Locke hadn’t been able to whisk his bride up to his bedchamber following the ceremony because Mrs. Dorset had prepared a feast that would spoil if not served immediately. At the table in the small dining room, he sat across from his father, with his wife—his wife!—to Locke’s left near his cold heart, and the vicar to his right.

As he sipped his wine, he considered the possibility that his mercenary wife apparently was in possession of a conscience. It had surprised him beyond all measure when she had questioned accepting the ring. He’d expected her to take one look at the sparkling jewels and salivate. But she hadn’t. She wasn’t comfortable with it. Even now in between courses, she fiddled with it, rotated it as though she wished she could remove it.

He didn’t think it was because it symbolized she was married. It was because it symbolized love and between them there was none, not even a glimmer. Nor would there ever be. They both knew it.

“Where does your family hail from, Lady Locksley?” Browning asked, and she flinched ever so slightly, obviously not yet comfortable with the address.

Another surprise. He’d have thought she’d embrace it, insist on him addressing her as such.

“Yorkshire,” she said quietly.

“The Earl of Greyling’s family estate is in Yorkshire,” Locke said, wondering why he hadn’t thought to pose the same question to her earlier in the day. But then at the time he hadn’t cared from whence she’d come. He’d cared only that she depart with all due haste. “Evermore.”

For the first time since they’d taken their seats, she glanced over at him. He didn’t know why he took such satisfaction in finally having her attention. “I’m not familiar with it.”

“You must notify Grey and Ashe of your wedding,” his father ordered. “Have them come visit. We’ll celebrate.”

“I look forward to meeting your friends,” she said.

“They’re more brothers than friends.” He’d been all of six when they arrived. They’d grown up together, shared adventures, mischief, and loss, the last creating a stronger bond between them than there might have been otherwise.

“You’re very fortunate to have them then.”

And he suddenly wondered who was there for her. Most women filled the church with relatives and friends. “We’ll have to invite your family to visit as well.”

Delicately, she touched her napkin to her lips. “I have no family.”

“Not a single relative who would care that you’re now a viscountess?”

“Nary a one.”

Then who the devil did she want to impress? Not that she wasn’t gaining plenty for herself. Perhaps that was enough, that it was all about her. Her and her child. She wanted any future children to whom she gave birth to have advantages. With him as their father, they certainly would.

“Lord Marsden—” she began.

“You must call me Father,” he interrupted.

“I couldn’t be so presumptuous.”

“We’re related now. I insist.”

She bowed her head slightly as though acquiescing, but he didn’t believe for a single moment that she really was giving in to his father’s request. She was simply striving to avoid an argument during dinner. Fast learner, his wife.

“I wondered if you might be kind enough to tell me a little bit about Locksley as a lad.”

Why the devil would she ask him to do that?

Cackling, his father leaned back in his chair. “Did he not let you have your turn at an inquisition? No, I suspect he didn’t.”

Taking another sip of wine, Locke studied Portia, trying to gauge her angle, what she was after. It bothered him immensely that she seemed genuinely interested. She didn’t care about him, so what was to be gained by learning anything at all about his past?

“He didn’t like to wear shoes,” his father told her. “People thought I neglected him because he was always running about barefoot, but he simply refused to keep his shoes on.”

“I liked the feel of grass beneath my soles,” he felt obligated to admit. “Besides, it’s easier to climb in bare feet.”

“Ah, yes, he was a little monkey. Climbed everything. Trees, ladders. I once found him crouched near the ceiling in my library. Nearly gave me an apoplectic fit. He had somehow wedged himself in the corner and worked his way up. He was only about three. If he’d fallen . . . I still break out in a sweat when I think about that horrendous outcome. Once I got him safely down, I thrashed him to within an inch of his life. I regretted it afterward, was afraid I’d put an end to his sense of adventure. A week later he was clambering up the shelves.”

She scrutinized him with such intensity that he wanted to shift in his chair. Instead he downed more wine. He didn’t want her figuring him out, deciphering him, knowing the details of his upbringing. Nothing was to be gained. As far as he was concerned they needed no words at all spoken between them.

“Weren’t you frightened to be up so high?” she asked.

“I don’t remember the incident at all.”

“But you remember climbing?”

“Trees, outer walls. Wherever I could get a hand- or a foothold.”

“Do you still climb?” She sounded truly interested, which added to his guilt, as he was interested in only one thing from her.

