Luka sighed. "Lady Alina is inordinately proud of her few drops of Romany blood. She would see herself as their savior, at the very least, were she to know. Truly, it will be easier for everyone if she is never told, and if she is bound to England, never returning to her homeland. I was sworn to secrecy by the king himself, forbidden to tell you this, but it seems only fair you should understand the danger, and take the proper precautions until the king decides what to do with Inhaber Novak, as your lightheartedness earlier causes me some concern. Perhaps, once Lady Alina is married to you, Novak will no longer see her as a threat to him."

There was a knock at the door and Wigglesworth entered, carrying a plate of bread and cheese. Justin waved a hand over the plate, inviting the major to eat, which gave Justin time to think.

He shook his head at his gullibility; how could he have been so blind? No wonder the Prince Regent had been so willing to allow his insults. The man had his fifty thousand pounds all safely tucked up in his purse, making Justin no longer necessary and, if he were to speak out of turn, potentially embarra.s.sing. A nice, clean a.s.sa.s.sination of the pesky baron would not come amiss as far as the Prince Regent was concerned, and would rid him of that potential embarra.s.sment. No wonder the man had been so eager to a.s.sist King Francis in his request.

It was time for another small chat with the Prince Regent. But first, he'd ask a few more questions of the wonderfully forthcoming major.

"Tell me, if the king knows Novak wants her dead, why didn't he already do something about it, have Novak arrested? Why bother with this farce of a marriage?"

"Isn't it obvious? The king is playing for time, and some sort of amicable solution. He doesn't want to have his hand forced by making a decision on this land, the disputed deed, because either way he decided would gain him enemies. The Romany are an unavoidable nuisance, while Inhaber Novak has many who are loyal to him, and he is a great a.s.set to the court."

Justin was beginning to see more of the spider-web. He kept his tone conversational, even as he felt the slumbering beast inside him straining at its leash. "A king with many problems, your Francis. If Lady Alina is murdered, he must make a show of investigating her death, because she is his ward and because otherwise the Romany will make things difficult for him. To arrest or kill Novak would bring him trouble from factions loyal to the Inhaber. How much more convenient to have it all play out far away in England. Francis didn't apply to his ally the Prince Regent for a bridegroom. He applied to him for an a.s.sa.s.sin, and dear Prinny knew just the man to approach, a man who couldn't refuse. The moment I wed the fair lady what was hers is mine, and there will be a target painted on my back, so that it will be kill or be killed."

Luka had the good grace to blush, which probably served to save him, or at least preserve his teeth and jaw so that he could chew his bread and cheese.

Justin pressed him further. "And Lady Alina, she of the ermine-tipped cloak and plans to take London by storm? Does it matter to any of them what happens to her?"

"But you'll keep her safe."

"That is not your concern, Major. You concern, and that of our two plotting sovereigns, is better directed at what I will do to you all if Lady Alina so much as stubs her toe before I can find some way out of this d.a.m.ned farce. Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I will pay my betrothed a small visit before she turns in for the night."

Luka leapt to his feet. "You're not going to tell her anything, are you?"

Justin looked at the major without saying a word until the man had the good sense to subside back into his chair. "Don't do that again, Major. Question me. And never stand against me unless you're willing to suffer the consequences. Are we clear?"

The major nodded.

"Oh, how wonderful," Justin drawled affably, smiling as if nothing had happened, as if there had been no threat of violence. "Now we can cry friends again, understanding each other so much better. Why, I might even be persuaded to convince Wigglesworth to give you a few pointers on how to tie your cravat so it less resembles a noose. Good night, Major."

Justin walked out of the room in his usual, unhurried stroll, softly closing the door behind him. It was only when he got as far as the narrow hallway leading to the stairs that he pressed his palms against the sides of his neck and pushed hard, forcing his breathing and his heartbeat back into their usual rhythms.

He was angry that he had allowed any of this to happen to him. Unworried that he would not succeed in ridding Alina of any threat from the Inhaber Novak.

