Emmaline normally enjoyed having Birdie brush out her hair before braiding it for bed. In a life of so much shadow and uncertainty the nightly ritual drew some of the tension from her mind. It reminded her of her childhood, before Mama died and Reginald Peachum embarked on a series of schemes to maintain the life his wife’s fortune had afforded him, before he’d frittered the last of it away.

Tonight, however, nothing eased her mind. Or, more precisely, eased the humming excitement and confusion which dotted her thoughts like stars winking into view as the sky changed from dusk to darkness. It was her wedding night. In less than twelve hours she’d shot a man—or his nice Weston jacket, at least—accepted his proposal of marriage, signed her library into his safekeeping, packed her meager possessions and her maid into his carriage, stood before a vicar in the beautiful library of said man’s magnificent Berkeley Square home, and married him by special license.

A man she’d met twice.

Once that very morning.

Right after she shot him.

“I hope you will be very happy, Lady Arthur,” Sir Stirling had said as he bent to sign the marriage registry and handed the quill to Birdie so she might do the same. “And if you are not, you will send word to me.”

“And you will thrash the captain and make him a better husband?” Emmaline had replied as she watched the man in question speak with the vicar.

Sir Stirling took her hand. “I will do what needs be done to keep you safe. If a thrashing is merited, all the better.”

“You’ll have to wait your turn, sir, if his lordship hurts my lady,” Birdie assured him.

They’d all laughed, which drew the captain’s attention as he handed the vicar a heavy purse. In a few long strides he’d moved to take Emmaline’s hand from Sir Stirling and placed it on his own arm.

“Lady Arthur is mine to protect now.”

“Indeed, my lord,” Sir Stirling had replied. “And I fully expect you shall do so.”

Emmaline had rolled her eyes. Men. Then it struck her. Good heavens! “I have just realized you are a lord,” she’d blurted. He’d turned her into a blithering idiot in less than a day. After thirty years of marriage she’d be fortunate to be able to put on her own shoes.

“Indeed. And you are now a lady… my lady,” the tall stranger she’d married replied. His lazy attempt at a smile annoyed her.

“Precisely what is your title—other than captain, that is?” Had she truly been so desperate to marry she’d accidentally married an earl, or a marquess, God forbid? Only Emmaline would stumble upon a husband with a title and one ‘criminal handsome’ too. She’d been married five minutes, and if she’d unwittingly married a peer of the realm her marriage was already a scandal.

“I have no title.”

Sir Stirling had stood there grinning, actually grinning.

“My father, however, is the Duke of Mitford.” With that, he’d raised her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss on it the tingle of which still had not subsided. Then he’d gone back to accept the vicar’s effusive congratulations and wishes for a long and fruitful marriage.

Fruitful?

Emmaline had not wanted to be a heifer at some marriage auction. Now she was a tree? And not just any tree, but a tree in a duke’s orchard.

“Have you heard a word I’ve said, Lady Arthur?” Birdie dropped the brush on the polished rosewood vanity and, hands on hips, scowled at Emmaline.

“I heard you call me Lady Arthur, which I have asked you not to do.” Emmaline rose from the dainty chair before the vanity and retrieved her book from the comfortable chaise longue before the fireplace with the intricately carved mantelpiece.

“I won’t be calling you anything else,” Birdie declared. “Not when you’ve been clever enough to get yourself married to a duke’s son.” She fetched the bedwarmer from the hearth and passed it beneath the expensive sheets and counterpane.

Emmaline circled to the other side of the huge mahogany canopied bed. Birdie had drawn the heavy, burgundy rose-patterned bed curtains on this side, so Emmaline had to fight her way through them to climb onto the heavenly over-stuffed mattress. After weeks of sleeping on a pallet of blankets and clothes they’d hidden from the bailiff, she had to admit she might have made this marriage bargain for the bed alone. Well, the bed… and the jovial housekeeper, Mrs. Christian… and the French chef… She stacked several thick pillows behind her back and stretched her legs in the direction of the heat wafting up from the foot of the bed. And the heat produced by an endless supply of coals.

