The one thing Peter hadn’t counted on in his improbable marriage was not the possibility that Mariah would be biddable in bed. Her willingness was one of the possible scenarios he’d considered, even hoped for, before entering their room the night before. The thing that he hadn’t expected was the intensity of self-consciousness when the two of them joined the rest of her family for breakfast the next morning.

“Good morning,” Mrs. Travers greeted the two of them with a cheery smile as he and Mariah stepped into the breakfast room.

Like a sentimental boy, Peter had held his new wife’s hand all the way from their bedroom, through the halls, and to the breakfast room, but he dropped it just before rounding the corner. He risked a glance at Mariah only to find her blushing up a storm, her face twitching and contorted as she tried not to laugh. He would never be able to keep a straight face while she dissolved into giggles, so he was forced to look at her mother and reply, “Good morning, madam.”

“Ah. There you are at last,” Edmund said from the head of the table, reading his paper and sipping coffee, a congenial smile on his face, as though it were an ordinary morning with a guest in the house. “Did you sleep well?”

Mariah turned quickly toward the sideboard, snatching up a plate and scooping a fried egg off the platter, her lips pressed tightly together and her face blazing.

“Quite well,” Peter answered with his best attempt at banality, though his face and neck were hot. Not as hot as his entire body and soul had been mere hours before. Mariah had surprised him with her enthusiasm all through the night, and he had surprised himself with a vitality he hadn’t felt in years. In fact, he felt like a man half his age even now, and loaded up his breakfast plate with enough food to build up his energy for what he hoped would be repeated that night.

The awkwardness continued once Peter and Mariah were seated at the table. Edmund seemed oblivious to the undercurrents of embarrassment that halted their conversation. But Emily kept smiling and smiling until she grew misty-eyed as she studied her daughter.

“Oh, my dear, I’m so happy for you,” she squeaked at length, dabbing at her eyes with her napkin. “I was so worried, but I see now there was no need.”

“Thank you, Mama,” Mariah mumbled, then hid her pink face by taking a long sip of tea. Peter was afraid she would choke as her shoulders shook with merriment.

Across the table from them, Victoria let out a loud sigh and slumped in her chair. “All is lost,” she whispered, adding a second, overdramatic sigh.

Peter wanted to rest his hand on Mariah’s leg under the table. He wanted to take her hand again. The urge to be in physical contact with her was overwhelming. But he held back, cutting up his sausages and searching for some topic of conversation that would not draw attention to the fact that he and Mariah had thoroughly enjoyed their wedding night. He would indulge in the newfound infatuation he felt for Mariah as soon as the two of them were alone.

“I don’t like this kerfuffle Turpin and his cronies have started over women’s employment,” Edmund said, turning a page of his newspaper, then folding it and setting it down. “I especially don’t like the way he’s dragging the church into it.”

“Unscrupulous men always attempt to drag the church into politics when they need to be seen as angelic while doing something diabolical,” Peter replied, grateful beyond measure to talk about work. “The sad part is that they’ll sway the common people to their cause by claiming the moral high ground.”

“Makes you wonder about the wisdom of extending the franchise,” Edmund sighed, cutting into an egg on his plate with the side of his fork.

“I thought you were in favor of extending the franchise, Papa,” Mariah said. “To women as well.”

“I’m not sure we’re quite ready for that,” Edmund replied with a proud grin for his daughter.

The awkwardness of having everyone in the room know what had transpired in the night gradually dispelled as Edmund and Mariah launched into a discussion about voting rights. Peter added his bit, but was far more interested in learning how educated and opinionated Mariah was on the subject. She held her own against her father, citing some of the same arguments he’d heard on the floor of Parliament. His fascination with her grew.

He was on the verge of joining the discussion and offering some contrary opinions just to see how Mariah would react, when the family’s butler, Graves, appeared in the doorway with a silver salver in his hand, and cleared his throat.

“What do you have there, Graves?” Edmund asked, turning to the man.

