Demon's Bride

Chapter 6

The street had been empty, yet Lord Whitney and his companion had just noiselessly appeared. “My ... my husband is not at home.”

“It’s you we want to speak with,” said the young woman. Large golden hoops hung from her ears, necklaces draped around her neck, and rings adorned her fingers. Anne had never been this close to a Gypsy in her life, though she had seen them at Bartholomew Fair doing trick riding and telling fortunes.

“Time is in short supply.” Lord Whitney stepped closer, and Anne took an instinctive step back.

“Time for what?”

“To warn you.”

Unease crawled up Anne’s neck. “Truly, perhaps you should return when Leo is home.”

“Leo is the one you should be afraid of.”

Anne did not like the alert tension in Lord Whitney’s stance, nor the way the Gypsy woman kept glancing around the street. Perhaps the Gypsy was ill, for her body gave off a tremendous amount of heat. Perhaps both the woman and Lord Whitney were both ill, for they had a kind of fever in their eyes.

“He has been nothing but kind to me,” Anne said.

Lord Whitney and the Gypsy exchanged speaking glances. “She doesn’t know,” said the Gypsy.

“Know what?” Anne’s anxiety gave edge to her temper. “These riddles you speak are tiresome.”

“Leo has—” Lord Whitney broke off when the front door opened.

Anne turned to see Meg standing at the top of the stairs, an Indian shawl in hand. “Madam?”

Glancing back at Lord Whitney and his companion, Anne jolted in surprise when she found no sign of them.

“Did you see them?” Anne asked when Meg came down the steps.

“I heard you speaking with someone, but when I came out, you were alone.” The maid’s forehead wrinkled in concern as she draped the shawl around Anne’s shoulders. “Are you well, madam?”

Anne pressed a hand to her forehead. Had she just imagined that entire bizarre conversation? Manufacturing Lord Whitney—a man she barely knew—and a Gypsy woman—whom she knew not at all? If she had invented that scenario, she could not understand where the details came from, nor why she would construct the person of a Gypsy out of her own imagination.

Perhaps I’m the one with fever.

“I do not know.” She pulled the shawl close around her shoulders.

Carriage wheels rattling broke the street’s silence. The footman ran beside a hackney coach, and he smiled with ruddy-faced pride at his work when both he and the vehicle stopped in front of the house.

“The missus isn’t going to need that.” Meg deflated the footman’s satisfaction. “She’s ill, and must have rest.” Realizing her presumption, the maid turned to Anne. “That’s right, isn’t it, madam?”

Anne did not feel sick in the slightest, yet she must be, to believe she had conversed with people who were not truly there. And she had had that peculiar incident earlier in the drawing room, that sense of being watched. This morning had been a collection of eldritch moments. “Yes. I think I will lie down.”

The footman looked crestfallen as Meg led Anne up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, before going inside, Anne glanced back out to the street. Movement near the mews caught her eye, yet when she peered closer, all she saw were shadows caused by shifting clouds. Shaking her head at the strange convolutions of her mind, she went inside.

Meg lit candles against the onset of darkness. Yet as soon as the maid left Anne’s chamber, the same thing happened. One by one, the candles went out. Not wanting to summon Meg for something she could easily accomplish on her own, Anne tried to relight the candles, but they continued to extinguish themselves. She checked the windows. They remained secure. The door to her chamber stayed closed. There were no drafts, no gusts. Again, she had the oddest sensation that something, someone blew the candles out. Yet she was completely alone.

On the third try, the candles stayed lit, as though whoever had blown them out either left or grew weary of their labors. She gazed around the room, uneasy.

Full dark fell by the time Anne heard Leo’s footsteps on the stairs. She set her book aside as he entered the bedchamber, looking slightly windblown yet striking nonetheless.

Seeing her reclining in bed, he took long strides until he stood beside her.

“What ails you?” He sat down and, frowning with concern, took her hand between his.

