"So Dain gave you all a show, I hear," said Beaumont, after the tavern maid had filled their glasses. "Terrified the minister. Laughed when the bride vowed to obey. And nearly broke her jaw kissing her."

Vawtry frowned. "I was sure Dain would drag it out to the last minute, then loudly announce, 'I don't.' And laugh and stroll out the way he came."

"You assumed he would treat her as he did other women," said Beaumont. "You forgot, apparently, that all the other women had been tarts, and that, in Dain's aristocratic dictionary, the tarts are mere peasant wenches, to be tumbled and forgotten. Miss Trent, however, is a gently bred maiden. Completely different situation, Vawtry. I do wish you'd seen."

Vawtry saw now. And now it seemed so obvious, he couldn't believe he hadn't worked it out for himself ages ago. A lady. A different species altogether.

"If I had seen, you would be out three hundred quid at present," he said, his voice light, his heart heavy.

Beaumont picked up his glass and studied it before taking a cautious sip. "Drinkable," he said, "but just barely."

Vawtry took a very long swallow from his own glass.

"Perhaps what I actually wish," Beaumont went on, after a moment, "is that I'd known the facts. Matters would be so different now."

He frowned down at the table. "If I'd known the truth then, I might at least have dropped a hint to you. But I didn't know, because my wife tells me nothing. I truly believed, you see, that Miss Trent was penniless. Right up until last night, when an artist friend who does sketches for Christie's corrected my misapprehension."

Mr. Vawtry eyed his friend uneasily. "What do you mean? Everyone knows Bertie Trent's sister hadn't a feather to fly with, thanks to him."

Beaumont glanced about. Then, leaning over the table, he spoke in lower tones. "You recall the moldering little picture Dain told us about? The one the wench got for ten sous from Champtois?"

Vawtry nodded.

"Turned out to be a Russian icon, and one of the finest and most unusual works of the Stroganov school in existence."

Vawtry looked at him blankly.

"Late sixteenth century," Beaumont explained. "Icon workshop opened by the Stroganov family, Russian nobility. The artists made miniatures for domestic use. Very delicate, painstaking work. Costly materials. Highly prized these days. Hers is done with gold leaf. The frame is gold, set with precious gems."

"Obviously worth more than ten sous," Vawtry said, trying to keep his tone casual. "Dain did say she was shrewd." He emptied his glass in two swallows and refilled it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the tavern maid approaching with their meal. He wished she'd hurry. He didn't want to hear any more.

"Value, of course, is in the eye of the beholder," Beaumont went on. "I'd put it at a minimum of fifteen hundred pounds. At auction, several times that, very likely. But I know of at least one Russian who'd sell his firstborn to have it. Ten, possibly twenty thousand."

Lady Granville, daughter of the Duke of Sutherland, one of the richest men in England, had brought her husband a dowry of twenty thousand pounds.

Such women, the daughters of peers, were far beyond Mr. Vawtry's reach, along with their immense dowries. Miss Trent, on the other hand, the daughter of an insignificant baronet, belonged to the same class of country gentry as Mr. Vawtry himself.

He saw now that he'd had a perfect opportunity to cultivate her, after Dain had publicly insulted and humiliated her. She had been vulnerable then. Instead of merely handing her his coat, Vawtry might have enacted the role of chivalrous knight. He might, in that case, have stood before the preacher with her this very day.

Then the icon would have been his, and clever Beaumont could have helped him turn it into ready money...ready to be invested. Roland Vawtry could have settled down with a pretty enough wife, and lived in tranquil comfort, no longer dependent on Dame Fortune- or, more to the point, the whims of the Marquess of Dain.

Instead, Roland Vawtry was five thousand pounds in debt. Though this was not very much by some people's standards, by his, it might have been millions. He was not concerned about the tradesmen he owed, but he was deeply anxious about the notes of hand he'd given his friends. If he did not make good on them very soon, he would not have any friends. A gentleman who failed to pay debts of honor ceased being deemed a gentleman. That prospect was even more harrowing to him than the threat of moneylenders, sponging houses, or debtors' prison.

