“Miss Worthing.” Emma was so shocked at the intrusion, she curtsied deeply—before recalling that she was a duchess now, and Annabelle Worthing should properly curtsy to her.

“Are you enjoying your evening, Emma?” she asked.

“Very much so.”

“It’s so amusing, isn’t it? I could never have guessed we would cross paths in such a circumstance.”

“Nor I, Miss Worthing.” Emma eyed the woman warily. “Forgive me, was there something you wanted?”

“Am I not permitted to greet an old friend?”

An old friend?

A man’s formerly intended bride wouldn’t wish to become friends with the man’s new wife. Moreover, Emma knew this formerly intended bride wasn’t precisely brimming with kindness and generosity.

“You must be quite dizzy with it, Emma. Having climbed so high, so quickly.”

“If you’re here because you believe me to be a schemer, or someone who took advantage of your broken engagement . . . I will assure you, you are mistaken. The duke proposed our match. His offer took me completely by surprise.”

“Oh, I know that. But I suspect you don’t know why he offered for you.”

Emma was too surprised to deny it. She couldn’t deny it. She’d insisted from the first that it made little sense for him to marry her.

“I know the reason. Everyone will. I don’t like to say it, but you deserve to know, too. That’s why I’ve come to tell you, as a friend.” Annabelle moved closer, lowering her voice. “He has married you to spite me.”

“What?”

“Simple retribution. I’m sorry for it, but I know the man. We were betrothed for more than two years. He’s furious about the broken engagement. So he married my seamstress to have a laugh at my expense. Has he shown you that yet? His cruel sense of humor? Ashbury’s always had an ugly side, since long before his injury.”

“I’m well aware that my husband”—Emma leaned on the word “husband,” claiming what was now hers—“is imperfect. I’m also aware that he is honorable and brave. He incurred his wounds while defending England. If you could not appreciate the honor in his scars, he was fortunate to be rid of you. Our marriage is none of your concern.”

“He has made your marriage my concern.” A sharp edge entered Annabelle’s voice. “Parading you before London society, humiliating me in full view of the ton. For your own sake, I advise you not to acquire any airs. You may have wed a duke, but every lady of the ton knows you as a seamstress who once knelt at their feet. They will never let you forget it.”

“I don’t care what they think.”

“Yes, but you care about him. Don’t you?”

Emma didn’t answer.

Miss Worthing tsked. “You always seemed a clever girl. Surely you don’t believe a duke would seek to marry a woman of your class for any honorable reason. Even if he did desire you, he could have easily made you his mistress.”

“No, he could not have done. I would never have—”

As she looked out over the theater, the corner of Annabelle’s lips curled in a humorless smile. “Gentlemen prefer common mistresses, I’ve heard. In bed. Girls like you do the things ladies won’t.”

How dare she.

“I will not stand here and be insulted. Nor will I hear the duke impugned in such a vile manner.”

“You don’t believe me?” Annabelle slid her arm about Emma’s shoulders and turned, subtly pointing her fan toward the opposite side of the theater. “Do you see there? Just to the left, and one tier down? There’s Mama.”

Yes, there in the box opposite sat Mrs. Worthing, the family matriarch. Emma recognized the demanding harridan from Annabelle’s many, many fittings in the shop.

“Lord Carrollton is kind enough to loan my family the use of his box. The second Thursday after a new play opens, we’re always in attendance.” She looked Emma in the eye. “Do you know what tonight is?”

Emma could hazard a guess. “Surely a coincidence.”

“Oh, no. Ashbury knew I’d be here.” Miss Worthing looked about the box. “Did he tell you this was how we met? He stared at me, the whole evening, from just this spot. Couldn’t take his eyes off me for the entirety of the performance.”

The champagne in Emma’s stomach churned.

“I’d wager he chose this gown for you.” She fingered Emma’s sleeve. “Red as a cherry tart. He seated you right up front. Of course he did. All this effort would have been for nothing if I failed to notice.”

His words to her earlier echoed in Emma’s mind.

You must sit here, near the front. The world deserves to see you. I want you to be admired.