“An urgent message has come for Lord Dunsford, sir,” Graves informed them.

Peter nodded, taking the letter from Graves’s outstretched salver.

As soon as he opened it, his body tensed and a headache formed at his temples.

“What is it?” Edmund asked.

But it was Mariah’s quiet look of curiosity that prompted him to tell all. “It’s a message from Mr. Snyder, the butler at Starcross Castle. It seems there’s been an emergency at the chief mine on my property.”

“What kind of emergency?” Mariah asked.

Peter’s frown deepened as he read the rest of the letter. “The mine produces copper, or at least it did.” He let out a breath, rubbing one hand over his forehead and putting the letter down. “It seems that, as we feared, the copper vein is exhausted.”

“What does that mean?” Mariah pressed a hand to his knee under the table, just as he’d wanted to do with her earlier.

“It means that the livelihood of a great many people could be in jeopardy if a new vein isn’t discovered,” he said, meeting her eyes with seriousness. “It means that I need to return home as soon as possible.”

“Then we should go at once,” she replied, absolute certainty in her eyes.

He studied her, looking for any sign of fear or anxiety. “You wouldn’t mind leaving your family and going off with a near stranger so quickly?”

She blushed and lowered her gaze. “We’re hardly strangers at this point.”

If they hadn’t been sitting at a breakfast table with her parents and sister watching, Peter would have pulled her into his arms and kissed her until she sighed the way she had the night before. As it was, he cleared his throat and turned to Edmund. “I hope you would not think it cruel of me to leave so soon and take Mariah with me.”

“Of course not,” Edmund said, taking up his cup and finishing the last of his coffee, then declaring, “We’ll get everything settled and be off with you at once.”

As he pushed back from the table, Victoria groaned, “No! You can’t banish Mariah to perdition so soon. Why, she’s barely married at all.”

The look Mariah sent her sister contradicted the statement, but all she said was, “It’s all right, Victoria. I’m in good hands.”

Peter did his best not to dwell on the images of where his hands had been through the night and where he wanted them to be later. In spite of the multiple times they’d made love, he’d only just begun to learn her shape and show her all the ways they could take pleasure from each other. But thinking about the lessons to come wouldn’t do him a lick of good when the future of his estate was in question.

“It shouldn’t take me long to pack,” he said, spearing a sausage so that he could gobble down the rest of his breakfast. “I can venture out and purchase tickets and telegraph my valet at Starcross Castle while you organize your things, my dear.”

Beside him, Mariah blushed and smiled. He realized he hadn’t called her by a pet name yet. It felt natural and sweet.

“I couldn’t possibly pack up everything in one day,” she said. “But if it’s all right,” she turned to her parents, “I could put together enough to travel with and have you send the rest along to Starcross Castle as soon as it’s ready?”

“Yes, of course, my dear,” Emily said, standing and looking ready to organize an army campaign. “We’ll have Hannah arrange it all at once.”

The rest of the morning passed in a swirl of activity. The Travers house buzzed like a hive as the servants packed both his and Mariah’s things. He could easily have handled his own suitcase, but as long as Graves was there to help, it meant he could make arrangements not only for the tickets, but for an overnight stay in Winchester, halfway along their journey. It was the best he could do to divide their journey into two parts, considering the short notice and infrequency of trains traveling all the way to Truro, the closest station to Starcross Castle.

It was with a sense of the surreal that he found himself saying goodbye to Edmund, his friend and now his father-in-law, shortly after noon as Mariah hugged and kissed her mother and sister farewell.

“This is the most awful thing ever,” Victoria wept, clinging to Mariah. “I won’t be able to eat or sleep from worrying about you. I’ll wither away to nothing, and then who will want to marry me?”

Mariah rolled her eyes, but hugged her sister all the same. “You’ll survive,” she said. “And you can come visit whenever you want.”

“Can I?” Victoria perked up a bit.

Mariah turned a questioning look to Peter.

“Of course you can,” he answered with a smile that was more suitable for a child than his wife’s sister.