“Nothing. A momentary complaint.” Indeed, after spending the remainder of the day in bed, with the walls of the chamber—of the house itself—close about her, restlessness danced through her. She barely remembered the incident outside the house, and now began to wonder if all of it had been some strange, momentary folly brought about by too little sleep and too much idleness.

Yet Leo was solicitous. “I’ll fetch a physician.”

“It isn’t necessary. Truly, Leo, if there was a crisis, it has passed.” He looked skeptical, but she could be as obstinate as he, when required. She tried for a diversionary tactic. “I hope your day of trade and commerce proved fruitful.”

If she had not been studying the angles and contours of his face, she might have missed the slight movement of his gaze—the barest flick to the side. But her husband was at all times a subject of fascination, and so she did see this tiny movement, and could only wonder what it meant.

“A hectic day.” He smiled, and pressed her hands closer within his.

It was not precisely an answer, but she decided not to push for specifics, since she did not want an accounting of her own actions today. They would maintain a mutual blindness.

As they gazed at each other, realization crept over them both. The last time they had been in each other’s company, he had kissed her. The kiss resonated now like unheard music, the beat of a drum steady and compelling beneath the silence. Her gaze drifted to his mouth, just as his did to hers. Both of them wondering, each asking themselves, Did that truly happen? Could it happen again?

Beneath his hands, the pulse in her wrists quickened.

He released his clasp of her hands. As if to distract himself from the potential of his wife in bed, he glanced over to the small table beside the bed. Extending his long body so that he stretched over her, he took hold of some of the squares of thick paper piled there. His body spread warmth through hers as his torso brushed hers.

He straightened, his cheek darkening beneath golden stubble. Riffling through the cards, he read aloud. “Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Bingham. Sir Frederic and Lady Wells. The Lord and Lady Overbury humbly request the honor of your presence.” He looked up at her, baffled. “What are these?”

“Calling cards. Invitations. Sending them is rather a mania for Society. The cards arrive every morning, especially after a wedding. Have you never received them?”

“Some requests to dine from business associates but not this. Never anything so ... reputable.” He seemed unused to speaking such a word.

She laughed. “My nefarious respectability. I am afraid you may have caught it from me, like fever.”

“Have you responded to any of these invitations?”

“Not as of yet. I wanted to consult with you first. I did not know if you would want to attend such ... reputable entertainments.”

He stared at the cards as though he held messages from beyond the grave. Cautious, curious. “This world,” he murmured. “It’s strange to me.”

It touched her that this man, so proud and forthright, could feel even the slightest whisper of trepidation, and that he trusted her enough to reveal it.

“What you need,” she said, “is a guide.”

A separate world existed in the respectable hours of evening, one with which Leo rarely rubbed shoulders. Lit by hundreds of candles, it was brighter than the world Leo knew, and yet more obscure.

He and Anne stood at the side of a large chamber, watching the complex convolutions of human relations— the subtle gestures, the layered discourse with more gradations than shale. The room itself showed signs of recent remodeling, for Leo noticed plaster dust collecting against the ornamental baseboards, but the interactions within its walls bore the weight of history.

A small assembly at the home of Lord Overbury. There were refreshments and mannerly games of ombre and a girl in the corner picking out a pretty tune on a fortepiano. The guests were rich, genteel, powerful, and far, far from the company Leo normally kept. He had attended a few events like this with the Hellraisers, but he had paid such gatherings little heed, his thoughts on wilder sport later in the evening. Now, he finally observed that the movements of the aristocrats were even more cunning and artful than anything he had witnessed or engaged in at the Exchange.

By angling his body just so, one guest indicated that he refused to acknowledge another’s presence. A woman whispered into another woman’s ear as they both watched a laughing female guest. Three men stood in a group, their conversation as portentous as their waistcoats. The very air buzzed with influence.

“I feel like a naturalist accompanying a Royal Society expedition.”

Anne smiled over the rim of her glass. “There’s more treachery here than in the jungles of Suriname or Guiana.”

“Spoken as one having experience with both places.”

