Her captor strode toward the inn, his long fingers looped around her wrist. She stumbled after him, trying to recover her composure and not appear the drunkard he sought to portray her.

With the front of her gown soaked, she shivered as they entered the inn’s toasty confines. Still, she suspected her trembling had more to do with her anger than the cold wet.

Stepping into the large well-lit room, she blinked like a mole emerging from the earth, searching, seeking a friendly face—someone who might aid her.

Her gaze locked on a cheery-faced man, nearly as round as he was tall, waddling toward her at what must be quite the clipped pace for him. He wiped meaty hands on his apron, exclaiming, “Welcome, welcome, my fine friends!”

Marguerite opened her mouth to declare the brute beside her the lowest scoundrel, an abductor of innocents. With those hot words burning on the tip of her tongue, she turned to face her accused, ready to condemn him before he bandied his lies about her.

Mouth open, words hovering so close, she froze. Utterly robbed of speech, she stared.

The hard lines of his face reflected her own surprise. Or was it horror?

The innkeeper had reached them by now, but still they continued to gawk at one another. Her abductor’s dark eyes crawled over her as though he had never seen a female before.

It was he. Him. The man from the St. Giles. “Courtland,” she whispered.

“Marguerite,” he returned, mouthing her name so quietly she scarcely heard him.

Now the bothersome effect of his rumbling voice made sense. It had been the same then, when he’d pressed his body to hers, when he’d touched her so intimately and had spoken near her ear. On some level, she must have recognized him. She must have known.

“You,” she hissed. She shook her head as though dizzy, struggling to reconcile the scoundrel from St. Giles with this man who claimed to possess great wealth. Wealth enough to tempt her into matrimony—at least to his thinking.

He blinked and whatever emotion she had awakened in him vanished. His dark gaze stared at her coolly, the light lost, dormant. Once again, he was in control.

“Of course, my dear,” he soothed in the beleaguered voice of an afflicted husband. She followed his gaze to the watchful eyes of the innkeeper. “It’s always me. By your side.”

Understanding at once that he was attempting to establish the pretense that they were married, she pulled her arm free in a wild jerk. “Oh, no you don’t,” Marguerite hissed in low tones. She lunged for the innkeeper, eager to explain her predicament, but Courtland stepped on her hem, his boot firmly catching her in place.

She staggered, wobbled, struggling to right herself, to pull her hem loose. And then suddenly, she was free. He removed his boot from her hem and she tripped against the innkeeper. A deliberate move, no doubt, to make her look all the more unstable.

“Umph!” the innkeeper exclaimed.

“I’m so sorry! My apologies,” she babbled. “He made me do it …” her voice faded at the look on the innkeeper’s face. He pressed one hand to his nose, the offending smell of her clearly devastating him. He placed his pudgy hands on her arms and quickly set her away from him. “There, there, now.” He leveled both of them with a stern look. “I don’t know what kind of establishment you think I’m operating here—”

“You’ll have to forgive my wife,” Courtland began, his tone placating and needling. Not at all him. That much she knew already. “We’ve returned from my great aunt’s ninetieth birthday celebration. The dear old bird—can’t believe she’s still getting on. Walks to the village and back every day. She even walks to church on Sundays, weather permitting of course, and that’s quite a distance. My wife here has difficulty controlling herself where spirits are concerned. It’s been a lifelong battle. But what can I do? I married the girl. I protect her as much as I can from her demons, but I cannot stand guard of her every moment—”

Marguerite sputtered, her nails cutting painfully into her tender palms. What a display! He belonged on stage. “You bounder! Wretch!”

The innkeeper looked wide-eyed between them.

The scoundrel with his liquid dark eyes even managed to look angelic and contrite as he shook his head. Blast the man! “I promise if you just let us a room for the night, we shall not cause any disorder and we’ll depart at first light.” The silver-tongued devil pulled a healthy pouch of coins from his cloak and dangled it for the innkeeper. “I’ll more than compensate you.”

The portly innkeeper wet his lips and snatched up the sack. “So long as you don’t disturb my other patrons.”

” ‘Course, the missus will no doubt succumb to sleep the moment she touches down on the bed. ‘Tis the case in most these situations.”

With a brisk, businesslike nod, the innkeeper led them up a narrow set of steps. Her captor clamped down on her arm, continuing to talk over her protests and mutterings about his great-aunt’s birthday festivities and painting himself the veritable saint for so loyally abiding his sot of a wife.

At the door to their room, the innkeeper left them a lamp, offering the parting advice, “Appears she might need more of a firm hand from you.”

Courtland actually deigned to look sheepish, smiling feebly. It was such a false expression, almost ridiculous on his face, a face carved from stone. “I do let my tender feelings for her at times stand in the way of sound judgment.”

“It’s a rigid hand she needs, either from you or in an asylum.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.”

Oh, the miserable man! Marguerite looked around wildly. Any guilt for lying, for reneging on her promise to consider his offer of marriage fled. Her gaze scoured the room, landing on the pitcher sitting on the washstand. She tugged her arm free of her alleged husband.

Courtland released her, shutting the door with a click, isolating them.

