TESSA DARE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty historical romances. Her books have won numerous accolades, including Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® award (twice) and the RT Book Reviews Seal of Excellence. Booklist magazine named her one of the ‘new stars of historical romance,’ and her books have been contracted for translation in more than a dozen languages.

A librarian by training and a booklover at heart, Tessa makes her home in Southern California, where she lives with her husband, their two children, and a trio of cosmic kittens.

Also by Tessa Dare

Castles Ever After Romancing the Duke Say Yes to the Marquess When a Scot Ties the Knot Do You Want to Start a Scandal?

Spindle Cove A Night to Surrender Once Upon a Winter’s Eve (novella) A Week to be Wicked A Lady by Midnight Beauty and the Blacksmith (novella) Any Duchess Will Do Lord Dashwood Missed Out (novella)

Stud Club Trilogy One Dance with a Duke Twice Tempted by a Rogue Three Nights with a Scoundrel

The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy Goddess of the Hunt Surrender of a Siren A Lady of Persuasion The Scandalous, Dissolute, No-Good Mr Wright (novella)

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-28039-0

THE DUCHESS DEAL

© 2017 Eve Ortega

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2018-06-28

I grew up a PK (‘preacher’s kid’). Emma, the heroine of this book, is a vicar’s daughter. I want to make clear that Emma’s father is nothing like my own. My father was — and is — loving, patient, supportive, and understanding. Thanks, Dad. This book’s for you. Please don’t read chapters 7, 9, 11, 17, 19, 21 or 28.

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

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

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Extract from The Governess Game

Extract from The Wallflower Wager

About the Publishers

Chapter One

Emma Gladstone had learned a few hard lessons by the age of two-and-twenty.

Charming princes weren’t always what they seemed. Shining armor went out of fashion with the Crusades. And if fairy godmothers existed, hers was running several years late.

Most of the time, a girl needed to rescue herself.

This afternoon was one of those times.

Ashbury House loomed before her, taking up one full side of the fashionable Mayfair square. Elegant. Enormous.

Terrifying.

She swallowed hard. She could do this. Once, she’d walked to London alone in the bitter heart of winter. She’d refused to succumb to despair or starvation. She’d found work and made a new life for herself in Town. Now, six years later, she’d swallow every needle in Madame Bissette’s dressmaking shop before she’d go crawling back to her father.

Compared to all that, what was knocking on the door of a duke?

Why, nothing. Nothing at all. All she had to do was square her shoulders, charge through the wrought-iron gates, march up those granite steps—really, there were only a hundred or so—and ring the bell on that immense, richly carved door.

Good afternoon. I’m Miss Emma Gladstone. I’m here to see the mysterious, reclusive Duke of Ashbury. No, we aren’t acquainted. No, I don’t have a calling card. I don’t have anything, really. I may not even have a home tomorrow if you don’t let me in.

Oh, good heavens. This would never work.

With a whimper, she turned away from the gate and circled the square for the tenth time, shaking out her bare arms under her cloak.

She had to try.

Emma stopped her pacing, faced the gate, and drew a deep breath. She closed her ears to the frantic pounding of her heart.

The hour was growing late. No one was coming to her aid. There could be no further hesitation, no turning back.

Ready. Steady.

Go.

From his library desk, Ashbury heard an unfamiliar ringing sound. Could it be a doorbell?

There it came again.

It was a doorbell.

Worse, it was his doorbell.

Damned gossips. He hadn’t even been in Town but a few weeks. He’d forgotten how London rumors traveled faster than bullets. He didn’t have the time or patience for busybodies. Whoever it was, Khan would send them away.

He dipped his quill and continued the letter to his feckless solicitors.

I don’t know what the devil you’ve been doing for the past year, but the state of my affairs is deplorable. Sack the Yorkshire land steward directly. Tell the architect I wish to see the plans for the new mill, and I wish to see them yesterday. And there’s one other thing that requires immediate attention.

Ash hesitated, quill poised in midair. He couldn’t believe he was actually going to commit the words to paper. But much as he dreaded it, it must be done. He wrote:

I need a wife.

He supposed he ought to state his requirements: a woman of childbearing age and respectable lineage, in urgent need of money, willing to share a bed with a scarred horror of a man.

In short, someone desperate.

God, how depressing. Better to leave it at that one line.

I need a wife.

Khan appeared in the doorway. “Your Grace, I regret the interruption, but there’s a young woman to see you. She’s wearing a wedding gown.”

Ash looked at the butler. He looked down at the words he’d just written. Then he looked at the butler again.

“Well, that’s uncanny.” Perhaps his solicitors weren’t as useless as he thought. He dropped his pen and propped one boot on the desk, reclining into the shadows. “By all means, show her in.”

A young woman in white strode into the room.

His boot slipped from the desk. He reeled backward and collided with the wall, nearly falling off his chair. A folio of papers tumbled from a nearby shelf, drifting to the floor like snowflakes.

He was blinded.

Not by her beauty—though he supposed she might be beautiful. It wasn’t possible to judge. Her gown was an eye-stabbing monstrosity of pearls, lace, brilliants, and beads.

Good Lord. He wasn’t accustomed to being in the same room with something even more repulsive than his own appearance.

He propped his right elbow on the arm of his chair and raised his fingertips to his brow, concealing the scars on his face. For once, he wasn’t protecting a servant’s sensibilities or even his own pride. He was shielding himself from . . . from that.

“I’m sorry to impose on you this way, Your Grace,” the young woman said, keeping her gaze fixed on some chevron of the Persian carpet.

“I should hope you are.”

“But you see, I am quite desperate.”

“So I gather.”

“I need to be paid for my labor, and I need to be paid at once.”

Ash paused. “Your . . . your labor.”

“I’m a seamstress. I stitched this”—she swept her hands down the silk eyesore—“for Miss Worthing.”

For Miss Worthing.

Ah, this began to make sense. The white satin atrocity had been meant for Ash’s formerly intended bride. That, he could believe. Annabelle Worthing had always had dreadful taste—both in gowns and in prospective husbands.

“When your engagement ended, she never sent for the gown. She’d purchased the silk and lace and such, but she never paid for the labor. And that meant I went unpaid. I tried calling at her home, with no success. My letters to you both went unanswered. I thought that if I appeared like this”—she spread the skirts of the white gown—“I would be impossible to ignore.”

“You were correct on that score.” Even the good side of his face twisted. “Good Lord, it’s as though a draper’s shop exploded and you were the first casualty.”

“Miss Worthing wanted something fit for a duchess.”

“That gown,” he said, “is fit for a bawdy-house chandelier.”

“Well, your intended had . . . extravagant preferences.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “I can’t even take the whole thing in. It looks like unicorn vomit. Or the pelt of some snow beast rumored to menace the Himalayas.”

She tilted her gaze to the ceiling and gave a despairing sigh.

“What?” he said. “Don’t tell me you like it.”

“It doesn’t matter whether it suits my tastes, Your Grace. I take pride in my handiwork regardless, and this gown occupied months of it.”

Now that the shock of her revolting attire had worn off, Ash turned his attention to the young woman who’d been devoured by it.

She was a great improvement on the gown.

Complexion: cream. Lips: rose petals. Lashes: sable.

Backbone: steel.

“This embroidery alone . . . I worked for a week to make it perfect.” She skimmed a touch along the gown’s neckline.

Ash followed the path her fingertips traced. He couldn’t see embroidery. He was a man; he saw breasts. Slight, enticing breasts squeezed by that tortured bodice. He enjoyed them almost as much as he enjoyed the air of determination pushing them high.

He pulled his gaze upward, taking in her slender neck and upswept bounty of chestnut-brown hair. She wore it in the sort of prim, restrained coiffure that made a man’s fingers itch to pull the pins loose, one by one.

Take hold of yourself, Ashbury.

She couldn’t possibly be as pretty as she seemed. No doubt she benefited by contrast with the revolting gown. And he’d been living in solitude for some time. There was that, as well.

“Your Grace,” she said, “my coal bin is empty, the larder’s down to a few moldy potatoes, and my quarterly rent comes due today. The landlord has threatened to turn me out if I don’t pay the full amount. I need to collect my wages. Most urgently.” She held out her hand. “Two pounds, three shillings, if you please.”

Ash crossed his arms over his chest and stared at her. “Miss . . . ?”

“Gladstone. Emma Gladstone.”

“Miss Gladstone, you don’t seem to understand how this whole intruding-on-a-duke’s-solitude business works. You should be intimidated, if not terrified. Yet there’s an appalling lack of hand-wringing in your demeanor, and no trembling whatsoever. Are you certain you’re merely a seamstress?”

She lifted her hands, palms facing out for his view. Healed cuts and calluses showed on her fingertips. Persuasive evidence, Ash had to admit. Yet he remained unconvinced.

“Well, you can’t have been born to poverty. You’re far too self-possessed, and you appear to have all your teeth. I suppose you were orphaned at a tender age, in some particularly gruesome way.”

“No, Your Grace.”

“Are you being blackmailed?”

“No.” She drew out the word.

“Supporting a passel of abandoned children, whilst being blackmailed?”

“No.”

He snapped his fingers. “I have it. Your father is a scapegrace. In debtor’s prison. Or spending the rent money on gin and whores.”

“My father is a vicar. In Hertfordshire.”

Ash frowned. That was nonsensical. Vicars were gentlemen. “How does a gentleman’s daughter find herself working her fingers to nubs as a seamstress?”

At last, he saw a flash of uncertainty in her demeanor. She touched the spot behind her earlobe. “Sometimes life takes an unexpected turn.”

“Now that is a grave understatement.”

Fortune was a heartless witch in perpetual anticipation of her monthly courses. And didn’t Ash know it.

He swiveled in his chair and reached for a lockbox behind the desk.

“I am sorry.” Her voice softened. “The broken engagement must have been a blow. Miss Worthing seemed a lovely young woman.”

He counted money into his hand. “If you spent any time with her, you know that isn’t the case.”

“Perhaps it’s for the best that you didn’t marry her, then.”

“Yes, it was excellent foresight that I destroyed my face before the wedding. What bad luck it would have been if I’d waited until afterward.”

“Destroyed? If Your Grace will forgive me saying it, it can’t be that bad.”

He snapped the lockbox closed. “Annabelle Worthing was desperate to marry a man with a title and a fortune. I am a duke and ungodly wealthy. She still left me. It’s that bad.”

