a minute.”

As Ash took his hand away, his bride regarded him as if he might eat her alive, then she released a breath, turned her gaze, and lowered herself again to the water to finish washing her hair.

Ash wondered what prompted her fear and nearly laughed. Her father had all but sold her to a stranger, and he, the stranger in question, had stripped her naked, and scrubbed her porcelain skin, as if it were tree bark.

From her perspective, his actions did appear frightening, but what had she said about knowing men and knowing them well? It made no sense, though it did remind him to send for the doctor the minute he left her, so he could be certain, before he attempted to sow his seed, that the seed of no other had previously taken root.

“The bedchamber through that door is my wife’s,” Ash said, now clothed in his inexpressibles, shirttails hanging out. “You will sleep there, of course. My bedchamber is through the door opposite. ‘Tis the chamber we came through when we arrived.”

After a silent minute, Larkin nodded and returned her attention to her bath.

“Grimsley is bringing you another pot of tea,” Ash said. “And since you’ve decided to behave yourself, I shall send a maid up to help you finish and show you to your room. No tricks, mind. I stationed guards at all the doors.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Ash poured himself a third cup of the bitter brew the East India Company had introduced a century or more ago as coffee, which Grimsley said should set him right for this night’s work. Though he’d prefer black tea, this should sober him better.

He’d see.

Dutifully sipping, despite his dislike of the stuff, Ash sat in the butter soft leather chair beside his bed and thought that perhaps he should not have imbibed quite so much brandy, after all, while waiting for Doctor Buckston to examine his bride.

Though curious as to why the medical man raised a brow as he pronounced Larkin untouched, Ash dismissed the quandary as of no consequence. “May as well put an end to her maidenhead, as soon as I can,” he said to the empty room.

He finished a second pot of the brew, and set the empty cup on the table beside him. “Arky.” Ash scoffed and reminded himself that all he had to do was mount her, close his eyes—as Myles suggested—and plant his seed. After all, he’d been practicing for years. How hard could it be?

He looked down at his flaccid self and sighed. “Not half hard enough, by damn, to pull this one off.” He took the key player in hand. “Liven up there, soldier, and give us a salute,” he said, closing his eyes as he tried to work himself into a semblance of arousal.

Ash imagined his bride as he’d last seen her—cropped hair, clean and honey gold, sparkling cat’s eyes intense, full creamy breasts, heavy in his hands, dusky nipples pouting, as if for his mouth.

He moved a hand along his length through his breeches, as he imagined the taste of her on his tongue, the feel of her gloving him….

No more than a minute later, he groaned, opened his eyes, and stopped short of spilling.

Pleased with his ready state, he rose.

When he entered his wife’s bedchamber—his bravado born of self-stimulation, and a great deal of sexual experience—Ash knew she would enjoy his attentions, if she cooperated for once, so he might keep his arousal long enough to do the deed.

‘Twas the least she could do. He’d done her the favor, after all, of taking the irritating brat in boys clothes, and turning her into a wife—a Lady, no less—while removing her from a life of ale-stink drudgery.

But when he beheld the clean and sweet-smelling seductress who sat in his wife’s bed, she bore no resemblance to the filthy hoyden he’d rescued, but more like the fantasy siren who’d hardened him to granite not three minutes before.

All sleepy sensuality and burgeoning promise, Larkin Rose sat in wait, her ripe breasts damned-near spilling from the ebon brocade dressing gown he’d leant her, a profusion of milk and honey curls tumbling toward the shoulders he would cup while kissing her senseless.

“This is not me,” she said, halting him.

“Not you?” Ash cocked a brow. “Well, whoever you are, I find myself pleased to find you awaiting my pleasure.”

“I await no man’s pleasure.”

Ash wished he’d taken a third pot of coffee, or never drunk the brandy at all, for she spoke so softly, he was not certain this was the same woman to whom he had pledged his troth at pistol-point.

A sultry seductress had replaced the she-cat who’d throttled him through the bath from hell. “Your hair,” he said, “is like the wheat on the stained glass in the chapel when the sun shines through.”

“It’s clean, you drunken dolt.”

Could one ever be too sober?  “Larkin, I presume?” He stepped her way.

“Come one step closer and die, you whelp of Satan! I peeked into your room on my way in. I saw how bosky you were.”

“Ah.” Ash grinned. “The Lady Arky, I presume?” He gave her a mockery of a bow.  “I stand before you, bosky no more.”

His red-faced bride did not look inclined toward belief, but she raised a blanket with a trembling hand to cover her breasts. “Get out!”

Ash caught the concern in her look and wondered if she were playing the kind of game any tavern wench might, a coy pretence of innocence, though the doctor had proclaimed her virtue.

“A bit late to act the prude,” Ash said, “given your cheating sire, our forced marriage, and your salty selection of sailor’s curses. While I suppose your profanity should not be a surprise, I would like to commend you on the intact state of your maidenhead, so the good doctor swears.”

Larkin licked her lips, her panic receding, until she slyly slipped her hand beneath the covers … and Ash expected her to produce a form of titillation.

His manhood gave a hard willing salute at the notion as Lark rose to her knees, increasing his appetite, his imagination, and his lust.

As he stepped closer, her blanket fell away, and the dressing gown she wore parted down the center, revealing a perfect sliver of naked womanhood.

His body roared to raging life, until she cocked the pistol that appeared as if by magic in her steady hand. “A man will swear to anything,” said she, “with a pistol to his ballocks. The good doctor is no exception.”

With him now in her sights, Larkin lowered said weapon toward his bollocks. “Get out.”

“Like your father’s henchman,” Ash said. “I expect your pistol is as empty as your threat.” No hoyden this, but a fantasy—beautiful, seductive, and all his.

Though he heard footsteps behind him, he stood so near, Ash moved swiftly forth.

“Wait! Milord! She has a pistol!”

Reaching for his bride, Ash turned toward the speaker … and a shot rang out.

* * *

Before he opened his eyes, Ash realized that he hurt everywhere. His head pained and pounded like a military tattoo, as did his eyes, his limbs, and especially his left butt cheek, like some unknown force stabbed a knife into it, over and over, again.

Finding himself flat on his belly, a position he detested, suggested that he’d been abandoned on a battlefield far from England’s shores.

Odd, for he’d dreamed the war had ended.

“My Lord,” he heard, barely above a whisper. “My Lord, are you awake?”

“Where am I, Grim,” Ash asked, his eyes too sore to open.

“In your bed, Sir.”

“What country? What year?”

“The master bedchamber at Blackburne Chase. In the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and eighteen.”

“The war is over, then? Good. I thought I’d gone for dead in battle.”

“Well … nearly. Do you not remember your wedding?”

“My bride jilted me before the wedding, Man, do you not remember? Found someone with more blunt, Ellenora did.”

“I mean your second bride, My Lord.”

“The actress? What was her name?” Ash managed to peel back an eyelid. “Bloody hell. What the blazes fell on me? Why does every part of me hurt?”

Grimsley held a cup of tea to Ash’s lips, for which Ash was supremely grateful. “You have two black eyes,” Grim said. “And assorted cuts.”

Ash nodded imperceptibly and swallowed dutifully. “I do not remember how it came about.”

“I see.” Grimsley appeared pained, portending some disagreeable duty. “You also have cracked ribs, according to Buckston, various scrapes and bruises, a minor gunshot wound in your ah, backside, and oh yes … a wife.”

Ash raised his head, groaned, and lay it down again. “Oh God, it’s coming back.”

“I was afraid it would, Sir.”

“She shot me? She actually pulled the trigger on a loaded pistol and shot me? Did she threaten the doctor, as she told me she did, so he would give me a false report? Was she telling the truth about that?”

Grimsley nodded with regret. “If Buckston had tried to examine her, he would not have been allowed to keep all his manly parts, he swears, and hopes you understand his predicament.”

“I shall beat her, as soon as I am able to raise my head.”

“She wishes to see you.”

“Not bloody likely.”

Grimsley stood his disapproving ground.

“Bloody hell,” Ash said. “Send her in then, but on your head be it.”

“Yes, My Lord. She is understandably afraid, My Lord.”

“And well she should be. She shot me, Man. And stop My Lording me.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

Lark came in wearing a jonquil muslin morning dress ten years out of date, and three sizes too big, two silk rosettes hanging by threads upon her skirt. She still wore the mismatched pair of shoes in which she came to him, not quite dry after their bath.

Since Ash was forced to remain on his stomach, given the location of the wound she had inflicted, he saw her shoes best but decided to forget for the moment, what still needed improving. “Where did you get the dress?” he asked, looking all the way up at her, shocked anew by her beauty without the soot.

“It was either your mother’s or your grandmother’s.” She smoothed her skirts in an erratic, uncharacteristic movement, and dislodged another of the rose ribbon florets. “I believe Mim found this and another in the attic.”

Ash nodded with a clearer head than the night before, and realized, as he should have then, that perhaps his bride would need a bit of wooing before he tried to bed her again. On the other hand, would he survive another attempt? “Did you hear?” he said, testing her. “Some thief broke into the house during the night and shot me.”

“I shot you.”

“Hah! I did not think you would own up to it.”

“I own up to everything …” Eventually. Lark made a promise to herself in that moment that she would tell him about cheating him into marriage, but not today. Not until Micah arrived, at the soonest, or in a letter, after her death perhaps, at the latest.

“You do not appear so menacing in women’s clothes,” her surprised bridegroom said.

Which is why I wear men’s clothes, she thought. “I will remember that you are of the opinion the next time I wish to menace you.”

“I have created a fiend,” Ash said to himself. “But now that I see you clean with your honey curls tamed, I find that I can no longer, in good conscience, call you Arky. It smacks of an expression for casting up one’s accounts. As if I might say, “he’s had so much to drink he’s arking all over the place,” which I still feel like doing, by the way.”

“You drink too much, which is why you feel the roiling need.” Lark knelt, all skittering nerves, beside his bed, at amazingly close eye level with the man about whom she had dreamed for years. She had forgot the beauty in his pale gray eyes, the way his mahogany hair flowed as if from that one remarkable point upon his brow. She wished she dared move that lazy lock from his eyes.

“Why Arky?” he asked. “‘Tis a terrible nickname.”

She agreed with half a nod. “When I was a babe, the word Larkin emerged from my small mouth as Arky. It stuck.”

His teeth were perfect, his smile deadly. “Unfortunate,” he said.

“So is your drinking and gambling. Is that why no woman would have you?”

“What?”

“Why were you jilted? Your friends made the task of finding a bride for you sound impossible.”

“Because society women are aware of my situation.”

“And should this situation concern me?”

“No, for it is better, by far, than the one I took you from.”

“Most situations would be, but I did fear you would hurt me last night.”

“So … you hurt me, first?”

Lark regarded her hands and fisted them to hide her broken nails. “It is the only way I know. You were deep in your cups when I peeked in, and not in your right mind.”

He granted as much with a grimace. “Perhaps we should become better acquainted for the nonce, while I recover, without drink, so that we may form a more prudent opinion of each other for the future.”

“I bathed again this morning,” she said, surprising him, by the look of him.

“I am prodigiously pleased to hear it. You will not be required to chase pigs here, by the way. We leave that to others. But I would be delighted if you bathed regularly.”

“Now that I am here, what will I be required to do, besides bathing, I mean?”

“Be my wife … and all that entails.”

Lark remembered the way he looked, and she felt, after he gave her his shirt in the maids’ room, her cheek against his naked chest with that mat of hair that appeared coarse but felt the way silk must. She shivered. “I do not understand the meaning of “all that entails.”

“We will address it in time, and when I am no longer indisposed with a gunshot wound, we shall try again.”

The skittering inside her trebled. “Try what?”

“Becoming better acquainted, to begin with. Fair enough?”

Lark hesitated. “Fair, I suppose, to begin with.”

They learned more about each other as they played cards through the first week of his recovery, because Ash liked to gamble and Lark appreciated every opportunity to test her skill without cheating.

She usually only cheated people who deserved it, of course, the same with picking their pockets, and she usually never shot anyone. Ashford was an exception in every way.

Marrying him had been another exception, with something greater than integrity in the balance. In her eyes, Micah’s future made Ash—the best man she knew, when not in his cups—fair game, or foul, however you regarded the issue. Besides, he had admitted to being desperate for a wife, so she had done him a favor, had she not?

“I cannot believe I am admitting this,” he said, at the end of the second week, “but I am sick unto death of gambling.”

Lark stopped shuffling her cards. “The stakes are likely not high enough,” she said.

“I had Grim bring some books. Perhaps you would read to me?”

“I, ah, have a scratchy throat from screaming last night,” she said in panic. “Perhaps, you could read to me?”

At the beginning of what Lark expected to be his third week of recovery, she found him in his chamber, dressed and champing at the bit, handsome as ever, and attempting to walk with a cane. “I must escape this room,” he said. “Have you toured the house yet?” He offered his free arm.

Lark took it and felt the heat of his nearness to the pit of her belly. “I wandered a bit, but the house is so large, I feared becoming lost. “I have noticed, however, that there are several paintings missing. Did you realize?”

“What makes you think so?”

“The squares of bright wallpaper here and there.”

Ash winced. “I had not thought them so obvious. The large library painting paid my father’s gambling debts. The one from my study satisfied his tailor. The three in the south parlor replaced five cottage roofs. The one over my bed shall be shortly sold to pay my voucher to your father.”

Lark nodded. “Good, then you have not been robbed.”

“Only by my father and my own stupidity.”

Lark grimaced inwardly, certain his regret must extend beyond losing the painting to being stuck with her. “I have spent some time outdoors,” she said to steer him from the conclusion. “Yesterday, after you took your medicine and slept, I stumbled upon a field of wild lavender, in blues and purples, just coming into flower, a breathtaking sight.”

Ash nodded. “One of my mother’s favorite spots, mine as well. She used to dry the flowers and place them in vases about the house.”

“Would she mind if I did so?”

“Not at all. I miss the scent about the place. Let us start our tour with the house, however, shall we, for I do not think I can walk quite as far as the lavender field today. I’d like to take you to the attic, so as to find you more gowns. You may think two will do, but until I can arrange to have a new wardrobe made for you, I would like to see you with more.”

Ash could barely raise the leg on his wounded side the height of a step, so Lark hooked his cane on her wrist and placed an arm about him. He gave her a sidelong glance as he leaned upon her and they started up. Did he doubt her sincerity? After last night, who could blame him?

“Thank you,” he said, releasing his breath, several steps later.

“‘Tis the least I can do.”

He raised a speaking brow. “The very least.”

Amid a musty disharmony of discarded furniture, beside grime-glazed windows, spider-webbed corners, with the faded scent of lavender about them, Ash absorbed Larkin’s delight as she rummaged through a score of life-scarred old trunks.

To her, every unearthed buckle and feather appeared new and unequaled. Seeing the world through her guileless eyes gave Ash a glimpse into her true nature—not a dyed-in-the-wool gutter rat so much as a stalwart mouse, raised in the gutter, open to better … desperate for better.

Nothing jaded about his bride, not when it came to female fripperies. Every striped ribbon and scrap of lace a treat, her face alight, she stepped audaciously away from real life for a time as if to play at dress up.

She found two cambric night-shifts with sleep-jackets and night-caps from the last century and fell in love with them. He thought they must be his great-grandmother’s, but little did Larkin Rose care. She adored them. She found a threadbare chemise next and claimed that too.

The corset she wrapped about herself over her clothes made her groan as if in pain and roll her eyes, so she tossed that back like an undersized fish into a lake.

Ash sighed for losing the corset, as he tossed the night-caps after it. “I prefer your hair unadorned,” said he, certain that his appreciation of her tresses would not be welcome at this early stage.

When he found a cream high-waisted afternoon dress with burgundy overskirt, that he liked, she sighed as if to humor him and stepped behind an old Chinese screen to try it on.

“Must be one of my mother’s more recent purchases,” he said as she emerged wearing it. “It fits you well.”

Lark shrugged, returned behind the screen and came back folding it. Though damned near fashionable compared to the rest, the dress got placed in the trunk, rather than with the treasures she wished to keep. “I am not ready to meet your mother,” she said, her gaze trained guardedly upon it.

“You will tell me when you are?”

She sighed with relief, until Ash claimed the dress and slipped it beneath his arm. “I like it on you,” he said.

“I like these better.” She indicated her choices and turned away, as if dismissing the subject, or him, or both, only to unearth a trunk filled with nothing but slippers. Dozens of matched pairs in every hue and fabric. With a squeal, she knelt like a child over a new box of toys.

Ash sat careful and off-side on a previously plundered trunk, so as to observe her, a new and simple pleasure.

“I am in heaven,” said she as she placed her two shod feet before him, to show off a pair of blue-satin heeled slippers with silver buckles. “I have seen none so fine.”

Oddly pleased to be included in her enjoyment, Ash rifled through the trunk as well, found an embroidered pair in jonquil to match the dress she wore most often, and she let him slip them on her. A minute later, they each held one of the same pair, which amused her no end. Ash realized then that he had never really “seen” his unlikely bride. With the least attention and happiness, she, like a butterfly, emerged, a specimen of rare beauty.

She found five pairs of matching slippers that fit, no less in her glory at finding them than at the notion of wearing them.

Ash added his mother’s dress to her hoard. “We will send a maid for these later, for you will need both arms to help me down the stairs.” He thought she might remove the dress he liked from her stack, but when she saw that he watched, she shrugged and made to precede him out the door.

A papered polygon hatbox tied with tasseled red ribbon stopped her. She pointed it out. “What is that?” she asked with the excited curiosity of a child, so much so, that Ash was pleased to take it down.

“Untie it and look inside,” he said.

Larkin’s anticipation told him he’d made the right decision. She removed the lid, sounding as though she savored a sweetmeat deep in her throat and tore through the treasure. “Look, brocade bells, ribbons, silver stars, bows and rosettes.” Her face softened. “Fine-cut snowflakes made of parchment, almost as perfect as the real thing.” She regarded him as she stroked the snowflake in her palm. “Did you ever look at a real one? It’s a work of art.” She regarded him quizzically. “What do rich people do with such beautiful things?”

“They’re Christmas decorations. We place them about the house for the holiday,” he said, “at least we used to when my mother was—”

“I never saw Christmas.”

“What, never?”

She shook her head. “Same day as any other at the pub. I would not have known it was Christmas but for the rogues who stopped for a pint with holly in their buttonholes. That’s how I first knew you were a rogue.”

“So you knew, did you?”

“How does holly make a man a rogue, Ash?”

“‘Tis not the wearing of the holly makes him one,” Ash said with a wink. “‘Tis what he does with the sprig later that counts.”

CHAPTER SIX

“What does a rogue do with the holly in his buttonhole?”

Ash dropped a handful of parchment snowflakes over his naïve bride’s head, which made her lips twitch and her eyes twinkle. If he didn’t know better he’d think that Larkin Rose sometimes hid a giggle beneath the surface. “At Christmas, I will be pleased to show you,” he said. “If you will allow me.”

“Promise?”

“I certainly do.”

Lark collected the scattered snowflakes, from her hair, her shoulders, and even the floor, nowhere near as interested in his roguish nature as Ash would wish. “We can make more snowflakes,” he said. “They’re only paper.”

“I do want to learn how to make them,” she said, “and I will have you show me, but I’d like to keep these as well.”

“We will have to give you a rousing good Christmas this year to make up for the ones you’ve missed. I shall roll out all the old traditions.”

Her eyes widened. “What kinds of traditions?”

Ash told her about evergreens and kissing boughs with bells and ribbons in them, and the big cedar their old German estate manager, Stan Redman, who still lived in the dower house, had brought right into the picture gallery the year before he went to fight Boney. They had decorated the tree with nuts and pinecones, and ribbon rosettes that Stan’s wife Olive had made.

That had turned out to be his mother’s last real Christmas.

“I want a tree too,” Lark said, “a big one, and a Yule log, but may I take some of these decorations downstairs now, just to look at?”

“You may take anything you want. This is your home now, too,” he said, catching the glimpse of wonder his statement brought to her expression.

Ash spent the rest of the day in his office going over estate issues, problems, and expenses. He found so much work, after his weeks of recovery, that he failed to see his bride for the next two days as well, though he looked in on her every night as she slept.

He watched her throughout dinner at the end of that week, thinking he might have missed her, and saw that she took in everything he did, from the way he used his fork, as if she’d rarely seen one before, to the way he spooned his soup. He almost wished they weren’t economizing so that she could entertain him with her self-effacing eagerness to learn through several more dinner courses.

She’d changed into a simple green satin evening dress, not quite as new, or well-fitting, as the cream and burgundy afternoon dress he preferred, but not bad all the same, though it did already have a new tear at the shoulder, and it matched a pair of the slippers they’d found. Ash caught her every so often—whether in the dining room, the drawing room, or even walking outside—raising a foot and pointing her toes, so as to admire her slippers.

For a consolation prize of a bride, she had potential did this new wife of his. Ash cut a piece of beef and wondered how she’d react when he climbed into her bed later that night.

He toyed with the notion of preparing her for his nuptial invasion, by warning her in advance, but he feared she’d simply bolt if he did, so he kept his own counsel. “You might have noticed,” he said, “that we are running the house with a quarter the normal staff.”

Lark shrugged. “You might have noticed,” she returned, “that where I come from nobody runs the house but me, so I wouldn’t know a normal staff to save me life.”

Ash nodded, stifling his grin, and giving her half an apology for his careless statement. “Likely then you will not fall into a fit of the vapors at my news, but I find myself very nearly without funds.”

“Your pawned paintings tell that tale,” she said with a dollop of sarcasm. “You gamble too much.”

“That too.” He sighed. “As my new wife, you should keep me otherwise occupied,” he teased, “and I’ll never have the desire to venture forth and gamble again.” But Ash could see from her blank expression that Larkin did not understand the nature of his insinuation.

“At any rate,” he added. “Cook is also the housekeeper of sorts. There are two maids, Mim and Nan, and Grimsley is my valet who also acts as butler. Brinks is not only the coachman but the stable-hand. I am not only the master but my own man of affairs and estate manager.”

“Everyone works very hard,” Lark said. “Especially you. I had noticed that.”

“My father kept the outside of the house in good repair—I must give him that much credit—but as for the inside, I hate these telltale signs of a depleted fortune, up to and including a short staff, but I will do what I must to keep the Chase. As for running it, old Stan still lives in the dower house with his wife, Olive, and acts as my advisor. They are a hard-working lot, my staff. I’m glad you’ve noticed. I want them to know and respect you as well. I’ll present you formally tomorrow.”

“Good, because I can help.”

“You know how to run a staff, then?”

“I know how to scrub a floor and change a bed and I could dig a ditch too, come to that.”

Ash winced. “Which my bride will most assuredly not do.”

Lark rose at his tone. “Then what the bloody blazes will your bride do?”

Ash rose to meet her ire. “She will keep her husband happy in the bedroom,” he ordered, throwing down his napkin, “beginning tonight.”

“Hah! She bloody well will not!” Lark left the dining room and ran up the stairs to her bedchamber. There, she tried to lock her door against him, but the lock had gone missing. Then she went for her pistol, but the dresser drawer where she had left it came up empty.

She stood on a chair, feeling along the high shelf in the wardrobe, thinking the maid must have moved it to a safer spot, when her bedroom door opened and Ash came in, closing it firmly behind him. He threw his dressing gown on the bed like a gauntlet, his lips firm. “You won’t find it,” he said.

“Find what?”

“The pistol. No, nor anything sharp or capable of drawing blood, for you do mean to beat me off, again, do you not?”

Lark watched alarmed, as her husband began to unbutton his frockcoat, with more determination than she liked. “What are you doing?” she asked, afraid the weapon in his trousers might be deadlier than her missing pistol.

Ash removed his coat with a look that said it should be obvious, appearing, for all the world, as if he were baiting her, she thought.

“I am undressing as you can plainly see. We are, after all, husband and wife.” His eyes held a spark of wicked intent, a roguish look that Lark had liked a great deal too much in her growing up years.

She raised her chin, so as not to show her fear. “If you do not leave, I will scream down the house.”

“I thought you might. As to that, the staff knows we’re married and want to keep their jobs. None will interfere. They will ignore any and all outbursts from this bedchamber and will probably cheer, if they do hear.”

The thought of Ashford Blackburne, the Earl of Blackburne, the man of her dreams, sleeping in her bed, wearing exactly what, she wondered, turned Lark’s knees to jelly. At first, she thought the weakness must be caused by fear, but if not, what did this inner trembling signify? ‘Twas a traitorous reaction, no doubt, and Lark found herself furious with Ash for causing it.

“I dare not leave you after our dinner-table disagreement,” Ash said. “As I would not put it past you to bolt.”

Larkin jumped from the chair she’d climbed upon, so as to pace. She’d never come up against anyone who made her feel so much anger, so much … warmth, so … alive. She regarded her husband now, standing there watching her, strong hands on pleasing hips, shirt unbuttoned to reveal his thatch of dark satin chest hair, his inexpressibles hugging a bounty of hard-hewn muscle. God help her, she liked the magnificence he presented.

Before she anticipated him, he stepped forward and pulled her into his arms. She used her hands to hold him at bay, startled anew by the feel of the hair on his chest, wishing she could test it by curling her fingers into it. Heat scorched her face at the notion and she tried to push herself away.

Despite her best efforts, Ash pulled her closer, crushed her breasts against him, and even through the fabric of her dress, she felt the burn.

With his arms around her, he unfastened the buttons down her back, breathed warmth against her temple, and grazed her brow with his lips. On purpose? Or by mistake?

Lark brought her face the merest breadth closer to test him, and he did it again, lips against her brow, there but not, a whisper of affection—so much more than she had ever experienced, tears filled her eyes. Emotion rose in her, righteous and painful.

She wanted more—she wanted none of it. She raised her foot, and he quick-stepped from harm’s way before she could crush him under her heel, but he did not let her go.

Ash raised her chin with a finger, held it steady, against her will, and gazed into her eyes. She was afraid he saw too much, especially the moisture gathering there.

In his own eyes, she read speculation, need. Did she really see so much? Did he “need” as much as she? She would feel better if he did.

She tried to gather her wits, but his lips met hers of a sudden, soft at first, his cool and sculpted, hers never before touched by the lips of another. The satin of his moved gently across hers, once, twice, thrice, drawing awareness from the deepest recesses of her being.

Parched, she felt, for the taste of him, greedy for more. Her first kiss. Sweet. Almost too sweet to bear.

Despite her defiance, Lark responded to his silent plea, allowed herself to be swept into the kiss with abandon.

The touch of his tongue against her own, and the resultant budding of her breasts woke Lark to a fear that flowered into hot heaving waves of trepidation.

She tried to escape, but he held her tight. She thought to kick him, but as if he read her, he positioned her legs between his and pinned her there. Even his hand held her head in place.

Nowhere to go, save one. She sank her teeth into his lower lip.

Ash cursed, pulled back, and with raw shock in his expression, he raised a hand to assess the damage. His fingers came away bloody. Blood filled his eyes as well.

Instead of moving from harm’s way when he let her go, Lark raised a knee to make her point.

Ash anticipated her move a mere seconds too late to completely eliminate himself as her target and received the brunt of her blow off-center. He gasped nonetheless and caught his breath. “You wretch,” he said but his words held an edge of new-dawning respect.

Lark nodded in satisfaction. “My sister taught me that. Never thought I’d get to use it so much, though I always wanted to.” She laughed and threw herself on the bed.

Ash raised a brow. “I do not find your resistance in the least amusing.”

“I refuse to undress,” she said, “until you quit my bedchamber.”

“Then you may damn well sleep in your dress, because I am sleeping beside you. I own this bedchamber.” Ash grabbed the towel beside the basin to wipe the blood from his lip, though he moved as if he might be bruised in that mysterious place.

“Taming you is going to be a painful process for one of us,” he said as he sat on the edge of the bed and removed his shoes, “but I do not intend for it to be me.” He crawled beneath the covers, still wearing his trousers, and said nothing more, for which Larkin was grateful.

After the fire died in the hearth and the bedchamber became dark and chilled, and Ash’s breathing evened to a snuffling snore, Lark rose to change into her night-rail before crawling back into her bed beside him.

Her husband. Ash. Her Ash was sleeping beside her. Imagine that.

Lark drifted in and out of consciousness after that. One minute she dreamed Ash was kissing her, the next he was carrying her to the bath and getting in with her, touching her, doing the delightful things she had dreamed of him doing, no pain or blood involved.

Then, he was riding away in his carriage without her. “Come back Ash, don’t go, if you go to war, you’ll die and never come back. Don’t go.”

She dreamed Ash brought her close, whispered words of comfort, his breath warm on her face. “Do not cry, Lark, everything will be all right, I will not go away again.”

Lark moaned and sought his mouth, warm, soothing, as she’d always imagined. Threads of fire assaulted her in strange places, a new depth to the dream. She moved closer to him, seeking to cool the fire, tame the flames.

Ash stroked her hip, her breast, butterfly touches with strange threads linking each sensation to every other, to parts of her body she could not name. Whirlpools of passion built to a frenzy, held her captive. Lark whimpered against his lips and her mind registered the sound.

Her eyes flew open. No dream this, but a flesh and blood man … in her bed. Lark pushed him hard away, and sent him flying.

Rising to her knees she looked down and saw Ash on the floor, bare-chested, at the least, and if not for the tangled bedclothes—well she simply did not want to know. He must have undressed while she slept. “I … I didn’t realize it was you,” she said.

“Who the bloody devil did you think it was?”

“A man.”

“I am a man.”

“There’s always a drawback, have you noticed that?”

Ash worked the first part of the following week on estate business, but he gave Lark a tour of the property on Friday, and a thorough tour they took. From buttery to dovecote, from empty wine cellar to the near-empty carriage shed and similarly barren stables.

Then he lined up all five servants and presented her as his wife. Funny thing, he thought, Lark already knew their names, even their children’s names in two cases, as well as spouses and a sick sister.

“I never know what to make of you,” he said as they walked away. “Who are you Larkin Rose Blackburne?”

“I’m a clumsy girl who knows only how to be a boy and who doesn’t know how to dress or act in company, and I’ll tell you another thing, you got no bargain, because I can’t read neither.”

“Or speak properly, half the time, either, all of which we can fix—we will fix. I had concluded that you could not read when I was forced to read to you and saw how amazing you found the experience. I am determined to begin teaching you myself at this very moment.” He led her to the library, sat her on the settee, chose a book and sat beside her.

Ten minutes into the impossible lesson, Lark rose in a huff and bolted.

Ash went looking for the spoiled termagant to give her some lessons in proper deportment as well, not certain if he’d brought the book to teach her or beat her. If she had not chosen to wear that god-awful red dress of his great, great aunt Harriet’s today, he might never have noticed her nestled in a thick low fork of the flowering horse chestnut at the far reaches of the spinney.

When he got there, Ash said nothing, but climbed up to scoot himself into the same spot and wrestle her onto his lap. Except for the small bite she gave his hand, he succeeded admirably, and ended up holding her in place with all the strength and frustration that had been gathering momentum over the past weeks. Not that she stopped trying to free herself; she fought him, calling him all manner of low creature, including ruddy-necked lecher and gaoler of women.

Larkin stopped struggling when she realized her husband had her pinned, good and tight, with one of his big blasted hands spread in the center of her … or rather, at the bottom of her … front.

As if that were not bad enough, some kind of pressure was building there, beneath his hand, a sizzling pressure she did not like one bit.

He seemed almost to be working the heel of his hand against her with a lethargic rhythm. Despite her dislike of such treatment, there came from her body a strange answering pulse, as if she wanted what he was doing to continue, even perhaps beneath her clothes against her very warm skin, like an itch that wanted scratching.

When she shifted her legs, Ash’s hand moved the slightest bit lower, and she bit her lip so as not to release her rising moan. What was he doing to her? Should she ask? Tell him to stop? Did she want him to stop? Sitting in a tree had never seemed so amazing.

When he stopped, she waited, and when he failed to continue, she regarded him, and he opened his lips over hers.

With a bright new yearning, she welcomed his kiss with a treacherous sound deep in her throat, but the pulsing of his body beneath her made her realize that something was happening that could make a man dangerous. She pulled from the kiss with a start. “I don’t like this.”

“I can tell,” he said, and for the life of her, she could not pull from his gaze.

“No more reading today,” she said.

“One sentence,” he said. “Read this note I wrote for you to memorize. I’ll point to the words and say them and you may repeat them after me.”

“I,” Ash said as he pointed to a letter.

“I,” Lark repeated.

“Am,” he said for her to repeat. “A,” he said, and she repeated, and then, “troublesome,” then, “brat.”

Lark continued up to and including troublesome, because she had turned to look into his mesmerizing gray eyes again, and did not for the life of her know what she was saying, until the word brat touched her lips.

She tried to break free of the spell his hand at her core still wove, with a screech of outrage,

Ash didn’t think twice but took advantage of Lark’s open mouth to open his own over it. Still in full control of the small but dangerously writhing woman on his lap, he kissed his wife the way he’d been dreaming of doing, when he slept and had no control over his mind. And his body reacted as if it were taking over the fantasy.

Larkin’s attempts to escape slowed as their kiss became mutual and seeking. She moved her bottom in such a way as to stoke his desire, almost as if she knew in her unconscious mind that she was bringing his arousal to dangerous proportions, though her kiss told a story of innocence and unmet passion.

Ash became so aroused he cupped her breast, and that fast, he was sitting on his arse at the base of the tree.

Lark landed beside him, both feet planted firmly on the ground, both hands as firm on her shapely hips. “I am not a troublesome brat, but you are the greatest rogue I have ever encountered.”

“Why thank you, Lark.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

A few nights later, before dinner, Ash took Lark for a romantic stroll through the avenue his mother used to call her ghostwalk. It was a shadowy quarter-mile arch of trained hemlock, a gothic cathedral formed by nature, from which they emerged upon the orchard, a breathtaking sight at dusk with blossoms lacing row after row of trees.

He’d left his cane at the house so he could use the excuse of needing her arm on uneven ground, and wondered what justification he could give in a week’s time, two weeks? Perhaps he’d pretend she hurt him more than she thought with that pistol shot.

Then again, his agility would surely show in bed—providing he ever managed more than sleeping with her—and the pretense would be over.

He’d decided to get her a little drunk that night, because he was damned well going to consummate this bloody marriage. A good stiff drink, or three, just might help her to relax, maybe enough for him to tell her the whole sordid story of his grandfather’s ultimatum.

Christmas was only eight months away, after all, and though he need only get her with child by then, Ash knew that the process sometimes took more than one try. He intended on trying often, of course, but damnation, he needed to begin as he meant to go on, did he not?

After their walk, he gave her claret before dinner, champagne with dinner, and port afterwards. Later, he poured her a brandy in the library over a game of cards, after which, they retired to opposite chairs in front of the fire. He refilled her glass twice more before she relaxed enough to initiate a conversation.

“I was glad you survived the war,” she said out of nowhere. “I prayed you would.”

Ash sat forward, a little muzzy from the drink. “You did not know me before the war, did you?”

She laughed. “We met when I was eleven.”

“Refresh my memory.”

“I was running, fell, and you picked me up, there at the Picked Barrel. You wiped my tears, dabbed at the blood on my skinned knuckles, and kissed them, all three, then you said I was a brave little lady.”

Ash was certain he’d picked up any number of fallen children over the years, calling them either brave ladies or soldiers. “I must have been all of twenty-one, and that was you?” he said, as if he did remember. He wished he did. She must not have dressed like a boy then, if he’d recognized her as female. “You’ve been at the Pickled Barrel all these years?”

Lark nodded, head high, tears filling her eyes. “I was born there.”

Did she weep because she realized he didn’t remember, Ash wondered, or had life been that insupportable at the pub?

“I always thought you were different, better, more honest,” she said in a sleepy voice, her words unguarded and dangerously earnest, Ash thought.

“Honest, I might agree, for I pride myself on it, and I have the utmost respect for honesty in others, but better? I think not. I know not. Better than who?”

“The other men who came to the pub.”

“I am not, believe me.”

“You are better in every way. Better than one most of all.”

“Which one?”

“The one who hurt my sister and gave her a babe.”

Good grief. How hurt? Had her sister been brutalized by some man? “What happened to her?”

“I saw naught but blood, and before a few months passed, she was fat with a baby. My father threw her out, but I found a family in the country for her to live with.”

Bloody hell, no wonder she had been afraid when he approached her on their wedding night, no wonder when she awoke with a “man” in her bed. “How old were you at the time.”

“Fifteen; my sister was sixteen.”

Worse and worse, and then he understood. “Was that when you stopped dressing like a girl?”

“My sister said if I looked like a boy, most of Da’s customers would leave me alone.”

Most, but not all. “And did they?”

She placed her brandy on the table, rose, wavered and lost her balance. Ash lunged and caught her before she hit the floor and pulled her onto his lap.

She curled right into him as if he would keep her safe.

Ash had never been more shocked or awakened by anything. His body took to trembling, accepting her presence with all the enthusiasm called for in a husband. No question of holding up his responsibility, if consummation were called for at this moment, except that it most assuredly was not.

He had realized some time ago, of course, that he could perform with her. And tonight, well, if she were curling into him that meant he’d got her too drunk for a gentleman to take advantage. Damnation.

No matter, her story would have stopped him dead anyway. Then again, she might not have told it without the drink. He was a cad. She needed time. This new wife of his was skittish as a purebred filly and with good reason.

Her sweet-smelling hair and delicate features only made her appear the more fragile. Did she understand the significance of his fast-beating heart beneath her hand? It mattered not, for she needed comforting for her sister’s agony, and for her own resulting anguish, perhaps for the first time.

Ash closed his arms about her, slow and easy, to give her an opportunity to escape if she chose, and held her like a frightened child.

The other night, before she bruised his ballocks, he had kissed her and lost his head to passion. He would not make that mistake again. He would be patient and consoling, show her that she need not fear him in any circumstance.

She sighed and closed her eyes, knowing full well where she found herself.

Ash closed his own and wondered where her sister had ended, but he dare not ask. She had not mentioned her or the babe further. He must draw his own sad conclusions.

“Are you tired?” he asked, some fifteen minutes later, when she readjusted their positions and got close enough to bruising his ballocks once again to make him sweat.

“It’s the drink. Makes me sleepy.”

“I take it you’re not afraid of me anymore?”

“Not so much, and you look sleepy too, I can tell. I do not like the way drinking makes me feel.”

“I do not believe I will ever drink again,” he said, meaning it. She’d just frightened the urge right out of him. “I’d rather keep my wits about me from now on. No wonder you pulled that trigger and shot me.”

“I’m just glad I only pulled it once.”

Ash barely stopped trembling over her answer when a snuffling sound made him realize his bride had fallen asleep in his arms. If not for the drink, she would never have let her guard down this much. He knew her at least that well.

Ash rose and carried her up the stairs and toward her bed—his wife’s bed—the bed of the woman with whom he was supposed to sleep, he thought, with a bit more and less regret today than yesterday for his hasty marriage. And ‘twasn’t regret so much for the marriage now as for the way in which he married her, because damn it, he was beginning to like her, and she deserved better than a husband who’d brawled with her on her wedding day and scared the life out of her on her wedding night.

When Ash lit the candle, he saw stars, silver stars of all sizes, the ones she’d brought from the Christmas decorations, hanging by uneven lengths of sewing thread from her curtain tops to dangle in the windows and catch the sun by day or the candlelight by night, as if she were keeping Christmas in her heart.

He placed her atop the covers, brought them over her, and looked down at her. No consummation with his Christmas-in-April bride tonight, he thought, his eager body disagreeing with the pronouncement. But how could he leave her and go back to his own bed when he had set the rule that he would stay?

He needed to follow through and sleep with her every night from now on, or she would realize that a sad story, and a sleepy bride, could turn him away. “No,” he affirmed aloud. He must keep to his strategy, as Wellington would say, and sleep with her.

As Ash unwrapped her, she curled into a ball, for the bedchamber had gone cold. He wrapped her warm again, stirred the embers to flame and placed another log on the fire. He undressed himself as the chamber warmed. When it was toasty, he rolled Lark onto her back to undo the buttons down the front of her gown.

“What are you doing?” she asked, too sleepy to open her eyes or care.

“Getting you ready for bed,” he said, taking her arms from the sleeves of the cream and burgundy gown he’d encouraged her to take. “I shouldn’t have given you so much to drink,” he said as if to himself.

“I know.” Lark sighed, rolled to her side, and raised a knee, which made getting her gown over her hips and down her legs a little more difficult, but he managed.

He found her wearing her threadbare chemise, with no corset, of course, or stockings—oh God—and proceeded to strip that from her as well. Then he fetched his great grandmother’s night-rail, the one she’d chosen from the trunks upstairs, looked it over, and decided against it.

Throwing back the covers, Ash placed his wife naked beneath them. “I do the work to undress you, I make the choices,” he whispered, as he kissed her brow. “You’re a fine figure of a woman Larkin Rose Blackburne.”