He viewed his situation as desperate.

Certain people could have told him that Francis Beaumont could detect another's desperation at twenty paces, and took great personal pleasure in exacerbating it. But those wise persons were not about, and Vawtry was not an overly intelligent fellow.

Consequently, by the time they'd finished their meal and emptied half a dozen bottles of the barely drinkable wine, Mr. Beaumont had dug his pit, and Mr. Vawtry had obligingly toppled head-first into it.

At about the time Roland Vawtry was tumbling into a pit, the new Marchioness of Dain's hind-quarters were showing symptoms of rigor mortis.

She sat with her spouse in the elegant black traveling chariot in which they'd been riding since one o'clock in the afternoon, when they'd left their guests at the wedding breakfast.

For a man who viewed marriage and respectable company with unmitigated contempt and disgust, he had behaved with amazing good humor. In fact, he had seemed to find the proceedings infinitely amusing. Three times he'd asked the trembling minister to speak up, so that the audience didn't miss anything. Dain had also thought it a great joke to make a circus performance of kissing his bride. It was a wonder he hadn't thrown her over his shoulder and carried her out of the church like a sack of potatoes.

If he had, Jessica thought wryly, he would have still managed to look every inch the aristocrat. Or monarch was more like it. She had learned that Dain had an exceedingly high opinion of his consequence, in which the standard order of precedence played no role whatsoever.

He'd made his views very clear to her aunt, not long after he'd given Jessica the heartachingly beautiful betrothal ring. After taking Jessica home and spending an hour with her in the parlor, perusing her lists and menus and other wedding annoyances, he'd sent her away and had a private conversation with Aunt Louisa. He'd explained how the future Marchioness of Dain was to be treated. It was simple enough.

Jessica was not to be pestered and she was not to be contradicted. She answered to nobody but Dain, and he answered to nobody but the king, and then only if he was in the mood.

The next day, Dain's private secretary had arrived with a brace of servants and taken over. After that, all Jessica had had to do was give an occasional order and accustom herself to being treated like an exceedingly precious and delicate, all-wise and altogether perfect princess.

Not by her husband, though.

They had been traveling for more than eight hours, and though they stopped frequently to change horses, that was for not a second more than the one to two minutes it took to make the change. At Bagshot, at about four o'clock, she'd needed to use the privy. She'd returned to find Dain pacing impatiently by the carriage, pocket watch in hand. He had strongly objected to her taking five times longer to answer nature's call than the stablemen did to unhitch four horses and hitch up four fresh ones.

"All a male need do," she'd told him patiently, "is unfasten his trouser buttons and aim somewhere, and it's done. I am a female, however, and neither my plumbing nor my garments are so accommodating."

He had laughed and stuffed her into the carriage and told her she was an infernal bother, but she was born that way, wasn't she?- being born female. Nonetheless, the second time she'd needed to relieve herself, a few miles back at Andover, he'd grumblingly told her to take her time. She'd returned to find him patiently sipping a tankard of ale. He had laughingly offered her a sip, and laughed harder when she drained the quarter pint he'd left.

"That was a mistake," he'd said when they were once more upon the road. "Now you'll be wanting to stop at every necessary from here to Amesbury."

That had led to a series of privy and chamber pot jokes. Jessica had never before understood why men found those sorts of anecdotes so gut-busting hilarious. She had moments ago discovered that they could be funny enough if related by an evilly clever storyteller.

She was at present recovering from an altogether immature fit of whooping laughter.

Dain was lounging back in the seat, which, as usual, he took up most of. His half-closed eyes were crinkled up at the corners and his hard mouth had curved into an endearingly crooked smile.

She wanted to be vexed with him for making her laugh so intemperately at the crass, puerile story. She couldn't be. He looked so adorably pleased with himself.

She was in a sorry case, to find Beelzebub adorable, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to crawl into his lap and cover his wicked countenance with kisses.

He caught her studying him. She hoped she didn't look as besotted as she felt.

"Are you uncomfortable?" he asked.