Minutes later, the conductor called for all to board, Peter and Mariah shuffled into their first-class carriage, the door shut behind them, and they were off.

“Well,” Mariah said with a sigh, settling onto the seat by his side. “This has certainly been the most startling and eventful forty-eight hours of my life.”

Peter chuckled, stretching out his arm over the seat behind her shoulders. “It might just be the most eventful for me as well.”

“Which means we’re bound for smooth sailing from here on out,” she said, settling closer to his side and leaning her head against his shoulder.

The simple gesture set his heart to singing. Mariah didn’t have to show him the least bit of affection. Theirs was not a love match, after all. How could it be, under the circumstances? But the tenderness and the trust that she had shown him touched him far more deeply than he could have imagined, awaking a fierceness and protective instinct within him that he hadn’t felt since the war. He would do anything to make sure her faith in him was justified.

The train ride from Aylesbury to Winchester passed in a blur. Mostly because both Peter and Mariah were so exhausted that the rocking of the train lulled them to sleep only a few miles into their trip. The sun had already gone down when they arrived in Winchester, but the station was manned with porters who were willing to transport their baggage to the Winchester Royal Inn. Mariah looked as vague and bleary as he did when they arrived at the hotel, so Peter wasn’t quite prepared for the concierge’s question.

“Will that be one room or two, sir?”

“I beg your pardon?” Peter frowned.

“One room or two?” the concierge repeated. “For you and your daughter.”

Peter exchanged a glance with Mariah. Her mouth twitched, and the sleep fled from her eyes, replaced by amusement.

“She’s my wife,” Peter said, gazing at Mariah with far more fondness than he had any right to show.

“We were married yesterday,” Mariah told the concierge.

“Oh?” The concierge’s expression switched from confusion to a knowing look that bordered on lewd teasing. “Well then, that’s a whole other kettle of fish. Wait right here and I’ll see if our honeymoon suite is free.”

“Honeymoon suite?” Mariah glanced to Peter in question.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose most hotels and inns have them these days.”

It was a fair enough assumption, but by the time he and Mariah were led up several flights of stairs to a room near the top of the inn, he was beginning to question the wisdom of admitting to being newly married.

The room was a sight. The high, four-postered bed at the center of the room was decorated with a maroon velvet coverlet and an explosion of heart-shaped pillows. The furniture was all carved in an elaborate, Rococo style with fat, naked cherubs carved on the edges of the bedposts and the table and chair set against the wall. A large mirror faced the bed and was angled in such a way that left no doubt about what one was supposed to view in it. And to top it all off, the large, framed artwork all around the room depicted classical scenes of the Rape of the Sabine Women.

Mariah slapped a hand to her mouth at the first sight of the room and didn’t move it away, or stop shaking with laughter, until well after Peter had requested supper be brought to the room and kicked the concierge out.

“Oh my,” she said through her giggles once they were alone, taking in the full luridness of their surroundings. She stared at one of the paintings that left nothing about sexual congress to the imagination and said, “I suppose this is the artwork Mama doesn’t approve of.”

“I’m not sure it’s the kind of artwork anyone’s mother would approve of,” Peter said, moving to stand beside her, his hands behind his back, debating whether he should do something about the blood rushing to his groin. He couldn’t very well make love to Mariah now, the second they were secure in their hotel room. They had to connect in other ways too if their marriage was to be a success.

She turned to him, her eyes bright with mirth. “Have you ever done that?” she asked, pointing to a Roman who had one of the Sabines bent forward over a log while he took her from behind.

Peter cleared his throat. He nodded at the painting. “Yes.” Then he nodded at several of the other painted couples. “Yes, yes, yes, almost, yes, and I think I would probably throw my back out.”

Mariah burst into laughter, clutching her stomach. “Oh dear. What does it say about us that I’ve hardly been able to stop laughing since we stood in front of the vicar yesterday?”

He let go of his last attempt to stay serious and sober, and drew her into his arms, holding her close. “I hope it says that we will have a long and happy marriage, full of good humor and easiness with each other.”