“Clever had nothing to do with it.” She opened her book and drew the spectacles she’d used to mark her place from between the pages. “I stumbled upon a pair of bedlamite gentlemen in a cemetery a few days ago and had the ill fortune to marry the one who’s a duke’s son.”

“All I know is you’ve landed us in a handsome house, with coal for the fires, carpets on the floors, all the food we can eat, and lovely soft beds for the both of us. Best not look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“You’re not the one who has to bed the horse. You’d best find your lovely, soft bed before his lordship comes in here to make me his wife in truth.” Emmaline swallowed and tried to train her eyes on the book she’d been studying every moment she’d spent in her new chambers since this morning’s swift and efficient wedding. Save for a perfunctory wedding luncheon and a slightly longer wedding supper, she’d not seen her husband. He’d escorted her to her bedchamber after supper a few hours ago with a promise to attend her after he attended some business. At least she had no delusions as to her place in his life.

Birdie came to the edge of the bed and leaned over to peer at the book. She snatched it from Emmaline’s hands and slammed it shut. “Do I need to tell you how it works again, my lady? I daresay I can tell you more about it than a dusty old book.”

Emmaline’s face burned. If she had to listen to Birdie’s rather earthy description of intimate relations one more time she’d not survive the embarrassment to actually do the deed with her husband. One thing was certain. For the marriage to be legal, she’d have to do… that with Captain Lord Arthur Farnsworth.

Her body fairly shook with nettling prickles of anticipation. Cold. Then hot. Emmaline twisted the heavy gold band on her left hand. He’d spoken his vows in crisp, firm tones, each word laden with an import, an emotion which both frightened and comforted her as he placed the ring on her finger. She scarcely remembered her own vows. Only that he’d raised an eyebrow and coughed when she’d said the word obey. It had made her smile in spite of herself. It did still.

Birdie dropped the book next to several others on the bedside table and returned the bedwarmer to its spot on the hearth. Emmaline drew up her knees, retrieved the book to prop it atop them, and opened it to the page she’d been reading.

“If you are afraid, I can tell his lordship you are indisposed,” Birdie offered quietly.

“Indisposed?” Emmaline marked her spot with her finger. She blinked at her maid through her spectacles. “What do you… oh. Oh! Absolutely not.” She shook her head vehemently and tried to bring the words on the page into focus. “Good night, Birdie. That will be all.”

“Hmpf. Said that like a proper lady, you did.”

“She is a proper lady,” a deep voice declared from the door to the dressing room adjacent to the bedchamber.

Emmaline suppressed a shriek and struggled to scoot to the edge of the bed. Her book fell to the floor, open to a particularly intriguing illustration. She leaned over to grab it. And promptly fell out of bed.

“My lady!” Birdie cried.

In the space of a breath, strong arms scooped her up and carried her to the chaise longue. Emmaline’s new husband sat next to her and brushed a strand of hair from her face.

“If you continue to fall at my feet each time I enter a room I shall be forced to invest in some thicker carpets.” He turned over her hands and cradled them in his. “Are you injured?”

“Only my vanity,” she muttered. His grey eyes, more blue tonight, sent odd little fissures of heat into shocking places all over her body. His black hair, damp and smelling of sandalwood soap, curled over the collar of a midnight blue Banyan of quilted silk. She folded her fingers into her palms to keep from reaching for those curls. His feet and legs were bare. She’d never been this close to a man in such a state of undress. Then again, she’d never been this close to a man whilst she wore nothing save her worn and patched flannel night rail.

She cringed. Even the bed was better dressed than she was.

“Are you certain you are not injured?” he asked.

“Let me see to her, my lord.” Birdie hovered just over Emmaline’s shoulder.

