She looked over him again and noted the speculative gleam in his eye was there again. “I mustn’t keep you then, sir. I know Mrs. Fletcher depends on you above all others for company during the day.”

  Fletcher stretched out a hand toward her, imploring her to stay. “Perhaps you might favor her with another visit?”

  Amity kept her hands at her side rather than encouraging any physical contact. She was a properly respectable wife, in every regard except for abandoning her pretend marriage. “Not today, I’m afraid. I have quite the list from the Misses Beamish. They’ve still a sniffle and cough to be taken care of. I’ve become quite worried.”

  “It’s good of you to do so much for them. A sign of your good heart, caring so much for near strangers,” he nodded approvingly, looking around, likely to see who was watching them speak as he so often seemed to do. “I’d best not keep you.”

  She curtsied to him. “Thank you. Enjoy your day, Mr. Fletcher, and my best to your mother for a speedy recovery.”

  Fletcher let her go without another word and Amity let out a soft sigh of relief. Not having a husband underfoot, even a pretend one, was proving more of a problem than she’d anticipated it could be.

  As a married woman who’d abandoned her husband after a terrible fight, she was somewhat scandalous, though she made sure to never let the proprieties lapse around any man. Unfortunately, she now seemed to have become a target for many gentlemen hoping to enliven their quiet lives with a clandestine affair. Amity rebuffed them all, but at least Mr. Fletcher might have honorable intentions toward her. She couldn’t imagine his mother would allow him not to. He was quite under her thumb, in her opinion.

  From the gossipy baker, she bought fresh bread; the barrel-sized butcher sold her a large joint of smoked ham to make into broth or soup; and from the flower seller, a posy of violets to put on her neighbors’ sickroom side tables. She moved past the sweet maker but paused at the stall of a bookseller. The Misses Beamish were bored with their illness, and she’d promised them a new story if she could find an affordable volume.

  The old man’s eyes lit up with recognition and not a little hope. “Can I help you, madam?”

  “Perhaps.”

  She perused his collection, noting many of the same books he’d had on display last time remained on sale again. But she spied a book of poetry she’d admired before and purchased it, mostly to give him at least one sale today. The locals were not much for reading but the Misses Beamish liked to listen to her read aloud to them often. This small book of poetry would be perfect for many occasions.

  She thanked the bookseller, told him she hoped to see him again next time, and turned away, only to run into a broad, manly chest clad in rich blue velvet.

  The man mumbled an immediate apology—and she looked up into Roman Crawford’s laughing eyes.

  “Roman!”

  He stepped back and offered an elegant bow. “Miss Sweet.”

  “Shh,” she hissed, praying no one had heard him speak her real name. She lived here under an assumed one, mostly for the fun of it but also to throw her brother off her scent, should he ever stir himself from London to look for her here. She’d wanted to cut all ties with her family, even with Fairbridge, who’d generously offered her the cottage to live in with no strings attached. “Mrs. Jane Standish.”

  Crawford’s brows drew together. “Who the hell is that?”

  “Me. Now.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Of all the ridiculous choices you might have made. You are most definitely not a plain Jane.”

  “Keep your voice down!” Face heating a little, she hastened to move away from the bookseller, who’d started watching them too closely for her taste. The trouble with being a stranger in a small town was that everyone wanted to know everyone’s business, especially hers.

  Crawford hurried to catch up with her. “Where are you going?”

  “I was intent on enjoying market day until you arrived. That is what village women do on days like these, you know.”

  “Ah,” he said slowly, then surprisingly offered to carry her basket for her.

  Amity handed it over, planning to make good use of the scoundrel by purchasing more than she could reasonably carry by herself in one outing. Since coming here, she’d been very frugal with her funds. Fairbridge had added a generous sum of money to her traveling trunk before she’d left London but had sent no more, although he’d promised to continue funding her living, provided she cause no further trouble for the family.

  At the time, she’d easily accepted his terms, and the cottage to live in, because her brother had been a beast she feared going back to. So, she’d lived here anonymously for the last weeks, striving to make a home and new friends, using an assumed name and invented past while making sure every penny spent was on necessities only.

  Books were surely a necessity for living happily anywhere.

  That might all unravel too easily, now that Crawford had come. Had he reconsidered the appeal of her dowry? Had he told Fairbridge he was the one to ruin her and been sent here to fetch her back and marry her?

  Amity increased the distance between herself and Crawford, glancing discreetly about them to see who was near enough to listen in. “What brings you to this part of the countryside, sir?”

  His brow rose. “Concern.”

  “Concern? For whom?”

  Crawford smiled tightly and looked around them, too. “For you, of course. You disappeared without a trace.”

  “Not well enough, it seems, if you found me so easily,” she muttered under her breath.

  He shrugged. “It’s been weeks. It took time, and a great deal of ale poured down your cousin’s throat.”

  “Which cousin?”

  “Stratford first, and the others to a lesser extent later.”

  She regarded him warily. “Why would you care so much about where I’d gone?”

