The ring was very pretty, the kind of gift a man gave his wife, not his mistress. A pearl was a symbol of purity, but Caroline was most a.s.suredly not pure. However, the halo of diamonds surrounding it glittered in the early morning sunlight, adding a touch of refreshing wickedness set in gold. The pearl was Caroline's June birthstone, although Edward certainly never wished her a happy birthday on June 14, if he even remembered. Celebration was to be avoided entirely. Caroline's birthday was irretrievably bound with the date she lost Edward's trust for good.

In sleep he appeared trusting, as innocent as his son Neddie-now called Ned, all grown up. Caroline wondered what Jack and Allie looked like. Five years was an eternity in a child's life. She might not recognize either of them, although they were destined to be tall and loose-limbed, the Christie countenance. But judging from Ned, the Christie composure might not have taken root quite yet.

She had tried her best with the children. The boys mainly ignored her but Allie viewed her as an interloper, although the girl had no memory of her mother. Caroline sympathized. Her own mother had died when she was born, and her father had never been up to the task of raising three children alone. Her childhood was so free of restrictions and restraint it had been hard to find her footing. In the end, she slipped and tumbled onto Jane Street.

Edward had not given her a reason for his sudden appearance yesterday, but if Garrett was right with the latest gossip, Parliament would not be recessing after all-which meant that Edward was not retiring to Christie Park. Perhaps the pearl ring was a good-bye gift. He could not expect to conduct their affair indefinitely. Caroline's lips curved. Could one have an affair with one's husband? Apparently so.

She eased out of bed to go to her dressing room, careful not to disturb him. Once she relieved herself and cleaned her teeth, she came back wearing a sheer peach peignoir and a cloud of perfume. Her hair seemed hopeless, but she sat at the dressing table and attacked it anyway, the brush crackling through its coppery ma.s.s. If Edward was to take his leave of her, she wished to appear so perfect it would pain him to do so.

If he left, she could write to her heart's content, never worry about interruptions. It would not be as much fun to wear her red dresses without his glare of approbation, but that was a small sacrifice. She looked her best in Madame Dulac's creations and could impress some other man.

As if she wanted to.

"Good morning. What are you doing so far away?" Caroline glanced over her shoulder. Edward was stretching his long arms, a boyish smile on his face. He looked too relaxed to be giving her a farewell speech.

"Brushing my hair, and from the looks of things, I should brush yours, too."

One hand went to his head, sweeping his dark hair back over his forehead. "There. Am I presentable?"

"Very nearly." Caroline got up, taking the brush with her. She raised it over Edward's head, but his hand encircled her wrist.

"I have a better idea."

Caroline noted the tenting sheet. "I can see that." She dropped the hairbrush on the bed and the peignoir to the floor.

He tugged her down gently to kiss her. His lips were soft and warm, his tongue dallying first at the corner of her mouth, then slipping within. To her disappointment, he broke the kiss before it had a chance to claim her.

"Umm. Toothpowder. Should I follow your example?"

Edward tasted delicious as usual. She shook her head. She couldn't put off her need of him. He made a thorough a.s.sault on her senses, probing deeper until she thought he might swallow her up for breakfast. While his tongue was busy, she felt the bristles of the hairbrush graze her back, stroking slowly on her sensitive skin. Each soft boar hair tickled its way down to the cleft of her bottom, then trailed up like a thousand feathers. Sinuous, then straight, then serpentine lines, designed to lull her like a pampered pet. Torn between total collapse and giggling flight, Caroline's decision was made for her as Edward flipped her to her back. She watched as he gazed down, fisting himself to spear into her. She was sure he had no thought of divorce, but of dominance. He was all stark male beauty, and she pretended she would belong to him forever.

There was no gradual entrance, but a pure instant, instinctive thrust. Edward's face was triumphant, not that she had put up any resistance whatsoever. She closed her eyes, afraid to fall deeper in love with her husband.

She didn't even know why she loved him. She hadn't meant to. He wasn't her type at all-not a teasing, playful bone in his long, upright body. Everything about Edward was upright. Tight. She'd chosen him for that very reason. They were supposed to have a marriage of convenience, but somehow pa.s.sion had overtaken good sense. Not that she had any. Edward was supposed to have enough good sense for both of them. He was a Christie, legendary for his control. You couldn't build a marriage on s.e.xual pleasure alone.

But how effortless it was to rise to meet him, to feel each stroke, to mold herself against him. She had not forgotten how good it was between them, even when she was full of inarticulate rage and he with chilly contempt. It was probably too late to have the conversation they should have had in the few days before their whirlwind wedding. Edward would never understand anyway. If anything, disclosure would only cement his determination to rid himself of her.