“I can see to my wife.” He used what she’d come to call his captain’s voice. “I believe your mistress dismissed you.” His gaze never left Emmaline’s face. “Unless you wish her to stay?” He ran his thumb along her jaw.

Emmaline licked her lips “I am fine, Birdie. Good night.”

“Hmpf.” Birdie gathered some stockings and stays from the blanket chest at the foot of the bed. She turned and eyed the captain up and down. “You look to be a man who knows what he’s about in the bedchamber. Don’t muck this up.” She gave the door a forceful slam as she left.

“Oh lord.” Emmaline dropped her head into her hands and groaned.

He chuckled softly and the sound resonated in his chest, against which, the top of her head now rested. “At least she has faith in my skills, if not my intentions.”

She sat up and slide back a bit on the chaise. “She doesn’t mean anything by it, Captain. Birdie has been with me for twenty years. She simply—”

“Loves you very much. Perfectly understandable.” He cleared his throat. Suddenly he appeared almost nervous. All fine and good, save she was already nervous enough for the both of them. He turned toward the bed. “Is this a book from your library?”

He half stood and leaned toward the open volume.

“No!” Emmaline flung herself toward it. And sent them both crashing to the floor. He managed to twist somehow and cushion her fall. With his long, lean, muscled body. Yet, he still reached the book before she did. Damn him.

He peered up at her, that hint of a grin curling the side of his mouth. “You are the first lady ever to sweep me off my feet.”

“It was an accident.” Which she seemed to be prone to since the moment she’d met him. She reached for her book. He rolled to his side, which had her straddling his thigh. His marble-hard, powerful thigh.

“At least this one didn’t involve gunfire.” He rolled back, one hand on her hip to steady her and the other grasping her book. “Are you so possessive of all of your books, Emmaline, or merely the naughty ones?” Flat on his back, he studied one page and then another of her copy of Aristotle’s Masterpiece – The Midwife’s Guide. His eyes scanned the length of her body sprawled atop his.

“It isn’t naughty,” she declared as she scrambled to her feet. “It is a well-respected book on a scientific subject.” She held out her hand. “And I would like it back, if you please, Captain.”

“Arthur.” He rose, graceful as a cat, to his full height and continued to peruse the pages of her book, the dratted man. “My name is Arthur. I haven’t been Captain Farnsworth for two years.” Something about the way he said it struck her. He sounded almost… relieved.

Emmaline crossed her arms over her chest. “Once a captain, always a captain. You cannot shed it like an old coat. I knew you were a ship’s captain from the moment I first laid eyes on you in the cemetery.”

A shadow crossed his expression. “I suppose you are right. But I would prefer you call me Arthur.”

“Return my property, and I will consider it.” She reached for the book. He held it up, just out of her reach like an annoying older brother. “Oooh! Really!” Emmaline grabbed his arm and wrenched it closer to snatch her book free. In the process, she tugged the sleeve of his Banyan down to reveal a long angry wound on his upper arm. The book slipped to the floor. “I did shoot you. I shot a duke’s son.” An icy chill descended over her. “I am my father’s daughter.” She took a step back. And then another. She touched her fingers to her mouth.

“Emmaline.” He… Arthur… her husband crossed the burgundy and gold Aubusson to quickly gather her in his arms. “It is barely a scratch. It was an accident. You are not your father’s daughter. You are very much your own person. My wife.”

She pressed her face to his chest. Weariness swept over her, and shame. And something more—a sense of something she’d not had since her all too brief childhood—security. It was an illusion. It always had been for Emmaline.

“I am your wife who shot you the morning of our wedding.” She raised her head to study his face. “What sort of man marries a woman who shoots him in the arm?”

“One who knows his marriage will never be a dull one?”

A burst of laughter escaped her. “If it is excitement you crave, you might have stayed in the navy.”

“No.” His expression shuttered. He rubbed her back and then let his arms fall to his sides. He cleared his throat. “You have had a very trying day, after several trying weeks. If you would like to postpone this, I understand.”

