ictoria awoke with a heavy, aching heart, feeling as if she hadn’t slept at all. A lump of harsh despair grew in her throat when she remembered Jason’s humiliating, unprovoked revenge on her last night. Shoving her tousled hair off her face, she leaned up on an elbow, her gaze drifting with numb abstractedness about the room. And then her eyes fell on the leather jewelry case beside the bed.

A rage unlike any she had ever experienced exploded in her brain, obliterating every other emotion within her. She hurtled out of bed, pulled on a dressing robe, and snatched up the box.

In a furious swirl of pale green satin, she flung open the door to Jason’s room and stalked in. “Don’t you ever give me another piece of jewelry!” she hissed.

He was standing beside his bed, his long legs encased in biscuit-colored trousers, his chest bare. He glanced up just in time to see her hurl the box at his head, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t move a muscle to avoid the heavy leather box that sailed by, missing his ear by a hairsbreadth.

It hit the polished floor with a loud thud and slid beneath his bed. “I’D never forgive you for last night,” Victoria blazed, her nails digging into her palms, her chest rising and falling with each furious breath. “Never!”

“I’m sure you won’t,” he said in a flat, expressionless voice and reached for his shirt.

“I hate your jewelry, I hate the way you treat me, and I hate you! You don’t know how to love anyone—you’re a cynical heartless bastard!”

The word flew out of her mouth before Victoria realized what she had said, but whatever reaction she expected, it was not the one she received. “You’re right,” he agreed tightly. “That’s exactly what I am. I’m sorry to have to shatter any illusions you may still have about me, but the truth is, I’m the by-product of a brief, meaningless liaison between Charles Fielding and some long forgotten dancer he kept in his youth.”

He pulled a shirt on over his muscular shoulders and shoved his arms into it, while it slowly began to register on Victoria that he thought he was confessing something ugly and repugnant to her.

“I grew up in squalor, raised by Charles’s sister-in-law. Later, I slept in a warehouse. I taught myself to read and write; I didn’t go to Oxford or do any of the things your other refined, aristocratic suitors have done. In short, I am none of the things you think I am—none of the good things or the nice things.”

He began buttoning his shirt, his hooded gaze carefully lowered to his hands. “I’m not a fit husband for you. I’m not fit to touch you. I’ve done things that would make you sick.”

Captain Farrell’s words sliced through Victoria’s mind: The hag made him kneel and beg for forgiveness in front of those dirty Indians. Victoria looked at Jason’s proud, lean face, and she felt as if her heart would break. Now she even understood why he wouldn’t, couldn’t, accept her love.

“I’m a bastard,” he finished grimly, “in the truest meaning of the word.”

“Then you’re in excellent company,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “So were three sons of King Charles, and he made them all dukes.”

For a moment he looked nonplussed; then he shrugged.

“The point is that you’ve told me you loved me, and I can’t let you go on thinking that. You loved a mirage, not me. You don’t even know me.”

“Oh yes, I do,” Victoria burst out, knowing that whatever she said now would determine their entire future. “I know everything about you—Captain Farrell told me more than a week ago. I know what happened to you when you were a little boy...”

Rage blazed in Jason’s eyes for a moment, but then he shrugged resignedly. “He had no right to tell you.”

“You should have told me,” Victoria cried, unable to control her voice or the tears streaming down her cheeks. “But you wouldn’t because you’re ashamed of the things you should be proudest of!” Brushing furiously at her tears, she said brokenly, “I wish he hadn’t told me. Before he did, I only loved you a little. Afterward, when I realized how brave and—and how strong you really are, then I loved you so much more, I—”

“What?” he said in a ragged whisper.

“I never admired you before that day,” she said hysterically, “and now I do and I can’t stand what you’re doing to—”

Through a blur of tears she saw him move, felt herself crushed against his hard chest, and her pent-up emotions broke loose. “I don’t care who your parents are,” she sobbed in his arms.

“Don’t cry, darling,” he whispered, “please don’t.”

“I hate it when you treat me like a witless doll, d-dressing me in ball gowns and—”

“I’ll never buy you another gown,” he tried to tease, but his voice was hoarse and raw.

“And then you drape me in j-jewels—”

“No more jewels either,” he said, hugging her tighter.

“And then when you’re done p-playing with me, you t-toss me aside.”

