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Violet lay awake in the dark. The words after we’re married echoing around the anxious chamber of her mind.

The last few hours had been the most intimate and exciting moments of her life.

She’d felt liberated from so much of what drove her every day: worries about her patients, worries about her medical knowledge, worries about her mother and cousin and family.

She hadn’t really understood how much of her life had been about worry, about anxiety and control, until, for a few wonderful moments, she had let it all go.

And then he’d gone and ruined it.

After we’re married, he’d pronounced, as if Violet should have known all along that was the price to pay for their pleasure.

She thought they’d addressed any consequences with the French letter, but he’d had some other consequence entirely in mind. And she had no idea.

She sighed, her head aching and her stomach churning. Of course, there was a consequence. There was always a consequence. Always.

She shook her head. It was a lesson she shouldn’t have to keep learning over and over again, yet she did.

Violet didn’t want to marry. She wanted to do what she’d done today. The time she’d spent with patients had been the pinnacle of her hard work. It was the realization of the deathbed promise she’d made to James. And she would not, could not, give it up now.

In fact, as she’d made her way through the long line of patients, an idea had occurred to her—that she’d take her inheritance and use it to build a hospital, the very best hospital, just for the poor.

With a special emphasis on expectant mothers like Jess.

Those who needed so much that society would never let them have.

Her heart soared at the thought of it. She would hire only the best nurses and midwives and surgeons. Those who actually read the research and studied the new methodologies. They could learn from each other and teach new students, multiplying the effect.

She could so clearly envision it in her mind. Her hospital would be clean and beautiful, and of service to anyone, no matter their wealth or status. Her patients would be treated with the same dignity and care whether they were a duke or his footman. A vicar or a rat catcher. It wouldn’t matter.

It was an audacious thought; the only truly radical idea she’d ever had. Maybe she was a radical after all. She grinned.

It would be expensive though, her hospital. Taking every last dime of her inheritance and more. She couldn’t marry, or her fortune would no longer be hers. And she would have to go back to New York, where she had connections and could fundraise.

She couldn’t be stuck in England where she didn’t know anyone, under the thumb of all the English rules. And with all the Mrs. Jensons, who would stare daggers at her even after she’d just saved her daughter’s life.

No, thank you.

She’d accomplished one dream today, and that had given birth to a second. She lay awake and imagined it, her beautiful hospital with gardens and clean rooms and decent meals, available to everyone. No one would ever have to die from a disease that could be treated if Violet could help it.

She turned onto her side, feeling Alistair’s slumbering form behind her, pressed up against her back and feet. She enjoyed the feeling of him there, the prickles of his hair and the hardness of his thighs and the width of his arm that encased her.

She reveled in what was different; he was hairy where she was smooth, firm where she was soft. And what was the same—how his skin and blood and bones were made of the same stuff as hers.

She closed her eyes and tried to relax against his body.

It felt right, natural, to be with him today, and she didn’t want to consider what had to happen next.

She wanted to enjoy the peace she’d found in her mind and body in the moments after he’d brought her to her peak.

How she’d loved every touch, every caress given and received between them.

And the feel of him inside her and on top of her, when he pressed his tongue against her most private parts. She gave a little shiver.

She’d enjoyed watching him enjoy her, too. Feasting his eyes on her body and finding his own peak. It brought her pleasure to be able to bring it to him, for her body to be an instrument of passion the same as his was.

She shook her head.

No use thinking about that .

Not now, when she understood more clearly than she ever had before that to marry was a limitation she could not afford. That she would not accept. If she couldn’t have both–a husband and a hospital–and she was certain she could not, she chose the hospital.

She shifted again in their shared bed, and he moved closer to her, holding her tightly in his arms.

“Go to sleep,” he mumbled, but she didn’t.

She waited until his breath was even again and the constant up and down of his chest told her he’d fallen back into a deep sleep. Then she disentangled herself as deftly and quietly as she could manage and rose.

Violet stood barefoot in his bedchamber and looked around for her belongings, soon realizing exactly how much trouble she was in. She had no gown, no corset, no hair pins, no reticule, no coin, nothing.

How was she to dress?

How was she to get home?

And she still had to see Jess, which she would not do draped in a blanket. She could perhaps borrow his shirt and trousers and check in on her patient. And then don an overcoat and a hat to steal back through Mayfair to Chester House. She could do that.

I can, can’t I?

There would be people about, and it would be a flimsy disguise at best. If she was recognized, it would be scandalous. Catherine would forgive her of course, but her mother would be furious.

She’d stayed out late tending to emergency cases in New York before but always accompanied by the other nurse matrons. And never until dawn. Certainly never returning home in a man’s clothing.

But if that was all she had, she’d make do. She’d find his wardrobe, dress, see to Jess, and then get back to Chester House. She reached up and touched her hair. She’d also have to find her hair pins. Someone must have taken them out while she slept.

Alistair.

She had a dim memory of him sitting quietly beside her and pulling them out, one by one.

The recollection made her smile. And then more images from the evening rushed back to her.

The feel of his arms and chest as he carried her.

The tender kiss on her forehead she only hazily recalled, as if it were some kind of long-lost, half-remembered dream.

