“You would win,” she said with utter positiveness. “I expect you always win, don’t you?”

“Often.” He was looking down at her hand again. “The problem with winning is that I win because I don’t care very much.”

“About winning?”

His right shoulder moved: almost a shrug, not quite. “Precisely. I never allow myself to care very deeply for any particular exchange of goods. I learned years ago that the key to winning is to feel no emotion at losing.”

“Goodness,” Tess said faintly.

“I am telling you this, Tess, because I want to be absolutely honest with you. I am not suited for marriage, in truth. I like you enormously. But I do not seem—by nature—to have a capacity for deep feeling.”

“I am not—” But she couldn’t find the words. “I shall make no demands,” she said.

He smiled, and there was a laughing devil in his eyes. “I shall make demands,” he said, scooping up her hands and bringing them to his mouth. “I shall make demands, Tess.”

She was a virgin. She’d never been married, as he pointed out. But she recognized the naked longing in his voice as surely as any minister would point to a cloven hoof in his own parlor. She could feel a blush that started in her chest and turned her cheeks pink.

He didn’t wait for an answer. His kiss was swift and savage, a kiss that demanded everything she had to give. And like all of Lucius’s kisses, it told her much: there was a proprietorial claim there that made her head spin and her knees tremble, so that she leaned toward him, her fingers pulling his head closer to her.

He was the one who pulled back. He was breathing hard. “Are you certain that you will make no demands of me, Tess?” he whispered to her, his voice deeper than she’d ever heard it before.

It was a new Tess he was looking at. A Tess who was clearly not going to be merely a proper, modest wife.

Even as he watched, her lips curled into a smile that would grace a courtesan. She reached out a hand and put one unsteady finger on his lips. “I might make a few demands of my own,” she said.

Lucius’s heart sang at the note in her voice, at the pure desire in her eyes.

“Thank God Mayne was kind enough to provide a bishop so that we could marry immediately,” he said rather hoarsely.

“Indeed,” she said.

So he kissed her again.

Chapter 26

T he rest of the morning passed in something of a dream. Griselda, poor Griselda, appeared in tears, announcing her intention to leave immediately. She was dissuaded by Rafe, who pointed out that the girls still needed chaperoning.

“I simply can’t believe that my own brother would do such a despicable thing,” she wailed, wringing her hands. “He’s never done—” But then she seemed to remember some other egregious action of Mayne’s and closed her mouth. “You’re better off without him,” she told Tess. “Though he’s my brother, and I love him, I tell you this—he’s not behaved like himself for some time now. I thought you were the cure, my dear, but…”“He must find his own cure,” Tess said gently. Excitement was pumping through her body, making her feel light-headed, almost dizzy, as if her ears were roaring, as if the blood was rushing about her body twice as fast as was normal. Every few moments she would look up and catch Lucius’s eye, and heat would wash over her body.

Annabel was grinning like a simpleton and kept drifting by and whispering in her ear, “I knew it; I simply knew it; oh, I am so intelligent!”

The bishop, horrified by his nephew’s behavior, agreed to marry them by special license, promptly scratching out Mayne’s name and writing in Lucius Felton.

“Good man!” he kept saying, making as if to slap Lucius on the back and then faltering. Lucius was not the sort of man one slaps on the back. “My nephew is a black-guard, leaving this lovely lady in the dust, but he has excellent friends. He doesn’t deserve them.”

“Yes,” Lucius said noncommittally.

Finally, the bishop opened his book and began rushing through the opening of the service. Clearly he felt that any romantic flourishes should be dropped from this particular ceremony; Tess felt as if the words rushed by her ears like water, he was speaking so fast. “Will-you-take-this-woman,” he gabbled, and then there was a pause.

Lucius’s voice, dark and clear, said, “I will.”

The bishop turned to Tess. “Will-you-take…” and she couldn’t even understand the rest, even though she tried desperately to listen closely to Lucius’s full name. The bishop paused and looked at her, and she felt herself opening her mouth, without conscious volition. “I will.”

“Good!” the bishop said heartily, and then returned to the Bible, clearly relieved to find his nephew’s reputation saved.

Tess bit her lip, feeling rather miserably like a piece of meat Cook had decided to stew as it was on the verge of rotting. Suddenly she felt large hands take hers, and she looked up to find Lucius looking down at her.

And where others might have seen an unexpressionless face, she saw laughter in his eyes, and a reassuring hint of affection, and a twinkle that suggested they would laugh together later at their gabbled wedding ceremony.

The bishop calmed down as he turned to the next section of the ceremony: “I, Lucius John Percival Felton, take thee, Teresa Elizabeth Essex, to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward…”

This time Tess heard his name clearly. She raised an eyebrow at him. Percival?

“For better for worse,” Lucius said steadily, still holding her hands in his and looking down at her, “for richer for poorer…”

Not that money was a problem for him, for them, Tess thought. Perhaps it would be easier for them if there weren’t so much money. But she dismissed the idea as ridiculous.

“In sickness and in health,” Lucius continued, “to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

She met Lucius’s eyes. ’Twas was a grave thing they were doing. She had a sudden flash of blinding joy that she was plighting her troth to Lucius and not to Mayne.

“I, Teresa Elizabeth Essex, take thee, Lucius John Percival Felton, to my wedded husband,” she said, hanging on to his hands, “to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey…”

Then before she had time to think again, he brushed a chaste kiss on her cheek, took her arm, and they turned about. Annabel was crying, and Josie was grinning. Rafe was instructing Brinkley to pop the corks on as many bottles of champagne as he could find in the cellar.

“A short repast,” he shouted, waving a glass and grinning, “then we shall see the wedding couple off to their own abode.”

Tess blinked and looked at Lucius.

“I have a house just an hour or so down the road,” he said to her. “I thought we might have a brief time to ourselves.”

“Shouldn’t we go immediately to London?” Tess asked confusedly, thinking of the need to whisk Annabel away from Rafe’s house.

But he merely said, “Your sisters will be fine. Lady Griselda has agreed to stay as chaperone.”