He stood and turned his ruined side to her, offering her a full, unobstructed view. His desk was in the most shadowy corner of the room—and purposely so. The room’s heavy velvet drapes kept out much of the sunlight. But scars as dramatic as the ones he wore? Nothing but complete darkness could obscure them. What bits of flesh had escaped the flames had only been ravaged further—first, by the surgeon’s knife and then, for hellish weeks afterward, by fever and suppuration. From his temple to his hip, the right side of his body was a raging battle of cicatrices and powder burns.

Miss Gladstone went quiet. To her credit, she didn’t swoon or vomit or run screaming from the room—a pleasant change from his usual reception.

“How did it happen?” she asked.

“War. Next question.”

After a moment, she said quietly, “May I have my money, please?”

He extended a hand, offering her the money.

She reached for it.

He closed his hand around the coins. “Once you give me the gown.”

“What?”

“If I pay you for your work, it’s only fair that I get the gown.”

“For what purpose?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t decided. I could donate it to a home for pensioned opera dancers. Sink it to the bottom of the Thames for the eels to enjoy. Hang it over the front door to ward off evil spirits. There are so many choices.”

“I . . . Your Grace, I can have it delivered tomorrow. But I must have the money today.”

He tsked. “That would be a loan, Miss Gladstone. I’m not in the money-lending business.”

“You want the gown now?”

“Only if you want the money now.”

Her dark eyes fixed on him, accusing him of sheer villainy.

He shrugged. Guilty as charged.

This was the peculiar hell of being disfigured by sheer chance on the battlefield. There was no one to blame, no revenge to be taken. Only a lingering bitterness that tempted him to lash out at anything near. Oh, he wasn’t violent—not unless someone really, truly deserved it. With most, he merely took perverse pleasure in being a pain in the arse.

If he was going to look like a monster, he might as well enjoy the role.

Unfortunately, this seamstress refused to play the trembling mouse. Nothing he said rattled her in the least, and if she hadn’t fled in terror yet, she likely never would.

Good for her.

He prepared to hand over the money, bidding her—and that gown—a grateful adieu.

Before he could do so, she exhaled decisively. “Fine.”

Her hands went to the side of the gown. She began to release a row of hooks hidden in the bodice seam. One by one by one. As the bodice went slack, her squeezed breasts relaxed to their natural fullness. The sleeve fell off her shoulder, revealing the tissue-thin fabric of her shift.

A wisp of dark hair tumbled free, kissing her collarbone.

Jesu Maria.

“Stop.”

She froze and looked up. “Stop?”

He cursed silently. Don’t ask me twice. “Stop.”

Ash could scarcely believe he’d managed the decency to say it once. He’d been on the verge of a private show for the price of two pounds, three. Significantly higher than the going rate, but a bargain when the girl was this pretty.

Not to mention, she was a vicar’s daughter. He’d always dreamed of debauching a vicar’s daughter. Really, what man hadn’t? However, he was not quite so diabolical as to accomplish it through extortion.

A thought occurred to him. Maybe—just maybe—he could still manage that fantasy, through different, somewhat less fiendish, means. He regarded Emma Gladstone from a fresh angle, thinking of that list of requirements in his interrupted letter.

She was young and healthy. She was educated. She came from gentry, and she was willing to disrobe in front of him.

Most importantly, she was desperate.

She’d do.

In fact, she’d do very well indeed.

“Here is your choice, Miss Gladstone. I can pay you the two pounds, three shillings.”

He placed the stack of coins on the desk. She stared at them hungrily.

“Or,” he said, “I can make you a duchess.”

Chapter Two

A duchess?

Well. Emma was grateful for one thing. At least now she had an excuse to stare at him.

Ever since the duke had revealed the extent of his scars, she’d been trying not to stare at him. Then she’d started worrying that it would be even more rude to avoid looking at him. As a result, her gaze had been volleying from his face, to the carpet, to the coins on the desk. It was all a bit dizzying.

Now she had an unassailable excuse to openly gawk.

The contrast was extreme. The injured side of his face drew her attention first, of course. Its appearance was tortured and angry, with webs of scar tissue twisting past his ear and above his natural hairline. What was more cruel—his scarred flesh stood in unavoidable contrast with his untouched profile. There, he was handsome in the brash, uncompromising way of gentlemen who believed themselves invincible.

Emma didn’t find his appearance frightful, though she could not deny it was startling. No, she decided, “startling” wasn’t the right word.

Striking.

He was striking.

As though a bolt of lightning had split through his body, dividing him in two, and the energy still crackled around him. Emma sensed it from across the room. Gooseflesh rippled up her arms.

“I beg your pardon, Your Grace. I must have misheard.”

“I said I will make you a duchess.”

“Surely . . . surely you don’t mean through marriage.”

“No, I intend to use my vast influence in the House of Lords to overturn the laws of primogeniture, then persuade the Prince Regent to create a new title and duchy. That accomplished, I will convince him to name a vicar’s daughter from Hertfordshire a duchess in her own right. Of course I mean through marriage, Miss Gladstone.”

She gave a strained laugh. Laughter seemed the only possible response. He had to be joking. “You can’t be asking me to marry you.”

He sighed with annoyance. “I am a duke. I’m not asking you to marry me. I am offering to marry you. It’s a different thing entirely.”

She opened her mouth, only to close it again.

“I need an heir,” he said. “That is the thrust of the matter.”

Her concentration snagged on that word, and the blunt, forceful way he said it.

Thrust.

“If I died tomorrow, everything would go to my cousin. He is an irredeemable prat. I didn’t go to the Continent, fight to preserve England from tyranny, and survive this”—he gestured at his face—“only to come home and watch my tenants’ lives crumble to ruins. And that means those laws of primogeniture—since I don’t intend to overturn them—require me to marry and sire a son.”

He crossed the room, advancing toward her in unhurried strides. She stood in place, unwilling to shrink from him. The more nonchalant his demeanor, the more her pulse pounded.

His face might be striking, but the rest of him . . . ?

Rather splendid.

To distract herself, Emma focused on her own realm of expertise: attire. The tailoring of his coat was immaculate, skimming the breadth of his shoulders and hugging the contours of his arms. The wool was of the finest quality, tightly woven and richly dyed. However, the style was two years behind the current fashion, and the cuffs were a touch frayed at the—

“I know what you’re thinking, Miss Gladstone.”

She doubted it.

“You’re incredulous. How could a woman of your standing possibly ascend to such a rank? I can’t deny you’ll find yourself outclassed and un-befriended among the ladies of the peerage, but you will no doubt be consoled with the material advantages. A lavish home, generous lines of credit at all the best shops, a large settlement in the event of my death. You may pay calls, go shopping. Engage in some charitable work, if you must. Your days will be yours to do whatever you wish.” His voice darkened. “Your nights, however, will belong to me.”

Any response to that was beyond her. An indignant warmth hummed over every surface of her body, seeping into the spaces between her toes.

“You should expect me to visit your bed every evening, unless you are ill or having your courses, until conception is confirmed.”

Emma tried, one more time, to understand this conversation. After running through all the possibilities, one alternative seemed the most likely.

The duke was not merely scarred on his face. He was sick in the head.

“Your Grace, do you feel feverish?”

“Not at all.”

“Perhaps you ought to have a lie-down. I could send your butler for a physician.”

He gave her a quizzical look. “Do you need a doctor?”

“Maybe I do.” Emma touched one hand to her brow. Her brain was spinning.

If he wasn’t ill . . . Could this be some sort of ploy to make her his mistress? Oh, Lord. Perhaps she’d given him the wrong impression with her willingness to disrobe.

“Are you—” There seemed no way to say it but to say it. “Your Grace, are you trying to get me into your bed?”

“Yes. Nightly. I said as much, not a minute ago. Are you listening at all?”

“Listening, yes,” she muttered to herself. “Comprehending, no.”

“I’ll have my solicitor draw up the papers.” He returned to his place behind the desk. “We can do it on Monday.”

“Your Grace, I don’t—”

“Tuesday, then.”

“Your Grace, I cannot—”

“Well, I’m afraid my schedule is quite booked for the rest of the week.” He flipped through the pages of an agenda. “Brooding, drinking, indoor badminton tournament . . .”

“No.”

“No,” he echoed.

“Yes.”

“Yes, no. Make up your mind, Miss Gladstone.”

She turned in a slow circle, looking about the room. What on earth was happening here? She felt like a Bow Street runner trying to solve a mystery: Emma Gladstone and the Case of the Missing Dignity.

Her gaze fell on the clock. Already past four. After leaving here, she must return the gown, pay her landlord, and then visit the market.

Having come this far, there was no way she could back down now.

She stiffened her posture. “Your Grace, you called my work ‘unicorn vomit.’ You asked me to disrobe for money. Then you made the absurd declaration that you would make me a duchess, and that I should visit your bed on Monday. This entire interview is nonsensical and humiliating. I can only conclude that you are making sport of me.”

He lifted one shoulder in an unapologetic shrug. “A scarred recluse must have some amusement.”

“What about your full schedule of drinking and indoor badminton? Isn’t that enough?” She had lost all patience now. She enjoyed a bit of teasing, and she could laugh at herself—but she had no desire to be the object of cruel jokes. “I’m beginning to suspect Miss Worthing’s reason for jilting you. You are exceedingly—”

“Hideous,” he supplied. “Repulsive. Monstrous.”

“Exasperating.”

He made a sound of bemusement. “So I’m being reviled for my personality? How refreshing.”

Emma lifted her hands in a nonthreatening gesture. “Your Grace, I shall impose on you no further. I am going to approach the desk, pick up the coins, and then back away. Slowly.”

In a series of cautious steps, she approached the desk and stopped within a yard of where he stood on the opposite side. Without breaking eye contact, she gathered the two pounds, three shillings from the desktop. Then, with the briefest of curtsies, she turned to leave.

He caught her by the wrist. “Don’t go.”

She turned and looked up at him, astonished.

The contact was electric. Like the jolt one received when grabbing a doorknob on a dry, cold day. Clashing and sparking with a force that belonged to neither of them, but existed only in the space between. The shock buzzed up the bones in her arm. Her breathing and pulse were suspended. She felt stripped down—not to her skin, but to the raw elements that composed her being.

The duke seemed stunned by it, too. His piercing blue eyes interrogated hers. Then he cast a confused look at his hand, as though he weren’t certain how it had come to be gripping her arm.

For a moment, Emma’s heart invented the wildest fancies. That he was someone other than the cynical, embittered man he seemed. That beneath the Before and After sketched on his face, there was a man—a hurting and lonely man—who remained unchanged in essentials.

