“Is it very exciting?”

  “If you like to gamble,” he said simply, and Penelope wrinkled her nose.

  “I’ve never gambled.”

  “Nonsense. You’ve wagered every minute we have been together. First for your sisters and today, for yourself.”

  She considered the words. “I suppose I have. And I’ve won.”

  “That’s because I’ve let you win.”

  “I gather that does not happen at your hell?”

  He gave a little huff of laughter. “No. We prefer to allow gamers to lose.”

  “Why?”

  He cut her a look. “Because their loss is our gain.”

  “You mean money?”

  “Money, land, jewels . . . whatever they are foolish enough to wager.”

  It sounded fascinating. “And it is called The Angel?”

  “The Fallen Angel.”

  She considered the name for a long moment. “Did you name it?”

  “No.”

  “It seems appropriate for you.”

  “I imagine that’s why Chase chose it. It’s appropriate for all of us.”

  “All of you?”

  He sighed, opening one eye and leveling her with a look. “You are voracious.”

  “I prefer curious.”

  He sat up, fiddling with the edge of one sleeve. “There are four of us.”

  “And you are all . . . fallen?” The last came on a whisper.

  Hazel eyes found hers in the dim carriage. “In a sense.”

  She considered the answer, the way he said the words with neither shame nor pride. Just simple, unbridled honesty. And she realized that there was something very tempting in the idea of his being fallen . . . of his being a scoundrel. Of his having lost everything—hundreds of thousands of pounds!—and gained it all back in such a short time. He’d somehow restored it all. With no help from society. With nothing but his unflagging will and his fierce commitment to his cause.

  Not only tempting.

  Heroic.

  She met his gaze, suddenly seeing him in an entirely new light.

  He shot forward, and the carriage became instantly small. “Don’t do that.”

  She sat back, pressing away from him. “Don’t do what?”

  “I can see you romanticizing it. I can see you turning The Angel into something it is not. Turning me into something I am not.”

  She shook her head, unnerved by the way he had read her thoughts. “I wasn’t . . .”

  “Of course you were. You think I haven’t seen the same look in the eyes of a dozen other women? A hundred of them? Don’t do it,” he said firmly. “You shall only be disappointed.”

  Silence fell. He uncrossed his long, booted legs and recrossed them, one ankle over the other, before closing his eyes again. Shutting her out.

  She watched him quietly, marveling at his stillness, as though they were nothing more than traveling companions, this nothing more than an ordinary carriage ride. And perhaps he was right, for there was nothing about this man that felt husbandly, and she certainly felt nothing like a wife.

  Wives were more certain of their purpose, she imagined.

  Not that she had felt any more certain of her purpose the last time she’d come close to becoming a wife. The last time she’d come close to marriage to a man she hadn’t known.

  The thought gave her pause. He was no different than the duke, this new, grown-up Michael, who was not at all the boy she’d once known. She searched his face now for some hint of her old friend, for the deep-set dimples in his cheeks, for the easy, companionable smiles, for the wide-mouthed laughter that never failed to get him into trouble.

  He wasn’t there.

  He was replaced by this cold, hard, unyielding man who cut a wide swath through the lives of those around him and took what he wanted without care.

  Her husband.

  Suddenly, Penelope felt very alone—more alone than she’d ever been before—here in this carriage with this strange man, far from her parents and her sisters and Tommy and everything she’d ever known, rattling toward London and what was bound to be the strangest day of her life.

  Everything had changed that morning. Everything.

  Forevermore, her life would be thought of in two parts—before she was married, and after.

  Before, there was Dolby House and Needham Manor and her family. And after, there was . . . Michael.

  Michael, and no one else.

  Michael, and who knew what else.

  Michael, stranger turned husband.

  An ache settled deep in her chest, sadness perhaps? No. Longing.

  Married.

  She took a deep breath, and it shuddered out of her, the sound rattling around the close confines of the carriage.

  He opened his eyes, capturing her gaze before she could pretend to be asleep. “What is it?”

  She supposed she should be touched that he even asked, but in fact, she found she could feel nothing but annoyance at his insensitive tone. Did he not understand that this was a rather complicated afternoon as far as emotions went? “You may lay claim to my life, my dowry, and my person, my lord. But I am still keeper of my thoughts, am I not?”

  He stared at her for a long while, and Penelope had the distinct, uncomfortable impression that he was able to read her thoughts. “Why did you require such a large dowry?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Why were you unmarried?”

  She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “Surely you are the only person in Britain who does not know the story.” He did not reply, and she filled the silence with the truth. “I was the victim of the worst sort of broken engagement.”

  “There are ‘sorts’ of broken engagements?”

  “Oh, yes. Mine was particularly bad. Not the breaking part . . . circumstances allowed me to call it off. But the rest . . . marriage to a woman he actually loved within a week? That was not so complimentary. It took me years to learn to ignore the whispers.”

  “What could people have possibly had to whisper about?”