“I’m an ass,” he said, stroking her hair and rubbing his jaw against the top of her head.

“You’ve n-never told me what you think or how you feel about things, and I c-can’t read your mind.”

“I don’t have a mind,” he said harshly. “I lost it months ago.”

Victoria knew she had won, but the relief was so painfully exquisite that her slim shoulders began to shake with wrenching sobs.

“Oh, God, please don’t cry like this,” Jason groaned, running his hands helplessly over her heaving shoulders and down her back, desperately trying to console her. “I can’t bear it when you cry.” Threading his hands through her hair, he turned her tear-streaked face up to his, his thumbs moving tenderly over her cheeks. “I’ll never make you cry again,” he whispered achingly. “I swear I won’t.” He bent his head, kissing her with gentle violence. “Come to bed with me,” he murmured, his voice hoarse and urgent. “Come to bed with me and I’ll make you forget last night...”

In answer, Victoria wrapped her arms fiercely around her husband’s neck and Jason swung her into his arms, driven to try to make amends to her in the only way he knew how. He put his knee on the mattress, lowering her gently and following her down, his lips clinging to hers in an unbroken, scalding kiss.

When he finally lifted himself off her to tear off his shirt and unbutton his pants, Victoria watched him unashamedly, glorying in his magnificent body—the long, muscular legs and narrow hips, the strong arms and broad shoulders, the heavily corded muscles that rippled in his back as he turned onto his side— A strangled cry tore from her chest.

Jason heard it and his whole body stiffened at the realization of what she was seeing. The scars! He had forgotten about the damned scars. Vividly he remembered the last time he had forgotten to hide them—he remembered the horror of the woman in his bed, the scorn and revulsion in her face when she saw that he had let himself be whipped like a dog. Because of that, he’d always kept his back turned away from Victoria when they were making love, and he’d always carefully extinguished the candles before they went to sleep.

“Oh, God,” Victoria choked behind him, staring in horror at the white scars that crisscrossed his beautiful back. There were dozens of them. Her fingers shook as she reached out to touch them; the moment she did, his skin flinched. “Do they still hurt?” she whispered in anguished surprise.

“No,” Jason said tautly. Shame washed over him in sickening waves as he waited helplessly for her inevitable reaction to the stark evidence of his humiliation.

To his utter disbelief he felt her arms encircle him from behind and the touch of her lips on his back. “How brave you must have been to endure this,” she whispered achingly, “how strong to survive it and go on living....” When she began kissing each scar, Jason rolled onto his side and jerked her into his arms. “I love you,” he whispered agonizedly, plunging his hands into her luxuriant hair and turning her face up to his. “I love you so much....”

His kisses seared her flesh like glowing brands as his mouth moved from her lips to her neck and breasts, his hands sliding along her back and sides, making her moan and writhe beneath his gentle assault. He raised up on his hands, his face above her, his voice hoarse with passion. “Please touch me—let me feel your hands on me.”

It had never occurred to Victoria that he would want her to touch him as he touched her, and the knowledge was thrilling. She put her hands against his tanned chest, slowly spreading her fingers, amazed when her simple touch made his breath catch. Experimentally, she slid her hands lower, and the taut muscles of his abdomen jumped reflexively. She put her lips to his tiny nipple and kissed it as he kissed hers, flicking her tongue back and forth against it, and when she pulled it tightly into her mouth a groan ripped from his chest.

Heady with her newly discovered power over his body, she rolled him onto his back and brushed her parted lips over his, sweetly offering him her tongue. A funny little laugh that was part groan, part chuckle sounded in his throat and he drew her tongue into his mouth, one hand cradling the back of her head as he crushed his lips against hers while his free arm wrapped around her hips and lifted her fully atop his aroused length.

Without thought, Victoria moved her hips against his engorged manhood, circling herself on him, until she was faint with the pleasure she was giving him and taking for herself. She moved downward, lost in her desperate eagerness to please him, trailing kisses along his chest, nuzzling his abdomen, until his hands suddenly tangled in her hair and pulled her face back to his. Beneath her she could feel the pulsing of his rigid shaft, the fiery touch of his heated skin, the violent hammering of his heart against her breasts. But instead of taking her, as she expected, he gazed at her with desire raging in his eyes and humbly said the words he had tried to force her to say last night. “I want you,” he whispered. As if he didn’t think he had humbled himself enough, he added, “Please, darling.”