Don’t believe it, Emma. You know your heart is a fool.

He released her, and the side of his mouth pulled into a wry smile. “You can’t leave now, Miss Gladstone. We’re just starting to have fun.”

“I don’t care to play this game.”

She gathered as much composure as she could locate. Clutching the coins in one hand, she picked up her skirts with the other and made haste in the direction of the door.

“Don’t trouble to bid me farewell,” he called.

I won’t.

“I shan’t bother, either. We both know you’ll be back.”

She paused—briefly—midstep. The duke believed they would see one another again?

Dear God. Not if Emma could help it.

Not in a thousand years.

“Isn’t it silly of me?” Miss Palmer stood in a draped corner of Madame Bissette’s shop, holding still as Emma measured her waistline. “More and more plump by the day. I suppose I’ve been eating too many teacakes.”

Emma doubted it. This was the second time in a month Davina Palmer had visited the shop to have a dress let out, and Emma had been stitching her wardrobe since her first Season. She’d never known the young woman to gain weight, and certainly not this rapidly.

Teacakes were not to blame.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t Emma’s place to say anything. But she’d taken a liking to Miss Palmer. She was the only daughter of a shipping magnate, and heiress to his fortune. A bit spoiled and sheltered, but she had a sparkle to her. She was a customer who always made Emma’s day better rather than worse, and that said something. Most of the ladies who came into the shop looked right through her.

Today, when she met Miss Palmer’s gaze, there was no sparkle. Only terror. The poor girl so clearly needed a confidante.

“How many months along?” Emma asked softly.

Miss Palmer dissolved into tears. “Almost four, I think.”

“Does the gentleman know?”

“I can’t tell him. He’s a painter. I met him when he came to paint the portrait of our dogs, and I . . . It doesn’t matter. He’s gone. Went to Albania in search of ‘romantic inspiration,’ whatever that means.”

It means he’s a scoundrel, Emma thought. “What of your family? Do they know?”

“No.” She shook her head with vigor. “There’s only Papa. He has such high expectations for me. If he knew I’d been so careless, he . . . he’d never look at me the same.” She buried her face in her hands and broke into quiet sobs. “I couldn’t bear it.”

Emma drew the girl into a hug, rubbing her back in a soothing rhythm. “Oh, you poor dear. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t know what to do. I’m so frightened.” She pulled away from the hug. “I can’t raise a child on my own. I’ve been thinking, if only I could place the babe with a family in the country. Then I could visit from time to time. I know it’s done.” Miss Palmer placed a hand on her belly and looked down at it. “But I’m growing larger every day. I won’t be able to hide it much longer.”

Emma offered the girl a handkerchief. “Is there anywhere you can go? A friend or cousin, perhaps. In the country, or on the Continent . . . Anyone who might take you in until you give birth?”

“There’s no one. No one who would keep the secret, at any rate.” She clutched the handkerchief in her fist. “Oh, if only I hadn’t been so stupid. I knew it was wrong, but he was ever so romantic. He called me his muse. He made me feel . . .”

Treasured. Wanted. Loved.

Miss Palmer didn’t have to explain it. Emma knew exactly how the girl felt.

“You mustn’t be hard on yourself. You aren’t the first young woman to trust the wrong man, and you won’t be the last.”

And yet somehow, the woman always paid the price.

Emma hadn’t landed in Miss Palmer’s delicate situation, but she, too, had been punished for the simple crime of following her heart. The memories still pained her—and the thought of watching the same cruel fate befall another young woman? It made her quake with anger at the injustice of it all.

“Emma,” Madame Bissette chided from the other side of the curtain. “Lady Edwina’s hem won’t sew itself.”

“One moment, Madame,” she called back. To Miss Palmer, she whispered, “Return next week to retrieve your altered frock, and we’ll speak further. If there’s any way at all I can help you, I will.”

“I can’t ask that of you.”

“You don’t need to ask.” Emma was determined. Her conscience would allow no less. She took Miss Palmer’s hands and squeezed them. “Whatever may happen, you will not be alone. I swear it.”

That afternoon, Emma’s concentration was so splintered, nothing went right. Twice, she had to rip out uneven stitches in Lady Edwina’s hem and rework them.

At last, it was closing hour.

“Are you coming out tonight?” her fellow seamstress asked after Madame had withdrawn to her apartment upstairs. “There’s to be dancing at the assembly rooms.”

“Not tonight, Fanny. You go on ahead.”

Emma didn’t have to offer twice. Fanny was out the door as soon as she could blow a kiss.

Another time, she might have enjoyed a rare evening of dancing, but not tonight. Not only was she worried sick for Miss Palmer, she was still reeling from her own encounter at Ashbury House.

The duke was probably laughing at his own cleverness even now. Marry a seamstress? Ha-ha-ha. What a joke.

How dare the man? Really.

Emma shook off the memory, telling herself not spare the duke another thought. She had more important things to do.

She took a stub of a candle from Madame Bissette’s drawer, placed it on the counter, and struck the flint as quietly as possible. After rummaging for a discarded scrap of brown paper, she ironed it flat with her hands and chewed on a stub of pencil, thinking. Waistlines had started to drop this season, moving away from Empire silhouettes. Concealing an expanding belly would be more difficult, but Emma would do her best.

She placed pencil to paper and began to sketch. Miss Palmer would need a corset with extra give toward the bottom . . . perhaps a frock with small buttons inside the waistline, to gather or let out the skirts. A fetching pelisse was a must—the right embellishments would draw the eye upward.

The task absorbed her attention so fully, she didn’t notice how much time had passed until someone knocked at the door.

Thump-thump-thump.

Emma jumped in her skin and crumpled the sketches into her pocket. “We’re closed.”

The rapping only grew louder. More insistent.

Thump-thump-thump-thump.

With a sigh, Emma went to the front of the shop. She turned the key in the lock and opened the door just an inch.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid we’re shut for the eveni—”

“You’re not shut for me.”

She found herself pushed aside as a man bulled his way through the door. He wore a dark cape and a tall hat with its brim pulled low, concealing most of his face—but she knew him at once. Only one man would have behaved in such a presumptuous manner.

The Duke of Ashbury.

“Miss Gladstone.” He inclined his head in the slightest possible nod. “I told you we’d meet again.”

Oh, Lord.

Emma closed the door and turned the key. There was nothing else to do for the moment. She couldn’t leave it ajar and risk being seen alone with a gentleman.

“Your Grace, I can’t admit visitors after hours.”

“I’m not a visitor. I’m a customer.” He strolled around the darkened shop, prodding a headless dressmaking form with his walking stick. “I need a new waistcoat.”

“It’s a dressmaking shop. We don’t offer gentlemen’s attire.”

“Very well, I’m here to order a gown.”

“A gown for whom?”

“What does it matter?” He made an annoyed gesture. “For a particularly ugly woman, approximately my size.”

Good heavens, what could this man be after? Was his mockery yesterday not enough to satisfy him? He couldn’t actually want to retrieve Miss Worthing’s gown.

Whatever his aim, Emma meant to exact a price in return. Today, he was welcome to share in the humiliation.

She drew a box to the center of the floor—the one ladies stood upon to have their hems pinned—and waved him toward it. “Up you go, then.”

He stared at her.

“If you want a gown—”

“It’s not that I want a gown.”

“If your very ugly, duke-sized friend wants a gown, I will need measurements. Sleeve, torso, hem.” She arched an eyebrow. “Bosom.”

There. Surely he would retreat from that.

Instead, the unscarred corner of his mouth tipped with amusement. He set his walking stick aside. He removed his hat. Then his cloak. Next his gloves. And, finally, his topcoat. Without breaking her gaze, he stepped onto the box and lifted his arms to either side, palms up. Like an actor on a stage, expecting applause.

“Well?” he prompted. “I’m waiting.”

Emma retrieved her measuring tape. She’d begun this little farce, and she couldn’t back down from it.

“How did you know where to find this shop?” she asked, suspicious. “Did you follow me?”

“I am a duke. Of course I didn’t follow you. I had you followed. It’s an entirely different thing.”

She shook her head, unfurling the measuring tape. “And yet no less disturbing.”

“Disturbing? Yesterday you turned down a lifetime of wealth in favor of two pounds, three shillings in ready coin, and then fled from my house as though it were afire. Has it not occurred to you that I might have pursued you out of some genuine concern for your well-being?”

She gave him a doubtful look.

“I’m not saying I did. Only that it should have occurred to you.”

Emma moved behind him and stretched her measuring tape from his left shoulder to his wrist, ostensibly taking the length of his sleeve. In actuality, most of her concentration was consumed with ignoring his closeness. Only a single layer of fine, crisp linen separated her touch from his body, and she had no desire to relive that buzzing shock of connection they’d shared in his library.

You can’t leave now. We’re just starting to have fun.

She took the measurement from one shoulder to the other. When she inhaled, she drew in the masculine scents of shaving soap and rich cologne.

None of this was helping with her focus problem.

“You’re not writing these measurements down,” he said.

“I don’t need to. I’ll remember.”

Unfortunately. Whether she wished it or not, Emma knew this encounter would be burned into her memory forever. Or if not forever, at least until she was sufficiently old and feebleminded to hold conversations with a squash.

She turned the tape vertically and put one end to the nape of his neck. A mistake. Now, atop all these unwanted memories, she’d added the feel of his shorn hair. It had the texture of expensive velvet, with a dense, luxurious pile.

Velvet, Emma? Really?

“Almost finished. I’ll just measure your chest now.” She held the end of the tape on one side of his rib cage, and then turned to circle him in the opposite direction, drawing the tape across the satin backing of his waistcoat and all the way around, meeting both ends at his breastbone.

She cinched the tape. He winced.

Good.

There, now. She had the beast on a leash.

So why did she feel like his captive?

It wasn’t his scars that intimidated her. Quite the reverse. When she stood this close, her gaze couldn’t take in both halves of him at the same time. She had to choose a side.

Emma knew with a sinking heart which one would capture her. There were two approaches to successful dressmaking—to find flaws and conceal them, or to bring out the hidden beauty. She’d always believed in the latter method, and oh, it came back to bite her today.

Don’t do it, Emma. Don’t give your foolish heart an inch of rope, or it will have you tied in knots.

But it was too late. Now, as she looked up at him, all she could see was a man. One with searching blue eyes and a hidden heart beating in a strong, defiant rhythm.

A man with wants, needs. Desires.

