In the coach on the way back from the Oldhams’ ball, Hugh regarded Jane with a troubled frown. She sat beside him, hands lying limply in her lap and her attention focused on the street. He’d tried to take her hand when they left the ball, but she’d avoided him by making a great show of fiddling with her cloak.

Something was wrong. He’d wager every penny on it.

He thought back to those torrid, interrupted moments on the terrace. Until then, everything about the ball had been a grand success. She’d shone bright as a star in her daring red dress. He’d witnessed the ton’s astonishment when this radiant stranger entered their midst, then curiosity, and finally acceptance and approval.

Before they went outside, she’d glowed with the inner fire that illuminated everything she did when her heart and soul were engaged. After they’d come inside, she’d still sparkled like a jewel. But the brilliance had turned feverish.

Not that anyone else noticed. Jane had arrived at the Oldhams’ as a complete unknown. Hugh took her home as a wild success. Gossip, most of it cruel, about the new Lady Garson had clearly filled the capital’s drawing rooms for weeks. After tonight, people would continue to talk about Jane, but in tones of envy and admiration.

“Are you upset because you had a fight with Susan?”

“I’m not upset.” Her voice was cool, and she didn’t look away from the window.

Hell, he wished he believed her. “It was time she heard a few home truths.”

“She’ll get over it.”

He wasn’t so sure, but he’d felt like cheering when Jane stood up for herself. Especially when she’d described him as a wonderful husband.

If it wasn’t the clash with her sister that troubled her, it must be what the Frames said. He recalled that odd, rather awful moment when she’d turned her head to avoid his kiss. “I’m sorry you overheard that nonsense when we were outside, Jane. People love their tattle.”

She turned to look at him. Because the ride was short, the lamps inside the carriage remained unlit. Now with the dimness hiding the subtle shifts in her expression, he regretted that.

“Of course they do, Hugh.” She sounded calm and sensible, the way she’d sounded when he proposed. “It’s not like Lady Frame said anything we didn’t already know.”

“I’m sure if anyone felt sorry for you at the start of the night, nobody feels sorry for you now.”

To his surprise, she responded with a huff of derisive laughter. At the ball, she’d laughed frequently, dazzling her partners. When Hugh had whirled her around the floor in the promised waltz, she’d been incandescent with gaiety. He hadn’t believed it was real then. He still didn’t.

“Now I’m out in society, people will realize I’m not a complete fright. At least I hope I’m not. Or is that fishing for compliments?”

It was an attempt to stop him asking probing questions, that’s what it was, but he accepted her unspoken request to keep the conversation superficial. “What a pity you broke my favorite fishing pole so many years ago. I’d forgotten all about that, until you mentioned it at Caro and Silas’s. Did you enjoy your first ball?”

“Very much. Thank you for taking me.” She shifted on her seat to face him. “I’m sure I was so wide-eyed that it must have been a complete bore for you.”

“Quite the contrary. I had a superb time.” At least he had until supper. “Apart from having to put up with all those men eyeing my wife.”

She shrugged, and he saw she truly hadn’t registered the scale of the success she’d made. “I suspect novelty explains that. Novelty, and the fact that I polished up into something quite acceptable. After all their hard work, Madame Lisette and Helena would be disappointed if I didn’t.”

“Madame Lisette and Helena be damned.” Annoyance edged his tone. “You were the loveliest woman in that ballroom, Jane, because you’re so vital and alive and, yes, beautiful. Your new clothes only bring out what was there all the time, even in Dorset.”

She made a fluttery gesture. “You’re being kind again.”

He was getting bloody sick of hearing that. Particularly when something in her relentlessly cheery tone hinted that for once she didn’t see his kindness as an altogether positive trait. He leaned forward and kissed her, not just because he wanted to—although he always did—but to confirm his suspicion that something was amiss.

At the touch of his lips, she stiffened, reminding him of the woman who had shrunk from him on their wedding night. What the hell? He was about to retreat, when she started to kiss him back with a desperation he could taste. She twined her arms around his neck as if she held on for dear life, the way she’d cling to a branch in a flooded river to stop being swept away.

But there was no flooded river, and no chance that she was going anywhere but home with him.

Troubled anew, he pulled back and caught her wrists, bringing them down to her lap. “Jane, something’s wrong. Please tell me.”

A reverberant silence fell, long enough to send his imagination into a spin. Had something horrible happened at the ball that he didn’t know about?

Then she took a shuddering breath and leaned forward to place a clumsy kiss on the corner of his mouth. “What could be wrong? I’ve just been fêted at my first ball. I finally told my sister to mind her own business. Now I’m going home with my lovely husband. I’m the happiest girl in London.”

Doing it too brown, Jane. “You don’t sound like the happiest girl in London.”

Although she sounded like she tried to be. The amount of effort she put into the act betrayed her.

Her smile flashed in the darkness. “It’s late. I’m tired. Truly, it’s been a lovely night, Hugh. Stop fretting.”

