Paulette propped herself up on one arm. “You’ve had other women.”

The battle on Bink’s face made her want to laugh.

She put a finger over his mouth. He didn’t have to lie. It wasn’t that sort of marriage. “You don’t have to tell me. I’d rather you said nothing than lie to me.”

“I’m not quite the man of the world.”

“But you’re not a virgin.”

“No. But I haven’t been with a woman in a very long time.”

“Why not? Every inn maid you meet wants to bed you.”

“They just like to flirt, most of them. They see how safe I am.”

If he believed that, he was lying to himself. She let it pass.

“So why no lover? No mistress? Even stewards have mistresses, or affairs. Maybe especially stewards. All the lonely widows in the county.”

He rolled her to the side and cuddled her, his fingers stroking through her hair. His eyes looked heavy. “Must we have this talk now?”

“You’re sleepy.” No doubt he was that after two days in the saddle.

“Yes.”

“But I would like to know. Else thinking about it will keep me awake.”

His sigh rumbled up from some deep unhappy place. “I’m careful. Always. I’m a bastard.”

His frown deepened, freezing his jaw and locking it in place, and all of her senses alerted, waiting. He was deciding whether to tell her something more interesting.

“And you should know there are bad things in the world. Diseases that can pass from a man to a woman or a woman to a man. Not a pretty sight, what it does to a body. One thoughtless tumble can leave a man stricken for life, and his wife, if he has one, and any lovers, and even his children.”

She raised up on an elbow. “The pox?”

“Yes, and other ailments. And London is crawling with all of them. When I returned there with the Major—Lord Hackwell—it was as bad there as it had been on the Peninsula.” He swiped a hand over his brow. “No, it was worse. There is no war in England, and yet women spread their legs for their next meal while great lords gamble away fortunes.”

He turned a fierce look on her and her courage wavered.

Anger burned in him. Too much anger for a man running away to India, which surely could not be any better of a place for disease and such.

“I’ve married a radical,” she whispered.

“No.” He pushed her hair back, his eyes even more aflame.

She’d seen his temper with Agruen, had she not? That night in Hackwell’s library, Bink’s anger had flown into his fists and been just as quickly dispersed. Once Hackwell appeared, he’d shown no signs of ire.

Tonight he held this flare-up with a control that might slip any moment.

But his hand on her cheek was gentle.

“I saw first-hand the results of a bloody revolution, remember?” His tight jaw worked. “Never. Never that here. I favor changes, with order. With sense.”

“So why go to India?”

“I thought I couldn’t do any good here.”

The flame in his eyes smoldered higher. Her breath caught.

Thought, he’d said. He’d changed his mind about leaving, and a thrill jolted through her. He was staying. They would be doing this every night.

“Now I have you.” Those big fingers moved over her face again.

“And now you can do good?”

“I can protect you.” His eyes drifted closed.

She remembered the conversation with Kincaid, which seemed like a lifetime ago. “What are you protecting me from?”

He opened his eyes and studied her.

She was the daughter of spies. She might not be very good at the task herself, but she could see a lie coming.

She tapped a finger on his great chest, so firm with its muscle and bone, so distracting. “Kincaid said the same thing. That you would protect me. And I asked him from what. And he said I must ask you.”

A loud rumbling rolled out of him.

“If we are to have trust between us—”

He clamped a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t know, Paulette. I don’t know what danger. Or from who. I only know what Shaldon said, that you would be in danger.”

Shaldon said? When did Shaldon say? And why had no one told her?

She sat up, reached for the discarded nightrail, and covered herself. “Which Shaldon, the old or the new?”

“The old. I don’t believe Bakeley knows about this. He wasn’t present when I talked to the old man, and I didn’t discuss it with him.”

That sent her mind into a dizzying calculation. She was in danger. Yet Mr. Gibson had been planning to return her to Cransdall, even though Bakeley knew nothing of the threats to her.