Even with those grim thoughts, her heart beat faster, her breath hitched, her skin heated. She had that peculiar sensation of her nose tingling into numbness, which always heralded her o.r.g.a.s.m. How Andrew had laughed and mocked her when she told him. She had never repeated the same mistake with Edward.

Her legs stiffened, toes curling in obligatory fashion, teeth clenched in pained ecstasy. Sensation ripped through her, wave after humbling wave, reminding her she was at Edward's mercy for the exquisite relief. He followed her soon after, flooding her. Her barrenness was a fact. There was no need for him to act the gentleman.

They lay entwined in exhaustion. He brushed the tear from her cheek. "Did I hurt you? I am not myself these days."

Caroline shook her head. He hurt her in ways she couldn't explain. "You will remember I urged you to indulge your carnal side. You are simply making up for lost time."

He rolled away, staring at the ceiling. Caroline could see the thoughts moving across his angular face; he had something of import to tell her. She braced herself for the unpleasant truth, pulling up the crumpled sheet to cover herself. To be miserable and naked in the bargain was nothing to aspire to.

"About this." He gestured at the s.p.a.ce between them. "I will be required to stay in town for the duration of the case against Queen Caroline. I know I had promised you a short-fling, if you will-before we parted ways for the summer."

"Before we parted ways forever," she reminded him.

"Yes. I do not wish to be unfair, to press you to accept a further a.s.sociation. I know I've been high-handed in this arrangement. You have obligations."

Ah, yes. Her busy life. Taking tea once a week with courtesans. Digging in her little patch of dirt in the back garden. Struggling over each and every word lately. Was there any point to telling him she was blocked in her writing? She found her characters needlessly frivolous and her villains far too predictable. The harlot would never find her husband at the rate she was going. And worse, the story she was writing for herself was turning into a tragedy with no happy ending in sight. The only thing she lived for were his visits. Lord, but she was a fool.

"Are we done then?" Her voice was surprisingly light.

Edward said nothing. She could not meet his eyes in the mirror above. The new clock ticked on the mantelpiece as the sunlight filtered through the blinds. Discreet movement was audible downstairs signaling the household had risen. Edward should go home to his children and his own obligations before she fell apart.

He cleared his throat. "Do you want us to be? I confess, I don't. But don't misunderstand. I have every intention of pursuing the dissolution of our marriage." His laugh was hollow. "I'm as despicable as those men you write about. I'm using you, Caro. There's absolutely no justification for what we've-for what I've-been doing. I'm betraying my principles. It's as though I've been bewitched again. I should know better."

Perfect, cruelly honest Edward. He'd never been able to dissemble. That was her forte.

"How you flatter me. Do you suppose I put something in your wine? Chanted a spell? Red hair was once a.s.sociated with witchcraft, you know."

"I'm serious, Caro. I despise myself for my weakness."

"Well, as long as you're not despising me." She sat up, hoping he would not admit that he did.

Her inner witch spun from vapor to solid form, compelling her to speak her mind for once. For one final time, because she was determined that they be done. It was far too late to change anything, to rea.s.semble the shattered trust of their marriage, but she needed to spare her heart. Each time she saw his face, she lost more than her ability with the written word. "Look, Edward, neither of us is dead yet. We are healthy, consenting adults. You need not feel any guilt for wanting to sleep with your legal wife. Once we're divorced, you'll probably take up a mistress, perhaps even turn up here now and then for old times' sake. I might not turn you away."

"Caro!"

"Oh, don't sound so shocked. I've no intention of spending the rest of my life denying my nature and living like a nun. I like s.e.x, Edward. No, I love it. I need it. I was corrupted at an early age. These past five years have been agony. Whether you believe me or not, there has been no other man since I spoke our wedding vows, but I mean to change that."

There. She'd said it. It couldn't be plainer. She had finally answered his question. She had never ever meant to revisit that long-ago afternoon, but at least she wasn't begging him to forgive her. She watched him pale in the mirror. "That's right. Although I have no doubt Andrew will happily cooperate with you for the criminal conversation portion of the divorce for the right price, he will be perjuring himself. What's one more lie to him if you pay him well?"

Edward's brows were lifted in disbelief. "I saw you with my own eyes."

"I know what you thought you saw. I don't blame you for leaping to conclusions. If you hadn't come in when you did-" She stopped. She would have slept with Andrew again. She might as well have. The results had turned out the same. She'd seen no other way out of her predicament then. If she hadn't actually sinned, she'd had l.u.s.t in her heart and the requisite guilt over it. "But you certainly have grounds for fraud. I was not a virgin when we married. Either way, you are right to seek an end to this farce."