Then he went around the bed, removed his dressing gown and slid beneath the covers in the same naked state as his oblivious bride. Ash slid to the center of the bed, took Larkin into his arms, and she burrowed into him—for body warmth, at least—a fine state of affairs, until she went back to sleep.

His body had no intention of resting; it had other pursuits in mind. Hard pursuits that would take a great deal of throbbing attention, and if he moved her just right in his arms, like so, he could at least snuggle that aching part of him there, at the warm moist apex of her, where he and she would be the most comfortable.

She arched when he did, not taking him in, quite, but nestling him more snugly, so that his man part did a small dance, joy and enthusiasm in one tightly-wound package, a great deal of energy with no place to go.

Ash cursed and ignored the pointless pulsing thrust, and took to savoring the feel of his bride’s skin beneath his hand, like silk or satin, unblemished and perfect. He skimmed the cleft of her spine starting at her shoulders, learned the breadth of her hips with his palm, the better to embrace and stroke. Her shoulders were wide, her waist trim. Her breasts crushed against his chest, he had yet to explore, other than in the bath, oh, and in the tree, which had nearly got him killed.

Nevertheless, he wanted a breast in his mouth. Now.

His body agreed.

He moved her again, found himself a handful, and tweaked the nipple with his thumb.

“Ash,” Lark whispered, giving him greater access.

“Lark?” he said. “Do you like this?”

She found his mouth, no doubts there, she’d initiated the kiss. As he kissed her back, he continued to tease her nipple, budding it and torturing it, and her hips came for his, not once, but twice, then a third rhythmic time.

“Lark, do you want this?”

She surged again, her hips begging for his, her breast pouting for more attention, her mouth open and greedy. Lord, she could be sensuous, but he wished she were awake.

He tried to tuck her face into his neck, pull her back into his arms, to settle and sleep. “Not tonight,” he said, for both their sakes.

When the day came that he finally took her, he wanted her to know what he was doing to her, no matter how much she seemed to appreciate sexual byplay in her sleep—her drink induced sleep, he must remember.

But she would have none of it. She whimpered and threw a leg over him, tossed her head back and her breast forward so that there was nothing he could do but take it into his mouth. A man would have to be mad to refuse such a gift.

Larkin whimpered and moaned as he suckled her, begged him to continue, if only she knew it, with each thrust of her hips. He was near to spilling his seed, but he’d only given her half his attention, and it did not seem fair.

“Lark,” he said to wake her. “Lark, love, wake up enough to know what you want.”

“Ash?” she questioned and he knew he’d gotten through.

“Lark, do you want me to touch you?”

He moved his hips to indicate his meaning. “I’ll only touch you if you want me to.”

She looked frightened for a minute, half asleep then half scared to death in two beats, but he took her hand and guided it between them, closed her palm around him. “There is nothing to fear. I am only made of flesh, see?”

Her hand on him felt divine. He could spill in a blink if he let himself. In the shaft of moonlight crossing the bed, he saw her fear recede; saw her beauty trebled the same way. His wife, he thought, almost breathless. His wife was truly beautiful.

She moved her hand along his length, tentative at first, then with a surer knowledge. She saw when she’d moved him, acknowledged the change in his breathing with a feline smile.

“Do you know what you’re doing to me?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” she said. “Is it good? Am I doing good?”

“It’s very good.” A beginning, he thought and slid his hand slowly up her leg, waiting for her to stop him, though she never did. He stroked near her center, caught a throat-squeak of appreciation, stroked closer. She gasped, inviting him with a single hissed breath.

He found her nether lips, stroked them, all the while she worked him, slow and easy enough to make him burst. He turned his attention her way, knew by her reaction when he found her perfect center, worked her with the same easy rhythm she worked him, until she indicated she wanted more and faster.

Again she initiated a kiss, open-mouthed and hungry, and her tongue met his for the first time. She reached the stars then, like a cataclysm, with a scream and a gasp of shock, and then she whimpered and rolled into him, as if she had done something terrible. He soothed her and called her his own, and asked her to let him do it again, which made her regard him with wonder.

“Let me,” he said. “You liked it.”

She nodded and he touched her again, tried to go slow but they’d started from a higher plane and she reached her peak fast, then he lowered her and called her beautiful and gave her release two more incredible times.

“No more,” she finally said. “No more. I cannot anymore, er, no more. It’ll kill me.” She rolled to her side, away from him, likely embarrassed of a sudden by her hearty reaction.

Ash chuckled and curled up behind her to hold her close, him throbbing so hard ‘twas a wonder he hadn’t spilled all over her.

She looked back, likely distracted by his urgency, by his … knocking at her door, so to speak, because she looked him full in the face and furrowed her brow. “Ash, is there something more to this, for I could swear that your manhood is prodding me to action.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ash felt his face warm for the first time in twenty years. Not since a randy fourteen-year-old, invited to the hayloft by a world-wise maid, had he felt so uncomfortably embarrassed over the evidence of his arousal. “‘Tis only me, that ugly man part of me, that’s all, wanting attention too. Ignore it, it’ll go away.”

“Did I not give it enough attention? What more does it want?” she asked even as she slipped a hand between them to pet his excited man part as if ‘twere a docile kitten. And before Ash could answer, she took him in her hand again, as she had been doing while focused on her own pleasure, and she began to focus on his.

Ash groaned at the amazing amount of gratification her inexperienced hands wrought, more than he had ever experienced at the hands of even the most practiced of women. Then again, this was Larkin Rose, his own guttersnipe bride, pleasuring him. At the notion, his ecstasy increased and multiplied. Praise be, she was awake now and knew what she was about, more or less. At least she now freely gave the rapture consuming him, which made her touch the more spectacular.

“Teach me what to do,” she said, leaning over him, her breasts there for his eyes to feast upon, her nipples budding and waiting for his tongue, her offer nearly enough to bring him to culmination. Ash groaned, amazed, so grateful for her determination to gratify his sexual needs that he took her up on her offer and showed his bride how to pleasure him.

When his brilliant pupil exceeded his expectations, Ash took that budding breast into his mouth, and placed his hand at the junction of her thighs to stroke her essence in an effort to raise her with him, and so he did—so they both did—to unimagined heights. And when his bride shuddered and cried his name—Ash spilled his seed in a culmination that rocked his world.

A damned good beginning, and then some, he thought, which boded well for a consummation and marriage that might prove better than he dreamed. Sated and hopeful, Ash drifted to sleep, entwined with the Innkeeper’s talented daughter, the scent of sex all around them.

His grandfather could make enough noise to rouse the dead, Ash thought, wondering how his grandmother had stood the overbearing old rattle so many years, until he realized that his grandfather’s booming voice must mean he was here at Blackburne.

Larkin sat up as well, obviously awakened by the same burly commotion. “What is it?”

“Blast it,” Ash said. “My grandfather’s on his way up. Kiss me please and no arguing. I’ll explain later.”

Ash had no sooner taken her into his arms, and opened his lips over hers to swallow her predictable objection—for she could be contrary—when she gave him her cooperation, shocking him to his marrow, as his grandfather burst in on them.

“Well, is she with child yet or not?” said the prattling old patriarch.

Ash swore and Lark squeaked and slid beneath the bedcovers.

Annoyed to have been interrupted, when Lark had rare cooperation in mind, Ash nevertheless thanked the saints that he woke in time to present the picture of marital bliss. Judging by his wife’s thunderous expression, however, he might not have wholly managed it.

Was it the kiss—which spoke of mutual participation—the memory of the night before, or his grandfather’s crude query, that brought the heat of battle to his reluctant bride’s tiger eyes?

“Grandfather,” Ash said pulling the covers over his wife’s creamy shoulders. “That is scarcely a civilized question in mixed company.” To punctuate his pronouncement, Ash added a reproachful sound.

Nevertheless, rather than regard his grandfather as if he were daft, his bride awarded him that silent appellation with all the censure in her gaze.

A rare grin cracked the old man’s stony expression, then, as he looked from a one of them to the other. “How many weeks married?” he wanted to know, his wink blatant.

“Four,” Ash and Lark said together.

“Christmas is coming,” the aging meddler warned with a vile cackle, a more civil admonition than Ash expected, actually, and favorably vague, praise be.

Now, Ash thought, planning his next move, if he could move the old reprobate from their bedchamber before Lark gained a precipitous knowledge of the final stipulation contingent upon his becoming heir, he and his grandsire might both escape with their skins intact.

“Yes,” Ash said. “Christmas is coming, so why not go down to the dining room and get Grimsley to serve you a celebratory breakfast. I’ll be down directly to join you and discuss the situation.” He turned to Lark. “Man talk, Darling. Business. You wouldn’t care to—”

“Yes I would,” Lark said.

“Yes she would,” his grandfather echoed, and just like that, the thorns in his side appeared to unite against him.

His grandfather requested kippers for breakfast and ate mounds of them, with toast and strawberry jam, of all things, and tea and Scotch eggs too, by God. He seemed pleased as Midas that Lark preferred toast, and Ash cringed at the reason he must suspect, while the wily old codger regarded his only grandson as if he doubted Ash’s ability to perform that blasted duty.

“Christmas,” the old coot said again, pointing a chiding fork his way, in answer to which Ash simply shook his head. “No need for her to be suckling it or any such thing,” the old man added. “Just get it in the oven, will you, before the day, and you’ll be the wealthier for it.”

Caught and gutted, Ash thought, hanging his head in defeat.

Lark raised hers. “Excuse me?”

“That’s my terms. Got to follow them or forfeit the blunt,” the old man said. “Your choice, m’dear. Do not take up the gauntlet then lie down on the job.” His grandfather cackled, this time at his questionable wit, and Ash asked Grimsley for something to strengthen his tea.

Lark shook her head, reminding him of his promise the night before to drink less, and Ash sighed and shook his head after all when Grim approached. Need to be up on all counts for this at any rate, he thought.

Lark laced her hands together on the table linen and regarded his grandfather and then him, in turn. “Grandfather,” she said. “Please explain the terms of your will to me as if I had never heard them before. You know how forgetful Ashford can be when it comes to details.”

His grandfather shook his head sadly and Ash wanted to strangle her for falling in with reprobate’s age-old “remiss grandson” tirade.

“Well, as you must be aware,” his grandfather said, forking another piece of kipper. “After Ash’s mother—my dear daughter … faded away, Ash’s no-good father gambled away the family fortune, which had actually been brought to the marriage by my daughter.”

“Right,” Lark said, as if she had known.

“And Ash, being of the same unfortunate blood as his sire, has the same regrettable tendencies, I am sorry to admit.”

Lark shook her head with regret, much as his grandfather was wont to do, Ash thought, regarding his cunning bride with daggers in his eyes. At least he hoped she could see the daggers he shot her way.

“Besides gambling too much, Ash drinks to excess as well,” she added.

“Aye, that he does, and I’m that hopeful you can break him of his filthy habits.”

“God knows I’m trying.”

His grandfather patted his wife’s hand, while Ash watched, dumbfounded as she covered those gnarled old penny-pinching fingers with her own. “Poor Grandfather. Such a trial Ashford must be. And to help him overcome his failings, you set some rules, did you not? As I said, give me the details again, if you please, in the event the unfortunate boy forgot to impart them all.”

“Damnation!” Ash said as he rose, but the two at the table ignored him, more or less.

His grandfather pointed to Ash’s chair with his fork, and Ash looked to the heavens for guidance and sat, determined to stand—or sit—his ground.

“I did it to grow him up, mind,” his grandfather said. “He needs a great deal of growing up.”

“And so he does,” Lark agreed.

“As you know, the matter is a simple one,” Ash’s grandsire told his hellcat bride. “All Ashford needs to become my heir—with your cooperation, of course, my dear, now that he has found a bride of good sense—is to get you with child before Christmas.”

To give Lark her due, Ash thought, though she paled somewhat, and appeared as if her breakfast were about to make a return appearance—which foolishly pleased his grandfather—she did not tell the old man that her husband had withheld that last appalling stipulation. Instead, she took a breath and nodded for him to go on.

“I’d give you a hefty enough allowance right off,” the pleased old meddler said, as if he were offering a boon, “starting the first of the year, to keep you from losing the estate before my hopefully-timely demise.” He patted the inner pocket of his frockcoat. “Got it right here in the will, an allowance right off. First of the year.”

“Thank you Grandfather,” Ash said, tongue in cheek, and judging by the brow raised his way, it seemed as if Lark had been the only one to hear the wit in his caustic tone.

“Nonsense my boy. The least I could do. The Chase has been in the Blackburne family for centuries, after all. Too bad to lose it now.” The old man turned back to Lark. “Ash’s blighted father—the Black Blackguard many called him—inherited it with debt, added more debt in his life, and predicted with certainty that Ash would be the one to lose it, you see, which is why our boy is so stubbornly determined he will not.”

“Grandfather, please,” Ash said, for the old charlatan had revealed so much more than Ash wished Lark to learn as yet. Besides, in addition to revenge against his father, Ash wanted to save the place for his mother. ‘Twas the least he could do for all but stealing her life.

“Nonsense boy, Lark’s a member of the family now. She needs to know what a scurvy sot you come from.” The old man returned his attention to Lark, and Ash prayed he might be struck mute before Lark learned the disgraceful truth about what he’d done to his mother.

“Because of the reprehensible way Ash’s father treated my dearest daughter, neither Ash nor I can bear to let the blighter win even in death.”

“Grandfather,” Ash said, “I do believe Lark has learned enough of our tedious family history for one day. She does not appear at all well for what she has already learned.”

His grandfather regarded Lark with a keen eye and patted her hand. “Go and rest, my dear. We will continue at another time.”

Lark thanked him, excused herself, and left the dining room, her last fleeting look at her husband boding him ill.

“How did you know?” Ash asked his grandfather, that I married at all, given the fact that the ceremony was a hasty one.

“I keep my ears open. Knew you’d paid a trollop to wed you, didn’t I? Knew if she took money to do the deed, she’d take more not to.”

“You paid the trollop, er, I mean the actress not to wed me?”

“Tripled her earnings and sent her to France.”

“You pernicious old meddler. I should be furious,” Unfortunately, Ash could only contemplate the horror of having a trollop rather than a guttersnipe for wife. Then again, he shuddered to think of the ramifications. “This could all have gone tragically wrong.”

“But it did not, did it? You deserved better than the trollop. Looks like you found better, and sooner than I expected, I am forced to concede. Good job, Boy.”

“Hah! Now I wish I had introduced you to Lark on our wedding night,” Ash said with due disgust, though his grandfather’s foul means had garnered a surprisingly optimistic result … perhaps. “You like her then?”

“She is a bit rough around the edges, I’ll grant you.”

“If only you knew.”

“Whatever the problem, I’d warrant she can be fixed.”

“Perhaps. Only time will tell.”

“We do not have time. At Christmas, your bride must be heavy with child. You have barely enough time to insure that happens. And you will make it happen, come fire or flood, if you know what you owe your mother.”

“Right.” There it was, glaringly loud, however unspoken, between them, a reminder of his insidious sin, his greatest failure, a failure for which his mother had paid. “I will not run from my responsibilities again,” Ash said.

His grandsire was almost as talented a schemer as his father, Ash thought, and he, himself, nearly as bad as both of them. But he had one worthy bone in his body, revenge, and one bit of himself to give—repentance, to what was left of his mother—to his tenants, and to Larkin and the children they might have, despite the fact that he’d had to sell his soul to his grandfather to do it.

When the old man was set to take his leave, Lark returned to stand beside Ash at the top of the Chase steps. She embraced and kissed his grandfather as if he were her own, affectionate and loving, and she smiled as they waved him off. And when the old man’s carriage cleared the gates, she rounded on her unsurprised husband. “You have to get me with child before Christmas?”

“Those are his terms for me to inherit.”

She whipped a small packet from the folds of her skirts and shoved it at him. “Read this to me.”

Ash hesitated before he took the packet. “What is it?”

“His will, he said. Go ahead. Read it, and you had better not omit anything important.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I found it.”

“Where? In my grandfather’s pocket?”

Lark shrugged and dragged him, awestruck, and certain his suspicions were correct, into the drawing room to sit. “Read it,” she said.

Ash shook his head and read the bloody will, because frankly, he had always wanted to be certain he would face no surprises after the old scoundrel stuck his spoon in the wall.

For fully ten minutes after, Lark sat in amazed and uncharacteristic silence.

“Speak to me,” Ash said. “Would you like a glass of water?”

“You should have told me the final stipulation. I once thought you the most forthright of men.”

“You were wrong.” Ash knew, if his bride did not, that he was everything his father said—a good for nothing, a rogue, a scoundrel, who’d as good as killed his own mother with selfishness.

“Your grandfather is difficult to read,” Lark said. “I cannot decide whether he is proud or ashamed of you.”

“And I cannot decide if you are a lady or a pickpocket.”

Lark tilted her head, as if deciding whether to answer, but she remained silent.

“As to whether my grandfather is proud of me, he is not. We dislike each other tremendously, always have.”

“That, I did not realize. You put on a good show.”

“He disowned my mother when she married my father, and when I was born he disowned me by association. We had no contact for years and have one thing, and one alone, in common. We both detested my father and everything he stood for. Ours is a pact of vengeance, pure and simple.”

“But your father is dead. And what about your mother? Where is she? Both you and your grandfather spoke so little of her, it made me wonder.”

His mother was all but dead as well, Ash thought, swallowing regret. “May I reserve the right to tell you my mother’s story at another time?” he asked.

His wife regarded him curiously then, and he saw recognition in her gaze, of sorrow perhaps, with a spark of understanding as well, and she nodded.

“My mother loved Blackburne Chase almost as much as she loved me. I intend to save it for her, and for her grandchildren, by God, even if that means making a pact with the devil, which is where my grandfather came in.”

“So you and your grandfather created a hell into which I stumbled?”

“Into which your father pushed us both, make no mistake, not that either of us is wholly without blame.”

“Right,” Lark said. “You have me there.”

CHAPTER NINE

Ash stood staring into the fire in the drawing room, aware he must convince Lark that it would be in her best interests to aid him in his determination to become his grandfather’s heir. She had intelligence and a ready wit, and must understand the importance of his need. Besides, there was no getting around the old codger’s determination any more than his own.

“When were you going to tell me of this final stipulation? That was the last, was it not? You did read to me every word on that will? I am not to bear six babies in six years or any such wild requirement am I?”

“A babe in my bride’s belly by Christmas was the final condition. To be truthful, I did consider telling you last evening, after I got you drunk.”

Lark raised a brow. “I knew you were up to something.”

“But you let me hold you in my lap, a clear indication you understood nothing of my intent.”

“I had told you my sister’s story and frightened us both. I felt safe enough and sleepy enough not to worry. Foolish probably, but I survived. We both did.”

Barely, Ash thought, remembering the hard night’s sleep he’d had later, the worse for having spilled his seed in her hand, and for the erotic dreams he’d weaved as a result. “Twas a true story, then?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Since, for the most part, all is laid bare between us what do you say to helping me?”

Lark started. “Help you do … what?”

“Save Blackburne Chase by bearing my child?”

“That is an excessively large and … personal request.”

“I swore to take revenge upon my father in my mother’s name. You would take revenge upon your sister’s tormenter, if you could, would you not? I would help you vilify your own sire, if you wished it. He deserves taking down, that one. I detest the way he treated you.”

That brought her head up. “May I call upon that offer at some future date, perhaps?”

“I will be at your service, and will you be at mine? Is having children not what married people do, after all?”

“People who are married in the conventional way do, without stipulations. But since we were not married without conditions … on your part….”

Ash prepared for battle. “I feel an additional requirement coming on.”

“My sister’s babe….”

“It lived, then?”

“It did. She did not. It is—he is— Micah, his name is Micah. He lives still in the country, and because I pay them to care for him, they treat him almost as a member of the family, but that is not the same as a family of one’s own, do you not agree?”

Lark rose as well, forestalling his response. “I will go along with your grandfather’s requirements, if you bring Micah here and raise and educate him as you would your own son, and—”

“And?” Ash asked, encouraging the thought she had abandoned.

“When you inherit, you put ten thousand pounds in each of our names, mine and Micah’s, as security against an uncertain future.”

“That’s robbery.”

“Equal to the deceitful trick you were planning that might have broken my heart.”

Ash scoffed. “Is a guttersnipe’s heart so delicate, then?”

Lark paled, “You will never know,” she said, raising her chin. “For my heart will never be open to your view. But if you wish to get me with child, I’d as soon know the reason why beforehand and not lay it at the door of a foolish notion like forever or any such rubbish.”

Ash hated himself for the angry insult. “Speaking of rubbish, what do you mean by demeaning such a cherished notion? Many a lady has lived on the hope of forever.”

“Many a lady has also perished from such an ill-fated aspiration, besides I am no lady, as you just pointed out.”

“I have been known to be wrong-headed as well as fork-tongued. Remember that you are my lady. You will accept my apology.”

“I will accept ten thousand pounds for each of us,” she said, stubborn as ever.

“For what uncertain future? You are my wife, until death us do part. No uncertainty exists in those words.”

“Unless you leave this earthly plane and another of your relatives with more money than brains writes a will with the power to send me packing. Besides, ‘tis for your own good as well as ours.”

Ash gave her a sardonic smile. “Explain.”

“After your grandfather passes—if either you or I, or both of us, chooses—we will be free to go our separate ways. You would be due your freedom, if you wished it, after the way … my father tricked you.”

“And you, what would you be due?”

“Recompense, for my suffering.”

“What suffering?”

“You must realize that I am … fearful of being hurt by the act necessary to creation. I am not partial to the idea of all that blood and pain just for a babe, though I do love Micah, and I am certain I could love a child of yours.”

“If you tried very hard,” Ash said, aware of the bite in his rejoinder. Yet, about his wife there suddenly existed a broken doll quality that he had certainly not glimpsed at the pub, or later when he brought her home. The fragility seemed to emerge as he peeled away each hardened layer of her hopes and dreams, layers of a past that might break a lesser being.

Ash saw the defenselessness in her, because he had experienced it on rare occasions in his own lifetime—and not just as a child. As a man, he considered himself a failure when he experienced dejection, because the male of the species were not supposed to feel, much less acknowledge the susceptibility toward vulnerability.

Nevertheless, in Lark, the frailty called to him, as if some invisible thread connected them, a sturdy thread he wished he might cut, for in many ways, he ached where it tugged at him. He disliked understanding her pain, seeing her helpless. He abhorred her mirroring his powerlessness, even more than he detested the weakness in himself.

“One more problem,” she said. “I do not know precisely what to do to get with child, so you will have to teach me.”

“I would have thought that living at a pub with transient “guests”….”

“Exactly.” Again her chin came up. “While I suspect that I know what to do to keep from getting with child—as the result of an incident I have tried to put from my mind—’tis the brutality of conception that seems to have slipped utterly through the fabric of my education.”

There, he saw it now. Through Larkin’s pain-filled eyes that broken doll vulnerability regarded him.

“I would rather a minimum of pain and blood,” she said, “if you please.” She went to gaze out the window, too pensive by half, her spine and shoulders bent with the ugly weight of the single brutal conception she remembered, however distorted.

Dear God, if she wept, in the way his mother had been wont to do, to get her own way, he could be done for. Then again, he did not intend to become bitter over the effort to touch his wife, as some men did. One way or another, easy or difficult, theirs would become a true marriage. He could be patient.

To his great relief, she turned to him, her shoulders firm, her tense tiger’s eyes becoming as inflexible as tiger eye stone, calming him, for the fissure in her broken-doll-porcelain seemed to be healing of its own accord. “And when I am with child,” she said, punctuating her words as if he should heed them, “you will stop coming to my bed.”

A strike to the solar plexus. A loss of breath. Her final condition hit him hard. Ash rubbed the back of his neck, scrubbed his coarse-stubbled chin. Now he knew, by God. Larkin Rose Blackburne could outfox him in a trice while remaining even more coldhearted and unemotional than he. Good God, what had he gotten himself into?

Whatever the depth of his predicament, he must remain strong, for this woman could break him. He knew it in his bones. “Fine,” Ash said, firming his spine, for his immediate goal sat more heavily on his shoulders than his absurd wish for an enduring physical relationship with his wife, though he’d not relinquish the notion. “We start now.”

“Now?” The sudden lack of color in his wife’s cheeks softened her and reassured him that she was not totally lacking in sensitivity. “But this is the middle of the day?” she all but wailed.

“You think what we did last night cannot be done in the middle of the day?”

That fast, scarlet washed her flour-paste skin. “What we did last night can hardly make a babe,” she said. “There was not a drop of blood anywhere.”

“No but there were drops of that which really counts.”

She colored and turned back to the window. “I do not know what you are talking about.”

“Fine. Then get you up the stairs and strip to the dress God gave you, because I am about to teach you.”

“Just like that, so cold and … brutal?”

“You are the one who requires no emotion. A hard cold bargain you offer and a hard cold bargain I accept.”

“Well, there is no emotion between us, is there? Ours is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a love match.”

“Perhaps not, but what happened between us last night seemed rather intimate to me. I thought at the time that it might make for a good beginning.”

“A beginning to what?” His wife’s face flamed. “What did we do last night? Do you not understand that I have no name for what happened between us? I do not even know. I did think I’d surely die and go to hell for whatever it was, for it seemed supremely wicked to my mind, and I was honestly surprised I woke this morning … alive.”

‘Twas not her innocence that made Ash laugh, but his own at doubting her, and the harder he laughed, the angrier his wife became, until she ran from the room and out the front door.

“Here we go again,” Ash said, chasing her as far as the spinney at the far edge of his estate.

She was weeping when he caught up with her and that seemed to make her madder, but she was out of breath, almost as winded as he, and so she remained by the stream, sitting on a rock. He sat beside her, took her into his arms, and let her weep against his shoulder. “About time you had somebody to lean on,” he said. “Life’s not been easy on you, has it, Larkin?”

“It’s not been terrible bad,” she said. “Except for never knowing my mother, and losing my sister, and wanting to make a better life for Micah.”

“Micah will come to us, as soon as may be arranged,” Ash said, concerned over his ability to become a proper father to the boy, considering his own mischievous childhood … and adulthood, come to that. “I shall send for him today if you wish.”

Lark wiped her eyes. “You would take him on, before I am with child?”

“He has a home with us, if you never get with child.”

“Could that happen?”

Most assuredly, Ash thought, with the haste they were taking on this baby-making business. “We will have to try frequently to be certain it does not.”

Lark looked at him suspiciously.

“I suspect you experienced pleasure last night, did you not?”

Lark’s face flamed and she hid against his frockcoat, though to give her credit, she nodded honestly.

“Good, and so did I, but the pleasure could have been greater, sharper, if we were, ah, hmm, how to explain this. You must have seen animals mating at one time or another?”

“Of course. Horses, dogs.”

“Like other animals, a man becomes hard when aroused so he can “mate” with a woman. You touched me there, remember, and helped me spill my seed.”

“So that’s what that was?”

“Only we wasted it.”

Lark’s face turned pink. “All over the place.”

“Hmm.” Ash grinned for the wicked candor in her comment, a frankness that would make a woman of society swoon. “So you understand that I would have to insert that hardened part of me inside of you to plant my seed.”

Like a shot, Lark flew from his arms and off their perch, then she was running once more, Ash chasing behind.

Finally, he stopped, gave up the chase, and watched her disappear from sight. He shook his head as he bent and rubbed his legs. “I am going to die young from pursuing my bride about the countryside.” He dropped into the grass to await her return and reclined to watch the clouds.

Before ten minutes passed, she stood over him, arms crossed, foot tapping. “It will never fit.”

“It will.”

“That’s what made my sister bleed. He split her in half. I’m convinced of it.”

“He forced her. There’s the difference.”

“What?”

“Come down here and let me explain.”

Lark lay beside him in the grass and Ash rolled over to cup her center through the skirts of her dress. She gasped in surprise, moved her legs as if to dislodge him, but he didn’t take his hand away, and she didn’t make a point of asking him to. Ultimately, she seemed to relax.

After a time of staring into each other eyes, his hand firm, there at her center, he felt her begin to throb. “The difference,” he said, is a simple one. “The other night, you wanted my hand on you, here, as you want it now, as you did in the tree.”

“I do not. I did not.”

“You did. You do. I can tell.”

She harrumphed and looked away from him. “So?” she said, turning back after a minute.

“Two people wanting to mate with each other makes the difference. Even now, you’re readying yourself to receive me, with a moist pulsing that will ease my way inside of you here.” He stroked her. “You feel almost as good as you did last night before you let me touch you, and you would feel better if I did touch you, beneath your clothes, and altogether better, again, once I slipped inside you.”

“I am not certain I can believe you.”

“Because I am a man.”

“How did you know?”

He placed her hand upon the swelling in his trousers, pressed her palm against him, felt the jolt of pleasure. “I have proof.”

She smiled at his jest but stroked his turgid length as if measuring him with her thumb, and he took to stroking her in return and drifting into pleasure.

“I think we have a problem,” she said, shattering pleasure and returning him to earth with a rude rush.

“I certainly have a problem,” he said, tongue in cheek. “I am set to explode.”

“That is entirely too big to fit where you say it must go. You feel about the size of a stallion, and believe me, I am no mare in heat.”

Ash groaned at the analogy, and to make matters worse, he found himself inconveniently and uncomfortably stimulated by it. “You overrate my size, Lark, and if you do not rein in your imagination, I fear you will be sorely disappointed when presented with the sight of me.”

“I will only be disappointed if you are larger than a thimble.”

“Then you are right. We have a problem. I am larger than a thimble, thank the gods, but I am smaller than a stallion as well.”

“A parsnip? A carrot?”

“Are you comparing my manhood to a vegetable? Parsnips and carrots come in all sizes, as you very well know. Besides you held me in your hand last night.”

“But I could not see in the dark. It felt inordinately huge.” Lark rose and took his hand to drag him up.

“Neither were you of a mind for looking,” Ash said. “And thank you for the compliment. Where are we going?”

“The root cellar. You’re going to show me a root vegetable that precisely matches your manly size.”

“Surely you jest.”

“I most certainly do not. This is a serious business and I must be properly prepared, unless you want another beating like the one I gave you at the pub before we married.”

Ash pulled up short. “Excuse me, but as I remember it, ‘twas I who won that battle.”

Lark laughed, which cheered him as much as it annoyed him. “With my knee at your knockers, I think not. One good shot and you would have been at my mercy, much as you were the other morning when I threw you from my bed in that precise way.”

Ash remembered that occasion well enough. He hurt for remembering it. But had she bested him on their wedding night at the pub? He thought not. Well, possibly, though not as well as with the pistol later, of course.

“At least have the decency to call my man parts by their proper names, if you please. “Knockers” are what rogues call women’s breasts, “ballocks” are the proper word for a man’s … resources.”

She threw open the door to the root cellar and proceeded down the steps. “Fine, then I had you by the ballocks. Feel better now?”

CHAPTER TEN

In the chill dank underground storage beneath the scullery, Ash watched with no little amusement as his bold as brass bride rooted through a bin of carrots, then one of parsnips, to see if she could find a vegetable that matched the size of his not inconsiderable manhood at its saluting best. She began by holding up a parsnip the size of a pizzle on a two year old.

Ash shook his head in denial with regret for her sake and relief for his own.

“This one then?”

“Too thick on the bottom, too pointed at the top.”

“But the length?”

“Too short.”

“Bloody Hell,” said the Lady Blackburne, falling into her guttersnipe vocabulary as she went back to searching for a root to match his own.

She chose one, looked it over, swore like a pub drunk, and made to put it back, but after a bit of hesitation, she raised the biggest parsnip Ash had ever seen in his life and watched for his reaction as if with baited breath.

Ash considered it for a moment, to make his bride squirm, saw her eyes grow wide, and her face go pale. He lost the fight. “Too big.”

“Thank the bloody gods,” she said and then she beamed, a sincerely beautiful sight, until she frowned. “You frightened me intentionally, did you not?”

Ash failed to answer but hid his smile and lowered himself to a wooden crate. He crossed his arms to watch, beside himself enchanted by the sight of her. Perhaps they had not quite come to a stage of comfort between them while discussing the sexual act, but this must surely be a first step toward marital intimacy, however skewed her approach.

He considered searching with her, for just the right sized representation of his manhood, but he preferred to feast his eyes on the child-woman before him. Even in a dress, stained and tattered though it had become in the hour she’d worn it, she moved like a boy, likely from long practice, and he could clearly see that skirts hampered her progress in a way that annoyed the devil out of her. Another notion that charmed him.

Yet there was a vulnerable womanliness to her as well, which called to him, something in her that needed nurturing, or healing, he was not certain which. He knew only that she seemed more broken than he, and he wanted suddenly to be the man to heal her.

She raised another parsnip, and another, and Ash continued shaking his head, keeping his amusement at bay.

Even at rest, he was, unfortunately for her peace, but providential for her pleasure, rather well endowed, judging by many—though not all—of the comrades he’d seen in the buff during their frequent river-baths in the army.

“Ashford Blackburne,” said his bride, “you are alarming the devil out of me. I wish you would come and help before I run screaming into the wilderness.”

“Surely the Larkin McAdams who bested me on our wedding night is not admitting fear,” Ash said as he rose and approached her.

“Certainly not.” She straightened her spine. “Only that the prelude to fear is beginning to … sneak upon me with snapping teeth, and if you do not put period to my torture, the mere anticipation of alarm will get the better of me.”

“I see,” Ash said, searching, for all the world, through a season’s worth of parsnips for one the exact same size as his ponderous pride.

Finally, he came upon a fearfully large parsnip, too large actually, and held it forth for her perusal.

Lark made to swoon as if in a comedy on the stage, delighting him with her antics. But when he caught her sobering gaze, he snapped an inch off its top, which went a great distance toward relieving the true anxiety she tried valiantly to hide.

“For my lady wife,” said Ash, presenting it with a bow and a flourish like a handful of posies, “for your delectable and insatiable pleasure.”

Larkin took the respectable parsnip, regarded it with silent assessment, then she gripped it as she had gripped his lance, testing its length, ran her hand up and down, down and up—growing him, if she but knew it, as if ‘twere his root she stroked.

Then sighing in loud resignation, she placed the prototypical parsnip in her pocket and led her silent way up the steep granite steps of the dank root-cellar and out into the spring sunshine.

They walked the perimeter of the house after that, she rather forlorn, for longer than he’d like. “You still haven’t given me a full tour inside the house,” she said, making an effort at turning her mind, he thought, as she regarded the front of his bay-windowed, brick-faced home with curiosity. “What rooms occupy the matching towers at either end?”

“The tower rooms are all circular,” he said. The east tower boasts a library on the main floor, and above it my study, down the hall from the master bedchamber suite, and below it, on the first floor, a small receiving room. The west tower rooms are used for … storage … mainly.”

Lark nodded and turned unexpectedly toward the spinney, but she passed it and continued on toward the horse chestnut tree beyond, where she had hidden the day of her reading lesson. She climbed back into the crook she preferred, tearing a ruffle from her bodice in the process and patted the limb beside her.

Ash climbed up, oddly honored to be invited, wondering if she wanted more than to rest. The last time he’d joined her, she had ended by tossing him to the ground, a rather significant parody, actually, of their courtship to date, now that he thought of it.

“What is it called?” she asked, her hand in her parsnip pocket. “This making of a babe?”

Before answering, Ash settled himself with his arms around her, glad she let him, because he believed that embracing her whenever he could might help her become less fearful of his touch.

“The most respectable term is, “making love.”“

“But we do not love each other.”

“Right. We do not even know each other very well, do we, which will change in time, but I like you, Lark. I like you better than either of the two brides who jilted me.”

“How fortunate for me.”

“No, the fortune is mine. I never knew I could like a woman; much less the one I married. You are quite the revelation. We will make you into a fine lady. You shall see. I will hire a score of tutors, but for now, what I need most from you is for us to make a babe.”

“It does not seem right,” she said.

“What doesn’t?”

“Making a baby to save an estate.”

“Ash sighed and smoothed his hand away from her dress, where he’d been about to place it close to her breast. After her words, touching her did not seem right of a sudden. “I had not thought of it in quite those terms.”

“Let us make it some promises and write them down.”

“It?”

“The baby we’re going to have. Do you know how to write?” she asked.

“Yes, and I shall have someone teach you that too. Wait, what good will promises do if we decide later to go our separate ways—your suggestion, you will remember.”

“For my part, I would evoke that condition only in extreme circumstances. In my own way, I am a woman of honor, as I know you to be a man of integrity, therefore, I feel justified in making promises that I am confident we will both keep.”

Ash did not feel justified in vouching for his own integrity, which made him wonder why he felt comfortable depending upon hers. Nevertheless, her words presented him with a modicum of relief in the face of her earlier inflexibility. He nodded. “What kind of promises shall we make it then?”

“We promise it we will … feed it whenever it’s hungry, change it’s bottom, keep it warm with clothes and a snug home to live in. We will promise to embrace it and let it cry on our shoulders when it must. That’s important, I discovered today.” She regarded him. “What would you have liked your parents to do for you that they neglected?”

“Tell me they liked me, even though I was not normally a well-behaved nor even a good son. Teach me to be responsible.”

“Oh yes.” She sat straighter. “We will definitely like our baby, though we might not always like what he or she does, and we shall tell it so. We will also teach it to be responsible.” She touched his arm. “We have to stop calling our future baby, “it,” you know. We shall write two letters, shall we, one to a boy and one to a girl, so we may present the right letter when the time comes. What shall we name them?”

“Them?”

“A boy and a girl. We shall choose a name for each.”

“Ah, I see.” Ash was enchanted.

“And Christmas,” she added. “We have to promise that in the letter; we’ll give them Christmas every year, because my father did not, though I heard of it and yearned for it.”

“Christmas,” Ash said. “Splendid idea. And their names are? Let us pick them now,” he said. If she knew more about her children, he wondered, would she be ready to let him start begetting them? He certainly hoped so. “Are there any names in particular that you like?”

She did not have to think for long. “Isobel is the loveliest girl’s name I ever heard. It sounded like music the first time I heard it. Can we have a daughter named Isobel?”

That sobered him. A daughter named Isobel—it felt so real, frighteningly real. “Any special reason you picked that name?”

“It was my mother’s and she deserved the kind of life we’re giving our own Isobel.”

Our own Isobel. “Fine,” Ash said, feeling his cravat tighten. “Isobel, it is, and for a boy?”

“I’d like a son named Zachary. Perhaps we should have one of each.”

Ash crushed his bride in his arms, without thought, and gave in to the sort of inner merriment that reminded him of children rolling down grassy hills in sunshine. Then he stilled and sat back and regarded her curiously, as if seeing “inside” Larkin Rose for the very first time.

He placed a finger beneath her chin and lifted it until their eyes met and held, and he touched his lips to hers, a teasing flutter at first, cool silk grazing warm, until within the kiss, almost without conscious thought, he passed the fullness of his feelings, whatever they might be, to her without words.

She nodded, the movement of her head so slight he might have missed it, and he thought she might be as pleasantly confused by the exchange. “Thank you for liking me,” she said her throat working. “I do not believe anyone has before, other than my sister. Why do you?”

“Why do I like you? For … naming our children before you let me beget them, for that parsnip in your pocket, even for siding with my grandfather, though I should put you over my knee for that.”

“Yeek,” Lark jumped from the tree and ran.

Ash jumped as well to chase after her, as ever, and he could have sworn that when she found an idyllic spot, she let him catch her.

They fell to the ground and kissed in the lavender field beneath the warm spring sun. Rolling in tall grass, and beside fragrant azure blossoms, they explored each other’s mouths, with lips and tongues, as if that kiss had been the first and she wanted more. They slipped curious hands into each other’s clothes, undid a few buttons and gave into an afternoon of unexpected laughter and erotic exploration.

Tonight, Ash thought. Tonight they would begin trying to make a baby. Isobel and Zachary. Or Zachary. Good God, having given his possible children names, he had begun to think of them as real, both of them. What daft notion ailed him now? And letters to be written to unborn children, by God.

Whatever his mad fancy, Ash knew that for the first time in years, Christmas suddenly seemed an event to look forward to, rather than dread, for if all went well, he would have a family of his own with whom to share it.

He sent Larkin upstairs before him that night, to prepare herself to receive him, relieved to learn, shortly after, that she had ordered herself a bath and that she could not possibly find a new way to fight him on this.

They had struck a bargain, and Ash felt reasonably certain that Lark would not bite, kick, poke, knee, or shoot him tonight, no, nor find any other excuse to stop him.

Then again, she had long equated the sexual act with a painful, bloody brutality. He must approach her as he would a high-spirited filly, with gentle words and pleasure-filled touches. Soft kisses and caresses. Tease her mind with images of pleasure, mating images, horses perhaps—no that would frighten her. As would he, for his body had already taken to rising to the occasion, even as he told himself to approach his bride with slow and easy caution.

Would his aroused state frighten her, or had her parsnip done the trick? Ash grinned despite his apprehension. Perhaps he would wear his inexpressibles at first, until she was ready for more of him, keep himself under a measure of containment.

