Praise for New York Times bestselling author

‘London’s writing bubbles with high emotion as she describes sexual enthusiasm, personal grief and familial warmth. Her blend of playful humour and sincerity imbues her heroines with incredible appeal, and readers will delight as their unconventional tactics create rambling paths to happiness.’

—Publishers Weekly on The Devil Takes a Bride

‘This tale of scandal and passion is perfect for readers who like to see bad girls win, but still love the feeling of a society romance, and London nicely sets up future books starring Honour’s sisters.’

—Publishers Weekly on The Trouble with Honour

‘A delectably sexy hero, an unconventionally savvy heroine and a completely improper business proposal add up to another winner for ever-versatile London.’

—Booklist on The Trouble with Honour

‘This series starter brims with delightful humour and charm.’

—RT Book Reviews on The Trouble with Honour

‘Julia London writes vibrant, emotional stories and sexy, richly drawn characters.’

—New York Times bestselling author Madeline Hunter

THE CABOT SISTERS

The Trouble With Honour

The Devil Takes a Bride

The Scoundrel and the Debutante

JULIA LONDON is the New York Times, USA TODAY, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of more than twenty romantic fiction novels. Her historical romance titles include the popular Desperate Debutantes series, the Scandalous series and the Secrets of Hadley Green series. She has also penned several contemporary women’s fiction novels with strong romantic elements, including the Pine River trilogy, Summer of Two Wishes, One Season of Sunshine and A Light at Winter’s End. She has won the RT Bookclub Award for Best Historical Romance and has been a four-time finalist for the prestigious RITA® Award for excellence in romantic fiction. She lives in Austin, Texas.

The Devil

Takes a Bride

Julia London

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To Nitty, who has made my life immeasurably easier

Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Endpage

Copyright

PROLOGUE

Autumn of 1810

AT THE END of the hunting season, before the winter set in, the Earl of Clarendon hosted a soiree at his London home for the families of Quality that had come to town. He included, in his coveted invitations, his closest friends, all of whom had august titles and impeccable social connections.

The Earl of Beckington and his wife; his son, Lord Sommerfield, Augustine Devereaux; and his two eldest stepdaughters—Miss Honor Cabot and Miss Grace Cabot—were invited to attend. That the two youngest Beckington stepdaughters, Miss Prudence Cabot and Miss Mercy Cabot, were not included in the invitation caused quite a ruckus at the Beckington London townhome, which resulted in many tears being shed. The youngest, Mercy Cabot, vowed that she would vacate that house while the others attended the soiree. She would steal aboard a merchant ship that would carry her as far from London as one might possibly sail.

Miss Prudence Cabot, who was three years older than Mercy and who had just passed her sixteenth birthday, said she would not steal aboard a merchant ship. But if she was so worthless as to not merit an invitation, she intended to walk about Covent Garden unattended and sell her body and soul to the first person who offered a guinea.

“What?” cried twenty-year-old Grace when Prudence cavalierly announced her intentions. “Prudence, darling, have you lost your mind? You would sell yourself for a guinea?”

“Yes,” said Prudence petulantly, and lifted her chin, her gaze daring anyone to challenge her.

“Should you not at least aspire to a crown, dearest? What will a guinea say of your family? You must agree that a guinea is insufficient for your body and your soul.”

“Mamma!” Prudence cried. “Why do you allow her to tease me?” And then, unsatisfied with Lady Beckington’s indifferent response, she’d flounced off, apparently encountering several doors in her haste to flee, judging by the number of them that were slammed.

The Cabot girls were as close as sisters could be, and even Prudence’s hurt feelings could not keep her from the excitement of watching her older sisters dress for the evening. Honor and Grace were highly regarded among the most fashionably dressed—that was because their stepfather was a generous man and indulged their tastes in fine fabrics and skilled modistes.

On the evening of the soiree, in preparation, gowns were donned and discarded as too plain, too old or too confining. In the end, Honor, the oldest at twenty-one, selected a pale blue gown that complemented her black hair and blue eyes. Grace chose dark gold with silver filigree that caught the light and seemed to sparkle when she moved. Honor said it was the perfect gown to set off Grace’s gold hair and her hazel eyes.

When they descended to the foyer, their stepbrother, Augustine, who was to accompany them as the earl and his wife had declined the invitation, given the earl’s battle with consumption, peered at them. Then he rose up on his toes and said dramatically, “You surely do not intend to go out like that?”

“Like what?” Honor asked.

Augustine puffed out his cheeks as he was wont to do when he was flustered. “Like that,” he said, studiously avoiding looking at their chests.

“Do you mean our hair?” Honor teased him.

“No.”

“Is it my rouge? Does it not appeal to you?”

“No, I do not mean your rouge.”

“It must be your pearls,” Grace said with a wink for her sister.

Augustine turned quite red. “You know very well what I mean! I think your gown is too revealing! There, I’ve said it.”

“It’s the fashion in Paris,” Grace explained as she accepted her cloak from the footman.

“One cannot help but wonder if there is any fashion left in Paris, as it all seems to be upstairs in this house. I wonder how you know the fashion of Paris seeing as how Britain is at war with France.”

“Men are at war, Augustine. Women are not,” Grace said, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Don’t you want us to be fashionable?”

“Well, yes, I—”

“Good, then it is settled,” Honor said cheerfully, and linked her arm through her stepbrother’s. “Shall we?”

As was often the case, Augustine was overwhelmed by his stepsisters. With a good yank on his waistcoat to bring it down over a belly that had gone a little soft, he muttered that he did not care for their revealing clothing but allowed them to lead him out all the same.

* * *

THE CLARENDONS’ GRAND SALON was so crowded that there was hardly enough room to maneuver, and yet, all eyes turned toward the Cabot sisters.

“As is ever the case,” said Grace’s friend, Miss Tamryn Collins, “all gentlemen are held in thrall by the Cabot sisters.”

“Silly!” Grace said. “I’d wager the only gentlemen held in any sort of thrall are those who have been pressed by their families to make an offer to a debutante who will bring with her a generous dowry.”

“You underestimate the appeal of a pleasing décolletage, I think,” Tamryn said dryly.

Grace laughed, but Tamryn was right. Honor and Grace, separated by only a year, had been out for more than a year. By all rights, they ought to have received and accepted an offer of marriage, for wasn’t that the point of coming out? But Honor and Grace were beautiful young women and had quickly discovered they enjoyed the chase far too much to give it up for marriage just yet—not chasing, mind you, but being chased.

And they were very well chased.

It was no secret that the alluring Cabot sisters were as good a match as any young gentlemen might hope to make—pleasing to the eye and in spirit, and backed by the wealth of the Earl of Beckington.

“Oh, no,” Honor said, and took hold of Grace’s arm. “Grace, you must intercept him.”

“Who?” Tamryn asked, standing beside Grace as she peered into the crowd.

“Mr. Jett!” Honor whispered loudly. “He’s coming across the room, straight for us.”

“For you, you mean,” Grace said, and slipped her hand into Tamryn’s. “We must flee, Tamryn, lest we be locked in boring conversation for the rest of the evening. Have a lovely evening, Honor.”

“Grace!” Honor exclaimed, but Grace and Tamryn had already escaped on a wave of giggling, leaving Honor alone to graciously rebuff Mr. Jett’s most ardent attention.

With Tamryn gone off to have a word with a friend, Grace wended her way through the ballroom.

Grace danced, too, one set after the other, never lacking partners. But when the odious Mr. Redmond cast an oily smile in her direction and began to move toward her, she was relieved that Lord Amherst should suddenly step before her and bow grandly.

“Come quickly,” he said, holding out his hand. “I mean to rescue you from Redmond.”

“My hero!” Grace said laughingly, and slipped her hand into his, following his lead onto the dance floor.

Grace liked Lord Amherst. As did every other debutante. He was handsome and always had a warm laugh for her. He never failed to charm, and in fact, that was his reputation; he charmed every woman he met with his outrageous flirting and suggestive innuendo. That’s why Grace liked him so—she rather enjoyed flirting and suggestive innuendo.

He bowed as the dance began and said, “I’ve been trying to reach you all night, fighting my way through this bloody crowd for you.”

“What? There were no other dance partners for you?”

“Miss Cabot, you tease me mercilessly. You know there’s not another woman in this room that can compare to you.”

“Not even one other?” she asked as they rose up on their toes and then down, twirling around and facing each other once more.

“Absolutely not,” he said, and winked.

“My lord, you are the king of compliments.”

“Can you blame me? A woman as beautiful and spirited as you deserves nothing less than to be continually flattered. My heart has been quite lost to you.”

Grace giggled at his silliness. “Confess—you’ve said that to every other girl in attendance tonight.”

“Miss Cabot, you wound me. I have not said that to every other girl in attendance tonight. Only the beautiful ones.”

Grace laughed. They turned to the right, then to face each other again as they made their way up the line.

“Lord,” Amherst suddenly muttered. He was looking at a point over Grace’s shoulder. When Grace glanced back, she happened to notice Amherst’s brother, Lord Merryton. She was surprised to see him here. There were never two brothers more unalike. Amherst was always about, but Merryton rarely came to town. Amherst was quite diverting, and his brother brooding. That’s what he seemed to be doing now, standing with his back to the wall, his hands behind him. He had dark, curling hair, his expression grim.

Grace turned back to Amherst. “Your brother doesn’t seem to be enjoying the evening.”

“No,” he drawled. “He does not enjoy society as I do.”

“Doesn’t enjoy society?” Grace laughed. “I pray you, what else is there but society when it rains for days on end as it has?”

“Yes, well, he disapproves of gaiety in general. Balls in particular. He has no use for them.”

Grace was incredulous at this news. To have no use for balls was so far beyond her comprehension that she felt compelled to glance over her shoulder at the strange Earl of Merryton once more.

Amherst laughed. “You won’t find any answers there, Miss Cabot. He is rather adept at not allowing his true feelings to be known. Decorum in all things, you know.”

Grace smiled at her partner. “The same can’t be said of you, my lord.”

“Certainly not. I should like the world to know my very fond feelings of the most beautiful of the Cabot girls. In fact, I think I shall announce it. The moment we reach the top of the line, prepare yourself for a declaration of great esteem.”

Grace laughed at his teasing. She forgot about Merryton after that dance. After all, there were so many gentlemen, so much dancing, so many opportunities to flirt.

She forgot about him altogether until roughly eighteen months later, when her fortunes had shifted, and she was bitterly reminded just how disagreeable Lord Merryton was.