Hot anger flared in her. “You don’t know what. You don’t know who. What do you know?”

A frown burned the line deeper between his eyebrows. “We will discuss this in the morning.”

“Oh no, you don’t.” She found the hem of the nightgown and pulled it over her head. “Oh no, we will not. I will not be fobbed off until morning.”

“Paulette.”

She batted his hand away, leaped off the bed, and retrieved her discarded dressing gown.

“Paulette.” Exasperation laced his slurred voice.

No doubt he was exhausted. She didn’t care. “I must know. Or I must puzzle this out. I’m not a child.”

He threw his legs over the side of the bed and stood.

Gloriously nude. Her gaze flew to his groin, and she forced it away and then turned her whole body.

Drat the man. There’d been the start of a grin on his face. He was trying to distract her.

Hands stroked her shoulders.

“I shall…scream. I shall cause a scene. A fight on our wedding night. The other guests will be shocked.”

“There are no other guests.”

No other guests. The empty courtyard, the two men in the taproom who were guards, Kincaid had said.

When she turned, she kept her focus at shoulder-level where a small scar she’d not noticed before traced over his muscles. “Explain, please. Why are there no other guests?”

“Kincaid arranged it.”

“But…” The cost. She’d pinched pennies her whole life. The cost would be enormous. The journey itself was a fortune with the changing of teams, and…

No. The cost of this journey was not her concern. Mr. Gibson, Lord Hackwell, Lord Shaldon, Mr. Kincaid. One of them could pay for this.

“No other guests. Two men to keep watch because I am in danger. Spellen knew that was my room. He was searching my room. He was going to harm me. But why did he attack Jenny?”

“Because he was a beast.

She felt woozy. “As is Agruen.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Agruen had wanted to meet me in the kitchens.” She shivered, and strong arms steadied her. Would Agruen have set Spellen on her?

She couldn’t think about that now.

“Agruen is surely part of it,” he said.

“The man who stole a useless ring and called my rusticating mother a whore.”

A growl escaped him and he pulled her into him, his arms moving around her.

Jock had said there was a treasure, and Agruen must know about it. He must be after it, he, and perhaps, others. Did Shaldon know of her father’s treasure? And if he did, why did he not bother to see her and speak of it? And had he told her husband?

Guilt pricked her. Should she tell him?

“Come. I’ll pour you a brandy,” he said.

“And you’ll tell me about this threat.”

Another unmanly sigh. “And I’ll tell you as much as I know.”

So much for paradise. Bink handed his bride a brandy and went to wash. He had no dressing gown, but his shirt would render some respectability.

When he glanced back at his bride she looked away quickly.

He swallowed a grin. The lass liked his arse. His shirt might do, but nakedness had its advantages. He draped the shirt over the back of a chair, wrapped her tartan low on his hips, and joined her, in all his almost nudeness. Anything to distract her from the hot-headed miff she was brewing.

He poured a glass for himself and lifted the cover of the food tray. “Do you mind if I eat?”

“No, of course not.” Her tone was wooden, polite. “Are you not cold?”

“I did not bring a dressing gown. Is my nakedness disturbing?”

She colored.

Old wounds flared, making him bristle.

“I suppose a gentleman would dress for dinner, even on his wedding night.”

She dismissed him with an aristocratic wave and averted eyes.

He was definitely no gentleman. He was coarse and crude. A beast and a burden, and best she knew it. “I’m not either. I can dress if my lady insists.”

Deeper color washed over her. “You are not either what?”

“I’m not cold, and I’m not a gentleman.”

She jerked her belt tight, wishing it was around his neck he’d warrant. The contrast of the tiny waist and the flare of her hips went a long way to taking the edge off his own ire. He focused on the transparent silk, the flashing eyes, and the unleashed passion, and settled in for his first wifely tongue-lashing.