"My backside and limbs have fallen asleep," she said, shifting her position a fraction away. Not that one could get away, even in this coach, which was roomier than his curricle. There was still only one seat, and there was a great deal of him. But the air had cooled considerably with evening, and he was very warm.

"You should have asked to step out to stretch your limbs when we stopped at Weyhill," he said. "We shan't stop again until Amesbury."

"I scarcely noticed Weyhill," she said. "You were telling one of the most moronic anecdotes I'd ever heard."

"Had it been less moronic, the joke would have gone over your head," he said. "You laughed hard enough."

"I didn't want to hurt your feelings," she said. "I thought you were trying to impress me by displaying the uppermost limits of your intellect."

He turned an evil grin upon her. "When I set out to impress you, my lady, believe me, intellect will have nothing to do with it."

She met his gaze stoically, while her insides went into a feverish flurry. "You are referring to the wedding night, no doubt," she said composedly. "The 'breeding rights' for which you've paid so extortionate a price. Well, it will be easy enough to impress me, since you're an expert and I have never done it, even once."

His grin faltered a bit. "Still, you know all about it. You weren't in the least puzzled by what the lady and gentleman in your grandmama's pocket watch were doing. And you seem to have an excellent notion of the services the tarts are employed to perform."

"There is a difference between intellectual knowledge and practical experience," she said. "I will admit I'm a trifle anxious in the latter regard. Yet you are not at all inhibited, and so I am sure you will not be shy about instructing me."

Jessica hoped he wouldn't be too impatient to do so. She was a quick learner, and she was sure she could discover how to please him in a relatively short time. If he gave her the chance. That was all she was truly worried about. He was used to professionals who were trained to satisfy. He might easily become bored and irritated with her ignorance, and abandon her for women who were less...bother.

She knew he was taking her to Devon with the intention of leaving her there when he'd had his fill of her.

She knew she was asking for heartache to hope and try for more.

Most of the world- all but a handful of the wedding guests, certainly- viewed him as a monster, and her marriage to the Bane and Blight of the Ballisters as a narrow notch above a death sentence. But he was not a monster when he held her in his arms. And so Jessica couldn't stop herself from hoping for more of that, at least. And hoping, she was determined to try.

His gaze had slid away. He was rubbing his thumb over his knee, and frowning at it as though a wrinkle had had the audacity to appear in his trousers.

"I think we'd better continue this discussion later," he said. "I had not...Gad, I should think it was simple enough. It's not as though you're competing at university for a first in Classics or Mathematics."

Only for first in his black heart, she thought.

"When I do something, I want to do it well," she said. "Actually, I always want to be the best. I am terribly competitive, you see. Perhaps it comes of having to manage so many boys. I had to beat my brother and cousins at everything, including sports, or they wouldn't respect me."

He looked up- not at her, but at the coach window. "Amesbury," he said. "About bloody time, too. I'm starving."

What the Bane and Blight of the Ballisters was, at the moment, was terrified.

Of his wedding night.

Now, when it was too late, he saw his mistake.

Yes, he knew Jessica was a virgin. He could hardly forget it, when that had been one of the most mortifying aspects of the entire situation: one of Europe's greatest debauchees mindless with lust for a slip of an English spinster.

He had known she was a virgin just as he had known her eyes were the color of a Dartmoor mist, and as changeable as the atmosphere of those treacherous expanses. He knew it in the same way he knew her hair was silken jet and her skin was creamy velvet. He'd known it, and the knowing was sweet, when he'd looked down at his bride as they stood before the minister. She'd worn a silver-grey gown and a faint pink had glowed in her cheeks, and she was not only the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen, but she was pure as well. He had known no other man had possessed her, that she was his and his alone.

He had also known he would bed her. He'd dreamt of it long and often enough. Moreover, having waited what seemed like six or seven eternities, he had made up his mind to do it properly, in a luxurious inn, in a big, comfortable bed with clean linens, after a well-prepared supper and a few glasses of good wine.

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, pure wife 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. "The lady happens to be my lady."

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?"