Gideon opened his eyes to full darkness. Shifting, he felt the warm weight of Amelia nestled against him, sleeping soundly. She hadn’t moved in all that time or he would have woken earlier. He was a light sleeper.

He would have gone back to sleep, but a stray thought prodded him to full consciousness. Amelia had no trouble sleeping with him because she was accustomed to having someone else in her bed.

Martin, of course.

A flare of jealousy caught him off guard. He told himself he was being an ass—again.

The pair might not have been lovers but with all the traveling they had done, it was only natural they shared a bed. Indeed, they wouldn’t have had a choice. Martin couldn’t have left Amelia unprotected in all those inns and foreign homes they visited during their travels.

How odd it must have been for the two of them to be forced into a charade where they had to pretend all the time.

Rather like spies. He snorted at the irony.

Amelia shifted and raised her head. “What is it?” Her voice was confused and husky with sleep.

He winced. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s still a few hours till dawn. Go back to sleep,” he whispered.

She nodded and settled back into the pillows but didn’t close her eyes. He couldn’t see their blue shade in the moonlight, but he knew they were studying him.

When she continued to watch him, Gideon couldn’t resist reaching out to trace the smooth line of her cheek, following the path down her neck with his fingertips.

Amelia closed her eyes and shivered. Hoping it was excitement that caused her reaction, he leaned over her until his lips were a hairsbreadth from hers. Given her ample time to pull away, he closed the distance.

It was meant to be a brief caress, a test of sorts, to see if she would respond to him. But his restraint burned away the second he realized she wasn’t going to push him away. He teased her lips with his tongue until they parted and let him inside. Her taste was addictive and exotic, more intoxicating than any wine.

Gideon pulled her closer, deepening the kiss. She shivered again and put her arms around his neck. His skin tingled, and a groan escaped as her soft warmth enveloped him.

Amelia responded to his caresses with an untutored and honest passion. Gideon spared a thought to thank the stars. He hadn’t destroyed her sweet desire with his impatient blundering during their first disastrous experience together. But he needed to proceed cautiously, to open her mind and body to the pleasure of physical intimacy.

He shifted, pressing his heavily aroused lower half against her. Amelia’s eyes flew open, and she broke off the kiss to look up at him with anxious eyes. He bent to kiss the silken skin next to her ear.

“I promised not to ravish you. I intend to keep my word, but it only seems fair that I fulfill some of your expectations about lovemaking…”

Amelia gasped as Gideon moved down her body, lifting the blankets away. He arranged her legs on either side of him and smiled at her, a flirtatious grin that stirred her blood.

Her body heated, a telltale slippery warmth concentrated between her legs.

“Gideon, I don’t think—”

“I strongly advise against that. Stop thinking,” he interrupted, pushing the fine lawn cotton of her nightgown up above her knees before pausing. “Unless the issue is one of trust. Do you trust me, Amelia?”

“Of course I trust you,” she said immediately, trying to find the words to explain why he should stop. It was difficult to find any, impossible in fact.

He waited a beat longer. “Good.”

Amelia yelped when he pulled her lower, removing her drawers with startling efficiency. The chilly air hit her heated core, but she didn’t have time to feel uncomfortable. Her body was in flames the second Gideon’s mouth touched her.

He pressed a kiss to her heated flesh and she whimpered, reflexively trying to close her legs. Gideon held her down with his hands, parting them to fully expose her to his caress. His tongue tasted and teased, stroking her like rough velvet.

Amelia squirmed helplessly, but she was unable to move because she was held fast to the bed. Gideon continued his gentle assault, using his hands to touch and probe while teeth abraded the pearl crowning her sex. His mouth moved over her lips and bud in a ragged pattern that devastated her senses.

Moaning, she buried her trembling hands in his hair. The little ripples of pleasure built upon one another until they were a rolling wave that swept from her head to the tips of her toes. Her skin felt alive, every nerve clamoring for more—more touch, more heat. She was drowning in sensation and just when she thought she would die from the pleasure, Gideon moved one hand up to cover her breast.

The rosy tip swelled and beaded under his hand, sending sparks of lightning directly to her heated core as he caressed and stroked.

“Gideon, I can’t stand it,” she gasped, pleading.

But he was merciless. He tweaked and pinched one nipple just as his tongue plunged inside her. Her body seized as her sheath closed around him and spasmed violently. His tongue worked in and out of her, one hand stroking her breast while the other moved over her bud, pushing and extending the ecstasy consuming her body. Each touch was magnified, a ripple of energy that made her writhe and moan until she dissolved in a blazing radiance of light.