This time, no masks. No darkness shrouding them. Just the two of them. She was alone in a bedroom with a very big, virile male intent on dragging her toward the fate she fought to avoid. And she had all but told him such a fate was acceptable to her. Of course, that was before she realized he was the scoundrel from St. Giles. Before he doused her in gin. She absolutely could not marry him.

Her gaze devoured the chipped pitcher, angrier than she had ever felt in her life. Her trembling hands closed around the heavy porcelain, her fingers curling over the curving handle.

Swinging around, she let the pitcher fly.

His eyes widened a fraction before ducking. The pitcher crashed against the wall.

With a grunt of disappointment, her gaze scanned the room for the next available object. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to seize anything before he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her off her feet. Air escaped her in a great gust as his shoulder ground into her belly. She beat him on the shoulders, the back, anywhere she could reach. He stalked across the room, hauling her like a sack of grain, not the least affected from her efforts.

He flung her down on the bed. “Enough,” he growled, looming over her, a dark scowl on his face. Except the scowl did nothing to detract from his striking looks. Her heart tripped treacherously, tightening in her chest.

Staring at his too-beautiful visage, she sank into the soft mattress—and that made an entirely new kind of panic flare inside her.

His words fell clipped and hard from his well-carved lips. “I just promised the innkeeper to keep you in check, and I don’t relish spending the night in the carriage when you get us thrown out.”

“I don’t care what you relish!”

His eyes narrowed to hooded slits, no less diminishing their brilliant darkness. His jaw clenched, a muscle feathering along the taut, shadowed flesh. “You’ve promised to consider my offer. I intend to see you keep that promise.”

“I changed my mind. I have plans, a life—” She struggled beneath the hard line of his body, choking a bit on these words, at the ache beneath her breastbone. “A life to lead.” A well-lived life. “You’re ruining it all!”

His gaze crawled over her face, missing nothing. She recoiled, averse to him seeing anything at all within her. “Is this because of that bloody trip to Spain?” he demanded. “I’ve wealth for you to enjoy countless times over. Wed me and you can go anywhere in the world without being beholden to anyone.”

She shook her head where she lay beneath him on the bed. “You don’t understand.” I haven’t the time. Deciding to try a softer approach, she moistened her lips. Recalling his name, she murmured, “Ash, please. You must release me. You don’t understand how important—”

“It’s this lover then?” He shifted, settling deeper against her. His hard chest undulated in a way that made her br**sts tighten. Her cheeks burned anew at their immodest position. Her gaze raked the broad line of his shoulders, the chest straining against his jacket. She blinked once, squeezing her eyes tightly, trying to block out his physicality. Opening her eyes, awareness of him hit her full force again and left her quivering. The memory of his strength, the raw power that she had witnessed in the streets of St. Giles invaded her thoughts, catching her breath in her throat.

“Do you love him then?” His voice lowered as he brought his face closer to her neck. She trembled at the warm rasp of his words on her throat. “Is that it? Are you afraid he will not wait for you? That after a few days he’ll take another mistress? Take her to Spain when you go missing?”

She held her breath, unsure how to answer. Should she claim to love Roger? Insist that he loved her in turn? What man, after all, wanted a wife who pined for another?

She watched him carefully, studied the shadows flickering over his face, dancing over the harsh lines. The nose that may have been broken at one time. The mouth sensual and beckoning. A stark contrast to the unyielding look of him.

Too bad he wanted marriage.

The thought came unbidden. If he didn’t want to marry her, she could use him to exact all her desires. He was the perfect specimen. His hooded eyes promised all manner of illicit knowledge. A glance into them and she felt pulled, compelled, dragged into something dark and fathomless deep. A man like him could teach her a thing or two about passion. Even his name hinted at vice … Ash.

Like this, with his vital body pressed over hers, she felt more alive than she had in years. It was enough. Enticement enough to let madness seize her and take over, urging her to arch up against him, molding herself to all the warm male hardness.

He angled his face, watching her closely, studying her as she studied him. With a finger to her jaw, he tilted her face up and to the side. “I can see nothing of Jack in you.” A smile twitched his lips, lips that dipped toward her, drawing ever closer. “Which is just as well. I don’t really care to think about him at this particular moment.”

His finger on her jaw slid to the corner of her mouth, brushing the bottom lip. She trembled, ached strangely, yearning from the center of her being.

Was this his plan then? Seduce her with the gentlest touch? Was this how he meant to persuade her to marry him?

Her body hummed, every nerve ending quivering fiercely, as if she might ignite.

He stroked the full length of her bottom lip in a gliding caress, his fingertip dipping inside her mouth just the barest hint. Enough for her to taste him.

“I think we’ll get on just fine.” His hoarse voice scratched the air. “This won’t be such a bad arrangement for either one of us.”

No words could have more effectively doused her ardor. In one breath he reminded her that he wanted marriage—a destiny tantamount to death for her.

She jerked her head away from his offending hand. “Get off me.”

His eyes narrowed at her tone, but he didn’t move. Remained a heavy wall atop her. “What? No sampling? It’s not as if you’ve not freely given it before.”