For more than an hour, Ash paced, regarding the brandy container several yearning times, but he continued to deny himself. Gad, but with Lark’s help, he was getting good at this self-denial business, both with his drink and his sexual gratification.

Finally he shook his head, checked his watch, and made his way up the stairs, though for some reason he felt as if he were on his way to his own hanging. Perhaps because he knew she was frightened. God knew, he would take her pain to himself, if he could.

What the devil ailed him? He was not going to hurt her—well, not beyond the first barrier—if there were a barrier. “Damn it!” Should he explain that to her as well? Yes, he thought, and in great blathering detail. The notion of it made him sweat. He stopped in the stairs to take out his handkerchief and mop his brow. Then, rather than enter her bedchamber direct, he went to his own first, to give her a minute more.

Then he went through the dressing room, because he hated dithering, stopped short when he saw the results of her bath—a good sign. Then he saw a smear of blood on a damp towel and worry began to ride him. He stopped short of throwing open her door, but entered as if he belonged there, which he damned well did. Had she cut herself, done herself a harm … to escape the marriage act?

No, his bride had more strength of character than that. But her bedchamber sat empty. Her bed had been turned down, and a dresser drawer stood open, boys’ clothes spilling out. Atop her dresser, an empty inkwell had been employed, as if in the guise of a candleholder, to hold an erect … parsnip.

Blast and damnation! She’d bolted.

Ash found Grimsley reading beside the front door, where he’d stationed the man every night since he brought his bolting bride home.

“Sorry sir, but she did not pass this way. Brinks is bunking at the kitchen door, I suggest you check there.”

Lark hadn’t left, both men assured him. They’d been keeping guard since before she said goodnight in the drawing room earlier.

Ash began a methodical sweeping search of the house, until he remembered her questions about the towers. Rather than the tower rooms in use, he went, with a sinking heart, toward the ones he told her they used primarily for storage.

He found her there, in the west tower, as he suspected, on the family bedchamber floor, in the room he least wished her to find.

Wearing her trousers once again, his bride stood with tears in her eyes, staring down into the face of his mother, who stared blankly back, looking like a skeleton, swallowed by the huge bed in which she lay.

Nan stood to the side, horrified.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Who is she?” Lark asked when she saw Ash enter the beautiful round bedchamber. “She does not speak and Nan will tell me nothing.”

Nan curtseyed as if in apology.

“Go and have a cup of tea, Nan,” Ash said. “Then you may return directly.”

Ash placed his arm around Larkin’s trembling shoulders and together they stepped closer to the bed. “She is my mother, or what is left of her.”

“Why did you not tell me or bring me to meet her? Because you are ashamed of me?” She looked straight at him and lowered her voice. “Or because you are ashamed of her?”

Ash winced but did not deign to lower his voice. “Because I am ashamed of me, and because you said you were not ready to meet her, if you will remember, and were to tell me when you were. Besides, I did not wish you to be frightened here at Blackburne. She is like a ghost, you see, almost alive, not quite dead.”

“What happened to her?” Lark asked. “And why should you feel shame?”

“She suffered an apoplectic seizure when I went to war and never recovered. This is the result. Before his death, my father accused me of running off to war to escape my responsibilities, and in the running, of killing my mother. I am beginning to believe he was right.”

“She may yet recover.”

“It has been five years, Lark. Nevertheless, in that unlikely event, I am trying to keep from losing the Estate. She loves this place, you see. It is her home. I would not want to move her from it, in any state. I think she would know somehow, and mourn the loss, and die after all.”

“You should have told me.”

“What good?”

“I may be wrong, but was there not something in our marriage vows about good times and bad, sickness and health?”

“As I remember, you spoke also the words, obey, serve, and honor him. Should we now take our vows to heart, and begin again, for neither of us stands blameless in this unruly marriage of ours.”

Lark nodded, conceding his point. “I would like to begin again.”

That surprised him, but with no time to examine his feelings, he evaded the issue. “If it is any consolation, I did plan to bring you here at some point soon. That is the best I can offer in my own defense, though perhaps I did not feel hurried to reveal my greatest sin to you.”

“I see no sin, only sorrow.”

Ash looked away as Nan returned. He thanked her and made to leave.

“Will you not take your mother’s hand?” Lark said. “Speak to her or kiss her cheek? She will be hurt for the slight.”

Ash started as if struck. “Nonsense. She is aware of nothing.”

“And suppose you are wrong? You seem to like being touched. Why would she not?”

“Larkin, stop it,” Ash said, taking his wife’s arm and shutting his mother’s door behind them. He disliked her scold as much as he had disliked her underserved absolution.

Forgiveness he found to be as difficult in receiving as in giving. As for the reprimand of neglect, especially as pertained to his mother, he detested it, no matter the giver.

“What may I ask were you doing wandering the house at half past bloody midnight, and wearing your boys clothes besides?”

Lark stopped, pulling him up short. “You said this was my house now as well.”

“And so it is.” Ash urged her along.

“If you must know, I want to turn one of the tower rooms into a sitting room. I never had a room of my own.”

To Ash’s surprise, Lark was not walking with her usually manly stride but with short, careful steps, her head bowed, more yielding than he imagined possible. “The circular room above my mother’s current bedchamber was her own sitting room,” he said, watching Lark closely. “She would be pleased for you to return it to its former glory.”

“Thank you,” Lark whispered, all humility. “I am sorry for what she is going through, and for the guilt that must be your companion after your sire’s unjust accusation. I believe I am beginning to dislike your father every bit as much as you and your grandfather do.” She slowed. “Did your grandfather not visit his daughter when he was here? I do not remember that he took the opportunity.”

“He rarely does. I think he becomes upset, even ill, when he sees her like that, though he is too hard-headed to admit it as much.”

“Humph. And what do you think of so shoddy an excuse for neglect?”

Ash respected her anger on his mother’s behalf. “As I told you at the time, my grandfather and I dislike each other, and always have. His neglect does not surprise me.”

“You are a better man than he is, Ash.”

“I appreciate your vote of confidence,” Ash said, “and believe that you are a better woman than I had surmised upon first meeting. One who keeps her word … speaking of which, did we not have a bargain set to begin this night?”

Lark’s pallor negated the possibility of forgetfulness on her part. “No, but we cannot begin tonight after all.”

“Because of what you have just seen? It has given you a disgust of me?” Which he would comprehend, truth to tell.

They stepped into her bedchamber, and he saw that her face shown again like pomegranates.

“I understand,” he said, “but I must remind you that however distressing my mother’s situation, you need to be with child by Christmas, or I may lose what she values most.”

“I would think that she would value you most.”

“Was a time she did,” he said, and then he chose to move from the maudlin past to the living present. “Why are you wearing trousers again?”

“Christmas is a long way off.”

“You are correct,” he said, “but these things take time, Lark, and since we do not know how much time, once you have recovered from the shock of this evening, we must begin as soon as possible.”

“You are right, of course.” She nodded as if she meant it. “But I am not suffering from shock. That is not the problem.”

“So we may begin tonight after all?” Ash reached to unbutton the flap on her trousers before she changed her mind.

She slapped her hand over his. “What are you doing?”

“Getting you out of those trousers.”

“You cannot!”

“We can hardly make a baby with you wearing them. Or have you changed your mind again?”

“Oh please no, not tonight … or tomorrow night. Next Tuesday would do. How about next Tuesday? Perhaps even Monday?”

“Lark, this is not about my mother, is it?” he asked, hoping to God it wasn’t and that she would be willing to take him into herself and obliterate his own memories.

“No, it is not.”

“Then remove your trousers, if you please.”

“I do not please. I cannot!” she wailed as tears filled her eyes.

Now this caught Ash off guard, gave him pause and a worry of no inconsequential magnitude. Larkin McAdams had beat him to a bloody pulp previous to their wedding, and though he had not fought back, precisely, he had kept himself from being injured to the point that she must have become at least half as bruised, and she’d shed not a tear.

Her father had swatted her that night as well, which made him furious to remember, and no tears had come to her eye at those times either. And now she swore that seeing his mother had not given her a disgust of him, so why the tears?

“Lark,” Ash said. “Please tell me what is wrong.”

“I must wear my trousers or something terrible will happen.”

Ash was startled by the melodramatic tone of her statement and tried not to smile.

She turned away. “I cannot tell you, because it is too terrible to say.”

“Show me then.”

“No!” she said with a gasp. “Good God, no!”

“Lark, I am your husband. Whatever is the matter, you must tell me, for husbands and wives should face the terrors of life together. Sickness and health, good and bad, remember?”

“You will know that you made a very bad bargain, if I tell you, and it will give you a disgust of me as well, then you will not want to make a baby with me. Better you should not know.”

Ash was intrigued no small bit and looked her over very closely for some clue as to her passionate concern. Her honeyed hair, he saw still hung damp from her bath, the only sign she’d taken one, except for the towel with … a smear of blood.

Was it possible she did not understand the natural way of things?

With a father like hers? Entirely possible.

Ash sat Lark on the edge of her bed and knelt before her. “Do you have your monthlies, Larkin?”

She seemed relieved he’d changed the subject. “What are they?”

“They,” he said, talking to himself, wondering how to go on. “You do know that every woman of an age to bear children goes through a monthly bloody flux.”

Pomegranate cheeks, she wore once more, to match her dawning recognition.

“You do not remember your mother bleeding every month?” he asked.

“She died when I was born,” Lark wailed, her embarrassment flying at full mast.

“Your sister?”

“I thought that was because of what he did to her.”

“The bleeding is normal Lark, every month. It’s happening to you now, is it not? You never realized that it happens around the same time every month?”

“I do not read dates, so how would I?”

“What did you think the blood signified then?”

“I suppose I thought that someday I would … bleed to death. Sometimes I wondered when, or if I would have time to help Micah before it was too late.”

“So you basically thought you were dying for years?”

Lark raised her chin, pride in every line of her high cheekbones. “After a while, when I didn’t die, I … put up with it and worried less.”

Ash knew he’d been right; his Lark shed no tears for the possibility of dying, or even the reprieve thereof. Only extreme embarrassment brought tears to the eyes of Larkin Rose. That, and the suffering of another—her sister, her nephew, his mother.

“It occurs to me, Lark,” Ash said, “that your sister’s bleeding might have been natural at the time you found her. She might not have been forced but simply gave herself in the midst of her flux.”

Lark looked horrified.

Ash stroked the hair from her brow. “Do not fret; I will not importune you at this time. Not for your first experience, though I would hope, there might come a time when you would offer yourself, whatever your state.”

His bride looked as if she doubted his sanity, while he faced the happy realization that her virginity, or lack thereof, mattered not, for now he had physical proof that she carried no child of another, though her innocence had long since implied as much.

“Whatever you think,” he went on, “a man and woman may come together then and ‘twill be messy. Just know that you might have misunderstood the blood, and your sister might not have been hurt after all. Did she complain of pain? Did she weep afterward, for instance?”

“She wept always when he was done with her. She loved him you see, but he would not have her for wife, not even when she got herself with child and begged him to take her.”

“But no bruises afterward, no mention of pain?”

“No,” Lark said, her brows furrowed in thought.

“Your fears, I believe, have been magnified,” Ash said, “by an unfounded assumption made by a young girl who did not know better.”

“And your conclusions,” his bride snapped, “have been drawn by a man looking for a means to his own end.”

Ash grinned despite himself in appreciation of her strange blend of cleverness and naiveté. “We shall see then, for only time can prove me correct.” He reached for her trousers once more, but once more she stopped him.

“Larkin, I have undressed you previous to this, so why not let me take your trousers off you now? Or I will leave, if you would be more comfortable, so you may don your night-rail and climb into bed to await me.”

“The trousers hold everything up … It’s ugly, Ash.”

“It’s not, it’s natural.”

“The folded cloth gets ugly. How do women in fancy dresses hold them up without trousers, anyway?”

“I … have no idea, but I’ll go fetch cook, shall I, and get her to show you?” He rose.

Lark caught his hand. “No, please. Let me just wear my trousers for a few days and then I will wear dresses.”

“You would wear trousers to sleep as well?”

She nodded, and he raised a finger to her lips as she made to respond.

“I intend to continue sleeping with you,” he warned, “in whatever state you find yourself, but I would like to see you sleep comfortably.”

Lark threw herself back on the bed with a sigh, her legs hanging off the edge. “I cannot believe I am having this conversation with a man.”

“With your husband,” Ash corrected as he made to leave the bedchamber, “and do not forget it. Do not move from that spot. I will return shortly.”

Ashford Blackburne. Her husband. Teaching her about the bloody ailment that had been scaring the bejesus out of her for half her life. The bleeding between her legs, where he would put himself, if he were to be believed, and she believed everything he had to say, for as he himself had affirmed, he was an honest rogue, and he respected honesty a great deal in others.

Lark sighed for her own shortcomings, for the blasted dishonesty he would never forgive, which set her in his path, in his life, his bed, at his mercy, even into this most embarrassing situation. She supposed she deserved whatever he doled out, blast him.

Lark sighed, rolled to her side, raised her legs against her belly, and closed her eyes while she waited for her honest, gentle, tyrannical husband to return, with whatever new torture he could concoct for her.

By the time he woke her, Lark thought she’d been sleeping for some time, and could barely rouse herself. Besides, she was too embarrassed to open her eyes, as he slipped her trousers off her legs. Then she refused to open them as he slid the bloody rag from between her legs, washed her with a warm cloth, and replaced the soiled rag with something soft and tender. Then he slipped something akin to trousers, but not, up her legs and fastened a binding of a sort around her waist to keep the padded rag against her.

She should not become attached to him, Lark thought, as he went so far as to slip one of her new attic nightshifts over her head and place her beneath the covers. She would be foolish to become fond of him, which was why she set the condition that he stop coming to her bed when she found herself with child.

In the moment she made the stipulation, she had been afraid that she was already in danger of liking him too much. That was another reason why she had told him they could part, if he wished, after he received his inheritance, because she owed him that much at least, for cheating him into marriage.

And though she owed him a babe, she already wanted his child as much as he did, perhaps more. She must remember that however much he wanted a child and a wife before Christmas, she could be left in the literal cold after Christmas, if she were not cautious.

Yes, they had talked about a babe as if they would raise it together, but you never knew what the rich might do. Simply regard his grandfather’s machinations. No, she would be wise to be strong-willed where her bridegroom was concerned and not become overly sentimental or dependent.

“We will try making a babe in a few days,” he said now as he climbed into the bed with her, almost as if he had read her thoughts. “As soon as your flux is finished, so you may as well rest while you can.”

Lark hated that his “threat” to get her with child felt of a sudden like a hoped-for promise, an unsettling reaction that centered physically, there, where she bled, where his hand had made magic inside her, and where his manly parsnip would later invade her.

Lark hid her face against the shoulder of the very man she should be running from. When he tucked her head neatly beneath his chin, she placed her hand against his softly rising chest. “Tell me how people celebrate Christmas,” she said, and her husband covered her hand with his and did.

The following morning Lark woke alone, but before she dressed, she took the time to examine the “sling,” he had dressed her in and discovered that it must be nothing more than a pair of his own under-linen. Nevertheless, with trouser-type legs and a tie-fastened three-button front, the short drawers did a fine job of holding up the folded rag she used for her “monthlies,” and she marveled at his resourceful kindness.

Her fist thought was to thank him for his personal garment, but she decided that in the light of day, no such comment could be made. Husbands and wives must speak only in the bedchamber of such things, though now that she thought on it, they had become quite outrageous in their whispers in the orchard the other day, not to mention her search in the root cellar.

Her “feminine sling,” as Ash dubbed his gift at breakfast—speaking about such things outside the bedroom obviously did not embarrass him—worked marvelously well beneath her dress and made Lark feel, for perhaps the first time in her life, like a real woman. A woman not expected to die young. Fancy that.

When she learned that he would be attending to estate matters all day, and that she would not see him until dinner, Larkin visited his mother, and gave Nan an hour free. She told her mother-in-law about their marriage, every foolish detail, omitting their baby bargain and what went on in their bedchamber, of course. When Nan returned, Lark promised Ash’s mother that she would visit on the morrow.

Afterward, Lark turned to cleaning out the sitting room that would be her own. Cook and Mim came to help. “On the Earl’s orders,” Cook said.

Lark chose several beautiful old pieces of furniture from the attic for her sitting room—everything she needed for a place where she might go to rest, or dream, or read, if she learned. A place where she might sew clothes for the babe, when she learned to sew, and when she expected a babe. A place where she might draw or paint on parchment sheets, like a fancy lady in a fancy dress.

She had always liked to draw. Her sister had taught her to burn corks. She’d sketched with their charred edges on any surface she could find. Her favorite had been the smooth limestone wall out by the pigsty.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ash stood waiting for Lark that evening in the drawing room and offered her his arm to escort her into the dining room. They sat in silence while Grimsley served.

Beside Ash’s plate there sat a missive which he opened after Grim finished. “I received this note today from Gideon St. Goddard, Duke of Stanthorpe, another rogue of the club, and I thought you might enjoy hearing it. Would you?”

Lark nodded, honestly interested.

“Dearest Ash” he read. “Though Myles and Hunter still suffer the after-effects of your decline into depravity on the day of your last jilt, they have finally confessed that your own consequences will be of some longer duration.

“If you expect to be congratulated, my friend, on your nuptials, you could at least tell a fellow rogue that you have stepped into parson’s mousetrap. Sabrina and I were never so shocked. Had we not been in mourning, we would surely have been at the church to witness your “echoing” disgrace. And I mean that in the broadest of terms.

“Sorry old boy, but it is somewhat amusing, a rogue of your caliber being so oft jilted. At any rate, Myles and Hunter feel that you “won” yourself a bride that wants taming. I am ordered to tell you, on Sabrina’s behalf, to be gentle and kind to her.

“For my own part, I will confess—providing you promise never to reveal as much to Sabrina—that I never did succeed in taming my own bride, and I was never more glad of anything in my life. Congratulations and best wishes. Yours, G.St.G.”“

“I like Sabrina already,” Lark said. “I want to meet her … and the Duke too, I suppose, for he is funny in teasing you, though the notion of meeting him frightens me witless.”

“You will, eventually, meet all the rogues and their wives, but first we will have to teach you how to entertain in society.”

“I suppose pig riding is out of the question, then?”

Ash raised a brow, not finding her statement the least amusing. “My grandfather sent a note ‘round this morning to remind me that you will need lessons in walking, talking, and acting the lady.”

“Lessons?” Lark laughed. “I could not act the lady if you trussed me up and shoved an apple in my mouth.”

Ash looked to the heavens and stabbed a piece of boiled potato with his fork. “To act the lady, I would truss you up and shove a fan in your hand.”

“Same nonsense. I refuse to simper and gossip.”

“I will hire tutors and you will learn to be a lady, by God. I will also hire a dressmaker, because you really cannot go into society wearing those clothes.”

“What is wrong with these clothes?”

“They do not fit, to begin with, plus they’re years out of date.”

“Why do I need clothes that fit? Why would you want to pay dressmakers and tutors when you are trying to economize by doing your own estate work? You can teach me, yourself, what you believe I need to know, even if I do not believe I need it. And I am perfectly happy wearing the clothes I already have.” Larkin smoothed her bodice lovingly. “These dresses are a hundred times better than anything I’ve ever owned before.”

“Which is not saying much. Look, you have already torn the sleeve at the wrist, precisely why you must learn to act the lady.”

Lark found the tear, winced, and firmed her jaw.

Ash placed his fork against his plate. “I apologize, Lark, but your current wardrobe is simply not fit for society, though the dresses that were my mother’s might do for a start, while you learn, and if you do not tatter them too badly.”

He shook his head. “Though how I will keep the locals from calling for much longer, I cannot imagine. Not that this is a big village—it is particularly small, as a matter of record—but the gossips will want to examine you.”

“I was going to ask why you must keep them from visiting, but if they are to come only to inspect me, I’d rather they remained at home, thank you very much. But why have they not come sooner?”

“They are respecting our honey month.”

“Which is?”

“The month after marriage when a newly married couple normally try to make a baby.”

Her face warmed. “Oh, then they will come soon.”

“Unless I can think of a way to stop them.”

“You may tell them I am contagious.”

“What manner of disease should you have?” Ash asked, the light in his eyes making him look rather more handsome than a man had the right, Lark thought.

“I heard of a disease that sounds so exotic, I think I might like to have it. Have you ever heard of the French Pox?”

Ash spit his tea across the dinner table and took to coughing so hard, Grimsley came running to smack his back while Larkin offered water.

“I cannot do it,” Ash said when he recovered his breath. “I cannot teach you myself. You need tutors of every kind, yesterday, if not sooner.”

“Tutors perhaps,” Lark conceded. “But can I not keep the clothes I have?”

“Why must you always choose clothes that do not fit?”

Lark turned from his gaze. “You know why.”

“So men will not treat you in the same detestable way that some fiend treated your sister, which simply means that you want respect. What if men and women, both, were to respect you and treat you as an equal? Would you not prefer as much?”

“I do not need respect. Safety will do.”

“But you would like to be respected, would you not? Be honest.”

Lark folded her arms and set her mouth.

“If you wore the proper clothes, and learned to talk properly, and had table manners, and could dance, we might attend some fine and fancy dress ball where even the Regent might partner you.”

“Hah!” Lark slammed down her fork. “The day the regent dances with me is the day I tell you my deepest secret.”

“You have those lessons, and I will take you to the Regent’s Ball in three months time.”

“But no dressmaker, not yet. Let me wear what I have for the nonce, please?”

“Fine for now, but you will have a dancing master and a tutor for a start.”

“What will the tutor teach me?”

“Reading and writing to begin with.”

“You can teach me those things.”

“That did not work, if you will remember.”

Lark pouted for half a beat. “Fine but I would rather you taught me manners and how to act. You would know better than a stuffy-smelling tutor.”

“You want me to teach you manners and how to act the lady? Excellent. We shall begin this instant. You will please remove your elbows from the table and stop eating your peas with a knife. Now.”

Lark sat back and laughed, and then she chose a pea pod from her plate, split it with her thumb, bent it like a bow and pelted him across the table.

“Dear God, I have my work cut out for me.”

Ash’s lectures on deportment began the very next day while Lark tried not to listen. He lectured her as he drove her to the Dower house to meet his father’s former estate manager and his wife.

Stanley “Stan” Redman, Ash’s father’s retired estate manager, and his wife Olive, epitomized Lark’s every interpretation of what grandparents should be. Both with kindly eyes and white hair, Olive’s tied in a bun at her nape, and Stan’s long and waving, they welcomed her with surprise and graciousness, after she embraced them and realized, from Ash’s stern look, that as the Lady of the Manor, she had erred.

Olive, kind and generous to a fault, fed Lark tea with plenty of milk and asked her plans for the house. Lark told her about her sitting room and how she wanted to learn to sew and draw like a lady, and Olive offered to give her sewing lessons.

“Eventually, we will hire you a drawing master,” Ash said. “But I will order drawing supplies tomorrow.”

Stan stroked his long white beard thoughtfully, and said with a twinkle in his eye that he would build her an easel for painting. He liked to work with wood, did Stan, so she talked him into building a Christmas Stable and carving the figures for a Nativity Scene.

Lark thought that if she were to judge by her new neighbors, and by Ash’s explanation of the spirit of the holiday, that Christmas had surely come early this year.

Over the course of the following week, her husband continued to lecture her in ladylike behavior between visits to his tenants, one thatched roof cottages after another, while she did her utmost to ignore his words.

All the village men seemed to work the Blackburne Chase Estate, all except for their curmudgeon of a doctor, Phinias Buckston—Ash called him Buckstubborn behind his back—who also served as apothecary.

Lark was glad the doctor was not in when they stopped, for she wondered how she would face him again after threatening to shoot him in the ballocks if he examined her on her wedding night.

“Basically,” she said, during an evening’s drive home, “the village of Gorhambury consists mainly of the Blackburne Estate and its tenants.”

Ash looked about him, at his property as far as the eye could see. “Ours is like an old feudal estate that never grew beyond. We have to drive all the way to St. Albans proper, fifteen miles away, to purchase anything of significance that we cannot raise, grow, weave, thatch, or make ourselves.” He urged the old farm horses to move faster while the rickety estate wagon bumped them along the rutted dirt road like pebbles in a bouncing pot.

“The original Chase burned down in the sixteen hundreds,” Ash said, “and didn’t get rebuilt until seventeen-fifty, but the village kept going, barely, until my great-grandfather’s family returned to rebuild.”

“It must be wonderful to know your family history.”

Ash mocked himself with a laugh. “I come from a long line of liars and cheats, men who put themselves first, right down to my father. My mother cautioned me from the cradle that I had a responsibility to turn the tides and not let the villagers flounder again. My father, on the other hand, did not give a flying leap whether the tenants, or my mother, lived or died. And that’s the unforgivable truth.”

“Will you never forgive him, then?”

“I do not forgive my own failings when I am sincerely sorry for them; why would I forgive my father’s, when he was not the least repentant?”

“So you might be described as unforgiving but not suspicious.”

“I suppose that is correct, for if I were a suspicious sort,” he said with a wink, “I would have approached you with more caution on our wedding night.”

Lord, would her sordid past never set her free? And yet, free she felt, especially when she saw the Chase come into view, as if she were coming to a safe haven, a new and amazing experience when once her only haven had been a loft cot where, for the most part, she escaped her father’s drunken customers. But was she safe now? Was she home? Would her unforgiving husband let her stay when he learned how she forced his hand in the card game that united them?

“I have a surprise waiting for you,” Ash said as he threw the wagon’s reins to Brinks at the stable. “Actually, ‘tis more in the nature of a double surprise.”

He covered her eyes with his hands at the base of the curved main stairs. They took a clumsy climb, and turned, not right, but left, at the top. She knew then that he was taking her to her “sitting room” and she hoped he hadn’t taken it upon himself to purchase “better” furniture than the rickety old attic pieces she’d fallen in love with and that Stan promised to fix.

But when Ash took his hands away and Lark looked about, she saw in a glance that every piece she wanted had been fixed, polished and buffed. Even the old curtains she loved had been brought to life and hung from her windows, but none of it, not an inch of her beautiful new sitting room mattered as much as the shy little boy sitting in the needle-worked chair she’d chosen as her own.

“Micah!” she screamed, rushing him, but she was no faster than him as he ran from her, as if he’d sat pinned like a butterfly on wax one minute, and came to life the next.

He seemed too small for a seven year old, Lark thought off-handedly as he flew from her reaching arms to huddle in a corner, and too bony by far. We’re going to fatten you up, she thought, ignoring the tears spilling from her eyes as she began carefully to approach him. “I am so happy you are come,” she said. “Micah, do you remember me?” Though his clothes were clean, as was he, they were old, and as tattered as her own had been.

He was like a small wounded bird and did not seem to know her, but why would he? It had been a year or more since she’d been able to visit him, though she’d paid for his keep regularly, and was shocked to find him in this deplorable undernourished state.

She’d met a number of seven year olds among the tenants recently, all better fed and clothed, and when she realized it, she looked at her husband through new eyes and with a new dawning respect as well.

Ash did his own estate management to economize for his tenants’ sakes, tenants who ate well and lived in warm, well-kept cottages. So much for his roguish ways, she thought. Perhaps Ashford Blackburne was as much of a fraud to the better, as the family to whom she’d sent money for Micah’s board were, to the worse.

“Ash,” she said, stopping before Micah when he began to tremble. “This is my nephew, Micah. Micah, you may not yet remember me but I am your Aunt Larkin and His Lordship, here, the Earl of Blackburne, is my husband. We will see that you are cared for now and neglected no more.”

Micah looked at her with surprise, then as silent and wide of eye toward Ash.

Ash rested on his haunches before the boy. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Micah, and glad you will be living with us.”

Micah said nothing but slid down the wall and closed his arms around his knees, narrowing his small shoulders, as if he could become invisible.

“You will now be living in a very special village,” Ash said. “Did you know that Gorhambury is famous?”

Though Micah made no move to show he’d heard, Ash continued. “Father Christmas lives here,” he said, hoping the name might evoke some life in a child. “Many of the villagers have actually seen him.” Ash regarded Lark. “Does he not know Christmas either?”

“Look at him and tell me why he should.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks with her hands.

Ash sighed and rose. “Then it will be up to us to teach him.”

“We had best start by showing him that he will eat regularly,” Lark said.

They each took Micah by a hand and brought him up to the old nursery that housed more toys than most children would see in a lifetime, more certainly than Micah had ever seen, if he had seen any, Lark thought.

There, Lark was surprised to find Mim waiting as if she knew they were coming.

“Mim has brothers and sisters,” Ash said, “and she is willing to sleep in the bedchamber adjacent to Micah’s and help you with him whenever needs be.”

“Thank you, Mim,” Lark said, grateful her nephew would not be alone at night in a strange place, but more so for the look on Micah’s face as he fingered one of a regiment of tin soldiers.

“That was my regiment,” Ash said, “The Life Guards, the regiment I joined to fight Bonaparte under Wellington’s command.”

Micah regarded her husband with wide eyes but not as wide as the look he gave the tray of food that arrived shortly thereafter, which he denuded like locusts in a wheat field.

Lark took several of the tin soldiers and dropped them before Micah in the corner, then she returned to stand beside Ash to watch her nephew.

“When he used to speak, he called me Aunt-eee, as if I were someone special to him,” she said.

“How long has it been since he’s spoken?”

“As long as a year, perhaps longer. I could not visit all that often. It took me months to gather enough money to make the journey.”

“Gather?”

“Da’s customers … sometimes … when I served drinks?”

Ash nodded and Lark breathed easy again.

“At least we know that he can talk,” Ash said, “though I would feel we made progress, if he did not look so frightened in our presence.”

“I agree. Perhaps he needs to understand that he has a home for good. Perhaps when we write that letter to our babies, we should write one for Micah. Could we? I know it would be asking a great deal of you?”

“Asking a great deal? To write a letter?”

“No, not to write the letter, but to abide by the promises in it … until Micah is grown.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ash regarded the boy he had promised to raise—sleeping now, curled in the corner he had chosen for himself—and determined to ease his life, not because he was a good man, but because Lark had asked him to do so.

He knew his weaknesses well. He was a rogue, pure and simple, quick to place a bet, bed a wench—until he married. Quick to spend a guinea, so quick, he’d spent the few he had before responsibility came to him. He used to think his lust for drink, women, money, and a good time had saved him after his first jilt. He was certainly looking for all of those distractions when he went to the pub after his second jilt, but he got Larkin Rose instead.

Amazingly, now that he had her, he was beginning to think his consolation prize of a bride might prove to be his salvation, in more ways than the obvious, and frankly, the notion made him skittish. He did not know if he wanted to be saved, but he did not think he could avoid it, if he wanted to.

Lark never took for granted what another woman would surely demand. She appreciated every kindness, no matter how paltry or late in coming. Somehow, she served as a mirror and made him see good in his own reflection.

“I will abide by our letter in regards to your nephew,” he said to her now, meaning it, as he took the sleeping boy and placed him on the small nursery bed in the next room. He bid Mim keep watch and took his wife’s hand to lead toward their own rooms. “I will raise him until he is grown.”

Lark stopped walking and stepped into his arms for the first time ever of her own accord, encircled his neck with a freely-given embrace, and toyed with the hair at his nape as she offered her lips for his kiss.

Ash accepted her unspoken offer.

“You deserve better than me for wife,” she said when he came up for air, “better than a guttersnipe with her sister’s misbegotten child in tow—”

“Do not!” Ash snapped. “Do not speak in that way about my family.”

Lark followed her husband toward her room. She understood. Ash had his pride. Fine. None would hear the brazen truth from her lips again, but she would still know in her heart, what she was, what Micah was, and she would be sorry until the end of her days for the way she had cheated and trapped Ash into taking them both on … well, into taking her on, anyway. Getting him to take Micah had turned into the good that came of her own wicked ways, and for that she would never be sorry.

More than ever, after the gentle way he’d treated Micah, she wanted to tell Ash the truth. More than ever, now that Micah was safe and in Ash’s protection at last, she dare not take the chance.

The truth never helped anybody, so her Da often said, and so life had often proved.

“Ash,” she said, as she stood by her bed, her stomach quivering at the notion of fulfilling her bargain, of pleasuring her husband, of him pleasuring her, “my monthlies have stopped. We can begin making that baby now if you wish.”

“If?” Ash’s body stood at ready attention. Her words alone had accomplished the deed, though he doubted his sanity in hearing them. Then again, Lark was a prideful woman, a woman true to her word. They had made a bargain—Micah for a babe in her belly, and now she had Micah, ‘twas her turn to pay.

Ash almost wished she wanted him as much as he wanted her, another turn that did not fit any previous philosophy in his roguish life. He must be going soft with all this talk of babes, and welcoming little boys with big eyes who needed knowing they had a home … and with broken doll brides who needed knowing they were cherished.

He looked into those doll’s eyes now, with every shade of green and gold imaginable, changing from facet to facet, revealing her as vulnerable and intense, giving and wanting.

Did she want him as much as he wanted her?

Ash called himself a fool as he turned her to undo the thousand buttons that must march down the back of her dress. Little bone buttons stuck into littler fabric loops, one by blasted one, Ash undid them, until he was harder than the proverbial rock, and randier than a strutting cock.

“If the act isn’t called making love, which ours would not be,” Lark said, “what other way can you describe what we are about to do? You never told me.”

That fizzled his cock. “You mean, you want to know how to refer to it?”

Lark nodded.

How to find an expression that would not turn her from baby making forever. “Nothing I tell you can be spoken in company, only when we’re alone, do you understand? This act is never, ever discussed other than between a husband and his wife.”

“Not even between a man and his mistress, or a trollop and her customer, because we had a few of those at the Pickled Barrel, and now that I think back on it—”

“Forget the inn! I’m talking about now—from now on, all right?”

Lark nodded, looking a little surprised at the tone of his voice. “As you wish.”

“Thank you,” he said. “You may refer to the act as “doing the matrimonial.” Now that isn’t too shocking, is it?”

“What else?”

Ash wanted to smack his head against the wall. “You would want more. How about we’re “taking a tumble” or I once heard a Scot refer to it as “playing the blanket hornpipe,” and there’s plain old “ballocking.” Your choice milady.”

“Can we just call it making a babe?”

Ash barked a laugh and pulled Larkin into his arms. “Making a babe, it is. Let us begin, shall we?”

“I do not know how, precisely, and the only references I have are animals, but I don’t like the way dogs and horses do it.”

“Can we not simply enjoy getting there,” Ash said, “And stop talking about it?”

Lark crossed her stubborn arms as if to protect herself. “If I am worried about something, I need to talk about it.”

“All right.” Ash clamped a hand to the back of his neck. “All right. I can see that you do. Fine. Not like dogs or horses. Fine. There are plenty of other ways.”

“What are they?”

Ash cursed and apologized. He harrumphed and sighed. “You can lie on your back and I can hover over you.”

“No!” she said, with rising panic. “No, I don’t want you hovering over me.”

“We could do it standing up.”

“That would work,” she said. “Then we would be equal and you would not be looming over me as if to attack. I could not bear that.” She looked around the room. “Where can we stand? Here?” She went to stand against the wall, fully clothed, and closed her eyes, as if she were waiting to be shot, or run through. Er, fine, a near enough description. Perhaps he understood.

His bride opened her eyes and huffed as if he had been dawdling too long. “Come along, then,” she said. “Let’s get it done.”

“This is so exciting,” Ash said, tongue in cheek as he went to stand before her. “It might help if you took off your clothes.”

“But this is wrong, that part of you meets my chicken peck.”

“Your what?”

“She pointed toward her middle. A chicken pecked me here and gave me a scar.”

“Who told you that?”

“My sister, when she was ten.”

“Then how do you account for the fact that I have one too?”

Lark shrugged.

Ash sighed. “Can we talk about the chicken peck another time? That’s not what it is by the way.”

“Fine,” she said, and her eyes twinkled.

“You’ve been trying to distract me,” he accused.

“I succeeded, did I not?”

“You little—”

“Is there something I can stand on?” She went to grab a footstool and drag it over. A turtle could have carried it faster on its back. Leaning his palms against the wall, above where his procrastinating bride had just stood, Ash shook his head.

She placed the stepstool before him, ducked beneath his arms, and climbed atop it. “There, we’ll meet at just the right place now.” But when she stepped close enough to make contact, the stool wobbled, and she toppled into his arms. “Not so good,” she said as he lifted her higher against him.

“Not so exciting, either,” Ash said. “Please, let us get into bed and frolic, as we did in the lavender field the other day, and work our pleasant way into baby-making as we go?”

“Oh, that sounds lovely.”

“Lovely,” Ash repeated, feeling the knot in his stomach ease. “I believe you have it right.”

“You seem tense, Ash. Should we start afresh tomorrow, instead?”

“No, my darling Larkin, we will begin tonight.” He stood her on her feet. “Let us start by sliding that dress off your shoulders.”

For the past few nights Ash had taken to dreaming about making fast impatient love to Lark one minute and slow patient love to her the next, of exploring her to his heart’s content, every delicious milky inch of her, if only she would welcome him.

He’d imagined making her touch the stars in ecstasy, while he watched her eyes close in pleasure and open in shock to renewed arousal.

As her dress slipped to the floor and puddled at her feet, and she stood before him in her shift and stockings, the intensity in her gaze was enough for him to take her hand and lead her to the bed.

“I am afraid,” she said.

“I know, but you need not be.” He urged her into the bed, still half dressed, because he was certain that rushing her into nakedness was unwise. “I promise to be a patient teacher,” he said.

While she settled herself and watched wide-eyed, he removed his waistcoat and shirt studs, his shirt, his shoes and stockings, but nothing more, exactly as he’d planned, and Lark sighed with what he could only imagine was relief.

Lark stopped holding her breath when Ash climbed in beside her and wrapped his arms around her to bring her wonderfully, incredibly, close. She closed her eyes and remembered her dreams of him, years of dreams, where he did exactly this, with no fear on her part, and she let herself slip into the old fantasy. This was Ash. Her Ash.

Her hero. Her husband.

“Now, my wife,” he said, in counterpoint to her dream, as he nibbled her earlobe, which she liked very much. “It is time for a gentle teacher and an eager pupil. These are lessons I have never needed to teach before, you understand. No innocent has ever been allowed to climb into my bed. I am a jaded rogue, a cad, a scoundrel, you see, just so you know, but if you tell me what you want, I will try to comply. And if I go too fast or forget your fear, you must promise to remind me. Will you?”

Lark nodded as he came for her mouth with his, his kiss deep and achingly slow. Gentle. Her heartbeat quickened in a surprising response, sending shafts of soft pleasure to every hidden spot within her.

He touched his bottom lip to her upper, urging her mouth to open against his, his breath warm and teasing. In the same coaxing way, he touched his upper lip to her bottom one, and then back again, as if their lips should not meet precisely, which made her ache for them to do just that. All the while he teased her, spirals of something distant and achy, foreign yet delicious, invaded Lark in odd tingling places.

Then he did something amazing, he pulled away from her, sighed and threw back the covers to reveal his entire breathtaking torso to her view, the tight mound beneath his inexpressibles bringing all manner of imaginings to her mind.

Despite her fears, she could not ignore his manly beauty, even half dressed, like a peacock in his plumes on a silver platter.

“Have your wicked way with me, wife,” he said, presenting her with every power and decision.

Wife. Lark’s heart warmed as she rose over him, incredulous at his offer, grateful. She knelt and looked down upon his beauty. “Does this mean I can do whatever I please? I can touch you wherever I choose?”

Ash shifted and nodded. “I am yours to command. I will dance or lie still, touch you or not, whatever is your desire, with one exception. We will do the deed tonight, if at all possible. No more putting off to another day.”

Lark smiled and placed her palm on his chest. “Tell me then, what is your pleasure?”

Ash groaned as if in anticipation. “I have many pleasures but I am certain that I will like whichever you choose to administer first. If you would rather I guide you than experiment on your own, I shall, or you can explore at your leisure, every mountain and valley upon me, every muscle and furrow. It is entirely up to you. I am at your disposal … exclusively, unequivocally … yours.”

His husky voice licked desire through Lark in warm gentling laps. She combed her fingers through the mahogany waves at his temple, again and again. She had never dared to touch him in so intimate a fashion.

Ash sighed and closed his eyes as if he liked her touch a great deal.

Emboldened by his reaction, she grazed his cheek, thumbed his chin. Then she smoothed her palm down his chest, scratching ever so slightly against the silken mat surrounding his nipple. She knew a sense of power when he shuddered. “I wanted to do that the first time you got into bed beside me,” she confessed.

Ash’s heated gaze held hers captive. “I would have let you.”

“I wasn’t ready.”

“And now, Lark? Are you nearly ready to play the blanket hornpipe?”

Lark giggled at his choice of description and surprised herself with a laugh. “Soon,” she said, shivering, as he took her hand and slid it down his chest and along his belly. She pulled away from his hold to dip her finger into his chicken-peck, and giggled.