“On one of my journeys I scaled a small mountain. Climbing has its uses.” I’ll be climbing over you before the night is done. She suddenly blushed, and he wondered if she’d read his thoughts. “Perhaps I’ll take you climbing sometime.”

“I’d like that. I climbed trees when I was a girl. Enjoyed hiding out. I was a bit of a hoyden.”

“From whom were you hiding?”

She laughed lightly. “Oh, you know, playing games, hide-and-seek, that sort of thing.”

Based on the way she didn’t hold his gaze, he wasn’t certain games were at all involved. What did it matter? Why were they discussing this? He didn’t want to know about her childhood, her past, or anything else. He didn’t want to see her as a little girl with braids, hiking up her skirts and clambering up a tree.

What mattered now was that she was out for gain, and because of that, he’d begun his day a bachelor and ended it a husband—who had yet to fully sample the wares.

She turned her attention back to his father. “Did you climb trees, my lord?”

“Linnie was sitting in a tree when I met her. She was the climber. Coaxed me up. Dared me actually. Called me a coward. I had to show her, I tell you. So up I went. From our perch we watched as the night fell. It was so beautiful. With her I saw it as I never had before, recognized the majesty of it. But then it was time to go home. And I froze. I was all right as long as I was looking up. Looking down made my gut churn.”

“How did you get down?” Portia asked.

“She took my hand. ‘Keep your eyes on me,’ she said. ‘I won’t let you fall.’ I was twelve, she all of eight. Never took my eyes off her. But still I fell anyway, hard and fast.”

“Were you badly hurt?”

He winked at Portia, smiled with fond remembrance. “I fell for her. So Locke comes by his love of climbing naturally. He got it from his mother.”

He hadn’t known that, had never heard the story, had known only that they’d become interested in each other at an early age. Not wanting to sadden his father, he’d avoided asking questions about his mother. Perhaps for himself as well, because he didn’t want to know what he might have missed by not having both parents present in his life.

“You loved her a long time,” Portia said, her voice filled with a sense of wonder.

“All my life. Well, except for the first twelve years, but they hardly count. When I met her it was as though my life began anew.” He slapped the table before raising his wineglass. “And speaking of life beginning anew, we are here to celebrate a wedding. To my favorite son and my new daughter. May you never take your eyes off each other.”

Portia lifted her glass, but didn’t look at Locke. He suspected it was because she didn’t want him to see the tears that had gathered, but her profile revealed them glistening in the corner of her eye. It was a revelation. She was sentimental, with a soft heart that she didn’t want him to see.

Downing the wine that remained in his glass, he had an insane urge to tell her that he wouldn’t let her fall. But he kept his thoughts to himself because he knew from experience that along that path lay madness.

Following dinner, Portia and Locke retreated to the library, where he poured them each a glass of port while his father saw the vicar to his carriage. They sat before the fireplace, in awkward silence, the only sound the crackling of the fire blazing in the hearth. Yet for all the heat it generated, she couldn’t seem to get warm.

Her husband—dear God, a husband whose eyes never strayed from her as though he expected her to try to make off with the family silver. He thought her a mercenary when she knew damned good and well that money could not protect her nearly as effectively as he and his position in Society could. It occurred to her that perhaps he was mentally disrobing her, but why bother with doing that when he could escort her to his bedchamber and tear off her clothes with as much haste as he desired? Based upon his earlier fervent kisses, she suspected their coupling was going to be rough and quick. And often. She couldn’t recall ever meeting a man who could appear so virile and capable when doing nothing other than sitting, sipping port, and staring at her.

“How long does it take to say goodbye to a vicar?” she finally asked, staring at the flames because it was easier than looking into his eyes and seeing the lust for her reflected there. Knowing how badly he wanted her was a sort of currency, if she could just determine how to spend it without angering him.

“I suspect my father forgot that we were waiting for him, and he has retired to his chambers.”

She dared to look at him then, the way his long fingers were curled around the stem of the glass, and tried not to think about how they might close around her later. “Should you check on him?”

“He’s a grown man.”

Angling her head, she gave him a rueful smile. “Yet earlier today you thought him incapable of selecting a wife.”

“There is a huge difference between deciding one should retire for the night and deciding one should marry.”

Well, there was that, she supposed. Swallowing hard, she forced herself to hold his gaze. “I assume we’re going to consummate our marriage tonight.”

