"Understand what? Sophy, listen to me—"

"I think it would be better if we did not discuss this further. I spoke too quickly, without thinking." Her head shifted restlessly on the pillow. "It must be very late."

He groaned but accepted the reprieve eagerly. "Yes, very late." He rolled reluctantly off of her onto his back, letting his hand slide possessively along the curve of her hip.

"Julian?"

"What is it, Sophy?"

"Should you not be going back to your own room?"

That startled him. "I had not planned on it," he said roughly.

"I'd rather you did," Sophy said very quietly.

"Why is that?" Irritation brought him up on his elbow. He had been intending to spend the night in her bed.

"You did the last time."

Only because he had known that if he had stayed with her that first time he would have made love to her a second time and she had been sore and he had not wanted her to think him a rutting bull. He had wanted to show some consideration for the discomfort she had experienced that first night. "That does not mean I intend to return to my own room every time we make love."

"Oh." In the candlelight she looked strangely disconcerted. "I would prefer some privacy tonight, Julian. Please. I must insist."

"Ah, I believe I am beginning to understand," Julian said grimly as he shoved back the covers. "You are insisting on your privacy because you did not like my lack of response to your question a moment ago. I would not let you manipulate me into giving you endless pledges of undying love so you have decided to punish me in your own womanly way."

"No, Julian, that is not true."

He paid no attention to the entreaty in her voice. Stalking across the room, he snatched up his dressing gown and went to the connecting door. Then he stopped and swung around to glower at her. "While you are lying there in your lonely bed enjoying your privacy, think about the pleasure we could be giving each other. There is no law that states a man and a woman can only do it once a night, my dear."

He went through the door and closed it behind himself with a loud crack that emphasized his frustration and annoyance. Damn the little chit. Who did she think she was trying to force his hand that way? And what made her think she could get away with it? He'd had experience dealing with manipulative females who had far more talent in that direction than Sophy ever would.

Sophy's paltry attempts to control him with sex made him want to laugh. If he had not been so damnably furious with her, he would have laughed.

She was a silly, green girl in such matters even if she was twenty-three years old. Elizabeth had been older and wiser in the ways of manipulating a man when she had emerged from the schoolroom than Sophy would be when she was fifty.

Julian tossed the dressing gown across a chair and threw himself down onto the bed. Arms folded behind his head, he lay staring up at the darkened ceiling, hoping Sophy was already regretting her hasty action. If she thought she could punish him and thus bring him to heel with such simple tactics, she was sadly mistaken. He had fought far more subtle, far more strategically complex battles.

But Sophy was not Elizabeth and never would be. And Sophy had a reason to fear seduction. He also suspected that his new wife had a streak of the romantic in her soul.

Julian groaned and massaged his eyes as his temper began to cool. Perhaps he owed his wife the benefit of a doubt. It was true she had tried to coax him into vowing his love for her but it was equally true that she had a valid reason for fearing a passion that was not labeled love.

In Sophy's limited experience the only alternative to love was the sort of cruel, heartless seduction that had gotten her sister pregnant. Sophy would naturally want some assurance she was not being subjected to the latter. She would want to believe she was loved so she would not have to fear following in her sister's footsteps.

But she was a married woman sharing a bed with her lawful husband, Julian reminded himself angrily. She had no reason to fear being abandoned in her sister's condition. Hell, he wanted an heir—needed one. The last thing he was likely to do was cast her off if she got herself pregnant with his child.

Sophy had both the protection of the law and the Earl of Ravenwood's personal vow to protect and care for her. To go about in terror of her sister's fate was to indulge in a great deal of feminine nonsense and Julian decided he would not tolerate it. He must make her see there was no parallel between her sister's fate and her own.

Because he definitely did not want to spend many more nights alone in his own bed.

Julian did not know how long he lay there plotting how best to teach his wife the lesson he wanted her to learn but at some point he finally dozed off. His sleep was restless, however, and hours later the sound of Sophy's door closing softly in the hall jarred him from a light slumber.

He stirred, wondering if it was already time to rise. But when he opened one eye and glared balefully at the window he could tell it was still dark behind the curtains.

Nobody, not even Sophy, rose to ride at dawn in London. Julian turned over and told himself to go back to sleep. But some instinct kept him from dozing off again. He wondered who had opened Sophy's door at this ungodly hour.

Finally, unable to withstand the curiosity that was growing quickly within him, Julian climbed out of bed and went to the connecting door. He opened it quietly.

It took him a few seconds to realize that Sophy's bed was empty. Even as he was reaching that conclusion he heard the faint rattle of carriage wheels in the street outside the window. As he listened, the vehicle came to a halt.

A jolt of irrational but violent fear went through him.

Julian leapt for the window, tearing aside the curtains just in time to see a familiar slender figure dressed in a pair of men's breeches and a shirt jump into the closed carriage. Sophy's tawny hair was bound up in a severe coil under a veiled hat. She was carrying a wooden case in one hand. The driver, a slim, red-haired lad dressed in black, clucked to the horses and the carriage moved swiftly away down the street.

"Damn you, Sophy." Julian's fingers clenched so fiercely into the curtains that he nearly ripped them from the rod. "God damn you to hell, you bitch."

I love you. Do you love me, Julian?

Sweet, lying bitch. "You're mine," he hissed through his teeth. "You are mine and I will see you in hell before I let you go to another."

Julian dropped the curtains and raced into his own room, snatching up a shirt and pulling on a pair of breeches. He grabbed his boots and ran out into the hall. At the foot of the staircase he paused long enough to pull on the tight leather riding boots and then he started for the servants' entrance. He would have to get a horse from the stables and he would have to hurry if he was not to lose sight of the carriage.

At the last moment he swung around and dashed back toward the library. He would need a weapon. He intended to kill whoever had taken Sophy away. And after that he would consider well what to do with his lying, deceitful wife. If she thought he would tolerate from her what he had tolerated from Elizabeth she was in for a great revelation.

The pistols were gone from the wall.

Julian barely had time to register that fact when he heard the sound of a horse's hooves in the street. He ran for the front door, throwing it open just as a woman dressed in black and wearing a black veil started to alight from a tall, gray gelding. He saw that she had ridden astride, not sidesaddle.

"Oh, thank God, " the woman said, clearly startled at the sight of him in the doorway. "I was afraid I would have to awaken the entire household to get to you. Much better this way. Perhaps a scandal can be avoided after all. They have gone to Leighton Field."