It was happening to him, too.

He’d never given much thought to timing his release to his partner’s. He’d never cared to share the experience. But, suddenly, he could think of nothing but meeting Penelope there, on the edge of her pleasure, and letting it crash over both of them. “Wait for me,” he whispered at her ear, thrusting against her. “Don’t go without me.”

“I can’t wait. I can’t stop it!” She convulsed around him, milking him in a rapid, stunning rhythm, his name on her lips sending him into oblivion, tumbling over the edge in a terrifying, extravagant climax that rivaled anything he’d ever experienced.

He collapsed against her, his breath coming in great, heaving bursts as he buried his face in the angle of her neck and allowed the extraordinary pleasure to wash over him in waves unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

Long minutes passed before, afraid that he would crush her with his weight, Bourne rolled away from Penelope, ran one hand down her side, and pulled her against him, not yet ready to release her.

Dear God. It had been the most incredible sex he’d ever had.

It had been mind-altering.

It had been more than he’d ever imagined it could be.

And the very idea that such an experience had come with Penelope spread cold fear through him.

This woman. This marriage. This evening.

It did not mean anything.

It could not mean anything.

She was a means to an end. The path to his revenge.

That was all she could be.

In his lifetime, Bourne had destroyed everything of value he’d ever held.

When Penelope realized that . . . realized that he was every kind of disappointment, she’d thank him for not allowing her too close. She’d be grateful for his releasing her to a quiet, simple world, where she had everything she wanted . . . and did not have to worry about him.

You do not deserve her.

Tommy’s words echoed in his thoughts—those words that had sent him home, to his wife, to prove his place in her life. To prove that she belonged to him. That he could master her body in a way no other man had.

But it was he who had been mastered.

“Michael,” she whispered against his chest, his name a lingering promise on her lips as one of her hands stroked up his torso. The long, lush touch sent another wave of pleasure through him, followed all too closely by desire when she whispered, soft and sleepy and tempting, “That was splendid.”

He meant to tell her not to become too comfortable in his bed.

Not to become too comfortable in his life.

He meant to tell her that the evening had been a means to an end.

That their marriage would never be the kind she required.

But she was already asleep.

* * *

Dear M—

I realize that you may not wish to reply to my letters, but I plan to send them nonetheless. A year, two, or ten—I would never want you to think I had forgotten you. Not that you would believe such a thing, would you?

It’s your birthday next week. I would have embroidered a handkerchief for you, but you know that needlepoint and I do not exactly suit.

Remembering—P

Needham Manor, January 1817

No reply

The next morning, Penelope entered the breakfast room, hoping to see her new husband—the man who had changed everything in one glorious day and glorious night, the man who had made her realize that perhaps their marriage could be more. That perhaps their contrived love match could be less contrived and more . . . well . . . a love match.

For surely there was nothing so superb as the way he’d made her feel the prior evening in his bed. It was of little consequence that she had awoken not cloaked in decadent fur but in her perfectly pristine, perfectly pressed white linen sheets in the bedchamber she had been assigned.

In fact, she was rather touched that he might have moved her there in the night without waking her. He was obviously a kind, caring, loving husband, and their marriage, which had begun as such a disastrous farce, was destined for something much much more.

She hoped that he would join her as she took her seat at the lovely long table in the handsome and lavishly appointed breakfast room, wondering if he still enjoyed sausage at breakfast, as he had when he was very young.

She hoped that he would join her as she accepted a plate of egg and toast (no sausage in sight) from the young footman, who clicked his heels together in a rather extravagant manner before returning to his post in the corner of the room.

She hoped Michael would join her as she lingered over her toast.

As she sipped her fast-cooling tea.

As she eyed the newspaper, perfectly folded and placed to the left of the empty seat at the far end of the soon-growing-too-long table.

And, after a full hour of waiting, Penelope stopped hoping.

He was not coming.

She remained alone.

Suddenly, she was keenly aware of the footman in the corner of the room, whose job it was to simultaneously know immediately what his mistress might require and to ignore her altogether, and Penelope felt a blush rise high on her cheeks.

For, surely, the young footman was thinking terribly embarrassing things.

She slid a glance at him.

He was not looking.

But he was most definitely thinking.

Michael wasn’t coming.

Stupid, stupid Penelope.

Of course he wasn’t coming.

The events of the prior evening had not been magical to him. They’d been necessary. He’d officially taken her to wife. And then, like any good husband, he’d left her to her own devices.

Alone.

Penelope eyed her empty plate, where the bright yellow yolk of the egg she had eaten so happily had congealed, affixing itself rather grotesquely to the porcelain.

It was the first full day of her life as a married woman, and she was eating breakfast alone. Ironic, that, considering she’d always viewed breakfast with a husband who barely knew her as a lonely affair indeed. But now, she would, with pleasure, take breakfast with her husband over breakfast by herself, under the watchful eyes of a too-young footman who was doing his very best not to see her.

For it seemed that in her desire for a husband who wanted her for more than what was ordinarily requested of a wife, she’d found herself married to one who did not even want her for that.

Perhaps she’d done something wrong the evening before.

The flush had reached her ears, and she felt them burning, likely red as roses as she tried to think of what she might have done wrong, of how her wedding night might have gone differently.

But every time she tried to think, she remembered the young footman, now blushing himself, in the corner, not knowing what to say to his mistress and very likely wishing she would finish her breakfast and leave the room.

She had to leave this room.

She rose from the table with all the grace expected of a marchioness and, desperate to ignore the embarrassment, headed for the door. Blessedly, the footman did not meet her gaze as she moved across the room at a pace that could only be described as as-close-to-a-run-as-possible-without-being-unladylike-as-ladies-do-not-run.

But the door opened before she could get to it, and Mrs. Worth entered, leaving Penelope with no choice but to stop short, the skirts of her yellow day dress, chosen for beauty rather than sense on this frigid January day, swishing around her legs as she halted.

The stunning young housekeeper paused on the threshold of the room, not revealing any emotion as she dipped a quick curtsy, and said, “Good morning, my lady.”