CHAPTER ONE

Spring of 1812

THE FRANKLIN SISTERS of Bath, England—one a widow, the other a spinster—presided over a small tea shop on the square near the baths and the abbey. It was their pleasure to serve tea and fresh-baked pastries to the denizens and visitors to their fair town. They knew most everyone by name. They lived above their shop and were open every day, without fail.

The sisters reasoned that, being as close to the abbey as they were, they might offer up their daily prayers in a more official manner than in their rooms, and every evening, at precisely six o’clock, they closed their shop. Those who resided near the abbey knew that they were so exact and so regular that even the abbey’s groundskeeper had noticed and had quite literally set the abbey clocks by them.

Once their daily prayers were offered, the sisters returned to their shop, lit a pair of candles and shared tea or soup and nattered on about their day. On certain special occasions, such as those evenings when a chorale was sung in the abbey, Reverend Cumberhill accompanied them back to the shop, and a bit of brandy was poured into the tea.

Grace Cabot was depending on the sisters’ routine. A routine she was confident went undetected by most of the fashionable people in Bath, as the fashionable people in Bath were not in the habit of attending evening prayer. She knew this because she was one of that set that spring, and she was in the habit of attending one soiree after the next along with the rest of them.

Had it not been for a chance call to her old friend Diana Mortimer, who lived near the abbey, Grace wouldn’t have known about the sisters’ routine. But she had made that call, and Diana had remarked upon it.

Diana Mortimer was also the one to tell her about the famed Russian soprano’s upcoming performance at the abbey. “The Prince of Wales has favored her,” Diana said. “And you know very well that if the prince has favored her, there won’t be an empty seat.”

That was the moment Grace hit upon the perfect plan to lure Lord Amherst into her trap.

She risked everything to set her plan in motion on the night the Russian soprano sang. It all hinged on the Franklin sisters arriving at the precise and most inopportune moment.

Grace did not think she was the sort to be annoyingly proud of her accomplishments, but this meeting with Lord Amherst, on this night, had taken exceptional cunning to arrange. She’d come to Bath a month ago after hearing his lordship had come for the waters, for the sole purpose of convincing him that she was quite sincere in her esteem of him, without appearing too wanton. But Grace had made her social debut at the age of eighteen, and in the three years hence, she’d learned her lessons in the finest salons of London and knew a thing or two about how to entice a gentleman, especially one like Amherst.

And yet, Amherst had surprised her. In spite of his reputation for being a randy and rambunctious rake, in spite of declaring his esteem for her more than once, he’d not been persuaded that a private meeting with Grace was the thing to do.

Grace had not anticipated his reluctance when she’d devised her plan. On every occasion they’d met in London, Amherst had been attentive—one might even say eager—to please and charm her. He was forthright about his esteem for her, and Grace had been certain his affection would lend itself to a clandestine meeting. Indeed, when Grace had arrived in Bath, and made the necessary rounds to the necessary parlors, Lord Amherst had not been the least reluctant to whisper in her ear during the Wickers’ soiree. Nor had he been reluctant to walk with her in the park near the Royal Crescent or keep his hands from her as they strolled.

But he’d absolutely refused to meet her in private when she’d first suggested it.

She had wondered if he had suspected her and her motives, but quickly dismissed that notion—she’d been too clever in her deceit. Having three sisters and a stepbrother had taught her how to connive. Then perhaps she’d not been conniving enough, and in the privacy of the room she’d taken in the home of her mother’s dear friend Cousin Beatrice she’d thought hard about what she must do.

One night, it came to her—no one could resist a secret. Not even Amherst. She’d told him that she had something very important to tell him, something that no one else could hear. And Grace had been right—Amherst couldn’t resist and had agreed to meet her.

One might assume that Grace wanted to seduce Amherst for her own pleasure, but nothing could be further from the truth. This scheme had become necessary because her stepfather, the Earl of Beckington, had recently died. Grace, her mother, Lady Beckington, and her sisters Honor, Prudence and Mercy had been completely dependent on the earl. Completely. Now, her stepbrother, Augustine, was the new earl, and every day that passed with her mother under Augustine’s roof was a day that her mother’s terrible secret could be discovered: Lady Beckington was going mad.

That secret would ruin the Cabot sisters, for if it were known among the ton that Lady Beckington was mad, and her four unmarried daughters now had modest dowries instead of generous ones, no one would have them. No one. There wasn’t a gentleman in London who would chance introducing madness into his family’s lineage, especially without the incentive of grand wealth. More important, Grace had two younger sisters who were not yet out. They would have no opportunity to make a good match.

She and Honor had worried over it for weeks now, and while Grace didn’t like that it had come to this, that she should find herself in a position of having to conspire to something so morally reprehensible, she could see no other viable or expeditious solution. She must marry Amherst before her secrets were discovered.

Everything was set. The little tea shop across the square from the abbey was closed at six o’clock. There was quite a crowd gathered at the abbey this evening to hear the Russian soprano. Grace knew the Franklin sisters would return after the chorale with Reverend Cumberhill. She’d even stood across from the tea shop, watching when the Franklin sisters departed for the abbey at six o’clock, then testing the door herself. It was open. It was always open—the abbey was only steps from the shop.

Tonight, Grace’s life would change forevermore. She would suffer a great scandal, would no doubt be made a pariah among polite society. She was prepared for it—at least her younger sisters would have what they needed.

At the chorale, she caught Amherst’s twinkling eye. Just as they’d planned, she stood and walked briskly from the abbey’s sanctuary before the chorale was ended. She knew that Amherst would be right behind her, unsuspecting that the Franklin sisters and the reverend would be right behind him.

A light rain had begun to fall, and that worried Grace. A few moments too early, a few moments too late, and everything would be ruined. She pulled the hood of her cape over her head and hurried across the abbey courtyard to the tea shop. She had a moment of breathlessness at the realization she was actually stooping to such wretched manipulations—up until this moment, it had been nothing but a scheme—but that was followed by an exhalation of desperation. She had never in her life been so desperate as this.

At the door of the tea shop, she pushed her hood back to look around her before she opened the door. There was no one about—everyone was in the abbey, hearing the last stanzas of the chorale.

Grace reached for the handle and pushed. She knew a moment of panic when the door would not open—but she put her shoulder to it and it opened with a creak so loud she expected the entire town of Bath to spill out of their doors and accuse her of thievery. Grace slipped inside, leaving the door slightly ajar so that Amherst would know it was open, and paused, listening for any sounds that would indicate she’d been seen.

She couldn’t hear a thing over the pounding of her heart.

The room was very dark; the embers at the hearth were so low she could hardly see her hand before her. Another bolt of panic hit her—she hadn’t thought of the dark. How would Amherst find her? She was too fearful to speak. She’d stand near the door; she’d reach out and touch him when he entered.

Grace began to feel about for the furnishings. She’d been in this tiny tearoom many times, and knew there were two small tables just at the door, a desk to her right. With her hands sweeping slowly in front of her, she brushed against the back of the chair at the desk.

All right, then, she had her bearings. She knew where she was standing, where the door was.

Grace removed her cloak and dropped it somewhere nearby, then nervously smoothed her hair. Her hands were shaking; she clasped them tightly together, waiting. A clock was ticking somewhere, and every second that ticked by, her heart beat harder.

She heard the footfall of Amherst as he strode across the abbey courtyard. He was walking quickly, purposefully, and suddenly Grace’s breath deserted her entirely. She gulped for air, straining to hear. She heard Amherst pause just outside the door and swallowed down a small cry of tension. It sounded as if he was moving about, and Grace imagined Amherst was having second thoughts. He moved away from the door, and she gasped softly.

But he came back almost at once.

A silence followed, and Grace could not quell the shaking in her. Why did he not open the door? When he did, pushing the door so that it swung open, a rush of cool damp air swept across Grace’s face. Her breath was so shallow she felt faint; her hands were so tightly clasped that she was vaguely aware of her fingernails digging into her skin.

Amherst stepped cautiously over the threshold. He looked taller than he normally seemed, which Grace attributed to the bit of light outside that framed him in the doorway. He turned his head to one side, as if he were listening for her.

Her nerves would strangle her. “Here,” she said.

His head snapped around to the sound she’d made, and in a moment of sheer panic, Grace launched her body at him. She expected him to say something, but he froze, as if she had startled him. She threw her arms around his neck; he caught her by the waist with a soft grunt, and stumbled backward to keep them from falling. Somehow, Grace found his mouth in the dark. It was much softer than she would have thought. It was lush, wet and warm, and—

And he was suddenly devouring her lips. Hungrily. Grace hadn’t expected such a powerful kiss. She couldn’t say what exactly she’d expected, but it wasn’t this. Her blood felt hot in her veins, sluicing through her. She was a pot boiling over, and she liked it. His tongue swept into her mouth, and she was rocked by the prurient sensation of it. She felt strangely free and anonymous in the dark, not like herself at all. Not a debutante with at least some sense of propriety. His kiss was stunningly arousing, and Grace pressed against him without regard for herself or her reputation, feeling the hard length of him—

He suddenly picked her up by the waist, and Grace cried out with surprise against his mouth. He knocked into the chair at the desk, and she heard it crash to the planked floor. He sat her on the desk, and something there dug into her back, but Grace didn’t care—his tongue was stroking her mouth and driving her wild. He nipped at her lips with his teeth, drew them into his mouth, and Grace realized now exactly how Amherst had derived the reputation for being something of a rake, for his kiss was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her.

She was sliding down a very sensual path. She felt too damp, too hot in her clothes, pushed to the edge of reason by every stroke of his tongue in her mouth, every bite of her lips.

He suddenly moved, and his mouth was on her décolletage, his fingers digging into the fabric of her gown. Grace thought she should stop him before this game went too far, but his hand had found her leg, was under her gown! And his fingers were tracing a burning path up her leg.

Stop him, stop him now! She wanted to be discovered in a fierce embrace, not in the full throes of lovemaking. Where were the Franklin sisters, for God’s sake? Grace couldn’t find her voice—rather, she didn’t want to find her voice. She much preferred to close her eyes and feel the extraordinary sensations. She dropped her head back and allowed herself to experience every moment of this carnal onslaught. His fingers dug into the meaty part of her thigh, and she gasped with the tantalizing sensation of a man’s hand between her legs. She sank her fingers into his hair as his lips closed around the hard tip of her breast through her gown. She could not believe she had accomplished it! She would be happy with him, if this is what she might look forward to.

He freed her breast with a yank to the fabric of her gown. He took it in his mouth, suckling it, and the sensation was so shocking, so arousing, that it pooled in her groin.