Never taking his eyes from her, he lowered his head slightly. “Once you’ve finished your port and are a bit more relaxed.”

“I’m relaxed.”

He simply looked at her. She wasn’t, damn it. But it was imperative that they consummate the marriage, that he not be able to claim her an improper wife, that he not have any justification for an annulment. Not that she wanted him to see the desperation in her or understand the importance of his place in her life. “Perhaps I should go on up, have Mrs. Barnaby help me prepare—”

“I’ll be doing all the preparing that needs to be done.”

“I simply meant that she could undress me—”

“I’ll undress you.”

“I thought to have a few moments alone, to prepare, to slip into my nightdress—”

“You won’t be needing a nightdress.”

“At some point—”

“Not tonight.”

“Must you constantly interrupt?”

He gave her a devilish grin that held naughty promises. “I see no point in delaying our departure upstairs with words that won’t change anything. Finish your port.”

She took merely a sip, because she wasn’t going to be ordered about. She had expectations as well, and they didn’t include bending to his every wish. He could just bloody well wait until she was ready.

Glancing around, she settled her attention on a distant corner of the room. “Is that where you wedged yourself and climbed to the ceiling?”

He didn’t even bother to glance back. “As I understand it, yes.”

This room had an incredibly high ceiling, a huge fireplace, massive windows, and several seating areas. “I can see why your father was terrified. If you’d fallen, you might have broken your neck.”

“But I didn’t fall. Would you care for something other than port?”

Shaking her head, she took another sip of the thick, sweet wine.

“You didn’t drink much wine during supper,” he mused.

“I’ve never fancied wine overly much. For me a little bit goes a long way. I suppose you drink to excess.” Although she’d never heard any stories of him being three sheets to the wind.

“I prefer to keep my wits about me.”

No doubt because he’d witnessed his father losing his. Although she found herself liking Marsden, thought he seemed sweet. Her own father had been a strict, controlling man. She didn’t think Locksley would be living here if his father had been the same. He certainly wouldn’t be intent on protecting him, to the extreme extent of marrying a woman who before this afternoon he’d never even known existed. “When you were a lad, were you afraid of your father?”

“When I was a lad, I feared nothing.” He jerked his head back and to the side, indicating the far corner. “Obviously.”

“Do you fear anything now?”

“Going mad. Which is surely bound to happen if I delay much longer in taking you to bed.” Setting his glass aside, he rose, towering over her.

Her heart slammed against her ribs. She quickly downed what remained of her port, frantically wondering if she should ask for another. He held out his hand to her. Such a large hand. No aspect of it appeared soft. She could see calluses and evidence of nicks, tiny scars here and there. She wondered briefly what he did in order to have hands that more closely resembled those of a worker than a gentleman. No doubt they were souvenirs from his adventures.

Before she could decide if she should in fact ask him to refill her glass, he took it from her and placed it on the table beside her chair. Leaning in, he wrapped both his hands around her elbows and drew her to her feet.

“For a woman who spoke so boldly about coupling this afternoon, you seem rather nervous.”

“We hardly know each other. I’m not quite certain what to expect from you.”

“Expect to be grateful you’re in my bed, and that our chamber is far from my father’s, so he can’t hear you crying out in pleasure.”

“You are so blasted arro—”

His mouth slashed across hers as he hauled her up against him. Cloth provided no barrier against the heat seeping from his body into hers, as though he were already beginning to claim her, as though every aspect of him would penetrate her before the night was done.

During her short life, she’d experienced rare moments of pure terror. This was one of them. The past few months had taught her to separate her mind from the physical, had tutored her in the wisdom of not caring, of dispensing with emotion, of holding herself apart from the reality of what was actually happening. It was the reason that she had known she could lie beneath a man more than three decades her senior without nausea, without tears, without regrets.

But Locksley knocked down her barriers as though she’d built them of twigs. He wasn’t content to simply take. He wanted to possess. She felt it in the thrumming of his pulse at his throat where she laid her fingers, in the vibration of his chest as he growled and took the kiss so deep that she felt as though he were mining for her soul.

She was no stranger to the ways of men, and yet he seemed to defy everything she knew and understood. She’d never known a man to emit such a powerful hunger, to give the impression that the passion rising between them would consume not only her, but him as well. That he welcomed it.

He braced his hands on either side of her head, angling her slightly to better position himself for the assault. Yet for all the voraciousness of his urgency, she never once felt as though she couldn’t step away, as though she couldn’t stop it. If she wanted.

