“Why should I be? Do you really think I care what your father did?”
“I’m sure you care that I married you knowing perfectly well that if Durand acted on his threats, you and I would be outcasts. Traitors aren’t well regarded in this country, even long-dead ones.” His voice roughened. “And if Durand succeeds in somehow connecting me . . .”
“How could he do that? I don’t understand.”
“I was nineteen when I was seen going into that same opium den. It was only the one time, but all it takes is a single witness remembering my being there, and it will be enough to foment speculation and cause trouble for me.”
Frustration twisted inside her. “That count is a blackguard!” she said stoutly. “I don’t trust him. You can’t play into his plans, whatever they are, by meeting him for a duel.”
He stiffened. “I have no choice.”
“That’s not true! You have friends at your club—Lord Fulkham, for example. You should go to him for advice. I hear he’s high up in government.”
“All the more reason he won’t want to be tainted by helping the son of a traitor.”
She huffed out a breath. “So talk to one of the other gentlemen. There must be someone who can help you rout Durand. Those Duke’s Men friends of Jeremy’s, for example.”
“Not a chance. I am not risking anyone else hearing of it. I will fight Durand at dawn, and that is that.”
“But Edwin—”
“Enough! This is my decision, not yours.”
The force of his declaration shattered her confidence. “You’re upset because he called me a whore, aren’t you?” Ever since Durand’s words, she’d wondered if Edwin might have taken them to heart. She knew Durand had been goading him, but what if Edwin thought otherwise? “Are you afraid that he had a reason, that while he was courting me I allowed him to—”
“No, of course not. I asked you before if he forced himself on you, and you said he did not, and I believe you.”
“B-but his words made you so angry . . . Are you sure that they didn’t make you uncertain whether to trust me?”
“Don’t be absurd. I trust you, I swear.” He pulled her into his arms. “It’s you who don’t trust me . . . with your life, your future. Hell, you won’t even let me make love to you in the usual way, because you’re still afraid I might hurt you.” When she groaned, he let out an oath. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I shouldn’t have mentioned that. It doesn’t matter.”
“Clearly, it does.”
And she should have realized sooner that he saw her difficulties as a mark of her continuing distrust of him. Even the most understanding man in the world had his pride, and it wounded her husband’s that she couldn’t entirely trust him in bed.
“All of it matters,” she went on. “Whether you ignore my advice and I ignore your desires matters. Because if we don’t trust each other, what is left?” She clasped him about the neck. “And I do trust you. I trusted you from the moment you proposed marriage.”
“Right,” he said. “Except for demanding a clause in our settlement to ensure I didn’t attack you.”
She swallowed. “Looking back, I can see that perhaps that wasn’t the best strategy, but it made sense at the time. And even with that clause, I never locked my bedchamber door to you—not once in our first week alone together. I could have, but I didn’t.”
That seemed to give him pause, for he dragged in an unsteady breath.
“Please, please, don’t fight this duel, my darling,” she went on. “I’m begging you.”
He bent close enough for her to feel his warm breath against her lips. “What kind of husband would I be if I let him get away with all that he’s done and is still trying to do to you?”
“What kind of wife would I be if I let you die defending me?”
Their gazes locked for a long moment. Then he kissed her.
Though it took her by surprise, she welcomed it, needing to be sure of him. His kiss was all-consuming, hard and sweet and urgent by turns, as if he couldn’t bear to stop.
And she gave herself up to it with the same desperation. She had to make him see that what they had was too precious to throw away. That together they could get through anything.
“I want you, minx,” he rasped in her ear. “Now. Here. It’s mad, I know—”
“Not mad at all. I want you, too.”
That was all the invitation he needed to start dragging up her skirts while kissing her as if it were their last time together. Which it very well might be.
No, she wouldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t. She would show him just how perfect it could be between them, tempt him not to be so foolish as to risk everything out of some noble pride or fear of scandal.
He unbuttoned his trousers, then tried to pull her astride him.
“No,” she whispered, “not this time. I want you on top of me.”
“Clarissa, I wasn’t saying—”
“I know. I want to do it. I want you to take me as you’d take any woman. As you’d take your wife if she were . . . any other woman.”