Amherst growled against her breast, a guttural, animal sound of desire, and Grace’s body reverberated with it. When his hand moved deeper between her thighs, Grace brazenly lifted her leg. His fingers slipped into the folds of her sex. She gasped for breath, lifting off the desk. She hardly knew herself!

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she whispered into his ear.

His hesitation was so slight she wasn’t sure it was real. But he said nothing as he moved to her other breast and pressed an erection against her that both alarmed and incited her. She’d never felt a man’s desire, had never seen it. It felt mysterious and hard against her leg, and the lusty image of how it would fit inside her filled her head as a strong current of desire skated down her spine, overwhelming her senses, tingling in every patch of her skin.

Everything began to fall away. Grace forgot her deceit, or even where she was. She forgot everything but the way he was making her feel, the way her body was responding, wanting more, craving more. So when a lantern of light suddenly filled the room, she was startled and cried out.

Amherst whirled about, spreading his cloak to cover Grace while she desperately sought to cover herself.

“My lord!” Reverend Cumberhill cried, his voice full of censure and alarm. “God in heaven, what have you done?”

Grace frantically tried to remember her part in this theater. “Please,” she said. Please what? She looked down and realized that Amherst had actually torn the bodice of her gown. She held the fabric together with her hand, and cast frantically about for her cloak.

“My lord, this cannot stand!” the reverend cried. “You have taken cruel advantage of this girl!”

“Young lady, are you harmed?” one of the sisters demanded, and suddenly light was shining on Grace. She heard the Franklin sisters’ twin cries of shock at her appearance. Grace spotted her cloak and dipped down for it.

“Miss Cabot!” one of them cried. “Come, darling, let me help you,” she said, and Grace felt her hands on her shoulders, felt her pulling the cloak around her neck.

“By God, Merryton, I never thought you capable of rape! I will call the authorities!”

Rape! Merryton?

Grace’s heart stopped beating. And then it started again with a painful jerk. No, no no no no—Merryton? How could she have made such a horrible, wretched mistake? It was impossible, and Grace whirled about to face the man who had driven her to wild desire—

Her heart plummeted to her toes.

She felt ill, could feel the blood rushing from her limbs, and thought she might collapse. She had not coaxed the affable and randy Lord Amherst into a compromising situation as she had planned. She had thrown herself at his brother, Lord Merryton, the most disagreeable man in England.

She had to fix this. “He did not harm me!” she cried, panicking now. There was sacrifice and the real desire to save her sisters, but then there was sheer terror, and this was sheer terror. She could not allow this to happen. It could not! Where in heaven was Amherst?

“Miss, do not speak,” the reverend warned her. “I will not allow him to intimidate you!”

Merryton’s cold green eyes bored through Grace. His face was dark, his expression stormy, and an unpleasantly cold shiver raced through her.

“I take full responsibility,” he said curtly.

“As well you ought!” the reverend said sharply, and stalked forward, holding up his lantern to see Grace. Grace quickly put a hand to her bodice and only then realized a long tangled hank of hair hung over her shoulder.

“Dear God,” the reverend said, his voice hushed, his expression truly horrified. He shifted that look of horror to Merryton. “This will not be borne! You have ruined this young woman, ruined her irrevocably, and for that, you will pay the price! Ladies, please, do see her to safety at once,” he said brusquely. “Take her from this place and send Mr. Botham to me as quickly as you can,” he added, referring to the local magistrate.

One of the ladies pulled the hood of her cloak over Grace’s head.

“There has been no crime,” she tried again. “It was my doing—”

“Quiet!” the reverend bellowed. The sisters shushed her as they flanked her, forcefully ushering her to the door.

Grace stumbled along, her breath short and thin. What a horrible, horrible mistake! She’d done something quite wretched. Worse than wretched! She felt as if she might vomit, and doubled over so that she wouldn’t. She wondered wildly if Amherst would have felt as helpless as she was feeling in that moment if he’d come, if her plan had worked.

“Oh, dear. Take heart, Miss Cabot. The reverend will see to it that man faces justice for what he’s done.”

“He committed no crime!” Grace cried helplessly. “It was I who brought this on him! I lured him.”

“Dearest, it is only natural that you would want to take the blame for your indiscretion, but you mustn’t,” one of the ladies said. “He has used you ill!”

That made no sense to Grace, but they were pulling her out the door and into the abbey courtyard, where dozens were now emerging from the abbey. Several heads swiveled in Grace’s direction—it wasn’t often that one saw two women dragging a third between them—and voices began to rise around them.

“Hurry along, Agnes!” one of the sisters hissed, and Grace was stumbling between them to keep up.

She would never recall how, exactly, she was returned to Cousin Beatrice’s house on Royal Crescent. She could only vaguely recall being there at all when the gentlemen came to speak with her, to ascertain what had happened in that dark tea shop. Grace tried desperately to explain to them that it was her doing, but when pressed to give a reason as to why she would do something so heinous, she could not tell them the truth.

The gentlemen assumed that as she could not adequately explain her reasoning for doing something so horrific because she was lying. She was lying, they carefully explained to her, because she feared Merryton.

Grace did fear Merryton. She’d never heard a kind word said about him. He was known to be aloof and distant and disdainful.

But he did not deserve what she’d done to him.

CHAPTER TWO

ONE TWO THREE four five six seven eight.

There were precisely eight steps from the breakfast room to the study, and eight panels of wallpapering in the room. Jeffrey knew this because he counted them every day on those occasions he resided at his townhome in Bath, sometimes several times a day. And yet he couldn’t be entirely certain of the number of steps in the early-morning hours after his spectacular downfall. He kept walking back and forth between the breakfast room and study, counting the steps.

He had to do it; he had to count until he was completely certain, for it was the only thing that could annihilate the image of him thrusting his body into that young woman’s sex.

The vision—unwanted, uninvited, mistakenly placed in his brain—was new to him. Generally, the vulgar and salacious thoughts that tended to plague him every day were of two women pleasuring each other with their tongues and fingers. He couldn’t say why that was, only that he had begun to experience that particular image around his seventeenth year. He’d begun to act on it in his twenty-first year, carefully seeking out the sort of bedmates who were willing to perform for him and with him. But in society, Jeffrey had learned to keep the dark images deep in the corners of his mind, hidden away. Always proper, always a model of propriety, just as his father had taught him to be. When Jeffrey made a concerted effort to banish the images, he was generally successful. They seemed only to emerge when he was very tired or felt the pressure of his title.

His title, the Earl of Merryton, as well as two lesser titles, was the heavy mantle he wore. He was the head of a large family with impressive holdings. He was Jeffrey Donovan, the man everyone assumed to be above scandal and immoral behavior, just like his father before him.

But the truth was that Jeffrey was not above it all. He’d merely found a way to restrain himself.

Until last night.

And now, a new, monstrous image was residing quite firmly in his thoughts and he could not subdue it. Bloody hell, he didn’t even know her name! Cabot, Mrs. Franklin had said. Jeffrey knew no Cabots. He knew nothing about her, except that she had tasted like honey, had felt like silk.

One two three four five six seven eight.

Eight. Eight. Eight.

This thing, this demonic obsession with eight, had invaded Jeffrey so many years ago that he could no longer remember how. But in his sixteenth year, when his father had died and he’d become the earl, responsible for carrying on the family’s name and its impeccable credentials, responsible for being the one above all reproach, the eight had begun to loom in his heart and mind. Like the salacious images, Jeffrey was at a loss to understood how or why it had happened. He thought himself mad, really, particularly as the eight was imperative to him but also torture at the same time.

The necessity for eight in his everyday life had manifested itself when Jeffrey had lain with a woman the first time. How old was he then, eighteen? He’d been seduced—willingly—by an older woman. She had shown him what his body wanted with her hands and her mouth, things he hadn’t realized, had not imagined. Those things seemed incongruent with the lord he was supposed to be, and he had not been able to douse his shame except by counting.

But then, the images, vile and lustful, had come at him, worse than he’d ever imagined. And the eight demon had grabbed him by the throat, choking the life out of him, forcing him to walk on the sharp edge of a blade—think bad thoughts, banish them only with eight. Now, at thirty years of age, Jeffrey knew that to fall off his private blade was to fall into the chaos of his thoughts, to obsess about women’s bodies and sexual plunder and the number eight.

He had learned to control it, to keep it quite under wraps. He rarely made mistakes.

Rarely.

And yet, he’d made a colossal one last night.

He had his brother to blame, damn him. John Donovan, the Viscount Amherst, was the bane of Jeffrey’s existence. It seemed John strove to make every mistake he could. He’d been unapologetically involved in one scandal after another. From the time he’d reached his majority, he’d racked up gambling debts that he could not repay, leaving Jeffrey to deal with them from the family’s coffers. He would not settle on a woman and make an offer, and instead preferred to dally with every debutante who happened to drift in his path, creating scandal in London and among some of the finest families in the Quality.

John was the reason Jeffrey was presently in Bath. He’d heard John was here, and he’d come to speak to him. Because he’d also heard things from his sister, Sylvia. Sylvia was at her home near the border of Scotland with two small children. Jeffrey hadn’t seen her in some time as her children were too young to travel, but she kept in touch through correspondence. In her last letter, she’d reported hearing that John had run up some gambling debts and owed more than one gentleman in London, including a prominent viscount.

The news had angered Jeffrey. More than once, he’d begged John to consider an occupation, anything to keep him from trouble and ruin. He would very much like to see John accept a naval commission. He was more than happy to arrange it for his brother. He just had to make John see the benefit in it, to get his brother to agree that he ought to leave England and all her vices until he could put his life to rights. To settle on a woman who would give him heirs and for God’s sake, beget those heirs.

And then, last evening, when Jeffrey had given into the insistence of his friend, Dr. Linford, to accompany him and his wife to hear the Russian soprano, he had seen the young woman with the golden hair leave the concert at the abbey. He’d watched as John had followed only moments later, and his blood had heated with his rage. There was his brother, following after a woman for the whole world to see and titter about.

Jeffrey had walked out into the abbey courtyard and looked around for his brother. He was nowhere to be seen, and Jeffrey had turned to go back into the abbey when he noticed a movement, a slip of color, against the darkened window of the tearoom.

That was when he noticed the door was slightly ajar.

Jeffrey had counted eighty steps to the door. The tea shop was dark, and he could hear no sounds within. But in looking around the courtyard, he believed there was no other place his brother could be. He’d fully expected to find his brother rutting in some girl there, and Jeffrey’s mind had filled with the awful images. He could see her legs spread wide apart, could see his brother sliding in and out of her. He’d tapped his thigh eight times in an effort to banish those images, but it had been hopeless. By the time he walked into that room and felt her mouth on his, he’d been lost.