"But-"

In just that one wavering word, Caroline heard the doubt in his voice. Fine, let him doubt. Let him think she was lying to him again. What did it matter? She retrieved the peach robe from the floor, wishing it were something boringly flannel which would cover her from head to toe instead of an insubstantial sc.r.a.p of wisp. Wrapping it as tightly as she could, she settled herself at her desk and picked up a pen.

"Go home, Edward. I'm tired already and the day has just begun. I think your little experiment has run its course, has it not? We are surely done with each other, whether you are ready or not. I'll expect to hear how the legalities are progressing. And thank you for the ring. It's lovely." Deliberately turning her back to him, she scratched out a few phrases in her notebook. She pretended indifference as he moved silently about the room. Only when she heard the door click shut did she give in to the tears that swam in her eyes, blurring the words before her.

Edward felt sh.e.l.l-shocked. While he had never served in the military, he'd heard enough from friends who, deep in their cups, finally revealed the grim reality of war's glory. He could barely put one foot in front of the other on his short walk home. To a pa.s.serby, he must resemble a man awakened too soon from a drunken evening. Instead, he was waking from five years of self-imposed delusion.

If what Caroline said was true, he could not possibly go through with the divorce. He'd been ready to lessen Rossiter's pain with an infusion of cash-the man couldn't afford the damages likely to be a.s.signed by a court. Edward had not thought of it as tampering, just ensuring the necessary first step of the entire procedure. Rossiter had an affair with his wife; he was guilty of alienating her affection, if she in fact had ever looked upon Edward with anything other than a naked desire for financial security. He had seen them in the most compromising of positions with his own eyes. He'd heard Rossiter's taunts with his own ears. He'd read every word of those d.a.m.ning letters, so many times whole pa.s.sages were forever emblazoned in his brain.

But if Caroline was innocent-oh, not innocent, she could never be that-but had not committed adultery then, he had no basis to divorce her. Their marriage had been consummated and he was certainly not impotent. He could have a hundred mistresses and Lady Justice would remove her blindfold to simply wink at him. It mattered only if a wife was unfaithful.

Edward couldn't go home. He stumbled past his street and hailed a pa.s.sing cab. It was much too early for Will to be at his chambers, so he gave the driver Will's home address and settled back into the dingy squabs. All his cautiously constructed plans for his future had just been razed. He was doomed to live in limbo until death claimed him. Feeling distinctly un-Christielike, he punched a fist into the seat, releasing a cloud of dust. What had Allie said just yesterday? All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. It was just happening for him sooner than he expected.

He paid the driver and climbed the stairs to Will's bachelor apartments. Sir William Maclean could have afforded a house anywhere in the city, but he was snug with his books and antiquities and comfortably looked after by a valet and a daily housekeeper. It was the immaculately turned-out valet, Arbuthnot, who opened the door to Edward's noisy pounding.

"Good morning, Lord Christie."

There was the faintest reproof in Arbuthnot's voice. Edward knew he looked unkempt and felt worse. "Good morning to you, Arbuthnot. I apologize for this early call. Is your master up yet?"

"He is taking his breakfast in the study. If you wait here, I shall see if Sir William will receive you."

Edward suppressed his frustration and cooled his heels in the foyer. A bust of Pericles sat on a round table, the statesman's marble eyes fixed on a painting of ancient Athens hanging on the wall opposite. Will had been to Greece recently, and had brought back as much of the country as he could pack in crates with him.

Arbuthnot returned. "If you will follow me, Lord Christie."

Edward needed no guide to navigate Will's rooms. Everything was located off a dark narrow hallway. He had spent enough evenings there in the past five years, and plenty before that. Will had been a friend for ages, a pillar of strength when Alice died, a sympathetic ear when Edward thought Caroline had betrayed him. The barrister had been begging him for a while to end his marriage legally, as distasteful as divorce was to both of them.

Arbuthnot paused before the open study door. "Shall I ask Mrs. Wallace to prepare you breakfast, Lord Christie? You look as though you might need some sustenance."

Eggs were insufficient for his current needs, but he nodded and went into the room. Large windows bathed the s.p.a.ce in light, causing the gilt letters on hundreds of books to twinkle and the coffee service to blind Edward with its gleam. He blinked owlishly at his friend, who was still in his striped satin dressing gown crunching a m.u.f.fin.

"Bad night?" Will asked, once he had swallowed.

Edward poured himself coffee in a spare cup. "The night was in fact excellent. It is the morning which is proving to be a challenge. How far along are you with the divorce proceedings?"

