OONLIGHT SPILLED ACROSS the mansions that marched along Upper Brook Street as Alexandra waved her coachman off and stealthily slid her key into the lock of No. 3. Pushing the door open a scant inch, she peered into the front hall. As she'd hoped, Higgins and the rest of the servants had retired for the night.

She slipped inside, silently closed the door behind her, and tiptoed up the long staircase. At the doorway to her bedchamber, she hesitated, wondering if her devoted maid had decided to await her return despite Alexandra's instructions. Deciding she dare not risk opening the door to find out, Alexandra hurried down the long hall, which was bordered on both sides with guest bedrooms. At the end of the hall a staircase led up to the next story; and she tiptoed up the steps and along the hall, stopping at the last door on the right. Silently, she turned the handle and peered into the dark, empty room that had been used long ago by the family governess, then slipped inside.

Smiling with delight at her own ingenuity, she pulled off her gloves and tossed them onto a shadowy object she identified as a small chest of drawers. She had not broken her word; she had come directly home.

Except when her husband marched into her bedchamber tonight, intending to mete out whatever punishment he had in mind, she would not be there.

A chill crept up her spine as she imagined how angry he was going to be, but the alternative of presenting herself to suffer God-knew-what fate tonight was too repugnant to consider.

Tomorrow, she decided, she would take whatever money Penrose had obtained for her grandfather's watch, and as soon as Jordan left the house, she and her two faithful old friends would leave London.

Stripping off her gown, Alexandra stretched out on the narrow bed, which had no linen on it, and closed her eyes. Weariness and confusion closed over her as she went over Jordan's behavior tonight. How could he be so murderously angry with her, and at the same time try to spare her public embarrassment, she wondered. She would never understand him. All she was sure of at that moment was that she was reduced to hiding from him in his own house—hiding in fear and anger from the same man whose disappearance had once made her want to die in order to be with him.

Lord Camden had arrived at the ball just as Jordan was leaving, only to discover that Melanie had already left. Politely refraining from showing the slightest surprise when Jordan suddenly recalled that he'd sent his own carriage home an hour earlier because he'd intended to ride home with Alexandra, Lord Camden obligingly offered him a ride home. The Camden carriage drew up before the house at No. 3, and Jordan bounded down. His mind on Alexandra, who would by now be awaiting him in her room, Jordan paid scant attention to the lone horseman who waited in the shadow of a house across the street, hat pulled low over his face, but his presence registered somewhere on the perimeter of Jordan's preoccupied mind. As if he scented danger, he turned on the second step to say goodbye to John Camden, but his gaze flicked to the slender horseman just as the shadowy figure raised his arm.

Jordan dove down and to the left just as the pistol fired, then came up in a running crouch, charging across the street in a futile attempt to give chase to the assassin who was already galloping away, wending deftly between the bulky carriages making their decorous way along Brook Street—the same crowd of carriages that prevented John Camden from giving chase in his own.

Edward Fawkes, a ruggedly built gentleman who specialized in handling delicate matters for a group of very select clients who did not want the authorities involved, glanced at his watch. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning as he sat across from the Duke of Hawthorne, who had employed him yesterday to investigate the two attempts on the duke's life and to learn who was behind them.

"My wife and I will depart for Hawthorne in the morning after we arise," the duke was saying. "An assassin can melt into the streets and alleys of London far easier than he can conceal himself in the country. If it were only my own life that is in jeopardy, I'd stay in the city. But if my cousin is behind this, he won't be able to risk my producing an heir, therefore my wife is now also endangered."

Fawkes nodded his agreement. "In the country, my men will be able to spot an unfamiliar person on the grounds of Hawthorne or loitering about the village. We can watch him."

"Your primary job is to protect my wife," the duke said curtly. "Once we're all at Hawthorne, I'll think of some plan to draw whoever is doing this out of hiding. Arrange for four of your men to ride guard around my coach tomorrow. With my own people, that will give us a total of twelve outriders."

"Is it possible the person who shot at you tonight could have been your cousin?" Edward Fawkes asked. "You said he wasn't at White's or the Lindworthy ball tonight."