What he’d done to that young woman!

Jeffrey closed his eyes in an attempt to banish the sight from his mind—her torn bodice, her golden hair mussed and falling, her hazel eyes wide with shock—but it was useless. He had done that. He’d unleashed his demon on the young woman. She’d tasted so sweet, and her skin so fragrant, he’d not been able to stop himself. He’d been too rough, had done untold harm to her.

With a groan, he pressed both fists to his temples, squeezing hard. He knew himself to be many things, but he had never believed himself capable of harming a woman, under any circumstance. When he had immoral thoughts, he kept his distance from society, retreating to Blackwood Hall, his country estate.

Now, he didn’t know where to go to escape his tortuous thoughts.

“My lord.”

Jeffrey started at the sound of his butler, Tobias. “Yes?”

“Mr. Botham, the Reverend Cumberhill, Mr. Davis and Dr. Linford are calling.”

Jeffrey drew a breath. Perhaps they would be his salvation. Perhaps they would see him directly to some jail. “Send them in,” he said, and stood in the middle of his study, silently tapping eight times against his thigh. And again. And again.

Reverend Cumberhill could scarcely look him in the eye when he entered, and Jeffrey could hardly blame him. Mr. Botham, the magistrate, seemed only perplexed. Mr. Davis, the town’s mayor, eyed him curiously, as if he were examining a scar on Jeffrey’s face.

Dr. Linford, however, looked at him with a bit of sympathy in his eyes. He was the one person on this earth in whom Jeffrey had confided his dangerous thoughts.

“Gentlemen,” he said, and gestured toward seating in his office. “Tobias, tea, please.”

“I think that is not necessary, my lord,” Mr. Botham began. “I shall not draw this unfortunate matter out any more than is necessary. We have called on Miss Cabot and have questioned her thoroughly. She will not turn against you, and insists that this was her doing.”

Jeffrey wondered if that was her attempt to protect John? Or was she foolishly honest?

“However, she has agreed, as has her cousin’s husband, Mr. Frederick Brumley, that because of the heinous nature of what has occurred, the only options available are to accuse you of rape...”

Jeffrey’s gut seized. He was a powerful earl, but even he could not escape such an accusation.

“Or,” Mr. Botham said, glancing down at the carpet, “to marry you to avoid what would be a very damaging scandal for you both.”

Jeffrey swallowed. He counted the buttons on Mr. Botham’s waistcoat. There were only six. Six.

“We counseled her that to marry a brute is to consign oneself to enduring a brute for a lifetime,” Reverend Cumberhill said curtly.

Jeffrey didn’t speak. He was suddenly plagued with the image of her body, her legs open to him and his cock pumping into her.

“We have counseled her,” Mr. Botham agreed, casting a look at the reverend, “but she insists she will take that risk rather than sully your name, or the name of her family.”

Jeffrey didn’t want to marry her, for Chrissakes! He wanted nothing to do with her! And yet, he had no other option. “Who...who is her family?”

He saw the exchange of looks between the men, the disgust that he didn’t even know who he’d sullied. “She is the stepsister of the Earl of Beckington.”

God in heaven. Jeffrey tried to recall Beckington, and could not. It scarcely mattered. The man was an earl. If Jeffrey didn’t take his sister to wife, the man would surely see him hanged for rape; Jeffrey would do no less in his shoes. He lifted his chin. “I am an earl,” he said tightly. “I have a duty to my family and my title to oversee our fortune and produce a legitimate heir.” He glanced at Dr. Linford. “Have you examined her?”

“For harm, yes,” he said. “She does not appear to be harmed.”

That wasn’t what Jeffrey meant. “I mean, is she a virgin?” he asked bluntly.

The reverend made a sound of despair or disgust, and Davis looked appalled.

“We are speaking of Miss Grace Cabot,” Mr. Davis said. “She is the stepdaughter of the late Earl of Beckington, who only recently passed, and the stepsister of the new earl. She comes from a fine family, my lord.”

Jeffrey began to clench and unclench his fist, eight times. “That is all well and good, but you are surely aware that a proper pedigree does not weight a woman’s hem.”

Dr. Linford and Mr. Botham both glanced at the floor; the reverend covered his face in his hands. They were appalled by him, yes, but Jeffrey noticed that none of them contradicted him.

“She has assured me she is...intact,” Linford said tightly.

Mr. Davis cleared his throat. “May we assume, then, that a marriage will take place?”

Jeffrey hesitated. He thought of Mary Gastineau, the daughter of Lord Wicking, his second cousin. Mary was the second daughter of the second Lord Wicking, and she was the second woman he had seriously courted. He had courted Miss Gastineau for two years, grooming her to his way of life and his need for perfection. While Mary Gastineau did not excite him in any way, Jeffrey thought she would be the wife that he needed. He did not imagine her naked body, did not think of his body sliding into hers. The woman did not make mistakes, and seemed perfectly suited to walking the edge of the knife with him.

And still, he had put off making an offer as long as he reasonably could. For symmetry, he’d told himself. From fear, his conscience barked at him. Nevertheless, Jeffrey had been prepared to make the offer this Season.

“My lord,” Mr. Botham said, his low voice drawing Jeffrey out of his rumination, “if you do not agree, we will accuse you of the crime of rape. We will not ignore what you have done to that poor young, innocent woman.”

Innocent. Inexperienced, perhaps, but she was not innocent. Jeffrey lifted his gaze, and four pairs of eyes steadily met his. Their minds were made up then—they would see him prosecuted if he did not solve the very real problem he had created for them. “Yes, I will marry her.”

No one spoke at first; the three men looked at the reverend, who was the most aggrieved by what had happened. He stood, rising to his full height, which was still considerably shorter than Jeffrey’s. His expression was sour, as if he were displeased with the decision. But Reverend Cumberhill was a shrewd man. He knew that to go against the powerful Earl of Merryton would not work in his favor. He clenched his jaw, peered at Jeffrey. “You will make this marriage straightaway?”

“Not only will I do it straightaway, I shall remove myself and this woman to Blackwood Hall at once.”

“Then we are agreed,” the reverend said crisply.

* * *

COUSIN BEATRICE’S LACE cap had been askew since the night the Franklin sisters had brought a disheveled Grace to her. Like everyone else, Beatrice assumed that Grace had suffered a great trauma to her person. She’d cried as she’d helped Grace undress. “Your mother will never forgive me!” she’d wailed.

Her mother, were she in her right mind, would never forgive Grace for what she’d done. Grace would never forgive herself. Yes, she’d suffered a great trauma, all right, but not to her person. The trauma was in the awful truth that she’d trapped the wrong man into scandal. Moreover, now that the trapping had been done, Grace was appalled by how deplorable an act it truly was. Would it have been any different had it been Amherst? Would he not have looked at her with the same loathing she’d seen in Merryton’s eyes? How did she ever come to believe this horrible, wretched plan would work?

Honor had been right when Grace had shared her scheme with her before traveling to Bath—it was a ridiculous, impossible plan. Why was it that this would be the one time that Honor was right? Could she not have been right that it was perfectly fine for two young women to race their horses on Rotten Row? Could she not have been right that the coral silk Grace had coveted was the best color for her? No, she had to be right about this.

Cousin Beatrice was pacing in front of Grace again, wringing her hands. Grace had never seen Beatrice wring her hands, but then again, she supposed Beatrice had never had to wait for the Earl of Merryton and the authorities of Bath to come for her. They were to arrive at eight o’clock, only minutes from now. The deed had been done, the agreement made and now, Grace would marry him.

What else could she do? She was irrevocably ruined. She felt nothing but angry disappointment at herself and dread for what was to come. She had not miraculously saved her family as she’d grandly imagined. Ah yes, the self-sacrificing heroine, saving her dear sisters from ruin! In fact, nothing at all had changed! The only new bit was that Grace would now suffer the shame of her ridiculous scandal not in the company of the affable Lord Amherst as she had planned, but with disagreeable, cold Lord Merryton.

“Your dear mother will be so very disappointed,” Beatrice said. “In you, in me— Grace, it is not to be borne! Why did you refuse to send a messenger to her at once? Why did you not ask for the help and support of your stepbrother at such a time as this?”

Grace could not possibly make Beatrice understand. “A messenger would never reach her in time, and as I explained, I could not possibly taint the wedding of my stepbrother. He’s waited so long! And my stepfather, gone only a month! Can you imagine, adding that scandal to what the family has already endured? Think of my young sisters, not yet out. No, cousin, there is no other course but to take responsibility for my indiscretion, just as Mr. Brumley has said.”

“Oh, Mr. Brumley!” Beatrice wailed, referring to her husband. “He doesn’t understand these things, Grace. Those men have pushed you into an agreement knowing very well you have no counsel!”

Of course, Beatrice would believe that, since Grace had not been truthful about why she’d done what she had. But Beatrice had not seen her friend Lady Beckington in quite some time, as she had been wintering in Bath and had not been to town this Season. Beatrice had no way of knowing that her old friend had gone almost completely mad, scarcely recognizing her own daughters on some days.

Keeping such news from Beatrice was something Grace could add to the growing list of reprehensible things she had done. But until Grace or her sister Honor were married, until they had secured a place for their two younger sisters and their mad mother to go, Grace would not breathe a word of it.

Time was of the essence, too, when Grace had undertaken the awful task of trapping a husband. Her stepbrother, Augustine Devereaux, the new Earl of Beckington, was set to marry Monica Hargrove within the month. Monica was Honor’s nemesis, and she, along with her mother, was aware of Lady Beckington’s deteriorating mind. They had already begun to speak of a manor in Wales for the Cabot girls.

Wales. Wales! It was as far from proper society as Monica could send them all. As far from opportunity as Grace’s sisters Prudence and Mercy could possibly be. It was intolerable, and as Honor had failed to save them all from that fate with her equally ridiculous plan of having a gentleman seduce Monica away from Augustine, Grace had felt as if the responsibility fell to her.

Which is why Grace had come to Bath—to lure the charming Lord Amherst to her. His reputation as a scoundrel was legion, yes, but he was also kind, and quite a lot of fun, and Grace had reasoned that if it had to be done, why not Lord Amherst? She could imagine that after the initial shock and scandal, they might be happy.

Dimwitted child, she thought as Beatrice paced and carried on. She and Honor had long bemoaned the fact that as young ladies without significant resources of their own with which to solve their growing problems, they had no other options but to use their passable looks and cunning to change the course of their lives. Their cunning, however, was sorely lacking. Their plans were so...ludicrous.

