"But where shall we sleep?"

Marcus laughed, and she knew she was blushing by the flame on her cheeks. His fingers tightened on her arm as he brought her a half-step closer.

"No," she whispered. "We must not."

"Must not what?" He kissed her left cheek. "Can it be that you think of sleeping together?" His mouth skimmed her right cheek. "What do you imagine, sweetheart? Do you think of your body tangled with mine as we savor pa.s.sion's glories?" The tip of his tongue traced her ear, and she gripped his sleeves.

Closing her eyes, but unable to banish the images his words created, she whispered, "Say no more, Marcus, I beg of you."

"I would have you beg for other things," he said as his finger slid lazily along the curve of her breast, sending a rush of rapture cascading over her. "I would have you beg for satiation of the craving I know you feel."

"We must not," she said, wondering how she could convince him when her own resolve was crumbling. "We promised not to become lovers until after the wedding ceremony."

"While we lived in my father's house."

"We still are in your father's house."

He growled, "Don't be opaque! There may be no wedding ceremony until this matter of Algerian agents is dealt with. Do you intend to delay until then?"

"I promised," she said, but weakly.

"As you promised to love, cherish, and obey me."

She shook her head. "Not obey. Papa told me I did not have to vow that."

He grasped her arms and pulled her to him. "Dash it! I do not want your obedience now! I want your love."

"Do you?"

"I just said that."

She drew back as she put her hands on his firm arms. "Do you want love, Marcus, or only me beside you in your bed?"

Puzzlement furrowed his brow. "I want my wife to be my lover."

"But what of love?" When he did not answer, she lifted his hands away from her and shook her head. "I had hoped that I was wrong, but I fear I am not. You have no idea what love is, save for the gifts your family has showered on you since your first breath and what you have probably showered on your convenient. I want nothing from you, Marcus, except love."

He laughed mirthlessly. "Come with me, and I shall show you what I know of love." He held out his hand in a silent command.

Regina grasped it and raised it to her lips. Kissing his rough fingers, she pushed past him. She turned at the top of the stairs to look back at his stunned expression.

"I shall be your wife," she whispered, "and I shall sleep at your side as I promised when I promised, but I shall pity you until the day I die. How can you live without love? Real love?"

When he took a step toward her, she fled down the stairs, putting as much distance as possible between her heart and the man it longed to belong to.

Thirteen.

Regina tilted her parasol to one side as she edged along the slope. The trees were close together so near to the cottage. Unlike the ones in the middle of Berkeley Square, these trees fought each other for the sunshine and sprouted in every direction. Rocking from one trunk to the next, she heard the crash from Marcus's pa.s.sage below. She hoped he was careful not to rip his coat, for they had been able to bring few clothes with them.

With the green, rich scents of freshly disturbed earth surrounding her, she stopped at the bottom of the hill near a stone wall. A brook glittered like a silver tray through the greenery, and she heard the quacking of ducks. Her eyes widened when she saw a pair of broad gray towers rising over the trees. A flag flew over one, rippling in the breeze that tugged at the lace on her light green bonnet.

"Is that Attleby Court?" she asked.

Marcus put the case he was carrying on the ground. Without looking up, he said, "We still are nearly a mile away, so no one shall chance to see us."

"It must be almost the size of the seraglio."

He chuckled. "Grandmother would not be pleased to hear you compare our ancestral home with a brothel."

"The seraglio is not a nanny-shop."

When she blushed at her own outrageous reply, he laughed again. "Such language would not please Grandmother either."

"She seems quite outspoken."

"You must learn that she does not appreciate her own faults when she sees them in others." Flipping back the lid, he took out one of the silver-laced pistols.

As she watched him load it with easy efficiency, Regina said, "I hope the ocean voyage did not damage them. Even though they were wrapped in oilcloth, the salt is very destructive."

"That is what I hope to find out." He rested the loaded pistol on his knee as he poured powder into the other one. "I would not want to have to depend on these and find that they would fail me."

"Let me take that one," she said when the loaded pistol threatened to slip off his knee.

"Do you know how to handle a gun?"

"I know enough to be careful."

Gingerly he placed the pistol in her hand. "Keep it pointed away from us. If it misfires, I do not want the ball hitting you or me."

"I will be careful."

His brows arched, and she laughed. This was the first time in the four days they had been at the cottage that Marcus had used anything but that maddeningly polite tone.

He stood. "See that tree over there? The one with the notch from where it was. .h.i.t by lightning?"

"Yes."

"Just don't look anywhere else."

Raising the gun, he kept his arm straight as he fired it. Bark leapt into the air. The concussion rolled along the low hills.

"It works well," he said with admiration as he turned the gun over in his hand. Setting it on the ground, he held out his other hand. "Now let's see about this one."

"Can I try?"

"You can fire a gun?"

"Yes."

"Well?"

She laughed. "See that tree over there with the notch? Don't look away!"

She aimed at the same spot he had hit. As she was pulling back on the hammer, a strong arm slipped around her waist and a warm breath brushed her nape. The gun fired, the ball going wide.