  Crawford swung the basket by his side a few times, silent for a long painful moment, and then he pointedly lowered his gaze to the region of her belly. Her flat belly. He didn’t look at her as he spoke. “Since I did not see you again after that night, I was left to fear there might have been a complication to your plan. A consequence that you shouldn’t have to face alone.”

  She blinked rapidly, the sharp pinch of emotion catching her by surprise. She had wondered if she might conceive after their one brief tryst, too. But her courses had come exactly on time after that night with him, and carrying a child of his wasn’t a remote possibility now. “You worried about me having your babe?”

  “Very much.” He pulled a face. “Of course, I wanted to know that you were well after your first time, too.”

  “Very well, and very grateful.” She raised her hand to her throat, relieved he hadn’t followed her for her dowry alone. “The mark you left upon my neck was proof enough of my wickedness that I was spared the need to submit to a more…intimate inspection.”

  He gaped. “Your brother demanded you examined?”

  “Not him, but my aunt suggested it might not be a true ruin. I feared George would want proof before he believed my tale entirely. A doctor would have been sent for eventually. Probably my cousin Nash Sweet, to keep any scandal quiet and in the family. That was why no half measures were possible. I had to be bedded thoroughly, beyond a shadow of a doubt.”

  She looked up at his face, and saw Crawford’s expression was now set in murderous lines.

  She put a restraining hand on his arm, fearing an outburst. “Everything that happened after you, I expected to happen.”

  “Well, I did not expect this at all for you.” He threw his free arm out wildly, encompassing their surroundings. “The indignity of you being sent away and the threat of having your cousin look up your skirts cannot be borne. I ought to wring his bloody neck!”

  Although she flinched inwardly at his wild gesture, she made herself remain still. “Calm yourself, Crawford,” she whispered, even as she nodded to a passing local who regarded Crawford with barely concealed interest.

  “I’m sorry, but I cannot do that.”

  She looked at him sharply, hoping he’d not cause a scene here in public view. “You must, for my sake if nothing else. There’s nothing you could have done. I was happy to leave London and reconciled to proving my ruin. But the unpleasantness is behind me now, and I can be at peace at last.”

  “It is wrong that you are not living the life you were meant for. You’re not even being yourself.”

  “I am more myself now than I have ever been,” she promised, telling him what she had always believed about her life in London, as she’d told herself those first nights when she unexpectedly experienced doubts. She had not been her real self in London, except for the one glorious night when Crawford had made love to her.

  The pretend part of her life was over. This was better, even if pretending to live as a married woman with an absent husband meant she might never marry anyone at all or have the children she’d always imagined doting on. “Mrs. Standish lives a respectable life alone.”

  Crawford made a grumbling sound, and then thankfully fell silent on the subject.

  She studied his face carefully, wishing peace for him, too. While it was to his credit as a gentleman that he cared enough about her to seek her out, it changed nothing for Amity. Crawford was even more handsome than she remembered, but in love with someone else. She tried to take her basket from him. “It was good to see you again.”

  “Not so fast. I still have your basket to carry for you.”

  Although Amity reached for it again, he would not give it up. So, she had no choice but to continue with her shopping, and have Crawford keep her company. Even when she stopped to purchase ribbons, he never once complained she was taking too long. He stayed close. Watchful but seeming in no hurry to leave her, now that he’d found her safe and well.

  As she browsed and bartered for her purchases, she cast an occasional glance toward her companion. It was hard to believe so confirmed a scoundrel had actually been worried enough about her welfare to follow her here, of all places.

  Done with the market, she returned to his side and added her last purchases to the basket he carried. “That’s everything I need.”

  “So, tell me about your Mr. Standish,” Crawford asked in a low tone. “Is he somewhere about?”

  “No.” She wet her lips and hid a smile. Standish was a figment of her imagination. “My husband and I quarreled over his affairs, and I left him wallowing in some harlot’s petticoats. I am quite done with him.”

  “I don’t blame you at all.” Crawford grinned, catching on quickly and lowering his voice. “You keep the advantage of having a living husband somewhere to protect your reputation without having to deal with one underfoot. Very wise of you.”

  “I thought so.” She’d modeled her husband’s behavior on Crawford, right down to his continued infatuation for her sister-in-law. Of course, she’d changed everyone’s names and places of residence.

  Crawford nodded. “So, can I assume he’s a stranger in these parts, like you are, too?”

  “Yes, but I describe him very well, and most of my new friends agree I’m better off without such a man in my life.”

  “What do the rest of them say?”

  “That he’ll come to his senses one day, mend his ways and come crawling back. All philanderers feel a need to be reformed by their wives, or so I’m assured.”

  Crawford rubbed his jaw. “They do say reformed rakes make the best husbands. In the end, after a period of reflection and penance.” A huge smile burst over his face, making him even more handsome. “Will you make him suffer and grovel? Bring you flowers and wait on you hand and foot?”

