West awoke with a start, gasping in awareness.

He could see a thin gray light filtering in through the bedroom window. Beyond that, however, time remained uncertain. So, too, did the nature of his immediate circumstances. He could see he was in his bed, at Cardwell House, but beyond that lay a murky confusion.

He leaned back against his pillow, thinking hard, until the pieces clicked into place. Grant was dead. This was a painful truth, one he was forced to face anew at the start of each day.

With that recognition came the inevitable, accompanying guilt. If only he’d seen his friend’s worsening derangement, recognized Grant’s irrevocable descent into darkness . . .

But then, how could he have, when West had been so distracted by his own demons?

Nearly everyone associated with the plot to kill Queen Victoria was dead, and West rather thought the imaginative story his wife had concocted to explain Vivian’s disappearance was likely not far off the mark. No doubt the woman was now living in the Mediterranean or some similarly far-off clime, enjoying the money with which she’d absconded.

And oh yes . . . speaking of his wife . . . there was this piece to his life.

A smile tugged at his mouth. He was married. Happily so.

To a proper heroine, who carried a snub-nosed derringer about in her skirt pocket and shot villains when she needed to, and who kissed like a bloody siren when she wasn’t tracking down traitors.

He turned his head to see Mary sitting up in bed next to him, bathed in a soft glow. As it always did, the sweet, simple sight of her hit him like a pleasant punch to the gut. Her bedside lamp had been turned up, and she was staring down at a book clutched tightly in her hands, a brown braid over one shoulder, her brow furrowed in concentration.

Had he just been wondering the time? A bit after five o’clock in the morning, then.

It must be, if his wife was already awake.

He shifted, letting out a small groan as the bandage on his chest pulled tight against his wound. It was healing well, no more signs of infection, but he was growing impatient with the grand pageantry of being an invalid. Wilson checked in on him far too regularly, and his family filtered through his room at least once a day.

Mary had been a rock throughout all of it, soothing his grumpiness, making him laugh. He was grateful to have her, but here it was, a bit after five o’clock in the morning, and already he felt restless, restricted to his bed.

The noise he made pulled Mary from whatever story had her so engrossed. She looked down at him, a pinch of concern on her face. “Did you have a nightmare?” she asked, lowering the book to her lap.

West shook his head. No, nightmares had become a thing of his past. His dreams had been more of the pleasant variety of late, in part due to her.

And in part due to his acceptance—his ready remembrance—of his past.

He felt alive again. In fact, he felt so alive, he was presently considering pulling his wife onto his lap and divesting her of that nightrail, no matter Dr. Merial’s orders to the contrary. The lamplight was turning parts of the thin cotton transparent, and he could see the lovely curve of a small, perfect breast as she reached a hand out to smooth the hair from his forehead.

He gritted his teeth, wanting far more than the nurse-like touch of her hand. A man ought not to have to suffer a beautiful woman in his bed if he wasn’t permitted to touch her. Two weeks into this convalescence, and he was about ready to clock Dr. Merial over the head every time the man appeared with a fresh set of bandages.

Didn’t people understand his life was marching by? There was architecture to study, a wife to pleasure . . . but resuming those things was hardly possible while he was under strict instructions to suffer a full month’s bedrest.

And judging by his wife’s careful adherence to Dr. Merial’s instructions, he was going to have a devil of a time changing her mind.

“I find myself bored,” West complained. His fingers drifted toward the ties of Mary’s nightrail. “It’s after five o’clock in the morning,” he said, a hint of wicked hope in his voice. “Surely there are more important things we can be doing than reading some obscure novel.”

Mary smiled down at her handsome, disgruntled husband. Seeing his petulant frown was like seeing dawn break over the horizon. It meant he was agitated, and that meant he was healing, and not only in the physical sense.

She’d worried in those first few days after Grant’s death that the loss of his friend might set West back, renew the lingering terror of Crimea.

Instead, it had proven a galvanizing force. He spoke of things now that would have shocked her a month ago: a return to his love of architecture, his enthusiasm for her suggestion to build a new wing of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital dedicated to helping soldiers heal, his hopes for a family of their own. If nothing else, Grant’s treachery had highlighted what could happen when a man was unable to pull himself back from an abyss.

And she was glad to see her husband had backed away from the edge on his own.

“Oh, you are bored, are you?” she asked unsympathetically, batting at his wandering hands. She regarded him with a raised brow. “I suppose you want to talk again?”

“Actually, I had a different cure for my boredom in mind.”

“Well, perhaps I want to talk.” She laid a hand on his bare chest, taking care to avoid the bandaged area, but enjoying the way her touch made his body stiffen in predictable places. “You see, I have a confession to make, Mr. Westmore. I’ve been keeping a list of secrets from you, things I haven’t told you yet.”

“Not another list,” he groaned. “And no more secrets. We promised we would always be open and honest with each other.”

She smiled, her heart twisting agreeably in her chest. Had she once despaired of ever having a husband who included her in his thoughts and plans? Who told her all his secrets, and listened patiently to hers? How much had changed in two weeks. During the time he’d been forced to stay in bed, there had been plenty of time to talk. She’d learned nearly his entire life’s story and suffered through a cataloging of all his various transgressions (not nearly as dramatic or awful as the rumors implied), down to the time when, at thirteen years old, he’d electrified a doorknob at Eton, shocked the shite out of his headmaster, and promptly gotten expelled.

