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Mary laughed, looking into Andrew’s eyes as he carried her up the stairs. The gesture was a day late, but it touched her heart. She was glad he had come tonight, though, she was unsure why he had. Yet even if he had come because Lord Brooke wished to chase after Emily, Andrew had sat with her.

She had never seen him at such an event before. He even ate among her family. But then he brought his horrible friends to speak to her…

At least Emily was safely chaperoned – as long as she did not fall for Lord Brooke’s charm, as Mary had fallen for Andrew’s.

That charm flowed about her as he carried her upstairs.

Earlier, while they played chess and dressed together, she glimpsed how their marriage might be, and tonight she felt like one of a couple.

She watched his face, illuminated by the lanterns in the hall.

Her husband was a complex man. ‘You value your friends, don’t you,’ she said, as they reached the landing.

‘Yes, they are like brothers.’

‘How long have you known them?’

‘Since school.’ As they reached the door of his apartment, he lowered her feet to the ground, so he could withdraw a key from his pocket.

‘Kate, my sister-in-law’s, brother, was John’s best friend at school.’

‘I know. He is your brother’s man of business. I discovered that when he paid me your dowry.’

‘Kate used to play with John and Philip. I was too young.’

He kicked the door open with his foot, picked her up again and carried her over the threshold of his two-room bachelor apartment.

One of the service maids must have been into the room. A single oil lamp had been left burning by the door.

He lowered her legs with a tenderness that spoke of the love he said he felt – it made her want to believe him. She had thought his choice of friends was evidence that John’s depiction of Andrew’s character was right. However, if John was wrong about Andrew, perhaps she was wrong about his friends. Perhaps they also hid their good sides behind bravado…

‘Should I get to know your friends, and judge them for myself?’

‘Ah, so are they to be on a suspended sentence? I would like it if you did know them better.’

Andrew was funny when he wished to be, and kind… and he had no reason to pretend he was in love now he had her money.

‘And my judgement, Mary? Where do I stand?’ His hazel eyes studied her.

She turned her back and removed her shawl. ‘You are my husband…’ She lay her shawl over a chair. ‘Do you want me to pour you a drink?’ She would not admit she loved him when she was not sure what he felt.

From his expression he appeared to be trying to solve a puzzle. ‘That is a very wifely offer. Yes, I will have a drink.’

‘Brandy?’ she asked.

‘Yes, please. It is all I have, anyway. From a bottle my rich friend, Peter, bought. We will buy our own brandy and whatever you like to drink tomorrow.’

While she opened the decanter and poured the brandy into a glass, he removed his hat, gloves and evening coat.

When she put the decanter down, he stood behind her and his hands slipped about her waist, embracing her, as his lips kissed her shoulder.

‘Do you want me to ring for a kettle of water for tea?’ he asked.

She turned, forcing him to step back. She held out his drink. ‘No, the maids will be in bed, I would not want to wake them. I am not thirsty anyway, and besides, you do not even have a teapot.’

‘Another item to add to our shopping list.’ He accepted the glass. ‘Have I taken you from heaven, Mary, and brought you here to share hell with me?’

Sometimes he said the strangest things, but the words proved that he was leagues deep. Her fingertips touched the bruise about his eye that had turned from red to yellow now. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Somewhat. So do not touch it.’

Her hand lowered.

‘Come and sit in a chair with me.’ He put the glass on the games table, beside an armchair, sat down and patted his thighs, his roguish smile playing on his lips.

She sat sideways on his lap, smiling at his foolishness as she draped an arm around his shoulders.

He reclaimed his drink and sipped from the glass.

She pressed a kiss on the bruise on his jaw.

His smile broadened and he touched a fingertip to his lips. ‘It hurts here, too.’

‘Did Papa and John hurt you badly when they hit you?’

‘Now she asks…’ His voice rang deep. ‘I am sure you do not care if they did. I believe the word is comeuppance.’

