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She swallowed uncomfortably. “Michael, you must be aware that I may not conceive. With John, it took-”

“I don’t care,” he cut in.

“I think you do,” she said softly, worried about his response, but unwilling to enter into marriage without a clear conscience. “You’ve mentioned it several times, and-”

“To trap you into marriage,” he interrupted. And then, with stunning speed, he had her back against the wall, his body pressed up against hers with startling intimacy. “I don’t care if you’re barren,” he said, his voice hot against her ear. “I don’t care if you deliver a litter of puppies.”

His hand crept under her dress, sliding right up her thigh. “All I care about,” he said thickly, one finger turning very, very wicked, “is that you’re mine.”

“Oh!” Francesca yelped, feeling her limbs go molten. “Oh, yes.”

“Yes on this?” he asked devilishly, wiggling his finger just enough to drive her wild, “or yes on getting married today?”

“On this,” she gasped. “Don’t stop.”

“What about the marriage?”

Francesca grabbed his shoulders for support.

“What about the marriage?” he asked again, quickly withdrawing his finger.

“Michael!” she wailed.

His lips spread into a slow, feral smile. “What about the marriage?”

“Yes!” she begged. “Yes! Whatever you want.”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” she sighed.

“Good,” he said, and then, abruptly, he stepped away.

Leaving her slackjawed and rather mussed.

“Shall I retrieve your coat?” he inquired, adjusting his cuffs. He was the perfect picture of elegant manhood, not a hair out of place, utterly calm and composed.

She, on the other hand, was quite certain she resembled a banshee. “Michael?” she managed to ask, trying to ignore the extremely uncomfortable sensation he’d left down in her lower regions.

“If you want to finish,” he said, in much the same tone he might have used while discussing grouse hunting, “you’ll have to do so as the Countess of Kilmartin.”

“I am the Countess of Kilmartin,” she growled.

He gave her a nod of acknowledgment. “You’ll have to do it as my Countess of Kilmartin,” he corrected. He gave her a moment to respond, and when she did not, he asked again, “Shall I get your coat?”

She nodded.

“Excellent choice,” he murmured. “Will you wait here or accompany me to the hall?”

She pried her teeth apart to say, “I’ll come out to the hall.”

He took her arm and guided her to the door, leaning down to murmur, “Eager little thing, aren’t we?”

“Just get my coat,” she ground out.

He chuckled, but the sound was warm and rich, and already she felt her irritation beginning to melt away. He was a rogue and scoundrel, and probably a hundred other things as well, but he was her rogue and scoundrel, and she knew he possessed a heart as fine and true as any man she could ever hope to meet. Except for…

She stopped short and jabbed one finger against his chest.

“There will be no other women,” she said sharply.

He just looked at her with one arched brow.

“I mean it. No mistresses, no dalliances, no-”

“Good God, Francesca,” he cut in, “do you really think I could? No, scratch that. Do you really think I would?”

She’d been so caught up in her own intentions that she hadn’t really looked at his face, and she was stunned by the expression she saw there. He was angry, she realized, irked that she’d even asked. But she couldn’t dismiss out of hand a decade of bad behavior, and she didn’t think he had the right to expect her to, so she said, lowering her voice slightly, “You don’t have the finest reputation.”

“For God’s sake,” he grunted, yanking her out into the hall. “They were all just to get you out of my mind, anyway.”

Francesca was shocked into stumbling silence as she followed him toward the front door.

“Any other questions?” he asked, turning to her with such a supercilious expression that one would have thought he’d been born to the earldom, rather than fallen into it by chance.

“Nothing,” she squeaked.

“Good. Now let’s go. I have a wedding to attend.”

Later that night, Michael couldn’t help but be pleased by the day’s turn of events. “Thank you, Colin,” he said rather jovially to himself as he undressed for bed, “and thank you, too, whomever you are, for marrying Eloise on a moment’s notice.”

Michael rather doubted that Francesca would have agreed to a rushed wedding if her two siblings hadn’t up and gotten married without her.

And now she was his wife.

His wife.

It was almost impossible to believe.

It had been his goal for weeks, and she’d finally agreed the night before, but it wasn’t until he’d slid the ancient gold band onto her finger that it had sunk in.

She was his.

Until death do they part.

“Thank you, John,” Michael added, the levity leaving his voice. Not for dying, never for that. But rather for re-leasing him of the guilt. Michael still wasn’t quite certain how it had come about, but ever since that fateful night, after he and Francesca had made love at the gardener’s cottage, Michael had known, in his heart of hearts, that John would have approved.

He would have given his blessing and in his more fanciful moments, Michael liked to think that if John could have chosen a new husband for Francesca, he would have selected him.