  “Namely, why I—a perfect English bride, pampered and dowered and titled and all—was unable to retain control over a duke for even one month.”

  “And? Why couldn’t you?”

  She looked away from him, unable to say the words to his face. “He was madly in love with another. It seems that love indeed conquers all. Even aristocratic marriages.”

  “You believe that?”

  “I do. I’ve seen them together. They’re . . .” she searched for the word. “Perfect.” He did not reply, so she pushed on. “At least, I like to think so.”

  “Why should it matter to you?”

  “It shouldn’t, I suppose . . . but I like to think that if they weren’t perfect together . . . if they did not love each other so very much . . . then he would not have done what he did, and . . .”

  “And you would be married.”

  She looked at him, a wry smile on her lips. “I’m married anyway.”

  “But you’d have the marriage you were raised to have instead of this one, a scandal waiting to be discovered.”

  “I did not know it, but that one was a scandal waiting to be discovered, too.” At his questioning look, she said, “The duke’s sister. She was unmarried, not even out, and with child. He wanted our marriage to ensure that there was more to the House of Leighton than her scandal.”

  “He planned to use you to cover up the scandal? Without telling you?”

  “Is that any different than using me for money? Or land?”

  “Of course it’s different. I didn’t lie.”

  It was true, and for some reason, it mattered. Enough to make her realize that she would not exchange this marriage for that long-ago one.

  It was growing cold in the carriage, and she adjusted her skirts, trying to leech the very last of the heat from the warming brick at her feet. The action bought time to think. “My sisters, Victoria and Valerie?” She waited for him to recall the twins. When he nodded, she continued. “They had their first season immediately following my scandal. And they suffered for it. My mother was so terrified they’d be colored by my tragedy, she urged them to take the first offers they received. Victoria was matched with an aging earl, desperate for an heir, Valerie to a viscount—handsome, but with more money than sense. I’m not sure they are happy . . . but I don’t imagine they ever expected to be—not once marriage became a real possibility.” She paused, thinking. “We all knew better. We weren’t raised to believe that marriage was anything more than a business arrangement, but I made it impossible for them to have more.”

  She kept talking, not entirely understanding why she felt she should tell him the whole story. “My marriage was to be the most calculated, the most businesslike of them all. I was to become the Duchess of Leighton. I was to keep quiet and do my husband’s bidding and breed the next Duke of Leighton. And I would have done it. Happily.” She lifted one shoulder in a little shrug. “The duke—he had other plans.”

  “You escaped.”

  No one had ever referred to it in such a way. She’d never admitted it, the quiet comfort that had come in the dissolution of the engagement, even as her world had come crashing down around her. She’d never wanted her mother to accuse her of being selfish. Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to agree with Michael. “I’m not sure that most women would call what happened to me an escape. It’s funny how a little thing like a broken engagement can change everything.”

  “Not so little, I imagine.”

  She met his gaze again, realizing that he was paying close attention to her. “No . . . I suppose not.”

  “How did it change you?”

  “I was no longer a prize. No longer the ideal aristocratic bride.” She ran her hands over her skirts, smoothing out the wrinkles that had appeared during their journey. “I was no longer perfect. Not in their eyes.”

  “In my experience, perfection in the eyes of society is highly overrated.” He was staring at her, his hazel eyes glittering with something she could not identify.

  “That’s easy for you to say; you walked away from them.”

  He ignored the shift of focus, refused to allow the conversation to turn to him. “All those things—everything you just said—that’s how your broken engagement changed you for them. How did it change you, Penelope?”

  The question gave her pause. In the years since the Duke of Leighton had caused the scandal of the ages and destroyed any chance of Penelope’s becoming his duchess, she’d never once asked herself how it had changed her.

  But now, as she looked across the carriage at her new husband—a man she’d approached in the dead of night and whom she’d wed only days later—the truth whispered through her.

  It had made happiness a possibility.

  She swallowed back the thought, and he leaned forward quickly, almost eager. “There. There—you just answered the question.”

  “I—” She stopped.

  “Say it.”

  “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Anymore. Because of me?”

  I was never destined to have what they have. She considered her words carefully. “It made me realize that marriage did not have to be an arrangement. The duke—he loves his wife madly. Their marriage . . . there is nothing quiet and sedate about it.”

  “And you wanted that?”

  Only once I knew it was an option.

  But it hadn’t mattered.

  She gave a little shrug. “It doesn’t matter what I wanted, does it? I’ve got my marriage now.”

  Her teeth chattered on the last, and he muttered his disapproval at the sound, shifting and moving across the carriage to sit next to her. “You’re cold.” He wrapped one long arm around her shoulders, pulling her close to him, his heat pouring off of him in waves. “Here,” he added, pulling a traveling blanket around them, “this will help.”

  She huddled against him, trying not to remember the last time she was this close to him. “It seems you are always sharing your blankets with me, my lord.”