“Not personal experience.” She glanced away. “Barons’ daughters are seldom taken on Royal Society expeditions.”

He suddenly found her much more fascinating than the tangled encounters of the assembly. His gaze traced the slim line of her neck as she kept her face averted. “But you want to go. To Suriname or Guiana.”

She shrugged. “Having never been on a ship in my life, especially traveling somewhere over four thousand miles away, I couldn’t say if I would find the experience enjoyable.”

Interesting that she would know the distance between England and the distant northern coast of South America, when few men let alone women could locate Portugal on a map.

“There is no way to know until you try,” he said.

“I am not a fanciful person.” She turned back and her eyes were very clear. “I don’t entertain ideas that cannot come to pass.”

“Yet ...”

“Yet.” His wife glanced around the chamber, as if concerned any of the guests might be within earshot. Seeing that no one paid too much attention, she continued. “I don’t long to travel. Not so far. However, on the rare occasions I was given pin money, I spent it at print shops on the Strand. On maps.”

He could only regard his wife with genuine surprise. “Maps. Of South America.”

“Or the Colonies, or Africa, or the East Indies. Maps of anywhere. Even England. It isn’t the places so much as the drawing of the maps.”

“I had not pegged you for a lover of cartography.”

She studied him, looking, he believed, for signs of mockery or dismissal. Yet what she saw in his face must have encouraged her, for she admitted, “It is ... an interest of mine.”

“An unusual interest for a young woman.”

“I had not cultivated it on purpose. It just seemed to happen.” She smiled softly, an inward smile at some remembrance. “I recollect the day, I couldn’t have been more than eight, and I was with my father at a print shop. The printer was trying to get my father to buy a map of the Colonies. A special reduced price because the map was no longer accurate. New discoveries had been made, territory west of a great river, and there were new settlements, too. It fascinated me that something as stable and immense as land, as a whole country, could suddenly change. Not because of an earthquake or a flood, but because of human knowledge.”

She caught herself. Her voice had grown stronger, less hesitant, as she had spoken. Her eyes gleamed, and the flush in her cheeks came not from the wine nor the overheated room, but from the fire of her passion.

Leo was enthralled. The quiet beauty of his wife became altogether vibrant. And it wasn’t unnoticed. He glowered at several men who sent her admiring glances, and they averted their gazes quickly.

“Did your father buy the map?”

She shook her head. “Such things were unnecessary, and the expense profligate. In truth,” she confessed, “I never had enough money to buy maps, but I did annoy the shopkeeper by endlessly browsing.”

“Thus your knowledge of far-flung places.”

“The same places from which you buy your coffee, cotton, and spices.” She waited, then glanced at him, a faint crease between her brows. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“This is when you chide me for my decidedly unfeminine interests. My parents certainly did.”

Leo’s sudden, unadulterated laugh drew more curious glances from the assembly’s guests. “Hell, I’m the very last person to lecture anyone on acceptable behavior.”

“Your opinion might change when I tell you something very wicked.”

He said nothing, merely waited.

She lowered her voice. “When I was thirteen, I ...” After a deep breath, she pushed on, so that her words came out in a rush. “I stole a map.”

“How?”

“I was in the print shop, looking at a map of the Moluccas. It was beautiful, but so costly. A customer came in and distracted the proprietor. That’s when I did it. Ran out the door with the map. The proprietor didn’t even notice, he did not cry thief or summon the watch. Even so, I never went back.”

“And you threw away the map. Your ill-gotten gains.”

Her eyes widened. “Lord, no. I kept it under my bed and pored over it every chance I had. Until my younger brother grew spiteful and tore it up.” She stared at Leo. “Are you not ... shocked? Appalled?”

“It would take far more than a single act of theft to appall me. Besides,” he added, smiling, “I like having a secret about you. It’s something private, only for us.” A darker heat stole into his voice, deepening it.

The blush in her cheeks grew brilliant. In her saffron-colored gown, canary diamonds at her throat and hanging from her ears, she held the pure luster of sunshine.