The bath. All that had come after the bath.

She shivered from the remembrance of that.

She really hadn’t known it was possible, that kind of physical pleasure.

And I didn’t once think of James.

Since that long-ago kiss with the boy at the ball the night her brother died, she imagined that physicality and pleasure and guilt would always be intertwined in her mind.

But she was learning with Alistair that they weren’t.

The interlude in Esmee’s apartment had been her first inkling, but tonight, being here with him, had proven she’d been wrong for years.

“I’m going to ravish you again if you keep standing there with that dreamy look on your face.”

She glanced up, startled. Alistair was awake and sitting up in bed, examining her. Her body thrilled at the thought of ravishment. Her insides throbbed and her feet took a step toward him, as they always did.

No.

She stayed herself and meant it this time.

“I have to get back,” Violet said.

Alistair grinned a sleepy, contented grin at her. “I wrote to your cousin and said you were exhausted and resting after your day of charitable labor but duly chaperoned by the respectable widow, Esmee Callendar. She will see you home after your rest.”

He gave her a look that was both lazy and lascivious. “I’ll take care of you, love. Always. Now come back to bed.”

Violet wanted to do just that. Badly. His sleepy, husky voice and boyish grin were so appealing. And his eyes were again heavy-lidded with desire. She wanted him, as she had from the very first moment she’d laid eyes on him.

“Alistair,” Violet said.

“Hm?”

He lay back against the pillows, his broad chest inviting her to snuggle against it. His nipples hardened slightly in the cool early morning air, waiting to be sucked.

“Did I hear you say—” Violet paused. She couldn’t get the words out; they felt like marbles in her mouth. “Did I hear you say that—”

“That I wanted to ravish you again? Yes. I definitely said that.”

“No.” She blushed. “No, not that. Did you say that you wanted to… that we should—”

“Spit it out, love.”

Violet took a deep breath. “You said we’d marry.”

His eyebrow quirked up. “Yes, I said that, too.”

“That,” Violet said, shifting her weight nervously between her feet. “Why did you say that?”

Alistair stiffened, his spine straight and tense. Some other look Violet didn’t recognize swamped the desire that had just been in his eyes.

“Because,” he said in a voice that sounded suddenly more like it belonged to a ship’s captain than a lover. “I’ve had you and it’s my duty. I would never leave you to suffer compromise alone.”

Violet felt his words like a right hook to her stomach.

“You’ve never cared for duty before. Why now?”

“Violet, be reasonable. What did you think would happen after tonight? I asked you if you knew what this meant.”

“I am reasonable. You are being unreasonable! I thought you were asking if I understood we were to… copulate.”

The eyebrow arched again, a tic she suddenly found very irritating.

“If we were to copulate ?” he asked, the sneer in his voice at her choice of words unmistakable.

“Don’t mock me,” she said. “Just take me home.”

“I’ll do no such thing until we’ve had a conversation. Violet, of course we are to marry!”

“I don’t understand. You’ve never done a single thing they wanted you to do. Why would you even consider marriage unless—”

She stopped talking and then she stopped breathing.

Unless you want to marry me.

Understanding rocketed through her. She’d been a fool. The man felt something for her. And she something for him. That much was clear after tonight.

But it didn’t mean she would or could marry him. In fact, it meant the conversation they were about to have was going to be that much harder.

Violet walked to the bed and sat on it, gently taking his hand. It felt like ice to her.

“Don’t be angry,” she said.

“I’m not.”

“You are.” Her voice was soft as she looked into his dark, almond-shaped eyes. “I’m sorry, Alistair, but I cannot get married. I won’t. That would ruin me. Not this. Not tonight. Tonight was…”

He turned his face away from hers and cut off whatever she was about to say.

“You’re right.” His voice was strange and indifferent now, sending a cold, sharp shard through her heart. “It was a ridiculous idea. Of course, we won’t marry.”

“It wasn’t ridiculous,” she said. “I loved this day with you. And this night.” She reached her hand out to gently brush his arm, but he jerked away from her touch. “I didn’t even know it was possible to feel as I do when I’m with you. I just cannot marry. I never will. It’s not you.”

“I understand, Violet. No need to explain further. I’m inconstant. I drink too much. I’m a second son with no fortune or career to call my own. A failure in every way. You’re right to say no. There’s nothing in me for you. There’s nothing in me at all.”

She reached for him, but he stood quickly, moving his body away from her.

“Alistair,” she said. “Those are not my words either.”

“I believe you did call me inconstant, Miss Goodwin. I’ll see you home now.”

“Alistair, please talk to me,” she said, but she could tell he was gone from her already. The man in front of her now was practically a stranger. “I will see you again, won’t I?” she asked but even as she did, she wished she hadn’t.

She’d never see him again. Not like before. That time, when he was soft and open and she was loose and free, was gone. She wanted to reach for him again, to touch him in any way he’d let her, but she didn’t.

He didn’t want her touch; he’d made that clear enough. What he wanted from her she could not give.

Perhaps in America she could be who she wanted to be and have a husband too. But not here in England. She’d learned that lesson from her cousin and her aunt too well. Here, where Alistair was, her future was not.