A flash of shyness joined the humor in her eyes as she glanced up at him, but whether she was intimidated by him or not, she slid her arms around his waist. “I hope it means that as well. Although it probably means we will forever be laughing at each other.”

He returned the sentiment with a lop-sided smile. “Just as long as nobody else is laughing at you.” His seriousness returned. “I don’t want you to be a laughing stock, Mariah.”

She blinked, tilting her head slightly to the side. “Why would I be?”

He arched a brow. “A man as old as me marrying a woman as young as you?”

“First of all—” She settled into his arms with a rigidity that said he was in for a scolding. “—I’m not as young as all that. I was on the shelf when you found me.”

“Which I find hard to believe,” he said, brushing his fingers across her pink cheek. He was rewarded by the shiver he felt pass through her and flattered himself to think that it was a shiver of desire.

“Secondly,” she continued, her voice deeper. “You’re not as old as you think you are.”

“I know how old I am,” he said, settling his hand at the top of her neck so that he could trace the line of her jaw and her lips with his thumb.

“I think you may have your numbers wrong,” she replied. “I have been given tangible proof that you are neither feeble nor desiccated, and that your faculties and powers of endurance are in full working order.”

He certainly felt powerful with her in his arms. “That is because I am borrowing vitality from you, my dear,” he said, gazing deeply into her eyes, eager to discover whether she would ignite the way he hoped she would, or if she would be intimidated when he gave free reign to what he was feeling.

She hovered somewhere in between, her eyes flashing with fire while her body trembled in his embrace. He hadn’t burned for a woman the way he did with Mariah for a decade. He’d assumed he was long past the point of losing control when it came to his passions, that Anne’s insistent attentions, which had sometimes bordered on punishment, had killed his body’s ability to eclipse his mind. But at that moment, he wanted to strip Mariah bare and work his way through every one of the outlandish positions depicted in the artwork around them.

And then his thumb stroked too close to her lips. She flicked her tongue against the pad of his thumb, then sucked it inside of her mouth. The daring move made his cock jump with need as images of her doing to it what she was doing to his thumb hit him.

He moved his hands to cradle her face, then slanted his mouth over hers in a kiss that could leave her in no doubt of what he wanted from her. She made a sound of acceptance…just as there was a knock at the door.

She jumped, pulling away from him, her face red and her chest heaving.

“Supper service,” a man called from the other side of the door.

Peter cleared his throat and tugged at the bottom of his jacket, glad he’d hadn’t removed it yet for all that it hid, then marched to the door.

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” the young porter bringing their supper said, wiggling an eyebrow.

“Not at all,” Peter replied in what he hoped was a threatening voice.

“I’ll just bring this in, shall I?” Without waiting, the porter wheeled in a cart with two covered plates on it. He winked at Mariah as he moved the plates from the cart to the table. “Many happy returns on your nuptials.” He then turned to Peter and muttered, “You lucky old dog.”

It was a good thing for the porter that Mariah covered her mouth in a fit of giggles. If she’d been even a little bit put out by the man’s teasing, Peter would have grabbed him by the collar and thrown him bodily from the room. Instead, he simply said, “That will be all,” and arched a disapproving brow at the man.

“Right.” The man winked and headed for the door. “I expect you’ll be wanting to get started. On supper, I mean.” His tone implied he meant everything other than supper. “There are some items you might be interested in over in the drawer there, but let us know if you need anything special.”

“Thank you,” Peter growled, and shut the door hard once the man stepped out. He locked it with a satisfying click, then blew out a breath, shaking his head.

“This I have to see,” Mariah said, rushing for the drawer the porter had indicated. She tugged it open, then gasped, holding a hand to her mouth.

“Do I even want to know?” He winced as he crossed to join her and peeked into the drawer.

It contained a variety of cords, from velvet to rough rope, a few masks, and a long, rectangular box.

“What do you suppose that is?” Mariah giggled, pointing at the box.