“The way that I know about your coins,” she murmured.

He blinked. A few words from her transported him from the radiance of her allure to the shadows of foreseen disasters. Her luminosity to the darkness of his Devil-given power. And Whit threatened everything—his power, his strengthening relationship with Anne. Yet Leo had no intention of allowing Whit to destroy all that Leo had created for himself.

“Like that, yes.” Talk of his gift sharpened his resolve. He eyed the guests. Many of them had potential for exploitation, either by benefit of their deep coffers or because they had been vocal in their denouncement of social climbers like Leo. Others he didn’t know, but wanted to—for he seldom let an opportunity to make use of someone pass.

Spotting Lord Overbury, Leo turned to Anne. “Excuse me for a moment. I want to speak with someone.” At her murmured agreement, Leo took his leave and made his way to his host for the evening.

The viscount gave a polite but aloof nod at Leo’s approach. Anne’s birth might have gained him entrance to Overbury’s home, yet Leo and the viscount would never be considered friends.

After giving his own restrained bow, Leo said, “My lord, I require your assistance.”

“However may I be of assistance, Mr. Bailey?” Overbury’s eyes scanned the room, his offer of help hardly more than a token.

“I actually possess magical power.”

His interest piqued, the viscount raised his brows. “You do?”

“My wife is of similar disbelief.” Leo addressed Overbury. “The only means I have to demonstrate my power requires a coin.” He patted his pockets, making a pantomime of looking shamefaced. “All my coins are at home. Play the champion and give me one of yours.”

Overbury produced a thruppence from the pocket of his satin waistcoat and handed it to Leo. “Show me this magic of yours.”

“I have the coin here.” He held it up for the viscount’s inspection, then closed his fingers around the coin. “And now, it has disappeared.” His hand opened, revealing that it was, in fact, empty.

The viscount made a sound of astonishment.

“Ah, wait, here it is again.” Leo plucked the coin from beneath the lace of Overbury’s jabot, and his host chortled.

“Clever, Bailey. You must show me how to perform that trick.”

“’Tis no trick, my lord. Magic. Which I now must show my wife.”

With the sounds of Overbury’s chuckle behind him, Leo wended his way back to Anne.

“An ingenious way to get another coin.” She smiled, and when Leo performed the same trick for her as he had for Overbury, her smile turned to a charming laugh. “I did not know you were a conjurer.”

“Sleight of hand, nothing more.” His words were glib, yet a tempest filled his mind. He saw cane fields washed away by a Caribbean storm, and a plantation house half buried beneath a wall of mud as the people within the house fled and palm trees bent double from the hurricane’s wind. The odor of sodden sugar clogged his nostrils—noxiously sweet and damp. Yet he breathed it in deeply, for it was the smell of privilege’s destruction.

“Perhaps you might teach me.” Anne’s voice perforated his vision, and he blinked to clear it from his thoughts.

He was not in Bermuda, watching the future destruction of Overbury’s sugar crop, but at an assembly in the viscount’s Mayfair mansion. He slipped the thruppence into his pocket. “I can. Later. Who’s that nob over there?” He nodded toward a gent in embroidered satin, his coat cut unfashionably full.

Anne smothered a shocked laugh at his language. “The Earl of Toombe. He’s the eldest son of the Marquess of Gough.”

“Rich?”

“Uncommonly so. There’s rumors he has thirty thousand pounds a year. His estate is in Buckinghamshire. I don’t know how he votes in Parliament,” she added, smiling.

“Children?”

“Two married daughters, three sons. His oldest son is the Viscount Berrow.”

A name Leo knew from the Exchange. Leo had encouraged the viscount to invest in new cotton-milling equipment, which had more than tripled the mill’s output. Suitably armed with information, he now eyed Berrow’s father.

Leo tucked Anne’s hand into the crook of his arm. “We’ll talk with him.” He took a stride forward, then stopped when he noticed Anne staying rooted to the spot.