She could see that now. She could see just how naive and doltish she’d been.

The question that burned, that kept her up these past two nights since the awful mistake had occurred, was why hadn’t Amherst come? How had Merryton, of all people, arrived in his stead?

Every time Grace thought of it, she shuddered. The moments with Merryton in that darkened room had been the most exciting thing she’d ever experienced. He had stoked something fiery in her, something that felt as if it meant to consume her. But the moment Grace had realized those passions had been stirred by him, she’d been repulsed and intimidated.

Just thinking of it now, she shuddered again. Titillation. Revulsion. It was enough to make her head spin.

“Oh, dear, you are afraid,” Cousin Beatrice said, and hurried to Grace to rub her hands on Grace’s bare arms. “I would that I could repair this situation for you, darling, but I cannot. There is nothing I can do, you must surely see that.”

“I see it quite clearly, cousin. No one can help me now.”

“Please, let us send for Beckington!”

They’d had this argument several times in the past few days. “I can’t!” Grace exclaimed. “Can you not see? There is nothing that can be done for this predicament. I can’t recover from it, cousin—never! No one will have me after this. No doubt word has already spread, and I am already ruined. And I haven’t even begun to contemplate the consequence to him. I will marry him today. There is nothing more to be said.”

At least she assumed a wedding would take place today, that all the necessary arrangements had been made. After her spectacular fall from grace, Grace scarcely knew of or cared about the negotiations for her marriage to Merryton. Mr. Brumley conducted them on her behalf with a scowl and air of disapproval about him.

Grace understood it had been mutually agreed that Beatrice would gift ten thousand pounds to Grace as her dowry—which was the figure Grace recalled her mother had once set aside for her—with the full expectation that the new Earl of Beckington would be quite happy to reimburse the money to avoid a wider scandal.

Grace’s task was to send a letter to her stepbrother requesting the dowry. That was the easier letter to write. Grace imagined that Augustine would be happy to see her wed—not in this way, of course, but to have it done—and would take the dowry from the money Grace’s mother had brought into the marriage.

The letter to Honor was much harder to pen. Grace spent the better part of an afternoon crafting it, imagining her sister’s horror when she read what had happened, as well as the sum that her family must now pay. Perhaps the hardest thing to write was that Honor was right. Honor had warned Grace that the plan would never succeed, but Grace had been so stubbornly sure that it would, that her plan was vastly superior to Honor’s. She’d been so certain that Amherst’s flirtations and playfulness with her person was indicative of a particular esteem for her, and that he would, when it was all said and done, be willing to accept it.

Even worse, far worse, Grace had thought herself rather clever with her daring subterfuge.

Fool. Wretched, naive, silly fool!

Well, then, she’d set her own course for calamity, hadn’t she? And now, she was entirely alone, cast out onto a rough sea without so much as an oar. What she wouldn’t give to hear Honor’s unsolicited advice now! To hear Prudence play the pianoforte, or Mercy’s gruesome tales of mummies. What she wouldn’t give to sit at her mother’s feet, lay her head on her lap and feel her mother’s sure hand stroke her hair, as she had done when they were girls.

The day of reckoning had come. Grace would be married to a humorless man. Lord, but he couldn’t be more ill-suited for Grace if he woke up every morning with that express desire.

Grace had heard nothing from Merryton in the days since the disaster, not a single kind or unkind word. Not that she expected it, for what would it be? My dear Miss Cabot, thank you kindly for utterly ruining my life.

No, she didn’t expect anything, really, and had tried to push aside her conflicting and terrifying thoughts by methodically packing her belongings into her trunk. She’d folded her stockings into neat little squares, her gowns into bigger squares. Today, she had dressed for her wedding, hardly caring that she broke with tradition by putting away her mourning garb. Wasn’t black too macabre, in spite of how somber she found this day? Didn’t the silver gown seem too sprightly for such an unbearable event? She’d chosen the pale blue gown Mercy had once declared went very well with Grace’s hazel eyes and the brass tones in her hair. Subdued, and yet, it would not appear as if she’d crawled out a dark tomb to wed.

Grace added a chemisette with a collar so that no skin was revealed to her future husband. She knew it was absurd to feign modesty now, but it seemed the thing to do. She pulled her hair into an austere knot at the nape of her neck, and the only jewelry she wore was a strand of pearls about her neck. It had been a gift from her mother on the occasion of her sixteenth birthday, and it made her feel close to her mother now.

A light rap on her door signaled the time had come.

“Oh, dear. I suppose it’s time,” Beatrice said fretfully.

At least there was one bright spot to Grace’s day—she would soon be out from under Beatrice’s tearful gaze. If there was one thing she could not abide, it was the female penchant for the tearful gnashing of teeth. So much time and effort spent in crying! Grace wouldn’t cry. She’d created this mess and, heaven above, she’d suffer the consequences with her head held high. And if she couldn’t manage that, she’d certainly cry in private.

She opened the door to the Brumley butler. “I’m to bring your trunk, miss,” he said.

Grace pointed to it; she couldn’t find the will to even speak. As the butler and a footman took her trunk down, Grace wrapped a cloak around her and picked up her bonnet. She turned to Beatrice and smiled. “Thank you, cousin—for everything.”

Beatrice’s eyes filled with tears. “How lovely you look, dearest. I wish your mother was here to see it.”

Grace smiled ruefully. “I don’t.”

“Tsk,” Beatrice said. “Not even this day could make you any less lovely. You are your mother’s daughter, a true beauty. That man is quite fortunate if you ask me.”

Grace almost laughed. He was so fortunate his life had been ruined.

Beatrice hugged Grace to her. “Mr. Brumley and I will be there to serve as witness, of course.”

Grace gave her a wan smile. She didn’t care who saw her now. All she could think about was marrying him, then being spirited away to Blackwood Hall, which sounded as bleak as her life stretching all the years before her. She toyed with a fantasy that when the scandal had died down, she would run away—from him, from society, surviving by her wits in the wild—

“Oh! I almost forgot! A letter has come for you this very morning!” Beatrice said.

“A letter?” Grace said, brightening.

Beatrice took the letter from her pocket and held it out. Grace instantly recognized Honor’s handwriting. “It’s from Honor!” she exclaimed. “How could she have received my letter so soon? I sent it only yesterday.”

“This one came late last night,” Beatrice said. “It passed yours in the post.”

Grace’s excitement instantly flagged. There would be no proposed escape for her, no promise of help knocking at her door at any moment. She tucked the letter into her reticule.

“Chin up, darling,” Beatrice said as she wrapped her arm around Grace’s shoulders and began to walk with her. “I hear that Blackwood Hall is a grand estate with a dozen guest rooms. After things settle, you might find it to your liking.”

Grace would never find it to her liking, she was certain of that.

In the foyer, Grace fit her bonnet on her head, low over her eyes so that she’d not have to see any happy people walking about, and followed the footman to the small carriage.

“Mr. Brumley and I will be along behind you, darling!” Cousin Beatrice called from the walk when Grace had settled herself inside, and waved her handkerchief at Grace as the carriage pulled away, as if she were going on holiday.

In the carriage, Grace retrieved Honor’s letter and broke the seal.

Dearest Grace,

I pray this letter finds you well. You must forgive me, dearest, for I have been remiss in my duty to write you faithfully as I promised. We’ve been quite well occupied in London. Mamma is no better, but seems to retreat into her private world a bit more each week. It’s rather difficult to keep her calm at times. Hannah was given a tincture by a woman in Covent Garden, of which I did not approve. It does seem to help when Mamma is particularly agitated, and yet I don’t care for it, as the ingredients are not known to us.

Prudence and Mercy are very well. They were made very happy with an invitation to dine at Lady Chatham’s. She has invited all the girls not yet out. I suspect she wants a preview of next Season’s debutantes so that she might begin to meddle before anyone else is allowed the privilege.

I do have a bit of joyous news and I hope you will not be cross with me. Easton and I have married! I regret that I could not get word to you in time, for I would have liked nothing more than to have my dearest sister stand up with me. However, owing to a bit of bothersome scandal, time was of the essence.

Grace gasped. “You didn’t!” she cried. “When?”

We were married a fortnight ago at Augustine’s insistence. We are residing at Easton’s house on Audley Street, but I must honestly inform you that my poor dear husband is near to penniless as he has lost his ship, and he is determined that we will relocate to more modest housing. I do have his word that there will be room for the Cabot girls wherever we might land. When you return from Bath, you must join us! I cannot bear to be apart from you, and you have surely determined by now that yours is a fool’s errand. Come home, Grace, please do come. We all miss you so and we need you desperately. I know you won’t care for this news, but truly, I love Easton with all my heart and I couldn’t possibly be happier than if he were king.

There was more to the letter, mostly having to do with how deliriously happy Honor was with Mr. Easton, and how Grace might hear some talk of what happened in a gaming hell in Southwark, but that Honor would prefer to explain it in person, as it was far too complicated to write.

Grace hardly cared what Honor had done, or that she was penniless and happy about it. Had Grace known a fortnight ago that scandal had touched the Cabots and there was no hope of saving them from it, she never would have put her own foolish plan into motion.

To think Honor might have spared her this fate. “Oh!” Grace cried, and kicked the bench across from her.

That did not help at all. And it seemed she had injured her toe.

CHAPTER THREE

THE CARRIAGE BEGAN to slow, and Grace leaned forward, looking out the small window. They’d come to a plain building, but up the road, she could see a small chapel next to a field where sheep grazed. When the carriage came to a halt, the Brumley footman opened the door and held up his hand to assist Grace.

She stepped out and looked around. “What place is this?” she asked, peering up at the building.

“Office of the magistrate, miss,” he said, and shut the carriage door.

The door of the building swung open, and a portly gentleman stepped outside. “This way, if you please,” he said, gesturing to Grace.

Grace slipped Honor’s letter into her reticule, picked up her skirts and walked up the uneven path to the door. The gentleman showed her into a small dark office and gestured to a wooden bench against the wall. “If you would, miss. Someone will be along to collect you when the time has come.”

“What is—”

He’d already shut the door.

Grace looked around the room and sat reluctantly. A few minutes later, she was startled to her feet when the door swung open.

Merryton stepped through the door. He seemed surprised to see her; he was still wearing his cloak—as was she—and boots muddied from his ride. She wondered where he had come from.

His green eyes scraped down her body and up again. A shiver ran through Grace; she thought of that darkened tea shop, the feel of his body hard against hers, his lips soft but demanding. She looked down, uncertain what to do in this situation, and afraid he would somehow read the memory in her face.

