Somehow, he had neglected to take into account what being a virgin meant, beyond being untouched. Somehow, through all those heated fantasies, he’d left out one critical factor: No series of men had gone before him to make the way easy. He had to break her in himself.
And that, he feared, was just what he’d do: break her.
The carriage halted. Suppressing a desperate urge to scream at the coachman to keep on driving—until Judgment Day, preferably—Dain helped his wife out.
She took his arm as they started toward the entrance. Her gloved hand had never seemed so woefully small as it did at this moment.
She had insisted she was taller than average, but that wasn’t the least bit reassuring to a man as big as a house, and likely to have the same impact when he fell upon her.
He would crush her. He would break something, tear something. And if he somehow managed not to kill her and if the experience did not turn her into a babbling lunatic, she would run away screaming if he ever tried to touch her again.
She would run away, and she would never again kiss him and hold him and—
“Well, stand me up and knock me down again—either a coal barge just hove into view or it’s Dain.”
The raucous voice jolted Dain back to the moment and to his forgotten surroundings. He’d entered the inn without noticing and heard the landlord’s greeting without attending, and was, in the same distracted way, following his host to the stairway that led to the chambers Dain had reserved.
Coming down the stairs was the voice’s owner: his old Eton schoolfellow Mallory. Or, rather, the Duke of Ainswood now. The previous duke, all of nine years old, had fallen victim to diphtheria a year ago. Dain recalled signing the condolence note his secretary had written to the mother and the tactfully combined condolences and congratulations to Mallory, the cousin. Dain hadn’t bothered to point out that tact was wasted on Vere Mallory.
Dain hadn’t seen the man since Wardell’s funeral. His former schoolfellow had been drunk then and he was drunk now. Ainswood’s dark hair was a greasy rat’s nest, his eyes puffy and bloodshot, and his jaw rough with at least two days’ growth of beard.
Dain’s nerves were already in a highly sensitive state. The realization that he must introduce this repellent figure to his dainty, elegant,purewife stretched those frayed nerves another dangerous notch.
“Ainswood,” he said with a curt nod. “What a charming surprise.”
“Surprise is hardly the word.” Ainswood stomped down to the foot of the stairs. “I’m knocked acock. Last time I saw you, you said you wouldn’t come back to England again on anybody’s account, and if anyone else wanted you at his funeral, he’d better contrive to keel over in Paris.” His bloodshot gaze fell upon Jessica then, and he grinned in what Dain considered an intolerably obscene manner. “Why, bless me if hell hasn’t truly frozen over. Dain not only back in England, but traveling with a bit of muslin, to boot.”
The threads of Dain’s control began to unravel. “I won’t ask what hermit’s cave you’ve been living in, that you don’t know I’ve been in London for nearly a month and wed this morning,” he said, his voice cool, his insides roiling. “Theladyhappens to bemylady.”
He turned to Jessica. “Madam, I have the dubious honor of presenting—”
The duke’s loud guffaw cut him off. “Wed?” he cried. “Quick, tell me another. Mayhap this bird of paradise is your sister. No, better yet, your great aunt Mathilda.”
Since any female out of the schoolroom would know that “bird of paradise” was a synonym for “harlot,” Dain had no doubt his wife was aware she’d just been insulted.
“Ainswood, you have just called me a liar,” he said in ominously mild tones. “You have slandered my lady. Twice. I will give you precisely ten seconds to compose an apology.”
Ainswood stared at him for a moment. Then he grinned. “You always were good with the daring and daunting, my lad, but that cock won’t fight. I know a hoax when I see one. Where was your last performance, my dove?” he asked Jessica. “The King’s Theatre, Haymarket? You see, I don’t slander you a bit. I can tell you’re above his usual Covent Garden wares.”
“That’s three times,” said Dain. “Innkeeper.”
Their host, who’d withdrawn to a dark corner of the hall, crept out. “My lord?”
“Kindly show the lady to her chamber.”
Jessica’s fingers dug into his arm. “Dain, your friend’s half-seas over,” she whispered. “Can’t you—”
“Upstairs,” he said.
She sighed and let go of his arm and did as she was told.
He watched until she’d passed the landing. Then he turned back to the duke, who was still gazing upward at her, his expression lewdly expressive of his thoughts.
“Prime piece,” said His Grace, turning back to him with a wink. “Where’d you find her?”
Dain grabbed his neckcloth and shoved him against the wall. “You stupid, filthy piece of horse manure,” he said. “I gave you a chance,cretino. Now I have to break your neck.”
“I’m quaking in my boots,” Ainswood said, his bleary eyes lighting at the prospect of battle. “Do I get the chit if I win?”