“Do you believe me now? On a night he knew my family would be in attendance, he bedecked you in a harlot-red gown and put you on garish display. His lowborn replacement bride. He’s using you, Emma. To him, you are nothing but a means to an end.”

Emma put a hand on the wall for support. The theater was spinning.

She didn’t want to believe it. Any of it. She told herself not to doubt him.

But as Annabelle said, all the pieces were there. The sudden outing, the gown, the play. She’d never understood why he’d been so determined to marry her in the first place, making his offer after ten minutes in the library, when he knew nothing of her.

Well, he had known one thing about her. He’d known she sewed Annabelle’s wedding gown.

Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord.

Perhaps all the effort he’d gone to tonight hadn’t been for her, but for another.

Suddenly, Emma didn’t trust any of her own perceptions. She second-guessed every conversation, every moment. Everything she’d built with him, all the emotions she’d hoped he might come to share . . . Was it possible it had been nothing more than wounded pride and cruel intent?

She didn’t care one whit what Annabelle Worthing thought of her, nor the other ladies of the ton. But if Ash . . .

She pressed her hands to her stomach.

Down on the stage, the fifth act was nearing its grisly climax. Players were dying right and left, staggering and moaning as they dropped to the boards. What poor performances, she thought. So unconvincing.

She was dying inside, and there was no staggering or moaning. Only bleak, hollow despair.

The fault was yours, Emma. You should have known better.

She had known better, and that was the most dispiriting part. The red silk flowing around her felt like mockery. Once again, she’d been a fool.

She had to leave. She had to leave at once, before he returned.

Someone pushed aside the drapery, entering the box. “What is going on here?”

Too late.

Ash was afire with anger.

He’d left behind a radiant, coquettish wife, likely aroused to the point where he could give her two orgasms in the carriage home alone, and he’d returned not a quarter hour later to find her backed into a corner, pale and trembling.

And the cause . . . oh, the cause was plain to see.

He swung his gaze on Annabelle. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing but tell her the truth.” Her eyes sparked with hurt and anger. “You bastard. You haven’t done enough to me already? You had to bring around this slattern of a seamstress to humiliate me in front of all London?”

“You will not speak such words in her presence.” He had to force the words through clenched teeth. “She is the Duchess of Ashbury. You’ll address her with the honor that title confers.”

“I will not curtsy to a girl who knelt at my feet, simply because she gets down on her knees for you.”

Ash had never struck a woman, and he didn’t intend to start. But he was tempted now, in ways he could never have conceived. Fury exploded within him like a barrage of cannon fire.

“If you were a man,” he said, “you would be facing the end of my pistol tomorrow at dawn. As it is, I’m tempted to call out your brother to answer for your behavior.”

“You want to call out my brother?” She laughed bitterly. “My brother wanted to challenge you back in April. You can thank me for talking him out of it. I convinced him there would be richer satisfaction in letting you live out the remainder of your miserable days. Twisted. Monstrous. Alone.”

“I’m not alone,” he said. “Not anymore. And that’s what bothers you. Isn’t it?”

“I can’t imagine what you mean.”

“Can’t you? It’s all becoming quite clear to me. You’re humiliated, but not because of Emma’s presence. You’re ashamed for the ton to see me. Because once they do, everyone will understand the reason behind our broken engagement. They’ll know precisely what a vain, shallow creature you are—and they will see that Emma is worth a hundred of you. Yes, Annabelle. I can imagine that would be humiliating.”

Annabelle opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again.

Ash was certain the silence wouldn’t last. He turned, eager to gather Emma and get the hell out of this theater.

But when he did, his wife was nowhere to be found. She must have slipped out. He’d been so occupied berating Annabelle, he hadn’t even noticed.

With a muttered curse, Ash bolted down the corridor and raced down the staircase. He didn’t see her in the entry, so he dashed out into the night. The rain had started, and that didn’t help his cause.

He found the coach—no, they hadn’t seen Her Grace—and then he ran up the steps in front of the theater, searching through the rain for any glimpse of red.

The play would end soon. Once the audience poured out into the streets, he would lose any hope of finding her in the crowd.