“I have my suspicions,” Peter said, his voice flat. He pulled the box to the front of the drawer and lifted the lid. Sure enough, it contained a larger than life, marble replica of male genitalia.

Mariah rolled with laughter, gripping his arm and burying her face against his shoulder. “What mad world have I crossed into by marrying you?” she said gasping for breath. “It’s like I took wedding vows then stepped through the looking glass into a universe of, shall we say, intimacy that I never knew existed.”

Peter cleared his throat and shut the box as well as the drawer. “Oh, this world exists, all right.” He took her hand and led her over to the table and their supper, the most normal thing in the room. “In general, one needs to ask for this kind of accommodation deliberately.”

“But there are people who actually seek out this kind of silliness?” she asked as he held her chair out, then tucked it into the table before sitting across from her.

“Believe it or not, yes.” He removed the covers from their dishes to find, in addition to the beef he had ordered, a hefty helping of oysters. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to roll his eyes or laugh along with her. “This is tame by comparison to some of the things I’ve seen.”

“Really?” she asked, fascinated.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about her curiosity. Though in truth, he was ridiculously aroused by her openness. He just wasn’t sure if he should be.

“It’s all well and good when rational adults enter into this sort of silliness, as you call it, freely and willingly, but I’ve seen far too many instances where coercion was involved, both inside and outside of marriage.” Again, he couldn’t shake the lengths Anne had gone to in her restless pursuit of the child she was never going to have. He cleared his throat. “It is part of what my friends and I have been working to have included in the law we are attempting to form in parliament, though there is so much resistance to even talking about what women are subjected to in this way that I doubt we’ll be able to include provisions against coercion in the bill.”

He realized too late that he’s spoken to her the way he would speak to a male colleague, with far too much candor. Her smile had vanished, and her eyes gone wide.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh. “I’m not used to keeping my conversation delicate. I shouldn’t have embarrassed you that way.”

“No, it’s all right,” she said, taking a small bite of her supper. “I…I just hadn’t imagined what things are like.”

He studied her carefully as he ate, figuring her vague statement covered a great many things. Her late fiancé might have given her a glimpse of the possibilities between men and women, both good and bad, but he knew enough to know he had been the one to actually open her eyes. He was probably a cad for finding immense satisfaction in that knowledge.

“I’m hoping that Snyder was exaggerating the urgency of the situation at the mine,” he said, deliberately steering the conversation in an entirely different direction.

“Do mines run out frequently?” she asked.

“Not frequently, but there are a finite amount of resources in the earth,” he said. “I won’t know until I’ve spoken to my foreman, Mr. Sinclair.”

The mood between them relaxed, and they continued talking about mines and mining, then the estate in general as they ate. There was only time to share the basics of mining with Mariah in the amount of time it took them to finish their food, but Peter was surprised that she seemed to digest what he was telling him. Edmund’s words about giving her a purpose came back to him. It occurred to him that he could involve her in something more serious than redecorating the castle or choosing flowers for the garden.

“Now, do we leave this all here tonight or do we ring for the porter to take it away?” Mariah asked as they finished their meal.

“Please let’s not call him back again,” Peter begged.

Mariah laughed. “Agreed. I suppose we should get some sleep, then. We’ve an early train tomorrow, right?”

“Ten thirty.” He stood, offering her a hand and helping her to stand as well. “Do you need help getting ready for bed?”

“I might,” she answered, mischief in her eyes.

In an instant, they were right back where they’d been before the porter knocked. The delicious sense of blissful madness rushed through him again, and instead of letting go of her hand, he tugged her close.

“I’m sure I can help in a great many ways.”

“Oh?”

The single word was an invitation, and he brought his mouth to hers, first with a light kiss, then with increasing ardor. He couldn’t remember the last time kissing a woman had been so enjoyable. Or the last time undressing a woman had been a treat instead of torture. It was heavenly to undo every button of Mariah’s traveling dress, exposing her warm skin and kissing it in the process. He kissed her shoulders as he pushed her sleeves down, then paused to kiss her wrists and hands as he tugged her bodice off.

