Portia couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so deeply, so soundly. Feeling completely rested was almost enough to make her believe she was safe. With a low moan and a languorous stretch she slowly opened her eyes to a room awash in faint light and her husband at the washstand, slowly guiding a straight razor up his neck and over his chin.

He wore only trousers. Her mouth went dry as she took in the sight of his broad shoulders and muscled back. She’d seen and felt the evidence that he didn’t spend his days lounging about, but still the perfection of his bronzed physique was a bit unsettling. Not an ounce of excess marred him. He was all corded muscle, ropy sinew, and strength. She was quite mesmerized observing the play of his muscles as he shaved.

“You’re awake, I see.” His deep voice sliced through the quiet.

Her gaze slammed into his, reflected in the oval mirror hanging above the washstand, and she wondered how long he might have been watching her. Her cheeks warmed.

“You didn’t wake me for my bath.”

“Seemed cruel.” He tipped his head back, began scraping up the other side. “You seemed lost to the world. A bath is waiting for you when you’re ready. It won’t take Mrs. Barnaby any time at all to warm it.”

Taking a deep breath, she tried to regain her equilibrium. “I suppose you’re coming back to bed.”

She was grateful the words came out strong and forceful, giving no hint whatsoever that she was quivering with the thought of him shucking those trousers and climbing on top of her.

A corner of his mouth hitched up, his gaze never leaving hers, even though the razor began to move along his jaw. “The sun is up. I missed my chance.”

Even knowing that the room wasn’t lit with candles, she sat up and stared at the window. It couldn’t be much past dawn. Her gaze fell on the pillow beside hers. Indented from where his head had rested on it. He’d slept with her, but she was in a cocoon of blankets. He couldn’t have touched her if he’d wanted.

She jerked her gaze back to him. “But we must consummate the marriage.”

Running the towel over his face, he turned from the mirror, his grin broadening. “Anxious to have me, are you?”

“I simply want to ensure that everything is legal, that you can’t annul this marriage on a whim.”

She hated the way he scrutinized her, as though he had the means to explore her soul, every hidden nook and cranny of it. He angled his head to the side. “Am I going to learn something today to make me want to undo this marriage?”

“No, of course not.” Hopefully he’d never learn of it. She’d do all in her power to ensure he didn’t. “But as I mentioned yesterday, I sought marriage for security. I can’t feel secure if you can claim that I have not seen to my wifely duties.”

“Duties?” With a shake of his head, he reached for his shirt draped over a straight-backed chair. “You’ve convinced me that we must wait for tonight as it appears I’ll need more time than I thought to ensure you don’t view our coupling as a duty.” He shrugged into the shirt, began buttoning it.

She scrambled out of bed. “You can take all the time you want now.”

“Alas, my dear wife, I have responsibilities that require I go to the mines today. This evening will be soon enough.”

It would be. She knew that. She was being silly to worry over this one aspect. What would one more day hurt? Besides, it would give her a chance to grow accustomed to the notion that she would be bedded by a young, virile, and exceedingly masculine husband rather than a bent and wrinkled one. She could shore up her defenses so she didn’t give the impression that he had the ability to control her with a touch.

He snatched up his neck cloth.

“You don’t have a valet,” she said. A statement not a question.

“You met all the indoor servants.”

She crossed over to him and lightly slapped his hands aside. “I’ll do it.”

“I hadn’t considered this advantage to having a wife.”

“You’re mocking me.”

“Teasing. There’s a difference.”

“Yesterday you didn’t strike me as one who would tease.”

“You didn’t strike me as one who would do for others.”

She lifted her gaze to his, once more unsettled by how thoroughly he seemed to be studying her. “It seems we were both wrong.”

She patted the knot. “There.” And snatched up his waistcoat.

He turned for the mirror, lifted his chin slightly. “You did an excellent job.”

“I used to do them for Montie.” Holding out the waistcoat for him, drawing it up over his arms, onto this shoulders, she grimaced at the slip of her tongue. He was far too distracting, but with any luck perhaps he hadn’t paid any attention to her words.

He faced her. “Montie?”

It seemed luck wasn’t going to favor her today. She began buttoning up the black silk. “My husband.”

“Do you miss him?” A muscle jumped in his jaw as it tightened, making her think he wished he’d bitten back the question.

“No,” she answered honestly, picking up his jacket, holding it up so he could turn and slip his arms inside. Only he didn’t turn.

“I thought you loved him.”

“I did. Just not so much at the end.” She didn’t know what had possessed her to admit that. She’d hated Montie by the end. Despised him once she discovered the hurt he was capable of inflicting, realized he wasn’t deserving of her affections.

For a moment, it appeared Locksley might say something else, express his sorrow that the love had not been long lasting. Instead, he merely presented his back. She nearly laughed at her foolishness for thinking he might have cared one whit that her heart had been broken with such callous disregard.

The day before, Locksley had claimed to have no interest in love. Truthfully neither did she. It had stolen away her family and brought her to ruin, still had the ability to destroy her and wreck what she was striving to accomplish if she wasn’t careful.

The jacket went into place beautifully, obviously tailored expressly for him. There was no reason to, and yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself from gliding her hands across his shoulders, as though she needed to straighten the cloth.

He stepped away, brushed at one arm, although she could see no lint there. “I have to go over some papers at my desk for a bit, then I’ll go into breakfast. You’re welcome to join me after your bath.” He looked back at her. “Although your presence isn’t required. After all it is the daytime. If I don’t see you there, rest assured that I shall return by nightfall, and the marriage will be consummated with all due haste.”

If it was going to be done hastily, they might as well do it now. She could make that happen. “Will you help me dress?”