Why did he not speak?

She couldn’t bear the silence and lifted her gaze.

The man whom she had dishonored was staring at her, his gaze dark and devouring. She didn’t understand it completely, but she felt the intensity of it, and her hand fluttered self-consciously to her neck.

He clasped his hands behind his back. But he did not speak.

“My name is Grace,” she said, her voice sounding too loud in this room. “Grace Cabot.” The moment the words came out of her mouth, she realized how absurd she must sound. As if he’d not gone to the trouble to find out who, precisely, he was marrying. But whatever Merryton thought, she would not be allowed to know. His expression did not change.

Grace’s heart began to pound in her chest. She suddenly imagined him taking her in hand, taking her on the small, cluttered desk. Isn’t that what his gaze meant? “I, ah, I realize we’ve not been properly introduced.” She nervously cleared her throat. “I wish I knew how to...to adequately express my deepest apology,” she said with an uncertain gesture.

One of his dark brows arched slightly above the other, which she assumed meant he found her effort to apologize lacking.

“I can’t begin to apologize enough, my lord,” she quickly amended, trying to convey the depth of her regret. “But I am truly and deeply sorry for what I have done.”

Still, he did not speak. He had piercing, all-seeing eyes, and she wondered if he could sense how uncomfortable, how uncertain, she was. She didn’t want him to see it—she knew instinctively that to show this man any weakness would be like dangling meat before a lion. So she tried to smile a little. “So...here we are.” She nervously shifted up onto her toes and down again. “What shall I call you?”

He almost looked surprised by the question. “My lord,” he said, as if that were perfectly obvious. “Excuse me.” He turned around, his cloak swirling behind him, and walked out of the small room, closing the door firmly behind him.

Leaving Grace alone in that small dark office, staring at the place he’d just stood.

She snatched in a deep breath she hadn’t even realized she needed until that moment, and sank heavily onto the wooden bench. “My lord?” she repeated to the closed door. “That’s what I’m to call you? My lord?” Would he loathe her always? Would he ever speak?

Her mind raced alongside her heart for the next several minutes. Or hours—who knew? It seemed an interminably long wait, and she did not move from that bench. Her limbs ached, her head ached more. She wished someone had opened the blinds and given the room a bit more light, but it was as bleak and as dark as her mood. She did not feel at liberty to open them herself.

Occasionally, Grace would smooth out Honor’s letter from its crumpled state and read it again, but her sister’s words filled her with an overwhelming desire to stab a pen into the hard wood of the desk before her, or kick it with both feet until it broke in two. How different this day would have been had she known! How different her life would have been had Honor written her sooner!

Grace almost sobbed out loud with relief when the door swung open, and Merryton stepped inside. He stood just at the door, one fist clenched at his side, lightly tapping against the jamb. One two three four five six seven eight. He dropped his hand. “It is time, Miss Cabot,” he said simply.

“Well. Here it is, then,” she said, resigned. In the time it took her to stand, the life Grace had known flashed before her. A privileged childhood, three sisters whom she loved more than anything else. An elegant, sophisticated mother. A life at the brilliant center of London’s highest society.

Merryton, she noticed, tapped the jamb again, eight times.

Grace shoved Honor’s letter into her reticule. She tried to avoid his fierce green eyes. His jaw was clenched, his expression cold. The feeling was mutual, she supposed, and swallowed down the lump of trepidation that was choking her.

Merryton glanced at a small mantel clock. “Come now.” He spoke as if she were a servant.

“I’m coming as quickly as I can force myself.”

“It would behoove you to force yourself a bit faster.”

She could scarcely look at him as she moved past him, taking care not to brush his clothing with hers as she did. She stepped out and winced when she heard the door shut resoundingly behind her. She clasped her hands tightly before her and walked beside him, aware of his physical presence so much bigger and powerful than she.

Another shiver raced through her, and honestly, Grace could not say if it was a shiver of fear, of revulsion or, if she were perfectly honest with herself, of titillation. As heartsick as she was about this wedding, that night in the tea shop was still very much on her mind.

How in heaven had she managed to create such a prodigiously complicated shambles of her life in such a short amount of time? She would write Honor straightaway, as soon as the vows were said, and beg her to come. If she were allowed to post letters, that was. Grace wasn’t entirely certain what to expect any longer.

Merryton paused before another door in the back of the small offices. He rapped on the door, and as they waited for it to open, he tapped the jamb with his fist.

Grace glanced heavenward and sent up a silent prayer for courage.

The door opened, and a man of the cloth stood behind it. He was the same height as Grace, and his disdainful gaze slid down to her toes and up again. “This way, my lord,” he said to Merryton, and gestured behind Grace to the front door of the offices.

Merryton swept his hand before him, indicating Grace should precede him. She followed the clergyman out of the offices and up the road to the little chapel. She could hear Merryton walking behind her, but she could not see him. She glanced over her shoulder at him. His gaze was locked on her.

Why did he not speak? At the very least he might tell her he was so angry he did not intend to ever speak to her. Surely she deserved at least that explanation.

Grace slowed her step so that he had to walk beside her. She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, debating what she might say to somehow improve this wretched situation. “Perhaps,” she said carefully, “this...arrangement...won’t be as bad as one might fear.” She looked at him hopefully.

Something dark flashed in his eyes.

“I mean only that, sometimes, it is best to look for hope than to find fault.” Oh, that sounded ridiculous.

He must have thought so, too, because he said nothing. Grace was beginning to think his silence might be the worst of it all—that he would never utter a word.

Cousin Beatrice and her disagreeable husband were waiting inside the chapel for them, and Beatrice looked again as if she might burst into tears at any moment. Grace sincerely hoped she would not.

There was no one for Merryton, she noticed. Not even Amherst.

Her heart was pounding as they moved up the aisle to the altar. She’d never felt so alone—they may as well have been leading her to the gallows and her execution.

The clergyman spoke in near-whispers to Merryton, almost as if Grace was not even present. He announced he would begin. He drew a breath and fixed his gaze on Grace. “We are gathered here today in the sight of God,” he said, as if Grace wasn’t aware that God was watching. As if she needed to be reminded. As if she wasn’t acutely aware of how dreadfully she must have disappointed her maker.

She surreptitiously pressed her damp palms against the skirt of her gown. She felt a little light-headed as the weight of what was happening began to sink in, and fixed her gaze on the stained glass over the vicar’s head, of Jesus on the cross. Her thoughts jumbled and raced ahead to her duties as this man’s wife. She was aware when Merryton shifted beside her, felt the heat in his much-larger hand when he took hers—literally picking it up from her side to hold it when Grace failed to hear the vicar’s instruction. The vicar began to read the assumptions of a married couple, including fidelity and honor. She noticed that Merryton’s eyes seemed to narrow the more the vicar spoke.

“My lord,” the vicar said, his voice soft and even kind, “will you take this woman...” He began to rattle off the requirements of him. To hold her from this day forward. To honor and cherish, for better or worse—

Now there was a laugh. There was no accidental honoring and cherishing at this altar. The notion that he should have to vow such a thing was so absurd that Grace could feel a slightly hysterical, completely irrepressible smile begin to curve her lips.

As the vicar continued to speak, Merryton looked at her curiously at first, then crossly. He undoubtedly did not find any of this amusing, and in spite of her attempt to hide her hysterical smile, neither did Grace. But the more the vicar spoke, the more absurd it all seemed, and Grace’s laughter was rising in her like a storm tide, threatening to explode on the gentleman standing before her. She bit her lip, but she couldn’t keep that damnable smile from her lips.

“I will,” Merryton said curtly.

Grace hadn’t even realized the question had ended.

“Miss Cabot,” the vicar said, “will you take Jeffrey Thomas Creighton Donovan to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, to cherish, to honor and obey until death do you part?” he asked quickly, his gaze on the book he held.

Oh, dear. Until death parted them seemed an awfully long time. Grace thought of her fantasy of escaping, of running away. She would do that long before death ever thought to part them, and that, therefore, begged the question—

Merryton squeezed her hand. Her hesitation had earned her twin stern looks from the vicar and from Merryton. “Oh, yes,” she said quickly, and looked at the vicar. “I will.” Her voice was surprisingly strong for all the roiling in her belly. She shifted her gaze to Merryton. His expression was either a devouring one, or it was a very heated one, and she was mystified as to what, exactly, his gaze meant.

She looked away, finding the stained glass once more, praying for wisdom, forbearance, hope.

The vicar reminded them both that they had said these vows in the presence of God, and then intoned, “I pronounce you man and wife.”

The moment he said it, Merryton dropped her hand.

“If you would, my lord, sign the parish register,” the vicar said, his hand on Merryton’s elbow, showing him the way to the register.

Grace didn’t move from her spot at the altar, feeling quite at sea.

The vicar paused and looked back. “Mrs. Donovan!” he said, as if she were a lagging child, and held out the pen to her.

Well, then, that sealed it. If she was addressed as Mrs. Donovan, she must be married. Grace signed the marriage book, her hand shaking beneath the firm strokes of his signature. Merryton, he’d written. Cousin Beatrice signed as witness, wiping tears from her face as she did. Her husband signed next, and when he laid down the pen, he looked at Merryton and said, “My sympathies, my lord.”

Grace gasped with disbelief and gaped at Brumley, but she was so inconsequential to him that he never even glanced in her direction.

Merryton did, however. He turned that dark, cold gaze to her and said simply, “Come.” He turned on his heel, walking from the chapel, his cloak billowing behind him. He had not even removed his cloak.

A sob came from somewhere behind her, and in the next moment, Beatrice’s hands were grasping at Grace, turning her about, pulling her into her chest. “You poor dear,” she whispered. “Please let me write to your mother! She will be a source of great comfort to you now.”

Grace had to physically push away from Beatrice to draw a breath. “I’ve already sent a letter,” she lied.

“Oh, right, of course you have,” Beatrice said, and clasped Grace’s face between her hands. “Be brave, darling. It will not do to cry and carry on when you yourself have brought this on yourself.”

Grace blinked. She gave a small, rueful laugh. “No, of course not,” she agreed.

“Lady Merryton,” Merryton called sternly from the entrance.

It was a moment before Grace understood that he was speaking to her. She peeled Beatrice’s hands from her face and stepped away. She could still hear Beatrice’s whimpering as she walked down the aisle toward the sunlight streaming through the open door. Bright, cheerful sun, as if this was the happiest of days.

Grace stepped out into the sunlight and lifted the hood of her cloak over her head.