He caught her hands. “Perhaps we should stay home tomorrow and forget the opera.”

She shook her head, the rubies and diamonds in her hair catching the light from a passing street lamp. “Oh, no, I want to go to everything we’re invited to. I told you—I plan to be out every night.”

He heard that same desperation he’d tasted in her kiss, but for pity’s sake, he’d asked every way he knew for her to tell him what worried her. Perhaps the wise husband would wait until she was ready to confide in him. He always strove to be a wise husband. Well, most of the time.

The carriage pulled up outside the tall, white façade of Rutherford House, and a footman ran forward to open the door. It was only when they were inside that Hugh finally got a proper look at Jane’s face. She did appear tired, fine drawn with strain and something that looked very like unhappiness.

The wise husband would not pry. Especially when his attempts to help had so far met with nothing but unconvincing denials of any trouble.

“I’m sorry that a few unpleasant moments spoiled your evening,” he said as they went upstairs. She held his arm, walking in step with him so their hips brushed. Why did he still feel she was on the other side of the world?

“Don’t be silly, Hugh. It was beyond my wildest dreams.” She sounded so bright, he winced as if he stared into the sun.

But the wise husband knew that he’d get no answer as to why his lovely wife seemed brittle enough to shatter, after the night when society had fallen at her feet.

“Will that be all, my lady?” Peggy asked, collecting Jane’s extravagant red gown from the bed and folding it over her arm. She’d already locked away the jewels. “Or would you like me to stay and brush out your hair?”

Jane met her glassy gray eyes in her mirror and prayed that the girl left quickly. Maintaining the illusion that she was on top of the world had given her a pounding headache. “No, I’ll do that. You find your bed. I’m sorry I kept you up so late.”

The girl looked startled, before she resumed the demeanor of the perfect servant. “Lud, my lady, that’s what a lady’s maid does.”

Jane made herself smile. “Perhaps, but I appreciate it. I suspect there will be many more late nights to come.”

Peggy sent her a proper smile, and the Irish accent she tried to suppress tinged her answer. “I don’t mind at all. It’s a privilege serving such a nice lady—and one who promises to become the toast of London. On my day off, I can lord it over the other girls.”

“That’s splendid.” Jane summoned a smile. “Good night, Peggy.”

The girl curtsied and left the toast of London to stare into her reflection and wish with a fervor only bolstered by its futility, that she was in Sidmouth with her old governess. She’d trade every one of tonight’s extravagant compliments to be looking forward to nothing more exciting than a walk by the seaside.

As Hugh came through the door connecting the baroness’s rooms to the baron’s, Jane picked up her brush. His chamber contained a large, luxurious bed that he was yet to use. They always slept together in this room.

“Let me do that for you,” he said quietly. The familiar red dressing gown covered his nakedness, and he, too, looked tired and a little downhearted.

“Thank you,” she said, extending the brush toward him. If brushing her hair delayed the moment when they went to bed, he could brush her hair until Doomsday.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want him. It was that she doubted her ability to conceal her newly discovered love when he touched her and kissed her and joined his body with hers. Right now, she felt too raw and vulnerable to survive having her deepest feelings exposed to the light.

Without doubt, Hugh would be kind, but secretly horrified that his wife had so egregiously broken their agreement.

Then he’d start to be careful of her, because he’d hate to hurt her. She’d know it and want to die of mortification. One of the things she enjoyed about their desire was how natural it felt. She had a queasy feeling that their warm, laughing intimacy would prove the first casualty of tonight’s unwelcome revelations.

Still, Jane wasn’t going to give up without a fight. Perhaps if she pretended nothing was wrong, she’d convince Hugh that she was happy. Perhaps if she pretended nothing was wrong, soon nothing would be wrong.

So she made herself smile at her husband as he brushed her hair. In the mirror, she watched the strain fade from his expression as he took his time, until her hair formed a shining cloak around her shoulders. He seemed content not to speak, which suited her. The less she said, the less likely she was to betray her fragile new feelings.

His hand brushed her cream velvet robe from one shoulder, and he bent to kiss the skin he revealed. The heat of his mouth made her shiver with need, more poignant tonight than it had ever been.

“Come to bed?” he murmured.

“Of course.”

He kissed her neck, until she was shaking. Raising her hand to stroke his rumpled, dark brown hair, she watched her face change in the mirror. She looked completely in Hugh’s thrall.

She looked like she was in love.

That would never do. This marriage was too new to bear the heavy burden of her unrequited love. She tipped her head to give him better access to the sensitive skin beneath her ear. He slid his hands under the velvet to cup her breasts through her sheer silk nightdress.

When his thumbs brushed her nipples, she gasped and arched against him, feeling his impatient need against her back. She untied the belt of her robe and pushed it away. Against the white nightdress, the beaded peaks of her nipples were clearly visible. He groaned and pushed her breasts together. “I want you so much, Jane.”

Jane caught his hands and pressed them closer to her breasts. “Don’t tarry, Hugh.”

And wondered if he heard the stilted note in her plea.