"Your happiness also mattered, Victoria."

Tory made no reply. Her heart was beating too hard, her nerves stretched too thin.

"The truth is, I wanted to marry you. In fact, I was determined to have you. At the time I refused to admit it to myself, but taking your innocence onboard the ship merely gave me the excuse I needed to wed the woman I wanted for my wife."

Something was happening inside her. She couldn't seem to get enough air into her lungs. "But you...you wanted to marry an heiress."

"There was a time I believed that sort of marriage was important. I thought I owed it to my father to increase our family's wealth. It didn't take long to discover it really didn't matter."

"But-"

"Hear me out, Victoria...please. I have the courage to say this only once." His eyes found hers and there was so much turmoil in them, she wanted to reach out and touch him.

"In life, sometimes people make mistakes. I made a very big mistake in the way I treated you after we were wed. I should have spent time with you. I should have showered you with flowers, bought you expensive gifts. b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l-I should have given you anything you wanted."

Her throat was aching. She was going to weep any moment. "I didn't want gifts. I only wanted you, Cord."

Cord looked away, then seemed to collect himself. "Last week onboard the ship, you asked me to stay with you in your cabin. You gave yourself to me as you did before we were wed. Since my injury, you have shown great care of me, and obvious concern. And so there is a question I must ask. I need to know if what happened between you and Fox was also a mistake, or if he is truly the man who will make you happy."

The ache built until she couldn't swallow. "I don't love Julian. I never did."

"And what feelings do you carry for me?"

What feelings? She was in love with him. Desperately, heartbreakingly in love with him, and she always would be.

She took a shaky breath. Cord said he had made a mistake. Dear G.o.d, she had made mistakes, too. Conspiring with Julian had been a terrible mistake.

And now she knew that her husband had wanted to marry her. Her-not an heiress or anyone else.

"I love you, Cord," she said softly. "I only wanted you to make time for me. Julian and I, we never-"

"Listen to me, Victoria. What happened between you and Fox is past. The future is all that matters. What I need to know is if you wish to make a future with me- or with Julian Fox?"

Blessed G.o.d! How could he think she would ever choose Julian over him? How could he not look at her and see the love for him that was there in her eyes?

"I love you," she repeated, praying she could make him see. "The thought of losing you is tearing me apart."

Cord maintained his carefully controlled expression.

"Then you are willing to give up Fox? You will never see the man again?"

She couldn't find her voice. He was willing to continue their marriage even though he believed she had betrayed him.

"Please, Cord, you have to believe me-Julian and I were never-"

"Don't say it! Don't say another word about that man. I don't want to hear Fox's name in this house again. I want your answer, Victoria. If we're going to continue this marriage, I want your vow of fidelity. I want you to cleave to me and only to me."

Her eyes welled with tears. "We were pretending," she whispered. "It never really happened."

His handsome face hardened. It was clear he didn't believe her. Rising from the sofa, he started to walk away and her aching heart painfully twisted. He didn't feel trapped into the marriage. He wanted her to remain his wife.

And if he felt that way, there was a chance he might come to love her.

He was almost to the door when she finally grabbed hold of her courage, the tears in her voice freezing him where he stood.

"I swear to you that I will forever be faithful. I will cleave to you and no other. I will bear your children and love you for all the days of my life. This I pledge on my life-on my sister's life-on everything that I hold dear." Tears spilled down her cheeks. "You are the only man I want, Cord. The only man I have ever wanted."

He turned toward her. She yearned to know his thoughts, but his expression remained carefully guarded. She wanted to go to him, wanted to throw herself into his arms, but it could not be. Not yet.

"We'll start over," he said softly, "begin as we should have done before."

"Yes..." she said, aching for him, loving him more than she ever had before.

And silently she vowed she would find a way to prove that she had never betrayed him with Julian Fox.

Feeling an unsettling mix of emotions, Cord left the house. Giving his coachman instructions to take him to Sheffield House, he settled himself in the carriage and leaned his head back against the seat.

He was still a little shaky, but his wound was healing and he was beginning to recover his strength. He hoped Ethan was recovering, as well.