At the bottom of the hill, Merryton stood beside a black coach pulled by a team of four. It was deceiving in its lack of ornamentation; Grace knew it was one of the new, expensive landau coaches. The only nod given to the rank of the man who owned it was red plumes that billowed up from either side of the driver’s seat. Four coachmen in livery stood at attention, and she could see her trunk strapped to the boot.

With a curt nod of his head, Merryton commanded the coach door to be opened and the step brought down. He looked at Grace.

She took a breath and did not release it until she reached the coach. And even when she did, hardly any breath left her, all of it absorbed by her trepidation.

Merryton held out his hand, palm up, to help her into the coach. She hesitated before laying her hand in his. He didn’t look at her as he handed her up. When she was seated he stepped back. “Godspeed, madam.”

“Wait—pardon?” she said, confused, and lurched forward, bracing herself in the open door of the coach. “Aren’t you coming?”

“I will ride.”

“But I—” But she what? What could she possibly say? She wanted him to ride with her? No, no, she didn’t want that. Hours of cold silence was far worse than being alone on her wedding day—

Before Grace could work out what she meant, he’d shut the door. She surged toward the window, pushing aside the curtain. She had to crane her neck to see him, but she watched him stride to a horse that a boy held and easily swing up. He looked like a king on that horse, taut and muscular, his shoulders squared, his countenance stern. He turned to speak to the coachman, and then spurred his horse, galloping away from the chapel as if the devil chased him.

A moment later, the coach lurched forward, tossing Grace back into the leather squabs. She blinked up at the silk-covered ceiling. That was that, then. She was married to him, until death parted them, and he despised her. She abruptly bit down on her lower lip to keep tears from falling. She agreed with Cousin Beatrice—it would not do to cry when one had brought the situation on herself.

She would not cry, bloody hell, she would not.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WASN’T LONG before the scattering of cottages grew farther apart, and soon, there was nothing but forests rolling by, broken by the occasional pasture dotted with sheep or cows or, as Grace saw in one pasture, dozens of pigs grazing around their little hovels. Occasionally, she would spot the chimneys of a grand estate over the tops of trees, but that was the only sign of people on this road.

She was hungry; she wondered if it was acceptable to ask the coachman to stop in a village, to allow her to rest, to eat something, to freshen herself before she arrived at Blackwood Hall.

She reread Honor’s letter to take her mind off her discomfort, but found nothing but more anxiety in the happy loops and swirls of her sister’s handwriting. Grace put the letter away, folded her arms and leaned her head back against the squabs, squeezing her eyes shut against the images of the life about to unfold before her. The constant rocking of the coach made her limbs and eyelids feel heavy; Grace was aware she was sinking into exhaustion, but she didn’t recall sliding down onto the bench. That was where she was when the coach hit a bump, and her head struck the side of the coach, waking her. “Ouch,” she said, wincing and putting a hand to her head.

She pushed herself up and swept aside the curtains. The day had turned gloomy, and they were rolling past some barren cliffs. But the road turned, and the forest began again, rising up dark against the hills. The coach slowed and turned north, into the thick of the forest. The trees were so dense that they blocked what little light existed. The forest was truly black wood.

The coach began to slow. They passed through a massive stone gate, its height so tall that from Grace’s vantage point through the small window she could not see the top of it. Once inside the gate, the trees had been thinned, and gray light dappled the pristine lawn.

Grace gasped softly when the house came into view—it was quite large, at least as large as Longmeadow, the Beckington seat where she’d spent her youth. But where Longmeadow was light and cheerful, Blackwood Hall was dark and foreboding. The stone was gray, the windows black eyes. The chimneys were covered in soot, and there was no color that Grace could see, other than the green ivy that covered one corner of the house.

The house looked just like its master—bleak, dark and foreboding, the only color in his face the stark green of his eyes.

The house staff was scurrying out the door, lining up in order of rank as the coach rolled in. There were fifteen in all, the butler and the housekeeper at the head of the line. They came to a halt, and the door swung open. The bench was set before the opening. A coachman held up his hand to assist her down.

Grace swallowed down a small lump of fear, and stepped out.

The staff were looking straight ahead, but more than one pair of eyes slid in her direction. She let her hood fall back and glanced around for Merryton. He came striding across the drive, his crop tapping against his leg. Eight times. A pause. Eight times again.

“Mr. Cox, Mrs. Garland, may I present Lady Merryton,” he said matter-of-factly. He announced it so casually, in fact, that one would reasonably assume he must have sent word ahead of his marriage. But it was clear that when the two principle servants both froze, and the ripple ran through the rest of the servants gathered, that none of them knew.

“My lady,” Mrs. Garland said, the first to recover as she dipped into a quick curtsy. She looked to Mr. Cox for guidance, but the tall, thin butler had yet to regain his composure. Not that Merryton cared, apparently, because he looked at Grace, clenched his jaw and strode inside, the crop still tapping against his leg. Eight times.

“Ah...” Grace glanced over her shoulder; the coachmen were unlashing her trunk. She turned back to the group of servants. “How do you do,” she said, forcing a smile, nodding at them. “This...this must come as something of a surprise.”

There was a murmur of agreement, more shuffling about.

“Yes, well...it was meant to...be a surprise,” she said hesitantly, reaching for anything to ease her arrival as a Fallen Woman.

“You are very welcome, my lady,” Cox said, having recovered from his initial shock. He jostled two chambermaids out of the way and walked briskly forward, bowing before Grace, then gesturing for her to precede him into the house. “If I may, I shall show you about the hall. Mrs. Garland, please do see that the lady’s chambers are made ready? Make way,” he said, and the servants instantly split into two lines, stepping back to allow Grace to pass.

Grace smiled again, lifted her chin as if she were entering Lady Chatham’s sitting room, nodding and murmuring a greeting to the servants as she passed by them and walked into the foyer of Blackwood Hall.

She had expected grandeur, and while the house was certainly grand—the marble floors, the winding formal staircase, the Grecian columns—there was not the usual assembly of paintings and armor that, in Grace’s experience, generally graced the entrance to a grand home. This foyer was stark, as if the owner had only recently taken possession.

Mr. Cox walked her down long hallways, showing her small salons and larger, more formal salons, the breakfast room, more than one dining room and one formal one that would seat sixty. There was a ballroom and so many guest rooms that Grace lost count. The house was magnificently constructed, but somber in its decor. There were no paintings on the walls, no familiar signs of family history, no evidence of ancestry for all to see. There were only identical vases of identical hothouse flowers—roses—cut at identical height.

In the main salon, Grace paused before the massive hearth and glanced up at the mirror that hung above it. “I have noticed there are no paintings,” she said to Cox.

“No, madam. His lordship prefers that the frames be made uniform, and if they cannot, he prefers they not hang.”

“Pardon?” Grace said, glancing over her shoulder at the butler.

Even though Cox’s hair was thinning, he was unexpectedly young for the position he held. He said again, “His lordship prefers uniformity,” he said.

What on earth did that mean, he preferred uniformity? She glanced up to the mirror, the only thing in the room to adorn the walls. Moreover, there were four chairs set before the hearth, two facing two, all of them at equal distance from the other.

How odd.

“Shall I show you your lady’s suite of rooms?”

“Please,” Grace said.

She was happy to see that her suite of rooms faced south and west, which promised sunlight to chase away the gloom of this house. The rooms themselves were tastefully appointed, painted a pale creamy pink, with white shutters at the windows and embroidered draperies. The wood floor had been covered with a thick rug. It was very inviting. Except that, again, there was nothing on the walls to brighten the room.

“Is there anything you might require?” Mr. Cox asked.

“Yes,” she said, and pressed her hands to her belly. “I am quite hungry, Mr. Cox. Might I have something to eat?”

Mr. Cox looked strangely uncomfortable at her request. “I beg your pardon, madam, but supper is served at precisely eight o’clock.”

Grace looked at the mantle clock. It was a quarter to five o’clock. “Do you mean to say that I may not have anything to eat until eight o’clock?”

Cox swallowed; his cheeks colored slightly. “His lordship prefers food be served at those hours. Breakfast is likewise served at eight o’clock, and luncheon at twelve o’clock, tea at four o’clock.”

Grace stared at the butler, thinking she would see the hint of a smile, discover that he possessed a jovial streak. But Cox merely stood, awaiting her direction.

“No exception might be made today?” she asked.

“If his lordship agrees, of course.” But he made no move, which led Grace to believe that she would have to be the one to inquire. If that was the case, she preferred to feel the pangs of hunger.

“Might I have a bath?” she asked. “Or...are there requirements for the time they might be drawn?”

“No, madam. I will have one drawn right away.” Mr. Cox gave her a curt nod and strode briskly from the room.

When he’d gone, Grace let her reticule fall to the floor. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do next—her belly was growling and she was exhausted from the strain of this day. A bath would help that, and then she would count every minute to supper and the moment she’d be allowed to eat something. After that, well...whatever came after that, she couldn’t contemplate without feeling a bit ill.

But also a wee bit intrigued.

After all, not every moment in the tea shop had been dreadful.

* * *

JEFFREY’S PRIVATE CHAMBER was situated in the front hall of the first floor, overlooking the entrance to Blackwood Hall. It was twenty-four steps long and sixteen steps wide.

The master suite, which Mr. Cox frequently brought up in the hopes that Jeffrey would one day occupy it, was at the southern corner of the first floor. It had two walls of windows, with three windows each, overlooking the more picturesque bits of his estate. It was also thirty-one steps long and twenty-three steps wide.

Mr. Cox believed that Jeffrey preferred not to sleep where his father had passed away, and Jeffrey was content for him to assume so. But in truth, he preferred it here, in the quiet comfort of eight. It settled him, made him feel at ease.

Until today. This room was uncomfortably close to the new Lady Merryton’s suite of rooms.

He had taken refuge in his rooms when they’d arrived from Bath, pouring himself a generous portion of whiskey and removing his boots. He’d sat down onto the upholstered chair before his hearth, had leaned his head back and closed his eyes, his mind racing around the improbable fact that he was now married to a woman he did not know.

As he sat there in his quiet, he heard the servants in the hall. “Have a care, Willie, mind you not make a noise,” one footman said harshly to the other. “I told you, one bucket, each hand. If Mrs. Garland notices you’ve sloshed water on the carpets, she’ll have you sent to the stables.”

Jeffrey slowly opened his eyes. He realized that they were hauling buckets of water so that Lady Merryton could bathe.