He picked a direction at random and charged down it, stopping at the corner to look in all directions. He pushed the rain from his face, impatient.

There.

There, down a narrow side lane—was that a bit of red?

He jogged in pursuit. “Emma! Emma!”

By the time he’d covered half the distance, she turned around. “Stop,” she shouted. “Leave me be.”

He slowed to a walk. For every step he took toward her, she made one in reverse.

“Can’t we discuss this somewhere less wet?” he called to her.

“What is there to discuss?”

“Emma, don’t play games. I know you’re distraught.”

“I’m fine, Duke. That’s what you wanted me to call you, isn’t it? Duke?”

“You’re clearly not fine.” He held up his hands in a truce. “Don’t mind anything she said up there. Her ire wasn’t aimed at you, it was aimed at me. Annabelle is . . . Annabelle. Still, you’ve every reason to be angry or overwrought.”

She gave a defiant sniff. “There’s nothing to be angry or overwrought about, Duke.”

“Really, you can cease calling me that.”

She wiped the droplets from her face. “Perhaps I will use Ash, after all. It’s growing on me. So very flexible, you know. Horse’s Ash . . . Jack-Ash . . . Ash-hole. ”

Very well. He deserved that. And if he had been any less desperate to get her out of this rain, he probably would have laughed.

The rain became a downpour. Ash tried to get close enough to wrap her in his cloak, but she only retreated further, staying out of his reach.

“Emma.”

She hugged herself tight. “It’s my own fault. You never promised me anything. You specifically promised me nothing. We had a bargain. A cold, impersonal agreement of convenience. Somewhere along the way, I stupidly allowed myself to dream a little. To hope that . . . that there might be more.”

Dream. Hope. More.

She was standing in the rain in a darkened alleyway, weeping and distraught. Ash should have felt remorseful, he supposed. Instead he swelled with joy.

Dream. Hope. More.

Those words gave him life. Three slender threads he could braid into a rope and cling to with everything he had.

“You weren’t foolish. Or if you are a fool, I’m one, too.”

“At least it finally makes sense. I always wondered why you chose me. Now I know. You married me to get back at her.”

“No.” He moved toward her again, and this time she allowed him to approach. “I’m telling you, that’s all wrong.”

“She refused you, and you wanted to humiliate her in return.”

“She never refused me. I refused her.”

She stared at him through the sheets of rain. “But you said . . . Everyone said—”

“That’s the way it’s done. A broken engagement is always said to be the lady’s choice, to protect her reputation. It was the decent thing to do.”

“Decent. Of all the people in the world, you would be decent to her.”

“At the time, I believed she deserved it. And I cared about her.”

She stumbled back a step, blinking the wetness from her thick, dark lashes.

Ash, you idiot. That was the worst possible thing to say.

“Her family desperately wanted the connection, the title. And my money, of course. She was willing to go through with it, for them. Despite her personal . . . reluctance.”

“Reluctance” was the gentler word. The more accurate one was “revulsion.”

“I cared enough about her not to force her into a marriage she didn’t want. I cared for my pride, as well. I didn’t want a wife who wept every time I bedded her. I didn’t want to listen as she vomited into a basin afterwards.”

“She wouldn’t have—”

“Yes, she would have done so.”

She had done so.

He’d kept his intended bride at bay for months after his return to England. Nearly a year passed before he permitted her to see him. By then, he’d regained the strength to stand, and his open wounds had thickened to scars.

Even so, the horror and disgust on her face as she beheld him . . . It was etched in his memory, carved into his very bones. She’d run from the room, but not far enough. He could hear her every heaving retch as her stomach emptied, and her every sob as her brother tried to comfort her in the corridor.

I can’t, she’d said. I can’t.

You must, he’d replied.

The duke will expect an heir. How could I bear to lie with . . . with that?

With “that,” she said.

Not with “him.”

With “that.”

Ash had prepared himself for her visit, or so he’d believed. He thought he’d steeled his pride sufficiently against a horrified reaction, the reluctant agreement of a joyless bride.

He’d been wrong. Her words had gutted him. He was not even a man anymore. He was a “that.”