He shrugged out of his jacket and shirt as she undid her skirt and petticoats and laid them aside, then was back with his body pressed to hers for more kisses before they continued. The ridiculous bed was high enough off the floor that he lifted her by the waist and sat her on the edge. It wasn’t lost on him that she was suddenly at the perfect height for replicating the position she’d pointed out in the painting. All he would have to do was flip her to her stomach and dispose of her drawers. But there was a time for a quick tupping and a time for something much slower and more sensual. So he pulled off her garters and rolled her stockings down, kissing her knees, calves and toes as he did.

“Who would have thought knees could be so nice,” she sighed, leaning back on her elbows as he slipped her second stocking off.

“You have no idea how gratifying it is to hear you say that,” he said, draping her stockings over the back of a chair, then unfastening his trousers.

“Ooh, do I get to see you this time?” she asked, unhooking her corset.

His moment of disappointment as she finished undressing herself was eclipsed by the thought that she wanted to look at his body.

“You didn’t see last night?” he asked.

She shook her head. “The lantern was behind you. What I saw was in shadows.”

He responded to that by letting his trousers drop and kicking them to the side, displaying all. And for some ridiculous reason, he felt as green and self-conscious as a youth standing in front of her, naked and aroused. Her eyes went straight to his erection, and her cheeks pinked.

“I had all of that inside of me?” she squeaked, eyes wide.

“And you liked it, if I recall,” he said, joining her on the bed and helping her dispose of her chemise and drawers. “Quite a bit.”

She shivered as he stretched over top of her, which made him want to be inside of her again, and soon. But he was determined to take his time, particularly since, chances were, she was still sore from the night before.

He should have pushed aside most of the ridiculous pillows covering the bed and slipped between the sheets with her, but the uncanny notion that the velvet coverlet felt uncommonly good against the bits of him that weren’t in direct contact with her made him careless.

“Do I get to touch it?” she whispered, looking up at him with an impish glint in her eyes.

“Love, you can do whatever you want with it,” he growled, taking her hand and guiding it between them. “And if you don’t know what to do, I have a few suggestions.”

Even though he was the one taking the lead, he still gasped when her hand cradled him. More so since she gasped too, her eyes bright with excitement and desire.

“Like this?” she asked, moving up and down his length with short, quick strokes.

“More like this.” He guided her with longer, slower movements that had him hard and aching under her touch.

“Oh, I like that,” she hummed. “I like that quite a lot.”

“So do I,” he replied, unable to hide just how much.

“You do,” she said with a relish that made her touch so much more potent. “That just makes me want to learn all the ways I can get you to make that expression.”

“What expression?” He moved his hand away, leaving her to caress him on her own, and balanced on his forearms above her.

“This one.” She squinched her face up in a ridiculous expression that he found thoroughly arousing.

“Is that so? Because I seem to recall you looking something like this last night.” He made a face that was a vague approximation of the ecstatic wince she’d worn as she cried out in pleasure.

She laughed. “I’d like to make that face again, if you please.”

“All right,” he said with mock warning. “You asked for it.”

He closed his hand around her breast and lowered his head to take her nipple into his mouth. She sighed with pleasure, and her hand squeezed his cock. He almost regretted that he had to shift out of her reach to give her breasts the attention they deserved. As far as he was concerned, it was a miracle that she was so sensual with him, that she responded to his touch with enthusiasm.

He breathed in the salty scent of her skin as he kissed and suckled her breasts. He’d always been fond of breasts, and now hers in particular, and could have spent all night with them, but there was more to explore. He slid down the velvet a little farther, hooking a hand under her knee and lifting it to the side so that he could kiss the soft skin of her thigh. Mariah writhed with pleasure, her hands digging into the coverlet. He didn’t suppose she was aware of the view she was giving him of her glistening sex as she moved her other leg restlessly to the side. He reveled in it, though, kissing closer and closer to the heart of her.