Then, when she’d distracted him sufficiently, his brow raised to regard her, she let him begin to guide her hand again, until he slid it toward the placket on his inexpressibles. There he placed it, palm down to cup his sex.

Heat flowing through her, Lark turned toward the erect parsnip she had left on her dresser as a reminder of her duty. She looked back at his trousers, the parsnip, and shook her head at the disparity. Nevertheless, his sounds of appreciation urging her on, her fingertips skimming the fabric of his trousers, she examined, at her leisure, what seemed for all the world like a living, pulsing entity unto itself.

When Ash’s gaze upon her became hot and intense, and when his appreciation turned guttural, and he became harder even than she expected, Lark slipped her hand beneath his trouser flap to cup him and learn his manly secrets.

Knowing full well that she must be prepared to gaze upon her husband’s “hornpipe” for the first time, she hesitated even as she held it pulsing in her hand, as if clamoring to be free. With a sense of power, she kneaded it and brought it to larger life. “It is bigger than you led me to believe,” she said, her accusation laced with wonder.

Ash chuckled. “I promise you, it is exactly the right size for our purpose.”

Lark did not know if she believed him or not, she knew only that she could not for the life of her let him go. She unfastened his trouser flap one-handed, despite the barrage of fearful reservations warring with dreadful anticipation inside her, and lowered the flap to reveal … not his hornpipe, but his snowy under linen, with a similar flap that she had breached.

With a sigh, as much relief as regret, she pulled the drawstring to free him into her waiting hands. As fast as a wind-up toy, he rose to the occasion and she squeaked in surprise.

Ash arched, groaned, and chuckled all at once, even as he made to reach for her, but Lark reared away from his greedy grasp. “Not yet,” she said, and so he grabbed the bedclothes instead, as if he must hold on, or fall off the edge of sanity.

“You will have your wicked way with me,” he said, through clenched teeth, as if she were paining him as she pleasured him. “I spoke true and did not realize.”

Lark raised her chin. “I will not be denied. I must have as much time as I require to become acquainted with the hornpipe.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ash barked an involuntary laugh. He gasped. He arched and groaned, caught in the wave of bliss Lark wrought with word and action. She cupped his ballocks in one hand—gently, praise be, fear and joy riding him—while she slid her thumb—he thought before closing his eyes and giving himself up to sensuality—upward along his shaft. As if that were not enough, she completed her first amazing foray with small wet titillating circles at his crown, about raising him off the bed.

“Not yet,” Ash said, swollen to painful proportions, repeating her order as if to himself, bridling his lust and testing his sanity. And while he prayed her investigation would never end, he teetered so close to the sharp-edged brink of release, he thought he’d go mad from the pleasure-laced torment.

“Was that a good groan or a bad groan?” she asked upon his involuntary emission of frustration.

“Better than good,” he said.

His teasing bride tilted her head in consideration. “Better than good would be famous.”

“Redoubtable.”

“Is that bad?”

“Excellent. Please don’t stop.”

“Do you think that’s about as big as it will get?” she asked stroking him as if testing and considering him from every angle. “It’s thicker than you led me to believe, you know.”

Ash thought he would weep. “Let us not talk,” he said, as tactfully as he could manage, given the nature of his duress. “Touch me again as you did before, Lark. I beg you. Please.”

His wife pursed her lips, a sure sign of trouble, then she further unnerved him by raising a brow, and just when panic was about to set in, she jumped from the bed.

Ash cried out at her abandonment, rose on his elbows, aghast, and got a good look at the size and rigidity of his hornpipe. No wonder she’d run—

She was back so fast, he damned near wept with thankfulness.

She took him in her hand again and he fell back to the bed, more grateful than the boy that day in the hayloft.

“You lied to me,” she said, and Ash opened his eyes, his appreciation waning.

She held her parsnip against his manhood, root to head, as if to compare them, and the parsnip came off looking enfeebled.

Ash regarded the foolish pair of unmistakably distinct rods, and then he regarded his bloody daft bride. That’s what you got with a consolation prize of a bride, he supposed—idiocy. Yet her hand closing around his shaft made him feel as if he’d won, not lost the game, as did the expression on her incredibly endearing face, half sad, half dismayed, with a slight tinge of excitement in the deepest depths of her wide burnished eyes.

“Ashford Blackburne, you’re too long and too thick for my peace of mind. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Ash shrugged and tried to look repentant inasmuch as he could, head resting in his hand, both balanced on an elbow, his naked hornpipe being played a lusty tune. “I gave you an approximation,” he said in his own defense. “I was never called upon to measure it before, and never thought to do so.”

One would think he’d wither at this turn of events, except that she had a talent with a circling thumb, did Larkin Rose, that could make a man her slave. And the angrier she got, the better she played him. “Unfair,” she stated even as she shot pleasure through him in waves, increasing the very length and width of which she complained.

Ash bit down on a triumphant shout of pleasure and fought to hold his release at bay. “If you but knew it, Larkin, size has the advantage in this instance. If you would let me demonstrate—”

Lark gave him a withering glance, though he would never wither if she kept playing him in this way. That she did not stop sat splendid with him, until she raised a brow and took a loud, blatant, crunching bite off the end of her parsnip.

Discomfort replaced titillation. Ash felt himself go cold, felt the withering of his hornpipe begin. Insecurity replaced surety. “Is that supposed to be symbolic?” he asked, unable to bear the suspense, shriveling now, by God, at an amazing rate. “Because I have to admit that you are frightening me.”

Of all the reactions he expected at this juncture—none of them good, given his bride’s bloody bruising record for self-defense—he did not expect the secretive grin that transformed her as she tossed the parsnip over her shoulder, and reached for his hornpipe once more. With more enthusiasm than he’d heretofore seen in her expression, she took to playing him like a high caliber instrumentalist with a love for her music.

Ash groaned and fell back to the bed—palpitating pleasure overcoming racking fear—sure in the knowledge that life with Larkin Rose would never be dull, and that he would forever walk a fine line between both.

Silken smooth, thick and erect, pulsing power filled Lark, and yet she felt as if she were taming her scoundrel of a husband by the simple act of holding him in the palm of her hands. The slightest quiver of her fingers, the least stroke seemed to make him writhe and moan, curse her and bless her.

Heady, this command she held and wielded, enough to make a baby, she hoped, trying to believe what Ash had said about her sister, for it was consoling to think that Lise might not have suffered pain but rather love in the act. Lark pushed the old illusion of dark aside and looked toward a future bright with possibility as she concentrated on giving pleasure to the man she’d married.

She owed him this, and yes, she owed it to herself as well. She’d dreamed of him for years and now he was hers. “Ashford Blackburne,” she said. “Earl of Blackburne, you are at my mercy!”

“Be gentle,” he said even as he lifted her to straddle him. On all fours she looked down at him, shocked, surprised, in control, as if she might be a threat to him, rather than the opposite, and she reveled in the arrangement.

He pulsed against her thigh, so she moved her leg to stroke him, make him want….

“Take off your shift,” he said.

“Take off your trousers,” she retorted.

They shed the remainder of their clothing in a fever, barely changing position, her on top, him her captive. Nevertheless, somehow Ash managed to kiss and caress where each inch of her skin became exposed, and as he did, Lark rode a rushing tide of sensation. When her breasts grazed his chest, and when his arousal nestled against her warm wet exposed center, she knew a moment of terror.

Ash saw, and hesitated, and she thought there couldn’t be another on this earth who would stop and wait for a wife’s alarm to recede.

“A minute,” he said gentling her as she imagined he’d gentle a colt. “It will hurt for a minute, maybe two,” he said. “I’m sorry. There may even be blood, as much as a cut finger, a thimbleful, perhaps less I’m told. Lark, you’re my first virgin, so I cannot be certain. Will you trust me to take care of you?”

That she was his first anything made her rejoice as she sat towering over him, his eyes intense, alive, his body skimming hers. Skin to skin. Heart to heart?

She felt almost whole. “I have always believed that I could trust only me,” she said. “But if I were forced to trust another, a man, you might be that man. It is the best I can give at the moment,” she said. “Forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive, but you will understand if I say I have always felt the same about trusting, that I feel the same now, in reverse.”

“I am humbled.”

“As I.” He watched her. “Are you comfortable now?” he asked, even as he began to stroke and ready her to receive him in the way he’d explained. She caressed him in return, readied him as well—not that he needed much preparation—still she would never tire of her newfound ability to move him to voice his pleasure.

He impaled her before she expected him to, so she screamed with surprise more than pain, and she tried to move from discomfort, but he held her still. “Shh, shh love. It will not hurt for long I am told. I did not expect to hurt you so. I am sorry you must suffer such pain, more sorry than I can say. I would take it upon myself, if I could.”

She believed he would. She loved that he stroked her at the base of her spine in tender circular motions, calmed her, brought her close and kissed her brow, her neck and cheek. He kissed her eyes, wet with the tears she had not known she shed. He crooned to her and made her feel wanted, special, cherished, for the first time that she could recall.

More tears filled Lark’s eyes. She blinked them away, angered by her show of emotion. “It … I no longer feel uncomfortable, as if I— You are stretching me. Can you feel it?”

“Indeed, I have felt every nuance of your virginity, from that first wild tear, to the amazing sensation of your stretching around me, and though the pleasure I have derived is nothing to any I have ever before known, I find myself humbled anew by your gift.”

“Gift?” Lark sat up with surprise. “What gift?”

“Your maidenhood.”

“You doubted me. That’s why you sent the doctor in.”

“I did not know you on our wedding night, Larkin. I had won you in a card game, you will recall, a drunken card game, where half your father’s pot landed back in his lap. Do not fault me for prudence.”

Lark sighed and raised her chin. “You should have said something, if you knew Da was cheating.”

Ash shrugged. “Drunk is not prudent. Besides, for all that I was a horse’s arse that night, look what I have for my trouble.” He bounced her, as if to remind her where she sat. “More than I deserve, I’d warrant.” He grinned and raised a hand to pebble a nipple. “Have I taken your mind sufficiently off your pain? We will take a minute more before we continue, shall we, so you may accommodate yourself to my size?”

Lark felt him pulsing inside her, the more for his words. She also felt an answering throb deep in her womb—especially when he touched her breast—as if she craved his seed, as if without her knowledge or cooperation, her body sought to … milk him, in an effort to steal it from him.

Lark understood the primitive impulse. She wanted to move, fought Ash’s restraining arms, and succeeded in sliding against him. When he took to moving as well, finally, slow and easy, thrusting gently, as if he could not bear remaining still, pleasure came alive for her, grew like stars awakening, scores at a time, and blazing to life. As she climbed toward a pinnacle, impossible to reach, she spiraled almost out of control, reaching, reaching….

“Are we making a babe now?” she asked. “When will I know to stop? I feel as if I won’t know, as if I cannot, never will, but I cannot bear to continue either. What is wrong with me? It is good and it is bad, this strange lethargy that borders on pleasure. Ash, tell me what to do.”

He continued to work inside her, touching her in ways and places that increased her pleasure. “No babe yet,” he said, “not time to stop … yet.” His voice grew hoarse and breathless. “Soon—you will know soon when to stop.”

“This is a splendid way to make a babe. I did not understand the vigor involved. I did not expect it to be so—”

“Brilliant.” Ash moved with greater speed, greater determination. He held her hips and plunged deeper, took her higher, and they seemed to fly together toward the heavens on the back of a shooting star, then the earth fell as if from beneath them, and they toppled, lost themselves in darkness, and came to rest upon some distant alien shore.

In the aftermath, in moonlight, they kissed—sublime kisses made of dreams—her spread atop him like a wilting blanket, heavy of limb, light of heart. Him, slick with perspiration and all but purring. She adored the pleasure-filled sound he made deep in his chest. Contentment. Satisfaction. “Did we make a babe, then?”

Ash stroked the sweat-slick hair from her brow. “Only time will tell, my love.”

Lark reared up to regard him but, that fast, her husband had dropped off to sleep. My love, he had called her. Did he mean it? Ashford Blackburne had called her—pub rat that she was—his love. Did he love her? Did she love him? How would she know? Would he teach her that as well?

Did loving mean trusting? Should she make what she had always considered would be the mistake of offering her trust to another, despite what she had told this new husband of hers? She had not given her full trust, praise be, even at a time when she had been more likely ever to give it.

She did not know the meaning of love. She had loved her sister and about died when she died, and she would give her life for Micah’s—that was love. What about Ash? She would never be called upon to give her life for his, but she had dreamed of him for years. Was that love in itself? Was pulling him deep inside her a form of love? Or was love this heavy, tender, happy feeling in her chest, because he was here? Lark did not know. How could she?

She knew only that when Ash went off on estate matters, she peeked outside every ten minutes hoping to catch sight of him returning. Did someone who loved wait, as if for her next breath, for a lover to return? Lark wished she knew someone she could ask.

She awoke a short time later, for the candles were not much shorter, still blanketing him, and wondered if she were not crushing him, but when she tried to move to his side, he urged her to remain.

“Lark,” he said, closing his arms around her, holding her there. “Do not go. I like you here.”

“Let us try for a babe again,” she said. “I enjoyed the attempt.”

“One way or another, you will be the death of me,” Ash replied with a chuckle, kissing the top of her head.

“Did I hurt you?” she asked.

“I am most assuredly not hurt, but more sated than I thought possible. I am, however, no more than flesh and blood and must recover my strength so I may expend it once more.”

“When then?”

“Soon,” he said with a lazy chuckle before drifting back into sleep.

Lark remained where she was, a smile on her face. “I enjoyed my first lesson,” she whispered into his sleep-warm neck, “and I am eager for another.”

“Mmm,” he said, mumbling something about his superiority to parsnips.

Lark smiled and memorized every chiseled feature of his face with her gaze, loving each angle, moon-kissed and handsome as sin, a rogue, yes, her very own. She guessed he had been since she was eleven.

As if he felt the intensity of her study, he took to nuzzling her neck, then her breast, then he suckled her greedily, which Lark could happily allow for days, until her hand found that his hungry hornpipe had surged back to life despite his earlier assurances that she had done him in.

“Time to try again,” said she, mounting her favorite stallion.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

They woke at dawn to find Micah setting kindling in the hearth like the lowliest of servants. “Oh no,” Lark said, which made the boy start and scurry into the corner.

When Ash slipped into his trousers and approached her nephew, Micah covered his head, as if Ash might strike him. “No, little one,” he said. “I will not hurt you,” and Lark thought she might find herself falling a little bit in love with her husband after all.

Unable to go to her nephew, for she lay naked beneath the bedcovers, Lark wept for seeing his fear. She became angry as well at the family who had kept him, especially after all the money she had put into his care, only to see that he’d not been kept at all well.

Ash lifted Micah in his arms and carried him to the window. He pointed out the ghostwalk, the spinney, the orchard, the bridge over the lake, the lavender field—all the places on an estate a boy might like to explore.

“Lark,” Ash said. “He is trembling in my arms. I will take him to my room while you wash and dress, but I think he needs a woman’s touch.”

Lark dressed and went for him in short order. Ash now wore a shirt as well as his trousers, and he held Micah by the hand, as he showed him bauble after worldly bauble that had been purchased in his father’s time.

Micah no more fought her, when she lifted him into her arms, than he had fought Ash, which made her fear that he had been beaten into submission over the years. Despite taking him to her heart and kissing him, her nephew remained stiff and unyielding. “I will take him back to the nursery,” she told Ash, who regarded her as if he saw and understood her sadness.

Ash kissed her brow. “I must wash and dress, see to some estate matters, then I will find you up in the nursery.”

“Go and see your mother,” she said. “Take her hand, kiss her brow.”

In response to her urging, Ash shook his head and turned toward the dressing room, giving her a wave without looking back.

Lark carried Micah up the nursery stairs. “You are not a servant in our house, Micah,” she said. “You are family.” She sang the lullaby she used to sing to him when he was a child, but though he looked straight into her eyes, he made no sign of recognition.

Mim bobbed Lark a curtsey when she arrived. “The boy slept well enough, my Lady, but when he woke, he was afraid. I’m that sorry he got away after his breakfast and bath. I looked and looked, and couldn’t find him anywhere, until I went to tell His Lordship, who had him in his care.”

Lark shook her head as much at a loss as the maid. “No need for apologies. I fear he is acting on years of training.” Lark intended to take Micah on her lap in the nursery rocker, then she thought better of it and decided he should learn to play, again. She took his hand. “Come along, Micah,” she said. “Do you remember when you were three and we climbed a tree at the Stewart’s farm? And then we chased chickens around the barnyard?”

He walked silently by her side and Lark could see that he was listening.

“When you were five and I visited, we went for a walk and found a neighbor who had a good sturdy swing, a rope suspended from a tree with a wooden seat. Do you remember that I pushed you on it?”

Micah stopped and looked up at her, as if seeing her for the first time, and Lark nodded. “We once made a slide of hay. Another time, we rode a pokey old farm horse together, remember? I am sorry I was not able to visit at all last year.”

Lark stopped at the top of the main stairs with it’s sweeping polished banister, the wood flat and wide, perfect for sliding, which she had noticed her first night.

Lark sat on it, and Micah took a fearful step back, before she pushed herself off. She gasped as she slid down its length, for she had forgot what she’d been about all night.

As she expected, the shape of the rail all but placed her gently on the foyer floor. “Go ahead, Micah. Your turn,” she called. “Remember what I taught you? Never be afraid to try something new.”

“A pity you did not remember that advice previous to last night,” her husband said beside her, making her start and shriek.

Micah was on his way down before they realized it, as Grimsley walked by, dropped his tray at the sight, and nearly swooned from fright.

“It’s all right Grim,” Ash said. “There’s no better banister for sliding. I rode it often in my youth.” Ash caught Micah at the bottom and whipped him into Grimsley’s arms. “Grim, old man. You’re taking young Micah, here, to visit cook and have a glass of milk before his next slide.”

Ash took Lark’s arm, walked her into the green salon and sat beside her on the sofa. “You have tears in your eyes,” he said taking her hand. “Because Micah does not remember you?”

“No, not that.” She shook her head. “I think he might be starting to remember some of the things I reminded him of. The tears are for—” She bit her lip.

“What?” Ash dabbed at the corner of her eye with his handkerchief.

Lark took it and blew her nose. “I cannot tell you.”

“Do not play coy with me,” Ash said. “You will tell me. After baby-making, and giving you a sling for your monthlies, I hardly think there is anything we cannot discuss.”

Lark grimaced and plopped his used handkerchief into her husband’s hand. “If you must know, I wish I had not slid down the banister on the morning after so much baby making. It hurt. There.”

Her husband could not contain his mirth, which Lark found no-end annoying. “Thank you very much,” she snapped. “Try sliding down the banister on your hornpipe and see how you feel!”

Ash was still chuckling over the last when Grimsley returned Micah to Lark’s care.

“Micah needs new clothes,” Ash said, touching a hand to the boy’s shoulder. “What do you say to having Olive make him some?” Ash asked, as if hoping the boy would respond, but he remained silent and wide-eyed, looking from one adult to the other.

“‘Twould be the first time he’s had clothes of his own,” Lark said. “Can you thank …” She regarded her husband. “Uncle Ash?”

Ash nodded but Micah simply stepped nearer to Lark.

“I shall stop and ask Olive on my rounds today,” Ash said. “Micah,” he added, “I need to take a ride about my estate this morning and thought you might like to sit up before me on my horse, and see your new home.”

“I am afraid of horses,” Lark said, as Micah’s head came up and he looked straight and attentive toward Ash.

“I did not ask you to accompany me,” Ash said with a wink for her, “I asked Micah.”

“I am afraid for him to go with you.”

“Are you afraid, Micah?” Ash asked.

The boy shook his head, stepped from behind Lark’s skirts, and slipped his hand into Ash’s.

“Lark,” her husband said, “I suggest a nice long soak in my slipper bath for, ah, whatever ails you, and then I am afraid that, later in the morning, your dancing master is due to arrive. Forgive the poor timing.” He winked and Lark chafed in annoyance. Nevertheless, she turned to leave the salon and head for the slipper bath, an excellent notion, actually.

Half way there, she stopped to regard her amused husband. “I suppose if Micah likes to ride that I should like to have riding lessons as well.”

“See Brinks, then, after your dancing lesson.” He chuckled at his poor jest. “I will tell Brinks to expect you in, say, three days time, shall I?” Grinning, Ash squeezed Micah’s hand and led him out and toward the stable.

Lark was not sorry that Micah had taken to Ash; she was only sorry that he had not as yet remembered her.

Her fop of a dancing master lasted two dreadful, horrible weeks of mincing lessons by day, but two glorious, unforgettable weeks of baby making by night. Lark remembered it well, both the good and the bad.

“What do you mean, he broke his foot?” Ash shouted on the dancing master’s fourteenth, and last, day, as the dance instructor was carried to a hired coach.

“It was an accident,” Lark said in her own defense.

Ash scoffed. “How so?”

“I did not intend to hurt him.”

“He said you stomped on his foot with your heel in a fit of rage.”

“Well, I did stomp on his foot—in self defense—but I did not expect the bone to break. How was I to know that dandies had bones as soft as their hands?”

“Doctor Buckston said you broke several of the bones in his foot. He quit you know. Gave his notice and demanded his wages and passage to London as well.”

“The doctor quit? Because I threatened to shoot him in the ballocks?”

“No, dearest, the dancing master quit, and I wonder you did not threaten his ballocks.”

“Hah, I’d be surprised if the popinjay had any. Besides, you took my pistol, remember? I had no other weapon at my disposal. I hope you did not give in to his demands. He taught me nothing of value, except that damp hands leave stains on silk.”

“And that foot bones are brittle, I’d wager. Now how do you expect to learn to dance?”

“You may teach me.”

“I do not suppose I have a choice,” Ash said. “If you are half as incomparable a dancer as Brinks says you are a rider, I expect you will do me proud enough.”

“High praise.” Lark sniffed, annoyed at the paltry compliment. “It upsets me that riding is so much a man’s sport,” she said. “Why do I excel at only manly sports? Why can I not dance a step or sew a stitch?”

“I could get Gentleman Jackson to teach you to box,” Ash said, tongue in cheek. “Then again, who would you thrash, if you learned, but me? Overlook the suggestion, if you please. ‘Twas a terrible notion.”

“As my husband, you were supposed to say that you do not understand why I excel in manly sports since I am so soft and womanly.”

Ash leaned close. “You are prodigiously soft and womanly when you are wearing the dress God gave you and riding your prized stallion—and I do not mean the one in the stable.”

Lark felt heat on her face and turned away. “How many other women have you attempted to make a babe with?”

Ash barked a laugh. “Not a single one.”

“You admitted that I was your first virgin, but you have done that before, have you not?”

“What? Play the blanket hornpipe? Good God, of course I have.”

“But you said ‘twas to make a babe and you never tried to make one before.”

“You can do the matrimonial, without making a babe, Larkin.”

Determined to tease her way back into her husband’s good graces after her assault upon the dancing master, Lark shrugged. “Yes, I know, but why would anyone set out to do so?”

Ash gaped. “Have I read you wrong? Have you received no pleasure in making love? If you have not, I shall lay me down and die of shame.”

Lark smacked him in the arm, though she did note that he referred to the act as making love, and held the knowledge close. “Doing the matrimonial is an agreeable pastime,” she admitted, surprised he had not caught her jest.

“Just agreeable?”

“Delightful then?”

“It is splendid, you have said more than once, which is why people do it for sport.”

“Sport, of course. That would account for Trixie at the Pickled Barrel.”

“I beg you will please remove that pub from your memory.”

“I lived in that pub for twenty-two years, Ash. It will never be gone from my memory, only distanced, and now that I think on it, I remember Da referring to a bit of ‘ballocking’ going on above stairs. Is ballocking also considered a man’s sport?”

“Not my favorite term,” Ash said, “and not entirely a man’s sport, but for the most part, I’d wager it likely is.”

“Drat! Another man’s sport I like.” Lark raised her hands in resignation as she walked away, leaving Ash to hope that since she liked it so much, she might rescind her rule that he quit her bed once he got her with child.

“What the devil?” Ash got shoved from behind and was forced to regain his balance, only to find that his bride had returned to accost him.

“I just realized what you had been doing with all your women these many years. That’s why they call you a rogue!”

Ash grinned, unable to hide his pride in the designation, despite his wife’s ire.

“I do not approve,” she said.

“I only do it with you now. There are no more women.”

“I am a woman!”

“Thank the stars.” Ash took his “woman” into his arms and kissed her. “I meant that I no longer play the blanket hornpipe with women other than you. I will keep me only unto you for as long as we both shall live.”

“You will? Do you promise?”

“I did promise. So did you, by the way. If another man touches you, I shall break his arms.”

“I might like that you would be jealously brutal on my behalf, except … how many women have you tumbled? I can break arms as well, you know.”

Oh he knew. Ash raised his eyes to the heavens. “Forget numbers and think of my past as the practice that allows me to come so accomplished to your bed.”

Lark was having none of it. “How many women, Ash?”

“I failed to count.”

“Too many to count, you mean.”

“If I gave you a number, Lark, it would matter naught, for you refuse to learn your numbers, except for the ones on a deck of cards.”

She huffed. “I will begin my lessons tomorrow.”

“You will begin when the tutor arrives. I will not teach you myself, for I will not have my foot broken, no, nor anything else, come to that. I will write and inform the schoolmaster that we are ready to retain his services. He will arrive as soon as may be, and you will not attempt to bolt, mind, nor will you break one bone in the poor man’s body, nor knee, or shoot him either.”

Lark rolled her eyes. “He shall remain intact.”

“And you will give your lessons due attention? No more bolting?”

“Why would I bolt when there is such baby making to be had?”

“Wise girl.” Ash tapped her nose. “Besides, I would miss you if you ran.”

Lark stood on her toes and whispered her suggestion for a clandestine trip to the lavender field for an extra go at baby making.

Ash rubbed her nose with his. “In the middle of the day? I am shocked,” though he was tempted to say yes, until he saw Micah running their way.

Ash opened an arm to the boy, aware that during his weeks with them, Lark’s nephew had taken more to his company than to Lark’s, and how sad Lark appeared when Micah demonstrated the preference. While she must be glad Micah finally had a man to look up to, she must hurt for the loss of kinship she had expected would grow between the two of them.

A hand upon Micah’s shoulder and an arm about his wife’s waist, Ash squeezed them both. “Shall we take the wagon and escape to the spinney for a lazy day picnic? I am certain the tenants can dig the drainage ditches well enough without my interference for one afternoon.”

As Lark looked set to agree, a bottle green coach appeared, clattering up the drive, and stopped beneath the portico of the Chase. Ash released his grip upon his family to make his way toward the coach as the driver jumped from his perch and opened the door.

No sooner had he done so, than out flew a cursing wild-child, who ran past them as if running for his life.

“What is the meaning of this?” Ash demanded of the coachman who handed him a small, grimy fragment of parchment.

Ash read the note to himself, in the event it contained something upsetting. Take her, Ash. Take our daughter and raise her— There the parchment had been torn. Above the astonishing request was also writ the better portion of his name, title, and address. Ash, fortunately, or unfortunately, recognized the handwriting.

The coachman then handed him a more formal note, of a high quality Bristol-type vellum, properly folded, of the excellence his father had been wont to use. The termagant was found on the London streets carrying this piece of parchment. Since I am your family solicitor, the authorities brought her to me. I send her in the event you plan to honor the note-sender’s anonymous request. If not, put her back in the coach and my driver is instructed to take her to the nearest workhouse. Yours, MJC, Esq.

“She is Ellenora’s daughter,” Ash said. “My first jilt.” He offered Lark both the parchment and the solicitor’s note. “Unlike the solicitor who sent her to us, I recognized Ellenora’s handwriting.”

“Should we not send her back to Ellenora, then?” Lark said, accepting the notes.

“Ellenora died in France. I have known for … nearly a year now.”

“Why would someone send her to us then?”

Ash sighed. “Read the parchment,” he said as he urged the coachman toward the rose garden to confer with him in private.

Ten minutes later, Ash dismissed the driver, rubbed his neck, and looked out toward the spinney. He saw Lark and Micah approach.

“The coachman carried no more than the notes and the girl,” Ash said. “The child owns naught but the rags on her back.”

“We must find her. She is frightened.”

“Yes,” Ash said, touching Lark’s arm. “Yes.”

“Is she yours, Ash?”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Had Ellenora borne him a child? There was a question, one his wife wanted answered as much as he did, and who could blame her? “I must make inquiries,” Ash said. “There are people in London, friends of Ellenora’s, who might know, or a certificate of birth, perhaps, or parish registry to be unearthed.”

Ash rubbed his neck. “I expect she married Ames to give the child a name, which would explain the speed of her jilt, at least. As to whether the child is mine….” Ash shook his head with regret. “I would not have thought it possible, and yet….” He shrugged. “I am sorry, Lark, but it is possible, though I would rather not foist upon you an unwanted—”

Lark crossed his lips with a gentle finger. “What did you say about the way I spoke of your family? That frightened little one could well be the newest member.”

He should have known she would open her heart to a guttersnipe, to any child, he suspected.

“Do you know what became of Ellenora’s husband?” she asked.

“Killed in a dual shortly after her death, in questionable circumstances, I heard. Seems she had taken a lover—nothing new for Ellenora—and her husband found out.” Ash took Lark’s arm. “Come, we must fetch the wagon.” He reached for Micah’s hand.

His gentle wife took her nephew’s other hand to walk beside them to the stable. “Micah,” she said. “You may no longer be the lone resident of the nursery. Will you like company?”

Micah shook his head vehemently, a sign that he heard and understood, Ash thought, though it appeared that Lark was so pleased he did, she failed to take into account the significance of his negative response, which did not bode well for tranquility in the nursery.

Ash urged the aging pair of draft horses faster toward the spinney. “Any more unexpected arrivals of the infant variety and I will feel as if I am in competition with Reed and Chastity Gilbride St. Yves and their brood.”

“Are the St. Yves friends of yours? How many children do they have?”

“I fought with Reed under Wellington and was his groomsman when he married Chastity, but I’m sorry to say that I’ve lost count of their numbers, though I do know they’re expecting their first any day.”

“But you just said—”

“They take in abandoned children and make them their own, or Chastity did, and Reed had no choice but to join the ranks.”

“Why did he have no choice?”

“Because he fell top over tail in love with the lot of them.”

Ash and Lark regarded each other over Micah’s head, saying everything and saying nothing. Lark kissed Micah’s crown, and Ash followed suit, wondering if there wasn’t a bit of that kind of falling going on around Blackburne Chase. But he wasn’t certain, not even of himself, though he clung to hope as much as he shunned it, and he surmised it likely, from Lark’s speaking glance, that she hoped and feared for their future in the same bewildered way.

“Quite the interesting life I gambled us into, is it not?” Ash said.

“Interesting,” Lark responded, tilting her head in thought, “but certainly not the worst situation I’ve ever found myself in. Not yet.”

Ash looked up from driving the wagon, to her, and back, twice, not certain of her precise meaning, not certain he cared to know it at any rate. “Right.”

The wild child was a disgrace, a she-wolf angry with the world, hair chopped short, as if self-cut with a dull blade, and she smelled worse than Lark on their wedding night. She fought them in the spinney for half an hour, Micah standing to the side, in total disgust.

Ash and Lark cornered and caught her half way up a cherry tree. When they got her down, Lark tried to hold and calm her, but she bit Lark a good one, and to Ash’s shock, Micah roared his disapproval, charged forward in Lark’s defense, and shoved the she-wolf to her bottom in the dirt.

“Micah!” Ash and Lark shouted as one, but as they regarded each other, Ash could see the grin Lark suppressed, for her nephew had taken a first step toward speaking, not to mention the fact that he’d taken her side for the first time ever.

They got the girl back to The Chase under necessary constraint in the wagon bed. Lark tried but could not keep the struggling brat in her arms, so she simply sat beside her, stroking her matted thatch of raven hair.

Micah sat up on the wagon seat beside Ash, as he had done on the way to fetch the termagant, and it seemed to Ash as if Micah retained his role as Lark’s protector, for he kept looking over his shoulder as if he might jump to her rescue if needs be.

Back at the Chase, Ash once again called for a bath, and Lark once again fought him on it. “No, get her up to the nursery. We will not frighten her witless on her first night,” she said. “No telling how long she’s been left on her own. If I lived like an animal with a father and a roof over my head, this one’s like to be ready, after living on the London streets, to do injury in self-defense, or even for food. Mim, have Cook prepare her a meal, would you,” Lark asked, as Ash deposited the girl in her arms in the rocker.

Lark struggled to keep the child there while Ash stood before them, arms behind his back. “What shall we do with her?”

“Do with her? We will keep her, of course.”

They turned as one to the crash and roar from Micah, no longer watching from the side but staring at his bleeding hand. Judging by the broken window and glass beside him, and the startled look on his face, he had surprised even himself by shoving his fist through the glass.

Ash ascertained that the cut was minor and turned the boy over to Mim for bandaging when she returned with the termagant’s food, then he temporarily sealed the small broken pane of glass with a nursery book wedged into the spot.

However needless Micah’s jealous drama, it actually served to tame the wild child, Ash thought, for it had taken her attention from her fear, and she had settled against Lark to watch.

“How old do you think she is?” Ash asked as he completed his task at the window and moved the plate of food to the nursery table.

“Micah is seven and they are about the same size, though he is small for his age, so she might be five or six, perhaps. I should think you could better tell me.”

His wife had raised a speaking brow, which managed to tighten Ash’s cravat, and he warmed, despite himself. “If the note’s claim is true, then she is likely about six years old.”

As avariciously as the girl eyed the plate of steak and kidney pudding, she would not move from Lark’s arms to come for it when Ash invited her. “I told Mim to bring meat,” he said to Lark. “Is this all right?”

“I would likely have chosen something easier on her empty stomach like porridge or custard, but I’d wager she would prefer meat, if she were of a mind to say so.”

“Do you think we should give her a name?” Ash asked. “It seems wrong to speak so rudely about her when she is sitting right here.”

Lark smoothed the girl’s tattered hair from her brow. “And she likely understands every word we say. You would not care to tell us your name, would you, Dear?”

When no answer was forthcoming, Lark looked to him to provide a name, and again Ash felt himself flush. He was finding this new-found fatherhood business rather awkward in his bride’s eyes.

Ash cleared his throat and raised his chin, determined to reclaim his dignity. “She is from France, so it is possible that she does not understand, though she must have learned some English on the London streets, depending upon the length of time she was there, I suppose. Let us call her Chère for the nonce. It means dear in French and it might be of some comfort to her. What do you say?”

“I thought you might name her for her mother,” Lark said, not quite meeting his gaze, somewhat paler for the discovery of his possible daughter, if he did not miss his guess, and he was sorry for it. Hurting her had never been his intention.

That the very notion, and the possible reason, set his heart on end, disturbed Ash, for it likely meant he cared more than he should, and if Lark felt unwarranted resentment toward his first jilt, because they might have produced a child, did that mean Lark cared too much as well?

Ash supposed some jealousy made sense, for Larkin herself had not as yet given him a child, and he should set her at ease over the matter, providing he discovered a means to accomplish it.

“Chère,” she said, speaking softly to the girl. “Are you hungry? Would you like something to eat?”

Micah took up the plate, as if to help, and the girl screeched like a banshee, startling the boy so he nearly dropped it.

Ash caught it, setting Micah free to shoot a look of pure disgust the girl’s way. When Ash offered her the plate, she shoveled the food into her mouth like one long-starved, and so fast that not a morsel was lost or left behind.

The revelation of her hunger brought Micah closer. It seemed even to soften his resentful stance.

“Should I fetch more?” Ash asked Lark, feeling the same foreign paternal ache he had felt when he first sat Micah upon the horse before him.

“I fear that if she eats too much too fast, she will make herself ill,” Lark said. “I believe I will just rock her for a few hours, before we feed her again, until she becomes comfortable in my presence.”

“Hours?”

His stubborn bride raised her chin. “Or days. However long it takes for her to know she is safe and wanted.”

Micah took several steps closer, until he stood expectantly before Lark.

Sensing her nephew’s need, Lark took him on her other knee, but the girl stretched out before Micah could settle himself, as if there were no more room.

Micah pushed Chère aside.

Chère shoved Micah in return.

“Stop it, both of you,” Lark said, “before I set you on the floor and abandon the battling pair of you.” She appealed silently to her husband as the two in her lap continued their minor skirmish.

Ash raised his hands, as if they held no answers, the amusement in his eyes, at once annoying and charming. He turned and left the nursery, abandoning her with the scrabbling duo, while failing to stifle his chuckle on his way out, the rogue.

It took four days before the wild child let Mim take a turn holding her, and that only lasted long enough for Lark to see to her personal needs. Still dirty, the girl child slept and ate in turn, always in Lark’s lap. She knew how to use the chamber pot but Lark had to remain with her or she would screech like an owl at midnight.

She disliked above all things, closed doors, eating utensils, and sharing Lark’s lap with Micah. It took two days before Lark realized the frightened child had slipped a butter knife into the sleeve of her tattered shirt.

Neither she nor Micah had as yet uttered a word, though the growls they tossed at each other seemed filled with significance.

By the fourth day, Lark feared she smelled as bad as the girl, and she didn’t like the sensation one bit. As a matter of fact, she hated it and could not for the life of her remember how she had survived life in the pub for so many years without going mad.

That was the day Lark made up her mind that life in the nursery would change and fast. “Chère,” she said. “One or both of us will be bathed before this day is done.”

Lark made certain that Ash took Micah with him for the day, and then she ordered the slipper bath brought to the nursery.

“You may have your bath first, if you wish?” Lark told Chère, but she mulishly refused to respond or budge from Lark’s lap.

“Well then I am having mine,” Lark said rising from the rocker. She placed the girl in the chair, and began to disrobe before the steaming tub. Though the child watched Lark undress and climb into the bath, with no small amount of wistful interest, she refused to place even a finger into the water.

Lark closed her eyes and luxuriated vocally in her bath, expressing her enjoyment in a specific effort to persuade Chère of its benefits.

Finally, she heard a sound that made her think the girl had stood, and come closer.

“Where’s the boy?”

Lark screamed at the shock of sound, opened her eyes, and sat up so fast, suds streamed from her hair and into her eyes. When she cleared them, the girl stood staring down at her, as if she had not just broken a four-day silence.

Chère remained so still that Lark could not credit what she had just heard. “What did you say?”

“Where’s the boy?”

Progress, Lark thought, but she must proceed warily so as not to break the thin thread of trust her words revealed. “His name is Micah and he is with my husband, off on estate matters for the day. They left us to bathe in peace.”

“I used to bathe.”

“Then you remember how good it feels to be clean.”

“My mother used to rock and sing to me, like you do.”

And what could she say to that? Lark wondered.

At her silence, the girl looked away, but not before Lark caught the sheen of tears in her eyes.

“Your mother sent you to us,” Lark said, “Is that not correct?”

The girl regarded her then, allowing her tears to flow freely. “She was ill for a very long time.”

“I am sorry to hear it. I miss my mother as well, though she died at my birth and I never knew her.”

The girl sniffed, wiped her nose on a filthy sleeve, and gave a half smile, despite her tears. “I knew mine.”

“Yes, and you are where she wanted you to be.”

“Which is not so bad as I supposed.”

Lark chuckled. “I will accept that as a compliment. Are you feeling as itchy and uncomfortable as I was, and are you ready for a bath and clean hair again?”

The girl shrugged and played with the edge of the rug with the toe of a torn boot.

“Let me finish rinsing my hair,” Lark said. “Then Mim can fetch some fresh hot water. Can you tell me your name?”

Chère raised her chin in a show of pride, and Lark was certain she would reject both the bath and the question, but she shrugged as if it made no matter. “Are you really going to keep me?”

“We don’t know, yet, if we have the legal right, but we would like to.”

“Could I have any name I wanted?”

Lark thought about that for a minute and knew the child’s comfort in their home must be uppermost in their minds. “Yes, I suppose you could, though it would help us to know your true name, so we could attempt to arrange for you to remain with us.”

“Though my real name is not the name I have been using, I was christened Ashley Briana.”

Oh God, she had been named for Ash. Lark felt herself go cold, though she covered her shock for the child’s sake. “A beautiful name,” Lark said, seeking purchase in a careening world. “What name have you been using and what would you choose to be called now?”

“Brian.”

“But that is a boy’s—”

Snapping eyes, a raised chin. “I know.”

Ah, Lark thought, and hadn’t she herself remained disguised as a boy half her life for the sake of self-protection? Lark took the child’s grimy hand in hers as they regarded each other, nothing hidden between them, and that’s when Lark lost her heart. “You are safe here, Brian. We will keep you safe.”

Brian retrieved her hand and looked away again, as if the promise were of no matter, but Lark knew how much she wanted to believe it, though she would not dare. Oh Lark knew. She cleared her throat. “And your last name?”

“Fairhaven, like the man my mother married, though I have been known on the streets only as Brian, which suited me.”