Jordan wearily kneaded the knotted muscles at his nape. "It wasn't him. The horseman was much smaller than my cousin. Moreover, as I told you, I'm not completely convinced my cousin is behind this." Until today, when he learned old Grangerfield was dead, Jordan had hoped he was the one. After all, the first attempt had been made the night Jordan met Alexandra—only two days after he wounded Grangerfield in a duel. After tonight's episode, however, Jordan could no longer hold on to that hope.

"The two most common motives for murder are revenge and personal gain," Fawkes said carefully. "Your cousin has a great deal to gain from your death. More now even than before."

Jordan didn't ask what he meant; he already knew it was Alexandra. Alexandra—? His face paled as he recalled the vaguely familiar, slender figure who'd shot at him tonight. It could have been a woman…

"You've thought of something important?" the investigator said quickly, correctly assessing Jordan's expression.

"No," Jordan snapped and surged to his feet, abruptly concluding the meeting. The idea of Alexandra trying to kill him was ludicrous. Absurd. But the words she'd hurled at him this morning came back to haunt him:Whatever it takes, I'll be free of this marriage.

"Just one more thing, your grace," Fawkes said as he also arose. "Could the person who shot at you tonight have been the same one you thought you'd killed on the road near Morsham last spring—the one you left for dead? You described him as being of small stature."

Jordan felt dizzy with relief. "It could have been. As I said, I couldn't see his face tonight."

When Fawkes left, Jordan climbed the stairs to his own chamber. Tired, angry, and frustrated at being the target of some unknown lunatic who wanted him dead, he sent his sleepy valet off to bed and slowly removed his shirt. Alexandra was in the next room, he thought, and his weariness began to dissipate as he visualized awakening her from sleep with a kiss.

Walking over to the connecting door, he strode through her dressing room and into the dark bedchamber. Moonlight sifted through the windows, casting a silvery beam across the perfectly smooth satin coverlet atop her bed.

Alexandra had not come home.

Striding swiftly into his own room, he jerked the bellrope.

Thirty minutes later, the entire sleepy-eyed household staff was lined up before him in the drawing room answering his questions—with the single notable exception of Penrose, Alexandra's elderly servant. He, too, was mysteriously missing.

After intensive questioning, all Jordan had learned for certain was that his coachman had watched Alexandra walk up the front steps of the house and safely reach the door. Then she had waved him off—an action which the coachman confirmed was unprecedented.

"You may go back to bed," he told all thirty-one servants but one old man with spectacles, whom Jordan identified as Alexandra's footman, hung back looking worried and angry.

Jordan went over to the side table, poured the last of his port into a glass, and with a cursory glance at Filbert, instructed him to bring up another bottle. Negligently tossing down the liquid, he sank into a chair and stretched his legs out, trying to calm his rampaging fear. Somehow, he didn't quite believe Alexandra had come to any harm, and he would not let himself consider that her absence incriminated her in the attempt on his life tonight.

The more he concentrated on that inexplicably bright smile she had given him when she promised to come directly home after the ball, the more convinced he became she'd simply gone somewhere else after tricking the coachman into believing she'd come inside. Before she actually left the ball, she'd undoubtedly asked some cicisbeo of hers to follow her home and then take her up. Since Jordan had threatened to beat some sense into her tonight, that wasn't at all surprising, he thought. She had probably gone to his grandmother, Jordan decided as the port began to soothe his raw nerves.

"Bring the bottle over here," he ordered, eyeing the sour-faced, elderly footman, with ill-concealed belligerence. "Tell me something," he said shortly, addressing a servant on a personal matter for the first time in his life, "was she always like this—your mistress?"

The old footman stiffened resentfully, in the act of pouring port in the duke's glass. "Miss Alex—" Filbert began, but Jordan interrupted him in a glacial voice: "You will refer to my wife properly," he snapped. "She is the Duchess of Hawthorne!"

"And a lotta good it's done her!" the servant flung back furiously.

"Just exactly what is that supposed to mean?" Jordan demanded, so taken aback by this unprecedented display of temper from a mere servant that he failed to react with the outrage one might have reasonably expected from a man of his temperament and rank.

"It means what it says," Filbert snapped, slamming the bottle down on the table. "Bein' the Duchess of Hawthorne ain't never brought her nothing but heartbreak! Yer as bad as her pa was—no, yer worse! He only broke her heart, you broke her heart and now yer tryin' to break her spirit!"