Whirling, she gasped, "Why did you do that? You broke my concentration!"

His arm tightened around her as he drew the pistol out of her fingers. "Can you not leave me an iota of pride, sweetheart?"

"You have a surfeit of pride!" she returned, but her voice grew faint when his hand swept up her back, pressing her against his unyielding chest.

"Let it remain a mystery whether you are a better shot than I." His eyes glowed with obsidian fire as he whispered, "There are other mysteries I would prefer to solve about you."

"Marcus ..." Her protest became a breathless sigh when his mouth found hers.

When he bent and slipped his arm beneath her knees, she clasped her hands around his shoulders. Surrounded by his warmth, she sensed the arousal he was struggling to keep in check. He set her down in a soft bed of gra.s.s, and she brought him with her, not wanting to lose a moment of his touch.

"Sweetheart, look at me," he whispered.

She opened her eyes to see his so near that the slightest movement would bring her lips to his again. A slow blink was her only warning before his hand, which had been lying across her waist, rose to caress her breast. All thoughts vanished in a detonation of delight. She slanted toward him, wanting more, desperately needing more.

"No, look at me," he ordered again when she closed her eyes to savor the savage sensations that sought to control her.

"Marcus, I ..."

"Hush," he said as his fingers swept along her ruffled bodice, setting every inch of her skin alive with the fierce craving. "Listen to me. I know you and I loathe the idea of that dashed wedding-"

"If you want to halt it-"

His laugh silenced her. "Sweetheart, I want it held without delay. I cannot sleep at night for the taunting dreams of holding you like this."

"We cannot ..." She closed her eyes as his fingers found the very tip of her breast and grazed it as lightly as a b.u.t.terfly. Forcing her eyes open again, she whispered, "We cannot return to London until the danger is past."

"There must be something we can do to ensure that happening quickly."

"If I were to send a message to some of Papa's friends in the government, we might be able to put an end to this."

"And a beginning to this," he murmured in the moment before he claimed her lips anew.

She answered his kiss with her own longings, not pausing to think that the first time they were ready to work together would bind her life even more closely with a man who refused to let her be the woman she longed to be.

"How does it go?"

Regina put the top back on the inkpot and leaned her elbows on the rough table as she looked up at Marcus. With effort, she kept from looking at the bundle of blankets where her husband slept each night while she was alone in the aired featherbed upstairs. As surely as if he had shouted it, she knew he would welcome her into his arms, but she could not sell her heart for a moment of pleasure. She wanted love.

What a complete block you are! How many times had that thought played through her mind? Its singsong rhythm brought no answers. She had been a nick-ninny to let him woo her into his arms again yesterday, but his kisses were so difficult to resist.

"I have finished the letters to Lord Liverpool and Lord Sidmouth," she replied quietly. "If anyone in the ministry can help us unravel what might be happening, I believe it will be one of them." Standing, she ma.s.saged her aching forehead with two fingers. "Is there someone we can trust to deliver them only into their hands?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

He smiled and took her hands between his. "Trust me on this, Regina. For you to know too much now might endanger you more."

"Do not coddle me. I have been in danger before."

"As I well know." Frowning, he led her to sit by the hearth.

"No, I mean before I came to England."

His eyes narrowed into ebony slits. "Your father brought you into danger?"

Laughing, she clasped her hands around her knee. "Each time we entered the Dey's palace. This bit of intrigue and mischief, I must own, is nothing compared to what transpires there every day. A man may be raised to a position of power and favor, and be dead before the day's end. Advancement often requires the a.s.sa.s.sination of your superior. Within the seraglio, even more scheming takes place."

"You were in the Dey's harem?"

A tremor of distaste fled through her. "No, never. If I had allowed them to send me there-as they wished-I fear I would never have escaped."

"But you are an Englishwoman, the daughter of a diplomat."

"Do you think that would have mattered?" Standing, she went to the window overlooking the meadow that was so unlike anything she had ever seen in the countryside surrounding Algiers. "I am a woman, and the only place for a woman there is in that closed world."

"So you became a man in their eyes."

"It was my only choice if I wished to remain outside the seraglio." She turned and wrapped her arms around herself, although the day was sticky with heat. "I wish Mr. Fisher was here. He might know of a way to contact Papa, some way that I have not considered."

Sitting on the edge of the table, he smiled grimly. "Your father is of little use to us when it would take him a fortnight to get from Algiers to here even if he knew of the trouble."

"A swift ship could get him here in a very short time."

"A very short time is what we might have."

Regina laughed and saw astonishment on his face. "You are being too pessimistic. Who would think to look for us in this horrid place?"

"It would not be so horrid if it had a few less layers of dirt." He wiped his fingers on his leather breeches. "Your skills as a housewife have not improved."

"I thought you wanted me to write to get us help."

He laughed. "I said also, if you will recall, that you might as well do that because it is clear you have no talent to do housework."

"Nor interest in learning more."