‘You were a day late in carrying me over the threshold. I am a couple of days late in asking if you were hurt. We are even.’

His fingers brushed strands of her hair back from her face, while he sipped more brandy.

‘You did not hit them…’ Why had she not noted that before? He had not fought against them. He had accepted their anger. Comeuppance – if he respected their anger, that was not the action of a bad, or a deceitful, man.

‘That would have been unjust, don’t you think? If I was your papa, or your brother, I’d have punched me, too. In fact, if anyone took you from me now, there would be carnage.’

Her fingers pressed against his midriff, as she moved to get up.

‘Ow! God.’

She stopped moving. ‘What is it?’

‘Your dear papa broke my rib, Mary.’

‘You did not say.’ She stood up, not wanting to hurt him.

‘When was the moment to mention it? I can take a punch. I am not complaining. After all, I did seduce you…’ He watched her as he spoke, as though judging her response. Deviltry flashed in his eyes as he sipped the brandy. ‘I seduced you because I want you, Mary. I am guilty of that. I should have asked for your father’s consent, but we both know I would not have received it, and… At some point along our path, I fell in love with you. I did not lie about that.

‘Yes, I urged you to marry me. But you came with me by choice…’ He lifted his hand. ‘Come back, sit down, you were keeping me warm.’

‘I will hurt your rib.’

‘I will worry about my rib. Come on, sweetheart, sit and talk to me.’

‘We are talking, but I do not think that is what you wish to do.’

His smile tilted sidewards, turning her stomach to fluid. ‘Ah, you got me. Come and give me a kiss, then.’

His words pulled her physically. It was hopeless pretending she did not want to be with him. She told Emily to learn from her mistakes, yet he had just admitted seducing her and she was letting him do it again.

She wanted to trust him, but he had not told her about the indecent offer he’d made to Kate… She had a sudden desire to be in control of her marriage and she knew a way to take control of him. She had learned his body’s reactions to her touch in the summerhouse, when he had been in the midst of seducing her.

She raised the hem of her dress, turning predator, lifting it above her knees, flashing the ribbons holding up her stockings.

He choked on his brandy when he realised what she meant to do, wiped his lips with the side of his hand, then put the glass down and moved his legs together, so her knees could fit either side.

She straddled him, in an intimate position, the skirt of her raised dress tumbling over their thighs.

‘You can get rid of these for a start,’ he said, catching hold of her hand then tugging off her glove. He smiled slyly, as he dropped her glove on the table beside his glass, lifting her hand and slipping one of her fingers into his mouth. He sucked it gently.

But this was about her taking control, not submissively being done to. She wanted to seduce him. She wanted him to know she had some control in their marriage.

She reclaimed her finger, leaned forward, her palm bracing his nape, and kissed him. Comeuppance. It felt like exquisite justice.

When her lips left his, he smiled.

Her fingers released the buttons of his waistcoat, as he tugged his shirt free from the waistband of his trousers.

‘Let me.’ She knocked his hand aside. He flinched.

She had forgotten his broken rib.

‘Don’t stop,’ he told her. ‘Just be careful.’

‘Let me see?’ She pushed his waistcoat off his shoulders, as he leaned forward so she could take that and his shirt off.

The vivid bruise stained half his side and looked like a messy artist’s pallet of reds, yellows and dark purple. Her fingertips gently touched his side. ‘You should have asked me to bandage it for you.’

‘You would not have bandaged me up at that inn.’ Petulance crept into his voice. ‘Not after your father and brother convinced you I was evil.’

‘I never thought you were evil. But you do have a devil in you that likes to hit out.’ He had not fought against their punches or their accusations when they were found at the inn, but he had used words to hurt them. ‘I know you asked my father about my dowry, and whether you should call him Papa, to upset him.’

A chuckle rumbled from his throat, then an expression said that too had hurt his rib. ‘Yes. But I only hit out at people who hit out at me. Enough talking,’ he said, in a deeper tone.

