“Well, that’s a problem easily solved,” Simon had interrupted matter-of-factly. He had been well aware that a crowd was gathering, eager to see if he would lose his temper over the men’s audacious advances toward his wife. Gently but firmly, he had guided Annabelle back into her chair. “Have a seat, sweetheart.”

“But I don’t want—” she had begun uneasily, and gasped as Simon sank to his haunches before her. Reaching beneath the hem of her skirts, he removed both her beaded satin slippers. “Simon!” Her eyes had been round with astonishment.

Standing, Simon had handed a slipper to each rival with a flourish. “You may have the shoes, gentlemen— just so long as you’re both aware that their contents belong to me.” Picking up his barefoot wife, he had carried her from the room, while the crowd reacted with laughter and applause. On the way out, they had passed the waiter who had been sent to fetch the bottle of champagne. “We’ll take that,” Simon told the dumbfounded waiter, who had handed the heavy chilled bottle to Annabelle.

Simon had carried Annabelle out to the carriage, while she clutched the bottle in one hand and curled her free arm around his neck. “You’re going to cost me a fortune in footwear,” he told her.

Laughter had shimmered in her eyes. “I have some more shoes back at the hotel,” she told him cheerfully. “Are you planning to drink champagne from one of them?”

“No, my love. I’m going to drink it from you.”

She had shot him a startled glance, and as understanding dawned, she had pressed her face against his shoulder, her ear turning crimson.

Recalling the episode, and the pleasurable hours that had followed, Simon looked down at the woman in his arms. The glittering light of eight chandeliers was reflected in her upturned eyes, filling them with tiny sparks that made the blue irises look like a starry summer midnight. She was staring at him with an intensity that she had never shown before, as if she yearned for something she might never have. The look disquieted him, eliciting a powerful need to satisfy her in any way possible. Whatever she might have asked him for in that moment, he would have given without a qualm.

No doubt they presented a hazard to every other couple there, as the room had become dreamily unfocused, and Simon couldn’t bring himself to give a damn about which direction they were going. They danced until people remarked dryly that it was rather gauche for a husband and wife to display such exclusivity at a ball, and that soon after the honeymoon they would tire of each other’s company. Simon only grinned at such comments, and bent to whisper in Annabelle’s ear. “Are you sorry now that you never danced with me?”

“No,” she whispered back. “If I hadn’t been a challenge, you would have lost interest.”

Letting out a low laugh, Simon hooked his arm around her waist and led her to the side of the room. “That would never happen. Everything you do or say interests me.”

“Really,” she said skeptically. “What about Lord Westcliff’s claim that I’m shallow and self-absorbed?”

As she faced him, Simon braced one hand on the wall near her head and leaned over her protectively. His voice was very soft. “He doesn’t know you.”

“And you do?”

“Yes, I know you.” He reached out to finger a tendril of damp hair that clung to her neck. “You guard yourself carefully. You don’t like to depend on anyone. You’re determined and strong-willed, and you’re decided in your opinions. Not to mention stubborn. But never self-absorbed. And anyone with your intelligence could never be called shallow.” He let his finger stray into the wisps of hair behind her ear. A teasing glint entered his eyes as he added, “You’re also delightfully easy to seduce.”

With an outraged laugh, Annabelle lifted a fist as if to pummel him. “Only for you.”

Chuckling, he grasped her fist in his large hand, and kissed the points of her knuckles. “Now that you’re my wife, Westcliff knows better than ever to utter another word of objection to you or the marriage. If he did, I would end the friendship without a second thought.”

“Oh, but I would never want that, I…” She looked at him in sudden bemusement. “You would do that for me?”

Simon traced a vein of golden hair that ran through the honey brown locks. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you.” The vow was sincere. Simon was not a man given to half measures. In return for Annabelle’s commitment to him, she would have his unequivocal loyalty and support.

Annabelle was unaccountably quiet for a long time after that, leading Simon to conclude that she was tired. But when they returned to their room at the Coeur de Paris that evening, she gave herself to him with a new fervor, trying to express with her body what she could not say in words.

CHAPTER 22

As he had promised, Simon was a generous husband, paying for a lavish quantity of French-made gowns and accessories that would be sent to London when they were finished. When he took Annabelle to a jeweler’s shop one afternoon and told her to pick out anything she liked, she could only shake her head helplessly at the array of diamonds, sapphires, and emeralds spread on black velvet. After years of wearing paste stones and thrice-turned gowns, the habits of economy were slow to die.

“Is there nothing you like?” Simon prodded, lifting a necklace made of white and yellow diamonds strung together like strands of little flowers. He held it against her bare throat, admiring the glitter of diamonds against her fine skin. “What about this?”