Someone entered the dark-paneled library. Christian recognized the man instantly: Anthony Townsend. Her husband.
The years since his encounter with Mrs. Townsend had been a long tutorial in the frailer aspects of humanity. Until he’d met her, he’d not known envy, misery, or despair. Nor guilt, which pulsed through his veins at the sight of Townsend.
He’d never wished the man ill—and rarely ever thought of him as anything but an immovable object. But he’d lain with the man’s wife countless times in his mind. And if something were to befall Townsend, he’d be the first in line for an introduction to his widow.
Those were cause enough for Christian to drain his brandy and lay aside the paper, still crisp from its ironing. He rose to leave.
“I’ve seen you before,” Townsend said.
After a moment of paralysis, Christian said coldly, “I do not believe we have met.”
He did not quite share his ancestors’ reverence for the family heritage, but he was as unapproachable as any de Montfort who ever breathed.
Townsend, however, was undaunted. “I didn’t say we’ve met, but I know your face from somewhere. Yes, I remember now. Lord’s Cricket Ground, two years ago. You were in a Harrow striped cap, gawking at my wife.”
Christian’s reflection in a window, a stark etching of light against the dimness of the street beyond, showed a man stunned into stillness, as if he’d stared directly into Medusa’s face.
“I can’t remember what my maids look like, but I remember the faces of all the men who salivate after my wife.” Townsend’s tone was strangely listless, as if he was beyond caring.
Christian’s face burned, but he remained silent: No matter how vulgar it was to discuss one’s wife in this manner—and berate those who coveted her—Townsend was within his rights.
“You remind me of someone,” Townsend went on. “Are you related to the late Duke of Lexington?”
If Christian admitted his identity, would Townsend blacken his name before the missus? He watched his lips move in the window. “The late duke was my father.”
“Yes, of course. You’d be Lexington, then. She’d be thrilled to know that someone with your exalted stature considers her a prize.” Townsend chortled, a dry, humorless sound. “You may yet have your wish, Your Grace. But think twice. Or you may end up like me.”
This time Christian could not help his scorn. “Speaking to strangers about my wife, you mean? I don’t think so.”
“I didn’t think I’d be the sort, either,” Townsend shrugged. “Forgive me, sir, for detaining you with my unmanly bleating.”
He bowed. Christian returned a curt nod.
It was not until the next day that he wondered what Townsend had meant by “you may yet have your wish.”
Townsend’s obituary was in the paper within the week. Shocked, Christian made inquiries and learned that Townsend had been on the verge of bankruptcy. Moreover, he owed massive amounts to jewelers both in London and on the Continent. Had he been driven to accumulate those debts to keep his wife happy, so that her gaze would not stray to overeager admirers ready to step in with lavish gifts for her favors?
A year and a day after his death, Mrs. Townsend married again—a scandously early remarriage when the regulation mourning period was two years. Her new husband, a Mr. Easterbrook, was a wealthy man thirty years her senior. Soon came rumors of a rampant affair she conducted right under Mr. Easterbrook’s nose, with one of his best friends, no less.
Evidently Christian’s beloved was a shallow, greedy, selfish woman who injured and diminished those around her.
He forced himself to accept the truth.
It was not terribly difficult to avoid her. He did not move in the same circles as she, did not attend the London Season, and did not follow the fashionable calendar of events. Therefore he should not have run into her coming out of the Waterhouse Building on Cromwell Road, which housed the British Museum’s natural history collections.
Almost five years had elapsed since he last saw her. The passage of time had only enhanced her beauty. She was more radiant, more magnetic, and more dangerous than ever.
A wildfire raged in his heart. It didn’t matter what kind of woman she was; it only mattered that she become his.
He turned and walked away.
Chapter One
***
Cambridge, Massachusetts
1896
The ichthyosaur skeleton at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology was incomplete. But the fish lizard was one of the first to be found on American soil, in the state of Wyoming, and the American university was understandably eager to put it on exhibit.