But she didn’t want to step away. And that alone was what terrified her. That he somehow managed to call to the wantonness inside her, that he made her long for all the dreams she’d held when she was young and innocent. That he made her believe that perhaps they were attainable, that they did in fact exist.

Tearing his mouth from hers, breathing heavily, he stared down at her. “That’s what I want. The fire and the vigor. Not the frightened mouse. I want the lioness in my bed.”

A lioness? If only he knew the truth about Montie—

He swept her up into his arms as though she weighed little more than a cloud in the sky. Never before had a man carried her. She didn’t want to admit how safe and secure he made her feel as he strode from the room with purpose, but then if she’d learned anything at all about him this day it was that he did everything with determination.

She knew beyond any doubt that she was on the verge of becoming his wife in truth. There would be no turning back once he claimed her.

As he took the stairs two steps at a time, guilt pricked her conscience. She should confess everything, before it was too late. Their marriage could be annulled. She could slink away in shame and mortification, find a way to survive, to protect all that needed protecting. As though a miraculous answer would suddenly reveal itself when it hadn’t before.

They passed the closed door to the master’s bedchamber. His strides quickly ate up the distance to the corner room at the far end of the hallway.

He wanted her. She could sense it in the tension radiating through him. She could give him anything he fancied, all he desired. He could ask anything of her and she’d not refuse his request. He could demand anything and she wouldn’t fight him. She could make him grateful to have her. She could ensure he never had regrets.

As for her own regrets—she would find the strength to ignore them or to live with them. She was too close to having what she desired—what she required to survive—to let guilt win out over sensibleness. Starve or feast. Cold or warmth. Death or life.

He opened the door, walked through, and slammed it shut with a kick. She expected to find herself tossed on the bed, her skirts thrown over her head, as with a powerful thrust he took what the law now gave him the right to possess.

Instead, he lowered her feet to the floor, slowly, gently, in the center of the room. The bed loomed behind him, yet he suddenly seemed in no great hurry, as though whatever madness had urged him here with such haste had been tamed, tethered. But the fever in his eyes as he looked down on her told her that it was hovering dangerously close, that there was a primal quality to him that once unleashed could possibly destroy her.

She should have been frightened, terrified even. Yet she couldn’t seem to feel anything other than wonder and an urge to take him down to the bed and order him to have his way with her. He was no longer touching her, and yet tremors cascaded through her. Her nerve endings sizzled, and her skin seemed to ache for his touch. It had been so long since she had yearned for a man’s touch.

Not since she’d lost her innocence. Not since she’d known betrayal.

Leisurely, following the décolletage of her gown, he lightly skimmed the blunt tip of one long, thick finger from one shoulder down, over the swell of one breast, then the other, before traveling up to the opposite shoulder, barely touching the cloth, mostly branding her skin with heat that fairly devastated her plan to remain aloof. His eyes never left hers, and she feared he could read the confusion and weakening in her gaze.

She should have known that he wouldn’t have been content with coldness in his bed.

He guided his finger back along the path until it returned to the beginning of the trail that he had mapped out like the explorer he was.

He glided his fingers down her arms, all the way to her fingertips, before going back up. “I like your arms bared,” he said, his voice low, feral, deep. “Don’t wear gloves in the future.”

Following dinner, she hadn’t put them back on. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t quite regret it at that moment. “It would be improper.”

A corner of his mouth hitched up, his eyes darkened. “Before this night is done, you’ll learn that I enjoy a good many improper things. Turn around.”

She’d said he could take her from behind. She couldn’t fault him now for wanting it. Hiking up her chin, calling forth her steely resolve, she whipped around and only then dared to squeeze her eyes shut, waiting for the assault.

“You’ve tensed up again,” he said.

“I’ve told you. I don’t know you well enough to know what to expect.”

“And I’ve told you to expect pleasure.”

“You’re taking your sweet time at delivering it.”

His heated mouth landed at the juncture where her shoulder met her neck. “We have all night, Lady Locksley.” He nibbled his way to her ear. “I want you wet, hot, and begging me to take you.”

A shiver of anticipation skittered along her spine. “Perhaps it will be you who begs, my lord.”

His tongue outlined the shell of her ear. “I’m counting on it.”

She jerked her head around, her gaze slamming into his. “You want me to make you beg?”

He grinned. “I want you to try.” He pressed a kiss to her temple. “But not yet. Not until I’ve had the pleasure of removing your clothes.”