  “I hadn’t considered the possibility of groveling obviously, since he doesn’t exist,” she mused. “But I suppose some would be expected for me to ever speak to him again. He broke my heart with his scandalous betrayal.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Why should you be sorry?” They had finally reached the gateway to her neighbors’ home, and she paused to study Crawford one last time. Her heart skipped a beat. He’d found her, she’d answered his questions, and now that his curiosity was satisfied, they could say goodbye and he could be on his way.

  She curtsied and took her basket from him. “Thank you, sir, for your company and concern. As you see, I am quite content. I trust that you will have a good journey home to London again and a happy life. Please don’t give my regards to my family.”

  Crawford squinted at her a long moment but then reached for her hand. Amity’s heart started to pound as she unthinkingly extended hers to be claimed. When he pressed a long kiss to the back, she relived some of the sensations of their scandalous night together. His tenderness had affected her then. It still did now apparently.

  He glanced up, grinning, and she knew he’d sensed her unspoken response to him. “Until we meet again, sweetheart.”

  Amity walked away from him on trembling legs, ignoring the urge to look back over her shoulder for one last glimpse of her tender lover. It had been astonishing to see him again, but of course that part of her life was over. Now that she’d satisfied his curiosity about how she’d fared, he would forget her and return to pining for her horrid sister-in-law.

  That certainty, above all she’d been through, was the one thing that always made her sad when she thought of him.

  Chapter 7

  Roman shook his head as Amity Sweet swept away from him without a backward glance. Who did she think she was fooling with this act of hers of being a common country wife?

  Amity Sweet was extraordinary in every way possible. Gracious, charming, and more attractive than was good for him. There was no way to mistake her for anything but a member of the aristocracy. From the slightly haughty tilt of her head to the way she glided everywhere as if her feet didn’t quite touch the ground she walked upon.

  And the damn woman affected him more than she should, too. He already ached to kiss those sweet lips and taste her soft skin again.

  She might just be aching for him, too. He’d heard the catch in her breath as their hands touched. Glimpsed desire brightening her eyes when he’d lifted his head after he’d kissed the back of her hand, too.

  It had taken him so many weeks to pry her location out of her unknowing relatives without giving away his keen interest in her welfare and whereabouts. He’d not bothered to enquire about Amity to her older brother though. Clearly George had no idea of her location, or he’d have fetched her back in the blink of an eye to bind her to another man in unholy wedlock. And he knew that to approach a man he despised to ask after his sister might have caused suspicion to fall his way about the wonderful night, mere minutes, they’d spent together.

  But if anyone could have hidden Amity’s location so well, it had to be done at the behest of her cousin Lord Fairbridge. He couldn’t be applied to directly for information, of course, but his brothers were not so suspicious of casual enquiries made of their relations, given they’d discussed others in the past ad nauseum while deep in their cups.

  Eventually, by asking enough of the right questions discreetly, he’d pieced together the extent of Fairbridge’s private holdings within any short distance of London and had slipped away from Town to visit each area in turn.

  He had just about given up the hunt when he’d happened upon Amity standing at the bookseller’s stall.

  His heart had done an uncharacteristic flip at the sight of her animated expression as she’d bartered with the merchant for the slim volume, oblivious to his scrutiny.

  She looked happy. Happier than he’d ever seen her, in fact.

  He should have spun on his heel then and there and departed, considering his mission complete. He’d found her, and she was clearly well. But he’d experienced a compelling yearning to talk to her again, though his stomach had churned with the uncertainty of his welcome.

  And when she’d looked up and smiled, he’d become utterly and completely charmed. It was not every day a woman ruined welcomed the return of their secret lover with such a forgiving smile.

  Now that he’d found Amity safe and content, he ought to leave her to her peace and go back to London to make merry again with his friends and continue to wreak havoc on her brother’s life.

  Except…he didn’t want to go just yet.

  He had not expected to find her on the first day here, so had already taken rooms at the village inn. His men and horses were not in the village with him though. He’d left them behind at a farm to mend a cracked wheel, where he’d paid for their stay with a generous handful of coin. They were all weary from his seemingly pointless travels anyway, so he’d promised them a few days of idleness after the repair was done while he’d rode ahead alone to scout the area.

  He’d spoken with the innkeeper of this charmingly rustic village about his keen interest in purchasing an estate here, but hadn’t given his name yet. The man had assured him there were properties to be considered and would act as his go-between with local landowners if he was in earnest about any.

  To leave without meeting with at least one might arouse suspicion. He had the perfect excuse to linger, so why not pretend to be an investor up from London and spend more time with Amity, if it were on the cards? They had not parted as enemies, after all. They were not friends, either, but something that he couldn’t quite put a name to yet.

  Roman wandered the market, watching the townsfolk come and go. It was an interesting place, a tidy cobbled square with a well and clearly prosperous population. But it was a place unbefitting a gentle beauty like Amity to settle down in.

  Queen of London society Amity ought to be, in his opinion. Something more than a supposedly betrayed wife of a man no one had ever met. It was a clever ruse, and one few here would likely directly question her about to prove her tale true or false. But any husband of Amity’s would be a fool to betray her with a woman of lesser standing.