“We cannot simply walk up to him and start a conversation,” she protested. “Not even to perform some legerdemain.”

“Why the devil not?”

“I only know Lord Toombe by reputation, but I’ve never had a formal introduction. And our hosts tonight have not introduced us yet!”

“Our hosts are busy.” Lord and Lady Overbury were now drinking and flirting, respectively. He tugged on Anne’s hand. “Following ceremonial codes of conduct is idiotic. This is the modern era, not the Age of Chivalry.”

Still, she looked uncertain. He might have simply towed his wife behind him, or gone on without her. But he wanted her to make the choice.

After a moment’s hesitation, she matched her step with his. “It is rather absurd, to pretend someone doesn’t exist unless you adhere to a set of outdated rules.”

As they crossed the chamber together, her step grew more confident, her chin tilted higher. When Leo first saw Anne, months ago, she had been standing at the side of a chamber, much like this one, at an assembly very similar. It had been one of the few times Leo had attended such a gathering and paid any attention. He preferred wilder masquerades and revelries where the company was decidedly less virginal.

Yet something about the shy girl watching the festivities had intrigued him, even as she hung back from the entertainment and spoke only when spoken to. Then, she had been the suggestion of potential. Now, as they walked together toward the phenomenally wealthy earl, throwing off convention like dried carapaces, he could actually see her change, grow bold. She felt the eyes of the guests upon her, and she did not shrink. She soaked in their attention as if it were her due.

That night, he had seen aristocratic breeding in the fine structure of her face. This evening, her bearing came not just from bloodlines, but from action and confidence.

What was that sensation in him? That strange, rising warmth? A new kind of magic? No.

Respect. Not self-admiration, in what he could achieve or earn or buy, but appreciation of her, and that he could help fashion her metamorphosis.

He stopped in front of the earl. The older man stared at him, baffled. Leo stuck out his free hand. “Lord Toombe. Leo Bailey. My wife, Anne.”

The earl, still mystified, shook Leo’s hand, and bowed to Anne. “Do I know you, sir?”

“Your son and I are friends.” Which was not precisely true, but Leo considered netting Berrow a handsome profit a decent foundation for friendship. “A singularly intelligent fellow.”

Everyone is gratified to hear their children praised, and Toombe proved no different. He smiled, self-congratulatory. “He reminds me of my father, with his brains.”

“You are too modest, my lord,” Anne said. “The resemblance between Lord Berrow and yourself is remarkable. Both in appearance and acumen.”

As Toombe blustered his approval, Leo’s admiration of his wife grew to encompass the whole of the chamber. She possessed a natural instinct for finessing a potential target, no prompting required. Catching the approbation in Leo’s gaze, she glowed with pride in herself.

When Leo and Anne strolled away ten minutes later, they had been invited to Toombe’s for dinner the following Sunday. Three other men and their wives would be attending the dinner as well, three men with expansive pockets and an untapped interest in commercial enterprise.

Anne’s eyes gleamed. “That was ... exhilarating.”

“Nothing gets the blood moving like stalking one’s prey.” He felt his own surging, not just from hooking an invitation to a wealthy peer’s home, but because his wife had worked with him in perfect harmony.

Her brows rose. “Prey? Is that how you see these men?”

“Those Suriname jungles follow the same principles. To survive, one must see everything and everyone as either a threat or sustenance.”

“Quite mercenary.”

He slanted her a grin. “Exactly. We see to our own interests. Come,” he cajoled, guiding her to stand by the windows at one end of the chamber. “You knew precisely what our purpose was, and you fought the battle flawlessly.”

“My part was very minor,” she demurred.

“I’ll have no false modesty, not from my wife.” He watched the guests, but was acutely conscious of Anne’s hand on his arm, her slender form beneath silk, panniers, and stays. “Negotiating business deals—that is my expertise. You, however, understand the nuances of polite society. You guided the conversation without appearing to. Toombe honestly thinks that inviting us to dinner had been his idea.”