“The tartan you’re wadding up was a wedding gift to me from Kincaid, though God knows why he would give it to me. And you lie, Bink Gibson. You are a gentleman, as much a gentleman as Bakeley or your Lord Hackwell. It’s the other you play whenever you want to. It’s what you’ve been playing for years.” Her hand flapped out again. “But it is fine with me, if you do not choose to be the gentleman you are tonight, or ever. Because you should know, sir, I am no ‘my lady.’ What do you think I am? I am the daughter of two spies—one died on the Continent, and the other was buried alive in the country.” She bit her lip and blinked furiously. “Who am I? Shaldon, the great bloody villain, died without telling me anything. You must tell me whatever he told you.”

His hands itched to hold her, but she was not out of heat yet. He helped himself to bread and meat and cheese instead. “You are a lady, Paulette. And you are my lady.”

“No. I am your wife. I am not a lady. Ladies are sniveling, weak creatures wholly dependent on men, and I choose not to be one of those. I will take what money I can gather and go to London and meet this solicitor, Tellingford, and find my trustee and get the rest of my money.”

She paused for a breath, and looked toward the window, and the skin on his neck rippled.

What else was she plotting to do? And what was she not telling him. For sure, there was some of that in this fuss.

She swung a level gaze his way. “I will take care of myself, and you may run away to India if that is what you wish to do.”

He chewed carefully and swallowed. He would not be going to India, ever. The dream of rajahs and riches faded blissfully away, with not one tiny whiff of a pang. “A solicitor in London is in charge of the trust—”

“Which is now coming to me, since I have married.”

Actually, technically, it was coming to her husband, in the usual way. He did not need to raise that conflagration, since he was the husband in question.

Bakeley had pulled him aside on Sunday just before his departure, and he’d been in such a hurry to get to her, he’d barely heard.

Now, the words flooded back into his memory.

He would get to this solicitor first. Before she could lay hands on any documents explaining the usual trust arrangement or hear the news directly, a new game would be in play. The money would be signed over to her full control.

“Bakeley said this solicitor was the executor of your mother and father’s estates, and arranged the terms of Shaldon’s guardianship over you. He is holding property to be given to you upon Shaldon’s death.”

His spine tingled. Whatever that solicitor held might be the thing putting her in danger.

“And someone else wants it.”

Her brow furrowed, her gaze flitted, hither and yon, while she chewed on those snippets of information. There’d be no rest until he talked to the solicitor.

He filled a plate and handed it to her. “Eat something.”

She bit into the bread and covered her mouth while she chewed. “As I said, my father was a spy. He died on the Continent, was all Mama would say.”

He’d seen more than a few spies passing through the Peninsula. Paulette’s father could have been one of them.

“When did he die?”

“I don’t know exactly. I was little more than a child when my mother received word eight years ago, but I believe it took some time for the news to reach us.”

They’d learned of the death in 1811 then. In the years before and after that, he’d been in the thick of the Peninsular battles. Death had visited the area then, freely and often.

Bink rested his fork on the plate. The Portuguese priest had passed through around then. And before him, Josiah Dickson, he who would be Agruen.

That dark memory filled his vision again. A woman as small as Paulette, so beaten she’d not been able to speak. Bink had stumbled into the fight in a Portuguese hovel while on patrol.

He rubbed at a pain in his temple. Dickson was bloodied, the other man too. That man did it, Dickson had said.

Dickson, who’d been at the Major’s table the night before.

Bink beat on the other man until Beauverde showed up and pulled him away.

And months later, in the humble hut of a defenseless mother and her girls, this one in Spain, Bink found out the truth about Agruen.

A soft touch on his arm brought his gaze to the present, into eyes dark as that Spanish woman’s, but so very alive with intelligence and concern. “It’s Agruen then. Something to do with him.” Her voice was low and fierce.

Somehow, she’d gone inside his head and taken a look around. The flood of intimacy brought him back to the problem at hand.

He’d protect her. He’d keep her safe. The monster would not have another chance at her. “It would be my guess also.” He clamped a hand over hers. “I will go, Paulette.”

