“I was at the Duke of Lambley’s,” he began.

Her breath caught in sudden understanding. “The fancy carriage!”

He nodded as he loosened his cravat. “I’ve accepted a position.”

She frowned in confusion. “The duke is your employer?”

“I’m to be his night butler on the evenings in which he holds his masked soirées.”

“His…what?” she asked faintly.

“Lambley has agreed to settle my outstanding debts in exchange for a year of employment.”

Joyous disbelief rushed through her veins.

“It will not be easy. I cannot skip a single shift and, while I am working, I cannot miss a single detail. If I do not perform to the letter of the contract, Lambley has the right to remand me to debtors’ prison at once.” He leaned forward to take her hands in his. “I’ll understand if trusting me to be responsible for that long is too much of a risk for you to take. I don’t want to annul this marriage because I don’t want to lose you. But I also cannot ask you to spend an entire year suffering the same uncertainty as you have over the last two weeks.”

“But what has happened?” she asked, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ve just come from the Cloven Hoof. Lambley went with me after his masquerade to make good on his promise. I’m not going to Marshalsea. Not today, anyway. I’m not going anywhere, except to work when he summons me and then straight home to you. One year from today, I’ll be truly free.”

Her spine went weak. She wouldn’t lose him on Monday after all. They had been granted a reprieve. Yet he could not promise not to fall prey to his gambling weakness again. What if they found themselves back in the same circumstances once more?

A pragmatic woman would take the annulment. A year of uncertainty would not be easy. But she was no longer powerless. She was in love. Her place was by his side, now and forever. She threw herself into his arms and held on tight. She would cherish each day as if it were their last.

He covered her face with kisses.

She grinned up at him happily. “What kind of schedule must you keep? Will it be difficult?”

He pulled a face. “There’s no schedule. When Lambley decides to host a party, I must man the door and the books. Perhaps every week during the Season, and every month when London is less crowded.” He pressed her hands in his. “I need you to understand something important. This is not…it’s not a respectable job. What standing I once had in Society will be lost by this afternoon’s scandal broth. Rumors of my scandalous new employment will be common knowledge by morning.” His eyes were haunted. “I know how badly you want to be accepted by Society, but from this point forward, any association with me will worsen your reputation, rather than aid it.”

She stilled and let his words wash through her. The idea of being respected was still so new, the experience so magical. And it might already be over?

“I shan’t see a single shilling for a full year,” he continued. “I cannot offer you a palace, or sumptuous apparel, or nights at the opera. I can no longer even offer you my good name. It will be synonymous with scandal. Under such circumstances, I cannot force you to give up your dreams to be with me. We haven’t consummated our marriage. You can still get an annulment if you would be happier without me.”

Her throat grew thick. When she had felt her lowest, when Anthony had easily accepted her despite her history and faults, she hadn’t given his opinion weight because she had believed the only judges of character of value were those in high society. She’d been willing to chase an illusion all the way to Scotland rather than look inside herself to find her own worth and meaning.

She was horrified to think she had affected him in the same way as those who had disparaged her had hurt her.

Anthony was the only one that mattered.

She twined her arms about his neck. “I don’t give a button what Society says. About you, about me. The only thing I care about is us. And if the one thing keeping this marriage from being permanent is consummation…” She curved her lips into a suggestive smile. “How exhausted are you?”

“Not that exhausted.” With a growl, he swung her up into his arms and strode straight to their bedchamber.

Her heart raced as he laid her in the center of the bed. The reality of what was about to happen sent shivers of doubt along her spine. She could never control her body’s attraction to him.

Anthony was her husband. Wives were expected to lie with their husbands. That much was fact. What wives weren’t expected to do was enjoy the encounters. Marital unions were business decisions, political mergers, or even accidents of fate. They weren’t for love, and they certainly weren’t for passion.

That’s what mistresses were for. Courtesans. Whores.

Right now, her husband was backlit by the embers of the small fire as he tugged off his boots, his greatcoat, his cravat. He wasn’t simply an attractive man. He was handsome as sin.

She wished her hands were the ones pushing the tailored blue waistcoat off those broad shoulders. She wished her fingers were the ones freeing each button of his undershirt one by one, then lifting it up over his hard stomach, tugging each sleeve from his strong arms, perhaps even touching her lips to his warm bare flesh as he had done to her mere days earlier.

But these weren’t the thoughts of a wife. These weren’t the idle musings of a gently bred lady or a respectable debutante or an innocent bride.

These were the shamelessly indecent thoughts of a woman who knew full well what sort of blood pulsed in her veins. She took one look at her husband and was filled not with thoughts of demure submission, but with a painful yearning to know him as intimately as possible.

She wanted him heart, soul, and body. But she didn’t want him to think of her as a whore.

He met her eyes and smiled.

She tried to smile back.

The problem was, she couldn’t have it both ways. Only a demure lady would earn his respect. And only a brazen trollop without the slightest inhibitions would deserve his passion.

She was going to have to decide whether she wanted his days—or his nights.