“This?” What had she said to evoke such a change in him?

He nodded toward the bed.

Emmaline’s body flushed with heat from her hairline to the tips of her toes. Why did he seek to make it her decision? Wasn’t that why a woman married—to have decisions removed from her control? She stared at her toes, peeking from beneath the ragged hem of her threadbare nightclothes. She had no idea why he’d married her, but it certainly wasn’t her incredible beauty or her fashionable mode of dress.

Emmaline knew she was a plain English girl with decent hair, an overblown figure when the fashion was sylph-like beauties, and not a stitch of clothing made by a talented modiste to hide her flaws. Perhaps the handsome, worldly son of a duke regretted his choice of bride now that he saw how unlike the other ladies of his acquaintance she was.

Too damned bad. He’d made his bed and she fully intended to lie in it. At least the one time it took to ensure Emmaline was his wife in truth. “If it is all the same to you, Captain, I’d prefer to get this over with tonight.” She walked to the bed on wobbly legs and with an inelegant bit of effort seated herself on the mattress. “It is my understanding a man does not have to find a woman particularly alluring in order to—Oh!”

She was in his arms. Her toes barely touched the floor. His embrace pressed her body to his with a power that nearly took her breath away. And his lips—soft, warm, demanding, seeking—set her blood singing through her veins. Her ability to resist temptation fled. She smoothed her hands over his satiny hair and sifted her fingers through the curls well past his collar, far too long and wild for a military man.

He pulled his mouth just far enough away to allow them both to breathe. “Never,” he gasped. “Never doubt you are more enticing than any woman I have ever known.” His lips wandered along her jaw and down the front of her throat.

“Captain, I don’t—”

“Arthur,” he murmured before he pressed a kiss behind her ear.

“W-what?” Emmaline shivered. He tugged at the ribbon that closed her nightrail with his teeth. She barely contained a tiny squeak. Of fright? Of pleasure? Dear God, she didn’t know.

He nudged one sleeve down to bare her shoulder. “My name is Arthur.” He nibbled along her collarbone where her neck swept into her shoulder. “Say it.”

“Arthur,” she moaned in a voice she did not recognize. A towering wave of sensations, foreign and fiery, pulsed against her body, higher and higher with his every kiss, his every touch.

He lifted her onto the bed and climbed into it over her, bracketing her body with his as he braced himself on his hands and knees. Emmaline held a fleeting thought that she should be afraid. She wasn’t. She was alive. Every inch of her skin sang with life. She’d been drawn to this man from the moment he’d stepped out of the shadows at St. Pancras. Was she a wanton, her father’s daughter indeed, to crave the unknown something suffusing her senses as those grey eyes searched her face?

“Emmaline,” he said softly. “Tell me what to do and I will do it. If you want me to go—”

“I don’t.” She knew that much, at least.

“Do you want me to stop?” He dropped a kiss on her parted lips, her chin, and at the corner of each eye. Kisses far too gentle for a man who fairly shook with reined in desire. She hoped it was desire. If there was anything more powerful than this she did not want to name it.

“I don’t think so. No.” Emboldened, she leaned up a kissed him, awkwardly at first, and then more expertly as he led her with his lips and murmured words of encouragement. She’d had a few stolen kisses pressed upon her when she’d made the mistake of entering empty balconies or alcoves hidden behind strategically placed plants at the few ton events she’d attended. No, not kisses. Attempts at kisses. Arthur Farnsworth did not attempt kisses. He bestowed them—heavenly, marauding, wit-stealing, gossamer light and rolling like thunder. And he kissed her for days, hours. Time slowed and ticked with each beat of her heart.

“I want to see you, Emmaline. All of you.” He brushed his fingers down her cheek. “But if I do, we will consummate this marriage in every way possible. Do you know what that means?”

“The book was very thorough… Arthur. As was my maid.” She took a deep breath. The feeling of magic his kisses created began to fade.