“Mrs. Barnaby can see to that. I have no interest whatsoever in putting clothes on you. Only in taking them off.”

With that, he walked out, closing the door in his wake. She took a deep breath. For the briefest of moments there, she’d feared he might be a danger to her heart. Thank goodness she’d judged correctly yesterday. He was exactly the sort of arrogant ass she could never love.

When she had awoken with that soft moan, it had taken everything within him not to pounce on the bed and take her then and there. It hadn’t mattered that his face was lathered or that she’d distracted him to such an extent that he very nearly sliced open his jugular. He could think of worse ways to go than with that luscious sound ringing in his ears. How could a woman be so gloriously sensual upon awakening?

Standing at the window in the library, watching as the fog began to dissipate, he admitted that he didn’t have any paperwork he needed to see to. He just wanted to give her time to bathe and perhaps join him for breakfast. He could have also delayed going to the mines, but being within reach of her without touching her would have tested his sanity. While she had offered herself during the day, they’d made a bargain he intended to keep. The day was hers; the night was his. One exception would place them on a slippery slope, and she might decide he shouldn’t have all the nights, and he had no plans whatsoever to give up a single one of those.

When he finally made his way to the breakfast dining room, he was disappointed to discover it empty save for Gilbert, who immediately poured his coffee before heading out for his plate. It pricked his temper that she could disappoint him. He didn’t care for her, so it made no sense whatsoever that she should elicit any emotion at all in him. It irritated him that he was still thinking about her an hour after he’d left her. Obviously she’d given him no further contemplation. She had her title, her allowance, a bath—

The last thought flew from his mind as she walked in, her cheeks flushed and pink, her dress a dark blue, buttons up to her throat, down to her wrists. At least it wasn’t the ghastly black in which she’d arrived. At least she wasn’t being a hypocrite and pretending to be in mourning after she’d wed another man. She was setting her grief aside, what little grief there may have been. He didn’t know her husband, didn’t want to know him, but still it bothered him that the man had managed to lose her love. To have had it and not appreciated it, to have not strived to hold on to it—

He shook his head, refusing to travel that path, and came to his feet. Moving to the chair opposite his, he pulled it out.

Her flush deepened. “You don’t have to wait on me.”

“Just a simple courtesy for my wife.”

She approached slowly, cautiously, as though she expected him to toss her on the table and have his way with her. With that particular thought crossing his mind, he realized he might have been unwise to invite her to breakfast.

As she sat, he inhaled the lingering fragrance of clean skin, her bath, and a fresh application of jasmine. His body reacted as though she’d begun undoing that enticing row of buttons. He moved quickly back to his chair before Portia could see how she affected him. Although when he was finally settled and looking at her, she gave him a secretive little uplifting of her lips that signaled she knew the impact she had on him.

He rather feared he might be blushing, damn it all to hell. Thank God Gilbert chose that moment to walk in holding a plate.

“Give it to Lady Locksley,” Locke said, casually picking up the newspaper as though enough wits remained to him that he could make sense of anything he might read.

“Good morning, m’lady,” Gilbert said. “Would you prefer tea or coffee?”

“Tea please.”

Gilbert saw to the task while Locke read the first sentence of the main article three times. He couldn’t concentrate with her at the table, in spite of his not wanting to be distracted by her. When the butler went to fetch another plate, she said, “Will your father be joining us?”

Setting down his paper, Locke realized that she looked considerably younger today, less weary, less troubled. More beautiful. Yesterday had been an apparition, an aberration. He cleared his throat. “He generally takes his meals in his room. Yesterday was an exception.”

“So you dine alone?”

“I have wine to keep me company.”

“At breakfast?”

He grinned. “No, then I have the paper.”

“Don’t let my presence stop you from reading it. You don’t have to entertain me.”

“I had no plans to.” Could he sound any more like an ass? “Where did you travel from to get here?”

She stopped halfway to reaching for her tea, seemed to ponder her answer, or perhaps it was merely the revealing of it that gave her pause. It struck him that for all the information about him that she’d gained last night, she’d revealed very little of herself. “London.”

His father no doubt knew from whence she hailed as he’d had to dispatch his correspondence to her. “You arrived in a mail coach. I would have thought my father would have sent you money so you could travel in more luxury.”

“He did.” She lifted the cup, took a small sip, her lips teasing the rim, the heated brew. What was wrong with him to think he’d never seen anything more provocative in his life? She licked that lower lip, then the upper. “I thought to put the funds to better use. Enhancing my wardrobe, for example.”

“Surely your husband didn’t leave you penniless.”

“He left me nothing at all. His money was for gambling and pleasure. So I was quite destitute and desperate when I saw your father’s advert.” She lowered her head slightly. “Are you going to eat?”

He looked down to see a plate had been set before him. Glancing over, he saw Gilbert standing at attention in his usual spot. How the devil had he made his delivery without Locke noticing? He wasn’t the most fleet of foot or the quietest. It was her. She managed to somehow garner every last bit of attention he possessed. He should stop asking her questions now. He was not going to sympathize with her scheming, no matter how bad off her husband may have left her.

“You said you were going to the mines today,” she mused softly.

“Yes, immediately after breakfast.”

“Will you hand over my allowance for the month before you leave?”

He almost laughed. How easy it was to forget that marriage to her had come with a price. “Of course, my little mercenary. As soon as we’ve finished eating.”

“Then we should get to it, shouldn’t we?” She turned her attention to the creamed eggs.

For the life of him, he couldn’t determine why earlier he’d wanted her to join him—except for a while there, she made the room feel not quite so empty.