Wearing nothing but his breeches, he crawled into bed beside her and touched a knuckle to her cheek. “I was so worried that this would be the last time I would ever come home to you again.”

Unable to speak, she leaned her cheek into his touch and nodded. She had been consumed by the very real probability of him walking into prison and never coming out. That was why she had been curled against the cold window wrapped in a robe, afraid of losing him forever. Waiting for him to return one last time.

She pulled him to her. Having him beside her on the bed was no longer enough. She needed to feel his warmth next to her skin, and feel his weight pressing against her. She didn’t have to feel adrift any longer. He was here. He was hers.

“Kiss me,” she commanded. Her voice trembled.

He immediately complied, enveloping her in his strong embrace and claiming her mouth with his.

Her fingers tangled in his hair as she surrendered to the kiss. He was here. She wanted him everywhere. Inside her body. Inside her heart.

She tried to wiggle out of her robe without breaking contact. Anthony seemed to realize what she wanted and peeled the garment from her shoulders without decreasing his kisses.

Charlotte was glad to be rid of the robe—if anything, the bedchamber had become over warm—and tonight she could not bear to have even the thin linen of her night rail or the soft nankeen of his breeches between them.

She lifted the hem of her night rail and pulled it up over her head to flutter to the floor.

“Remove your breeches,” she ordered him, breathless with the knowledge of her own nakedness. Never before had she bared herself so completely to any man.

Never before had she trusted anyone enough to risk being vulnerable.

“No,” he said as he covered her body with his. “I shall not remove them until I have pleasured you first.”

She frowned at his assertion. “I would say you always bring me pleasure.”

“I would say you haven’t the least idea what pleasure truly is.” A wicked smile curved his lips. “But you’re about to find out.”

Before she could argue further, he slanted his mouth over hers and robbed her of all ability to think. Her world had narrowed to only him.

He cupped her breast in his large hand. Her nipples immediately grew taut. He took one between his fingers and teased it gently, expertly. She could not help but arch into his touch.

He broke their kiss, only to lower his mouth to her breast.

An almost painful arousal began to pulse between her legs, swelling, tightening. A longing for something she couldn’t quite define.

Still suckling her breast, he slid his hand down her stomach and cupped her exactly where she had ached to feel his touch. When his fingertip slipped inside her, she realized she was slick with arousal.

There would be no concealing how desperately she desired his touch. Already her body was writhing into his hand, forcing each stroke of his finger ever deeper with each upward tilt of her hips.

She wanted to freeze, wanted to act like a lady instead of a strumpet, but his teeth were grazing her nipple and his fingers were driving into her and his thumb—good heavens, his thumb—was circling and flicking and teasing in such a way that she couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t stop the sudden explosion of pleasure curling her toes and sending aftershocks of delicious contractions reverberating through her body.

When at last her racing heart had calmed enough for her to realize that she had just wantonly found release on his fingers, before he’d even had the opportunity to remove his breeches, a deep flush of shame rose like fire to her skin.

Now he would know the truth about who he had wed. She was not a lady. Would never be anything except what she’d been born to be. She was just a—

He covered her mouth with his, each kiss more demanding than the last. His breath was as ragged as hers, his skin hot and his muscles taut.

“You are the most sinfully irresistible woman I have ever known,” he panted as he struggled to loosen his breeches between kisses. “I knew you were perfect before, but every day you prove it just a little more. I am truly the luckiest man alive to have you as my wife.”

Her breath caught. At her most vulnerable, at her most naked, her most shameless, her most brazen, when he looked at her, he didn’t see her past. He saw her future. With him. He saw his wife.

She pulled him to her and wrapped her legs about his now-bare hips and clutched him close as he slid within her. Finally, they were joined as one. She would never let him go.

This was a man worth living for. Worth loving. Worth spending the rest of her life astonishing and delighting him as often as he astonished and delighted her. He was more than a husband. He was the man she would never stop loving.

She would never hold herself back from him again.

Chapter 22

The Duke of Courteland’s sprawling London estate loomed before Charlotte like a forbidden palace. She hesitated before allowing the jarvey to hand her out of the hackney.

Anthony hadn’t been allowed to join her for the reading of the will. It was only for named parties and their solicitors. Charlotte shivered. After never having been important enough to attract the duke’s interest during his lifetime, she still could not believe she’d been mentioned at all.

The duke’s true family must have been disgusted to see her name on the list. They would not want someone like her to step one foot into their respectable midst, much less possess any part of their inheritance. Her stomach roiled. How they must hate her. She needed to steel herself for anything.

She took several deep, calming breaths and stepped away from the hackney cab. By concentrating on nothing more than holding her head high and taking one determined step at a time, she managed to narrow the distance to the duke’s imposing front door. Everything about the ornate trim, the spotless windows, the endless garden, reminded her she didn’t belong.

And yet here she was.

As she neared the door, a short man with a scuffed beaver hat and a slight limp leaped onto the path beside her.

She froze in place, her heart hammering, and tried to catch her breath. He must have been leaning against one of the many trees, just out of sight—especially to a woman so focused on keeping her feet in motion that she had blocked out the rest of the world.