“Of course, they were.” He smiled, a real smile, full of wickedness and some fierce masculine emotion. “Do you trust me?”

Did she? A man she did not know existed a few weeks ago?

“I trust you not to hurt me.” She hesitated. “I trust you to make this…”

“Pleasurable?” The word rolled over her in the rich rasp of his baritone voice.

She nodded. Emmaline had no idea what it meant, but in this much at least, she trusted him.

He held her captive with the steady burn of his gaze. The scent of sandalwood, soap, and male, heady and new and intoxicating filled her. His hands, so gentle and enticing, caressed her ankles, calves, thighs as he slid her nightrail higher and higher until he swept it over her head and pushed it off the bed. Emmaline gasped and pulled the sheet across her chest.

“The book didn’t say anything about my clothes.”

“Perhaps the author knew you didn’t need them.” His hands teased and tempted along her hips and then her ribs. Fingertips, rough and calloused from years at sea, caressed the undersides of her breasts. Emmaline tried to take a breath. He touched his thumbs to the tips. They tightened to the point of sharp pain which suddenly shot through her body to the most private of places. Her legs moved restlessly. She need to move, to do something.

“What is the rule about your clothes?” she asked as she gripped the lapels of his Banyan and crushed the quilted fabric.

“What would you like for it to be?” His hair fell over his brow. His eyes, blue and grey pools of flame and temptation, crinkled at the corners. Was he laughing at her?

Two might play at that. She reached between them and loosed the knotted sash at his waist. She ran her hands over his sculpted chest and shoulders, hard and hot beneath the silky fabric. She could scarcely credit her own boldness. As she struggled to divest him of his robe, he dotted first one breast and then the other with hot kisses. She shoved at the wide sleeves even as her body arched up into the torrid seeking mouth he closed over her nipple.

Her book never said anything about this. Nor about the pulsating bliss each time his lips pulled at her breast. Or the echoing pulse between her thighs. Her hands scrambled to bare his body to hers. Somehow through the haze of her gasps and his panting breaths Emmaline felt him flinch and then grunt in pain.

“I hurt your arm!”

He seized her mouth in a stunning kiss. When he released her, he pressed his forehead to hers. “Certain portions of my anatomy are absolutely necessary for this marriage to be consummated.” He stripped the Banyan away and kicked it to the foot of the bed. “My arm isn’t one of them.”

She tried to slide her knees up to accommodate his lean hips. He flinched again.

“That, however, is necessary.”

Emmaline reached down and brushed her fingers against something hard. He gently pushed her hand aside and smiled. His palm came to rest against her center. Her eyes widened. She sucked in a breath. A painful tension began to build as he pressed his palm in a steady rhythm. He returned the fierce heat of his mouth to her breast and matched that rhythm. Of their own volition her hips rose and fell racing to reach for a pinnacle she had to find. Suddenly her body gave in to a series of quaking waves. Lights flashed behind her closed eyelids. Every sinew and tendon in her body grew taut, snapped, and then began to relax. She gasped over and over, each breath shorter than the last.

Arthur’s face, strained and a bit wild, hovered into view. “Emmaline,” he whispered hoarsely. He kissed her, softly at first, and then more powerfully. She gripped his shoulders. He raised her knees higher. Something hard and thick probed where his hand had brought her such pleasure. A sharp thrust, a pinch. Emmaline’s cry was captured beneath his kiss. Her every muscle flinched. He cupped one breast and massaged it even as his hips rocked between her legs. The full, painful feeling subsided. The ratcheting tension she’d felt before replaced it. His lips and hands touched, caressed and urged her higher.

Damp, and heat, and the mingled scents of their bodies surrounded them. She did not know which gasps and moans were hers, which were his. She clutched him close. His every touch loosed strange, exotic tides of pleasure through her. And once more the explosion of sensation and light shot through her as she heard him shout her name and collapse atop her. He made to move, but she held him in place. She did not understand, but the weight of his body comforted her. She was stunned. And frightened. And had no idea what had just happened to her.