She straightened. “What?”

“I won’t let him harm you. I will go. As your husband, I can conduct this business.”

She pulled her hand back and folded her arms. The storm returned, flashed in her, like lightening on a dark Channel night, winds ready to topple any boat within range. “And I will be where?”

Safe. You’ll be safe. He bit his lip. “Greencastle.”

Her hands flew up again, a flock of mad doves. “It’s not safe there. It’s not safe. Look what happened to Jenny.”

His chest tightened. Jenny had been wandering in the kitchen at night, and Paulette had done her own wandering. Lady Hackwell would never allow him to lock Paulette in her room. Her maid offered no restraint. The thought of her roaming that estate, the thought of her tied down with Agruen over her…

He rubbed his jaw. Worse, if there could be a worse, Agruen would harm all in his way, including Lady Hackwell.

“Cransdall then.” The spymaster’s retainers were all fully checked out and endorsed, many trained, retired operatives. It was safe as the Bank of England. And he would share all with Bakeley.

“No.”

“Paulette, Agruen is a brute.”

Her gaze sharpened. She saw too much. He did not want her to ask about that time in Spain. He did not want to have to talk about it. He wanted to shove it back into its tomb and seal the stone.

“Yes,” she said. “He’s ruthless, and possibly has more men like Spellen. You’ll be in danger, also.”

He let out a breath. “I can take care of myself.”

She huffed. “And what of me? Who’ll protect me while you’re gone?”

“Bakeley. Kincaid.”

“Leaving you unguarded, unprotected.” She shook her head. “No.”

“That’s how it must be. I’ll hire runners, but when it comes down to it, I can look after myself.”

She bit her lip. Stood. Sighed. Picked up the brandy bottle and reached for his glass, letting her robe flop open.

His shaft stirred and he swallowed a chuckle. She was trying a new tactic.

He rested a hand on her round bottom and some of the brandy spilled over the side of the glass.

She turned her attention on him, her eyes veiled by long lashes that shimmered.

Tears. Real or summoned, he wished he knew. All spies were liars, and whether she’d inherited her parents’ skills, he couldn’t tell, not yet.

“I will not leave you unprotected,” she said. “I will not let you go into danger without me.” Her husky voice turned the ripple running through him into high waves. His hand moved over the soft curves.

Desire, hot and urgent, rose and swamped him, wiping out fatigue, and thirst, and hunger for anything but her. “Will you not?” He slipped the slick silk out of its knot, dragged the tips of his fingers down her leg and lifted the hem of the gown, all the while inching her nearer.

Her knuckles went white round the head of the bottle. He was, perhaps, in danger of a coshing.

“You’ll protect me? Make sure I’m unharmed?” he whispered.

“You must promise, Bink. You must promise to take me.”

Aye, he would take her. “Love, will you release the brandy bottle?”

Her eyes widened. Her gaze flitted to the bottle, and he saw the moment she recognized the weapon in her hand. He shouldn’t have brought it to her attention.

Perhaps now coshing would come as naturally to her as kissing and coupling.

He chuckled. A man could not complain about two out of three.

“You must promise, Bink.”

“I’ll promise. I’ll promise to talk about it more.” He sent his hand up under the thin silk, and watched her eyes darken and glaze.

“I’ll hold you to that promise and—oh.” The bottle plopped, tipped, and a river of sweet-scented amber coursed over the table.

Bink pulled her out of its path, onto his lap. Brandy laced the top of her foot. He tipped her back, brought her foot up and licked it clean, down to the tips of each toe.

She gasped and wriggled.

When he released her foot, he lifted her into a straddle, and pushed her thin silks high, drawing her closer until her breasts huddled against him, muddling his brain, rendering all of his senses to only that softness, that seal of her skin against his.

“We’re not finished.” Her breath came in tiny, barely audible puffs. “With this discussion.”

And then her kiss took away all his ability to think.