He was halfway across the room when Jordan's voice boomed like a thunderclap. "Get back here!"

Filbert obeyed, but his gnarled hands were clenched into fists at his sides, and he glared resentfully at the man who had made Miss Alexandra's life a misery from the day she met him.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Filbert's jaw jutted belligerently. "If you think I'm gonna tell you things so's you can use them agin' Miss Alex, then yer in fer a shock, yer high holiness!"

Jordan opened his mouth to tell the incredibly insolent man to pack his bag and get out, but more than satisfaction, he wanted an explanation for the servant's startling revelations. Reining in his temper with a supreme effort, Jordan said icily, "If you have anything to say that might soften my attitude toward your beloved mistress, then you'd be wise to speak out now." The servant still looked balky. "In the mood I'm in," Jordan warned him honestly, "when I get my hands on her, she'll wish to God she'd stayed out of my sight."

The old man paled and swallowed, but he remained mutinously silent. Sensing that Filbert was wavering but that intimidation alone would never get him to talk freely, Jordan poured some port into a glass and in an action that would have knocked Society onto its collective face, the Duke of Hawthorne held the glass toward a lowly footman and invited in a man-to-man voice, "Now then, since I apparently hurt your mistress—unintentionally—suppose you have a drink and tell me how I'm like her father. What did he do?"

Filbert's suspicious gaze shifted from the duke's face to the glass of port in his outstretched hand, then he slowly reached for it. "D'you mind if I sit whilst I drink?"

"By all means," Jordan replied, straightfaced.

"Her father was the lowest scoundrel what ever lived," Filbert began, oblivious to the way the duke's brows shot up at this added insult. He paused to take a long, fortifying swallow of his drink, then he shuddered, glaring at the stuff in the glass with unhidden revulsion. "Gawd!" he uttered. "What is this?"

"Port—a special kind that is made exclusively for me."

"Probably ain't no call fer it from no one else," Filbert replied, wholly unimpressed. "Vile stuff."

"That opinion is shared by most people. I seem to be the only one who likes it. Now, what did her father do to her?"

"Do yer happen to have any ale about?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Whisky?" Filbert asked hopefully.

"Certainly. In the cabinet over there. Help yourself."

It took six glasses of whisky and two hours to drag the story out of the reluctant footman. By the time Filbert was nearly finished, Jordan—who had felt challenged to switch to whisky and match him drink for drink—was slouched in his chair, his shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest, trying to keep his head clear.

"And one day, about six, seven weeks after her pa dies," Filbert was finishing, "this fine carriage pulls up and in it is this beauteous lady and her pretty yellow-haired daughter. I was there when Miss Alex opened the door and the lady—who weren't no real lady—announces bald as you please that she's Lawrence's wife and the gel with her is his daughter!"

Jordan's head jerked around. "He was a bigamist?"

"Yep. And you shoulda seen the helter-pelter argument atween the two Mrs. Lawrences. But Miss Alex, she doesn't get mad. She jest looks at the yellow-haired girl and says in that sweet way o' hers: 'You're very pretty.'

"The blond chit don't say nothin', she sticks her nose up in the air. Then the chit notices this tin locket, shaped like a heart, that Miss Alex was wearin' round her neck. It was gived to Miss Alex by her pa on her birthday, and she treasured that locket like you wouldn't believe—always touchin' it whilst she wore it and worryin' it'd get lost. The blond chit asks Miss Alex if her pa gived her that, and when Miss Alex said he had, the gel pulls out this gold chain hangin' round her neck, and on the end o' it is this beautiful gold locket in the shape o' a heart.

" 'He gave me a valuable gold one,' the chit says in a way that made my hand itch to slap her. 'Yours is jest old tin.' "

Filbert paused to have another swallow of his whisky and smack his lips. "Miss Alex didn't say a word, she jest lifts her chin—like she does when she's tryin' to be brave—but there's so much pain in her eyes, it would have made a grown man cry. I cried," Filbert admitted hoarsely. "I went to my room, an' I cried like a babe."

Jordan swallowed against the unfamiliar aching lump in his throat. "Then what happened?"