And her hairpins apparently, because he buried his fingers in her hair, removing them one after another, tossing them onto the floor without care. Facing forward, staring at the low fire burning in the hearth, she tried to make sense of this man. He wanted her. She had no doubt there, and yet he was drawing out the torment with a sweetness to it that she’d never before experienced.

As her hair tumbled down, he growled with satisfaction and gathered some of it up in his hands. “It’s been wanting to do that all day. And I’ve wanted to touch it. So thick and silky.”

“It’s unruly.”

“I like unruly.”

“Even in a wife?”

“That I can’t say, as I’ve only had one for a few hours. But I like unruly in my lovers.”

She hated the spark of jealousy that ripped through her, recognized the irony in her reaction. It wasn’t as though she was coming to him a virgin. “How many of those have you had?”

He slowly draped her hair over one shoulder and kissed the nape of her neck. “Enough to know how to bring you pleasure.”

Her eyes slid closed. It seemed his idea of pleasure involved a great deal of torment. His lips traveled across her shoulder, just before his fingers outlined her skin where it met cloth. How could so light a touch affect her so deeply, reach through her to the core of her womanhood? When she’d responded to the advert, she’d done so expecting a passionless coupling. She was hardly prepared for every sensation he was so effortlessly stirring to life.

She felt a tug on the lacings of her gown, was acutely aware of him pulling them completely free, so the material began to separate and was soon gaping. The gown was heavy enough that it began to fall from her shoulders. She jerked her hands to the bodice to hold it in place. Why didn’t he douse the lights?

Aware of him brushing by her, she opened her eyes to find him standing in front of her.

“Lower your arms,” he said quietly. Not an order exactly, and yet she didn’t think he’d brook any disobedience. She wanted an amicable marriage, no tempers flaring, no fists flying.

Balling her hands, she lowered them to her sides. With only a single finger of each hand, he nudged the shoulders of her gown over until the silk slid down her body. His eyes drifted to the swells of her breasts, and she saw heat mirrored in the green, even though she was still covered with her corset and chemise. And once again, he traced that blasted finger along the line where cloth met skin. She wanted to push her breasts up against his palms, wanted a sure touch, a complete touch, not this irritating teasing that was setting every nerve ending on fire.

“Turn around,” he ordered, and she took perverse satisfaction in the fact that he sounded as though he might be strangling. At least he wasn’t completely unaffected. When it was her turn to remove his clothing, she would go just as slowly, would insist upon it. Make him suffer.

Although now that she was facing the bed, staring at it, she didn’t know if she could go slowly. Her body was yearning for sure caresses, the hardness of his form pressing into the softness of hers.

A series of tugs as he loosened the lacings on her corset. Then it, too, fell away, leaving only the thin linen of her chemise. Once again he moved in front of her, his eyes darkened.

“I misjudged the size of your breasts,” he said. “They’re smaller than I thought.”

“Disappointed?”

He slowly shook his head. “No.”

He cupped her breast, and she couldn’t hold back the moan as she nearly sank to the floor, nearly grabbed his free hand and pressed it to her other breast. It felt so good to have the firm touch of his large palm, his fingers gently kneading as though to test the fullness of what she had to offer. She wanted to shout for him to rip everything else away, to take her to the bed, to take her.

This time when he began to trail his finger along the décolletage, he hooked it beneath the cloth, moving it aside, approaching the mound, and she knew his finger was going to graze her nipple—

A horrendous shout, an almost feral cry, startled her, had him cursing beneath his breath before marching to the window and jerking the drapery aside.

“What was that?” she asked.

He strode to the door. “Wait here.”

As though she was going to go somewhere in her half-dressed state. “What is it?”

But he was out the door, slamming it in his wake.

She scampered over to the window, pulled the heavy velvet drapery aside, and glanced out. A nearly full moon coated the land in blue, provided enough light that she could see a shadowy figure in the distance running over the moors. Then she caught sight of another figure. She recognized the shape of this one. It was her husband, racing from the house, obviously in pursuit of the person she could no longer see.

Had it been his father out there? It had to be. She couldn’t imagine Locksley rushing out after anyone else. What was the marquess doing out there, and what had he been shouting?

Although she’d heard the rumors, she hadn’t believed the Marquess of Marsden—since he wasn’t locked up in an asylum—was truly mad. It appeared she might have been mistaken.