But d.a.m.ned if he could understand how he, a man who prided himself on his lack of emotional involvement with the rest of the world, could have suddenly become so intensely concerned for the welfare of one small female.

I don't recall granting it permission to sit down.

At last he smiled with real amus.e.m.e.nt...and not a little bemus.e.m.e.nt. Yes, that was it. From the moment she'd uttered those words, he had become as wax in her hands.

G.o.d help him....

CHAPTER THREE.

ALINA SAT CROSS-LEGGED in the middle of the hard tester bed, her sketchbook across her knees. She'd been so certain the baron would come knocking on her door to inquire as to why she had refused to join him downstairs for dinner. But when the clock had struck the hour of nine, she had at last given up on her fetching outfit of palest lilac silk in favor of a comfortable night rail she'd worn to the brink of shabbiness.

She only wished she hadn't used the excuse that she wasn't hungry in order to avoid him, for now her stomach had begun grumbling at her, pointing out that, if she was going to lie, she should first consider the consequences. Citing a headache from the excitement of seeing England for the first time? That would have been much better.

Except that the baron might have interpreted that as excitement upon seeing him for the first time.

That eventuality was not to be contemplated. The man was already entirely too pleased with himself just on general principles-that was obvious.

"And much too intelligent for my own good," she muttered, her charcoal stick moving rapidly as she colored in the man's hair, which was nearly as dark as her own. His skin was darker than hers; he was clearly a man who spent considerable time in the sun-she'd noticed as much when he'd taken her hand in his and bowed over her fingertips. He had hard hands, strong and even slightly callused, which had surprised her, for he certainly dressed (and behaved!) as a man who never so much as brushed his own hair without a.s.sistance.

She could still close her eyes and see her pale skin against his darker tones, her fragile bones no match for his strength if he were to squeeze her fingers between his. And she most certainly could still see those laughing, mocking green eyes.

He really did upset her sense of being up to any challenges her new circ.u.mstances could toss at her. She'd been so sure of her plans, back in the safety of her own bedchamber. And all it had taken was one look, one too-intimate touch of this man's flesh against hers, to knock all of her confident pins out from beneath her. Oh, yes, he was going to be trouble....

Just to think-if she had worn gloves, as Danica had told her was proper, she would still not know that her betrothed had such an unsettling effect on her. Why, she might have gone down to dinner, prattled on in some inane way, all unaware that Baron Justin Wilde was anything more than a pretty fellow with an impertinent mouth.

Now what was she supposed to do? If there existed a way to control him, she had to find it. Quickly.

Strange how she had not thought about the marriage itself as anything more than a minor inconvenience, a necessary detail. At first, she'd been too angry to do more than think about being bartered away by the king, being forced to leave her home. But once her aunt had explained that a marriage of mutual convenience was all she could look forward to in any event, thanks to her birth and station-and had pointed across the king's drawing room to where Count Josef Eberharter stood picking at his yellowed teeth with a penknife and declared the man to be Alina's only alternative-the idea of traveling to England, to the birthplace of her mother, had begun to seem a reasonable alternative.

Her mother had told so many stories about her homeland, and always with such a wistful look in her eyes. Now she, her mother's daughter, would see all the glorious sights herself. First London, of course, as everyone with any sense wished to visit this great metropolis. But then she would travel to Kent, and to her mother's childhood home. Wouldn't they all be surprised and delighted to welcome the daughter of their beloved and lost Anne Louise?

She c.o.c.ked her head to one side and contemplated the now-completed sketch. Had she captured the correct degree of astonishment in his lordship's entirely too-wise eyes as he looked cross-eyed at the fat fish tail sticking out of his wide-open mouth?

"Oh, my lady," Tatiana said, leaning across the mattress to goggle at the sketch. "That's even better than the last one. Danica, come see."

"Humph," the older woman snorted, staying where she was, busying herself with laying out Alina's freshly pressed traveling outfit for the morning, a lovely thing of midnight-blue and military gold frogging, and a shako hat that was made to tilt forward above the lady's right eye just so. "Horns and a tail? I see nothing so amusing in poking fun at one's betrothed. You should only be thanking the Virgin for his handsome face and body. He could have been sixty, and fat and filthy into the bargain."