A man who’d reached out for her yesterday, and now . . .

And now gave every indication of leaning in for a kiss.

Chapter Three

Ash had never wanted to kiss a woman more.

He wanted to kiss her so badly, he could taste it. He’d devour the pink sweetness in those lips, stroke all the tart words from the tip of her tongue. Teach her a lesson or two. Leave her breathless. Rattle her to her bones.

He wanted to do far more than kiss her, of course. As he leaned forward, he could peer through the gap of her fichu and catch a glimpse of the valley between her breasts—that dark, fragrant rift that held so many promises of pleasure.

By Venus’s hand.

A few years ago, he would have kissed her, and more. He would have seduced her with a campaign of little trinkets and witty teasing. She would have come willingly, even eagerly, to his bed, where they would have enjoyed one another. Thoroughly.

But that was in the past. His once-charming wit had been replaced by smoldering anger, and his once-attractive face had been rearranged. No woman would be wooed by the kisses of a bitter, disfigured wretch.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t need to woo a lover. He needed to secure a wife. Wed her, bed her, and, once she was swelling with his heir, tuck her away in the country. The end.

He straightened, arching a sardonic eyebrow. A fortunate thing, that he still had one eyebrow intact. What was being a duke, if not arching a sardonic eyebrow?

She released the tape. “Choose your fabric at the draper’s and have five yards sent over. With your coloring, I suggest a pink brocade.”

His tilted his head. “Really? I was thinking of peach.”

She gathered his hat, cloak, gloves, and walking stick and pushed them into his arms. “And now I must ask you to leave. I need to be getting home.”

“We can accomplish both those things at once. I’ll take you home. My carriage is just outside.”

“Thank you, I prefer to walk.”

“More convenient still. My feet are even closer than the carriage.”

She headed for the rear exit of the shop. Ash replaced his topcoat, cloak, gloves, and hat, then followed her out into a dank, reeking alleyway. With his long strides to her short ones, he quickly made up the ground.

Her shoes tapped over the cobblestones at an irritated clip. “I will not be your mistress. My body is not for let.”

“That can’t be entirely true. You’re a seamstress, aren’t you? Your fingers are for let.”

“If you don’t know the difference between a woman’s fingers and her womb, I would definitely not share a bed with you.”

After a moment’s stunned pause, he laughed. It was a rusty, unappealing sound. He supposed he was out of practice.

“I do know the difference.” He reached for her ungloved hand and brushed his thumb over each of her fingertips. “You can trust I won’t confuse the two.”

He stroked a callus on the tip of her second finger. It made him angry. A gentleman’s daughter should have soft hands, but life had hardened her in these small ways. He had disturbing fancies of lifting her hand to his lips and kissing all that hurt away.

She sucked in her breath, as if she could read his thoughts. Or maybe her own thoughts had startled her.

She withdrew her hand. “What is your aim? Simply to torment me further?”

“No, that is not my aim. Though I suspect, over time, it will be an unavoidable consequence.”

She gave a little growl.

Ash found it wickedly arousing. Not that he would tell her so. He was too distracted by the way she hugged herself and shivered. “Where is your cloak?”

“I left it at your house yesterday.”

“Well. I hope that teaches you a lesson about making dramatic exits.”

Ash removed his own cape and twirled it about her shoulders, tucking in the ends until she resembled a penguin. “Come along, then.” He swiveled her by the shoulders and nudged her into a waddle.

Offering her his cloak was not mere gallantry. It was self-protection. He had gloves, but the leather was too fine, too supple. Without the barrier of the cloak, he could still feel her. He didn’t wish to relive the visceral shock that had rocketed through him in his library.

“Now,” he said, “perhaps you’ll pay attention. I don’t recall saying anything about a mistress. I believe I used the word ‘duchess.’” He gestured at their bleak surroundings. “I would not trouble to come here for any other purpose.”

“You can’t be serious. Not really, truly, honestly, earnestly, properly.”

He allowed a few moments to pass. “Are you quite done listing adverbs? I should hate to interrupt.”

His little penguin bounced in agitation.

Ash was agitated, as well. Judging by her insistence that he couldn’t possibly want her, he suspected some other man had made her feel unwanted. That made him furious.

“Listen to me, Emma.”

Look, he was already thinking of her as Emma. A small, stubborn little name, Emma. It suited her.

“The answer is yes,” he said. “I am serious. Really, truly, honestly, earnestly, properly. And I mean to have you, completely.”

Emma lost her footing and nearly stumbled face-first into an apple seller’s cart.

She righted herself, but not before the duke’s hand shot out to steady her. He didn’t let go, either. Instead, he gripped tighter and guided her around the cart, maneuvering his body between her and a passing carriage.

He moved swiftly, and she struggled to keep pace with him. In truth, she’d been struggling to keep pace with him since the moment she’d entered his library. Wrestling to understand his intentions, sparring with his wit. Chasing after her own body’s responses. He was exhausting. Less of a man, more of a gymnasium.

“If it’s a wife you want,” she said, “surely you could find many women—many well-bred ladies—who would be willing to marry you.”

“Yes, but I’d have to find them. This saves me so much effort.”

She threw him a sidelong glance. “Can you not hear yourself? Do you truly not know how insulting that sounds?”

“I should think it sounds beneficent. I’m offering you a title and fortune. All you have to do is lie back in the dark, then spend nine months swelling up like a tick. What could possibly deter any woman from accepting?”

“What, indeed. Perhaps a disinclination to feeling like a broodmare.”

They stepped off the pavement and crossed the street.

“A broodmare. Hm. I’m not certain I mind that comparison. If you’re a broodmare, that would make me the stud.”

“And there,” she said, “is the injustice of the world in a nutshell.”

He ignored her statement. “On reflection, I prefer ‘stallion.’”

“Never mind the horses!” She made a strangled noise of frustration. “It’s absurd to even suggest we could marry. We scarcely know each other. And what little we do know of each other, we don’t like.”

“I’m not aware of the courtship customs back in your quaint little inbred village, but at my level of society, wedlock is a matter of two concerns: childbearing and finances. What I’m offering is a marriage of convenience. You’re living in poverty, and I”—he laid his hand to his chest—“have a great deal of money. I need an heir, and you”—he waved toward her with a flourish—“have the capacity to bear one. There’s no need to like each other. As soon as a child is conceived we’ll go separate ways.”

“Separate ways?”

“You’d have your own house in the country. I’ll have no further need of you then.”

When they turned onto a busier lane, he tugged down the brim of his hat and turned up the collar of his coat. Night was falling, but the moon was bright. He obviously didn’t want to draw attention. Sympathy breezed into Emma’s heart like an unwelcome visitor.

“You’re assuming,” she continued, “that your theoretical child would be male. What if you fathered a girl? Or five of them?”

He shrugged. “You’re the vicar’s daughter. Pray for a boy.”

“You are terrible.”

“Since we are on the subject of personal failings, you are irrational. You’re allowing pride to cloud your common sense. Spare yourself the effort of argument and skip to the inevitable conclusion.”

“I conclude that this conversation is madness. I don’t understand why you keep speaking as though you’d marry me.”

“I don’t understand why you keep speaking as though I won’t.”

“You are a duke. I am a seamstress. What else is there to be said?”

He held up one hand and counted off on his fingers. “You are a healthy woman of childbearing age. You are a gentleman’s daughter. You are educated. You’re passably pretty—not that it’s a concern for me, but a child should have at least one nonhideous parent.” He was down to his last finger. “And you’re here. All my requirements are met. You’ll do.”

Emma stared at him in disbelief. That was, perhaps, the most unfeeling proposal she could imagine. The man was cynical, insensitive, condescending, rude.

And she was definitely going to marry him.

Against all logic, and contrary to everything she knew of society, he appeared to be making her an earnest proposal of marriage. She would be the greatest ninny in England to refuse.

Seamstresses didn’t have many long-term prospects. The years of detailed needlework caused their eyes to fail and fingers to stiffen. Emma knew that her best chance—perhaps her only chance—at security was to marry. She would be a fool to refuse any duke, even if he were a bedridden septuagenarian with poor hygiene.

This particular duke was none of those things. Despite his many, many faults, Ashbury was strong, in the prime of life, and he smelled divine. He offered her security, at least one child to dote upon . . .

And a house.

A quiet house of her own in the country. Precisely the thing that would allow her to help Miss Palmer, at a time when the poor girl had no one else.

The duke slowed to a halt. “By the Holy Rood. This isn’t right.”

Drat. That would teach her to dream, even for a second. He’d come to his senses after all. This was the moment where he sent her away, and she ended an old woman on the docks, darning sailors’ shirts for ha’pennies and muttering about how she might have been a duchess.

“We’re in the middle of St. James Park,” he said.

“Are we?” She took in their surroundings. Autumn-browned grass. The half-bare branches of trees. “I suppose we are. What’s a Holy Rood?”

“The cross of Christ. And you call yourself a vicar’s daughter? You father would be appalled.”

“Believe me, that wouldn’t be a new development.”

“Just where is it you live, anyway?”

“In an attic garret, two doors down from the shop.”

“So we’re here because . . .”

She bit her lip. “I was hoping to lose you. But I’ve since changed my mind.”

“Damned right you have.” With gruff impatience, he drew her to his side, steering her with a hand to the small of her back. “Do you know what kind of scum lurks in St. James Park by night?”

“Not really.”

“Pray you do not have occasion find out.”

“It’s barely nightfall yet. I’m certain we’ll be—”

She didn’t have a chance to complete the thought. A pair of men emerged from the shadows, almost as though the duke had hired them precisely to prove his point.

And from the looks on their faces, the men were expecting to be paid.

Chapter Four

Ash hated always being right.

He positioned himself between the men and Emma, keeping one hand on her back and clutching his walking stick with the other. “Well?” he goaded. “Get to it, already. Tell me what it is you want, so that I can tell you to get stuffed, and we can all carry on with our lives. I’ve a full schedule this evening.”

“Toss over the purse, guv. Watches and rings, too.”

“Get stuffed. There, now. See how easy that was?” He slid his arm around Emma’s shoulders. “We’ll be going.”

The second man held up a knife. “Hold there. I wouldn’t try anything clever.”

“I should hope you wouldn’t,” Ash replied dryly. “You’d no doubt injure yourself in the attempt.”

The man with the knife feinted, jabbing it in the direction of Ash’s ribs. “Shut it. And give up your coins and baubles, unless you fancy bleedin’ to death in front o’ your bit of skirt.”