When her awareness returned, her body was whole once more. She felt like a wrung-out mop, but there was strength in her hands. They were holding onto Gideon’s shoulders. She couldn’t let him go, not even when she realized his breeches were open, completely exposing him.

“Amelia, don’t. You have to release me,” he protested, even as the hard length of his manhood stroked and ground against her slippery folds.

He wanted her badly. She could feel the force of his desire not just in the tension of his body but in the way he could barely catch his breath. Marveling at his restraint, she whispered in his ear. “It’s all right. I want you to have your satisfaction too.”

“No, I promised I wouldn’t,” he said from between gritted teeth. His body, however, continued to respond—his hips were still pumping.

She moved her hand down, intending to guide his arousal, but he was coated with the moisture from her body and he slipped easily back and forth under her palm.

Gideon hissed. “Yes, hold me against you like that,” he said, adjusting her hand so he was pressed firmly against her without checking his movement. “I won’t enter you, but you can watch. I want you to see everything—to understand.”

Her lips parted, and she nodded, utterly taken with the idea.

That part of him was so hot, like heated iron, but the skin was so smooth. She stared wide-eyed as his erection slipped up and down against her, striking her nub on the upstroke. Each time it happened, another tickle of sensual energy would shoot through her body.

Amelia watched in fascination as Gideon’s staff swelled and jerked. He threw his head back as the last convulsions racked his body and a pearlescent liquid spilled across her belly like hot candle wax. He collapsed to the side, his chest working like a bellows. After a few moments, he swore under his breath.

“I didn’t expect that to be so…satisfying.”

Her lips curled up, and he returned her smile. “Seeing you watching me, taking it all in, was very arousing,” he confessed, an amused bewilderment in his expression before he moved away.

Gideon bent over the edge of the mattress, retrieving a handkerchief from his coat without leaving the bed. He began to clean her. Before he could wipe away all traces, Amelia touched one of the drops on her stomach with her fingers.

“This is your seed,” she said, rubbing her fingers to test the texture. “How can this grow into a baby?”

“It has to take root in your body, and that only happens at a specific time,” he said, bracing himself on his forearms.

He explained how a woman’s fertility was tied to the monthly cycle of her courses, something Amelia had been aware of, although the details had never been laid bare.

Blushing like mad, she asked him one question and then another. Before Gideon knew it, he was delivering a lecture on anatomy and sexuality using himself as a real-life model. He did it as matter-of-factly as he could until she grew comfortable enough to ask him anything.

Gideon answered every question she put to him with clarity and deference. Not once did he belittle her intelligence, even when he laid to rest some of her more ignorant assumptions.

The one thing that did surprise him was that she’d never taken it upon herself to learn about the issue on her own.

“I think Martin did you a disservice by not even broaching the topic of sex,” he confessed. “If you were planning on having children, he should have explained some of this.”

Amelia had put her head close to his as they lay on their sides facing each other on the bed. “You mustn’t blame him. It was my decision to set such discussions aside. Martin had met Crispin early in our marriage, and I could see the pair were falling in love. At the time, it seemed wise to disregard any personal considerations until they could be indulged.”

He frowned at her. “I know a wife is expected to do whatever she can to ensure her husband’s happiness, but burying your own needs and desires hardly seems fair.”

She lifted one white shoulder. “As I said, it was my decision. I had ample opportunity to educate myself as it were, had I chosen to do so. While abroad, I had to actively discourage the attentions of several gentlemen who would have only been too happy to be of service in that regard.”

“I’m sure there were,” he growled before kissing her with a hard hunger. “Be prepared—any man who dares volunteer to be at your service now will have to answer to me.”

Gideon pulled her closer, his blatant possessiveness on open display. She should have chided him for it, but instead, she curled her body against his, stroking his chest with her hand until she fell asleep.

His life, his future, was literally in his arms. Gideon swept a hand over Amelia’s waist and hips with the lightest touch so he wouldn’t wake her.

A confused riot of emotions stirred in his breast. Guilt was predominant among them. His current prospects for a marriage based on love and respect had come at a high price—the life of his cousin.

Deep down, a part of him knew that this had been inevitable. He had lied to himself and to Clarke when he said he hadn’t seen Amelia since she was a child. She had been sixteen, almost seventeen, and already a stunning beauty.