"I'd rather he was eighty, and with one foot teetering over the grave, too crippled with gout and dissipated by drink to worry about such things as his new wife," Alina said truthfully, for she saw nothing wrong with wishful thinking. "What am I supposed to do with a man no older than Luka? What will he want from me?"

Tatiana giggled, putting her pudgy hands to her mouth. "Should we tell her, Danica?"

"That is the job of the husband, and not for us to say. It is proper for a lady of breeding not to know-"

"About breeding?" Tatiana quipped, and then covered her smile with her hand.

"You have never been amusing, Tatiana Klammer," the dresser said, turning her back to the woman, who promptly stuck her tongue out at her.

Alina sighed. It had been thus ever since they'd begun their journey, the two women always jabbing at each other, the dresser believing her position to be higher than that of mere paid companion, the companion believing the dresser was altogether too full of herself. She had begun to wish Danica had not accompanied them to England, for the woman was stiff, humorless and full of rules.

Plus, she clearly didn't like her new mistress, something Alina couldn't understand, because everyone liked her. Well, perhaps not Aunt Mimi, definitely not Aunt Mimi. But everyone else.

She closed the sketchbook and put it to one side. "That is not what I meant, Danica," she said testily. "I don't know if he will want my company and conversation, or if he will ignore me for the most part, as I hope, and allow me to go my own way. I already know he will kiss me and give me babies. My mama explained that to me years ago. It's the only way to get babies. I asked her, and she told me. I am...resigned to that."

As her mother had been dead these past three years, it could be wondered just how specific the lady had been with her explanations.

The way Danica rolled her eyes as she turned about once more, Alina now wondered exactly that herself.

"What? What did I say that is so impossible that you made that terrible face?"

"Danica means nothing, my lady," Tatiana said quickly, and the dresser returned to her duties, laying out a pair of fine stockings with a flourish before dropping a rather insulting curtsy and leaving the room, muttering darkly under her breath.

"I don't like her," Alina told her companion, not for the first time. "And I don't think she really wished to come here. I shall have her sent home immediately."

"The Entschlossen sailed on the evening tide, my lady, along with all those handsome guardsmen. I saw it leave from this very window. You were sleeping, and I didn't think to wake you. I would have, had I known you were planning to send Miss Pickles and Sour Cider packing."

Alina slid off the side of the bed, her bare feet encountering the cool wooden planks. "Yes, well, there's no use for it then, is there? She was Aunt Mimi's choice, and she'd only have replaced her with someone even worse. We'll have to make the best of things. You don't suppose I could take a quick trip outside and find a nice fat toad to put in her bed?"

"Oh, my lady, you are such a joy to me," Tatiana said, dropping to her knees and helping to fit a pair of satin slippers on Alina's slender feet. "But so very young, for all your fine ways and wonderful ideas. Now I think you should tell me more about what it was your dear mother told you about kisses and giving babies."

Alina sighed. "Then Danica didn't pull that monkey face of hers simply to vex me, did she? What else do I need to know, Tatiana? I shouldn't wish to have to ask the baron the time of day, so I most certainly don't want him to be telling me anything else. He should believe I am a woman of the world."

The companion, old enough to be Alina's mother, but not accustomed to speaking frankly on a subject she knew about but, in her spinster state these past forty years, had no personal knowledge of, struggled to her feet once more.

"Husbands do not care to think of their brides as women of the world, my lady," she said, avoiding Alina's eyes. "They get really put out about it, as I've heard the thing. Best you should do as Danica says, I suppose, since your mother didn't see fit to explain the way of the world to you, and let his lordship tell you. Not that Miss Uppity knows any more than me, for there was never a man eager enough to brave that one's embrace. Be like bedding a board."

Tatiana, an earthy woman for all she had been serving in the manor house for most of her life, ran her hands down over her own considerable curves, then hefted her ma.s.sive b.r.e.a.s.t.s one at a time, so that they fit more comfortably above her corset. "Not that these things don't get in the way, from time to time. Still, better a handful of these than those sorry pimples of Danica's."