His bit of skirt?

“Not to worry, miss.” The first man chuckled, winding a length of rope around one of his hands and pulling it tight with the other. “We’ll be glad to take you off the gentleman’s ’ands.”

A savage growl rose in Ash’s throat. “Like the devil you will.” Brandishing his walking stick like a sword, he sliced the air in a wide arc, forcing the footpads back. “Touch her and you will pay with your lives, you diseased, maggoty curs.”

He’d gone beyond anger, sailed straight past rage, and crashed into a place of primal fury, where blood ran in colors he hadn’t known to exist.

The blade glinted in the gathering dark. Its owner lunged, but Ash stepped to the side, pushing Emma back with his free arm. With a vicious strike, he sent the blackguard to his knees. The knife tumbled into the grass.

Whirling around, he raised his walking stick again, preparing to deal the other cutpurse a backhand blow, hard enough to crush bone.

Before he could swing, a gust of wind dislodged his hat.

In unison, the thieves recoiled.

“Sweet Jesus,” one of them whispered.

“Christ ’ave mercy,” the other said, scrambling backward on his hands and feet. “’Tis the Devil, to be sure.”

Ash stilled, fuming with a wrath that burned his lungs and holding his stick poised for violence. However, violence no longer appeared necessary. After a tense silence, he lowered the stick. “Begone.”

Neither of them dared to move.

“Begone!” he roared. “Slink home like the craven whoresons you are, or I swear to you, you will beg for the Devil to take your souls.”

They scrambled and fled. No victory had ever been so hollow.

On returning to London, Ash had harbored a small hope that he might not look quite so monstrous as his few interactions had led him to believe. Maybe Annabelle was just Annabelle—shallow and prizing appearances above all else. Perhaps his former friends truly had been too busy to visit more than once, and the majority of his servants really had needed to visit far-flung relations who’d suddenly taken ill.

Maybe—just maybe—the scars weren’t that bad.

He’d been deluding himself. That much was now clear. His appearance was every bit as repulsive as he’d feared, if not worse. Those were hardened criminals he’d sent scurrying like rats into the gutter. And he expected a quick-witted, lovely young woman to rejoice at his offer of marriage?

Everyone would revile him. No woman with any sense would have him. When he turned, Emma would be gone. He was certain of it.

He knew nothing.

She was still there, wielding a tree branch in both hands as she stared after the retreating brigands. His cloak had slipped from her shoulders. Her breaths made angry clouds of vapor in the cold air.

At length, she dropped the branch, then moved to retrieve his hat from where it had landed a few feet distant. “Are you unharmed?”

Ash stared at her in bewilderment. Her question didn’t make sense. None of this made any sense.

She’d not only not run, she’d prepared to defend him—absurd as that was. He didn’t know what to do with her, and he didn’t have the faintest notion what to do with himself. He couldn’t help but feel . . .

He couldn’t help but feel. All manner of emotions, and all of them at once.

To begin, he was vaguely insulted by the suggestion that he might need help from a wisp of a girl. That led to a growing desire to possess her, to show her just who protected whom in this exchange. And then, beneath everything, there was some quiet, unnameable emotion that made him want to lay down his pride, rest his head in her lap, and weep.

That third was, of course, unthinkable. Never going to happen. Nevertheless, the decision was made. She’d sealed her own fate.

If she meant to escape him, she’d missed her chance.

He’d be damned if he’d let her get away now.

Emma sensed the change in him. The stony set of his jaw. The furious rise and fall of his breath. No blue remained in his eyes—only a cold, glittering black.

He’d been intense from the first, but now he was . . . so intensely intense, she couldn’t find a word to properly describe it. But she felt it. Oh, she felt it to her toes. Each hair on her body lifted at the root; her every nerve jumped to attention.

Her body knew something would happen.

Her mind had no idea what it would be—except that it would involve the unleashing of formidable power.

“Your hat,” she said. As if it might need explaining that the hat-shaped object in her hand was indeed a hat and not, say, a joint of mutton.

He took the hat.

He took his cloak from where it had fallen to the spongy turf.

And then he took her.

He didn’t offer his arm, as gentlemanly custom would dictate. He gripped her by the elbow instead, herding her toward the street. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I’m not,” she muttered.

Not that Emma was happy they’d been set upon by thieves. That had been terrifying, and she had no desire to ever experience it again. However, now, with the benefit of knowing they’d escaped unscathed, she could revisit the memory and feel a thrill at his instinctive move to guard her and the outraged precision with which he’d dispatched the two men.

No one had ever protected her that way.

Whatever attraction she’d felt toward him beforehand—and she had felt an attraction, no matter how unwillingly—was increased a hundredfold.

“I’m the one who should apologize,” she said. “It was all my fault. We would not have ended here in the park if—”

“If I’d paid the slightest attention. The fault was mine.” He led her out of the park without further conversation. At the nearest crossing, he hailed a hackney cab. “You’re going home. My carriage will come for you tomorrow. Have your things ready.”

The air vacated her lungs. “Wait. What are you saying?”

“From there, you’ll go to a hotel. Mivart’s, I think.”

Mivart’s. The finest, most luxurious hotel in Mayfair. Emma had visited it once, to hem a gown for a visiting Austrian baroness. She had never imagined she would stay in such a place.

“I’ll send for you once the solicitors have finished the contracts.” The duke opened the hackney’s door and stuffed Emma into it. “We’ll be married at Ashbury House.”

“But . . . but . . .”

He gave directions to the hackney driver, then moved to close the door and shut her inside. “On second thought, don’t pack your belongings. I’ll buy you new. I’ve no use for moldy potatoes.”

She thrust her boot into the door opening before he could close it. “Wait.”

He stared at her. “What?”

Excellent question. Emma didn’t have the faintest idea what. Only that this was all happening so fast. Too fast. Her life had been set spinning, and she didn’t want to make it stop—but she needed some sort of handle to grasp.

“I . . . I insist on bringing a cat.”

He made a noise of unmitigated disgust. “A cat.”

“Yes, a cat. My cat.”

Emma, you idiot. You don’t even have a cat.

She would find one, she decided. If she meant to enter a marriage with no promise of affection and inhabit that vast, elegant house, she needed at least one ally. What better than a fuzzy, wide-eyed kitten?

“For a bride of convenience, you are proving to be a great deal of trouble.” He tucked her foot into the hackney, then leveled a finger at her before closing the door. “This cat of yours had better be well-behaved.”

Chapter Five

The cat was the most foul, filthy, repulsive creature Ashbury had seen in his life, outside of the rare occasions when he regarded himself in a mirror. It was no more than a collection of bones encased in smudge-colored fur, and doubtless crawling with fleas.

His bride clutched the beast with both hands, holding it in front her like some sort of spinster bouquet.

Excellent. What was it they said? Something old, something new, something borrowed, something yowling.

Ash scowled at the thing.

The creature hissed in reply.

The dislike would seem to be mutual.

“Does it have a name?” he asked.

She looked up, as if startled by the question. “What?”

“A name. Does the cat have one?”

“Oh. Yes. Breeches. His name is Breeches.”

“Breeches?”

“Isn’t that what I said?” She showed no signs of releasing the thing. Instead, she looked about the hall. “Where are we reciting our vows? The library?”

“You can’t mean to hold that thing throughout the ceremony.”

“But if I put him down, I fear he’ll run off. Besides, he wants to be a witness. Don’t you, Breeches?” She turned the cat to face her and made a kissy face. “This is the Duke of Ashbury. Aren’t you pleased to meet him?” She took the creature’s paw and mimicked a wave of greeting in Ash’s direction. “He’s quite friendly.”

The cat’s claws made a vicious swipe through the air.

Right. That was it.

Ash reached out, wrested the animal from her grasp, and set it on the floor. The gray beast darted off at once.

“This house is enormous,” she objected. “He might be lost for days.”

“We can only hope.”

He tugged at the front of his waistcoat and turned to have a proper look at his bride. Of all that cat’s many offenses, its worst by far was obscuring his view of her. Thus far, he had seen her only two ways: first, wearing a gown made of leprous icicles, and second, wearing a modest shopgirl frock.

The morning dress she wore today was simple, but a welcome respite for his beauty-starved eyes. It was fashioned from wool in a rich, flattering shade of blue. The fit was perfect. He supposed that shouldn’t have been a surprise—she’d likely sewn it herself—but the frock embraced her in all the best places. The sleeves were long, and she’d added an edge of slender lace at the wrists. The merest hint of sweetness, like a dusting of confectioner’s sugar.

It was charming.

No, no. Charming? Had he just thought that word? He wasn’t charmed. He was never charmed. Bah.

He was ruttish, that was all. Eager to break an interminable stretch of celibacy. He admired her frock for one reason: because it would make such a satisfying heap on the floor.

What a shame he wouldn’t have the opportunity to see it that way. It would be dark when he visited her bed tonight.

Her rose-petal lips moved. Damn it, that meant he’d been staring at them. And now he hadn’t heard whatever it was she’d said.

“The curate is in the drawing room,” he said.

She hesitated.

He braced himself to hear, I can’t possibly do this, or What was I thinking? or I’d rather be hungry and homeless, thank you.

“Which way is the drawing room?”

With a relieved sigh, he turned and offered her his arm. “This way.”

Her steps were not precisely light, and he couldn’t fault her for it. She no doubt would have wished to marry for love, and he was about to steal that dream from her tiny, work-reddened fingers—replacing the charming, handsome groom of her dreams with an ill-tempered monster.

Guilt jabbed him in the ribs.

He had to ignore it. War had taught him two things. First, life was fleeting. Second, duty wasn’t. If he died without an heir, his toad of a cousin would carve up the lands, making every decision for his own expedience and enrichment. Ash would have failed the thousands who depended on him.

And if he failed them, he would not be the man his father raised. No prospect could be more gutting.

The irony of it hit him as they entered the drawing room.

He was the one marrying for love.

Just not hers.

It wasn’t precisely the wedding of Emma’s youthful imaginings. She’d seen herself having a church wedding, naturally, packed with friends, neighbors, relations. She’d dreamed of wearing pink ribbons and a crown of flowers in her hair. But then, she’d abandoned those girlish fancies years ago.

In the drawing room, there were no guests or flowers—only the curate, the butler, the housekeeper, and a frightful number of papers awaiting her signature. Emma riffled through the pile, intimidated. She supposed there was no better place to begin than the beginning.

She was only halfway through the second page before the duke’s patience expired.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Reading them?”