He pushed and pulled at the sheets and counterpane and finally drew the bedclothes over them. He rolled to his side, his arms still around her.

“Are you well, Lady Arthur?” he murmured as he stroked from her face the hair that had escaped her braid.

“Don’t call me that. It puts me in mind of a spinster in men’s breeches.” Emmaline rested her palm on his chest. The pounding of his heart pleased her. Why should hers be the only one about to leap from her chest?

“Now there is an intriguing idea. Do you own a pair of breeches?” He traced his forefinger around the shell of her ear.

“I don’t own a decent nightrail. Breeches would be a luxury indeed.”

“Indeed.” He propped himself up on one elbow. His expression grew serious. “You are a beautiful woman, Emmaline Farnsworth, even in a tatty nightrail.”

“I like that name.” The heat of a sudden blush crawled up her neck and across her face.

“I do too. It is the name of my beautiful, bookish, and brave wife.” He continued to study her as if she were some foreign bird he’d never before encountered. Then again, that is precisely what she was. A strange spinster he’d met in a cemetery and married three days later. After she shot him.

“You are the brave one… Arthur. Not many men would marry a woman who shot him, let alone climb, naked as the day he was born, into bed with her.”

“You are obviously not well acquainted with men. Once a man is naked and finds a woman in his bed, he will even crawl into bed whilst she is shooting at him.”

She laughed out loud, which is what he had intended. Emmaline had not known her husband long, but she knew he liked to make her laugh. She grasped the bedclothes and drew them higher around her neck. “It is an odd sort of thing to do. To join your body with that of another.”

“Odd in a good way or a bad way?”

“I’m not quite certain.”

“I shall endeavor to afford you more clarity in the future.”

“In the future? Do you… I mean, would you want to do that to me again?”

“No.”

For some silly reason her heart did a little drop into her stomach.

“Oh.”

“I want to do it with you.”

“Oh! You don’t have to, you know. If you would rather do it with your mistress. There is no need to… simply because we are married.”

“I don’t take vows unless I mean them, Emmaline. I plan to hold to mine. Do you have other plans?”

“What? No! I didn’t want one man in my bed, let alone two or more.”

“A hit, Lady Arthur. A direct hit.” The way he looked at her, she knew he fought not to laugh.

“I didn’t mean it like that. Perhaps I should make myself into one of those quiet wives who never says a word unless it is ‘Yes, dear. No dear. Whatever you wish, dear.’ It would be safer.”

“Far less interesting though. I like to hear you talk, Emmaline.”

“Even when I talk nonsense?”

“You have had a trying day.”

“I suppose. It isn’t often a lady loses her library, her virtue, and her home all in the same day.”

“And all for the price of a mere husband.”

“Oh dear. I’ve done it again, haven’t I?”

“No need to worry. My pride can take a few more volleys before it crumbles completely.”

“If it is any compensation, you are quite good at… this.” She waved absently at the bed. “Much better than they described in the books.”

“That is good to know.”

“Even better than Birdie said you would be and she said you’d be quite— Are you laughing at me?” The entire bed was shaking.

“On the contrary, I am laughing at me.”

“And well you should.” Emmaline sat up and crossed her arms beneath her sheet-covered breasts. “There is still time for me to shoot you again. My grandfather’s musket is in the wardrobe.”

“I fear I have but two options, my lady.” His skin glowed golden brown in the fire and lamplight. Yet another thing she dared not credit. Emmaline had not become his wife in the dark under the protection of mountains of clothing and bedclothes as she’d expected.

She hardly recognized herself. “And those are, my lord?”

“I can flee to the safety of my own room.” He gently brushed her hair away from her face. “Or I can stay and prove Birdie right again.” He waited. Silent. His face a mask. The reticent navy man once more.

“Stay.”