“Surely,” she mumbled, “surely you prefer to rest?”

He raised a brow. “Did I not just say I’d like to see you undress?”

“But you are hurt and it’s five o’clock in the morning.”

“You’ve much to learn about men if you think that a scratch on the arm will deter us. Go on, take off everything and lie down on the bed.”

Her voice was growing smaller and smaller. “Perhaps this is not the best time. You’ve more rum in you than a pirate ship and you—”

“And I’d like to sleep with my wife.”

She did not know he could speak this way, with force and weight behind his words. He did not threaten her, but she had been firmly reminded that she was in no position to deny him.

She exhaled very slowly, walked to his bed, and slid under the cover. Once there, she removed her nightshirt as discreetly as she could, and then, to signal that she’d complied, dropped the nightshirt to the side of the bed.

The first thing he did was to flick away the bedcover and expose her. She bit her lower lip and willed herself not to squirm.

His breaths were uneven. The way he looked at her—he devoured her already.

“Spread your legs,” he murmured.

“No!”

He smiled and moved his left hand to the fastening of his trousers. “You will, someday.”

She closed her eyes as his trousers fell. The mattress dipped as he joined her in bed. Then the shock—their naked bodies aligned, touching everywhere.

Everywhere.

“Yes, keep your eyes closed very tightly and imagine that I’m Freddie,” he whispered, the tickle of his breath sending hot, spiked signals along her nerves.

She shook her head, and then gasped as his lips brushed her ear. He kissed her where her shoulder and her neck joined. Then he set his teeth to the exact same spot. A sharp bite—possessive, angry.

But it didn’t quite hurt. Instead, an inexplicable surge of pleasure curled her toes.

“Now imagine it’s Freddie putting his mouth to your very superior bosom,” he said, as he half licked, half bit his way past her collarbone.

She shook her head again. His caustic assertiveness did something to her. Some primordial part of her was all stirred up, responding to the power and command he radiated—sloshed, rude, and very much a man.

“Do you think Freddie lies awake at night thinking about your gorgeous titties?” he asked.

Her eyes opened in shock. Now this went too far. She stared into his eyes—good gracious, were they the reason she remembered talking excitedly about the Hope Diamond on their wedding night?

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Maybe he doesn’t,” said her husband very softly. “But I do.”

And with that, he lowered his head and took her nipple into his mouth.

The pleasure was so sharp it was almost cruel.

He grazed her nipples with his teeth. She was reduced to arching her back and panting audibly. Finally he lifted his head and kissed the undercurve of her breasts instead. From there he went south, his mouth caressing her torso, her belly. He dipped his tongue into her navel, causing her to gasp.

She thought that was as far as he’d go, but he proved her wrong. He went lower. She clamped her thighs together in alarm. Surely he didn’t mean to. Didn’t God smite Sodom and Gomorrah for such wickedness?

But he did mean to. He pulled apart her thighs to nibble at the insides of them.

“No. Please don’t.”

“Shhh,” he said, just before he put his mouth to her.

She’d never been more effectively shushed. He supped on her. He dined on her. He feasted on her. She was mortified, then aroused, then unbearably aroused. He agitated her on and on, sparing no consideration for her delicate sensibilities, no regard for her wish to maintain a decorous quiet.

He didn’t stop until she thrashed wildly and bit down hard on the coverlet, so as not to wake the entire house.

But he wasn’t finished. He pushed her thighs apart in a most indecent way, lifted her by her bottom, and came into her. God, the size and strength of him. For a moment she was paralyzed by the memory of her earlier agony. But there was not even discomfort. He was all patience and deftness and control. And she found out that she still wanted more. More of him, more pleasure, more of this mind-boggling coupling.

“Open your eyes,” he ordered.

She had no idea she’d closed her eyes again—to feel more keenly what he did to her, the strange, addictive sensations of being filled to the brim by him.

“Open your eyes and look at me.”

She did. He withdrew and reentered her, slowly, slowly, going deeper, deeper. And when she thought he couldn’t come any farther into her, he did.

She gasped with the pleasure and depravity of it—his possession of her, while his eyes held hers.

“No pretending,” he said softly. “Do you see who is fucking you?”

He thrust into her again. She could not answer. She could only gasp once more.

He was a god above her, powerful, beautiful, larger than life. The light brought out the latent gold of his hair. The shadows contoured the perfect form of his body. Light and shadows converged in his eyes, bright lust, dark anger, and something else. Something else entirely.

She recognized it because she’d seen it in the mirror so many times: a bleak, austere loneliness.

Her hands, which had been clutching at the sheets, moved up his arms. “I never pretended it was anyone but you.”

Now he was the one to close his eyes, to gasp and grimace. She followed his example, and felt and felt and felt. Tides of chaos rose and gathered. An implosion came upon her. She was still in the grips of its after-tremors when his control broke at last. He ground into her with enough force to launch an ocean liner. And bucked and shook as if in pain, exquisite, breathtaking pain.

She opened her eyes again to see him looking down upon her, the way he would a cursed treasure. He lifted a hand and traced her brow.

“Now you are mine,” he said softly.

She shivered.

Belatedly she saw the blood on his bandage. The wound had started to bleed again.

From his exertion.

“Your arm,” she said unsteadily.

He glanced at the dressing, then lowered himself and nipped her jaw. “If ever I can bring myself to leave you, my dear Lady Vere. Did you notice I forgot to withdraw? I didn’t either. I don’t think I could have had the fate of mankind hung in the balance.”

She flushed. Who was he? This was not the bumbling, blabbering man she married. His words were sharp as knives, his lovemaking as dangerous as Waterloo.

“Your arm,” she insisted, even as her cheeks scalded.

He sighed. “All right. Have it your way.”

“Close your eyes,” she said, once they’d separated. “Please.”

He sighed again and obliged. She threw on her nightshirt and cut strips from another petticoat. From his armoire she retrieved a clean handkerchief, spread it with the ointment, and made him sit up so that she could dress his arm properly.

“Cleanse yourself with a solution of sterile water and red wine vinegar,” he said as she tied the ends of the new bandaging. “You can buy what you need at a chemist’s shop called McGonagall’s, not far from Piccadilly Circus.”

She looked up at him, not understanding what he meant.

“You don’t want to procreate with a moron, do you?” he said amiably, but she did not miss his acerbic undertone.

The man she thought she knew would never have referred to himself as a moron. He’d been nothing if not consistent and fervent in his self-congratulations. Had it all been but an act then?

“Water and vinegar—is that what women do when they don’t wish to conceive?”

“Among other things.”

“You seem to know a great deal about such things.”

“I know enough,” he said, lying back down. “Hide everything under the bed and get me Eugene Needham in the morning. He has a practice on Euston Road. And he can see to the disposal of things.”