“Of course I’m reading them. I don’t sign anything I don’t read first. Do you?”

“That’s different. I might have something to lose.”

And Emma didn’t. That was the duke’s clear implication. In truth, it would be hard to argue the point. She’d already left the dressmaking shop, her garret, and most of her belongings behind.

He left her to her reading, retreating to pace in circles at the other end of the drawing room. Emma was visited by the strange suspicion he might be as nervous as she was.

No, that couldn’t be. More likely, he was eager to have it done.

“May I assist you, Miss Gladstone?” The murmured question came from nearby. “I know how weighty those stacks of paper can be.”

She looked up to find the butler standing near. She’d met him the other day. What was his name? Mr. Khan, she thought she recalled.

What she remembered with certainty was that she’d liked him at once. He had bronze skin, an Indian cadence to his speech, and silver hair with a part as arrow-straight as his posture. He’d treated her with kindness, even when she’d appeared on the doorstep with no card and no invitation. In fact, he’d seemed strangely delighted to see her.

“The duke isn’t always like this,” Khan confided, handing her the next set of papers.

“No?” Emma pounced on the kernel of hope.

“Usually, he’s a great deal worse.” With a glance over his shoulder, the butler exchanged one set of papers for another. “He’s been alone and is determined to remain that way. He doesn’t trust anyone, but he respects those who challenge him. I suspect that’s why you are here. He’s angry, resentful, bored, in more pain than he lets on—and you’ll either be the making of him, or he’ll be the ruin of you.”

She swallowed hard.

“If it helps,” he said, “the entire staff is pulling for the former.”

“It does help. I think.”

Whatever was required to “be the making” of a wounded duke, Emma was positive she lacked it. However, if Khan wanted to be in her corner, she wouldn’t complain. She needed to have one friend in the house, and it clearly wasn’t going to be her husband.

Nor that cat, wherever it was.

“What’s going on over there?” the man in question demanded.

“Nothing,” she called. “That is, I’m nearly finished.” To the butler, she whispered, “Do you have advice?”

“I suppose it’s too late to run.”

“Other than that.”

“Drink heavily? Someone in the house ought to, and I cannot.”

“Khan, stop standing about and make yourself useful. Fetch the family Bible.”

The butler straightened. “Yes, Your Grace.”

The subtle wink he gave her in parting was one of beleaguered sympathy. We’re in this together now, it seemed to say.

She reached for the pen.

Once she’d finished signing all the contracts, the curate cleared his throat. “Are we ready to begin, Your Grace?”

“God, yes. Let’s get on with it.”

As she and the duke took their places side by side, Emma couldn’t help but steal a glance at him. His uninjured profile was to her. Decisive and compelling, with no trace of doubt on his features.

Then he suddenly turned his head, displaying his scars. Embarrassed at having been caught staring, she looked away—and instantly knew in her stomach that looking away was the wrong thing to do.

Well done, Emma. Just capital. That won’t offend him at all.

As they recited their vows, the duke clasped her hand to slide a plain gold band on her finger. His grip was firm and unsentimental, as if he were asserting a claim. The two servants signed as witnesses, and then they and the curate departed.

They found themselves alone, the three of them. Emma, the duke, and a thick, uncomfortable silence.

He clapped his hands. “Well, that’s done.”

“I suppose it is.”

“I’ll have the maid bring some refreshment to your suite. You’ll want to rest.”

As he turned to leave, Emma put a hand on his arm, stopping him.

He turned back. “What.”

The word wasn’t a question, but a scolding.

She steadied her nerves. “I want to have dinner.”

“Of course you will have dinner. Do you think I mean to starve you? That would hardly suit my purposes of siring a healthy child.”

“I didn’t mean that I merely wish to be fed. I’d like the two of us to dine together. Not only tonight, but every evening. Proper dinners, with multiple courses. And conversation.”

From his expression, one would think she’d suggested nightly abdominal surgery. Performed with a knitting needle and a spoon.

“Why would you want that?”

“There must be something more than bedding between us. We must come to know one another, at least a little bit. Otherwise, I’ll feel too much like a . . .”

“A broodmare. Yes, I recall.” He looked to the side, sighed, and then looked back at her. “Very well, we will dine together. However, let’s have a few matters settled right now. This is a marriage of convenience.”

“That’s what we agreed.”

“There will be no affection involved. In fact, every precaution will be taken against it.”

“I’m surprised you believe we’ll need any precautions.”

“Only one act is required on your part. You must permit me to visit your bed. I’m well aware of my distasteful appearance. You need not fear any crude or lascivious attentions from my quarter. All encounters will be as dignified as possible. No lights, no kissing. And of course, once you are pregnant with my heir, we will be done.”

At this, Emma was stunned. No kissing? No lights? On account of his “distasteful appearance”?

The pain implied in that litany tugged at her emotions. Annabelle Worthing’s rejection must have been a cruel blow. Even if he’d formed the idea that his scars were intolerably repulsive . . . Emma was his wife now. She refused to underscore it. She knew how it felt to be an outcast.

He turned to walk away. Once again, she stopped him.

“One more thing. I want you to kiss me.”

She was mortified by the way she’d blurted it out, but it was done—and now she must not back down. If she ceded to him on this, she would never regain what little ground she held.

“Have you been paying attention? I only just now stipulated there would be no kissing.”

“You said kissing in bed,” she pointed out. “This isn’t bed. I promise, I’ll only ask the once.”

He passed a hand over his face. “Dinner. Kisses. This is what I get for wedding a vicar’s daughter from the country. Girlish notions about romance.”

“Believe me, being a vicar’s daughter from the country did nothing to fill me with notions of romance.”

Strumpet. Harlot. Jezebel.

The cruel words whispered from the shadowy corners of her memory. She tamped them down, as she’d learned to do over the years. Perhaps someday she would learn how to banish them.

“I can do without a jeweled ring, or guests, or a fine gown,” she said. “I’m only asking for this one tiny gesture, to make it all feel a bit less . . . cold. More like an actual wedding.”

“It was an actual wedding. The vows are perfectly legal and binding. A wedding does not require a kiss.”

“I think my wedding requires one.” Her voice gathered strength. “A woman only gets one of these ceremonies, and as hasty and contractual as it’s all been thus far, I’d appreciate one small gesture that makes me feel like something other than chattel.”

She watched closely for his reaction. His reaction was to refuse to react at all. He was expressionless—both sides of him. The whole, and the scarred. Perhaps he was uncertain of himself. Then again, perhaps he was uninterested in her. Either thought made her throat tighten.

“I could do the kissing, if you prefer,” she offered. “It needn’t be a long kiss. You only have to stand there.”

She stretched up on her toes.

He put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back down. “The bride does not kiss the duke.”

Oh, Lord. This could not possibly be any more humiliating.

“The duke,” he continued, “kisses the bride. It’s an entirely different thing.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Close your eyes.”

Emma closed her eyes. Her heart drummed in her chest as the waiting stretched longer . . .

And longer still.

She was a fool. He was laughing at her. He’d changed his mind. About the kiss. About her. About everything.

She was on the verge of opening her eyes, slinking from the room, and constructing a fortification of pillows, novels, and kittens in which to hide for the remainder of her life, when—

His hands cupped her face. Rough, possessive. And just when she was certain she’d combust from the cruel suspense of it all, his lips touched hers.

Something inside her came apart.

That hidden pocket of yearning that she’d sewn up tight years ago—his kiss ripped it open at the seams. A flood of emotion poured forth, overwhelming her. A surge of passion and desire and . . .

And something else. Something she didn’t want to acknowledge, much less name. She’d pore over it later, no doubt. Her mind wouldn’t allow her to let it alone. But as long as his lips touched hers, she could delay that dreaded reckoning.

If only this kiss could last forever.

Chapter Six

Get it over with, Ash told himself. Touch lips, hold for a count of three—no, two—and be done with the business altogether. Foolish to humor her, perhaps, but a perfunctory kiss seemed the fastest way to end the conversation.

What the kiss ended up being, however, was the fastest way to unravel him completely.

Softness. Warmth. The tastes of sweet and tart and cool. Parts of him went weak, and others were well on the way to rock-hard. She played on so many of his senses, he couldn’t sort them out. The kiss unfurled tendrils of madness in his brain, strangling his ability to think, to regain control . . .

To count.

How long had his lips been on hers? It might have been two beats, or three, or a thousand. He didn’t care anymore.

Her cheeks flushed beneath his palms, and he thought surely that heat must signal distress or embarrassment. But she didn’t pull away. She leaned closer, pressing her hand against his coat. Not only against his coat, but against the scars beneath it, and straight through to all the pain and bitterness beneath that. The sensation spiraled through him like a whirlwind in a desert, catching bone-dry dust and tossing it up to the sky.

Everything was wrong. Everything was right. Everything was possible.

He lifted his mouth from hers, but he couldn’t wrench his gaze from her face. Long seconds passed before she opened her eyes, as though she were savoring the sensations. Stamping a memory. As though she’d enjoyed it.

He was a wretched fool for ever indulging her with this kiss. He’d neglected to consider that one kiss made a man want another.

And another.

And yet another still, each more passionate than the last.

He would have her later, in bed and often. But he wouldn’t have her like that again. He wouldn’t taste the fresh sweetness lingering where her lips had met his. The taste of beginnings, anticipation, and the hope of more.

He released her and stepped back.

She swayed on her feet, finding her balance. “Thank you.”

It was entirely my pleasure, he thought. And I shall never forgive you for it.

He said, “Dinner’s at eight.”

When Emma left the drawing room, she found the assembled servants of Ashbury House waiting in the entrance hall. Khan introduced each servant by position and name. Emma felt certain she would recall none of them. There were simply too many. Housekeeper, cook, upstairs maids, downstairs maids, scullery maids, footmen, coachman, grooms.

“Mary will serve as your lady’s maid.” He indicated an eager, smiling young woman in a crisp black uniform. “Mary, show the duchess to her suite.”

“Yes, Mr. Khan.” Mary bounced with enthusiasm. “Please do come this way, Your Grace.” Once they were out of others’ hearing, she chattered all the way up the stairs. “I’m so glad you’ve come. We all are.”

“Thank you,” Emma said, bewildered.

Surely an experienced lady’s maid would be insulted to find herself in service to a duchess who had been, until a quarter hour ago, a seamstress. Wouldn’t she?

Apparently not.

“Never hesitate to call upon us. We are here to serve you in any way.”

“You’re very kind.”