Lark understood that her boy’s name and boys’ clothing could well serve the same purpose Lark’s had, especially in such horrid holes as homeless children tended to congregate in London. But why did she not even refer to the man her mother married as her father? It was all so confusing, yet the girl was too young to quiz on such a delicate matter.

Lark found herself nervous of a sudden over the responsibility of raising a girl. A girl in boys’ clothes could be well-met and understood. But when the time came that Brian turned back into Ashley Briana—if the day ever arrived—how would Lark manage to mother a female child when she knew nothing of the ilk? Rat’s whiskers, Ash new more about feminine fripperies than she ever would.

“We will need to have new clothes made for you, Brian, so you must tell me if you wish to have boys’ clothes or girls’.”

Brian sighed. “Boys’ clothes, please.”

Lark nodded, unsurprised, and made quick work of finishing so Brian could bathe.

The girl needed no help to undress, but tears filled her doe’s eyes as Lark scrubbed the grime off her bony little arms. “Am I hurting you?” Lark asked.

“No. It feels nice to be clean after so long.”

“How long were you forced to survive on your own?”

“Forever,” she said, as if wistfully looking back in time. “I do not know how long.”

“Through this full spring just passed?” Lark asked. “Or only for part of it?”

“There was snow on the ground when the carriage Maman’s servant sent me to London in went off the road and ended in a ditch, and a painted lady and rich gentleman found me walking and took me to London in their carriage.”

Oh God. “Were you with them all this time?”

Brian shook her head and dutifully ducked to rinse her hair. “For a while, I had a corner by their kitchen fire to sleep, which was better than some, until the gentleman frightened me and I ran. Then I found children my own age and shared their cellar. If one of them had not knocked me into the path of the man chasing him, I would never have ended here.”

“I hope you feel as if he did you a favor?”

The girl shrugged, reserving judgment, and Lark understood.

“This is where Mama wanted me to be,” Brian said, accepting her fate.

The girl made no fuss when Mim brought out a clean pair of Micah’s clothes for her to wear after her bath, and when she finished dressing, she herself tossed her filthy old rags on the fire.

“Tell me about your man,” Brian said getting back into Lark’s lap, sleepy after her bath. “My mother said there was a man who loved her and would love me. Is your man the one who loved my Mama? My real name is like his, is it not?”

Lark stilled while her blood felt as if it left her body. “I … do not know if my husband is the man who loved your Mama,” she said, rocking again, “but your Mama’s note was addressed to him.”

“Is he a good man?”

“Yes,” Lark said. “He is. Micah is my nephew, you see, but my husband takes very good care of him.”

“The boy hates me.”

“And you love the boy?”

Brian made a rude noise that made Lark laugh and bring her close.

“Are you going to keep the boy too?” Brian asked on a sleepy yawn. “What does he call you?”

Micah doesn’t call me anything, anymore, Lark thought, because he hasn’t yet spoken a word. “You may both call me Auntie,” she suggested, or Mama, she dared not.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Once Brian had begun talking, there was no stopping her. She not only spoke for herself, but for Micah as well, except that Micah did not always like what Brian said on his behalf, which made him angry and turned him into a handful of a normal little boy. Lark was as grateful, and entertained, as she was frustrated by her bickering children.

Ash taught them a great deal about the estate and often took one or both of them with him on his rounds.

Brinks taught them to ride.

Grimsley could most often be found teaching them manners.

Lark took them to visit Ash’s mother for fifteen minutes every morning, holding her hand and speaking to her mother-in-law as if the frail old woman understood. Lark called her Mother and encouraged the children to call her Grandmother.

She took the children on playful adventures throughout the estate. In the spinney, they pretended to be explorers, lost in the trees and brush. They played hide and seek among the farm sheds, the buttery, the root cellar and dovecote. They ran through the ghostwalk as if chased by ghosts, played tag in the lavender field, and climbed trees in the orchard. On rainy days, they made lavender sachets, as cook had taught them, or played war with Ash’s tin soldiers, or held banister races in the foyer.

Lark had Olive teach her how to sew Brian a rag doll and after she completed it, Brian took to playing house like a normal little girl, though Micah hated that game as much as any normal little boy.

Sometimes the resentment between them vanished, and Brian and Micah played like reasonably well behaved children, but other times Brian would turn wild again. She cut a fence and stole a chicken from a tenant for no good reason, and only got caught when she let the squawking bird loose in the kitchen and politely asked cook to roast it.

In early June, Stan Redman caught both children swimming naked in the lake. They had tied Mim to a nearby tree to get free. Brian admitted talking Micah into joining her in a cooling swim, while Micah admitted to ambushing Mim.

But nights were for her and Ash and baby making.

“You would think that Micah would be a good influence on Brian, rather than her being a bad influence on him,” Ash said one night as he turned Lark to undo the buttons down her dress.

“I do not even care,” Lark said. “I am happy to see Micah play like a child, even a naughty one, for the first time in his life.”

“Well, I’d be pleased if Brian didn’t cause any more damage to my tenants’ property.”

“At least she doesn’t scream the house down when I leave her to come to bed at night anymore.” Brian had finally accepted that Mim was there for her at night and that Micah slept just across the nursery, and Lark was grateful that she and Ash had been able to resume their baby-making.

“Are you certain you still want to have a baby?” she asked as she climbed into bed with him, for she’d had a particularly difficult day with the children.

“Have you changed your mind then about how much you enjoy playing the blanket hornpipe?” he asked, as he touched her in such a way as to make her yearn.

She gave his body the same studied attention. “Not in the least, but I have discovered of late that children are a great deal of trouble, or haven’t you noticed?”

“Oh, what kind of trouble?”

He was paying more attention to her body now than to her words. “They’re both stubborn little tricksters, always into one scrape or another. If it isn’t fighting like wildcats with each other, it’s skinning knees or breaking something of value in the house, not to mention tearing their clothes and cussing like sailors.”

Ash laughed and rose above her. “They are, both of them, exactly like you.” He kissed her nose.

Lark gasped in outrage, and then she gave him a prideful grin. “Really?”

“Really,” Ash said. “Let us make another.”

Lark could do nothing, of course, but agree.

When the tutor finally arrived, Brian, Micah, and Lark, together, became his pupils. He was to teach them reading, writing, and numbers.

A prig of a miserable old schoolmaster, he looked down his nose at Brian’s name as well as her clothes, at Micah’s silence, and at Lark’s own advanced age. He chided her often and told her she was stupid compared to the children, which Lark could forgive, because it was true. She was his dunce, said he daily, and he made her wear a cone of a cap on several occasions just to prove it.

Micah was his brightest, pupil. The man said Micah might have been his star pupil if he could only talk. Lark often wanted to use her knee on the prig where it counted most.

Brian was his constant interrupter, and when he called her on it, he sneered at what he called her “masculine” clothes. So what if the girl wasn’t yet ready to wear dresses, which Lark could understand. Why not ignore the clothes on her back and get on with their lessons?

Unfortunately, Brian felt the schoolmaster’s disdain, and when the man pointed out a word in her reading book that she’d read incorrectly—by tapping it with his ink-stained finger more times than was bearable, even to Lark—Brian swooped down, bit the offending digit, and promptly gagged.

He might have forgiven that transgression and forgotten the incident. But a few weeks later, when in the course of his incessant searching for his spectacles, the prig broke a bladder of ink someone had slipped into his claret frockcoat pocket, he lost his temper, and when Brian giggled, he went for her in a rage with a strap.

Lark hit him with a chair to stop him from hurting Brian, and Ash dismissed the tetchy tutor without a reference. The following day, Ash himself began teaching them, but not before he gave them a talking to about their behavior during lessons.

He paced with as much pomp as the tutor, except that his inexpressibles fit him like a second skin, and Lark knew that his legs and shoulders were not padded. As a matter of fact, she knew what he looked like all over, and in the throes of passion as well, so she did not feel the least intimated.

She and the children sat in silence at the nursery table, books open, waiting for their new tutor to finish his lecture.

Finally, he rounded on them. “One more thing,” he said, looking from one of them to the other. “No more schoolroom pranks. Now, which of you put the bladder of ink into your former tutor’s pocket?”

“Micah did it!” Brian charged, pointing the boy’s way.

Micah rose to his feet and roared his outrage pointing back toward Brian.

“Lark,” Ash said. “That leaves only you. Did you do it?”

Lark looked from one child to the other and raised her chin. “Yes,” she said. “I did.”

Ash made a noise of disgust. “You did not.”

“You doubt that I could?”

“Not at all, but I do doubt that you would become a poor example for the children.”

“I did it,” Lark repeated.

“Fine then. You will stay late and do an extra assignment when we are finished.”

“Oh, for Dirty Dan’s Sake, I did it!” Brian said, sticking her tongue out at Micah.

Micah mirrored the action, while Lark refused to meet her husband’s gaze, so he would not see her amusement.

“You lied,” Ash said to Brian.

She hung her head. “Yes Sir.”

Ash sighed. “I dislike dishonesty above all things, Brian. Do you understand?”

“Yes Sir.”

“I would rather you told me when you were naughty, than lie about having done it.”

“Yes Sir.”

“Good. Now that’s settled, let us open our reading books at page sixty-three. Brian, since you perpetrated the prank that lost us our tutor, you will begin. You will also have an extra assignment at the end of the lesson as punishment … for your lie, not your misdeed. By my account, the tutor got what he deserved.”

Brian nodded. “My Maman said you would be strict but fair.”

Ash started, as if he’d seen a ghost, then he glanced red-faced at Lark, before nodding for Brian to begin reading.

Lark had tried to forget what Brian said about Ash loving her mother. She had never asked him if he loved anyone before, only if he’d played the blanket hornpipe with anyone else, or made a babe with them, which he might have done with Brian’s mother, as it turned out, and which bothered her more with each day that passed. It wasn’t that she didn’t love Brian; she did. But Ash was her husband and she felt a womanly ownership that she did not want to share. She wanted to know, damn it, if he had loved another woman.

She wanted to know if he loved her.

“Daydreaming during lessons, Lady Blackburne?” Ash said with a smile, and Lark turned her attention back to the book in front of her, her face warming.

The children were both bright. Micah helped Lark with her numbers, while Brian helped her with her reading, a sad and humiliating state of affairs.

After a particularly difficult lesson, Lark threw down her pencil, rose, and went to the nursery window, where she sat on the window-seat to look outside.

Ash followed. “Lark, is something bothering you?”

“I am not smart enough to be your wife and I am not half good enough either. I do not know why you put up with me.”

Ash’s arms came around her, his cheek met hers, and she reveled in his silent support. “I do not know why, either,” he said, his unexpected words cutting, despite his kiss on her neck. When he dared to chuckle, Lark rose and stomped on his foot with near as much force as she’d used on the dancing master, though to be fair, she was wearing less painful heels at this time.

When she saw her husband’s pain, she placed her hand against her mouth, in shock at what she’d done, felt her eyes fill, and quit the room.

“Devil it! Why did you do that?” Ash called after her. He looked at the children. “Why did she do that? What the …” He sat and massaged his throbbing foot. “I never saw that woman cry for no reason.”

Brian shook her head. “You were supposed to tell her you loved her, Dolt.”

“You are wiser than your years,” Ash said, before he called for Mim to supervise in the nursery, so he could follow his bride to her bedchamber.

Did he love Lark? Ash wondered, finding the thought as frightening as ever. Would his mother have suffered so badly at his leaving for war, if she had not loved him?

To him, love had always seemed to cause more pain than joy.

True, he had discovered in Lark a wounded soul mate and he could not resist the lure to heal her. He enjoyed spending time with her, talking to her and joking with her—which is all he had been about this afternoon. She had never taken one of his jests so before.

He certainly took pleasure in having her in his bed. Lord, he could barely get enough of having her in his bed, or against the wall, or in whatever ridiculous position she wanted him, though he did not like getting his foot crushed under her heel, by God.

When he opened the door to her bedchamber, her emotions had vaulted from tears to ire, it was plain to see, so Ash sighed and advanced on her, giving her little choice but to wait him out, or run. “If we can get you quickly out of your gown, I believe it will be easier for you to forget what an idiot I am.”

“Are you like to be making an apology, then?” she snapped, crossing her arms.

“I am no more versed at soliciting forgiveness than in granting it,” he said kneeling before her, “though I pray you will … overlook … my earlier thoughtless comments.”

Lark gasped as Ash lifted the hem of her gown to nuzzle her through her petticoat, there at her center.

“This is more than to make a babe,” he said. “I want to be close to you. Now.”

She knew she should stop him—it was the middle of the day for pity’s sake—but for the life of her, Lark could not raise a hand to put period to the pleasure her husband aroused. Her arms became heavy, as did her legs, except for their sudden need to buckle at the knees. What was wrong with her today?

Ash found the tapes at her waist and undid them so her petticoat broke free and puddled on the floor at her feet.

She squeaked and raised her skirts, holding them against her bodice, so as to watch him undress her from the inside out.

He looked up at her, his eyes dancing, his hair endearingly askew, and she could swear that her heart did a small flip inside her chest before it laid itself at his feet. Was this love? she wondered.

Ash stroked her through her shift, rushing more warmth to her core, and he rested his cheek just there, raising her to new heights. But when he turned his head and opened his mouth against her center, whispering her name like a prayer, Larkin rose so near to release, she whimpered.

She closed her eyes and wove her fingers through his thick, silken hair, holding his head against her, for all the world as if she were begging for more of his magic.

Ash moved his talented hands upward along the backs of her legs, sliding them beneath the soft linen of her shift to cup her bottom, and then he slid both hands forward to meet at her front, at the center of all feeling, and splayed his fingers to stroke and tease.

Touching could bring pleasure, Lark had learned, wild, amazing pleasure, when the man doing the touching was Ashford bloody-beautiful Blackburne.

She released the breath she had been holding with a shuddering sigh, and Ash rose like a ruthless, ravenous rogue and opened his mouth over hers. He swallowed her sighs, drew more, until his mouth became so much a part of her own, she might take to bleeding, if he stopped.

When she thought she had reached a perfection of sensation, nearly unbearable in its intensity, he moved to undo the buttons at her bodice, stroking her exposed skin as he moved down her torso. Heightened sensation, rising in promise.

He freed her arms from her sleeves without her help, for she was too ensnared in pleasure to think. Just as well, for she had no strength, either to help, or resist.

“That’s my girl,” he whispered as he slid her dress down along her sensitive quivering body, the palms of his hands skimming her, until he cleared her hips and her dress joined her petticoats on the floor.

Standing before him in nothing but her shift, stockings and slippers, Lark wished she were a lady who wore fancy corsets of silk and lace just for her man. Her underpinnings were no more than serviceable cotton, plain, and well-worn, yet her husband regarded her with an appreciation akin to awe.

He took her hand and she stepped over her clothes, to face her lover, as if in the center of a bright cocoon, for the sun flowing through the curtains blessed as well as mocked them for this breach in the fabric of good manners.

“It is the middle of the day,” Lark said, in a tardy effort to play the lady, but her rogue of a husband’s wicked grin said he cared not a whit. She had daily evidence that the Earl of Blackburne liked breaking rules as much as did his hoyden bride.

He slipped her shift up and over her head. Then he stepped back to regard her, like a connoisseur examining a work of art, assessing and delighting in the vision.

For the first time in her life, Lark felt … beautiful, at least in the eyes of another, in the eyes of the rogue who mattered most.

She’d dreamed of him for years, tricked him into marrying her, yet she would not alter her life with him for anything, no matter his warranted anger when he learned the truth. And he would learn of it, for the more time that passed, the more she knew she must confess before they could be truly happy.

As if sensing her surrender, Ash began to remove her stockings with a renewed determination in his appreciative gaze, sliding the first slowly down her leg until Lark shivered in anticipation. Then he began again with the second, doubling her heartbeat.

Now she stood naked before the man she loved. Did she love him? Dear God, how foolish that would be, but she must. She adored every angle of his face, every twinkle in his eyes, his frowns, and curses. She treasured the way he encouraged Micah’s studies and laughed at Brian’s naughtiness.

More than anything, she appreciated that he respected her fears in the bedroom, allowing her outrageous requests in regards to position and timing, and that he pleasured her in whatever way she wished.

Did she love her handsome, stubborn rogue? If she did, and she told him so, would that not destroy his ability to be shed of her, if he wished it, upon his grandfather’s death?

He stood and turned her, her back against his front, so he could cup her breasts from behind, as if weighing and measuring them. Lark leaned against him as he plumped each one, pebbled her nipples, and whispered his adoration of her body, his breath and nibbling lips warm along her neck, ears, and shoulders.

Pleasure points coursed through her with an escalating force. Her contentment grew apace, her womanhood flowered.

Too soon, but not soon enough, her attentive husband turned her and lifted a breast to suckle her, while he reacquainted his hands with the shape of her bottom and the heat at her center, and made her legs tremble.

As he rose up again and his smoldering eyes set her ablaze, she bent and disposed of his trousers in a thrumming heartbeat and got her first good look at his linen smallclothes.

“They look very different on you than they do on me,” she said.

“Praise be, but I did give you a pair of the button variety.”

She circled him and regarded him with the same hot gaze as he used on her, to play him and tease him, then she gave him back a bit of his own. Stroking the fabric ever so lightly across his front, she found the opening big enough and easy enough, without buttons, to accommodate her hand, silently applauding his choice of underlinen.

Ash gasped when she found him, his lance rigid and thick, his ballocks soft and supple … but her other hand ached for him as well, and so she knelt and slipped his linen down his legs and cupped his ballocks, even as she closed her other around his splendid manhood.

She reveled in the power to make him throw back his head and stifle a groan of roaring pleasure, a gratification that seemed as acute as pain.

She liked as well that she could make him beg, and buck, and plead for her to “stop,” and “more,” and “hurry,” and, “Wait!”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

In a quick turnabout, Ash took control, lay her on their bed, kissed her ravenously, and came over her, opening his mouth over her own once more. He lay atop her for the first time ever; did he realize it? She did not stop him this time, for she found she liked the intimate weight of him. The position no longer seemed … threatening, as it used to do, but fulfilling and splendid. Right.

Hard to her soft, cool to her hot, Ash dipped where she curved, and arched where she plunged, all so deliciously and perfectly well. They fit together like two pieces of a hand-carved puzzle, making her wonder how even God had managed so perfect a match.

“Ash. You feel good. You’re on top, did you realize? I like it. It feels better than—”

“Shut up, Lark, and kiss me.”

She did. Tongues touching and dancing, mating. Hands, legs … mouths touching … everywhere.

As the sun shifted direction, Lark learned new variations on pleasure—a bliss she never imagined, a wondrous joy, as heart-stopping as fast-sliding down a snow-slick hill, a pleasure that grew to unimagined heights, burst within them both and set them free.

Like two spoons, they slept, until Lark sat up and realized the beauty of the man who lay beside her, and she took advantage of the opportunity to examine every texture of her husband’s naked man-parts in the full light of day. She touched him, along and around, up and down, delighting in her ability to arouse him, painting his moist tip with a playful finger.

When she dared to kiss that silky tip, he woke with a moan and a start, saw what she was about, and as fast as that, she was on her back and he was deep inside her again.

In a frenzy, he brought her higher in three deep strokes than he had during any of their previous couplings.

So blessedly good, she felt, with his weight atop her, she wept for the joy of it.

They climbed and soared again, without rest this time, then like water cascading down a mountain—pure, bubbling, wild and free—they floated as one, peaceful and at rest, for minutes, or hours.

Lark woke to find dusk had fallen while Ash worked in her with slow purpose, making her beg for faster, then slower, then just plain more. She regarded him, looking down at her, incredibly handsome, too handsome for her.

“Come with me, Lark,” he said. “Come with me to heaven. I’ll wait. Come.” Then, deepening each concentrated thrust, he dipped his head to suckle her, pulling hard shafts of leaping pleasure from so deep inside, she could have wept again.

He stopped suckling with a groan to move higher over her and increase his pace. She feared she might die of the frenzy before she shattered into a million star-bright pieces, hovered in the heavens, and became one with eternity.

A moment later, Ash shouted her name, gave her his seed, and she rushed to the firmament again, one last incredible time, then she let herself drift, safe, sated and exhausted in her husband’s arms.

After a time, he reversed their positions and settled her atop him like a blanket of lazy contentment, and urged her to sleep.

She closed her eyes without a word. She had never known such sublime contentment.

Ash woke with his answer, the one for which he had come searching. Brian had been right. He loved his wife, loved her as if she were his missing half, a frightening discovery, for had she not once implied they might go their own ways once grandfather’s estate was settled?

She stirred in his arms, pushed her face deeper into his neck, moved and moaned. Parts of her must be tender and sore. He would have to kiss each one just to make them better, and after that, perhaps he would let her out of bed.

Lark shifted and moaned again, and rubbed her nose, back and forth, hard, against the hair on his chest.

Ash laughed and his rogue’s heart warmed. “Itchy nose means you’re coming into money.”

She smiled lazily and stretched her arms in that rod-stiffening way of hers, her silken limbs sinuously sliding against his own. “Don’t need money. I have you.”

“We both need money, remember? That’s why we married.”

Lark took her luscious bottom lip between her teeth, making him want to bite it himself, or perhaps he should bite his own, come to think of it, because her sad eyes and sudden silence made him nervous of a sudden.

She rose quickly, placing certain parts of him in perilous danger of annihilation. Ash caught his breath, then expelled it in relief, and tried not to be distracted by her pert breasts and fine bottom. He watched her rummage, and blush, until she covered herself to her thighs with his shirt.

He had to raise his knee to keep her from seeing how alluring he found her wearing it, or she’d find something else to wear. She seemed that annoyed, though he didn’t know why.

“Brian called me a name for the way I treated you in the nursery,” he said to make her smile, though he seemed rather to bring a more thunderous frown to her brow.

“Good,” she said. “It means she has a true understanding of your personality.”

Ouch. “I know,” he said, rising, “that I acted like the hind end of a—” He caught her ludicrous expression. “What?”

She regarded his raging manhood with something akin to annoyed amazement. This time it was him who blushed. “Sorry. I forgot.”

“You can forget something that big? You could trip on it, for pity’s sake.”

Ash stifled a chuckle. “I’m trying to get your attention here.”

“You have succeeded, believe me.” She sounded no less forgiving, despite the tease, while he did not understand for what he needed forgiving.

Too many silent minutes passed, the two of them facing each other, her thighs beneath that shirt looking perfect and welcoming, his body ready to have them around him.

“Why the bloody blazes do you want my attention?” she snapped.

Ash started at her tone and knew that a confession of love at this juncture would seem insincere, especially as his old uncertainty over the emotion had risen, like a demon from the sea, in the past few minutes. “To tell you that I … missed you when you left the nursery yesterday.”

Lark made a strangled sound deep in her throat, her cheeks strawberry-bright, her eyes filling again. “Will you please put on your clothes?” She grabbed them from the floor to toss his way.

“I’d rather you beat the devil out of me than cry,” Ash said, ignoring his clothes, going for his dressing gown. “You never cry.”

Lark sat on the bed, so forlorn, he sat beside her. “What is wrong, Larkin? You are not acting yourself.”

“It is just that….” She accepted his handkerchief and wiped her eyes. “It is … everything of a sudden. Look, I’ve torn the pretty new dress Olive made for me.” She pulled the dress off the floor and showed its torn overskirt.

“How can I teach Brian to act the lady if I act the ragamuffin? I cannot even read as well as she does, or do sums as well as Micah. Ash, my children have to help me learn my lessons. And you, you’ve ruined me by trying to make me into a lady. Now I do not even feel like beating you bloody, when you deserve a good throttling so very much.”

“Why do I deserve it?”

“Rat’s whiskers, Ash. If I knew, I might be able to work up the enthusiasm to do it.”

Ash received a letter from Reed Gilbride St. Yves, which he read to Lark at breakfast the following morning. “Dear Ash, You will forgive our tardy congratulations on your marriage. Our brood has kept us quite busy, and I now find myself pleased to inform you that we have increased our numbers by two. Yes two. Chastity, never happy with keeping things simple, gave birth to twins on the 18th of May.

Since I am also a twin, Chastity insists I accept at least half of the blame. Their names are Jillian and Meggie by the way; did I tell you they were both girls? Mark will never forgive us for giving him more sisters, though he agrees that they are the most beautiful babes imaginable.

Thank you again for your service on our wedding day. We think of you often.

Until the rogues gather once more, fare well. Your faithful friend, Reed Gilbride St. Yves.”

“They sound like a wonderful family,” Lark said, a bit envious, given her own lack of friends.

Ash nodded, accepted another cup of tea, and sipped it thoughtfully. “Any news of the rogues makes me miss the ruddy lot of them.”

“I’d love to meet them,” she said wistfully, then she regarded her tattered dress and sighed. “We have not been “at home” to visitors, I know, because I have not been willing to have the dressmaker in, but … perhaps we should.”

“I thought you hated the notion.”

Lark pushed a piece of egg around her plate. “Brian will need dresses, I think, judging by the way she fingered your mother’s broach the day I wore it, and once she asked about my petticoat, and I … would not want to shame you in front of your friends, Ash.”

“You never could,” he said standing and coming around the table to kiss her neck. “I will be happy to send for the dressmaker from St. Albans, if you wish, and as soon as your new clothes are ready, I shall invite Hawk and Alex to visit. They are our nearest neighbors among the rogues and you may practice your social skills on them before we are “at home” to the locals.”

“Where do the gossips come from, if the village is made of your tenants?”

“The gossips are the women of society who live in the larger houses between here and St Albans. They have nothing better to do, you see, but report, and embellish their neighbors’ actions to each other.”

“Sounds frightening.”

“Alex will be an enormous help to you in preparing for their invasion, though Sabrina would be better since she did not begin as a Lady, herself, though we aren’t like to see her and Gideon unless we go to London for the Season.

Lark squeaked in pure terror. “Please do not say we will. I had hoped we’d missed the Regent’s Ball.”

“Oh we did, since you maimed your dancing master, but you will not escape society that easily, my dear. I hope to take you to an assembly in St. Albans at some point in the future.”

“Damn,” Lark said beneath her breath.

The dressmaker arrived in the middle of July, a tall, robust woman, mammoth of bosom, but tiny of waist and hips, which made Lark wonder why she did not fall on her face from the weight she carried up front.

Lark fidgeted as she stood on the dressmaker’s platform while the woman pinned and prodded, pricked and poked. “I am not certain that this is necessary,” Lark said.

“Well, my Lady, his lordship has hired me to do a job, and that means you must stand still and I must measure and pin, if you don’t mind me saying so. Many’s the lady who’d be delirious getting fitted for so many beautiful new clothes. His Lordship says you must have everything—corsets, petticoats, nightshifts, ball gowns, morning dresses, carriage dresses, riding habits, skirts and bodices, gloves, redingotes, bonnets—”

“What do you find so amusing my dear?” Ash asked, coming in with Micah beside him and Brian trailing stubbornly behind.

“I have never worn a corset or bonnet in my life.”

Lark ignored the dressmaker’s gasp to regard the three people she most cared about. Ash, his brow raised, Micah and Brian, eyes twinkling with amusement. A family. She had a family.

“Make double the amount of dresses she orders,” he told the dressmaker. “My wife is too thrifty by half.”

“Morning, afternoon and evening dresses, Ash? Carriage dresses? Rat’s whiskers, was a time I wore the same clothes all day, and all night too … all week, come to that.”

“I remember it well,” Ash said, but Brian took to regarding Lark with a more interested gaze.

“I’ll grant that I prefer bathing and changing clothes daily,” she said for the girl’s benefit, “but changing every hour seems to border on the ridiculous.”

The fact remained, Lark knew, that if she refused the clothes Ash felt she needed, she would never become the “Lady” wife he needed. She owed him that much at least and more for her trickery in bringing their marriage about.

The children depended upon her as well to make something of a life for them all. Besides, if she fussed, fidgeted and complained too much, Brian would surely change her mind and refuse to be fitted for dresses of her own, and Lark would feel guiltier than ever.

“Bother,” she said beneath her breath, a mild oath, considering how she felt about this fittings business. She had a good argument prepared too, one that involved the funds necessary to this extravagant endeavor, but with Brian awaiting her turn, as if prepared for her own hanging, there was nothing more to be said, and Ash knew it.

Ash sent the letter inviting Alex and Hawk to visit that very day, and within minutes of telling Lark so, he was pleased to find that she became aggressively interested in learning her lessons, all of them, but especially in ladylike deportment, and in becoming a gracious hostess.

It did help that Brian took “lady” lessons along with Lark and that the girl often remembered, from her earlier years, how things should go on “in society.” It also helped that Brian broke as many china teacups as Lark did, and that Brian’s guttersnipe vocabulary emerged a bit more often than Lark’s, when things went wrong.

Ash made Micah his unofficial assistant estate manager, since the boy’s proud head for sums became a helpful asset, and Lark named Brian her unofficial assistant hostess, for strictly speaking, Brian had more experience than Lark.

Both children flourished under Lark’s motherly care and Ash could not help note that she showed no preference to her nephew. She scolded both children as needed, coddled both as needed, and loved both with a capacity for that emotion Ash envied.

He craved the ability to love as she did, as he craved her unconditional love for himself, and was shocked out of mind to discover it.

“I am proud of you,” he told her one night after they’d made love.

“Because I have surpassed your expectations in baby-making?” she asked. “Not that we’ve succeeded in making a babe, I mean, but that I’ve excelled in learning the rudiments necessary to the attempt.”

Ash grinned. “Because you have surpassed my expectations in your ‘lady lessons,’ as you irreverently call them.”

Lark kissed his chin, the closest spot she could reach with her head on his shoulder. “No darling, if I were being irreverent, I would speak aloud the name I have given my lessons in my head.”

“Which is?”

“You will never know, because I am too much the Lady to say it.”

Ash barked a laugh, brought her over him, and worked very hard to turn his Lady into a quivering mass of begging pleasure.

Lark vomited, she was so nervous, on the morning the Duke of Hawksworth and his wife Alexandra were due to arrive for a visit.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Lark was appalled that Ash held her hair back as she heaved into the chamber pot, then he insisted on seeing her climb back into bed for a longer sleep.

“I am going to have Mim come to clear this away and cook come to see if there is something she can fix that might settle your stomach,” he said, “and if you are not better by tea time, when my friends are due to arrive, you will receive Alexandra here. She will understand.”

Lark moaned and needed the chamber pot again, and Ash became the more upset. “Have you eaten something that disagreed with you?” he asked sitting on the bed and taking her hand.

“I am about to receive my first visitors as Lady Blackburne, Ash. Do you not understand how frightened I am that I will make a horrible blunder or prove an abominable hostess and give your friends, and you, a disgust of me?”

“I had no idea you were this nervous about receiving them.”

“It does not help that my new clothes did not arrive in time and that this must be the hottest summer in history. The heat alone is enough to sour one’s stomach. Whatever will I wear?”

“The day is not that warm and you will wear the cream and burgundy day dress, which is my favorite.”

“The morning feels excessively warm to me, and that dress will simply make me warmer.”

Ash tested her brow. “Do you have fever? Because if you do, I will send a messenger with a note for them not to come. Alex is in no condition—”

“I do not have fever.” Lark knocked her husband’s annoying hand away. “I am nervous, and hot, and you are making me feel more of both. Leave me in peace and I shall be ready to receive them in due course.”

“As you wish,” Ash said, but Lark thought he was upset when he left her, and though that bothered her a great deal, she was surprised to awaken some three hours later feeling refreshed, astonishingly wonderful, and looking forward to her first visitors.

“The Duke and Duchess of Hawksworth, dear God,” Lark said as the crested ebony coach stopped at the entrance of The Chase at two that afternoon. “I think I may need to vomit again.”

Ash started and Lark chuckled. “A figure of speech, my dear,” she assured him, amused by the look of horror on his face.

Hawksworth appeared aptly named, for he bore the look of a Hawk, Lark thought, enhanced as it was by the scars on his face. Yet she saw a magnificent beauty in his visage as well, especially when he looked upon his Duchess as he helped her emerge from the carriage.

Lark gasped, for the Duchess was so huge with child as to waddle a bit like a duck. “Oh my.”

Lark accompanied her husband down the front steps to greet them, feeling every muscle in her belly tighten in apprehension. But she needn’t have worried about formality because the Duchess opened her arms and embraced her, and the child within the woman kicked so hard, Lark laughed, and relaxed and embraced the Duchess in return. “Your Grace,” Lark said, with what she feared was a belated curtsy.

The Duchess shook her head, raised Lark to her feet, and placed an arm about her waist. “Alexandra is my name and Alex you will call me. None of this toadying to titles business between friends. Have you met the rest of the rogues?”

“I have met none of the rogues,” Lark said, dreading her imminent introduction to the man her husband called “Hawk.”

The Duchess—Alexandra—Alex—whirled them about as one, their arms still around each other. “Bryce, you will kiss Ash’s frightened bride, if you please, and place her at her ease. You have frightened her witless, you see.”

“Oh, oh no,” Lark said, “you have not.” She wanted to scold Alex for saying so, but she saw that in the teasing, something intimate passed between husband and wife, and the harsh planes about the Duke’s face relaxed. He smiled as he bent to kiss Lark’s cheek. “How are you managing this old reprobate? I heard he won you in a card game, is that true?”

“Bryce!” Alex scolded.

“Yes,” Ash replied.

“No,” Lark countered.

They entered the drawing room amused over the confusion of answers. Lark called for tea right away, because she was so nervous she would make an error as hostess, she wanted to get the formalities done with.

“Well,” Hawk said to Ash as they sat. “Which is it? You won her or you did not?”

“He lost the card game,” Lark said, wanting more than ever to confess her part in the deceit, “and I was his consolation.”

Ash gave her a look of censure and Lark felt as if he were chiding her for telling the truth, which was so unlike her forthright husband she must ask what he meant by it later. But Alex and Hawk had fallen into peels of laughter and her husband relaxed.

“I should have known Myles and Hunter were too drunk to get your wedding story straight,” Hawk said.

“Where is little Beatrix?” Ash asked. “I hoped you might bring her for Brian and Micah to play with.”

“We would have,” Alex said, “but she is spending the day with Claudia and the new baby. She will not be dragged from little Judson’s side for long.”

“I had heard that Chesterfield has an heir,” Ash said. “He must be pleased.”

“He is disgustingly pleased,” Hawk said, with little trace of the feud Ash said had once raged between the two men. Lark was not surprised, however, for Ash had also confided that Chesterfield married Hawk’s niece.

When the tea tray had been removed, Ash stood. “Ladies, you will excuse us. Hawk has experienced distinguished success with the Huntington Lodge estate and he has promised to ride the Chase property and offer some industrious suggestions, including the possible construction of a lavender distillery.”

Lark watched Hawk limp from the room. “Ash told me your husband was badly injured in the war.”

“And left for dead,” Alex said. “We received the miracle of his return to us and now we have another, for we are finally expecting our first child, though we have been reunited for more than two years.”

“Two years?” Lark cried with some distress. “Can it take that long to get with child?”

“It did for us, though not for want of trying, I can tell you. Do not be distressed. It will happen in time.”

“We do not have time. According to Ash’s grandfather, I must be with child before Christmas, or Ash will not inherit, which will cause him to lose the estate.”

Alex’s eyes twinkled. “Then you must be trying very hard to meet those requirements, which is no surprise, given the fact that Ashford is a rogue of the highest order.”

“Very hard,” Lark said pointedly.

“Congratulations.”

They giggled like schoolgirls, a new and heartwarming experience for Lark.

“It is wondrous to be in love and trying for a babe, is it not?” Alex said.

“Oh, we do not love each other,” Lark said, aware she feared believing different, wishing she could ask Alex to explain love’s meaning.

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“But I like the marriage bed very much, and I like Ash, which does make it pleasant to keep to our bargain to get Ash into his grandfather’s will.”

“You might be fooling yourself my girl,” Alex said.

“About liking Ash? Yes, well, there are times that I do not like him so much.”

Alex chuckled. “About him loving you, I mean. Men rarely confess such things, you know.”

Lark tilted her head, considering. “Perhaps, but I do not think he does.” She smiled, wishing Alex might be correct. “Have you met all the rogues?” Lark asked, changing the subject, for she was uncomfortable with the subject of her marriage and love.

“I have met every one, and you have now met three of them, did you not realize? Myles Quartermaine, Earl of Northclyffe, and Hunter Elijah Wylder, Marquess of Wyldborne, were both at your wedding.”

Lark made a face. “I did not like those two and thought them scoundrels, not aristocrats.”

“They are none of the rogues endearing when they have been drinking, especially when they are together, for then they go beyond what is prudent.”

“One wonders how they won the war.”

“True enough.”

“What are their wives like? How many children do they have? Oh I want to meet them all,” Lark said.

“Gideon is in mourning for his grandmother, so he and Sabrina will not be out in society until December, or I would suggest a house party.”

Lark sat straighter. “Do people have Christmas house parties?”

“Of course they do. Have you never attended a house party during the holidays? There are none so special as Christmas gatherings.”

Lark called for more tea and shared her background with Alex, as Alex shared a bit of her own amazing life with Hawksworth, and sometime during the course of the afternoon, the two became fast friends.

She took Alex to the nursery to meet Micah and Brian, who were, unfortunately, not on their best behavior. It seemed Micah had locked Brian in her bedchamber, and Brian did not like locks. So when she picked it and got herself out, she threw an inkwell, a full inkwell, at Micah’s head. It broke, of course, the inkwell, not Micah’s head, though he did have a bruise the size of an egg on his temple.

Even though Mim had basically cleaned them up, India ink stained Micah’s cheek and both children’s hands. Even so, they bowed, and curtseyed, and gave the incorrect impression of having manners.

Lark shut the door on the nursery and rolled her eyes. “I sometimes ask myself why we want another.”

“Because making babies is splendid fun?”

“I will come to see you when your own comes,” Lark told Alex as they descended the stairs. “I cannot wait to hold it.”

“The babe will be nearly three months by Christmas,” Alex said absentmindedly, as if doing sums in her head. “I would invite everyone to Christmas at the Lodge, but it is still a heap and we have not made rooms livable yet for so many.

“Lark, would you consider holding a Christmas house party here at Blackburne Chase? This will be Gideon and Sabrina’s first real Christmas without his grandmother so they will be happy for a place to go rather than remain home and feel sad. It would give you an opportunity to meet all the rogues and their families.”

Lark held her fluttering middle. “I do not know what to do to celebrate Christmas, nor anything about planning a house party. I would die of fright with such a task before me.”

“We could ask each family to bring the makings of their favorite family tradition. I will coordinate, so we do not duplicate efforts. We live near enough to each other, you and I, to consult on menus and preparations. Did you know that Huntington Lodge is barely twelve miles to the north?”

Lark caught Alex’s contagious excitement like a fever. “I have butterflies again. I swear I will be as sick on the day of my house party as I was this morning for knowing you were coming.”

“You were sick this morning? Has this happened before?”

“I suppose a lady should not speak of such things,” Lark said in response to Alex’s frown. “I will never learn.”

“Have you had your monthlies recently?”

“Oh yes,” Lark said. “Why do you ask?”

“I thought perhaps you had been ill because you are with child, but that cannot be.”

“Why can it not? Will I not know until I am as big as a prize sow—” Lark slapped a hand over her mouth. “I am so sorry.”

Alex laughed, and with so much merriment, Lark feared she would birth her babe there on the indigo damask settee.

“The easiest way to tell,” Alex said some minutes later, as she dabbed at her watering eyes, “is that your monthlies will stop.”

The men returned, and though Lark wanted to consult Alex further, she could not wait to give Ash the news. “Ash,” she said, approaching him, reminding herself to remain sedate, and not gallop, as her excitement warranted, “we are hosting a Christmas house party here at Blackburne Chase, and Alex is going to help.”

While both rogues regarded their wives with unspoken skepticism, neither commented further.

Lark had had the maids fasten a curtain across her small personal sitting room the day her dressmaker was due to deliver her new wardrobe.

Now Ash, Brian and Micah sat on the opposite side of said curtain waiting for Lark to come from behind it wearing one of her new outfits.

When her first dress had been dropped over Lark’s head, she regarded herself in the cheval glass from every angle, both amazed and flattered. “This cannot be me. I feel as though I am wearing someone else’s clothes.”

“Well you must surely be, My Lady,” the dressmaker said as she attempted to fasten the buttons up the back. “Because this dress is too small for you.”

“I heard that,” Ash said, “and I am pleased to hear my campaign to fatten up My Lady is become a success. She was all bones a month ago, you must own, still is, in my eyes.”

“I can hear this conversation,” Lark said. “Please refrain from discussing my plump self within my hearing, if you do not mind.”

On the opposite side of the curtain, Ash chuckled, Brian gave a giggle, and the additional snicker Lark heard was surely Micah’s.

“Won’t take but a rip and a stitch or two to fix, My Lord,” the dressmaker said.

“Happy to hear it.”

The dressmaker whipped the first dress off and settled another over Lark’s shoulders. “Here now, this one fits as it should. The empire style suits you,” she said, “and the emerald green color makes your flaxen hair shine.”