At first, it seemed as though she would protest again, but then she pursed her lips and allowed herself the faintest trace of conceit. “It was rather well done of me.”

He laughed. God, he found her more and more delightful, as unexpected as a butterfly amongst moths. “If you have given me the ailment of respectability, it’s only fair that I corrupt you.”

They gazed at each other. With her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, she looked like a woman eager for ravishment. He quickly assessed the chamber. There was a folding screen in one corner. He could draw her behind the screen, kiss her again, and see if this morning’s heat was atypical, or something he could coax forth once more.

He liked knowing things. Futures, investments, strategies. But nothing seemed more worth knowing than whether or not he could kiss his wife breathless with desire.

Something in his eyes must have given him away, for her smile faded and a look of anxious expectancy crossed her face.

Yes, he’d lead her away now—

A familiar voice said his name. “Leo, what the devil are you doing here?”

He smothered a curse and turned to find John staring at him in utter astonishment.

“Conducting the world’s most discreet robbery,” Leo answered.

“Mrs. Bailey.” John offered Anne a bow, and she curtsied in return. He glanced at the guests within the chamber. “This circle is a good deal more sober than your normal company.”

“Spoken as a constituent of my normal company.”

“Are you so scandalous, then?” asked Anne.

Before John could answer, Leo said to him, “You never mentioned associating with this crowd.”

John narrowed his eyes. “I have interests beyond your understanding of me. Lord Overbury hosts some of the most influential figures in the government.”

Thus, John’s presence. It made sense, yet Leo knew his friend better from late-night horse races and houses of pleasure than electoral races and Houses of Parliament.

“Please pardon me, gentlemen.” Anne disengaged her hand from his arm, and he felt a strange compulsion to snatch it back again.

“Are you well?” he asked. Though she had insisted that she had recovered from whatever mysterious ailment had troubled her earlier, he didn’t want to risk a relapse.

“Yes, yes certainly. I just need to ...” She glanced toward the corridor, which led to the ladies’ retiring room.

Within the chamber they now stood, servants were removing furniture and rolling up rugs in preparation for dancing. Anne saw this, and said, “Perhaps when I return, we might dance.”

“I don’t know the steps,” Leo said.

“I could teach you.”

“Many things I’m willing to try, but I’d sooner kiss John than learn to dance in public.”

“Flattering,” drawled John.

Yet Anne looked disappointed. Clearly, the girl who had hesitantly danced at their wedding celebration had transformed into a woman more comfortable in herself. Leo felt his own stab of remorse. He wanted to please her.

“John, you had a dancing master.”

Seeing the direction Leo was heading, John spread his hands. “Monsieur Desceliers never had a less apt pupil than I. It is rumored that, in despair, he fled back to the Continent and became a rat catcher. Or a drunkard. Or both.”

“I do not want to cause mass drunkenness,” said Anne. “Nor would I appreciate the spectacle of my husband kissing anyone but me.” She blushed, but did not lower her gaze. “We shall save the dancing for another occasion. Pardon me, gentlemen.”

Both Leo and John bowed as she took her leave. Leo watched her as she circled the room, noticing how she kept her chin tilted up, her tread confident. When they had come in, less than an hour earlier, she had kept her chin tucked low, and her step had hesitated. She grew before his very eyes, as if he could somehow watch a rose unfurl its petals within the span of a moment.

“Oh, for the love of sin,” muttered John.

Leo tore his gaze away as Anne left the chamber. “The hell are you going on about?”

“You’ll be as bad as Edmund soon.” John batted his eyes.

Leo scowled. “Edmund is besotted.”

To which John only gave him a very droll look.

To which Leo gave John a very rude hand gesture.

John smirked, but his humor did not last. In the glare of candlelight, his long, thin face and deeply set eyes looked almost macabre. “How fared you the rest of the day? Did you accomplish what you needed to do?”

Sobering, Leo answered, “Whit won’t be received at any of the gaming clubs. Not White’s, nor Boodle’s, nor the others. It took just a handful of suggestions that he played dishonestly, a few fraudulent written testimonials, and a promise to make several valuable investments on behalf of the club managers.”