Almost eight years her senior, he had been stirred even then. Instinctively, Gideon had known she could be dangerous to his heart. From them on, he had avoided her and Martin, telling himself he would visit the following year or the year after.

He hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near Amelia, to be forced to confront his feelings for her, especially after she and Martin had married. Consequently, he had been unaware she was in danger from his predatory uncle.

Then there was Martin…what if there had been a way to prevent his accident? And if his cousin had lived, would the truth of their marriage have been enough for Gideon to set aside his honor so he could selfishly claim Amelia for his own?

I would have still wanted her, even if I had met her as his wife. He was honest enough to admit the truth.

Unlike other men of the ton, Gideon did not dally with married women, restricting his brief liaisons to widows and once a member of the demimonde. Though those women had not asked for fidelity, he had given it to them as long as the liaison had lasted. The only time he had flirted with someone’s wife had been in France, under the auspices of the war office. But he had never been the reason a woman broke her wedding vows.

Violating the sanctity of marriage—even one as complicated as his cousin’s—would have been a stain on his honor. He had never questioned whether he was capable of such a sin until now.

He had to stop thinking like this. The sad fact was, Martin was gone. They had mourned him for over a year, but not even the harshest grand dame would expect a widow as young as Amelia to devote her life to his memory and wear black for the rest of her days.

No, the ton was anticipating a second marriage for her. The fact she would be marrying him and not Lord Worthing would set tongue’s wagging, but Gideon didn’t give a damn about the gossip. As long as Amelia was his, society could hang.

The moon was too bright. At this rate, he would spend all night staring at Amelia if he didn’t close the curtains. Gideon turned, soundlessly extracting himself from her sleeping form. He was at the window when he saw it—a pair of glowing eyes not ten feet away in the shadow of some trees.

His mind tried to dismiss it, but the apparition did not fade. In fact, it moved, the eyes shifting position as if they were meeting his gaze. Then they winked out. The head had turned away.

Gideon was shocked into immobility by the strange sight. But the sound of Amelia shifting on the bed spurred him. He stormed into action. Snatching up his coat, he threw it on, dismissing the rest of his clothing. He hesitated over his boots but decided to go without—there was no time to waste pulling on the tight calf-length Hessians.

Taking advantage of being on the ground floor, he threw open the window and jumped over the windowsill. He took care to close it behind him before running toward the spot where he’d seen the intruder. If the villain got past him, he would have to take the time to open it again if he wanted to get to Amelia.

Gideon wouldn’t let that happen.

He narrowed his eyes and drew his pistol out of his coat pocket, squinting into the darkness under the tree canopy. By the time his eyes adjusted, he knew he was alone. His finely honed senses didn’t detect the presence of another.

There was no hint of a hidden person breathing in the shadows, no sound of running feet. Indeed, there was no noise at all. None of the normal sounds of the night could be heard. All was silent. Whoever or whatever had been out here was gone, but the unnatural quiet marked the spot. Something had stood here under the trees, watching him.

Gideon checked the perimeter of the house in his bare feet, careful to keep the gun ready in his hand. With only his coat as cover the cold bit at his exposed skin, but there was no way in hell he was going back inside if there was a chance the intruder was still about.

What the devil had it been? He stood outside, practically naked, until he accepted that the eyes were well and truly gone.

Shaking his head, Gideon crawled back through the window, fastening it shut with a tiny metallic scrape. He’d only been gone a matter of minutes. Amelia was still sleeping soundly in bed. Despite his rapid action, he’d left the room with practiced stealth, quiet enough to avoid waking her—at least until he slipped back under the covers, bringing the night’s cold with him.

Startled, she stirred and pulled away from his chilled body. “What? Wh—”

Blast. “Shh. Everything is fine. I—I had to go outside,” he said in a murmur.

“Why?” Amelia muttered, her eyes drifting closed.

“It was nothing,” he murmured absently, his thoughts on the nightmarish vision he’d seen.

It had to be a trick of some kind. “I thought I saw something is all,” he said, wrapping one arm around her protectively.

Amelia murmured something he couldn’t catch, but then her voice strengthened and she raised her head. “Was it the demon?”

He watched her for a long moment. “What demon?” he asked, his throat tight.

She yawned and put her head back down on the pillow. He shook her. “Amelia, what demon?”

“The one that killed Martin.”