Lark stepped into a pair of satin high heeled slippers of the exact fabric and accepted a striped-silk fringed shawl the color of the blonde lace on her bodice.

As she stepped from behind the curtain, her family applauded, Brian’s eyes surprisingly wistful, Micah’s wide, and Ash’s hot and … inspired.

Lark grinned, certain she understood the degree of her husband’s inspiration. “I take it you approve?”

“The style suits you, and the way it looks on you suits me.”

“Good because I am fond of this style and ordered several, though I do feel like a child playing dress up. Look, my slippers match the precise color of my dress and each other.” She raised her hem to show her emerald silk slippers to good advantage, and did a dance step that had the children giggling.

“You have slippers to go with every dress.”

“Oh, Ash, surely not. That would be … extravagant.”

“Nevertheless, you have them. Your order was modest, Lark, I simply made it more practical, not excessive in any way, I assure you.”

Lark took a chair among them. “I wish to see Brian in one of her new dresses.”

Brian did not hesitate for a moment before she stepped behind the curtain, for she was too precocious by far, now that she’d lost her fear, and almost too beautiful as well. Lark wondered if her mother had been so striking, so alive, and if Ash saw the woman he loved in Brian’s perfect Irish features and fine raven hair.

Did he yearn for the woman even now? Lark almost hoped that the news about Brian’s paternity, due from Ellenora’s friends in London, never came, for she would as soon never know that her husband had fathered a child with the woman he loved.

CHAPTER TWENTY

As the dressmaker dressed Brian in her new clothes, Ash regarded Lark. He adored her in her own new things, though he would adore her more out of them, which he believed she read in his gaze even now.

As every new day passed, he became more enamored of his bride and more torn by their goal—odd how he thought of it in terms of their goal now.

While Lark must soon get with child, to keep them in grandfather’s will so as to save the estate, Ash dreaded the day he would be forced to stop going to her bed.

He had wondered recently if grandfather would accept Brian as the child Ash must produce before Christmas … if Brian proved, indeed, to be his. But he had realized soon enough that to claim Brian as his own would be to declare her as illegitimate and ruin her in the eyes of society.

Though Brian would not use her true name—Lark had convinced him she must have her reasons and they should keep her secret—she was legally the Lady Ashley Briana Fairhaven, legitimate daughter of the late Lloyd Harvey, Duke of Amesbridge, and so she would remain.

Even if it meant losing grandfather’s favor, and losing Blackburne Chase as well, come to that, Ash would not destroy Brian’s future, whoever her sire might be.

All was not lost, he reminded himself now. Lark might yet conceive. Nearly four months were left to them before Christmas after all, and what better sport could be found than baby-making with Larkin Rose?

The fact was, despite his bride’s guttersnipe beginnings, she had become like a sprig of fresh lavender in his life—unspoiled yet spirited—a blend he found soothing and invigorating at one and the same time.

Beneath her oft-times unbendable surface, he had found Lark to be a woman of great passion, a woman he enjoyed having as his wife, his helpmeet, his lover—a woman so rare, even his curmudgeon of a grandfather had taken a fancy to her. So rare, she would love her husband’s natural child as her own.

Ash fingered the puzzling note in his pocket from Jane Hawking, Ellenora’s bosom friend, asking him to come to London where she would tell him everything she knew of Nora’s child. One way or another, he must discover whether he had left Ellenora carrying his child or not.

“Lark” he said, making a decision on the instant, “I must away to London soon to look into the matter concerning which I have sent inquiries.” He regarded the curtain pointedly. “Do you suppose you could do without me for a day or so?”

“I think you would be missed by us all, but we would manage. What say you, Micah? Shall you, Brian, and I, become adventurers, out here in the wilds of Gorhambury on our own for a full twenty four hours or more?”

Micah looked at Ash with fretful eyes, but he nodded all the same, and then Brian came out wearing … a dress, and took all their attention.

A termagant into a swan.

The first thing Brian did was curtsey before Ash. “I believe I will be pleased to dress like a girl again,” she said.

“Oh,” Ash said on a chuckle, tweaking her nose, “and shall you be pleased to be named like a girl as well? Someday you will be forced to settle on one name only, you know, and be content to live with the one only for the rest of your days.”

“Not yet, if you please.”

“Fine,” Ash said. “So you will wear dresses but still be called Brian?”

She looked at Lark, as if for reassurance, and raised her chin, much as Lark was wont to do. “I would like to be called Briana now, please.”

“Briana,” Ash said. “Close enough to your—to … Brian, and not so difficult a change to remember. It is a fine choice.”

That night Lark and Ash discussed the fact that Briana did not want the world to know her first name was Ashley, so they agreed, with apprehension, that neither would use it under any circumstance.

* * *

The following week, a note arrived from Huntington Lodge. “Dearest friends, you may wish us happy. Alex and I are proud to announce the arrival of our son, Brandon Alexander Wakefield, two weeks old today, and as perfect as his mother. Alex sends her love and bids Lark visit soon. She cannot wait to show him off.”

Lark and Ash toasted Hawksworth’s heir that night at dinner, and worked very hard afterward to produce an heir of their own.

Two days before Ash planned to travel to London, the Hawksworth carriage arrived promptly at nine to whisk Lark away on her adventure to visit Alex and the baby. Ash, Briana, and Micah, waved her away from beside the carriage. Mim, Cook and Grimsley stood on the steps waving her off as well, for Lark had alerted all available hands to keep the children in line during her absence.

Huntington Lodge, by Devil’s Dyke, topping the steep hill beside the River Ver, was not the leaking, tumbling pile Lark had been led by Alexandra to expect. The pristine Lodge stood an imposing mortared brick edifice, ruddy of face, and straight of line, with at least two score of men scrambling over its roof like ants on a hill high above them.

Everywhere Lark looked, happy, energetic men and women worked like bees in a hive. Among the tenants’ cottages, home farm and outbuildings, she saw dovecotes, granaries, even a pottery, as if the lodge were a world unto itself. Hawksworth had certainly made improvements, judging by Alexandra’s description of the home she originally inherited.

The man himself welcomed Lark and helped her from his carriage with a kiss to her hand, and before bringing her to Alex, he gave her a tour of the Lodge.

“The family chambers are now livable,” he said some time later, if a bit threadbare, as are the kitchens and servants’ quarters. Few of the guest-chambers have been touched, because we chose to build the tenant cottages first. Ah and here are my wife and son,” he said, beaming as they ended their tour in a rose silk drawing room.

Hawk sat Lark beside Alex on the sofa and bent to kiss his wife’s lips then his son’s brow. “Perfect,” he said lovingly cupping the boy’s tiny head as he slept. “Absolutely perfect.” He beamed at Lark. “Did Alex not do a fine job on this one?”

Lark smiled inwardly at the imposing Duke of Hawksworth turned to jelly by the sight of his wife and babe. “She certainly did,” Lark said, reaching tentatively, and was rewarded with the smallest armful of babe she ever held. “Oh my,” she said. “He is so soft.” She kissed a tiny hand. “I am in love.”

“And so you should be,” Hawk said, kissing Lark’s brow. “Again,” he said, and bowed. “Welcome, and enjoy your visit.” Hawk exited the drawing room and left them.

Lark cuddled and crooned to the babe and told him how fortunate he was to have such wonderful parents who loved him.

Alex beamed upon her son. “Yours will be as fortunate. When shall I hold him, or her? Did the doctor give you an approximate date?”

Lark laughed. “No, for I have seen no doctor. I am not as yet increasing, and I believe Ash is disappointed, though he says he is not, and that he is pleased to work so hard at his favorite sport.”

“Oh but you are with child,” Alex said. “You bear all the signs, Lark.”

Lark raised the babe in her arms to look at her belly. “I see no signs.”

“Have you had your monthly flux since my visit?”

“Well … no.”

“Aha. And how long has that been? Two months at least. You are breeding, mark my words. Your breasts are bigger too, and tender I’d warrant. Do you nap more often than not?”

“Oh.” Lark held the babe in her arms closer, felt a warmth of joy and love rush through her. “The dressmaker said something on the fit of my bodice the other day, but I had not considered. And I have dropped off to sleep at the most peculiar times. Why the children dressed me in a lavender crown, as I slept in the grass beside the field one afternoon, and I awoke feeling like a virgin sacrifice.”

Alex took her hand. “Before my visit to your home, when did you last have your flux?”

“I … do not remember.”

“Do you remember the last time you did?”

“Oh, yes, for I was ever so embarrassed at having Ash see me—” Lark warmed and brought the babe up for a kiss.

“Nonsense, rogues who fought with Wellington take blood, of all things, in stride, though try and remember to have Sabrina tell you about her daughter, Julianna’s, birth and Gideon’s hand in it.”

“Gideon was present at the birth?”

“He delivered the child.”

Lark paled. “I would not know what to do.”

“Neither did Gideon.”

They shared a chuckle. “We need to know how far along you are,” Alex said. “Pray, liken the time of your last flux to the season, if you please. Were the lilacs in bloom? Fruit in blossom, lavender, roses?”

“Oh, I do not know. I remember that, at least a week previous, the blossoms had been falling from the apple trees.”

“Dearest Lark, you must be four months gone, at least. I would wager your babe is due sometime in January or February.”

“Do you think so? You think I am truly with child?”

“I think you should see a doctor.”

“Perhaps I will, but I’d as soon not tell Ash until I am certain. Would you mind not telling Hawksworth yet, so Ash can be the first to know?”

“Certainly not. I adore secrets.”

“Besides,” Lark said, “I do not want Ashford to stop coming to my bed any sooner than he must.”

“He does not need to keep from you when you are with child, did you not know?”

“I know no more of babes than begetting them, but in this case, keeping Ash from my bed when I got with child was a stipulation of my own, given at the point of our original bargain.” She sighed. “I now wish I had not made it, but what can I do, but stick to my own rules, if I ever expect my husband to honor my wishes in future?”

“You have got yourself into the soup with this one, my girl. Methinks that only a good seduction will get you out of it. If you need help, Sabrina has taught me some delightful tricks, which I will be pleased to pass to you. I had already planned to send you home with a jar of Sabrina’s special “oil of seduction.” It will be of use in the event you put that plan into effect. Remind me to give it to you before you leave. Sabrina has it especially made by an apothecary in London.”

Lark heard a commotion outside the room.

“Oh, listen. Do you hear it? There is a babe, not my own, crying. Must be young Master Judson Chesterfield himself. Do you mind if we save our Christmas planning for our next visit? Claudia wants to meet you.”

“Not at all,” Lark said, delighted at the prospect of another visit and of meeting Hawksworth’s niece.

“I must caution you,” Alex said, “before the hoards descend, that to survive a Christmas House Party big enough to accommodate the rogues’ families, you will need truckle beds in the nursery, triples if you are smart. We have a tenant who makes them. Remind me to give you his direction before you take your leave.”

A beautiful dark-haired woman swept into the drawing room then, with a babe thrice Brandon’s size in her arms and a young woman in tow.

Alex introduced them as her niece Claudia, wife to the Viscount Chesterfield, and mama to little Judson, and Beatrix, Claudia’s younger sister.

Lark stood to curtsey, though it was difficult to stand with Brandon in her arms, and she gasped and held him tighter when Alex introduced her as the Countess of Blackburne.

“Countess!” Lark said with a laugh.

“And so you are,” Alex said. “Did you not realize it?”

“Oh but I cannot be,” Lark wailed. “I am not half good enough.”

Alex and Claudia disabused Lark of that dotty notion that very day.

The following day, after Ash left for London, Lark took the opportunity to visit the Blackburne Chase tenants, starting at the dower house. Olive and Stan begged her to leave Briana and Micah with them while she continued her visits. Children loved spending time with Stan and Olive, and hers were no exception. Though the older couple had none of their own, they loved children and gave them every attention.

Between cottage visits, Lark took the time to stop and visit old Doctor Buckston. The man’s short white hair stuck up in sparse tufts about his head, while his long beard hung full and waving. His constantly-furrowed brows, both thicker and whiter than the hair on his head, gave him the look of a large gnome bearing the disposition of the curmudgeon Ash named him. His growled greeting did nothing to alleviate Lark’s impression; neither did his ire at being disturbed.

He closed the door on what he called his laboratory before she could discern the nature of the haphazard projects scattered about, though at a glance the debris reminded her a great deal of Stan’s woodworking shop at the back of the dower house.

“So,” said he. “Are you itching for a second chance at shooting me in the ballocks?”

Lark blushed. “I apologize for the nature of our first meeting. I … I was afraid, you see.”

“Needed no medical book to diagnose that,” he said. “Frightened virgins’ always look so, though not another in my long life has shot her Lord and Master in the arse on their wedding night.” Buckston slapped his knee with glee.

Awed by his merriment, Lark wondered suddenly why people thought him cross.

“So what are you doing here?” he asked. “Out with it. I ain’t got all day.”

Ah, she thought. That was why. “I think I may be with child.”

“Guess Himself got his arse out of that sling you put him in, eh?” The medical man chuckled again. “Does this mean you’re not afraid of him anymore?”

Lark had discovered his secret. The old charlatan was all bluster. “How do I know if I am with child? Can you tell me for certain?”

“Don’t know why you’d want a brat. They’re all too noisy. Best lock ‘em in a room ‘til they can talk sense.” He winked, and asked all the same questions Alexandra did, and all but confirmed her diagnosis, based on the same evidence, enlarged and tender breasts, small hard mound of a stomach, missing monthlies.

Everything seemed quite straightforward and easy, until he asked her to lie on his table and lift her skirts.

When Lark yelped in outrage, Buckston whisked a bedpan before his ballocks.

Lark softened at his look. “Take heart,” she said. “My husband has confiscated my pistol.

“Smart man. Speaking of hearts,” he said. “You made mine near burst from my chest just now. I thought me worldly goods were done for.” The doctor wiped his brow with a sleeve, thanked a deity Lark did not recognize, and proceeded to explain his examination.

“When did you have your last flux?” he asked again.

“In late spring,” she said. “Near as I can remember.”

Buckston nodded.

Lark confirmed that he was a gentle man, kind and mannerly, who simply wore the guise of a curmudgeon.

“Well your husband’s pistol didn’t get confiscated, now, did it?” he said toward the end of his examination. “Because one of his bullets hit home. You’ve got one on the way for sure, Mistress.”

Lark walked on air as she left his office that day. She was carrying a child. Ash’s child. A child conceived in tenderness, possibly even in love, on her part. She could not wait to tell Ash—

Oh no, if she told him, he would stop coming to her bed. She loved having him make love to her, even if that’s not what they were really doing. She loved sleeping in his arms, waking there too. His hands soothed her to her marrow; his kiss lulled her and brought her joy. She liked warming her cold feet against his warm man-parts, another pleasure she would miss without him in her bed.

Why had she made that terrible stipulation, and how could she change her mind now that the time had come?

‘Twas something she must ponder. She would wait to tell Ash of their expected child until she knew how to rescind her rule without making herself, or any future requests, seem trivial or foolish.

Once she told him, she would take Alexandra’s advice and make it seem as if she were holding to her stipulation, while seducing Ash back into her bed, in such a way as to make him think his powers of seduction had won.

When the time came, she would take out that milky-green jar and ask him to apply the oil of seduction Alex gave her, and perhaps even attempt the ploy of interrupting him in his bath.

Come to think of it, perhaps that might be a good time to tell him that she had cheated him into marrying her.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Lark hated that Ash was forced to remain in London for nearly two weeks in an effort to complete his inquiries into Briana’s paternity. By the end of the second, Lark had paced herself sick, imagining the worst possible results of his findings.

Sometime after midnight, while she lay wakeful and worried, she heard a coach stop beneath the portico. She shot from her bed, never so glad of anything than to arrive at the top of the main stairs in time to see her husband—handsome in his cape and curly beaver—step into the foyer and hand Grimsley his cane.

She ran down in her bare feet, wearing one of the new night-rails and dressing gowns he’d had fashioned for her.

Ash gave Grim his things and shook his head when he saw her coming. “I wonder you did not take the stair rail for better speed.” He chuckled, caught her in his arms, and kissed her with speaking passion. Twas everything she wanted in a homecoming kiss, except for the worry he attempted to hide but she sensed nonetheless.

“Bad news,” she said, stepping back. “I know you have bad news. We cannot keep her, can we?”

Because Grimsley stood nearby, holding his cape, top hat and cane, Ash did not immediately answer Lark. “The nights get colder as August comes to a close,” he said. “Grim, tea in the drawing room?”

Ash bid his wife precede him toward the room he found most soothing with its blue damask furnishings and silk striped walls. He sat beside her on the settee, where he took her into his arms and kissed her again, because he’d missed her so much, and then he kept her beside him so he could hold her as they talked.

“Pull your feet up and tuck them under your dressing gown,” he ordered. “We cannot have you becoming ill.”

“Can we not? Why?”

“Because you have children to raise.”

“More than Micah?” she asked turning him toward the subject troubling her.

“Perhaps,” he said.

“Oh Ash, tell me.”

“Nora and her friend, Jane, lost touch after Nora married Ames and went to live in France. So Jane knows nothing but gossip about Nora’s last years and it is not pretty. Word is that Ames’ temper got the better of him, more often than not, and that he was responsible for Nora’s illness. When her lover called Ames out, Ames was killed in the ensuing duel.”

“Her husband’s rising temper could be the reason Nora sent Briana to you, then, could it not, rather than your paternity?”

“I thought the same, but Jane says Briana is my natural daughter. Nora confided as much when she was frantic to find her unborn child a father.”

Ash sighed and chafed his wife’s cold hands. “I am sorry, Lark. I know you wanted to bear my first child. I could see it in your face. But you love the one I already have, despite your disappointment, do you not?”

“Yes, Ash, I do. Yes,” she repeated, initiating another kiss, one filled with a meaning Ash could not discern. “Tell me, then,” she said when he would have continued. “What is the problem with our keeping Briana, if she is yours?”

“There is a man claiming to be Ames’ uncle searching for Briana. He claims also to have a letter from Ames naming him the girl’s guardian. He has made inquiries as to her whereabouts of Carstairs, our family solicitor.”

“Oh no,” Lark said. “Is he not the man who sent Briana to us in the first place?”

“Yes. Arranging an appointment with him is what kept me in London. I felt the need to meet with Carstairs myself, though I never used Briana’s real name, not even with our own solicitor. Good news, though. Carstairs has not as yet told this “uncle” where to find Briana and he has promised to look deeply into the matter and put the man off for as long as may be within the law. Meanwhile I have applied to Hunter to have the man’s activities investigated.”

“Does Hunter do such work?”

“Yes, he does, has done since the war, though the fact is not widely known and should be kept between us.”

“I understand and appreciate whatever he can do. I would do anything to keep Briana from being taken from us.”

“We, both of us, would.” Ash rose to gaze out the night-black window. “My father was right. I hurt so many with my selfish flight to war. My mother lies helpless, Nora, forced to take such a man, cut down in her youth.”

He turned to regard Lark, innocent and caring. “I do not deserve you, nor do I feel worthy enough to bring a new child into the world.”

Lark smiled at what she likely perceived as a jest, Ash thought, though he was serious. He wasn’t good enough for her.

“You are a good father Ash. We have two children, not even our own, who would attest to it.”

“As they would to your mothering. I have applied for their guardianship, Lark, Micah’s and Briana’s. I know we should have discussed such a step beforehand, but it seemed imperative of a sudden to sign the documents. I have written to Reed Gilbride St. Yves to speed the process. He has friends in high places after his service to the crown, and if any man knows how to obtain swift and legal custody of children, he is the one.”

Lark threw herself into his arms. “I am so pleased, Ash. You will see that they have a future. A real future. Come.” She took his hand and led him from the drawing room as Grimsley made to enter with the tea tray.

“His Lordship is no longer thirsty, Grimsley,” his audacious bride announced as she led him willingly up the stairs.

Ash hauled her up short half way there. “You are a heavy-handed one this evening. May I ask what you are about?”

“I am about to fill my hands with something even heavier.” She glanced askance at the evidence of his interest. “Shall we make another attempt at a baby? The task has been deuced difficult without a potential father in attendance.”

Ash barked a laugh. “I have missed you, saucepot.”

“Come,” she said, “and show me how much.”

Ash happily complied.

In September, Lark and the children went lavender gathering, so she and cook would have the supplies to make soaps, sachets, and lavender wands, as Christmas gifts for her guests.

Another day, they went apple-picking in the orchard. After they filled several baskets of the shiny red fruit, she was tired, so she spread a blanket in the grass. For tea, they ate the bread, cheese, and the apple tarts she had brought. Then Lark bid the children lie down and rest before they picked more apples, and she did the same.

She had no sooner closed her eyes than someone was attempting to rouse her. “Aunt-eee, Aunt-eee, wake up, wake up. Briana is crying.”

“Micah!” Lark sat up with a rush of dizziness. “How long have I been asleep?” She touched her brow to stop its spinning, and then she took in her surroundings and assimilated her nephew’s … words? “Micah, did you speak to me?”

“Briana is in the tree crying.”

Lark rose then, with no more thought to the miracle that had just occurred, and every thought for Briana’s safety, and followed her nephew toward a grandfather of a horse chestnut tree.

Micah pointed upward and Lark was forced, with trepidation, to shade her eyes with a hand, against the glare of the setting sun. There she saw Briana, so far up, as to appear the size of an ant amid the chestnut’s full shirred leaves.

“How did she manage to climb so high? Never mind. Micah, run and fetch his Lordship, and hurry. Bring him back, oh and tell him to bring a ladder.”

As soon as Micah left, Lark began climbing toward Briana. “Are you all right?” she called, for the child had said nothing since she appeared.

“My foot is stuck and I am afraid to tug it and fall.”

Lark thought she must be sixty feet up, she seemed so far away. “Can you see a safe place to sit and wait for help?” Lark called.

Briana looked about her and found a stout limb on which to perch.

“That’s my girl.” Lark climbed forever, while a score of ripe, spiny chestnuts dropped around her, sometimes hitting her, until she reached the child. Not that reaching her meant either of them was safe.

It took several minutes to extract Briana’s foot from the crook of the tree, and even then, they were forced to leave her shoe behind.

“Listen, darling, I am going to help you get down one limb at a time. You will go down one, then I will get down one, and then you will have your turn again. Do you understand?”

Briana nodded and heeded Lark’s every instruction, no matter how minor, and in that way, they managed to descend the better part of the distance, until Lark slipped, teetered, clung, and fell to the ground.

“I am all right,” she called up. “‘Twas barely thrice the length of my own body I fell.” She heard men shouting, and running feet, and then Ash was lifting her into his arms, muffling his scold with kisses.

One of the tenants got Briana the rest of the way down and carried her, as Ash carried Lark, to the farm wagon she had brought to haul the apples. The tenant rode his horse to the village for the doctor while Ash drove Briana, Lark and Micah, straight to the Chase.

Mim put Briana to bed and Ash put Lark to bed, then he paced and raged around the perimeter of her bed while they awaited the doctor.

Buckston saw Briana first and pronounced her fit, Mim reported, and then the doctor came to examine Lark.

To her relief, Buckston sent Ash from the room while he examined her. “My baby?” she asked, after the door shut.

The doctor only grunted in response to the question and remained silent throughout his examination. Finally, he pronounced her and her baby fit, but for her twisted ankle.

“You had better take life easier and no more tree-climbing until this little one of yours appears, if you wish to keep him from harm,” he said.

“No more tree-climbing,” she said, “I understand, but as for taking life easier….”

“Yes?” Buckston looked incredulous as he gazed at her above his spectacles.

“I am to have a Christmas House Party,” she said. “A rather large one.”

“Nearly three months from now? You’ll be big-bellied and no mistake by then. Society don’t usually approve a woman of an interesting condition showing that much in company.”

“‘Twill not be a society gathering, close friends only, with a great many children. Micah never had Christmas. Please Doctor Buckston; I could do without it, but poor Micah and Briana.”

That seemed to soften him as nothing else had. “How many children?” he asked, almost warily, as if he must put up with the lot of them himself.

“Two of ours, ten of Reed and Chastity’s … oh my, fifteen or twenty, I’d guess, all ages. I can hardly wait.”

Buckston rolled his eyes then shook his head as if he couldn’t understand, though the charlatan could not keep his big old eyes from twinkling. “Unless something happens in the next week to say different, I can’t see any reason why you should not have your Christmas House Party, providing you rest until the very day.”

Lark grinned and covered her babe protectively, more grateful than she could say, but as she was about to warn the doctor that she had not as yet given her husband her happy news, Ash stepped into the room, his jaw set. He would not be turned away again.

“Well, how is she, Buckston? May I take her over my knee now and beat her for her foolishness?”

“Not if you want a healthy babe come February.”

Ash paled. Lark had never seen the like. He looked so pallid of a sudden, so without color, that Buckston pushed him down to sit on her bed with a mere finger to his shoulder. The grinning medical man picked up Ash’s wrist as if to test it for life. “Gonna swoon on us, old man?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Do not be ridiculous,” Ash said, but his words held no bite.

“Rogues are the most skittish of men when it comes to dealing with their increasing wives,” the doctor told Lark as she watched her husband with worry.

“Why is that?” she asked.

Buckston shrugged. “Perhaps they know they’re perpetuating trouble, or can envision the problems they’ll face raising terrors like themselves. Difficult to say.”

Lark laughed, but when she did, Ash turned on her, accusation lacing his look. He might be surprised about the babe, but she was not, and he knew it.

The doctor saw it, too, and packed his leather satchel with no little dispatch. “No, no need see me out. Grimsley is like to be waiting just beyond the door. He’ll set me down the stairs just fine and send me on my way with a dollop, besides.” Buckston regarded Ash pointedly. “Meet her half way.”

Ash nodded, opened the door for the medical man to depart, and shut it again.

Lark closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted.

“Won’t work,” Ash said. “You’ll have to face me sooner or later.”

Lark took in the thunderous set to her husband’s brow. “Did you honestly mean to beat me?” she asked.

“You frightened ten years from my life, not to mention Micah telling me Briana was in trouble and you were trying to save her. I could not think beyond the amazing sound of his voice, while the situation he conveyed scared the bejesus out of me.”

“The same happened to me,” Lark said. “Except that I had fallen asleep and thought I must be dreaming.”

Ash sat on her bed. “You’ve been sleeping so much because you’re carrying our child.”

Lark smiled tremulously, uncertain of his reaction, and her eyes filled. Angry or not, she was foolishly pleased to be sharing this moment with her husband, not that there seemed any joy in him.

Rat’s whiskers, she wanted this to mean more to him than the securing of an inheritance. “Fancy that,” she said. “It seems I have fulfilled my end of our bargain.”

“How long have you known?”

Presented with the question she dreaded, Lark raised her chin. “Do not fret; a delay in your knowledge makes no matter to your place in your grandfather’s will.”

“Why did you not tell me?” he asked, so in control, she might have imagined his fleeting grimace of pain at her words.

“I was waiting for the right time.”

“Last night, as I made love to you and spoke of having a babe of our own did not seem like the proper time?”

If they had been making love, Lark thought, ‘twould have been the perfect time. She turned on her side, facing away from him, because she did not want him to see her tears.

He slipped into bed behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “Do not, Larkin. I know increasing women tend to weep, but do not be sad. Be happy. You have made me so.”

She rolled to face him. “Of course you are happy. You are now your grandfather’s heir.”

Ash raised a chiding brow and wiped her tears with his fingertips. “I am happy because none of you were hurt, not Briana, nor you, nor our babe. You were foolish, Lark, and gave me a fright.”

“Briana needed me.”

“The termagant, she should have sat in that tree until I arrived. ‘Twould have done her good to cool her heels a bit.”

Lark did not suggest that he take a good look at the height of that particular horse chestnut at any time soon for he might become as pale as when he heard her news.

She thought he might kiss her then, but someone knocked at her door, so he rose to answer it.

Briana and Micah stood framed by the door, contrition clear on their fresh-scrubbed faces. Ash let them in, and they stepped to her bed as one, like salt and pepper twins, one raven-haired, one flaxen. “We’re sorry,” Briana said. “For leaving the blanket while you slept and for climbing the tree.”

“So you both climbed it, did you?” Lark stroked the lazy curl from Briana’s temple while she raised a chiding brow her nephew’s way. “I am happy you were, neither of you, hurt. Your ankle is not hurt, Briana?”

“Not like yours, but I am missing a shoe.” She raised a stockinged foot, wiggling her toes.

Micah sniggered.

Lark caught his collar and tugged him closer. “And you,” she said. “Why did you wait so long to speak to us?”

Micah kept her from combing back his hair by claiming her hand. “I did not mean to make you sad,” he said. “Where I grew up, they strapped me when I “blathered.” He shrugged. “I stopped. When I got here, I waited, and when I saw I might talk safe, I did not know how to start.”

“I am sorry I put you with that family,” Lark said. “I did not know they were unkind. Did they treat you very badly?”

Micah shrugged.

Lark brought him down for an embrace, swallowing against his untold pain.

“I remember you,” he whispered against her hair, and she wept.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Four weeks after Lark fell from the chestnut tree, she ran out of patience. Since the event, Ash had kept to his own bed by night, while acting as if she should be wrapped in cotton by day. Though Doctor Buckston visited a week after her fall, and pronounced her fit and healthy, Ash continued to avoid her bed.

Was he honoring her foolish stipulation that once she got with babe he should stop coming to her? As a man of honor, he must be, and yet, ‘twas not his choice, for his body seemed to rise to the ready whenever she stepped near.

As a matter of pride, she tested the assumption and discovered he rose at the least provocation—the brush of a breast, a whisper at his ear, an intimate reference. She had even tripped and ended in his lap the other night, almost by accident, and took heart in the hard throbbing way she affected him.

She had given him every chance to make his needs known to her in some way, but he kept his peace, so now she must take matters into her own hands.

Lark placed the milky-green jar of seduction oil on her bed-stand and remembered everything Alexandra taught her about seduction. She learned her lessons well: she had an ache at the base of her spine. Women in her condition often did. She needed her husband to knead the ache while employing the soothing liniment from the jar. She could not reach the spot, not without intensifying her pain.

First, of course, she would need a soak in a hot bath.

Lark chose this evening because she saw enough water boiling in the kitchen to fill the huge copper slipper bath.

In preparation, she donned a confection of a dressing gown, a diaphanous pale rose silk, trimmed in a deeper rose velvet at the plunging neck, but silly her, she forgot to don its matching night-rail beneath.

When she heard Ash dithering in the dressing room—he often dithered, especially at baby-making, which she found satisfactory—Lark listened for the splash that meant he was stepping into his bath, before making her entrance.

As she waited, she pulsed in anticipation just knowing the moment was near. Lord, she had missed his attentions this past month, though God knew, she had made good use of her time. Had anyone ever slept this many hours?

Ash’s eyes grew large when Lark wandered into the dressing room, her hand at the base of her aching spine, as if she sought surcease from pain.

When she noticed him, she started, which took no skill, for his roguish handsomeness astonished her anew. His hairy, water-slick chest, near enough to touch, made her fist her hands so she would not … yet.

She must appear truly startled by the sight of him, while he regarded her as if he had never seen her before.

Lark knew her dressing gown clung to her rounded belly and revealed the larger crests of her milk-full breasts, for she had begun truly to increase in recent weeks, and Ash had not seen her naked in some time.

“Motherhood becomes you, Larkin,” he said, as she stood over him. “You fairly glow with good health.”

Lark caressed the scope of their child, soothing the babe as well as herself. “If not for my back, I would feel rather brazenly fit.”

He sat up. “Are you unwell? What is wrong with your back?”

“‘Tis nothing. It simply aches, which Alexandra and the doctor say is normal for a woman in my condition. I thought a soak would do me good when I heard the tub being filled and foolishly hoped ‘twas for me.”

Lark suspected from the sound deep in her husband’s throat that he fought some inner battle. He looked set to invite her in, and knowing him, he must be in full physical arousal. But as a gentleman, he might, under the circumstances, suggest that he leave first.

Poppycock, she was taking no chances. Lark unfastened her sash and allowed her dressing gown to fall the slightest bit open. “May I join you?”

Ash groaned inwardly when his neglected manhood leapt to vital and unfortunate life as his saucy bride dropped her wrap to the floor and bared her beautifully-rounded body for his awestruck admiration.

Lord, but she was breathtaking in her maternity.

As if that heady tease were not enough, she stepped into the tub, splashing water mercilessly over the sides and onto the floor, and sat right down to join him in his bath. She smiled as if ‘twere an everyday occurrence, tangling her legs with his, silk to sinew, soft to hard … maternal contentment oblivious to raging need.

Ash spared a lamentable thought for his deliriously happy manhood—all dressed up with no place to go.

Or could he be blissfully mistaken? Did a seductress regard him across the breadth of his bath? Did motivation drive her innocent pose? Loose hair of sunlit gold cascaded to his bride’s alabaster shoulders. Heavy breasts rode the waves that lapped at them—making his mouth water, his tongue jealous—finding its level upon her swollen rosy-ripe nipples.

Did the siren who held his gaze call to him in the silent way he imagined? “Is this not a bit … unorthodox?” he asked with a last grasp at self-preservation.

“You mean soaking in a hot tub in my condition? Not according to Alexandra.”

“And she is the expert, is she, after one child?”

“She is the only expert I know, though she garnered her advice from Sabrina who has borne five, you understand.”

“Of course. Forgive me. It is just….”

Lark fished about beneath the water, skimmed his calf, his thigh. “What?” she asked.

Ash about died of anticipation. “You are my wife.”

“I know.” She raised the soap like a trophy and grinned. “I have a babe in my belly to prove it.”

The crux of the matter, Ash thought, shifting to accommodate his thickening manhood.

What would she do if he claimed her, which he was daft enough to hope she wanted? What would she do if he pulled her toward him and impaled her now, this minute, here in their steaming bath?

After a month of celibacy, Ash near spilled at the thought.

“My back feels better for the heat,” Lark said, purring like a lazy cat, head against the tub, a smile about her heart-shaped lips, her cheekbones high, his hornpipe higher. “Will you rub it for me, down low?”

Ash started. “Excuse me?”

“My back. I think it would feel better if you rubbed it while the hot water soothed it. Will you?”

Ash released a shuddering breath. “Turn about, then.”

Just like that, Lark scooted his way and turned her back on him, too quick and willing by half. Did she have seduction in mind, this bride who’d shot him in the arse the first time he made to go near her? Was she attempting to lure him back to her bed, despite the stipulation she might also regret, please God?

Ash spread his legs to accommodate her, her back against his front, and he began to make soothing circles at the base of her spine with his fingertips. As he did, Lark moaned, and squirmed, and rubbed against him, until he thought he might burst, but who cared? This was the closest he’d gotten to Lark, to ecstasy, in weeks, and he wanted more. He wanted everything of her that he could get.

Her complacent sighs became a trial of sensual pleasure. Memories flooded Ash, her riding him, him riding her, learning him in the lavender field, measuring his rod against a parsnip, the parsnip coming up short.

Ash grinned as he kissed a bare shoulder. She tilted her head so he could better reach her neck.

With his free hand, he began to stroke her midriff while he continued soothing her back. She relaxed against him, aware surely of his hard reaction.

He cupped a breast and she raised it, as if for his delectation. Taking that as a sign, he fingered her nipple, and she failed to stifle a throaty moan of rapture, stiffening him the more. Ash went for broke—he’d always been a gambling man—and removed his hand from her back to play her at her center.

When he breached her, and knew, as well as she, that she wept there to receive him, she turned her head to regard him, her gaze open, knowing. “Your hornpipe wants playing.”

Ash opened his mouth over hers, swallowed her grateful sob, and tasted the salt from her tears in the kiss. He had not been wrong. His wife wanted him as much as he wanted her.

He played her as he kissed her, until she reached a climax of incredible duration and proportion, judging by her keening song of joy.

“Hush,” he said. “Grim will come looking to see what I need.”

“Then I will send him away, for I know what you need.” She rose like a mermaid from the sea, wet and glistening, and turned to stand before him, proud in her expectancy, offering the gift of herself.

Ash stroked her belly, kissed her, every inch, laving and adoring her with his lips and tongue, awed anew that his child grew, there, beneath her tight white skin and fast-beating heart. Then he placed his mouth at her woman’s center and made his pearl-bright fairy sing again.

Before he sensed her wicked intent, she swooped and impaled herself in a rush, swallowing, and capturing his manhood within her tight silken glove.

“Have mercy,” he said and became her willing slave. He devoured her mouth, skimmed her every crest and hollow, in the same way she stroked and stoked him.

When she closed a talented hand around his ballocks, he thought she would bring him to climax, for he had never been so rushed to frenzy, yet he knew he should not be surprised at any sensation his Larkin Rose evoked.

He begged her not to move, thanked the gods for her seduction, and kissed her until he could not keep from moving. And when he did begin, he could do no more than help her milk him—there was no other way to describe the earth-shattering coupling.

Which of them led the charge was arguable, but his money was on Lark. Ash cared not, he knew only that he had found the portion missing from his soul for a long month’s time and that he would not be severed from her again.

She reached her peak three times more before she let him spill his seed, leaving him laughably grateful and damned-near dead.

A full five minutes passed before either of them realized the water had chilled.

Ash stepped from the bath first and helped her out, wrapped her in towels and carried her to his bed.

“Why not my bed?” she asked when he joined her.

“Because I have lain here too many nights alone to bear. I craved the feel and scent of you here. We will change beds on a whim, shall we, for we are bedmates, you and I, come what may, from this day forward?”

“You admit that you missed having me in your bed?”

“Not as eloquently as you admitted as much.”

Lark tugged on his forelock. “I wish you would make a try at eloquence.”

Ash chuckled, leaned on an elbow, and toyed with her rosy nipples. He even toyed with the notion of telling her he loved her, but feared the possible rejection, or breach, that a lone revelation might engender. “Let me admit that when you stepped into my bath, I prayed, like I have never prayed before, to the angels and saints on high, that you came to me with the express purpose of seducing me.”

Lark bit his ear. “I admit … nothing.”

Ash chuckled and relaxed in a way he had not for weeks. “Do you know how many nights I sat beside your bed and watched you sleep? I knew such joy that you carried my child, but such loneliness at our resultant separation.”

Lark bit her lip and Ash knew that as a woman of her word, she would not, after all, admit to anything, not even to missing him. “What about your stipulation that I stop coming to your bed now that you are with child?” he asked, unable to leave it unspoken.

“You have just declared my stipulation null and void,” she said. “I make no quarrel with your pronouncement.”

“I honor my contracts, Madam. If you wish such a separation, you will have it, but you must tell me so.”

“And will you take my every future request at naught, if I rescind this, my first?”

“Your first was made at pistol-point, you must remember, though I’d as soon not, at which juncture you carried through with your threat. Bearing that in mind, and elsewhere, which remains scarred and tender, I shall never make the mistake of taking any of your requests at naught.”

Lark seemed to ponder some high mathematical equation then she nodded, as if satisfied with her account. “I did not tell you about the babe, for I disliked the notion of you leaving my bed. There. Make sport of me, if you will.”

Ash crushed her to him, pleased he’d brought her that far. “I am sorry you could not bring yourself to share your concerns, Lark, though I understand, for trust has always come hard to me as well.” He hoped the confession would set them on a path to trust, but as he awaited her reaction, he saw that his sated bride had fallen asleep and likely heard not a word.

Six weeks before Christmas, ten triple truckle beds arrived, which Lark ordered placed in the nursery, and adjoining bedchambers, for the rogues’ children and their assorted nursery maids.

Ash watched astonished as the beds were carried inside. “Good God,” he said. “How much did all this cost?”

“We will pay a quarter the cost. Each of the rogues with children will. Those are community truckles. We are like to take turns at house parties, Alex said, and ‘twould be foolish for us all to make the investment, so the truckles will be sent to whichever house hosts the next gathering.”

“Alex is a quick one, but you’re catching up, by God.”

“She had to be quick, did she not, carrying the burden of her entire family while Hawk was off fighting Boney?”

“Yes,” Ash said, kissing his wife’s brow and stroking his growing child with a possessive rush. “You are kindred spirits, I don’t doubt, which is why you like her so.”

“She is my first and best friend.”

“Take care that you and your friend do not plan us out of house and home. Do not mistake me, for I am looking forward to Christmas, but as it stands, I must slaughter enough livestock for beef and pork to feed them all, and likely sell one of our few remaining paintings as well.”

“Save the painting, for I have a notion about feeding them. Early each morning, you must make up a hunting party. We will eat whatever you shoot. Just take care to bag a variety—goose, swan, hare, pheasant, partridge … whatever you will. You should fish the lake as well.”

“Will you require boar and venison too?”

“For boar’s head?” She grimaced. “I pray you will not. As for venison, that would be lovely.”

“And supposing we have ill luck in our sport?”

“If we eat bread and butter or toasted cheese, if our pudding have more flour and suet than meat, then so be it, for we will all be together for Christmas.”