"The next mornin' Miss Alex comes down to breakfast, jest like always, and she smiles at me, jest like always. But for the first time since her pa gived it to her, she weren't wearin' that locket. She never wore it again."

"And you think I'm like her father?" Jordan bit out furiously.

"Ain't you?" Filbert said contemptuously. "Ye break her heart every time yer around, and then it's left to me 'n' Penrose to try to pick up the pieces."

"What are you talking about?" Jordan insisted, clumsily splashing more whisky into his glass. Filbert stuck his empty glass forward and Jordan obediently filled it, too.

"I'm talkin' about the way she cried when she thought you was dead. One day I come upon her standin' in front o' yer portrait at yer big country house. She used to spend hours jest lookin' at you, and I think to myself she's so thin you can see clean through her. She points to you and she says to me in that shaky little voice that means she's tryin not to cry, 'Look, Filbert. Wasn't he beautiful?' " Filbert paused to sniff distastefully—an eloquent expression of his private opinion of Jordan's looks.

Slightly pacified by the astounding news that Alexandra had apparently cared enough to grieve for him after all, Jordan overlooked the servant's unflattering opinion of his face. "Go on," he said.

Filbert's eyes suddenly narrowed with anger as he warmed to his story: "You made her fall in love with you, then she comes to London an' finds out you never meant to treat her like a proper wife. You only married her for pity! You meant to send her off to Devon, just like her papa done to her mama."

"She knows about Devon?" Jordan said, stunned.

"She knows about all o' it. Lord Anthony finally had t' tell her the truth 'cause all your fancy London friends were laughin' at her behind their hands for lovin' you. They all knew how you felt about her, because you talked 'bout her to yer ladybird, and she talked to everyone else. You called it a marriage of inconvenience. Ye shamed Miss Alex and made her cry all over again. But you'll not be able to hurt her again—she knows you for the lyin' cad you be!"

Having said his piece, Filbert shoved to his feet, put down his glass, drew himself up to his full height, and said with great dignity, "I told her, an' I'll tell you: She shoulda let you die the night she found you!"

Jordan watched the old man march off without displaying any effects from the astonishing quantity of liquor he'd consumed.

He stared blindly at his empty glass, while the reasons for Alexandra's complete change in attitude since his disappearance slowly began to crystallize. Filbert's brief but eloquent description of a painfully thin Alexandra staring at his portrait at Hawthorne made his heart wrench. Across his mind paraded a vivid image of Alexandra coming to London wearing her heart on her sleeve—and then facing the cold disdain Elise had apparently instigated by repeating Jordan's thoughtless, joking remark.

Leaning his head against the back of his chair, Jordan closed his eyes while regret and relief flooded through him. Alexandra had cared for him. The image he had cherished of the enchanting, artless girl who had loved him had not been false, and for that he was suddenly, profoundly overjoyed. The fact that he had wounded her in countless ways made him wince, but not for one moment was he willing to believe the damage was irreparable. Neither was he fool enough to think she'd believe any explanation he could make. Actions, not words, would be the only way to make her lower her guard and love him again.

A faint, preoccupied smile played about his lips as he contemplated his strategy.

Jordan was not smiling at nine o'clock the following morning, however, when a footman returned with the information that Alexandra had most assuredly not gone to his grandmother's house; nor was he smiling a half hour later when the dowager duchess herself marched into his study to tell him that he was entirely to blame for Alex's flight, and to deliver a stinging diatribe on Jordan's lack of sensitivity, his high-handedness, and his lack of good sense.

Clad in her gown from the night before, Alexandra combed her fingers through her tousled hair, peeked into the upper hall, and then walked swiftly along the corridor and down the staircase to her own rooms.

If Jordan followed the same morning schedule as the previous two days, he would be locked away in his study with the men who came to discuss business with him in the mornings. Carefully considering ways to get herself, Filbert, and Penrose out of the house without being noticed, she walked over to the wardrobe and opened the door. The wardrobe was empty, save for a single traveling costume. Turning, Alexandra surveyed the room and noticed that all her perfumes had been cleared from the dressing table. The queer sensation that she was in the wrong room made her turn slowly round just as the door opened and a maid let out a stifled scream.