Will wrinkled his substantial nose. "I met with that blackguard Rossiter yesterday. An hour with him and I was forced to leave my chambers early to come home to take a bath. He was peculiarly gentlemanly on the subject of your estranged wife, but I'm sure he'll come round."

Edward took a sip of bitter coffee. It was only what he deserved. "What did he say?"

"Not a great deal. That he had known her since she was a child. And when he said 'known,' Edward, there was no mistaking he meant in the Biblical sense. But that was all. He sat silent throughout the rest of my proposal. Played with his hair, for G.o.d's sake. The man has more curls than all of Carracci's cherubs. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was flirting with me."

"There have been those rumors," Edward said, amused at the thought of his oldest friend's discomfort. If Will had not chosen the law, he would have made a perfectly terrifying fire-and-brimstone clergyman. Life was largely black and white to Sir William Maclean. Either something was good or it was evil. Rossiter clearly fell into the latter category.

Will shuddered. "I may be a confirmed bachelor, but not for that reason. Women are impossible to please in the long run-or perhaps I am. What's all this about, Edward? You look like the dog's dinner. Never say you've changed your mind about untangling yourself from that unsuitable woman. We've discussed it for five years."

"Yes, I know. But there's been a hitch. I've come to believe Caroline may not have had an affair after all."

Will dropped his fork with an alarming clink. "Are you mad? You saw them yourself. Oh my G.o.d. You've been seeing her again, haven't you? And not just on June fourteenth." He rose and began to pace the study, his eggs and ham abandoned on his plate, his finger pointing as if Edward sat on a jury. "I have told you from the first to cease from celebrating that foolish anniversary-it does no one any good. Now she's wormed her way back in. Don't you see, Edward? You've allowed yourself to be manipulated! She's an adventuress. Lord only knows what she was up to all that time in c.u.mbria. You know about her brother's life. Those house parties. No, no, man, I can't have you change your mind now! And there's Garrett Marburn as well. Wake up! "

Edward felt a p.r.i.c.kle of anger at Will's bluntness. His friend spoke with absolute conviction, but he didn't know Caroline. He had never liked her. Hadn't wiped regret from her cheek. Hadn't seen the slant of her shoulders and her defiant chin when she sent him away this morning.

"You know as well as I do, she had nothing whatever to do with her brother's business. That, at least, was one thing I investigated before I asked her to marry me. No one had ever laid eyes on her until the Huntingtons' ball. All I'm saying is that we may have been mistaken about Rossiter, not that I'm going to resume my marriage. You've nothing to fear there. It's quite hopeless."

Will stopped marching around and examined his embroidered slippers, the gift of some poor woman who had once hoped to become Lady Maclean by demonstrating her skill with a needle. Dragons done in the Chinese style looked particularly menacing on a foot Will's size. "Forgive me, Edward. I've overstepped my bounds. It's just that you are my oldest friend. I hate to see you the victim of deception. Is she denying they were ever intimate?"

Edward's jaw felt like a block of wood. It was more than difficult for him to have this conversation. "No. She did not go into detail, but it's clear they had a relationship prior to our marriage. One of long standing, not just a quick fling. Something went on after to be sure-Rossiter was in my house for a reason. He might have been using the letters to exert influence over her. I knew-well, never mind. It's to my shame I put up with her as long as I did. Things were wrong from the start."

After a discreet tap, Arbuthnot entered with a plate for Edward, then left, closing the door behind him. Edward wondered just how much the valet had overheard, but it was far too late to salvage his dignity. Will settled back down in the chair and fixed an eye on the steam rising from the heap of scrambled eggs and fresh gammon steak. "I say, my food's gone quite cold. You don't mind sharing, do you? Mrs. Wallace must think you're still a growing boy."

Edward pa.s.sed the plate across the table. "I haven't any appet.i.te anyway. Sorry to have disrupted your morning routine."

"Nonsense. I'll bill you for it." He grinned and sliced into the meat. "Rossiter can still be useful to us, I'm sure, if we want him to be. What about Marburn?"

Edward shook his head. "She says not."

"Edward, why are you suddenly so convinced of her virtue?"

"I don't know." By mutual agreement, he and Caroline had never discussed the details of the day he found her with Rossiter. She had too much pride to dignify his question with an answer, and he had too much pride to ask it again.