Feeling as if her heart would break with the love bursting in it, Victoria answered him with a melting kiss. It was answer enough. Jason gathered her tightly into his arms, rolled her onto her back, and drove swiftly and surely into her. His arms wrapped around her shoulders and hips, pulling her more tightly to him, forging them into one as he drove into her again and again.

Victoria arched herself upward in a fevered need to share and stimulate his burgeoning passion, pressing her hips hard against his pulsing thighs, crushing her lips against his, while the waves of sensation shooting through her built into a frenzy and began exploding through her entire body in piercing streaks of pure, vibrant ecstasy.

A shudder shook Jason’s powerful frame as he felt the spasms of her fulfillment gripping him, and he plunged into her one last time. His body jerked convulsively, shuddering again and again as Victoria’s body drew from his a lifetime of bitterness and despair. She drained him of everything and replaced it all with joy. It burst in his heart and poured through his veins until he ached with the sheer bliss of it.

After all his farming financial triumphs and aimless sexual exploits, he had finally found what he had unconsciously been searching for: He had found the place he belonged. He owned six English estates, two Indian palaces, and a fleet of ships each with a private cabin for his exclusive use, yet he had never felt he had a home. He was home now. This one beautiful girl, lying contentedly in his arms, was his home.

Still holding her, he moved onto his side, then he combed his fingers through her rumpled, satiny hair and brushed a tender kiss against her temple.

Victoria’s lashes fluttered up and he felt as if he would drown in the deep blue pools of her eyes. “How do you feel?” she teased, smiling as she asked him the same question he had once asked her.

With tender solemnity, he replied, “I feel like a husband.” Bending his head, he took her sweet lips in a long, lingering kiss, then gazed down into her glowing blue eyes. “To think I actually believed there were no such things as angels,” he sighed, relaxing back against the pillows and reveling in the simple joy of having her in his arms, her head resting on his shoulder. “How incredibly stupid I must be—”

“You’re brilliant,” his wife declared loyally.

“No, I’m not,” he chuckled wryly. “If I had even the slightest intelligence, I would have climbed into bed with you the first time I wanted to and then insisted you marry me.”

“When was the first time you wanted to do that?” she teased.

“The day you arrived at Wakefield,” he admitted, smiling at the memory. “I think I fell in love with you when I saw you standing on my doorstep with a piglet in your arms and your hair blowing in the wind like flaming gold.”

Victoria sobered and shook her head. “Please—let’s never lie to each other, Jason. You didn’t love me then, and you didn’t love me when you married me. It doesn’t matter, though, truly it doesn’t. All that matters is that you love me now.”

Jason tipped her chin up and forced her to meet his gaze. “No, sweet—I meant what I said. I married you because I loved you.”

“Jason!” she said, flattered but nevertheless determined to set a pattern of honesty and frankness for the future. “You married me because it was the wish of a dying man.”

“The wish of A dying—” To Victoria’s astonishment, Jason threw back his head and burst out laughing; then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up onto his naked chest. “Oh, darling,” he said, chuckling, rubbing his knuckles tenderly across her cheek, “that ‘dying man’ who summoned us to his bedside and clung to your hand was clutching a fistful of playing cards in his other.”

Victoria reared up on her elbows. “He was what!” she demanded, torn between laughter and fury. “Are you certain?”

“Positive,” Jason averred, still chuckling. “I saw them when the blanket moved. He was holding four queens.”

“But why would he do such a thing to us?”

Jason’s broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. “He evidently decided we were taking too long to get around to the business of marriage.”

“When I think of how I prayed he would get well, I could murder him!”

“What a thing to say,” Jason teased, laughing. “Don’t you like the end result of.his scheming?”

“Well, yes, I do, but why didn’t you tell me—or at least tell him you knew what he was up to?”

Jason nipped her ear. “What? And spoil his fun? Never!”

Victoria gave him an indignant look. “You should have told me. You had no right to keep it from me.”

“True.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have married me if you didn’t think it was an absolute necessity?”

“No.”.

“That’s why I didn’t tell you the truth.”

Victoria collapsed on his chest, laughing helplessly at his unprincipled determination to get what he wanted and his complete lack of contrition for it. “Have you no principles at all?” she demanded with laughing severity.

He grinned. “Apparently not.”