Page 33 of The Luckiest Lady in London

It was possible that even with her resistance, he’d come to the conclusion that he would never hold greater sway over a woman. Or perhaps it was precisely her resistance that he relished, that in spite of it he could still prevail over her as much as he did.

She often thought back to the moment their engagement first became reality, that flash of euphoric happiness that he liked and wanted her enough to pledge his name and all the privilege that came with it. But the fact remained that she could trust him no more now that he was her fiancé than when he had been merely a devious and amoral would-be lover.

When they were married, she would not try to deny his dominance in the bridal bower—in that particular arena he would probably always render her breathless and helpless. But that was the only weakness she would ever admit, lust of the body. Her mind would remain her own. And her demented and slightly shameful love she would carry as a secret to her grave.

It was the only path through the dangerous and, someday, very possibly heartbreaking terrain of her marriage.

* * *

Louisa’s epic success brought her family to London.

Their departure from home was delayed two days by Frederica’s continued refusal to leave her room. Frantic telegrams arrived for Louisa, who cabled back, Tell Frederica Lord Wrenworth has the means and the connections to make her skin marble smooth again.

Whether anything in the world could accomplish what she promised was immaterial. At twenty-seven Frederica was still a head-turningly beautiful woman—her problem had far less to do with dermatology than with perception.

“Your task, when they arrive, is to make her feel as lovely as the first star in the sky,” she told Lord Wrenworth.

It was the first time they had seen each other since the day of their engagement—she’d been quite buried by the work that came with mounting a wedding, in three weeks, of the magnitude and splendor required by his station in life.

“What?” he mock-exclaimed. “I am out a twenty-room house plus eight hundred pounds a year. And I have to play the swain to the sister-in-law, too?”

He looked both commanding and delicious standing by the window of Lady Balfour’s drawing room, bathed in the light of the afternoon. She was proud one moment, covetous the next, and then fearful the moment after that. It would always be like this, wouldn’t it, being the wife of a man she loved but couldn’t trust, whose true motives were as murky as the bottom of the sea?

“It will save you—well, me, actually—money on milk baths and exotic emollients later.”

“And why would I want to save you money?” He rounded to the side of her padded chair and looked down at her. “Wouldn’t I prefer it if you had to spend it all and come begging for more?”

She stared at his lips. He had not kissed her, ever. She would like him to, but she refused to ask. She even held back from reaching out and touching the hand he braced on the back of the chair. It was one thing to try to undermine his mastery of the situation with unwholesome speech and action, quite another to betray heartfelt desires that only further strengthened his hand.

“I couldn’t spend eight hundred pounds a year if I tried.”

“Don’t let anyone hear you speak like that. My reputation will never recover if it is known that I married a woman who can make do with eight hundred pounds a year. Besides, what will I have to complain about at my club if my wife isn’t suitably spendthrift?”

My wife. A wife could be the object of unabashed adoration or simply another nuisance in a man’s life. Where would she fall along that continuum? And would his, if not black, then at least darkish grey heart ever be hers?

She folded her hands together primly. “Does no one complain about their wives being too insatiable in bed?”

His gaze swept her entire person. Her skin tingled. He wanted to do wicked things to her—it was the reaction she had hoped to provoke—but he touched her nowhere, not even the fabric of her enormous sleeves.

He took a seat opposite hers, his long legs taking up most of the space between them. “Are you planning on being an overly enthusiastic wife?”

The way he studied her both absorbed and unsettled her. “Would you like me to be?”

“I am much more interested in the wife you cannot help being,” he said, the firm last word on the subject.

He wanted to strip her bare in every way. Her naked body was only the beginning. From there, her undisguised thoughts. At last, her unhidden heart.

She took a sip of her tea, her fingers tight around the handle of the cup. “So…will you promise to shamelessly flatter Frederica?”

* * *

Two days later, as Lord Wrenworth strolled into Lady Balfour’s drawing room to meet Louisa’s family, there was a reverent collective intake of breath, as if the Cantwell women were a group of mortals who had accidentally stumbled into the presence of Apollo himself.

Louisa, too, felt as if she were seeing him again for the very first time, her eyes blurring with the potency of his physical perfection.

You, sir, are a scoundrel.

As if he’d heard her thought, he glanced her way. Their gazes held, a pair of miscreants recognizing each other in a roomful of upstanding people.