John nodded, pleased. “I went to several of the taverns and coffee houses he frequented. Did much the same.” His smile widened. “Reading minds gives one tremendous insight. It makes it so much easier to say to exactly what one needs in order to render a particular result.”

“What am I thinking now?” John’s a scary bastard.

His friend glowered. “You know I cannot read the thoughts of the Hellraisers. One of my gift’s limitations. Further,” he added, “you were probably thinking something boorish about me. The gift’s other limitation is that I cannot read thoughts if they are about me.”

“Seems our mutual friend Mr. Holliday gave us all slightly flawed gifts,” Leo murmured.

“Of course he did. Only an idiot would bestow unlimited power on someone.”

“And Mr. Holliday is certainly not an idiot.”

“He chose us as the recipients of his gifts, did he not?” John grinned. “Clearly, he possesses superior intelligence.”

The dancers gathered in the middle of the chamber, forming rows for a set. They looked like troops assembling for war, troops clad in silk, armed with cutting glances instead of sabers.

Leo’s attention wavered as he saw Anne reenter the chamber. Her gown was not the brightest in the room, nor did she wear the most jewels, and there were other women who might be called more beautiful, but when she paused at the entrance of the room, he could not look anywhere but at her. Just as her gaze automatically found him. Warmth spread through him when she smiled in response.

And he was not alone in his attention. She drew the gazes of many at the assembly, especially the younger men. One of the bucks approached her, hand out. Asking for a dance. Anne immediately looked to Leo—seeking permission.

Leo’s first instinct was to cross the room and plant his fist in the bloke’s face. He already felt his hand curl in preparation.

But this was not the street. Nor even the pugilism academy. A punch laying the gent out might satisfy Leo, but damn it, he had to at least pretend to be civilized.

More to the point, Anne wanted to dance. The buck with the padded calves offered to dance with her, when Leo could not.

His neck felt stiff as whalebone as he nodded, the barest inclination of his head, granting her leave to accept the offer.

She looked momentarily surprised, then took the gent’s hand. Leo ground his teeth together as she and her partner took the floor. They faced each other. The air began, and Anne curtsied as her partner bowed. Leo did not miss the way the gent’s eyes strayed to the soft shapes of Anne’s silken breasts above the neckline of her gown. He calculated interest rates to keep himself from tackling the bloke.

“Christ,” muttered John. “You haven’t heard a sodding word I’ve spoken.”

“Something about Whitehall, something concerning Bram and Edmund.” Yet Leo continued to watch Anne as the dance began, and the dancers moved in their intricate patterns.

John exhaled in annoyance. “Only a few days ago, you talked of her like a promising piece of land, and now you stare at her as if she were the North Star.”

“I don’t need her to find my direction.” In truth, he saw that his sense of direction had already begun to alter since their wedding night. He felt himself gently veering off course.

“She’s only a woman.”

“She’s also my wife—and far more complex than I had thought.”

John snorted. “I’ve yet to meet any women of complexity.”

A corner of Leo’s mouth turned up. “Perhaps you need to reconsider the female company you keep.”

“Hell, the very last thing I crave is an added complication. I have my work in Whitehall, and if I want for female company, ’tis an easy matter to purchase precisely the kind I desire.”

Not so long ago, Leo held the same outlook. The edges were beginning to fray. He wondered—should he rush to stop the tear, or allow the fabric of his existence to be rent apart?

He knew two things: Whit would not be allowed to take his magical gift from him. For it brought Leo far more power than he had ever anticipated, and with that power, he could give Anne more and more. He found he wanted as much as he could grab, not for himself alone, but for her. A new development.

The other thing Leo knew: he couldn’t watch his wife dance with another man any longer.

Without saying another word to John, he strode away, directly into the movement of the dance. The dancers stared at him, their patterns stuttering to a stop in half-finished arcs and turns. He shouldered past Anne’s partner. A vicious satisfaction in seeing the nob stagger. Then Leo stood before Anne.