“A bride with all the answers,” Ash said, kissing her brow. “When is Alex due to arrive so you may make your plans? I think I may have to be away.”

“When you do not even know the day?” Lark scoffed. “Tuesday week,” she said, “and see that you are to hand.”

When Alex saw Lark, she hesitated. “Good grief,” she said as they embraced, her babe between them, “you are as big as I was the first time I visited, and with all of three months to go, you poor thing.”

“Fat, I know.” Lark patted her belly with pride.

“As a prize sow,” Alex said with twinkling eyes.

Lark’s face warmed as they walked arm in arm up the steps to the house.

They began by looking over the wooden toys Stan crafted as gifts for the children in attendance. In trying to make certain they had enough, Alex and Lark were forced to make a list so as to count their numbers.

Lark sat with quill and parchment while Alex paced the drawing room with a fussing Brandon. “Gideon and Sabrina have two sets of boy twins, and Juliana.”

“Two sets?” Lark said.

“Three-year-old Caleb and Josh are Gideon’s own, though Gideon adores Julie, Damon and Rafe. Beware; Hawk calls the older twins Demon and Rapscallion, for he is their uncle by blood, having been half-brother to Sabrina’s first husband.”

“I will never get any of it straight.”

“You will in time. Mark two children for us, Brandon here, rooting for nourishment, and Beatrix, and your two. That makes how many, nine? As for Reed and Chastity…. Alex searched her reticule for a list she snapped open with a flick and handed to Lark, and then she unfastened her bodice for her son to suckle.

Lark scanned the list. “Matthew, Mark, Luke, Rebekah, Harry, Sidney, Brenna, Clarice, Jillian and Meggie. Chastity must be a saint. How old are they all?”

“Lord, no one knows. Their own twins, Jillian and Meggie, are six months old now. As for the rest, none are older than thirteen, as close as anyone can guess.”

“Are twins rampant with rogues?”

“Reed himself is a twin, so ‘twas no surprise he and Chastity produced a set. Gideon’s Sabrina has borne twins for two husbands, so the fault must be hers.”

“I am anxious to meet Chastity and Sabrina,” Lark said.

“They will love you.” Alex tried to rouse her son to resume his meal, but it was useless. “There, you,” she said kissing his milky lips, “asleep again, and only two drops taken.” She closed her bodice to put him to her shoulder.

“I am envious,” Lark said, her arms wanting.

“Not for long. Soon, you will simply be tired.”

Lark perused her lists. “Nineteen children, six rogues, four wives—and a score of nursery maids and servants—all here for Christmas.” She paled. “What have I got myself into?”

Alex soothed her fears before they determined the traditions they would observe, who would occupy which chamber, who would need cradles. “I brought bed linen to lend you,” Alex said. “Claudia lent us extra as well for she and Chesterfield will go to his family for the holiday.”

“We should sit with cook while you are here,” Lark said. “She is hopeful of direction.”

Alex organized meals in a trice, while Cook took to the notion of feeding so many with an air of anticipation. “Too long since we did Christmas,” she said. “Can’t wait to fill my kitchen with scents of roast goose and plum pudding.”

“You may not realize,” Lark said to Alex as they left the kitchen, “but you taught me a great deal today about organizing a house. I will be a better manager after this.”

“Do not tell Hawk. He says I will manage him into his grave.”

Over tea, Alex began a new list. “Which decorations will we find outdoors?”

Lark frowned. “The decorations are in the attic.”

“No, the fresh decorations—holly, ivy, mistletoe, rosemary…. Collecting them is entertainment at a house party. Have you never gathered Christmas greenery?”

“I will be a dreadful failure,” Lark wailed.

“Sit,” Alex said. “Put your feet up. “You do not do this alone. Chastity will lead the children in a Christmas theatrical. Sabrina will oversee decorating the house. For my part, I will stand beside you in all things, though I cannot wait to decorate your Christmas tree. It will be my first, but not my last.

Lark could only shake her head.

“This will not be as bad as you perceive,” Alex promised. “Besides, Sabrina plans to put the rogues themselves to work, even as regards to the children.”

“Hah! This I would like to see.”

“Oh, you will.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Lark could not believe that Christmas and her house party were upon her. She and Alex stood watch at the drawing room window, the frolicking babe in her belly keeping her from getting as near to the glass as she wished.

Anticipation and trepidation rode her in turn. “Who should introduce who?” she asked again.

“Forget the rules,” Alex said. “No formalities are to be observed among friends this Christmas. Everyone will be excited and speak at once, introducing themselves, kissing and embracing. Oh, and back-slapping. The rogues are fond a good back-slap. They consider it manly.”

“If you were not beside me, I would die,” Lark said.

Alex squeezed her hand. “I would not miss your first Christmas.”

A rare snow had begun to fall well before the first set of carriages clattered up the drive. When they did, Lark and Alex went to wait on the steps. Ash stepped out a minute later to place Lark’s wrap about her shoulders.

He chuckled when he saw the same crest on all three carriages. “I cannot believe it takes so many to carry the St. Yves brood. You will not credit it, Lark, but I remember a time when Reed disliked children of all things.”

Nevertheless, too many to count poured from the second and third carriages, one each bearing a woman too well-dressed to be a nursery-maid. Alex told Lark ‘twas Reed who stepped from the first carriage, and accepted two bundles, likely so Chastity could alight.

Ash ran down to offer Chastity his hand, and greet them, and then Lark and Alex ushered them from the cold in a trice.

Formalities were dispensed with—embraces, only, between rogues’ wives, even at first meeting, Lark should not be surprised. And between the rogues themselves, handshakes, and back-slaps.

Reed bowed to Alex and Lark. “May I introduce my sisters, Pegeen and Sunny, who give a great deal of loving care to their nieces and nephews.”

Pegeen and Sunny curtseyed their silent greetings.

Lark admired Chastity at once. She organized her children with a word so they stood like stair steps, then she rattled off their names down the line and laughed at Lark’s uncertainty. “Do not try to remember names. Soon enough the brigands’ quirks will single them out.” She had unwrapped both baby girls, hers and Reed’s, while speaking.

Lark relaxed. “If Sabrina is as efficient as the two of you, I may as well stop worrying about anything going wrong. I do not think any of you would allow it.”

Reed put an arm about his wife’s shoulders. “You are right there, but do not ask her to cook you anything.”

Chastity tossed a frown her husband’s way, amusing their brood, but for the babes who howled.

Lark led Chastity with the babes toward the red-papered winter parlor, and clapped her hands near its entry for attention. “Ladies and children only in this room, for feedings and such,” she announced. “The tower library will be your retreat, gentlemen, though you will not be allowed to hide, as the women will be permitted in there.”

Ash and Reed protested vehemently, but the wives banded together. Men and women alike knew there was no hope for the rogues. Not a one of them would step into a room where another rogue’s wife might bare her breast, and no wife would think twice about invading their male sanctum.

Before Lark and Alex finished assigning bedchambers and nursery rooms, the second two carriages arrived, each bearing a different crest.

Hawk and Beatrix stepped from the first, and Alex sighed in relief. “I was afraid the snow would delay them. Gideon and Sabrina occupy the carriage behind them,” she added, before accepting her husband’s kiss and passing him their son.

Lark barely exchanged greetings with Hawk and Beatrix, before she was looking up into the eyes of one of the most handsome men she had ever beheld, barring her husband, of course.

“Gideon St. Goddard,” he said on a bow and kissed her hand. “Gad, Ash you got yourself a beauty.” He took his petite wife’s arm and led her forward. “Larkin Rose, my wife, Sabrina.”

“Lark.”

“Bree.”

Another new friend. Emotion tightened Lark’s throat. She had never had a family, never friends, and suddenly she felt as if these strangers were both.

Sabrina bore raven hair and porcelain skin … and all five of her children hung about her husband’s legs, not her skirts. Lark meant to ask later how she managed it. “Shall I show you to your bedchambers now or later? Chastity is in the parlor feeding the babes.”

Sabrina removed her bonnet and extended her hands to her smallest twins. “Let us greet Chastity first. When are you due?”

“February, or March, perhaps. I am not certain.”

“You are a brave one to take us all on.”

“Shh Bree,” Alex said. “Do not frighten her. I promised ‘twould be easy.”

Sabrina raised a dubious brow Alex’s way as they entered the salon where Chastity nursed her twins simultaneously, one at each breast.

Sabrina chuckled. “So that’s what I looked like.” She bent to kiss Chastity’s cheek and stroke a soft baby fist.

As Lark rang for Grimsley, she attended to their discussion of nursing babes, for she had much to learn.

She heard a knock a moment later. Not even Grim would breach the sanctum. Lark rose. “Should we have tea now to warm us, then a formal tea in the drawing room later? We can send for the rogues then,” she said. “They will be warming themselves with something stronger about now, at any rate.”

“Sounds perfect,” Sabrina said. “Even with hot bricks, the carriage was chill.”

Lark left to give Grim instructions.

“Where have our men disappeared to?” Sabrina asked when Lark returned.

Alex explained the house rules for ladies and gentlemen.

“Oh no fair,” Sabrina said on a chuckle.

“You will not admit you agree with them,” Alex said.

Sabrina and Alex seemed to share the familiarity of sisters, Lark saw, while she and Chastity were fairly new to this club of rogue’s wives. “Alex, Sabrina? Were you acquainted before you married your respective rogues?”

“Caleb!” Sabrina took a vase from one toddler’s hand and began placing breakables beyond reach. “Alex and I lived together once,” Sabrina said. “Before I married Gideon, Alex cared for her family and Hawk’s, and housed me, Damon and Rafe, as well. We owe her a debt of gratitude.”

“Nonsense. You make of it more than it was,” Alex said. “Besides, I liked the company. I like being needed.” She hooked her arm through Lark’s, as if to show she meant it. “Wait until you see the Christmas Lark plans.”

“But I planned nothing. You did it all.”

Their laughter set Lark at ease. She reached for Chastity’s babe who had done with nursing to keep her from swatting her hungry sister. “Chastity,” she said. “Tell us how you came to be a rogue’s wife.”

A minute later, Lark stopped patting the babe’s back. “You were a nun?”

Chastity grinned. “And now I am the mother of ten.”

Beatrix came in then and gave Alex her fussing son.

“Bea, send Sunny and Peg down for a light tea,” Alex said, “Unless you care to remain and I will fetch them?”

“No thank you,” Beatrix said. “I discovered a diversion of interest in the nursery.”

“Oh? And his name is?”

Beatrix blushed. “Matthew.”

Chastity squeaked and clapped a hand over her mouth.

If their wives but knew it, Ash thought, the library sat empty, while he, Gideon, Hawk, and Reed introduced the children to each other and generally attempted to reduce the havoc in the nursery.

“Uncle Hawk,” Damon said, or at least Ash thought it was Damon, and not Rafe. “Tell us a story.”

“Oh yes, do,” Beatrix said coming in. “It has been an age since you did. Alex says Sunny and Pegeen should go down for a bit of informal tea.”

The two women happily escaped. They might be comfortable in a room full of children, Ash thought, but never in a room of military men.

“Story,” Beatrix reminded Hawk, tugging his sleeve.

Hawk looked about as if for an escape of his own. “Where is a Frenchie when you need one? Why me? Gideon is the storyteller.”

Ash regarded the waiting children. “Are they all accounted for?” he asked, a bit nervous at keeping track of so many.

Reed, Gideon, and Hawk, looked about and counted heads.

Ash winked at Micah and Briana, who appeared quite interested in so many playmates.

“All but toddlers and suckling infants accounted for,” Gideon said. “As should be.” As he said it, a little one, barely beyond toddler-hood—to Ash’s mind—climbed into his lap. “Here’s my Sweetpea,” Gideon said, kissing her nose.

“His shadow,” Hawk explained.

At that, a girl with a single blonde braid leaned against Reed’s chair, called him Papa, whispered in his ear, and made Reed grin. Two little ones occupied his knees, several sat at his feet. Rather amazing, Ash thought.

“I have a story to tell the children,” he said. “Except that the story is true.”

“What?” Briana asked.

“You know.” Micah nudged her. She nudged him back.

Ash rolled his eyes. “Mine,” he admitted to his friends before turning to the circle of children. “Have any of you ever heard of Father Christmas?”

Several pairs of eyes widened. Most looked quite interested, except for a boy of about ten or eleven who scoffed. Nevertheless, Ash continued. “This very village is famous, because Father Christmas is known to live among us. People have caught sight of him delivering gifts on Christmas Eve to all good little girls and boys.”

“What does he look like?” one of Reed’s youngest asked.

“He wears a long, hooded velvet robe, like a bishop of old, with a sprig of holly in his buttonhole. He has white hair and a long white beard and carries a sack of gifts. If you behave while you are with us, he will bring a gift for each of you.”

“No such thing as Father Christmas,” said the scoffer in a cockney accent.

“Harry!” Reed snapped.

“There is too,” Micah said, stance defensive, almost as if he were defending Ash, which made him proud.

Harry stepped briskly forth, matched Micah’s stance, and popped him a good one, smack in the nose.

Briana shrieked and charged Harry, in defense of the brother she usually fought.

Other boys got into the fray—Briana was the only girl, but street-wise was his Briana, and game for anything. Ash beamed.

“What is the meaning of this?” Lark shouted over the din.

“They’re fighting,” Ash said.

“I can see that. Stop them!”

“Why would we stop them?” he asked. “They’re getting to know each other, becoming friends.”

“That’s not how you become friends.”

Ash regarded the rogues. “It’s how we did.”

They, each of them, nodded in turn, regarding his wife as if she might be daft, though, truth to tell, their own wives looked as horrified as Lark.

“What is wrong with you?” Lark said. “You think beating each other to a pulp is sporting?”

“Right.” Ash grinned, and Hawk nodded.

“Exactly,” Reed echoed.

“Glad you understand,” Gideon said.

“You’re in trouble,” Hawk told Gideon, who turned to regard his narrow-eyed wife.

Reed took one look at Chastity and separated Harry and Briana—the only two left fighting—before his own wife beat him to a pulp.

“You let him pummel a girl?” Chastity said, turning the military war hero’s ears scarlet.

“She’s no ordinary girl,” Harry said, wiping the blood from his nose.

“Thank you!” Briana beamed then licked her bloody lip.

“See?” Ash said. “They’re friends now.”

Lark raised her arms then dropped them to her skirts. “Wash up, children,” she said, “and that includes the ones who fought Boney. It’s nearly time to dress for dinner.” She turned back to regard him rather pointedly, Ash thought. “We’re having parsnips,” she said. “Mashed parsnips.”

Myles Quartermaine and Hunter Elijah Wylder arrived fully five hours late, at about the time everyone congregated in the drawing room after dinner. Even the rogues had finished their brandy and cigars and joined their ladies by then.

As the two rogues Lark recalled from her wedding night entered her drawing room, all smiles, Grimsley formally introduced them.

They had surely been carousing, she thought, for they smelled like the Pickled Pigsty and appeared as foxed and oblivious as she remembered them. Fact was, they reminded her too much of her low beginnings for her to like them any more now than she had that night.

Nevertheless, she smoothed her royal velvet gown over the mound of her child and rose with Ash to step forward and welcome her guests into her home.

When she offered her hand, the two stood as addled as the last time she had seen them. Again she wanted to beat them bloody, the both of them, a heathen urge she thought she’d long since conquered, though it reminded her how shocked she’d been over the children’s brawl earlier. Had she come so far she forgot who she was?

Lark supposed there was good and bad in that.

“Couldn’t take the guttersnipe, eh, old man?” Myles said, belatedly slapping Ash on the back. “Can’t blame you. This one’s not only beautiful, she smells better.”

Lark curled her hands into fists.

Hunter eyed the mound of their child. “Looks like you finally managed to “insert yourself” into your grandfather’s will.”

Lark shot out and bloodied his nose.

Her guests gasped.

Blood dripped from between Hunter’s cupping fingers as Chastity brought a handkerchief to stem the flow.

A heavy silence followed. Now everyone knew who she really was, Lark thought. Wilting, she turned to face them. “So much for making a good impression,” she said, but rather than censure, she saw mirth in every expression.

Alex and Sabrina rose to applaud, Chastity grinned, and Myles stepped behind Hunter’s coattails. “That you, Arky?”

“Well done,” Hawk said, and Gideon winked.

“You really did shoot Ash in the backside on your wedding night, didn’t you?” Reed said.

Lark raised her chin, feeling a rush of freedom. “Yes,” she said “I did, and I beat the daylights out of him before the wedding as well.”

“Perhaps that’s why we’re such good friends,” Ash said, taking her into his arms, and claiming her before all and sundry, making Lark feel cherished, and happy, and turning Myles Quartermaine and Hunter Elijah Wylder into a pair of rueful, red-faced rogues.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

After a successful hunting party the next morning, as everyone sat down to a hearty breakfast, Hunter and Myles made public and formal apologies to Lark, and were as publicly forgiven and welcomed to their Christmas celebration.

Later, Ash concurred with the other rogues that for the sake of safety, only the children five-years and older should be allowed to accompany them into the woods for the gathering of the Christmas greenery.

Ash also insisted that several carriages be made available for the ladies; to deliver them to the spinney, and return them to the Chase, as needs be, for tending to babes and such.

He and his fellow rogues, and whichever offspring were allowed to accompany them, set off half an hour earlier than the women to make the brisk, invigorating trudge over hillock, and through orchard and field, to the spinney.

Ash managed to meet the first carriage when it arrived so as to offer Lark his arm. “I do not know why you persist in accompanying us this morning. You could slip and endanger the babe.” He placed his arm firmly about her waist as they walked.

“I will not miss my first expedition for Christmas greenery, nor am I like to slip with you holding me so tight. No, do not let go. I take pleasure in your solicitous attention.”

After that flirting remark, Ash could do nothing but kiss her for some few minutes, before she could be allowed to follow the rest of the ladies deep into the spinney, where three competent military men stood beside the coveted Christmas plants, awaiting wifely direction.

The small wood boasted enough holly bushes to satisfy even Sabrina’s salacious greed for the crimson-berried stalks with spiny, variegated leaves. Immediately they arrived, she put the children to work gathering sheaves, piling and tying them to the sleds they had dragged along.

Above and around them, birds and other forest creatures squawked, scurried, and chattered at the brazen human invasion.

Ash and Lark watched as Sabrina tugged on Myles coat to snap him from his boredom and direct his gaze upward. “Mistletoe,” she said, in the way she might have said, “fetch.”

Myles sighed. “Gathering mistletoe is a tedious boot-beating business,” he said, as he looked despairingly high into the tree from which the parasitic clusters of pearl berries and pale green leaves hung. “Do we really need mistletoe?”

“Get into the spirit, Man,” Hunter said, slapping Myles on the back. “Ladies have always been encouraged to kiss beneath mistletoe.”

Myles regarded Pegeen as if with speculation. “I’m for mistletoe,” he said, and began to climb, shaking the hemlock to which the mistletoe clung, dislodging snow on all their heads.

A collective groan rose, though no one seemed actually to mind.

“Mistletoe is also known to increase fertility,” Gideon said, tongue in cheek.

Reed chuckled and indicated the frolicking children. “Does this look like we need help with fertility?”

Hawk shook his head. “Not you two. You keep producing doubles.”

Gideon and Reed regarded each other with wide grins.

“What else do we need in addition to the Holly and Mistletoe?” Ash asked, supporting Lark.

“Laurel, ivy and rosemary should do,” Sabrina said. “Oh and children, fill a sack with the horse chestnuts you see scattered on the ground, preferably the ones that have shed their spiked pods. Your younger brothers and sisters may paint them gold later, and we can hang them on the tree.”

“What a brilliant notion,” Chastity said.

Alex shook her head. “Bree will always have brilliant notions, though some of them get her into more trouble than others.”

Hunter took Sunny’s arm. “Shall we go deeper into the wood to forage for laurel, ivy and rosemary?”

Myles chuckled from above. “He’ll find mistletoe, mark my words. Come to think of it, I could use some help up here. Pegeen?”

To Ash’s surprise, Pegeen began to climb.

“Wait a minute,” Reed said, following his sister’s upward progress with his gaze.

“We’re in a tree, Reed,” she said. “What can happen in a tree?”

Ash and Lark regarded each other, remembered the possibilities, and slipped away.

“Come down, Peg,” they heard Reed say.

“Mind your own business, Reed,” his sister responded.

Slinking off like naughty children, Ash urged Lark to move as far away from the group as he could get her, still directing her toward the carriage he believed she should take home, while keeping to the concealing thicket, so as to steal an intimate minute alone with her.

Last night, they had teased and played each other in bed, like tuning instruments for the grand performance, until she had fallen suddenly asleep. He knew that her condition exhausted her, that she had expended a great deal of energy with her guests, but Lord, she’d left him aching.

“I want you,” he said, now backing her against a tree.

“What? Here? There are people everywhere.”

“They are far too distant to come upon us,” he assured her.

“Not far enough.”

Ash slid a hand over her belly, and beneath it, until she closed her eyes and sighed, and he tugged up her gown, bit by bit, found her warm and ready, and brought his babe-ripe bride pleasure, there with the snow falling all about them.

Though he’d been left rod hard and randy, ‘twas still a most memorable sexual experience.

Lark slept in his arms all the way home in the carriage. When they arrived, he carried her up to her bed, where she continued her much needed rest.

When Lark awoke, she found that her guests had returned from greenery gathering and that her house had been transformed into Christmas. Alex, Chastity and Sabrina had directed the children’s changing into dry clothes and the doling out of hot chocolate and iced gingerbread.

Employing varying amounts of the greenery they collected, Sabrina made the kissing boughs, Chastity the wreaths, and Alex the garlands. They had also added holly to the baskets and vases of dried lavender about the Chase, which made everything more festive.

“You do not mind that we took it upon ourselves to decorate for you?” Alex asked Lark later, as they admired the drawing room’s garland-festooned mantel.

“What? Sorry that I missed all the hard work? Of course not, I am delighted with the results, and grateful. I do not have my old energy. This is beautiful and good, and the sight fills my heart to overflowing. Thank you.”

“You missed nuncheon and tea, and I feared you would miss dinner as well,” Alex said.

“Which explains why I am ravenous. Oh, did anyone decorate Grandmama’s room?”

“We did not even think of it.”

“Let us do so now, all hands to the task,” Lark said, aware she could not, for the life of her manage it alone, and she was grateful when they rose to her aid.

Every man woman and child worked to decorate Ash’s mother’s room for Christmas, her gaze following it all.

“Do not tell me she does not realize it is Christmas, Ash. Look at the sparkle in her eyes,” Lark said.

Ash regarded his mother and moved toward her bed. When he arrived, he bent to kiss her brow, which he had not done in an age, and thought he caught a hitch in her breath.

“Lark wanted you to have Christmas,” he said. “She is a good lady, my wife.”

Did his mother attempt to agree by offering so slight an eye movement as to make it seem unlikely. “Mama?” Ash said, comprehending Lark’s avowal that his mother might be aware of more than he thought. He gave in to all her urging then and took his mother’s hand. “Mama, squeeze my hand if you understand me.”

When she did, Ash was forced to sit on her bed so as not to fall to his jellied knees—the rogues and their ladies talking and laughing about them as if a miracle had not just occurred.

Christmas surged to breathless life, sped Ash’s heart, opened it to every foolish possibility.

He leaned nearer. “Mama,” he all but whispered. “I am sorry I ran off to war rather than remain and face my responsibilities to you and the estate. I did not mean to hurt you with my departure.”

His mother squeezed his hand twice then, frantic and … hopeful? Ash looked deep into her eyes and he knew, of a sudden, the meaning of Christmas Peace.

Was her gift to him forgiveness or simply the knowledge that his father’s judgment had been incorrect? Either way, Ash felt released from the weight he’d borne for so long. He felt … absolved, and for the first time in his life he understood the need, the power in forgiving.

Lark came up behind him and placed her hands upon his shoulders. “I never knew Christmas could be so wonderful,” she said.

He took her hands, kissed each in turn, and smiled with his mother. “Neither did I.”

The following morning, while Stan Redman brought the huge cedar into the picture gallery where it would be set up and decorated, Chastity held a private rehearsal for the children’s Christmas theatrical in another room of the house. “It is a secret,” she said, forbidding anyone to enter. “I will have no spoiled expectations, but simple enjoyment, however our cherubs perform.”

Olive Redman had accompanied her husband and brought several splendid hand made gifts. A Christmas Stable with the carved figures of the holy family. A toy farm wagon for Micah and a lady puppet and stage for Ashley Briana.

For the new babe, they brought a white cradle, built by Stan and painted with the Blackburne family crest by Olive. She had also made the baby blankets, bonnets, and the littlest sleeping gowns Lark had ever seen.

Lark invited the couple to come for Christmas Eve supper but they declined in favor of dinner Christmas Day.

The snow had continued falling steadily for days and so the children begged to put the sleds to better use than hauling greens.

Sabrina looked to the ladies and held up a cautioning hand. “This is the tradition I brought and I know how to go about it.”

She regarded Damon who begged the loudest for a sledding party. “I do not wish to go outdoors and become cold and wet,” she said. “Go and ask your father.”

“You may do the same,” Chastity told Mark and Luke.

Lark shrugged and sent Micah and Briana to ask Ash.

After the men gave in to their children’s pleas, as Sabrina predicted they would, the rogues came looking for their wives to set the event in motion.

“Lark,” Ash said. “The children are to go sledding.”

“I am glad to hear it. I wish you will have a wonderful time.”

Reed reared back and furrowed his brow at Chastity.

Gideon turned on Sabrina. “I see your hand in this.”

Hawk chuckled. “You are right.” He looked to his own wife for confirmation.

“Do not look at me,” Alex said, striding past. “I have a babe to feed.”

“No!” Myles said when he realized the men had been outfoxed and were to take nearly twenty children out to play in the snow, but it mattered not, because that was the plan.

The women remained inside and made decorations for the tree—ribbon rosettes, parchment snowflakes. Lark filled lace circles with lavender buds, and tied them with bows to hang on the tree.

They worked beside the huge bay window in the portrait gallery so as to keep watch over the sledding party.

Lark noted the camaraderie between the rogues, the way they must have worked together to defeat the common enemy. With the children, they laughed, shouted, made snow caves, snow men, snow angels. They hauled little ones on their shoulders uphill, took them on fast rides down, wiped noses, carried laggards, doled out cocoa, hugs, kisses, and more often than not, replaced mittens, hats, and scarves.

“Do you see that some of our older children have paired off?” Chastity said. “Matthew and Beatrix for instance, and Micah and Rebekah.”

Alex admired a rosette then looked up. “Harry and Briana as well,” she added, “for I heard them discover that they had both survived the London streets.”

Lark was not surprised to hear as much about Harry for there was an edge to him that could only be earned one way. She was lucky Briana had not acquired quite so brittle an edge.

“Reed seems to be counting heads more often than the others,” Lark said.

“Old habits,” Chastity said. “He is a good father.”

“Gideon is more like to get down and play with the children, rather than organize them,” Sabrina said, shaking her head. “As if I have six, not five. Ah, there he goes. See, he and Micah are about to … tip.” Sabrina rose as did Lark while the two flew through the air, Gideon’s arms firm about Micah, Gideon landing them so Micah never touched ground.

Lark sighed in relief.

Sabrina smiled. “He does make for a fine pillow.”

“The children are enjoying his antics,” Alex said. “Hawk is less like to play and more like to teach them to build or repair something, like the snow cave he is overseeing. What about Ash, Lark?” Alex asked. “What is he like to do with the children?”

“Ash reminds me of a lost soul,” Lark said. “As if he does not yet know where or to whom he belongs, but he gives instinctively to each of our children what they need most, whether it be responsibility, or a hair ribbon.”

“He is a good man,” Alex said, “and you do love him after all.”

Lark’s eyes filled. “How should I know if I do?”

Chastity looked up from her work. “It sounds as though you are two lost souls, or two halves of one,” she said. “Perhaps you will be whole only when you both know the answer to that question.”

Lark turned to look out the window oblivious to the happy scene before and about her. “How can we be two halves of a whole if a lie stands between us?” she asked, but no one answered.

A stranger came to the Chase that afternoon, a man who introduced himself as Drummond Amesbridge and asked to be brought before the Earl of Blackburne.

Lark had Grimsley show the man into a small receiving room off the main foyer then she sent the retainer for Ash. She did not enter on her own but waited for her husband.

She met Ash in the hall and they clasped hands. “Where is Briana?” she asked.

“Well protected,” Ash said. “One of us will have to go for her, or our friends will keep her hidden. I half expected this. Ready?”

She kissed him. “For luck.”

He nodded for Grim to open the door and they went inside.

Ames’ “uncle,” Drummond Amesbridge, a worm of a man, slimy and underhand, lacked the ability to meet any eye. With dispatch, he claimed legal custody of Briana and insisted on getting her “home” for Christmas.

When asked to prove his claim, he handed Ash a sheaf of signed and sealed documents. “You have no choice,” the worm said, “but to hand the girl over.”

“The papers look real enough,” Ash said. “But I must confer with Hunter for a minute then have Reed come and peruse them. Reed has experience in such matters.”

“Bring the girl,” the man said.

“You will be all right?” Ash asked Lark before he left, and she nodded.

As soon as Ash quit the room, Lark swooned into the arms of the worm, however distasteful the experience.

When Ash returned, he introduced Reed as the Earl of Barrington, to impress Ames’ shoddy fake of an uncle, and handed Reed the documents.

“The problem is,” Reed said, after reading them, “they are all based upon a letter and record of birth, conspicuous by their absence.”

Lark rose and handed Reed the paper she had picked from the man’s pocket when she swooned. “This might help,” she said. “Read the name if you please.”

“Briana Fairhaven,” Reed said, lost as to its significance, though Ash and Lark grinned.

“And do you know where Briana Fairhaven was born, Mr. Amesbridge?” Lark asked, not expecting an answer. “France,” she supplied. “So why do you suppose her proof of birth is written in English?”

The man blustered. “I have no notion.”

“Ash,” Lark said, “can you get Briana?”

“She is here,” Reed said opening the door and ushering her in.

Briana went to Lark and Ash, and they claimed her, Ash with a hand to her shoulder, Lark by tidying her hair.

“Briana,” Lark said. “Do you know this man?”

Briana regarded her, not the worm. “He was a friend to Amesbridge. My Mama was afraid of them. They wanted her money.”

The worm snorted and denied as much, while everyone ignored him.

“Of course,” Ash said. “Why did I not think of Nora’s fortune?”

Briana regarded Ash with trust. “I did not know when I should tell you, but my Maman said I would be a woman of property after she died, and when she did, the servants were to send me to you, so I would be safe.”

“And so you will be.” Ash squeezed his daughter’s shoulder and narrowed his eyes upon the worm as if he might rip him apart. “I have jurisdiction in this village, and friends in high places. The girl remains here. You had best return to Seven Dials, or better yet, sail for the colonies, for you are under investigation as we speak and the stink of your reputation is foul.”

The worm turned crimson and spluttered, even as Reed escorted him out by the seat of his pants.

Reed took up the certificate when he returned. “What amused you about this?”

Ash lifted Briana into his arms. “Tell him your real name, Sprite. He will say nothing until you give permission.”

“My name is Ashley Briana Fairhaven.”

Lark knew by the look on Reed’s face that he saw the truth in the matching expressions of father and daughter regarding him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

On the afternoon before Christmas Eve, the children’s excitement reached fever pitch as they dressed for their Christmas performance.

Chastity had the rogues set up chairs for the audience and hang a curtain at the far end of the portrait gallery, beside the huge Christmas cedar hung with plump crimson apples, lavender balls, small gold pears, ribbon rosettes, pinecones, gilded chestnuts, and fine-cut snowflakes.

The audience sighed in appreciation as the curtain opened to reveal a nativity tableau. Matt, hooded, as St. Joseph; a blue-veiled Beatrix as Mary; Brandon Alexander as baby Jesus; Sabrina’s Caleb and Joshua, twin lambs in white wool; Mark, Luke and Micah, wise men all, in capes of silver, copper and gold.

Christmas filled Lark’s heart and tightened her throat.

Chastity read a short version of the nativity, then the heavenly hosts in parchment wings appeared. “Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child,” they sang, accompanied by Rebekah on her flute.

“To end our tableau,” Chastity said, “each of the children who wishes, may step up and tell us, in their own words what love means to them.” Chastity and Lark exchanged glances; and Lark knew that her new friend was attempting to help answer her question.

“Children,” Chastity said, “you may begin by saying, “Love is” then tell us what Love is to you.”

A moment of hesitation ensued before Luke stepped forward. “Love is Mama stealing us from the workhouse.”

Luke’s sister Rebekah followed. “Love is Papa braiding my hair.”

A speaking look passed between Reed and Chastity.

Damon rose next. “Nurse says love is when Mama and Papa nap in the middle of the day.”

Sabrina squeaked, and Gideon leaned close, whispered in her ear, and kissed her cheek.

Lark and Ash sat forward when Briana rose and curtseyed. “Love is being able to admit who you are. My name is Ashley Briana.”

Lark covered her mouth with a hand.

She had her answer. Love was the ability to be oneself…. Love was a kiss, a whisper, intimate moments, speaking looks, shared years, tears, hurts and sorrows, good times and bad, raising children, loving them, a reaching hand … Ash’s own now taking hers, clasping it, speaking without words, his eyes bright—as if he too had just recognized love for the first time.

Lark turned the concept over in her mind. The rogues and their ladies all shared love, but to hear them tell it, love had not come easy. They had traveled rutted roads, fought their destinies, and before they had accepted their fates and acknowledged love, to a one, they had hurt, then forgiven, each other.

Was that the final secret then? Forgiveness?

If so, she would be doomed, for Ash forgave little. He would never forgive a deception that forced marriage. No matter his grandfather’s will, he should have taken to wife a bride freely chosen.

Could a one-sided love inspire forgiveness for a deceit so vile? Did so dishonorable a cheat deserve the hand of forgiveness? Lark feared not.

Nevertheless, as she soothed her child with a stroking hand, she knew that before he or she entered this world, the truth must be spoken, however harsh the results.

‘Twas nearing midnight and all their guests had long since retired to their beds before Ash was able to take Lark, in her wine velvet pelisse, out in the horse-drawn sleigh. He gave the horses their heads, for they knew the moonlit path well after so many turns had been taken that evening.

“I feared Reed would bloody Myles’ nose,” Ash said, “the way you bloodied Hunter’s, when Myles took Peg in the sleigh.”

An owl hooted as they shushed slowly past. “I do not see why,” Lark said. “Pegeen is a woman grown.”

“Because Reed was afraid Myles would employ his roguish charm and Peg would succumb, of course.”

“But Reed is as dangerous as any of you.”

“Yes, so he knew what might happen.”

“What might? Stop the sleigh and direct your roguish charm my way, if you please. Let me see if I have the will to resist you.”

Ash regarded his pregnant bride twice before guiding the horses toward the trees. “Keep your blinders on,” he said to the matched pair as he took his wife into his arms.

‘Twas not long before they played their lavender-field game, hands in each other’s clothes, seeking all manner of sport, despite the nip in the winter air, and the iced white flakes drifting about them.

“I see what you mean about rogues and sleighs,” Lark said, sitting up, breathless, some time later. “I want what you want, but the babe makes it difficult in so closed a space.”

Ash grinned and rode the movement of their child with his palm. “Little Isobel is energetic tonight.”

“Little Zachary, you mean.”

He kissed her icy nose. “What say you to a nice warm bed?”

“Not yet, I like it out here. I want to do all the naughty things the rest of the rogues and their brides did.”

“What naughty things?”

Lark took off her gloves, moved the carriage blanket aside, and took his hornpipe out to play. She chuckled wickedly at his hiss of appreciation. “Now that I have it, what should I do with it?”

“I do not know that it will perform at all well. It has never been so stiff from the cold.”

“Let me warm it then.” Lark bent to do so, with her mouth, of all things.

Ash gave a shout of shock and pleasure. “Good God, woman? How did you know to do that?”

“The wives have been talking.”

“All the wives?”

Lark shrugged. “Some have more to teach and others more to learn.”

Ash thought he should protest the intimate exchange of information, but Lark did it again, closing her lips over him this time, taking him full in her mouth, and his every thought fled. He knew nothing but her lips on his sex, milking him, suckling him, as if she would devour him, and when he thought he’d expire from holding back, she took him into her hand again, as if to make him spill.

“You have to stop.” He covered her hand with his. “Lark stop, or I will ruin the blankets.”

To his surprise and delight, she loosed her bodice and removed her lace scarf to glove him. While he suckled her cool breast, she worked him with skill, and he found her center, and brought her pleasure with his own.

When they got back to her room, Ash found a sprig of holly on her dresser and picked it up. “What is this?”

“You were to show me what rogues did with their buttonhole sprigs, remember?”

Ash grimaced. “While once that might have seemed a fine notion, I do not think, under the circumstances—”

“What? Can we no longer speak of such things? What has changed between us except that we are more intimate? Is your reticence based upon the fact that your roguish ways involved your many conquests?”

Ash sighed. “They were naught but naked women wrapped in red ribbon,” he said, “a sordid past I would as soon forget.”

“So … tell me what you did then with the holly sprig?”

“I tucked them into the ribbon’s bow.”

“How disappointing. I thought surely you tucked them elsewhere.”

“Ouch.” Ash grimaced. “Have you not noticed, my love, how spiny holly leaves can be? Though now that I think on it, I might gently place that sprig between these lovely milky breasts.”

Lark stepped away and gave him a seductive pose in profile. “Can you not see me clad in naught but a red ribbon with a magnificent bow?”

Ash took her in his arms. “Do not mock what I hold dear.” He placed the sprig in her honey hair. “Perfect,” he said. “Though I have long since thought you beautiful, you are to my eyes, at this moment, only to be revered.”

“Oh no, never say so. Maternal perhaps, saucy yes, but never to be revered. I am still your guttersnipe bride, make no mistake. Shall I be forced to beat you to remind you?”

“I had rather you took me to bed.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

They undressed each other there, beside her bed, but when they met in the center, and teased and kissed, as they were wont to do, their need escalated to a degree that could not be satisfied.

“We are a fine pair, are we not,” Ash said falling back against the sheets. “Me, hard as a pikestaff, you slick and pulsing. But you are too full and round with the babe to make it possible.” He kissed her hard naked belly. “Not that I am complaining, mind. I am awed and grateful.”

Lark closed a hand around him, though ‘twas not what either of them sought. Still, he spoke her name in the rush of frustrated pleasure at her touch.

“I want you inside me,” she said, “deep and deeper still. Nothing but you thrusting into me will do. Hard. I want you hard, and fast, Ashford.”

Ash regarded his raging manhood, aching to be gloved, as much as she ached to pull him in, and he shook his head. “I aim to please, Madam, but I dare not.”

“Let us try against the wall again?” she suggested. “Have we a sturdier footstool?”

“And take a chance on hurting you or the babe? I think not.” But Ash remembered what Buckston had said about meeting her half way and it gave him an idea.

“Lark,” he said, tossing aside the blankets and moving to the head of the bed. “I have an absurd notion that just might work. Do as I say and do not argue.” He knelt, and urged her to kneel facing him, closer, then closer still, her legs parted, her knees on either sides of his.

He placed pillows beneath her bottom to prop her up and position her, held her almost astride him, but not, her leaning toward, yet away, so as not to crush their child, but at exactly the right angle to receive him.

With a shout of joy, Ash gloved himself in his wife’s willing warmth, and while she arched and leaned back against his bracing arms, Ash moved in her.

“Do nothing,” he said. “I will do all the work and bear your weight. Just open for me, love. Welcome me.”

“I do, Ash. More than you know.”

Their passion turned wild and unruly. Her intense frenzy shivered his spine, as if she were driven, as if there might never be such another coupling, or another chance to express what they’d never dared.

For his part, Ash wanted more, many and more couplings, and he knew Lark did too.

Neither spoke the thought, not in words, but in the merging of their flesh they avowed it with eloquence, two as one, victorious, and secretly, shockingly, in love, for his part at least.

Ash barely acknowledged the insight when Lark cupped his ballocks and brought them against her, and he rejoiced in the sensation, and called her name with heightened rapture.

“I am flying, Ash, flying away from you, from myself.” She opened her eyes and looked full at him. “This is wonder. I cannot bear it—”

“Bear it, Love, a Christmas union always to remember, like naught in my experience. My wife, belly ripe with child, taking me so deep, I ride bliss to the stars. I never knew such wonder.”

“Make it last,” Lark said.

“You will kill us both,” Ash said on a gasp. Nevertheless, he slowed his pace, ground his teeth, and placed his hands between them to make her to rise again.

And after she reached her pinnacle, three, maybe more, times, Ash embraced oblivion, fearing nearly for their safety. But when he questioned her, some minutes later, she laughed, with the little breath she could muster, purred, and curled against him to sleep.

Unlike his ill-used and fatigued self, she woke looking radiant, as if she would take on the world, and her first Christmas Eve besides.