  “Bourne,” he corrected, cocooning them tightly together in the rough wool, the words a rumble beneath her ear. “And it is either share my blankets or have you steal them.”

  She couldn’t help it. She laughed.

  They rode in silence for a long while before he spoke again. “So, all these years, you’ve been waiting for a happy marriage.”

  “I don’t know if waiting is the word I would use. Hoping, more like.” He did not reply, and she fiddled with the button of his coat.

  “And your fiancé, the one from whom I stole you, would he have given it to you?”

  Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  She should tell him the truth about Tommy. That they were never honestly engaged. But something held her back.

  “It’s not worth thinking about it now. But I won’t be blamed for two more unhappy marriages. I don’t fool myself into thinking that my sisters could find love, but they could be happy, couldn’t they? They could find someone who suits them . . . or perhaps that’s too much to ask?”

  “I don’t know, honestly,” he said, one hand slipping around her, pulling her close as the carriage rattled onto the bridge that would take them over the Thames and into London. “I am not the kind of man who understands how people suit.”

  She should not enjoy the feel of his arm around her, but she could not help leaning into his warmth, pretending, for a fleeting moment, that this quiet conversation was the first of many. His hand was sliding slowly up and down her arm, transferring heat—and something more wonderful—to her with each lovely, warm stroke. “Pippa is virtually engaged to Lord Castleton; we expect he’ll propose within a matter of days of her return to London.”

  His hand stilled for a moment before continuing its long, slow slide. “How did she and Castleton come to know each other?”

  She thought of the plain, uninspiring earl. “The same way it happens with anyone, really. Balls, dinners, dancing. He seems nice enough, but . . . I do not care for the idea of him with Pippa.”

  “Why not?”

  “Some would say she’s peculiar, but she’s not. She’s simply bookish, loves the sciences. She is fascinated by how things work. He doesn’t seem to be able to keep up with her. But, honestly? I don’t think she gives a fig one way or another about whether or whom she marries. As long as he has a library and a few dogs, she’ll make a happiness of sorts for herself. I only wish she could find someone more . . . well, I hate to sound cruel, but . . . intelligent. ”

  “Mmm.” Michael was noncommittal. “And your other sister?”

  “Olivia,” she replied, “is very beautiful.”

  “Then it sounds like she will suit most men quite well.”

  Penelope sat up. “It’s that simple?”

  He met her gaze. “Beauty helps.”

  Penelope was never going to be considered beautiful. Plain, yes. Passable, even, on a good day, in a new frock. But never beautiful. Even when she was set to become Duchess of Leighton, she wasn’t beautiful. She was just . . . ideal.

  She loathed the honesty in Michael’s words.

  No one liked to be reminded that she was outvalued by a prettier lady.

  “Well, Olivia is beautiful, and she knows it—”

  “She sounds delightful.”

  She ignored his wry tone. “—and she will need a man who treats her very very well. Who has a great deal of money and does not mind spending it to spoil her.”

  “That sounds like the very opposite of what Olivia needs.”

  “It’s not. You’ll see.”

  Silence fell, and she did not mind, instead turning into his warmth, loving the way he felt against her, the heat of him making the carriage infinitely more comfortable. Just as the rocking motion of the coach was about to lull her to sleep, he spoke. “And you?”

  Her eyes flew open. “Me?”

  “Yes. You. What kind of man would suit you?”

  She watched the way the blanket rose and fell against his chest as he breathed, the long, even movements calming her in a strange way.

  I would like for you to suit me.

  He was her husband, after all. It was only natural for her to imagine that he might be more than a fleeting companion. More than an acquaintance. More of a friend. More than the cold, hard man she’d come to expect him to be. She did not mind this Michael, the one next to her, warming her, talking to her.

  Of course, she did not say any of those things. Instead, she said, “It doesn’t matter much anymore, does it?”

  “If it did?” He was not going to let her avoid the question.

  Whether because of the warmth or the quiet or the journey or the man, she answered. “I suppose I should like someone interesting—someone kind—someone who is willing to show me . . .”

  How to live.

  She couldn’t say that. He would laugh her out of the carriage. “Someone to dance with—someone to laugh with—someone to care about.”

  Someone who would care about me.

  “Someone like your fiancé?”

  She thought of Tommy, considered for a fleeting moment telling Michael that the unidentified man to whom he referred was the friend they’d known all their lives. The son of the man who took everything from him. But she didn’t want to upset him, not while they were quiet and warm, and she could pretend they enjoyed each other’s company.

  So instead she whispered, “I should like for it to be someone like my husband.”

  He was silent for a long time, long enough for her to wonder if he’d heard her. When she risked peering up at him through her lashes, she found that he was staring at her with an unsettling intent, his hazel eyes nearly golden in the fading light.

  For one, fleeting moment, she thought he might kiss her.

  She wished he would kiss her.

  A flush spread high on her cheeks at the thought, and she turned away quickly, returning her head to his chest, closing her eyes tightly, and willing the moment gone—along with her silliness.