“Which is why I am telling you now,” she agreed. “No more secrets between us. I shall start with Number One on my list. This isn’t some obscure novel.” She lifted her book again, feeling a bit wicked. Using her most seductive voice, she began to read again, continuing right from where she had left off. “Driving close into her, I for a moment stopped my furious thrusts to play with the soft silly hair which covered her mount of love; then slipping my hand over her ivory belly up to her breasts, I made her rosy nipples my next prey.”

He held his hands over his ears, shaking his head. “I can’t . . . that is you shouldn’t . . . Good Christ, you are a cruel, uncaring woman. Are you really reading The Lustful Turk without me?”

“Yes.” She shrugged. “Although . . . it doesn’t have to be without you.”

“But Dr. Merial said—”

She leaned down and kissed him, swiftly, on the mouth, silencing his protest. “Number Two,” she breathed against his lips. “Staying abed may not be such a terrible thing. Dr. Merial said we might resume . . . er . . . well, if we are very, very careful and do not do anything strenuous to dislodge the bandages—”

Without warning, she found herself flipped over on her back, her blond and bandaged husband looming over her. “I swear to God, Mary, if you’ve kept that secret longer than five minutes, so help me . . .” His eyes narrowed.

“Only since last night.” She held her breath. Lifted her hands. “I suppose,” she added hopefully, “since I’ve been so naughty, you might have to . . . tie me up and punish me?”

He burst out laughing. Leaned over her to deliver a stinging, beautiful bruise of a kiss, and she moaned as she felt the sweep of his tongue inside her. But instead of pursuing the tumult of feelings he was kindling inside her, he broke off the kiss, smirking down at her. “Aye, my sweet English rose,” he said, adopting a hideous Turkish accent. “I know how to punish you. But not with a rope. With my very hand.” His hand slipped lower, beneath the hem of her nightrail, and she felt the sure, knowing sweep of his fingers, swirling softly against her seam.

“I am at your mercy, my fearsome sheik,” she said back, in a throaty voice that promised more love play, should only he want it.

“Although, truth be told this comes closer to punishing me,” he admitted with a groan. He leaned his head against the curve of her neck, breathing harder now, even as his fingers strummed a primal beat inside her. “I’ve gone two weeks without a proper release. I don’t know how long I can hold out.”

“Well, please don’t hold out too long,” she informed him, wrapping her arms carefully around him, being sure to avoid the bandages. She lightly scraped her nails down his back, shivering as the motion evoked a lovely growl of pleasure from him. “Ever since our little adventure saving the queen, reading books no longer brings me quite the same degree of enjoyment.” She gasped as his perfect fingers found a place that made her hips lift off the mattress, begging for more. “I’ve changed, thanks to you,” she panted. “And I’ve decided I need to create a bit of adventure, not just read about it.”

“I see,” he said gravely, not diverted from his path in the least. “And given that I must stay in bed, just who do you propose to have this adventure with?” he asked, even as he played her like a beautiful instrument.

“I didn’t say I was going to have the adventure. I am going to create it.” She drew a deep breath, closing her eyes, turning herself over to the last of her secrets, though this one felt as though she was baring her very soul. “I haven’t yet told you Number Three on my list. You see, I’ve been thinking . . . about writing a book of my own.”

His fingers stilled against her. There was a moment of profound silence. And then he was lifting his hand, pressing a kiss against her lips. “Good Christ, Mouse,” he breathed. “That’s the best idea you’ve had yet. You’d make a brilliant authoress.”

Her eyes fluttered open. She stared up at him. Was he joking?

But no . . . he was smiling at her, his blue eyes shining with something that might have been pride. “You . . . really think so?” she asked, biting her lip. “It won’t be easy. I’ve never written anything more than a journal entry.”

“With your imagination? You’ll be a far better authoress than those boring, blathering idiots from the night of the literary salon.”

“Better than Dickens?” she squeaked, shaking her head. “You are mad.”

“Not mad. Just selective in my reading preferences. That book Bleak House you once told me to read sounds so . . . bleak.” He smirked at her again, then pulled her nightrail up and over her head. “And at the risk of pointing out the obvious, you already have the ink stains on your hand, the mark of a proper author. I’d say the only thing missing at this point is the actual book.”

He fell upon her, kissing his way up her body, his tongue merciless against her skin, until she was trembling against him. “But promise me,” he said as he rounded the curve of one breast, his breath hot against her quivering skin, “the first book you write will be based on your life. You can call it The Lustful Mouse.”

“I don’t know,” she giggled, happily letting him do what he would. “Perhaps a book based on my life isn’t such a good idea. The best heroines always die at the end. And I’ve heard the hero of that tale is an utter scoundrel.”

“Not in this story,” he said, nipping his way toward her other breast. “In this story, the heroine lives to be a hundred years old, and the hero is a devoted husband, determined to bring his wife the utmost pleasure into her dotage. This story shall have the happiest of endings.”

And then he set about proving it.