“Kind?” Mary asked. “Not at all, Your Grace. It’s clear at a glance that you’re a vast improvement over that horrid Miss Worthing. Once the duke falls in love with you, everything’s going to be so much better.”

“Wait.” Emma halted in the corridor. “Once the duke falls in love with me?”

“Yes, of course.” Mary clasped her hands at her breast. “What a thrill it would be if it took only a few days. Perhaps it will only take the one night! Though I suppose a few months is the more likely course. We mustn’t get too ahead of ourselves.”

“I’m afraid you have the wrong idea,” Emma said. “This isn’t a love match, and I can assure you, it’s not going to become one. Not in a few days, nor a few months. Not ever.”

“Your Grace, never say it. It must happen.” Mary looked over both shoulders before continuing. “You don’t understand how we suffer here. Ever since his injury, the duke has been miserable—and he’s made our lives unbearable as well. He never leaves the house, never has visitors. Never asks Cook for anything but the simplest of dishes. The staff is as lonely and bored as the duke is, and atop it we’re in the service of a master whose moods run from black to the darkest gray. We are—all of us—counting on you.” She took Emma’s hands and squeezed them. “You’re our only hope. The duke’s only hope, too, I daresay.”

Oh, heavens. That was . . . intimidating. Emma had no idea how to reply. She was struggling to retain a few scraps of optimism for her own future, plus a thread of hope for Miss Palmer’s. Now she had a score of servants depending on her to rescue them, too?

“I have every faith in you, Your Grace.” Mary beamed again and opened the door to a lavish suite. “Now this is your private sitting room. The bath is just through that door. To the other side you’ll find your bedchamber, and beyond that, the dressing room. Shall I leave you for a bit to settle in? You’ve only to ring for me when you’re ready to dress for dinner. I have so many ideas for your hair.” With a little wave and a hop, she disappeared.

Emma wasn’t eager to be left alone. This sitting room alone was larger than the garret she’d lived in for the past three years. It must take bushels of coal to heat. If she wouldn’t have felt so foolish, she would have cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted her name—just to see if it echoed back.

As she wandered through the other rooms, her gaze skipped from one luxurious furnishing to the next. She didn’t know how she’d ever dare to use them.

In the bedchamber, everything was laid out and waiting. The small assortment of belongings she’d brought with her, and many luxuries she hadn’t. Fresh flowers, no doubt from a hothouse. On the dressing table, she found a silver hairbrush and hand mirror. The bed was covered with new linens, freshly pressed.

Oh, Lord. The bed.

She couldn’t think about that just now.

Her one and only frock remotely fit for a formal dinner had been pressed and hung in readiness. She hoped it wouldn’t be obvious that it was merely a years-old bit of rescued silk she’d used to practice new styles. The waistline had been lowered and lifted countless times. The hem had been flounced and unflounced again. Ribbon trim had been exchanged for lace, then beading. It was hardly a proper gown, but it was what she had.

She took a folded quilt from the edge of the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders before sitting on the hearthrug, drawing her knees to her chest, and curling into herself like a bug.

She wasn’t a seamstress any longer. She was a wife, a duchess.

And she was terrified.

At eight o’clock, Emma found herself seated at one end of a mile-long table. She could scarcely make out the opposite end of it. The white linen surface seemed to disappear into the horizon. A few bits of crystal and silver twinkled like far-off stars.

The duke entered, nodded in her direction, and then began a prolonged, unhurried stroll to the far end of the dining room. It took him a full minute. There, he waited for a footman to draw out his chair, and then he sat.

Emma blinked at the manly dot in the distance. She needed a spyglass. Or a speaking trumpet. Both, preferably. Conversation would be impossible without them.

A servant snapped open a linen napkin with a flourish, laying it across her lap. Wine was poured into her glass. Another footman appeared with a tureen of soup, which he ladled into a shallow bowl before her. Asparagus, she thought.

“The soup smells divine,” she said.

In the distance, she saw the duke motion to a footman. “You heard her. Pour Her Grace some more wine.”

Emma let her spoon fall into her bowl. This was ridiculous.

She pushed back her chair and rose to her feet, gathering the bowl in one hand and her wineglass in the other. The servants looked to one another, panicked, as she walked the full length of the dining table and set her food at his end. She chose the corner facing his unscarred side, to lessen the awkwardness.

He looked annoyed.

She didn’t care.

He broke the silence. “Really?”

“Yes, really. We had a bargain. I admit you to my bed; you appear at the dinner table. And we engage in conversation.”

He took a draught of wine. “If you insist. I suppose we can converse as normal English people do. We’ll talk about the weather, or the latest horse race, or the weather, or the price of tea, and oh, did we happen to discuss the weather?”

“Shall we talk about life in the country?”

“That will serve. The upper classes always talk about the country when in Town, and the Town when in the country.”

“You mentioned that I would have my own house.”

“Yes, it’s called Swanlea. Situated in Oxfordshire. Not a grand house, but comfortable enough. The village is a few miles distant. No one’s been in residence for years, but I’ll have it opened for you.”

“It sounds enchanting. I’d love to go for a visit. Would it be ready by Christmas?”

Christmas seemed her best chance. It was only some nine weeks away. That would put Miss Palmer at nearly six months pregnant—but with luck and clever dressmaking, she might be able to conceal her condition that long. If Emma could have her settled in Oxfordshire by the new year, this just might work.

“The house will be ready by Christmas,” he said. “However, I doubt you’ll be ready by Christmas.”

“What do you mean?”

He waved for the servants to remove the soup. “You won’t be going anywhere until you are confirmed to be with child.”

What?

Emma choked on her wine.

The servants brought in the fish course, forcing her to hold her tongue.

The moment they had some measure of privacy, she leaned forward. “Do you mean to hold me captive in this house?”

“No. I mean to hold you to our bargain. Considering that the purpose of this marriage is procreation, I cannot allow you to reside elsewhere until that goal is achieved. Or at least well under way.”

She searched her brain for a reasonable excuse. “But I’ve been yearning for Christmases in the country. Roasted chestnuts and sleigh rides and caroling.” That much was no falsehood. Passing the holiday alone in a drafty garret had been lowering indeed. “I don’t see why I couldn’t visit for a week.”

He speared a bite of fish. “I know how these things go. A week becomes a fortnight, and then a fortnight becomes a month. Before I know it, you’ve run off to some seaside hamlet to hide for a year or two.”

“If you believe I’d do that, you don’t know me very well.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. “If you believe you won’t be tempted, you don’t know me at all.”

Emma stared at her plate. This was an unforeseen complication. Helping Miss Palmer was one of the reasons she’d agreed to this marriage. Not the only reason, of course—but an important one. At the least, Emma needed to take the young woman to the country and see her settled, even if the duke insisted she return to London afterward. Now she learned he wouldn’t permit any travel whatsoever. Not unless she was pregnant first.

She supposed it was possible she could be with child by Christmas, if she conceived soon. Very, very soon. And if she didn’t . . . Well, she would just have to change his mind, she decided. He couldn’t deny her a brief holiday once she gained his trust.

He doesn’t trust anyone, Khan had said.

Wonderful.

“Your Gra—” She broke off mid-syllable, frowning. “What do I call you now? Not Your Grace, surely.”

“Ashbury. Or Duke, if you must be more familiar.”

Heavens. Being addressed as Duke counted as familiar?

“I’m your wife. Surely that means I’ve earned the privilege of calling you something more friendly. What did they call you when you were younger, before you inherited? You weren’t Ashbury then.”

“I was addressed by my courtesy title.”

“Which was . . . ?”

“The Marquess of Richmond. A title which will become my heir’s. Soon, with any luck. You may as well save it for him.”

She supposed he was right. “What about your family name?”

“Pembrooke? Never used it.”

Emma wasn’t inclined to use it, either. Too stuffy, and it didn’t precisely trip off the tongue. “Your Christian name, then.”

“George. It was my father’s name, and his father’s name before that, and the name of every third gentleman in England, it would seem.”

“It’s my father’s name, too.” She shuddered. “So that’s out. We’ll have to find something else.”

“There is nothing else. There’s Ashbury, or Duke. Choose one.”

Emma thought on it for a moment. “No, dear husband, I don’t believe I shall.”

He dropped his fork and glowered at her.

She smiled.

He doesn’t trust anyone, Khan had said. But he respects those who challenge him.

If respect was what the duke had to offer, respect was what she must earn. Emma could put up a challenge. She hoped her husband was up to the task of meeting it.

She reached for a nearby bowl. “Would you like more sauce, sweeting?”

His fingers strangled the stem of his wineglass. She could practically hear the grapes calling for help. She hoped that was a good sign.

“If you don’t cease that nonsense,” he said, “you will regret it.”

“Is that so, my heart?”

He plunked one forearm on the table and turned to face her. Piercing blue eyes, striking scars, and all. “Yes.”

Despite all her intentions to challenge him unabashed, Emma found herself, inconveniently, just a little bit abashed. Perhaps she should talk of the weather.

She was saved, however, from starting a discussion about the autumn chill.

A flash of silver fur darted from the side of the room. Breeches leapt onto the table, sank his teeth into the steamed trout, and absconded with it before either of them could say a word.

“That’s it.” The duke threw his linen napkin on his plate. “Dinner is over.”

Chapter Seven

Ash cinched his dressing gown and tied the sash. Then he undid it and tried again. He’d made such a tight knot on his first attempt, he’d impeded his ability to breathe.

He was damnably anxious. Emma wouldn’t be the only inexperienced one tonight. He was hardly a virgin himself—but he’d never bedded a virgin before, and he wasn’t sure what to expect from her quarter. Would she be merely timid, or outright terrified? How much pain was he likely to cause?

He supposed there was one comfort he could offer her. Considering how long it had been for him, the whole matter ought to be over within minutes. If not seconds.

He padded down the corridor on bare feet. When he arrived at her bedchamber, he gave a knock of warning before opening the door a few inches.

“I assume you’re ready,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

He entered, extinguishing his candle soon after. She had a few tapers of her own burning, and he went about the room snuffing them in turn. When he’d banked the fire to a dim red glow, he turned to join her on the bed.

On his first step forward, he bashed his knee on the edge of . . . something. A table? The leg of a chair?

The bedclothes rustled. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he said tersely.

“You know, a bit of light might be a good idea.”

“No. It would not be a good idea.”

“I’ve seen your scars already.”

“Not like this.” And not all of them. The scars on his face were merely the prologue to an epic tale of deformity.