After nuncheon, while her guests either finished their personal Christmas preparations or spent time with their children in the nursery, Ash surprised Lark by urging her up the stairs toward her small sitting room.

Ashley Briana—for so everyone had taken to calling her since her announcement—arrived shortly thereafter wearing a claret velvet dress to match Lark’s own, Christmas gifts for both of them from Ash. Surprised and pleased as Lark to see it, Ashley Briana went to Ash, curtseyed, accepted his compliments and stepped into his embrace.

“Thank you,” she said simply, her least number of words at once since her first. Then she came to stand before Lark and fan her skirts. “Look Mama, I am almost as pretty as you.”

Christmas when you least expected it, Lark thought, but Micah rose and shouted, “No!” and Ash hauled the boy on his lap.

Ashley Briana placed her arm about Lark’s shoulder and raised her chin in challenge.

Micah ignored his sister’s gauntlet to regard Ash, as if he might like to make a similar statement.

Ash looked to each of the children in turn and reached for Lark’s hand. “Micah, Ashley Briana, only you can grant our most fervent Christmas wish, which is that you consider yourselves ours, equal in our love, with equal right to call us Mama and Papa.”

Micah threw his arms around Ash, Ashley Briana grinned, as if she expected as much, and Lark accepted her husband’s handkerchief.

Children’s excited voices drew them to the main staircase where the party congregated, including every one of the nineteen children. Alex and Chastity waited, each at the base of a stair rail, and those children old enough stood in two rows at the top.

“What the dev—ah, what Christmas tradition is this?” Ash asked, as he took his wife’s arm and they made their way down the stairs to the foyer.

“It is a new tradition, a banister race,” Alex said. “For children ten years and older. Hawk and Reed are to be the judges. Was there ever such a banister to be seen? Such a long low stair, the rail arched like a chair, a base that kisses the floor, as if the carver had such a sport in mind when he designed it. I tried it myself last night to be certain it was safe.”

“She did. After everyone retired,” Hawk said, “and more than once, I might add.”

“I say the winner gets to stay up and wait for Father Christmas,” said Rafe.

“There is no Father Christmas,” Harry said, repeating his litany.

“Is too,” Damon argued, and I am waiting up for him to prove it, whether I win the race or not.”

“So he thinks,” Alex said.

“Where is Bree?” Lark asked.

“She is … indisposed,” Gideon said, looking pale, culpable and shock-struck.

Alex raised a speaking brow. “I believe next year’s Baby Jesus has been chosen.”

Gideon lifted his two-year-old twins in his arms with the ease of practice and kissed each brow. “Poor Mama.”

Lark saw that Gideon loved his children, welcomed the notion of more, but felt frustration at his wife’s suffering. “Who has had the fastest slide so far?” she asked, changing the subject for Gideon’s sake.

“Micah,” Damon said, “but that is not fair because he has had weeks to practice.”

“Mama can slide down faster than me,” Micah said.

“You, Lark?” Chastity asked. “You have tested the banister as well? In your condition?”

“She slides all the time,” Ashley Briana said with pride. “Come, Mama, show us.”

“No,” Ash said, “Mama is not up to a slide today,” but Lark started up the stars.

“Larkin Rose Blackburne, I forbid you to slide down that banister. Think of the ba—” Ash regarded the eager listening children. “Larkin, heed me for once.”

Lark faltered in the stairs when a spasm tore through her, but she hated giving in to her husband’s orders. Not that she would slide, or do anything to endanger the babe, but she would climb the stairs if he ordered her not to. “Allow me to be the judge, if you please,” she said, turning to regard Ash as she shook off her discomfort, but when she made to take another step, a new pain cut her, doubling her in half, so she gasped, one hand to her splitting middle, one to her aching back.

“Ash, get her,” she heard Alex say from a distance, but Alex needn’t have bothered, because Ash was there, and Lark felt herself slide into the darkening security of his waiting arms.

“Continue the races,” Ash called back, but Alexandra followed him as he carried Lark up to her bed. When Ash put Lark down, Alex elbowed him from his wife’s side. “Get her some water. Is it her stays, do you think?” She freed Lark’s buttons as she spoke. “They may be too tight.”

Ash returned from the dressing room with a cup of water, feeling his chest clench with fear. “She never wore stays in her life. Is she all right? The babe?”

Alex pulled Lark’s dress free and passed a tiny amethyst vinaigrette bottle beneath Lark’s nose.

Lark roused, coughed, and turned away.

Alex took the cup of water from his frozen hand, held it to his wife’s lips and Lark drank. Ash had never been so grateful for anything.

He and Alex worked together to finish undressing Lark as she moved in and out of consciousness.

When Ash turned with her night-rail in his hand, he saw Alex staring at Lark’s petticoats. “What?” he asked.

Chastity slipped into the room. “The men have the races in hand. What can I do?” She saw the petticoat, looked at Alex. “Her labor has started.”

“Too soon,” Lark said, rousing and drifting away again.

Ash felt his heartbeat treble. “Two months early?”

Alex looked at him, but he needed no word of confirmation.

“No,” he shouted, not certain what he denied. He shook himself, regarded the women. “Tell me that whatever happens, Lark will be safe,” but neither Alex nor Chastity seemed inclined to make him that promise.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

After having borne five babes of her own, Sabrina was sent for, and when she examined Lark, she confirmed their worst fears.

Lark accepted a sip of wine, but a new pain tore into her, and she pushed the glass aside. Afterward, she remained conscious looking as frightened as Ash felt, though he attempted to mask his emotions for her sake.

“Ash,” she said. “We must talk.”

Chastity, Alexandra and Sabrina rose as one and left the room.

Ash was grateful for the opportunity to touch his wife again. He sat on her bed, took her hand. “Rest,” he said.

“No, there are things I need to say and you need to hear.”

Her words shivered his spine, portended a finality he would not accept. “Lark, do not—”

“Ash, you must listen to me. Let me explain the least of my sins so as to prepare you for the worst of them.”

“The worst? Are you saying you came to me with chil— No, I knew you for a virgin. I felt myself tear your barrier.”

Lark gave him a half-hearted smile, her expression filled with so much yearning Ash swallowed a quick rising sob. She cupped their child, revealed how much she loved the babe in her womb, their babe. “He is yours,” she said.

“Ours. I know.”

“Will you let me speak now?”

Ash sighed and bowed to the inevitable, for she would not be silenced.

“I have done many terrible things for which you will disdain me.”

Ash firmed his jaw for he wanted none of this confession business, but he remembered his mother and her frantic forgiveness, his own peace as a result, and he wanted to give Lark the same peace, to ease her labor, and bring forth their child in safety. “Tell me,” he said.

“There is no need to secure Micah’s guardianship,” she said. “When he was born, I went to the country, found a family to care for him, and signed the parish register naming myself as his mother. I did it so no one could take him from me. Though I lied, in the eyes of the law, I am his mother, and you, as my husband, are his legal guardian.”

Another pain tore through her. “This is bad,” she said riding it out. “The babe coming so soon.” She looked at him with concern. “Do not hate me.”

She would believe herself dying for certain, Ash knew, if he professed his love at this juncture. “Why would I hate you?”

“Because you dislike deceit, of all things.”

“But I like you above all things.”

“For the moment,” Lark said. “Remember that I have loved Ashley Briana as my own, tell her so. It matters not that you loved the mother. I love the daughter. Your daughter.”

“Oh, Lark no.” Ash took his wife’s hand. “You mistake the matter. I never loved Nora. She was hard, calculating. I— We used each other. I am ashamed to admit it, but ‘tis so. Then, in the way of society, we became betrothed because her inheritance would compliment mine. ‘Twas back when I thought I had one, of course.”

He kissed Lark’s brow, her sweet lips. “I speak true Lark. I considered love a dreadful risk, back then, something to be avoided at all costs, but—”

Another pain. He took her hand. She asked for Alex.

Ash kissed her brow, feeling useless and dismissed, and left to fetch the women.

He sent Gideon, who needed action, for Doctor Buckston, and then he paced and awaited the summon to return to his wife.

Her labor continued all afternoon and into the evening. By then, the ladies were certain there would be no keeping the babe from making its untimely appearance, however dangerous.

Buckston could not be found, either at his residence or his surgery. Every rogue mounted a horse and drove from house to house in all directions to search for the good doctor, all except Ash.

Finally allowed back into his wife’s room, alone with her again, praise be, Ash could hardly bear the sight of her suffering without shouting his frustration. He wanted to take her pain to himself. He wanted to push his fist through a wall, break something, fix everything.

Lark roused and saw him, beckoned him close. “Another sin,” she said. “One of many. Go to my dresser and withdraw the packet wrapped in a figured scarf, tied with a gold ribbon.”

Ash did as she requested, despite the seeming foolishness of it, and brought her the packet.

“Open it,” she said.

“Lark this is no time for—”

“Open it.”

To humor her, Ash did as he was told, then he stood staring down at his silver snuffbox and missing leather glove. “I thought I had misplaced these.”

“I took them from you before you played that fateful game of cards with my father. ‘Twas the least of my sins. Soon you will know my worst.”

“Lark stop. No more. It matters not.”

“I am a thief. Thievery is how I supported Micah. Not Da. He would not spare the boy a farthing, so I supported him, in whatever way I could. Your wife is a thief, a liar, and a cheat.”

“A pickpocket, I know. You pinched these the way you pinched my grandfather’s will and the false proof of Ashley Briana’s birth. So be it. See, there is nothing to confess that I do not know, but if you need absolution so much….” Ash shuddered at the finality of the implication, hated to take the step for that reason, but for her peace and safe delivery, he would do anything.

“You are absolved Lark. Now let it go. You did your best for your sister and her son. He is ours now, and safe. You are safe.” He stroked the mound of their child with a possessive hand. “We will see this one safe born as well.”

“Absolved but not forgiven,” Lark said wetting her lips. “Water, please.”

Sabrina had warned that if he gave Lark water, she might be ill, which would do her no good. Ash moistened her lips with a finger, felt such a rush of love, his chest ached, but if he told her now, she would think he was trying to ease her way into eternity.

She about broke his knuckles with her next pain. “I deceived you on our wedding night,” she said between clenched teeth.

“What?” he said, smiling so he would not break down and weep. “You shot me in the arse then slept with another man?”

Lark screamed, a mixture of pain and frustration, Ash suspected.

“No, damn it! Listen to me. You did not lose the card game that bound us. Or you should not have lost if— But for me, you would have won, Ash.”

“Certainly n—”

She nodded, and watched as if awaiting his comprehension. Ash wondered how she’d managed it. Why? Why, when she’d not wanted him any more than he’d wanted her? Ah, not for herself. Never for herself.

“You dropped your cards on the floor,” she said. “Remember?” She nodded. “I see you do. Before you could retrieve them, I switched your ace for the two of hearts. Pickpockets are fast and I am the fastest.”

“Tell me why.”

“For a big house and fancy dresses, of course.”

Ash denied her words with a shake of his head. “For Micah,” he said, but Lark’s scream drowned his words and the women came rushing in.

Sabrina began putting a cloth beneath Lark and Alex pushed Ash from the room as Chastity slipped in with blankets. The door shut behind him.

He didn’t know if Lark had heard him or not. He knew she had not cheated for herself. He knew her heart, by God.

To his surprise, he found his grandfather pacing outside Lark’s room.

“It is Christmas Eve,” the tired old man said when their gazes met.

Ash shook his head in incomprehension. “What are you doing here?”

“You invited me for Christmas, remember?”

“Christmas … I forgot.”

“According to our old bargain, if she lost the babe before Christmas, you would fail to meet the stipulation in my will.”

With a roar, Ash gave vent to the pain inside him. “I do not want your blasted money,” he shouted. “I care naught for your bloody will. I want nothing—God please hear me—nothing but my wife safe in my arms. I love her. Do you hear me, Grandfather? I love my wife! I want her safe. I want our babe … if Lark is not the cost.” Ash looked to the heavens. “Please let Lark not be the cost.”

He looked back at the broken old man. “From you, Grandfather, I want nothing.” Ash’s ire rose again. “Keep your money. Give it away. If I have to remove my wife and children from this house, so be it. I will gladly pay the price. Any price. Much as my mother loves the Chase, she would pay the price as well to see my wife safe. Even she loves Lark.”

Sabrina slipped from Lark’s bedchamber into the hall. “We can hear you shouting Ash. The whole village can likely hear you.”

Ash turned, focused on Sabrina, and found himself in a place he barely recognized, he was so lost to fury, until he remembered his words to his grandfather. “Did Lark hear me?”

Sabrina grinned. “You have renewed her strength. She sobbed when she heard your declaration.”

Ash stared at the closed door as if he might see through it. He placed the flat of his hand against it. “Lord this was not the way I wanted to tell her.”

He heard her scream again, felt her pain to his soul.

“Where the devil is that doctor?” Ash ignored his grandfather’s renewed bid for attention and ran down the stairs calling for his horse. He would ride to hell for the blasted doctor, if he must.

He would do anything to keep Lark safe.

The rogues congregated in the library, midnight upon them. Reed and Hawk paced, sometimes into each other, Gideon stared into the fire. All awaited news of Lark and the babe.

Ashley Briana sat alone awaiting Father Christmas until Rafe and Micah, then Damon and Harry, joined her. That no parent saw, and forbade, their insurgence as the nursery stairs filled with children became a surprise in itself. That they were breaking such exalted rules became the subject of whispered discourse and delight, until Matthew warned that silence would go undetected, noise caught out.

After that, silent as lambs, they watched the strange comings and goings in reference to her new Mama’s bedchamber, all of them waiting for Father Christmas … and perhaps something more.

Sometime after the church-bells rang for the midnight service in the village, they heard the low jingle of sleigh bells, the muted clop of horses hooves, the shush of runners through snow.

Ashley Briana watched as some of the children sat straighter. A few of the little ones stood for a better view and some cowered in fear, until the man they awaited came running up the stairs—hooded, robed in crimson velvet, white of beard, buttonhole of holly, and carrying a fat sack topped by a drum, a trumpet, a porcelain doll.

“In here,” her Papa said, opening her Mama’s door and letting Father Christmas inside.

The children became more silent, more hopeful.

Ashley Briana was not alone in sensing that something momentous was about to take place, for Micah took her hand, squeezed it, and Ashley was grateful.

“That was him,” Damon whispered a few minutes later.

Harry swallowed his pride and allowed his wonder free rein. “I think it was.”

Damon’s gloat was halted, Ashley noted, by a rush of mysterious muffled sounds from her Mama’s closed room. A scream, a cry, a shout of triumph, a lusty wail.

Ashley regarded Micah, certain her eyes must be as large as his.

Some while later, Father Christmas stepped into the hall across the landing bearing the blanketed proof of Ashley’s rising hope, all kicking legs and fighting arms.

“I wonder what else he has in that sack,” little Juliana said.

A stooped old man stepped up to Father Christmas and touched the babe’s fingers with reverence.

“Your great-grandson,” Father Christmas said, handing the mite over. “Small but hearty, and not near as early as everyone surmised.”

The old man wept and held the babe as if it were a fine porcelain treasure. “I only wanted to grow him up,” the old man said. “Burned the will yesterday. Wanted him to know.”

“The Earl will be glad to hear it,” Father Christmas said and then he saw the children, and Ashley started, as he winked before he took the babe back into her Mama’s room.

Several minutes later, Father Christmas returned to the hall, fat sack in hand, and made for the picture gallery.

Taking his wink as a sign of acceptance and permission, the children followed at a goodly distance and watched as the proof of Christmas placed toys beneath the moonlit Christmas tree. When the robed man finished and started in their direction, they scampered up the nursery stairs, muffling squeaks and giggles, and ran to the big window overlooking the yard.

Oohs and Aahs abounded as a bright red sleigh, pulled by two matched pairs, disappeared down the drive.

“Happy Christmas,” floated, as if on the air behind it.

“Did you hear that?” Ash asked as he slipped gratefully back into his wife’s room and stopped at the sight before him.

Larkin Rose, his wife, safe, sitting in her bed, smiling, radiant, so beautiful she made him ache, their Christmas babe suckling at her breast, blanketed and tied with a red bow, a sprig of holly in its center.

“Happy Christmas, Papa,” she said.

Ash’s heart leapt. “Happy Christmas, Mama.”

He shed his shoes and shirt, climbed into the bed beside her, and touched his son’s soft silk fingers. “Welcome to the family, Zachary.”

Lark placed her head on his shoulder and regarded their child asleep at her breast. “Ash,” she said. “I beg you will forgive me.”

“Lark.” He kissed her crown, placed his cheek upon her hair. “I received forgiveness from my mother, and never knew its power until I did, so I gladly give you mine. But why call for forgiveness when there is such wonder to be met?

“Rather, let me thank you for our new son and a life as joy-filled as Christmas, for you saved me when you switched those cards. You are everything I never knew I wanted for Christmas, and for as long as we both shall live—you, Micah, Ashley Briana, and our sleepy little Christmas boy.”

Lark raised her head, caught his gaze with brilliant eyes, and met his lips, while gratitude and love rushed Ash in tides too wild to be borne.

“I love you, Ash.”

“I love you, my Lady Blackburne, though I am not half good enough for you.”

THE END

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Excerpt:

A Regency Historical Romance Series

SEA SCOUNDREL

Knave of Hearts, Book One

by

Annette Blair

PROLOGUE

The Zebulon Fishkill Academy for Unruly Boys, 1795

“Blighted knave!” said Old Fishface as he tossed another boy, by the scruff of his neck, into the heating stewpot of rotting hay, sweaty animals, and ripe manure that comprised the décor of the Academy’s stable. “Muck out a stall, and find yourself a place to sleep, like these scoundrels did,” the schoolmaster told the latest discard. “You keep the animals clean, groomed, and fed, you might fare half as well.”

He regarded the three who’d come first, spines straight, proud despite their punishments. “This one depends on a Lady’s charity for tuition,” Fishface said. “An aristocrat who does not want the vicar’s son sniffing around her girl. Well, Lord or pauper matters not to me. These are your quarters, the four of you.  Make the best of it.” Fishface slammed the door and left them to their own devices.

“He about to kick us out of school?” the vicar’s son asked.

Justin Devereux, future duke, chuckled. “’Course not. He wants the money we bring in.”

The new rat in the stable raised his chin and regarded the speaker. “Your brother got you kicked in here with a lie. You know that, right?”

Justin gave a half nod. “The problem usually is my brother.”

The Marquess of Andover stepped toward the vicar’s boy.  “Be ye knave or scoundrel?”

“Bit a’both, I’d say. Knave of hearts, maybe. He’s right about the girl with the title, and I plan to have her.”

“Have? Or have?” Fitzalan asked.

“Yes, to both,” the vicar’s son said, chin high as theirs.

“Guess we’re knaves and scoundrels, then,” Andover said. “Each a knave of hearts, and scoundrels all.”

“Absolutely,” Fitzalan added, slapping the youngest on the back. “But we have to make this count. Form a bond. Swear an oath.”

“As in . . . be there, if we’re needed?” Andover confirmed. “We show our scoundrel faces to the world but call on each other in times of trouble, whatever life hands us?”

“I like that,” the vicar’s son said. “I might not be rich, but I’m strong. I can hold up my end. Whatever, as you say.”

“Till the end of our days,” Fitzalan cautioned. “It has to be forever. We’ve already bonded in our rebellion. We all know that.”

So knaves of hearts and scoundrels all, lord and pauper alike, they sealed a lifetime oath, each raising a tin cup of brackish water.

And a fine deal they made of it.

Newport, Rhode Island

August 1815

CHAPTER ONE

Fists opening and clenching at her sides, looking up one road and down the next, Patience Kendall strode in and out of the shadow of the ship bobbing in the water—the ship that would sail her home to England.

Filled with anticipation, even dread, her stride as uneven as the cobbles beneath her feet, one rude sailor burning a hole in her back with his bold interest, Patience stumbled. And the ground rose up to greet her.

Flat on her face, knowing the sailor witnessed her disgrace; Patience wished the waves battering the sea-wall would boil over and claim her.               She heard them retreat instead.

Wishing she might vanish, aware she could not, Patience flexed a limb, tested another, surprised to note that nothing hurt. She found the sun-warmed cobbles against her cheek smooth, soothing. Before her eyes, an ant, arms akimbo, stood atop a purple shell fragment examining her . . . probably wondering how in Hades he would scale so large an object.

Patience knew exactly how the little fellow felt.

Pressing the flat of her hands against the stones, Patience raised her head and looked about.

As Gulls calmed and returned to earth, the sound of a man’s laughter grew.

She could be injured, or even dead,—would that she had been so lucky—so if he were coming to her rescue, he was taking his sweet time about it.

Tangled in her petticoats, Patience struggled awkwardly to her knees as a chuckling sailor stopped before her.

She looked up, way up, the reflection of the sun masking his features.

He offered a strong, bronzed hand.

She ignored it.

Swathed in dignity, she rose unaided . . . and caught her heel in her skirt.

Scrambling for a handhold, she grasped the sailor’s shirt—to the cost of three bone buttons—and stood herself erect, the top of her head nearly reaching his chin.

For a moment, he stared at his shirt, then, brows raised, he regarded her with astonishment. Despite his pirate’s jaw covered with dark stubble, long wind-blown hair, and thick unmatched brows, a look of wry amusement softened his angular features. Was he her bold watcher?

Holding his gaze, Patience attempted a discreet search for her missing slipper with the toes of her unshod foot.

Her rescuer bowed. “Allow me.” He bent on his haunches to find it.

Patience groaned inwardly, and squeaked when he took her foot in his palm, his touch disconcerting but gentle, his cradling hold nearly a caress.

When he replaced the slipper, her balance wavered and Patience found her hands wrist-deep in the dark silk of his hair. She teetered, and pulled his head forward with the strength of her grasp, until she smothered him, neck-deep, in two skirts and three petticoats.

At his muffled chuckle, she squealed and released him.

The scoundrel stood, grin broad, hair charmingly mussed.

The heat in her face threatened to ignite, and despite an odd physical reaction to his throaty chuckle—or perhaps because of it—Patience had the remarkable urge to erase his smile with the flat of her hand. “That wasn’t the least amusing,” she said. “I might have been injured.”

“What? Did you think I’d bite your leg?”

Her inner thigh, to be exact. Patience set her jaw, ignoring a new wash of warmth. “I mean that I might have been injured when I stumbled.”

“Fell flat on your face, more like.” One side of his sculpted mouth curved up as he combed a hand through his overlong hair, and made her think of a pup in a laundry basket—mussed and adorable.

Adorable? She must have hit her head.

“You weren’t in danger,” he said. “Not an inch of you took the least little blow. You went down like a gazelle.” He winked, causing an absurd jumble of flutters in her wayward breast. “You trip and fall in a most graceful manner,” said he, “though I’m afraid I cannot say the same for your method of rising again.” The knave’s smile grew, his chuckle swelling to full-bodied laughter.

“Go to the devil!” Patience snapped.

His black eyes twinkled and held a promise Patience did not understand, and chose to ignore. “At your service,” he said, sketching a bow worthy of a gallant in his lady’s chamber. Lord and what made her think of that? With a last, mocking grin, the handsome sailor turned on his heel and sauntered toward his ship, whistling a jaunty tune.

Patience searched the ground, itching to grab a stone and aim it in his general direction. How bloodthirsty of her. In the end, she counted to one hundred and twenty three, at which point, the urge to do him harm had nearly passed.

Rude man, acting as if going to the devil would be his pleasure, fawning like some . . . mindless dandy, when his wits were every bit as sharp as . . . what? She turned, walked a distance, and stopped. Did she care how sharp his wits? Certainly not.

Patience sat on her trunk in the midst of the bustling dock and attempted to turn her mind to her girls’ arrivals.

Despite an attempt to banish her rescuer from her thoughts, she could not. He had confused her so completely; she must appear clumsy and witless.

Patience groaned. Lord, she couldn’t stand on her own feet, how in holy Hannah was she to manage four naive, even spoiled, young ladies?

If Aunt Harriette ever heard that the man she’d sailed from England to wed had died two weeks before her arrival, her aunt would make Patience commit the Old Testament to memory, and all those begats would addle her brain.

Except that she was free of Aunt Harriette. Forever.               She’d wanted her independence. And now she had it. By all that was holy, she’d become so independent, she had dependents.

Patience sighed. In for a penny, in for a pound, as Papa always said. She bit her lip. He usually said that in reference to his gambling and drinking, however. Oh dear. Perhaps she was more like Papa than she thought. She did suppose that finding titled English husbands for four flighty colonials might be considered a gamble, by some stretch of the imagination.

No. Those girls depended on her, and she would not fail them. No, it was Mama she was more like. Papa always said Mama could accomplish anything she set her pretty little head to do. So mama did. And so too would her daughter . . . despite Aunt Harriette’s thoughts to the contrary.

Patience looked beyond looming masts and furled sails, toward a heaven rife with cotton clouds in an azure sky.

Sighing, hoping her prayer had been heard, she smoothed the unruly wind-whipped curls from her face and gazed toward the ship, up and up higher, to the top of the tallest mast. And there he stood securing a sail, the knave who’d come to her rescue—if rescue it could be called—looking down at her with half a salute and a full, mocking smile.

Patience turned quickly away. A scoundrel, she confirmed, with a face chiseled by a master—just like her father. Succumbing to the charm of a man like that could be perilous.

Seagulls seemed to squawk louder and soar faster, as if in keeping with the wild new beat of her heart, and trepidation squeezed the breath from her chest with a mighty fist. Oh Lord, what had she got herself into?

In that turbulent moment, Patience wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run. But her practical nature took command and she reined in her panic. “No time for foolishness,” she told herself. “Well begun is nearly done.” She stood, straightened her spine and raised her chin, prepared to face whatever, whomever, she must for her girls.

The endless, silver sea before her made her smile, the scent of brine sharp, the breeze gentling. She inhaled deeply, once, twice, three slow times . . . and calmed. She’d always found sea-air soothing, perhaps because of the times she and Papa walked the shore together. Right now, she could almost feel him squeeze her hand.

She’d adored the handsome devil. He’d smelled of spice, smoke and brandy—too much brandy, but he was a most wonderful father. He once said they’d made a grave error naming her Patience. It was a long time before she understood what he meant by that.

She was twelve when she lost him. He had gambled away their money, saw a way to win it back and bet on a horse he was to race. Riding drunk, Papa broke his neck.

A week later, her twin brothers were born. Next morning, nurse said Mama and her brothers had gone to be with papa. Patience wondered for a long time why they hadn’t taken her.

It still didn’t bear thinking about.

Then she went to live with Aunt Harriette who said Papa had killed himself, and mama and her brothers as well. Patience would never forgive her aunt for that.

“Yoo-hoo! Patience! Patience Kendall!” Sophie, a vision in yellow, like an overturned buttercup, had finally arrived. Except for the fact that, unlike her, Sophie had a bosom, everything about her was petite, her height, her waist, and her delicate features. But what she lacked in size, Sophie made up for in enthusiasm.

But as if Sophie cast a spell, Patience’s rescuer soon approached.

“Patience,” Sophie said eyes wide and eager. “I couldn’t wait, so I came ahead.” She stood on her toes to scan the ship. “Where are the sailors?” She held her hat, looked up, and shaded her eyes. “I see some, Patience, in the rigging, and—”

“Sophie. Mind now, we are not looking to find sailors for husbands. Your mama would not appreciate—”

“There’s Mama’s carriage, now,” Sophie said, to interrupt the scold, and Patience’s rescuer, sun-dark arms crossed, settled himself against a nearby piling.

Mrs. Kane heaved her imposing rose-silk and lace bosom through the carriage door first, and stepped down with a victorious smile. “My dear Patience,” she shouted. “The happy day at last!”

Mr. Kane must be deaf, Patience thought, or wish he was. His wife spoke like an actress on a stage. With the woman’s embrace, Patience’s face smothered in bosoms, she wondered what the scoundrel must think.

“Soon you will be back in your own beloved homeland,” the matron said, removing bank notes from her reticule. “Here is the money for your passage, rent on a house and wardrobes for you both. Don’t skimp now. It’s costly to make a good match.” She looked to the heavens. “To think, the Marquess of Andover might be my son-in-law! He’ll thank you for this, you know.”

Patience’s rescuer straightened so fast, he nearly distracted Patience from her dilemma; Mrs. Kane thought she knew the Marquess of Andover . . . well enough to introduce Sophie? Patience heard about the man forever. He might be ninety; he might even be dead. But to address the misunderstanding now, when plans were made and money spent, would be useless. No, she would seek an introduction to the doddering rake when they arrived in London. He would be too old; the girls would lose interest. Everything would be fine.

Mrs. Kane beamed and clasped her hands in delight. “Don’t forget, a bonus if Sophie weds a title. The bigger the title, the bigger the bonus.”

“Hah!” came her rescuer’s singular comment.

Mrs. Kane wept upon departing as if she were leaving Sophie to the sodden earth for eternity.

The next of Patience’s charges arrived. Brown hair, brown eyes, brown dress . . . Grace. Spectacles slipping down her nose, she clutched a basket to her breast, as if it held all her worldly possessions.

Patience had charged the same for each girl with the exception of Grace. Now the Parson named each expense, much as Sophie’s parent had done, and settled accounts. Patience consoled Grace’s father, and the girl followed a trunk-hauling seaman aboard, in complete control of her emotions.

Patience’s were in turmoil. Her rescuer’s interest infuriated her. She must send him on his way.

Brows rising, he unfolded his arms and straightened as she approached. “It would be nice if your captain put in an appearance, Mister...?”

He bowed. “St. Benedict.”

Warmth crept up her neck. “Not, Captain St. Benedict?”

He gave her the devil’s own smile. “At your service.”

Now, she understood his arrogance. “So, you are the Captain.”

“And you are a fraud, Miss Kendall.”

Patience looked about to see if anyone heard. “That’s Lady Patience to you,” she snapped.

Eyes ablaze, the man slapped the piling. “A bloody English Aristocrat.  And haughty as all hell, to boot. I should have known.”

Patience’s own fire blazed. “And you are a rude colonial, not fit to associate with your own kind, much less mine.”

Stormy eyes dark, the captain angled his head. “As you say.”

Patience turned away, amid confusion and regret. Why had she made such an appalling statement? Colonials were honest and refreshing. And in a way, she was a fraud. She only used her title because circumstances demanded it and threw it in his face because of his insult. She turned back. “Captain, please I—”

“Don’t bother to apologize, Lady Patience, your words mean less than nothing. For a child, though, you play at dangerous games. Perhaps someday, when you grow up a bit, you’ll realize—”

“Child? What a preposterous—”

“Oh, you play the adult well enough, but—”

“How old do you think I am?”

He examined her person, slowly, thoroughly, tangled curls to dusty slippers, his gaze a caress so alive, Patience shivered. “Not a day over sixteen,” he said.

“I’ll have you know I am four and twenty.”

Patience realized she’d stammered like the child he took her for and cringed.

The Captain’s skeptical gaze lowered, almost, but not quite, against his volition, to her nonexistent bosom. And he grinned. “I don’t believe you.”

“Oh! You are such a . . . such a . . . man! You think a woman’s brains are in her bosom!”

The Captain’s eyes widened and he laughed so hard, sailors on ship and dock stopped to watch.

Mortified, Patience turned away, but her tormentor stepped before her and she walked into his rock-hard chest.

He took her arms to steady her; someone on the ship whistled, and his devil’s eyes danced. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Patience’s urge to do him harm doubled, and she wondered at her bloodlust. His mocking smile returned, and her anger blazed anew. “Take your hands off me.”

He raised them to show they were no longer connected to her person. “I’m trying to apologize, Lady Patience.”

Drat him for that spark of sincerity. “You didn’t want to hear mine. Now I don’t want to hear yours.”

“Touché,” he whispered, leaning close. “But let me clear a misconception for you. I do not, nor does any man to my knowledge, think a woman’s brains are . . . ah....” He glanced at her lack of endowment. “There.”

Patience fisted her hands to keep from slapping the smile off his face.

The knave cleared his throat, coughed, and leaned closer still. “Believe me, Lady Patience; men are more likely to think that the size of a woman’s brain decreases as the size of her bosom increases.”

“Then, why do men like women with large bosoms?” Patience slapped a hand to her mouth. As ever, words spilled from her mouth before her brain became engaged. It must be difficult to shock this pirate, but judging by the look on his face, she had just managed it.

A need to correct her blunder overtook her. “No doubt, that is one of the great mysteries of the universe.”

Interest lit his features. “A mystery I would be happy to solve for you when you grow up, Lady Kendall, should you wish it.”

“I tell you, I am four and twenty.”

The glint in his eyes leapt. “Then you wish it now?”

Waves lapped at pilings. A gull shrieked and swooped. The sun throbbed in the sky blistering Patience’s skin; she could feel the burn. “I do not believe this conversation is proper,” she said on a thready whisper, her words ridiculous in their tardiness.

“I did not open the subject,” said he.

Patience’s stomach fluttered with some new malady, like a swarm of butterflies trapped there, and she wished with every breath that it would stop. “Nor should you have continued it.” She stepped back.

He nodded, his eyes, his demeanor that of the brusque Captain once more. “Your pardon. Are you nearly ready to board? We sail with the tide.”

“All the girls have not arrived.”

“All? How many are you taking?”

“I settled arrangements with your agent. Why should you care? I am paying their fare.”

“Accommodations, for one thing. What do you mean you’re paying their fare? Or your own for that matter? I distinctly heard two people say they were paying yours.”

“Why do you care who pays? Your task is to see us safely across the ocean, nothing more. I trust that can be accomplished with as little personal contact as possible.”

The Captain combed a hand through his hair, adding to his disreputable appearance. “I’ll send my first mate, Shane, to escort the rest of you. As to personal contact, I heartily agree. Keep yourself and your sweet beauties away from me and my men. Good day, Lady Patience.”

Patience observed the strength in his strong hands and the play of muscles along his sun-bronzed arms as he grasped the rail and hauled himself up the plank in three long, graceful strides. Hot prickles assaulted her as he did. From the memory of his hands cradling her foot, she supposed, or her own foolish words.

This was either going to be the longest month of her life, or it would be the death of her.

* * *

Captain Grant St. Benedict cursed his luck as he circled the deck. Patience. Her parents had, of course, meant the name as warning. Anyone coming in contact with the termagant must need patience aplenty.

From the first, he’d watched her, pacing in nervous agitation, her long auburn hair flying in the breeze, her skirts whipping about her slender ankles. Once, when some inner demon seemed to beset her, she’d puffed out her nonexistent chest as if waiting to have a medal pinned there. Perhaps he’d pin one there himself.

The Captain shook his head. Dangerous thought, that.

He was glad she was as old as she claimed because . . . she’d had an . . . effect on him, God help him. A scrapper, a schemer, he’d best remember. Charging them all for the same things, promising introductions to the Marquess of Andover.

He’d like to see that happen!

Well she’d follow his rules, or he’d take her over his knee— Now that could be quite the sport. He shook himself against temptation. The safest sport to share with Lady Patience Kendall would be no sport at all.

The double meaning intrigued him. Did he mean he should stay away from her? Or did he mean, deep down, that life would be no fun unless he took a few sporting chances where she was concerned?

He meant, he told himself with firm resolve, that he should steer clear of her.

No. She should steer clear of him, by God! And if she made a wrong move, just one....

When a knot of sailors broke into raucous laughter, Grant approached, grateful to take his thoughts from—

“That feisty red-haired wench could surely warm a man’s cockles,” said a salty-voiced sailor.

Grant fisted his hands. “You no-account, lazy water rats, get your sun-dried carcasses over here, on the double.”

His tars moved with amazing speed for being taken by surprise.

They stood alert, wary as he examined them. “Jasper, where are the two young ladies who came aboard earlier?”

“Cabin deck, Cap’n.”

“Good. Now hear this. Several members of the fair sex will be traveling with us this trip.” Grant strolled beside the line of mangy tars, hands behind his back. “Women aboard are unusual, but not unheard-of.” He stopped, examined each in turn. “You may carry water for them, offer a word of advice, and see they come to no harm. You may even befriend them.” He took a breath, prepared to snap them into awareness. “But you will mind your manners! You will mind your language! And most of all, you will mind your hands!”

Sven smoothed his beard. Paddy shuffled.

“And if you so much as pull your Jonny-ready from your trousers within twenty feet of one, you will discover it is no longer a prized member of the ‘cockles’ that wanted warming.” He looked at each in turn. God, they were a scurvy lot. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Aye Cap’n.”

“Yes Sir.”

“This will be a long voyage. Fail to heed my warning, and you’re shark bait.” As their Captain, he nodded his dismissal. “Prepare to haul anchor.”

Moments later, an angry, grumbling hoard approached him. What now?

“Don’t want no women sailin’ with us, Cap’n. Women’s bad luck ‘board ship.”

Superstitious jack-tars. “Those women are paying premium prices to sail,” he said. “Don’t forget that on my ship, the bigger the purse, the bigger your cuts.” He waited, watched them consider his words. A couple nodded, but they were nowhere near satisfied. Though quiet for the moment, he knew he’d hear more about this in the days to come. Damn. “Double time, men. Make ready to harness wind.”

Within minutes, rigging creaked and wheels turned; his vessel was coming to life.

Which, he had to admit, held a certain budding promise this morning, given his zesty anticipation. He hadn’t heard a word he said, Grant thought, as he leaned on the rail to observe the source of that zest while testing the stubble on his chin. There she stood, a brazen saucepot with auburn hair and green eyes, waiting for her chicks and charming his shiftless sailors without trying. Stubborn and quarrelsome, that red-head. And the very tendency in her made him want to respond in kind, to see how far she’d go—which could be downright hazardous to his peace.

As Captain St. Benedict, he shouted orders toward the dock, and watched his men scatter.

Rag-mannered, crusty tars he’d dispatched in a trice, but how to manage a bold vixen, who smelled of wildflowers and questioned the attraction of the male animal to large bosoms?

About Sea Scoundrel

SEA SCOUNDREL, Knave of Hearts, One: In 1999, the book, LADY PATIENCE, needed to be cut in half to fit the Precious Gem Line for Kensington Publishing. Now, here in its full award-winning, uncut glory for the first time is the story of the Sea Captain and his Lady.

CAPTIVE SCOUNDREL, Knave of Hearts, Two
PROPER SCOUNDREL, Knave of Hearts, Three
HOLY SCOUNDREL, Knave of Hearts, Four

About Annette Blair

A New York Times Bestselling author, Annette Blair left her job as a Development Director and Journalism Advisor at a private New England prep school to become a full time writer. At forty books and counting, she’s added cozy mysteries and bewitching romantic comedies to her award-winning Historical Romances.

Contact her at:

http://www.annetteblair.com

http://twitter.com/annetteblair

To find out when a new book is available, sign up for Annette’s mailing list at: https://www.facebook.com/annetteblairfans

Annette Blair Booklist

Tulle Death Do Us Part, July 2013

Moving Pictures, Sisters of Sprit Anthology, Jan 2013

Cloaked in Malice, July 2012, A New York Times Bestseller

Jonquils in the Snow, Mammoth Book Ghost Romance, June 2012

Holy Scoundrel, Jan 2013 ebook

Proper Scoundrel, May 2012 ebook

Captive Scoundrel, May 2012 ebook

Sea Scoundrel, May 2012 ebook

Butterfly Garden Audio Book, August 2012

Jacob’s Return Audio Book, March 2012

Untamable Rogue, January 2012 ebook

Unmistakable Rogue, January 2012 ebook

Unforgettable Rogue, January 2012 ebook

Undeniable Rogue, January 2012 ebook

Butterfly Garden, Oct 2011 paperback & ebook

Skirting the Grave, July 2011

Kissingate Magic, Mammoth Book Scottish Romance, January 2011

Jacob's Return, May 2011, paperback & ebook

Vampire Dragon, April 2011

Fall in Love Like a Romance Writer, February 2011

Naked Dragon, January 2010

Death by Diamonds, July 2010

Bedeviled Angel, August 2010

You Can't Steal First, Hot Ticket Anthology, Sept 2009

Larceny and Lace, Aug 2009

A Veiled Deception, January 2009

Never Been Witched, Feb 2009

Gone with the Witch, May 2008

Sex and the Psychic Witch, August 2007

The Scot, the Witch & the Wardrobe, Dec 2006

You Can't Steal First, Hot Ticket Anthology, May 2006

Scoundrel in Disguise, May 2006

My Favorite Witch, January 2006

The Butterfly Garden, April 2005

The Kitchen Witch, Oct 2004

A Christmas Baby, Oct 2004

An Unmistakable Rogue, Oct 2003

An Unforgettable Rogue, Oct 2002

An Undeniable Rogue, Mar 2002

Thee I love, Oct 1999

Lady Patience, Sept 1999

Lady Faith, March 1999

http://www.annetteblair.com

http://twitter.com/annetteblair

To find out when a new book is available, sign up for Annette’s mailing list at: https://www.facebook.com/annetteblairfans