Alina giggled. "You've got considerably more than a handful, Tatiana," she said, and then sobered. Swallowed. Looked down at her own muslin-covered b.r.e.a.s.t.s that were somewhere between Danica's pimples and Tatiana's impressive largesse. "Why should that matter?"

"No reason, my lady," the maid said hurriedly, pulling a handkerchief from between her bosoms and dabbing at her suddenly damp upper lip. "No reason at all, and I meant nothing by it, truly I didn't. I could go to the kitchens and beg something for you to eat. You nary had a thing but some watered wine and dry biscuits pa.s.s your lips since this morning. The crossing was a mite choppy, and I didn't eat anything, either, but I surely made up for that lack earlier. English food isn't so terrible, my lady. Just let me nip off downstairs and-"

"Tatiana," Alina intoned severely, hiding her apprehension. "I asked you a question. Why should it matter if a woman...if she has pimples or handfuls?"

"It's...um...the thing is, my lady-your mother said kisses give you babies?"

Alina was beginning to feel very silly. "I saw Jurgen in the hallway behind the silver room one day, and he was kissing Astrid."

"Astrid, is it? The girl is a round-heeled fool, tipping over for any who ask her."

Round-heeled? And what did that mean? Silly was rapidly escalating to uncomfortable. "That's neither here nor there, Tatiana. We're much of the same age, and I thought I should know what she was doing, as it was...she seemed quite distressed. Moan...moaning and everything, and saying in this absurd voice, 'Oh, yes, Jurgen, my stallion.' Um...so I asked my mother, and she told me that Astrid was a very reckless and uncouth girl, and that kisses lead to babies, and that was why I should have nothing to do with kisses until I was married and my husband kissed me, as she had done with my father, and as good and chaste people have always done."

Tatiana pulled a face, the more round-cheeked version of the same expression Danica had displayed a few minutes earlier. "And now Astrid has two babies and no husband. A stallion, indeed! Jurgen? But, see, my lady, your dear mother was correct in what she told you." The maid turned companion sighed. "And that's all she told you? Truly?"

"You know how ill she was, Tatiana. I could see that the subject distressed her, so I thanked her and left her to her prayer book. And...and then she was gone, and I had never dared to trouble her with more questions. I suppose I could have applied to Aunt Mimi, but I didn't want her to...to know that I didn't know. I...I'm supposing there's more than just kisses, and I've heard things a time or two at court." She shook her head in denial. "But they can't possibly be true. n.o.body would do that."

Tatiana looked about the room, spying out the small table with a decanter of wine that had been sent up by the baron, whose man said that it was safer by far to sip wine than to get within ten feet of the inn's supply of water unless it was for one's bath. She hesitated only a moment before pouring herself a full gla.s.s and drinking the contents in three nearly desperate gulps.

Wiping the back of her hand across her mouth, she then sighed, replaced the winegla.s.s and sat her bulk down on a chair without asking permission.

"Ah, that's better," she said, rubbing her palms together and looking at Alina expectantly. "Now, my dear, sheltered little girl, you tell your Tatiana-n.o.body would do what?"

THE SMALL GILT CLOCK that had been a parting gift from the king chimed out the hour of ten o'clock from a small table beside Lady Alina's bed. She sighed, supposing she would hear the lovely thing chime out every hour until dawn, her eyes still as wide and shocked as they were now, and staring up at the cracked ceiling.

Tatiana had left her after an hour. Alina would have given anything to have their discussion forever erased from her memory.

That's what Jurgen and Astrid had been doing? Her parents had done this? The whole world did this?

Why? Why would anyone do this?

Yes, her mother had explained her monthly bleed when Alina had first experienced it. But she'd called it Eve's curse, which hadn't meant much, even when Alina had gone to the Bible in the study and searched it thoroughly. The snake, the apple, she knew all of that. But she hadn't found anything about a monthly bleed, and had to content herself with her mother's a.s.sertion that it made her a woman, and no longer a little girl.