She might be able to stomach his appearance from across the room or in a darkened carriage, even at the dinner table. But within the intimacy of the marriage bed? Unclothed, in the light? Not a chance. The point been made painfully clear the first—and last—time he’d allowed a woman to view him that way.

The memory remained as sharp and painful as a poison-tipped arrow.

How could I bear to lie with . . . with that?

How, indeed.

Ash had no wish to relive that moment, and not merely to preserve his pride. This was a matter of saving his bloodline. He couldn’t afford to frighten Emma off. When it came to bedding, she was already timid about the enterprise. He couldn’t risk giving her any further reason to demur. A man was only allowed one wife. If she didn’t give him an heir, that would mean the end of his line. At least the end of the decent side of it—the one without irredeemable prats.

“I’m over here,” she said. “This way.”

He followed the sound of her voice, stumbling a bit over some carpet fringe, but otherwise arriving at the edge of the bed in one piece. After tugging at the sash of his dressing gown, he undid the knot and slipped free of the garment, setting it aside.

He settled his weight toward the foot of the mattress and reached out to grasp—well, whatever part of her he could grasp. This would be a tricky business, deflowering a virgin bride in near-total darkness. Perhaps he ought to have strategized more in advance.

It was too late now. Ash felt around the quilted coverlet until his hand landed on what seemed to be a foot. An encouraging sign. He followed upward, sketching the shape of a leg.

Hm. Her calf was a bit stouter than he’d been expecting. But then, perhaps she was one of those women formed more amply below the waist than above it. It made no difference to him. The female body came in all shapes and sizes, and he’d never seen any reason to complain about the variety.

His hand swept over the familiar knob of a knee, and then up the slope of what must be a thigh. Now he was getting somewhere. A tightness gathered in his loins.

Ash stretched out beside her on the bed, the better to aid his explorations. He tried to murmur something soothing as he skimmed over the prominence of her hip and further upward, until he located the edge of the coverlet. But truthfully, his voice didn’t lend itself to calm tones at the moment. Years’ worth of pent-up lust coursed through his body. His cock swelled and stiffened against the bedding. By the time he grasped the hem of the coverlet and began to draw it downward, his body was ready. Very, very ready.

He peeled the quilted satin downward and prepared to lay his palm on what he expected would be the linen of her night rail, and some part of her warm body beneath. It was like playing darts blindfolded. There was little way of knowing on which target his touch would land. He would have been satisfied with a shoulder or her belly, he supposed, but by God, he was hoping for a breast. Fate owed him a stroke of luck.

He braced himself for that pleasant jolt of first contact.

No jolt occurred. Instead of her shift and tempting body, his hand connected with . . . a wool blanket? Well, then. It would seem he had another layer to remove.

He drew the blanket downward and made another attempt. This time, his hand connected with a thickly padded quilt. Good God, she was layered like an onion. No wonder her leg had felt thick enough to support a small tree.

“How many of these are there?” he asked, trying to locate the edge of the quilt.

“Only five or so,” she answered.

“Five?” He flung back the quilt, not bothering with patience any longer. “Are you attempting to deter me? Exhaust me before I even get to the act?”

“I was cold. And then you banked the fire.”

“I think you’re playing me a trick. Perhaps I’ll keep peeling these away and find there’s nothing beneath them but a pair of pincushions and a broomstick.”

“You’re down to the last one, I swear it. Let me.”

Fabric shifted beside him, and beneath it, her body wiggled in a way that was pure torture. He was desperate to be between her legs, inside her. He had a vision of her beneath him, naked. Her legs locked around his waist, and her back arched in pleasure.

Abandon that fantasy, he told himself. It wasn’t going to be that way. Not tonight, not ever.

“I’m ready,” she whispered.

His cock throbbed at the husky sound of her voice.

Thank God.

When he reached for her this time, he found what he’d been seeking. Her. Emma. His bride. His hand did not land on a breast, he realized with some disappointment, but her waist instead.

That would do.

He made a fist in the fabric of her shift. As he hiked the linen—only daring to raise it as far as her waist—his breath was shaky.

He stroked his hand downward, over her bared hip. He gave a helpless groan. God. He wanted to touch every part of her. The tender skin at her wrist, her lips, her hair. Her hair. He wondered if her hair was undone, and whether he dared to reach for the dark, heavy silk of it, twining his fingers round and round.

An imprudent idea, he decided. The way this night was going, he would probably poke her in the eye instead.

He moved his hand in a lateral caress, aiming for the center of her. As his fingertips brushed the tantalizing curls covering her mound, he cursed himself. He’d meant to bring some oil to ease the way.

He couldn’t go back to retrieve it. If he stopped now, Lord only knew how many layers she’d be buried under when he returned. Instead, he raised two fingers to his lips and sucked them into his mouth, wetting them.

Then he reached between her thighs.

She gasped.

Clenching his jaw in an attempt at restraint, he focused on the task at hand. He slid his fingers up and down the seam of her cleft. Her breathing quickened—with apprehension, no doubt.

“You do understand what will happen?” he asked belatedly, his voice thick with lust. “What goes where, and all that?”

He felt her nod. “Yes.”

“I’ll try to be gentle with you. Failing that, I’ll be quick.”

He parted her folds, and then pressed his second finger inside her heat. Just a fingertip at first, and then a few inches more.

Goddamn. Bloody hell. Jesus Christ.

Fuck.

And every other bit of blasphemy he would have been thrashed as a youth for daring to say.

She was so hot, so tight, and made of the same flawless silk inside as her body was without.

Her breath came faster still, thin at the edges. Damn, he was a monster. She was anxious, even fearful. He was mindless with lust. Lost in the instinctive desire to lick and taste and suck, then take her hips in both hands and thrust deep.

If this didn’t happen soon, he was going to spill his seed on all five of her blankets, and the entire exercise would have been in vain.

He pushed another finger inside her, sliding in and out, stretching her body to prepare his way.

Was she ready?

He withdrew his fingers to the tips, then thrust them both inside to the hilt, driving deep.

She cried out in surprise, and her hips bucked. “Please.”

Her breaking voice pierced through his haze of lust.

Please.

Ash removed his hand at once. Struggling to catch his breath, he pushed himself up on one elbow, then rose to a sitting position. “Sorry.”

He fumbled for his dressing gown, and then thrust his arms through the sleeves. By the fact that the thing barely covered his arse when he stood, he deduced that he’d put it on upside-down.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Truly. We can continue.”

“No. I’ve pressed you too far, too quickly.” He thought about attempting to retrieve his candle, then abandoned the idea. His eyes had adjusted enough that he could find his way to the door.

“But—”

“It will wait for tomorrow.”

He opened the door, went through it, and closed it behind him. He paused, taking a few deep breaths to steady himself. But when he started to leave, he felt something tugging him back.

Damn it. He’d shut a fold of his dressing gown in the door.

He thunked his head against the doorjamb. Did marriage make utter fools of all men? Or was it just him?

He turned the doorknob again.

“Did you change your mind?” she asked.

“No,” he replied, defensive. “I came back to tell you that I hadn’t.”

“Oh.”

“So you needn’t worry I’ll be returning tonight. Aside from this time, of course.”

He shut the door on her reply, but it followed him into the corridor.

“If you say so.”

Ash took all his unsatisfied lust and carried it out-of-doors, into the night. He’d considered giving himself some manual relief. However, the idea of spending his wedding night with his own hand was too pathetic to contemplate.

Walking it off was the only respectable option.

He stuck to the narrower lanes and the alleyways behind the mews, keeping the collar of his cloak upturned and his hat pulled down over his brow.

Eventually, he out-walked the aching tension in his groin. Yet there was something else he couldn’t seem to shake.

Please, she’d whispered.

Please.

The word had shocked him. He’d pulled away at once, uncertain whether she’d uttered it in pleasure or pain. Her breathless voice almost suggested the former—but that was too absurd to contemplate.

First, she was a virgin. Second, she was a vicar’s daughter. Third, she was a virgin vicar’s daughter. And fourth, he was the scarred, ill-tempered—if fantastically wealthy—wretch who’d strong-armed her into in a marriage of convenience with no courtship whatsoever.

He must have hurt her, or scared her, or—most lowering to contemplate—repulsed her.

At best, he’d merely pressed her beyond her comfort for the first night.

Ash kicked at stones as he walked. Until he kicked something rotted and soft. Ugh. He didn’t know what it was, but he was not stopping to investigate. He switched to poking at obstacles with his walking stick.

He would have to revise his plan, he decided. Take the bedding slowly, even if the waiting was torture. If he pushed her too far, too fast, and she shied from him . . . It all would have been for nothing. He would have no legitimate heir, and his father’s legacy would die with him.

Unthinkable. He would not allow that to happen.

Please.

It echoed through his mind again. A fresh shiver of arousal traveled the length of his spine.

He gave himself a mental shake.

She was not sighing in ecstasy, you clotpole.

That was only his desperate, lonely, sex-starved imagination, grasping at any phantom resembling affection.

He walked through the shuttered stalls of Shepherd Market, using his walking stick to push refuse out of his way and into the middens.

He prodded at a heap of rags.

The heap of rags stirred.

It unfolded, transforming into the figure of a young girl. No doubt she’d been left there to keep watch on the family stall by night.

“Whassat?” She drew herself up to a sitting position, rubbed her eyes, and turned to blink up at his face.

She blinked again.

And then she shrieked, loud and long enough to wake the dead.

“It’s all right,” Ash muttered. “I don’t wish to—”

She paused for a breath, then unleashed another high-pitched scream. Dogs nearby began to snarl and bark.

“Be still, child. I’m not going to—”

“Get away!” She kicked at his shin, shouting. “Get away! Leave me be!”

“I’m going.” He fished for what coins he had in his pocket, placed them beside the boarded-up stall, and made a hasty retreat. His heart was pounding.

See? he chided himself, once he was some distance down the lane.

Children screamed at the sight of him. Dogs howled as they would at a fiend.

No woman would be begging for him now. Not in bed, in the dark.

For that matter, not by day in the park.

Not on land, not at sea. She does not want you, Ashbury.

God, he was a blithering idiot.

Somewhere in the distance, glass shattered. He halted in his paces, turning an ear toward the sound. From the same direction, he heard a wallop, followed by a coarse shout.

Ash frowned. Then he started into motion, following the sounds in brisk strides. Walking stick at the ready.

Whatever the trouble, it wasn’t his concern.

But it might prove a welcome distraction.

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