Leaving Berkeley Square, the carriage rumbled through Mayfair, making its way beneath leafless trees, the wind kicking up dust and leaves on the street beneath the spinning wheels. Cord watched the blur of activity outside the window, but his mind was fixed on Victoria.

He had meant to tell her he loved her. In the end, he found that he could not.

It had taken all his courage to expose his feelings for her, to humble himself enough to admit his mistakes and ask her to remain his wife. In return, she had told him that she loved him and vowed life-long fidelity.

He wanted to believe her. He prayed she was speaking the truth. But trust wasn't something a man could summon at will, and her betrayal was too recent, too raw.

Time would prove the truth of her words. She loved him or she did not. She would be faithful or she would not.

In that regard, he had meant what he had said. What had happened with Fox was in the past. Cord had slept with more women than he could count. He could scarcely condemn the innocent young wife he had unthinkingly thrown to the wolves.

He had made any number of mistakes and he meant to repair the damage.

And he prayed Julian Fox would stay in York until his mission was complete.

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Cord climbed the front porch stairs of the duke of Sheffield's palatial mansion and lifted the heavy bra.s.s knocker, anxious to see Ethan, worried about him, still uncertain how he had fared after his lengthy ordeal.

Following the butler into the Club Room, an intimate salon done in dark green and heavy oak, Cord turned as Ethan walked in, pausing just inside the doorway, neither man knowing exactly what to say. So much had happened. The war had changed so much between them. His cousin seemed a completely different person, and Cord could see he wasn't ready to accept the cousinly hug Cord desperately wanted to give him.

Cord managed a smile. "You're beginning to look yourself again. I am glad to see your health is improving." Cord was grateful to see the dark hollows gone from beneath his friend's light blue eyes. Still, he looked thin and pale, especially with his hair shorn, his skin lacking the tanned, robust quality it usually carried.

"And you are back on your feet."

"Yes. Thanks to G.o.d-and to my wife." Both men were physically healing, but Cord thought that emotionally his cousin had a long way to go before he was back to the man he had been before he'd been thrown into prison.

Ethan crossed the room to the sideboard, a noticeable limp in his left leg. "Brandy?" He lifted the stopper off a crystal decanter filled with burnished liquid.

"None for me," Cord said, already beginning to tire as he sank down into an overstuffed chair. "I've a good bit yet to do this afternoon."

"Still working as hard as ever, I imagine."

"Actually, I've decided to slow down a bit. It's time I began to enjoy life again."

One of Ethan's black eyebrows went up. "I'll believe that when I see it."

"It's a long story. Suffice it to say sometimes there are more important things than making money."

"You're speaking of your wife...the lovely lady who proved so useful in getting me out of prison. There aren't many women who would risk themselves for a man they didn't even know."

"Victoria has always been a woman of exceptional courage."

"I look forward to meeting her. I'd like to thank her in person."

"What happened out there, Ethan? No one really seems to know."

Ethan took a long drink of his brandy. "To put it bluntly-we were betrayed. There is a traitor among us, Cord, and I mean to discover who it is." His long, tapered fingers tightened around the gla.s.s. "And when I do, I am going to make him pay."

"Do you have any idea who he is?"

"Not yet. But now that I am a marquess, my resources are nearly unlimited. I'll find him. When I do, I'm going to kill him."

A finger of ice slipped down Cord's spine. Ethan wasn't a man to make idle threats. He wanted vengeance, and Cord didn't blame him. If he had been locked up, tortured, and beaten for nearly a year, he would feel exactly the same.

"If there is anything I can do to help, let me know." Cord rose from the chair, his strength waning, not nearly as recovered as he had hoped.

"You've already done enough," Ethan said as he approached. For the first time he seemed to let his guard down, resting a hand on Cord's shoulder. "If it hadn't been for you," he said softly, "I would have died in that prison. You're the best friend a man could ever have."

For an instant, the men embraced, both knowing how close each had come to dying.

"I'm glad you're home," Cord said gruffly as they broke away. "I know Sarah is, too."

He nodded. "She and her family are due at the town house this afternoon. Which I suppose is mine now, along with everything else."

"She refused to stay there until you were safely returned."