She sighed and writhed as he drew close enough to feel the heat of her against his cheek and to smell the musk of her desire. It was a blessing that no one had taught her not to enjoy sex. It whispered to him that they could gain so much more than the child he desperately wanted by being together this way. He would do so much more than fill her with seed, he would drive her wild with pleasure.

His mouth reached her wetness, and he traced his tongue along her opening. She cried out, her thighs tightening. “What are you doing?” she panted. Her hands moved from the coverlet to grab handfuls of his hair.

He probably shouldn’t tell her how devastatingly good it felt to have her pulling his hair while he went down on her. At least, not yet. “I’m doing this,” he said, then resumed his mouth’s work.

She was perfect, sweet and salty, and so hot. She made glorious sounds as he licked and suckled her, and blessedly, she gripped his hair harder and harder. He could feel how close she was to coming, but he pushed on relentlessly instead of bringing her to the brink and pulling back over and over until she begged him for release. They’d save that for another day. Instead, he circled her clitoris with his tongue until her panting grew desperate. When she cried out as her body convulsed, he felt like the most powerful man alive.

He couldn’t wait to join with her. He slid up her body, hooking her knees with his elbows and bending her into a position worthy of one of the paintings around her. She wasn’t quite flexible enough to rest her ankles on his shoulders, but the position she did manage left her spread and open for him. He pushed inside of her, groaning with pleasure at the way she took him in and tightened around him. She squeezed him so perfectly that instinct took over and had him thrusting with more energy than he thought he had, over and over until the friction was beyond exquisite.

As had happened the night before, he climaxed before he expected to, the hot ball of energy at the base of his spine bursting into a flood of pleasure. The joy of spilling his seed inside of her went beyond anything he’d experienced before, so much that he cried out wordlessly, completely undone. All the while, she sighed and mewled beneath him with genuine enjoyment. It was so good that he never wanted it to stop.

Except that the afterglow was almost as good as the orgasm. He dropped, spent, to her side, rolling her with him so that they could remain entwined. And even though he knew in seconds that he would fall asleep out of pure exhaustion before he could tell her how beautiful or wonderful she was or how much she meant to him, everything felt right. He tumbled into sleep with her in his arms, resting her head against his shoulder and whispering his name on a pleasured sigh.

* * *

There were few places where Lord William deVere felt more in his element than London’s Black Strap Club. Shayles provided excellent food and drink, the décor was fittingly dramatic, and the occasional plaintive, female scream that echoed through the walls from one of the other private rooms was exactly the sort of spice to make a night interesting.

“You wouldn’t scream like that, would you, sweeting?” he asked the woman hard at work between his spread legs in a hoarse, panting voice.

The woman leaned back, her mouth breaking free with a slick pop. “No, my lord.” Her eyes were round and vacant, just the way he liked it. Her ankles and wrists were tied, and while that made it difficult for her to balance on her knees as she was, the sweet thing managed somehow.

William sat up slightly from the specially-designed, padded chair and slapped the darling across her pretty face. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”

“N-no, my lord,” she squeaked. She leaned gingerly forward, mouth open, attempting to catch his bobbing erection without hands.

William moved his hips, making her task even harder, and laughed at the sight of her trying to catch him. When she failed, he slapped her again. “Get on with it.”

“I’m trying, my lord,” she sniffled pathetically.

“Oh, here.” He fisted his hand in her hair and held himself until her mouth closed around him again. She squealed and then choked as he drove deep, holding her head with both hands and forcing the action he enjoyed so much.

The sounds of the whore’s muffled protests, coupled with the sensation of her mouth, had him rushing toward the edge when the door flew open, banging against the wall. Two of Shayles’s bouncers marched into the room.

“What is the meaning of this?” William shouted.

One of the bouncers stepped forward, looping his meaty hands under the whore’s arms and pulling her back. She gasped in relief and sobbed as the bouncer unlocked her chains and carried her out of the room.

“I paid for that,” William growled, making no attempt to hide his red and rigid cock from the remaining bouncer.