He downed the rest of his whiskey, clenched his jaw and closed his eyes again. He tried his best not to imagine her naked body sliding into steaming water, her breasts floating on the surface. But the more he tried to banish the images, the faster they came at him. He saw water swirling around her sex, caressing her as he ached to do. He saw her lifting a slender, tapered leg from the water and running her hands over it, then her breasts, then leaning her head against the back of the bath and sliding her hands lower to where he wanted to put his hands—

Jeffrey suddenly came up with a start. He walked to the windows and flung one open, leaning into the casing, taking deep breaths of air. He had to control himself and his ugly thoughts. He had to learn to exist in this house with that woman—that treacherous, beautiful woman.

He whirled around from the window, grabbed up his boot. He silently counted to eight, then shoved his foot in. Again on the other leg. And then he strode out of his rooms, bound for the study, his fist tapping in a futile effort to ease his racing thoughts.

There he remained, burying his thoughts in an avalanche of work. He reviewed invoices, examined the ledgers, wrote his own correspondence. At ten of seven, Cox entered the study. “Will you dress for supper, my lord?”

“No,” Jeffrey said without looking up from his work. His response no doubt caused Cox a bit of consternation, for Jeffrey was nothing if not habitual. “Quite a lot to be done,” he said vaguely, and looked at the papers before him. “Please inform her ladyship of when and where we might dine.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Jeffrey stared blindly at the page before him as Cox went out, counting the butler’s footsteps. Six. Only six. Everything around him was off-kilter, out of balance, and Jeffrey didn’t know how to get it back. He couldn’t avoid the feminine presence in his house. He could already feel it seeping in through the walls, surrounding him like a vapor. He had spent so much of his adult life carefully constructing the boundaries around him that he’d not thought of what he might do if those boundaries were breached.

He certainly didn’t know what to do now, and continued working, filling his head with figures and the problems of managing a large estate until the supper hour. As much as he would have liked to have dined alone in his rooms, his sense of order and habit was much stronger. He strode down the hallway—sixteen steps in all—to the family dining room. He walked in, and the woman, his wife, was standing at the buffet.

His entrance clearly startled her; she jerked around, knocking into the buffet and causing the stack of plates to rattle. She quickly put her hands around the plates to still them and smiled apprehensively.

Her hands, he noticed, were slender and elegant. Long, tapered fingers. He looked down, pushing an image of those fingers sliding into body orifices.

“Good evening, my lord,” she said with as much cheer as one could muster, given the day. Her voice sounded melodic.

“Good evening, Lady Merryton.”

“Ah...Grace,” she said, as if perhaps he hadn’t remembered it, as if he hadn’t signed a marriage book and a special license with her name clearly spelled out for all eternity: Grace Elizabeth Diana Cabot. Twenty-four letters in all.

“You will forgive me if I do not feel the familiarity necessary to address you by your given name as yet.” He thought he was being helpful. He couldn’t very well explain to her that certain things had to happen before he could call her by her given name—even he wasn’t sure what—but he couldn’t speak to her as if they were known to each other. As if he had courted her, had asked her permission to address her more intimately.

Clearly, his helpful explanation had not had the desired effect; he could see her delicate swallow course her neck. She pressed her lips together and nodded politely.

She apparently had given up any pretense of mourning her stepfather, as she was wearing a shimmering gold gown with intricate embroidery of crystals on the skirt. They caught the light and made it look as if she were sparkling. The gown hugged her body tightly, and her breasts, heaven help him, were two creamy mounds that looked as if they would burst from her décolletage at any moment. Her golden hair was swept up in a simple roll at her nape. Jewels that matched the glitter of those around her throat dangled at her earlobes.

She was, in a word, lovely.

Jeffrey gestured to a seat at the table; a footman instantly moved to hold the chair for her.

She sat elegantly, her hands in her lap, her gaze on the setting before her. Jeffrey admired her long neck, the tiny wisps of hair that were not caught in the roll of her hair. She took a deep breath, her chest lifting with it, then smoothly falling again as she silently released it.

Jeffrey sat heavily in his seat at the head of the table, prepared for what he assumed would be a difficult evening. He tried not to look at this stranger, this beauty, his wife. To look at her was to imagine the claiming of her, the possession of her body. It was within his right, but Jeffrey could not bear it. He feared what he would do, that he would lose control, that he could, God forbid, hurt her. It was one thing to seek the company of women who shared his appetites, or could be persuaded to like them with a generous purse. It was something else entirely when the object of his desire was a virginal debutante.

He couldn’t help himself; he tapped his forefinger against the table eight times as nonchalantly as he possibly could.

“Shall we serve, my lord?” Cox said behind him.

Yes, please serve, let this day be done! “Please,” he said, and leaned back, his fists on his thighs, his jaw clenched.

The place settings had been laid perfectly—the water goblet four inches above the center of the plate, the wine goblet four inches to the right of that. The china plate, purchased from a rather desperate aristocratic Frenchman, boasted a fleur-de-lis in the center of the plate. The top of the fleur-de-lis pointed to the center of the water goblet. Jeffrey did not look at the plate’s border; it was a terrible hodgepodge of scrolling evergreen boughs and tiny fleur-de-lis that made no sense to him and disturbed him.

“You have a lovely home.”

The dulcet tone of her voice slipped through Jeffrey; he risked a look at her. The first thing he’d truly noticed about her—the first time he’d seen her in light, in that wretched office before they were wed—was her eyes. They were hazel, more green than brown, and they reminded him of the colors of late summer. Her lashes were darkly golden but long, her brows feathery arches over her eyes. He’d been struck by her beauty, something that he’d failed to notice the night in the tea shop.

What he noticed tonight was that her fingers were tapping lightly on the stem of the wine goblet. She had pulled the goblet out of its place, closer to her, and that it was out of place gave him a feeling of uneasiness. “Thank you,” he said. He looked away.

“Have you always resided here?”

Bloody hell, conversation could not be avoided. He turned back to her, his gaze sweeping over her. She was wearing a choker of amber stones about her neck, and he could imagine himself removing that necklace, his hands sliding over her shoulders, the jewels sliding into her cleavage, followed by his fingers.

That image was inexplicably and unavoidably followed by one of him at her breast, his mouth surrounding the tip of it, his tongue flicking across the hardened peak.

She was speaking, he realized. Jeffrey pressed the heel of his shoe into the carpet to settle himself. “Pardon?”

“I was inquiring if your family has been long at Blackwood Hall.”

“Generations,” he responded tersely. “This has been the Merryton seat since the title was bestowed on us. I am the fifth earl.” Her lips were full, plush and an amazing shade of coral.

“Do you live alone here?”

He shifted in his seat. “Mostly.”

She looked as if she wanted to ask more, but thankfully, the serving of the meal ended any talk for the time being. When Cox had filled their plates with lamb and potatoes, and had filled their wineglasses, Jeffrey sent him and the footman out with a single gesture.

He picked up his fork and began to eat. He was aware that his wife picked uneasily at her food as if she had no appetite, but drank her wine with more enthusiasm. When he finished, he settled back in his seat and placed his napkin on the table beside his plate. He noticed she’d only taken a few bites. “Do you not find the food to your liking?”

“What? No, it’s perfectly fine.”

Then why did she not eat it? He shifted his gaze to the buffet. Eight drawers, four by four.

“If I may,” she said, “I should like to...offer an apology for what happened.”

She had apologized to him. He didn’t know what she thought he might do with another apology.

“The tea shop,” she said, apparently thinking it necessary to explain what she meant. As if something else had happened between them, as if she’d made some other catastrophic gash across his life.

He did not care to think of that night, of his complete loss of control. “It is unnecessary.”

“But I—”

“Madam, as I said, unnecessary,” he said, and shifted uncomfortably again. “You were there to meet Amherst. You mistook me for him. We have both made a mistake of enormous consequence that has linked us, inextricably, for eternity. What is done is done. Have you finished your meal?”

Her brows knit in frown. “Yes.”

“Then...if you will excuse me.” He stood.

His wife looked surprised. She moved to stand, too, and the gentleman in Jeffrey, bred into him at an early age, quickly moved to pull her chair away. She straightened, only inches from him. Her eyes blinked up at him, the candlelight making them seem to sparkle. Jeffrey felt a swirl of emotion and heat rising up in him. He had an unbearable urge to take her in hand, to kiss the plump, moist lips, to put his hand and his mouth on her chest, to bend her over this table and lift her skirts, bare her bottom to him, move his hand between her legs—

He stepped back, curtly bowed his head. “I will not come to you tonight, Lady Merryton.” He clasped his hands at his back so that she would not see the way his hand curled into a fist, trying to control his desire. “I will allow you the time to be comfortable at Blackwood Hall.”

Her eyes widened. An appealing blush rose in her cheeks as she glanced around them, as if searching for something. An exit, perhaps.

“You may inquire with Mr. Cox about the services of a lady’s maid.”

That brought her gaze quickly back to him, but this time, instead of bewilderment, her gaze was cross. She folded her arms across her body and tilted her head to one side, and Jeffrey could not help but admire her neck. “I am curious—are you this aloof and commanding with everyone you know, or have you adopted this demeanor entirely for my benefit? For if you mean to punish me, you need not bother. I am punishing myself every moment of every day.”

Her bit of cheek surprised him. He wasn’t punishing her. He was more at fault than she.

“I understand you are angry. I would be, were I in your shoes. I have apologized—”

“There is no need to apologize again,” he said brusquely.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Good, because I didn’t intend to apologize again. After all, there are only so many ways one might beg for forgiveness, and I believe I’ve exhausted them all. But I rather think that here we are, my lord, and we may as well determine how we are to endure it.”

Jeffrey was caught completely off guard. He lived a solitary life—most people deferred to him. They certainly did not challenge him. “I beg your pardon, madam, if I’ve not been suitably garrulous for you. I find idle chatter tedious and I am not very good at it.”

“Why yes, you have demonstrated that very well, my lord. But I don’t think of it as idle chatter. I was attempting to know you.”

That declaration made him feel uncomfortably exposed. He wondered what she would think if she knew she’d trapped herself into a marriage with a madman. “Frankly, I don’t care to be known,” he said truthfully. “Good night.”

He turned away from her and walked to the door. But as he reached it, he heard her say something quite low. He paused at the door and looked back. “Pardon?”

“I said, good night, my lord,” she said with mock cheer. She looked lovely standing there, her color high, her eyes blazing with ire. The images began to come to him—images of those eyes blazing with passion—

He turned away and walked into the corridor. He turned left. He walked sixteen steps to the turn into the main corridor, then thirty-two steps to the foyer, which required him to shorten his stride. In the foyer, he began the count again, going up the steps.

It was the only thing that would banish the image of his wife caressing her naked body while he watched.

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