“Do you want the truth, Emma?”

The lift of her shoulders was more shiver than shrug. “Why not? We have always had honesty, if nothing else.”

“The truth is this.” He took her in his arms. “I cared for Annabelle Worthing’s feelings more than I cared for yours.”

She sobbed and struggled. “Then let me go.”

“I’d sooner die.” He lashed his right arm around her waist and used his good hand to cup her chin, tilting her face to his. Holding it tight, forbidding her to turn away. “Look at me.”

She sniffed, blinking away the rain.

He gripped her chin and gave her head a little shake. “Damn it, Emma. Look at me.”

Look at me. Look at me. Because you’re the only one who does. Likely the only one who ever will.

At last, her dark eyes tipped up to meet his.

The wounded look in her gaze . . . it clubbed him like a cudgel made of shame. Closing his eyes, he framed her face between his hands. He pressed his forehead to hers, sheltering her face from the rain.

“No, Emma. I didn’t care for your feelings. It didn’t matter if you wanted me or if you didn’t. I didn’t have the patience for courtship, couldn’t take the time to make you feel brave and witty and pretty and intelligent, and all the things I adored about you from the first. I certainly didn’t have the decency to let you walk away. I cared only for myself. Do you hear me? I only knew I had to have you.”

Not only have her, but keep her. Make her his own.

Even now, the thought of letting her walk away . . . he couldn’t bear it.

No.

He wouldn’t allow it.

This wasn’t tenderness that filled him with a fiery resolve. It was possession. Pure, raw, wild. If she could glimpse the brutish, primal impulses coursing through him, she would run like a rabbit flees a ravening wolf.

And he would catch her.

“You’re mine,” he said hoarsely, lifting his head and staring deep into her eyes, willing her to believe. “If you leave, I will follow. Do you hear me? I will follow and find you and cart you home.”

Lightning flashed, slicing through the dark. For the briefest of moments, everything was bright and clear. The alley around them, the sky above. The space between her body and his, and every emotion she wore so bravely on her face.

Just before they lost the moment to darkness, he crushed his mouth to hers in a desperate kiss.

Then the force of thunder exploded through him, splitting him into a thousand pieces—some of which were surely driven into her, embedded as deeply as the metal shards that lodged beneath his scarred flesh. Impossible to retrieve.

Yes, she was his. But bits of him were hers now, too. No matter how deeply he kissed her, he would never get them back.

He made the futile attempt anyway, clutching her tight. Her arms went around his neck, pulling him down. Her lips softened and parted as she opened to him. Welcomed him.

A deep, grateful moan rose from his chest. He deepened the kiss, stroking her tongue with his. He couldn’t get enough of her. He’d run his tongue over every inch of her body, but he’d never tasted her this way. A sweetness like cool, fresh water mingled with the salt of tears.

Oh, Emma. You beautiful, addled thing.

Only a fool would weep over him.

He kissed her cheeks, her jawline, her neck—kissing away her every tear. And then, suddenly, she was returning the gesture, tugging him down and pressing her lips to his face. She kissed his lips. She kissed his nose. She kissed his ear and his neck and both of his trembling eyelids.

She kissed his twisted, monstrous scars.

Time stopped. The raindrops seemed to hang in the air. For this moment, there was no before and no after. There was only now, and now was everything.

“Emma.”

“I . . .” She blinked a few times. “I . . .”

His mind completed her interrupted thought in a dozen dangerous ways. Don’t be stupid, he told himself. She could have all manner of things to tell him. It could be anything.

I . . . have a pebble in my shoe.

I . . . want a pony.

I . . . would do murder for a cup of tea right now.

Very well, Emma would never say that last. Probably not the second, either. But she absolutely, positively was not going to say that other thing. The-Thing-That-Must-Not-Be-Named. Or Thought, or Uttered, or, heaven forfend, Hoped.

“Ash, I think I—”

His heart thrashed in his chest.

Get to it, woman. This is agony.

Instead of putting an end to his torture, his bride of convenience did the worst, most inconvenient thing.

She went limp in his arms, fainting dead away.