As Will ate his second breakfast, Edward got up and examined the volumes on the shelves, reflecting on the denouement of his marriage. He had come home to Kent unexpectedly, as Parliament was still in session. It was her birthday and he'd had an unaccountable itch for his wife-or perhaps a suspicion that something was afoot. Whatever had brought him home, his peace was most thoroughly shattered. Rossiter had been in her bedroom, for Christ's sake, and Caroline in his arms. She had been wearing that horrible poppycovered robe, its belt loose. Her hair had tumbled down over her shoulders, barely covering her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her lips were swollen from kisses, her eyes bright with tears. Guilt was written on every inch of her face when Edward walked in. Rossiter had smirked and began to recount the ways he knew Caroline far better than Edward did, than Edward ever would. To Edward's everlasting shame, he had stood still for all of it, kept his fists at his sides, his tongue between his teeth. When it was finally loosened, he had looked at Caroline with utter indifference and asked, "Have you wh.o.r.ed yourself out to anyone else?"

Caroline had turned away and gone to the window, her fingertips pressed white against the pane of gla.s.s. Alice's gardens were in bloom below. He had forbidden Caroline from making any alterations, planting anything new, cutting so much as a blade of gra.s.s. Perhaps he had not been wise there, setting her in the long shadow of his late wife. Even Allie had something to say about that the other day.

If Caroline had been ice until Rossiter slunk away, Edward was a glacier, immovable. Quite treacherous beneath the surface as well, planning how to make her suffer for her betrayal. She expressed no emotion as he divested himself of her until the very end of his chilly speech, and then it was an insincere and frankly unbelievable suggestion that they begin anew. As if forced tears and a half-swallowed sob would have any effect. Edward had her packed and thrown out of the house by sunset, banished to the dower house and away from the children until he could make other arrangements.

When he returned to London, he made a lucky purchase of the Jane Street house. Deeds pa.s.sed rarely and through exceptional circ.u.mstances. His luck was another's misfortune. Guy de Winter had been shot dead by his wife right in the bedroom of Number Seven, his mistress, too. Guy's young son was anxious to rid himself quickly of the reminder of his parents' foolishness, and Edward was at hand, seated opposite with a bottle of port and a sympathetic ear, trying to drown his own sorrows. If the new Lord de Winter had thought it odd the paragon of rect.i.tude and reason, Edward Christie, had need of a love nest, he did nothing but affix his name to a sales agreement.

De Winter's murder had resulted in the security detail that was to be found at the end of the street every evening, lest other wives become emboldened like poor, mad Eloise de Winter. Edward had thought Caroline safe and properly identified as the wh.o.r.e she was. He knew she had no choice but to live there-her cousin and his wife would never take her back, and she was absolutely penniless save for the few trinkets he'd purchased for her during their year of marriage. Jane Street had seemed heaven-sent, but now Edward wondered if he had not condemned his wife to her own little corner of h.e.l.l.

He realized after a moment that all sounds of chewing and chomping were over. Will was staring at him, avid speculation in his dark eyes. "So, sit back down, Edward. Another cup of coffee?"

Edward looked into what was left in his cup, half filled and cold like the current state of his heart. He shook his head.

"What do you want me to do? You know as well as I we can still proceed. With those letters and Rossiter's need for filthy lucre, we can cobble together enough of a case."

"It would be built on a lie."

"d.a.m.n it, man! Your marriage was built on a lie."

Caroline had never verbally claimed to be a virgin. h.e.l.l, they'd barely said any significant words between them before he s.n.a.t.c.hed her off the Marriage Mart and wed her by special license. He had felt rather heroic, rescuing her from the drudgery of the c.u.mbrian cousins. And smug, as his suit prospered over the salivating young bucks.

"I think it best to put everything on hold."

Will's saturnine face displayed his displeasure, but he voiced no objection.

"I'm sorry you had to endure that interview with Rossiter. Where did you find him?"

"At the Albany, if you can believe it. In one of their lesser sets, however. It's said very quietly that the Everdeens foot the bill. They claim him as a cousin of some sort." It was clear Will didn't believe any of that.

Edward tamped down his revulsion. George and Laura Everdeen were simply names to him, but if Rossiter was in their orbit, he wouldn't want their friendship. People who would tolerate his s.e.xual amorality- A cold chill descended upon him. Rossiter had lived with Nicky and Caroline Parker for years. Caroline had been seduced by him when she was barely out of the schoolroom. But what if she were not the only Parker under his spell? He tipped his coffee cup over in his haste to rise.

"What the devil's come over you?"

"Sorry, Will. I've got to go."

He found himself on the street again, the June sunlight filtering through a haze of coal smoke and clouds. London was a filthy place, and he was stuck there for the foreseeable future. But it would give him time to sort out what had really ruined his marriage. And if he couldn't talk to Caroline, he had an idea of who to ask.

Chapter 9.

The tabbies of the ton called him The Thief of Hearts, but in truth, he had not one of his own to steal.