Before Alexandra could stop her, the servant turned on her heel and fled along the balcony. "Her grace is back!" she called over the balcony to Higgins.

So much for escaping without first encountering Jordan, Alexandra thought with a tremor of fear. She had not completely expected to avoid a confrontation with her husband—but she had rather hoped to do it. "Marie," she called after the maid who was already rushing down the staircase to spread the glad tidings. "Where is the duke? I'll announce my presence to him myself."

"In the study, your grace."

Raking his hands through his dark hair, Jordan paced the length of his huge, book-lined study like a caged tiger, waiting for Alexandra to appear from wherever she had spent the night, refusing to consider that she had come to harm, and unable to banish the gnawing fear that she had.

Anticipating that Hawk was going to unleash his wrath on her the moment he clapped eyes on her, Alexandra stepped quietly into the study and carefully closed the door behind her before she said, "You want to see me, I gather?"

Jordan jerked around, his emotions veering crazily from joy to relief to fury as he beheld her standing before him, her face fresh from a night's sleep that he hadn't had.

"Where in the hell have you been?" he demanded, striding to her. "Remind me never to take your 'word' again," he added with blazing sarcasm.

Alexandra restrained the cowardly impulse to back away. "I kept my word, my lord. I came directly home and went to bed."

A muscle jerked ominously in his taut cheek. "Don't lie to me."

"I slept in the governess' room," she clarified politely. "You did not, after all, order me to go to my own room."

The desire to murder exploded in Jordan's brain, followed instantaneously by the opposing urge to wrap his arms around her and shout with laughter at her incredibly ingenious defiance. She had been upstairs, blissfully asleep, the entire time he'd been prowling and drinking down here in an agony of uncertainty. "Tell me something," he said irritably, "have you always been like this?"

"Like what?" Alexandra said warily, not certain of his mood.

"A blight on peace."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"I'll tell you what I mean," he drawled, and as he advanced upon her, Alexandra began cautiously retreating step for step. "In the last twelve hours, I have rudely walked out on my friends at White's. I've been involved in a public quarrel on a dance floor, and I've been chastised by a footman, who incidentally can drink me under the table. I've had to listen to a lecture from my grandmother, who for the first time in her life so forgot herself as to raise her voice to what can only be described as a shout! Do you know," he finished darkly while Alexandra fought to hide a wayward grin, "that I used to lead a reasonably well-ordered life before I laid eyes on you? But from that moment on, every time I turn around, something else—"

He broke off his diatribe as Higgins raced into the study, without stopping to knock, his coattails flapping behind him. "Your grace!" he panted, "there's a constable here who insists on seeing you, or her grace, personally."

With a quelling glance at Alexandra that warned her to remain where she was until he returned to finish with her, Jordan strode swiftly from the study. Two minutes later he returned, an indescribable expression of amusement and annoyance on his tanned face.

"Is—is something wrong?" she dared to venture when he seemed not to know what to say.

"Not much," he drawled dryly. "I'd say it's just another ordinary little event in what seems to be a typical day with you."

"What event?" Alexandra persisted, aware that he seemed to be holding her accountable for whatever had just happened.

"Your faithful old butler has just appeared on my doorstep in the custody of a constable."

"Penrose?" Alexandra gasped.

"The very same."

"But—what did he do?"

"Do, my dear? He went to Bond Street and was caught red-handed yesterday trying to sell my watch." So saying, Jordan lifted his hand, from which hung Alexandra's grandfather's gold watch and chain.

"Attempted bigamy, larceny, and gambling," Jordan summarized with a twitch of ironic humor at his lips. "Do you have any plans for the immediate future? Extortion, perhaps?"

"It isn't your watch." Alexandra's eyes were riveted on the watch, her only hope for purchasing her freedom. "Please give it to me. It belongs to me."

Jordan's brows drew together in surprise, but he slowly held his hand out. "I was under the impression you had given it to me as a gift."

"You accepted it under false pretenses," Alexandra insisted with angry obstinacy, reaching for the watch. "My grandfather was a man of… of noble virtue… a warm, caring, gentle man. His watch ought to go to a man like him, not like you."

"I see," Jordan replied quietly, his face suddenly wiped clean of expression as he put the watch into her outstretched palm.