‘Your rib, Andrew…’

‘Darling, physical intimacy is the best painkiller. Forget my rib. I am half naked and beneath you.’

She shook her head and pushed away the hand that lifted. ‘No. I am in control tonight.’ She had contemplated this when he used his mouth and teeth on her. He had reacted once when she touched his tip accidentally. It would put her in complete control. The great seducer – toppled by his own tricks.

If her marriage was to work it would be with her as an equal, and she knew exactly how to make her husband pay attention. If she took control of him physically, he would view her differently.

She pressed her palms on the arms of the chair, lifted her legs.

‘Don’t go?—’

She pressed her fingertip to his lips to silence him. Then lowered herself to the floor, kneeling in front of him. His eyes burned bright, gleaming in the lamplight as she released the buttons securing his flap.

This would change the balance of everything between them…

Drew forgot his pain – forgot about anything but this beautiful woman he loved. This was the prim Miss Mary Marlow. His fingernails scratched into the arms of the chair. No, this was Lady Framlington. Perhaps his name had tainted her.

This morning, she cried when he made love to her. This evening…

‘You do not have to do this.’ His voice came out as a whisper. His arousal was agony.

She ignored him.

When her lips encompassed him, he gritted his teeth and his fingers wrapped around the arms of the chair and clung to it. As she caressed him, with her lips, mouth and tongue, he slipped the comb out of her hair, set it aside and pulled out the pins, one by one. A stream of ebony hair fell across his legs as he removed each pin.

‘Mary, darling,’ he groaned, threading his fingers through her hair.

She focused on what she was doing, ignoring his responses.

‘Mary…’ His hips took up her rhythm – claiming what she gave. ‘Mary.’ He was going to come undone. His hands clasped her shoulders, urging her to stop. He could not bear it.

She would not stop.

He shut his eyes, gritted his teeth, and fought against it… Damn it. ‘Mary!’ He came into her mouth in an overwhelming rush, his hands clasping fistfuls of her hair.

A deep breath pulled into his lungs and his fingers slipped free from her hair as sanity returned. He could not believe his respectable wife had done this to him.

She stood. ‘Now you know how it feels to be seduced,’ she said, and left him in the chair, hot and drained.

Lord … She could seduce him any time she wanted to.

‘Mary?’ He wanted to rise and follow her but his limbs refused to obey.

She walked into the bedroom, without looking back at him.

Had that been a lesson? If so, he had not learned it.

After a moment, he secured his flap and followed her.

She was undressing. ‘Mary, I love?—’

‘Don’t spoil it,’ she answered bluntly, glancing at him.

He crossed the room and caught her arm to make her listen. ‘I do love you.’

Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘You do not have to lie any more, you have my money. I know you like me, that is enough.’

‘I am not lying!’ How could she have done that, then act like it meant nothing? Other women had done the same of course, but it had never felt like that, because love changed everything. Of course, she was innocent, and she would not know the difference.

That rigid gaze of hers, that she had learned from the Dukes in her family, said, let go of me . He did so.

He carried her up here thinking they could be happy, yet, already she had discovered he was a selfish rake who could be manipulated with sex. There was a desire to go in search of his friends and sink his sorrows in his cups. They would still be in the clubs.

She sniffed as her dress fell to the floor and she began awkwardly trying to unlace her corset.

She was crying.

He was a fool. He kept making her unhappy. He did not know how to love her. But he would not leave her alone, because leaving her would make her think he did not love her.

He held her, enveloping her in a gesture of kindness, because he did care. She turned into the embrace. One hand stroked her hair, the other her back. She was his everything, from alpha to omega, his first and last, no matter what else. ‘It will be good between us. It will. I promise.’

Her arms wrapped about his midriff, holding tight and jarring his broken rib.

‘I will release your laces, then you can get into bed.’

The only way he knew how to show love was with his body, he had to make her believe.