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But Hudson could never be trusted with a mere kiss. He had lips made for sin and seduction. With him, a simple kiss would turn into a raging inferno. Unstoppable. Soul-scorching.

If only he had not been such a wonderfully obstinate man and insisted on a kind of union that would not benefit either of them.

His hand slid around her waist. Strong. Stable. Possessive.

Her toes curled in response. In anticipation. Her whole body swayed towards him, easily falling under his spell.

His face remained impassive, even as he loomed ever closer to her.

Scarlett sighed inwardly.

Really, truly vex—oh.

The train of thoughts speeding down the tracks of her busy, busy mind came to a screeching halt when she felt his lips on hers. Soft. Insistent. Possessive. With just the slightest hint of a heady liquor she would readily want to blame for her sudden stupefaction.

For a man who insisted they stay away from each other, he was doing the complete opposite.

Scarlett felt herself smiling despite it all. If she had to live on a marriage of sporadic kisses, then by all that was holy, she was going to seize every moment of it!

She reached up, kissing him back softly, melting into his arms when he growled.

Thunderous applause rang out, and then it was all over.

Too soon, too soon.

But there was nothing she could do. Hudson’s eyes had that shuttered look in them once more, as if he was carefully sealing away all the passion he had just poured into their kiss.

Just how did he do that? How did he make her weak in the knees one moment and then cold the next?

Was this how the rest of her life was going to be?

The incandescent joy she felt earlier cooled like a sudden, unexpected frost. If this was how Hudson wanted to play, then she did not mind indulging him.

Her dearhusbandwas going to find out that two can play this game of his.

She was going to make sure of it.

It was supposed to be a simple kiss. A chaste peck on the lips, more for their eager audience than for either of them.

Instead, he felt wildfire blooming in his veins. Desire scorching a path through his nerves, leading to arousal, raging and inevitable. When thunderous applause finally awakened him to what he had been doing, it was too late—he had lit a fire between both of them that would not be so easily doused.

He should have known that there were no such words as mere or simple when it came to Scarlett. All roads led to the overwhelming need to take her to his bed, to fulfill his obligations to her as her husband. To ensure both her satisfaction and his.

In that regard, he would have to disappoint her, too. Just as he had been a disappointment to her in every other aspect, besides that which he now withheld from her.

The only thing I can do right for her, and it pushes us ever closer to a path of no return.

He might as well have tied a boulder to his neck and hurled himself and the rock into the Thames. He would die from such a stunt, most probably, but he had already sentenced his poor, gloriously beautiful wife to the life of a widow. Perhaps he should just make it a reality…

“So… this is how I find the Duke of Wolves at his wedding. Drunk on his wine.”

Hudson looked up from the said wine at the sound of sensual laughter and met a pair of green eyes holding even more laughter.

Fantastic. Now, everyone seems to find his predicament amusing.

“I must admit that I was a bit confused when you sent me away a month or so ago,” the lady continued, her voice a sultry cadence that had wrapped many men around her little finger. “But to find Lady Scarlett in Wolverton Estate? It was a pleasant surprise, I should say. And one that is quite understandable.”

“Josephine.” His past lover’s name came out harsher than the biting winds of a snowstorm. “I never thought I would find a woman so gracious in conceding defeat.”