That had seemed a fair enough trade. After all, men like Jurgen and Luka and Papa had to shave every day because they were men. She only had to bleed once a month.

Oh, if only she had known! She would never have agreed to the marriage had she known. Removing herself from her aunt Mimi's jurisdiction, her constant disapproval, had weighed heavily in her decision, as had Count Josef Eberharter's teeth. Pleasing the king had, of course, been paramount...even if displeasing the king by refusing probably hadn't been a serious option in any case.

The prospect of fine gowns, of moving in English society, of having a home of her own, these had all finally brought her around to the notion that, if she was not the luckiest girl in the world, she at least wasn't cleaning out fireplace grates or living in some damp cave, worrying when next she'd have something to eat.

But this? She hadn't known about this. The so disgusting, so crudely violating, so intensely intimate this.

She'd made Tatiana swear on her prayer book that she was telling the truth. She'd demanded the companion then swear on that same prayer book that people actually liked it. Tatiana wasn't sure enough to put her immortal soul in jeopardy by swearing to the latter. But she was fairly certain men liked it. Men liked the oddest things.

The soft knock on the door to her bedchamber all but had Alina jumping out of her skin.

"Lady Alina? It is I, Justin Wilde. I see a spill of light under the door and feel impelled to disturb you. I believe we should have ourselves a small conversation."

Her wide eyes popped open even wider. It was him...G.o.d and all His saints help her...her stallion.

"Forgive me, my lord," she called out, wishing her voice didn't seem to be a full octave too high, and piteously thin. Wishing she had dared to blow out her candle and face the dark, and the disturbing images Tatiana's words had planted in her brain. "I am abed."

"Ah, but not asleep," came the a.s.sured voice. "One could hardly expect you to be, if your bed is half so uncomfortable as mine. Please. We really do need to talk."

The disturbing images disappeared as her temper came to her rescue. Was the man always going to prove such a pest?

"Oh, all right, if you're otherwise going to stand out there making a fuss," she groused mean-spiritedly, throwing back the covers and slipping to her feet. "One moment."

She located her dressing gown, not caring that it was old-why had she purchased so many pretty things, and completely neglected to refurbish her nightwear? She should probably add that question to the list of Things n.o.body Had Told Her, praying it would not be a long list. She could only be grateful that the thing b.u.t.toned from her throat to her toes, rather like muslin armor.

But her parents had not shared a bedchamber. It had never occurred to Alina that her husband would share hers, that he would ever see her in her nightwear. There was no avoiding the thing-she was stupidest person in creation!

Not bothering to locate her slippers, she padded to the door, slipped back the latch and stepped back a half-dozen very large paces. "It's open, my lord."

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

Alina crossed her arms protectively over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Just in case he became "maddened by l.u.s.t," as Tatiana had said men were p.r.o.ne to do at the drop of a hat.

"My, aren't you a picture," the baron said, bowing to her before advancing toward her, daring to lift the single thick braid that hung down over her crossed arms. "I had a mare once whose tail was so long and fine that my groom enjoyed braiding it this way. It looks better on you," he added as he dropped the braid, so that she quickly gave her head a flip, sending the thing flying behind her back.

"I'm not a mare, my lord," Alina told him, knowing that, in many ways, she was. A broodmare...with an ermine-tipped velvet cloak.

He tilted his head to one side and looked at her more closely. "No, of course you're not. Is there something amiss, my lady? Have I made you nervous? I promise you, that was not my intent in coming here."

"Then what is your intent, my lord?"

Something was happening to her. He was looking at her in the strangest and most intense way, and something was happening to her. She was becoming curiously aware of her body, parts of it that had never before bothered to bring themselves to her attention. And hadn't they taken a fine time to wake up and say h.e.l.lo!

Alina hastened to the chair Tatiana had been sitting in an hour earlier. The winegla.s.s she'd refilled three times during the course of their discussion was still on the table beside it, still with half its contents. She picked it up and drained it, suppressing a shiver as her first taste of unwatered wine served to make her feel warm from her tongue straight down to the bottom of her belly.