She, too, stared at him, her eyes wide, her hand suspended as she waited for the next form in the dance.

Leo took her hand in his, and stalked from the dance floor, towing her behind him. Like roaches, guests skittered out of his path. He moved on, out of the chamber, into the hallway.

“Get Mrs. Bailey’s cloak,” he snapped to a waiting footman. “And summon my carriage.”

As the servant darted off, Anne said, “That was rude.”

“I’ll give him a generous vail.” One always tipped servants when visiting another’s house, and Leo tipped liberally.

“Not the footman.”

He turned to face Anne as they stood in the entryway of Lord Overbury’s home. Leo searched her face for anger, even as he knew he didn’t care whether or not she was angry. He had acted, primal instinct pushing his body into motion, heedless of consequence.

Her eyes were bright. But not with anger. Something far more visceral. Excitement.

“Tomorrow.” He advanced on her, stalking her, yet she did not back up in fear. She met him straight on, until their bodies were less than an inch apart. “You teach me how to dance.”

“You have taken a sudden interest in it.”

He shook his head. “If anyone partners my wife, it will be me, and no other.”

Color stained her cheeks. “Dancing exclusively with one’s spouse is considered unfashionable at best. Gauche at worst.”

“Don’t. Bloody. Care.” He brought his mouth down on hers. Her lips were soft, silky. And eager.

Her fingers threaded into his hair, holding him close, as she met his kiss. In the span of a day, already transformation had begun. For she knew him now—not perfectly, not entirely, just as he still did not fully know her—but this, the touch of lips to lips and the consuming of each other, this was known and explored further.

His blood was fire, his body instantly awakened and aware. He gathered her close and hated the elaborate cage of her gown, for he could not feel her completely, locked as she was in stays, panniers, and petticoats. The rustling of her silken dress sounded louder than a tempest. It maddened him, suggesting the movement of her body beneath her clothing.

He walked her backward, until the wall met her back. Pressed himself against her. This primitive need—it overwhelmed him. Never had the hunger for a woman been greater, the demand to take, and to give, in return. His cock was thick and impatient as he positioned himself between her legs, and as he rocked up, she gave a low, soft moan.

Hellfire, he wanted her. Like this. Now.

“My gracious!”

Leo swung around, snarling. Lord and Lady Overbury stood nearby, frozen in shock as they took in the sight of their guests on the verge of coupling right in the foyer. Several other guests gathered behind them. And the footman, holding Anne’s cloak.

Releasing Anne, Leo held out his hand toward the servant. The footman hurried forward with the cloak. Leo took it from him, then draped it around a stunned Anne’s shoulders.

“My carriage ready?”

The footman nodded and held open the front door. Leo flung a shilling at him before tucking Anne’s hand into the crook of his arm. They strode from the entryway, out into the night. He did not wait for the footman to open the waiting carriage door, but tore it open and helped Anne inside. With her seated, Leo threw himself into the carriage, sitting opposite his wife.

As the footman shut the carriage door behind them, Leo caught a glimpse of the assembly guests all standing in the doorway of Overbury’s house. They stared at the carriage as if it were the vehicle of the Devil himself. Leo smirked. They had no idea.

He rapped on the roof of the carriage, and it drove away, heading northeast toward Bloomsbury.

In the shifting shadows within the carriage, Leo’s arousal did not diminish. It grew only stronger. He thought about reaching across the space of the vehicle and gripping Anne about the waist, hauling her over so that she straddled him. Sex in a carriage could be damned enjoyable.

But a slight movement captured his attention. Anne was shivering within her cloak. And not from the cold.

Damn it. He had scared her. Again.

“You’ve nothing to fear from me.” His voice was rough, and he heard the hard consonants of his old accent.

When she spoke, her words were soft, barely audible above the rattle of the carriage wheels on the cobbles. “It’s what I want that frightens me.”