“No, you didn’t,” a softer, cooler voice said. A moment later, the slim, handsome figure of Oscar Lawrence appeared in the doorway.

William leapt up from the chair, reaching for a nearby robe to cover himself. “Lawrence,” he laughed nervously. “What brings you here?” His mouth twisted into an anxious smile.

Lawrence brushed the sleeves of his fine jacket, his expression as mild as a summer day. “I hear felicitations are in order.”

“Felicitations?” William trembled as he threw the robe around his shoulders and tied it at his waist.

“On your uncle’s marriage.” Lawrence smiled. His eyes flashed with wrath.

“My uncle’s…he’s not married. He’s well past anything like that,” William said.

Lawrence’s brow inched up almost imperceptibly. “You weren’t aware? He married a Miss Mariah Travers yesterday.”

Itching panic spread down William’s spine. “Yesterday? How would you know?”

“Shayles has eyes everywhere,” Lawrence said, still smiling pleasantly. “He keeps track of his interests, you know.”

“What interest does Shayles have in my uncle?” William hunched forward and hugged himself to stop the trembling. His groin ached with unspent arousal.

“In your uncle himself?” Lawrence shrugged. “Parliamentary rivalries, mostly. With Lord Dunsford as the source of your income and future prospects? Everything.”

William couldn’t breathe as stark fear spilled through him. After a twenty-year marriage with no heirs, he had been certain his uncle would die childless and the Dunsford title and estate would come to him. He’d counted on it. Every single one of the vast debts he’d rung up in recent years used his status as heir to the Dunsford estate as collateral. But if his uncle had married, if the woman he’d shackled to his decrepit leg was of child-bearing years, that collateral was gone.

“Yes, I think you see the situation we’re in,” Lawrence said, tilting his head to the side and sniffing. “I believe the money you owe Shayles stretches deep into the six-figure range?”

“I can pay him,” William snapped, feeling the color drain from his face. “He’ll have his money. I’m still the heir, no matter what this new little chit thinks.”

“She’s the daughter of a respected MP, you know.” Lawrence studied his nails. “Young.”

The message was as clear as if Lawrence had spelled out how babies were conceived and calculated the odds of a new heir by Christmas.

“You’ll get your money,” William insisted. “Shayles will get his money.”

“Yes, well, you may think that—” Lawrence sniffed, then clasped his hands behind his back, smiling again. “—but Shayles believes you’re a substantial liability now. In fact, he believes the only use you can serve at this point is as an example for others who may attempt to withhold what they owe.”

William swallowed hard. “What do you mean?” he croaked.

Lawrence shrugged. “You have the summer to pay your debts in full—”

“I can’t possibly—”

“—or you will pay with your life.”

Lawrence smiled.

A chill shot down William’s spine. “He can’t do that.”

“I assure you, he can,” Lawrence said.

He turned to the bouncer, who had watched the entire conversation with his jaw clenched and his fists balled, a look of pure hatred in his eyes. William swallowed again. There were rumors that the Black Strap’s bouncers actually cared for the whores employed there, and that they didn’t look kindly on club members who liked things rough.

“Escort Lord William to the door,” Lawrence ordered the hulking man. He turned back to William. “Repay all of your debts in full or put your affairs in order.”

“But that’s not enough—”

Lawrence ignored him. He turned and strode from the room as if moving from one exhibit in the National Gallery to another. The bouncer remained behind, growling.

“All right, all right.” William feigned annoyance, but inside his bowels had turned to water. He rushed to dress, fumbling every article of clothing as he did. Shayles was asking the impossible of him, but what stuck in William’s craw even more was his uncle’s audacity. How dare the old fool marry again and put his life at risk? And who was Mariah Travers anyhow? He would have to find out all he could about her as soon as possible. And once he did, there was really only one course of action open to him. He would have to get to Starcross Castle as soon as possible, taking an overnight train if he had to, so that he could give his uncle a piece of his mind and get what was his.