"Thank you," Alexandra said, feeling somehow as if she had actually hurt him by taking the watch back. Since he had no heart, perhaps she had hurt his ego, she decided. "Where is Penrose? I must go to the authorities and explain."

"If he followed my instructions, he's in his room," Jordan dryly replied, "meditating on the Eighth Commandment."

Alexandra, who had leapt to the understandable conclusion that her cold-hearted, autocratic husband would have let the authorities haul poor Penrose off to be hanged, stared at him in confusion. "That's all you did? Send him to his room?"

"I could hardly have the closest thing I have to a father-in-law carted off to a dungeon, now could I?" Jordan replied.

Utterly dumbfounded by his odd mood this morning, Alexandra stared searchingly at him. "Actually, I thought you could and would."

"Only because you don't really know me, Alexandra," he said in a tone Alexandra could have sworn was conciliatory. Briskly, he continued, "However, I intend to remedy that, beginning"—he glanced up as footmen came trooping downstairs bearing several trunks, including here—"in one hour, when we leave for Hawthorne."

Alexandra swung around, saw her trunks and turned back to him, her eyes blazing with rebellion. "I won't go."

"I think you'll agree to go when I set forth the terms for your consideration, but first, I would like to know why Penrose was trying to sell my… your grandfather's… watch."

Alexandra hesitated, then decided silence was best.

"The obvious answer to that is that you wanted money," Jordan continued in a matter-of-fact voice. "And I can think of only two reasons why you should need funds. The first reason would be that you've been placing more scandalous wagers against me, which I forbade you to do. Frankly, I doubt you've done that." He held up his hand when Alexandra looked angry at his supposition that she would meekly accede to his orders. "My reason for discounting the possibility you've placed additional wagers against me since yesterday has nothing to do with the fact that I forbade it. I simply don't think you've had the time to defy me again."

His lazy grin was so unexpected and so contagious that Alexandra had to fight the urge to smile back at him.

"Therefore," he concluded, "I would assume the reason you suddenly want money is the same reason you gave me two days ago—you want to leave me and live on your own. Is that it?"

He sounded so understanding that Alexandra reversed her former decision and nodded in the affirmative.

"Just as I thought. In that case, let me offer a solution to your predicament which should also appeal to your penchant for gambling. May I?" he politely asked, motioning her to a chair in front of his desk.

"Yes," Alexandra agreed, sitting down while he leaned against his desk.

When she was settled, Jordan said, "I will give you enough money to live out the rest of your life in regal splendor, if after three months you still wish to leave me."

"I—I don't entirely understand," Alexandra said, scrutinizing his tanned face.

"It's quite simple. For three full months, you must agree to be my most obedient, loving, biddable wife. During that time, I will endeavor to make myself so—shall we say— 'agreeable' to you that you no longer wish to leave me. If I fail, you may leave at the end of three months. It's as simple as that."

"No!" Alexandra burst out before she could stop herself. The thought of Jordan deliberately trying to charm and entice her was more than she could bear to contemplate, and the intimate implications of being his "loving" wife made her face burn.

"Afraid you'll fall under my 'spell'?"

"Certainly not," she lied primly.

"Then why should you not agree to the wager? I'm betting a fortune that I can make you wish to stay. Evidently, you're afraid you'll lose, or you wouldn't hesitate."

He slid the challenge in so smoothly that Alexandra scarcely saw it coming before he'd hit home.

"I—there are other things to consider—" She stalled lamely, too shaken to think of any.

"Ah, yes—there's the possibility that in the ardent performance of my husbandly duties, I might get you with child, is that it?"

Speechless with dismay and horror at that heretofore unthought-of possibility, Alexandra simply stared at him, pink-cheeked, as he idly picked up a paperweight from his desk. "I intend to do my utmost to bring that about, my sweet," he baldly promised. "Moreover," he continued, balancing the weight in his palm, exactly as he was balancing her future, "our wager is contingent upon your granting me your favors in bed without resentment. In other words," he finished with smiling bluntness, "if you shirk or protest or fail to cooperate—you lose."

"You're mad!" Alexandra burst out, leaping from her chair, but her frantic mind could come up with no better means of ending this unwanted marriage.