"I can't say I'm looking forward to all of that crying and female carrying on, but I will be sorely glad to see her, and Jonathan and Teddy, of course. Sheffield has been an excellent host, but I shall be very glad to be sleeping once more in a bed of my own."

"I imagine you will."

"Why don't you and Victoria join us for supper? I know Sarah would like it."

Cord smiled. "So would I. And you can finally meet my wife."

He found himself wondering what Victoria would think of Ethan. His cousin had changed so much in the year he'd been imprisoned. He had always been intrigued by danger, facing it with a kind of reckless abandon. But he had also been a man who laughed often and found great joy in life.

He was more cautious now, more withdrawn. He hadn't smiled once since Cord's arrival. Ethan was just twenty-eight. Cord hoped, in time, he would return to the high-spirited man he had been before.

Limping a little, leaning on his silver-headed cane, Ethan headed upstairs to pack and leave for his town house. The leg injury was permanent, the doctor had said, a result of a beating he had received from one of the guards, though in time, the limp would lessen.

As Ethan disappeared up the stairs, Cord went in search of Rafe, uncertain what his friend would say to his reconciliation with Victoria.

"I have always admired your wife in a number of ways," Rafe said, surprising him. "She is smart and courageous and protective of those she cares about. As you say, sometimes people make mistakes. I don't think I could be as forgiving as you, should the lady belong to me, but I am happy for the two of you. I hope this time things work out."

So did he, Cord thought. But it would take time to know for certain. Perhaps even years.

It wasn't a comforting thought.

Cord was living in the house, and though he hadn't come to Tory's bed, he had kept his word and spent a good deal of time with her. It was obvious he wanted to be the sort of husband he believed he should have been before.

He wanted to make things right between them this time round, and it broke Tory's heart to think that he still believed she had betrayed him with Julian Fox.

She considered writing her friend a letter, asking him to send a message to Cord explaining that nothing untoward had ever occurred between them. But she didn't think Cord would believe anything Julian had to say, and any sort of correspondence might only make things worse.

For the present, she was forced to let the matter lie, though it was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do.

"All you have to do is wait," Claire said during one of her morning visits. "Give him time to see how much you love him. It is obvious that he loves you. No man would forgive so terrible a thing if he did not."

"But I didn't do anything!"

"No, but he thinks you did and he loves you still. In a way it is very romantic."

Tory had no idea what Cord's feelings for her might be, but she knew that she loved him and she was enjoying the time he spent with her, something he had rarely done before. Escorting her round London, he accompanied her to the opera, the theater, and took her shopping in Bond Street.

Cord lavished her with gowns and gloves and bonnets, purchased skimpy silk lingerie she was embarra.s.sed to carry out of the shop yet yearned to wear for him. He bought her exotic perfume and hand-painted fans and a dozen pairs of kidskin slippers, even her own personal carriage. And there was the jewelry: a lovely sapphire brooch, a pair of garnet earrings, a diamond-and-emerald ring so big it dwarfed her hand.

"It belonged to my mother," he said a little gruffly. "She was larger than you. We'll have to have it sized."

Still, her favorite gift remained the exquisite Bride's Necklace he had given her on the day they were wed. Whenever she put it on, she felt an odd sort of comfort, a serenity that helped to ease her troubled thoughts.

She wore the necklace the evening they joined Cord's family for dinner at the marquess of Belford's town house, though secretly she still thought of the man as Captain Ethan Sharpe.

Tory wasn't sure what to make of him. As the flesh returned to his lanky frame, he grew more and more handsome. But he was cool and remote, a little too quiet and often forbidding, his pale eyes somehow disturbing. She knew he had suffered and that he was bent on revenge for what had happened to him and his men.

She hoped, for Cord and Sarah's sake, that in time, the marquess would give up the notion.

In the meantime, she focused her attention on her husband. She worried about the injury he had suffered, knowing that it often still pained him, but he seemed determined to ignore it.

Tonight they were attending a soiree at the duke of Tarrington's mansion. They waltzed together as they had never done before, and every time his tawny gaze touched her, warm color rushed into her cheeks.

She knew that look. He wanted her. And yet he denied himself, denied both of them. He was giving her time, letting her set the pace. He wrongly believed she had made love with another man and undoubtedly that was the reason.