"I must be," he agreed without rancor. "Three months doesn't give me much time. Six months would be more fair, now that I think on it."

"Three is more than fair!" Alexandra exclaimed.

"Agreed," he smoothly said. "Three months it is. Three months of wedded bliss for me, in return for—shall we say—a half million pounds?"

Alexandra clenched her trembling hands and hid them behind her back, her mind whirling with a dizzying combination of jubilation and resentment. A half million pounds… A half million pounds… A fortune!

In payment for services to be rendered in his bed.

By offering her the money, he was reducing her to the status of one of his mistresses; offering to "pay her off" when they were finished.

"Don't think of it in that way," Jordan quietly suggested, watching the reactions play across her expressive face and correctly interpreting them. "If I lose the wager, then consider the money as a belated 'reward' for saving my life."

With her pride somewhat soothed by that, Alexandra hesitated and then nodded slightly, noncommittally. "It's a highly irregular proposition in most regards—"

"Our marriage has been 'highly irregular' in every regard," Jordan said dryly. "Now then, do I need to put our wager in writing, or shall we trust one another to keep to the terms?"

"Trust!" Alexandra repeated scornfully. "You told me yourself you don't trust anyone." He had told her that in bed, and she had asked him to trust her. She had told him that love could not survive without trust. Watching him, she knew he was recalling the conversation.

He hesitated as if coming to an important decision. Then he said with gentle solemnity, "I trust you."

The three quietly spoken words carried a wealth of underlying meaning that Alexandra adamantly refused to believe he intended. She tried to ignore the warmth in his steady gaze, but she could not sustain her animosity when he was behaving in this odd, almost tender fashion. Deciding that the best way to deal with her enigmatic spouse was to remain calm and reserved at all times, she politely said, "I'll consider your wager."

"You do that," he urged, a gleam of amusement in his eyes as more footmen came trooping downstairs with their trunks. "Will two minutes give you enough time?" He nodded toward the crowded hallway outside his study.

"What!"

"We're leaving for Hawthorne within the hour."

"But—"

"Alexandra," he said quietly, "you have no choice." Reaching out, Jordan ran his hands up her arms while he silently fought the urge to pull her to him and seal the victory he already knew was his.

Inwardly, Alexandra bridled, but she knew he was right. Roddy's words came back to reassure her. We are not a very prolific family… "Very well," she agreed ungraciously. And the rest of Roddy's sentence hit her. Although it is not for want of trying…

"You're blushing," Jordan remarked, his eyes smiling into hers.

"Any female would blush when baldly presented with the prospect of spending three months of… of…"

"Naked splendor in my arms?" Jordan provided helpfully.

She gave him a look that could have pulverized rock.

Chuckling, he said, "Consider the risk I am taking. Suppose I lose my head entirely and become enslaved by your bod—beauty?" he corrected belatedly, positively oozing good humor. "And then you go off, taking my money and all hope of a legal heir with you."

"You don't for a moment believe I could do that, do you?" Alexandra snapped irritably.

"No."

It was his insufferable grin, as much as his arrogant confidence, that made her turn on her heel. Jordan caught her arm and pulled her firmly back around, his voice calm but authoritative. "Not until we reach an agreement. Do we have a bet, or do I take you to Hawthorne—under guard if necessary—and without promise of remuneration if you decide to leave me in three months?"

Put in that context, Alexandra had absolutely no choice. Lifting her head, she looked him in the eye and declared with unconcealed dislike, "We have a wager."

"You agree to all the terms?"

"With great reluctance, your grace," she said stonily and, jerking her arm free, started to leave.

"Jordan," he said to her back.

Alexandra turned. "Pardon?"

"My name is Jordan. In future, please call me that."

"I prefer not to."

Raising his hand in an exaggerated, mock warning, he said, "Sweetheart, be cautious lest you lose your bet in less than five minutes. You agreed to be my most 'obedient, loving, and biddable wife.' And I bid you call me by my given name."

Her eyes shot daggers into his, but she inclined her pretty head. "As you wish."

She had already walked out of the study before Jordan realized she had simply managed not to call him anything at all. A smile swept across his features as he absently rolled the paperweight between his palms, contemplating the impending, highly satisfactory sojourn in the country with his enticingly pretty—albeit reluctant—wife.