Page 45 of The Baronet’s Bartered Bride

“Well, they would want to see a beautiful woman done up quite fine, all the silks and velvets and the extravagant hats, don’t you think?” His cheeks grew ruddy. “I did not mean to suggest⁠—”

“I am funning you, Joseph.”

His name slipped out, easy on her lips, familiar as a whistle or a song. She tensed, fearing a gentle setdown, but he didn’t seem to mark the intimacy. He poked a spoon into his soup and scowled.

This would not do. He must be easy with her. Relaxed. Warm. She wanted that Joseph. “Why do you not wish the Duchess smoothing the way for you?”

His gaze flew up to meet hers. The spoon halted halfway to his mouth. This was not a question to make him easy. “What do you mean?”

“Only that many brothers, if their sister has married a duke, would make free in the ducal household, and make ready use of his carriage and every other advantage on offer. They would drop the title with every other sentence, especially when traveling abroad. You seem abashed when Jock announces you as the baronet, and that title, you have earned.”

He put down his spoon. “I haven’t earned any of it.”

She continued eating. The fare was delicious, and she would need strength for what lay ahead. “But it is yours. The title. The status. The brother who is a duke.”

He took up his knife and stabbed at the roasted rabbit. “I didn’t marry a duke. Amaranthe did. And she thinks she must provide for me, as if she were the elder sibling or the parent, when I am older by two years, devil take it. She is still looking after me as if I were yet some young pup in university, as green as unripe cheese. I took my Grand Tour, I survived six months on my own legs, I came back a changed man, and she still has that little costermonger dropping in on me daily, along with any other number of spies, I don’t doubt.”

Inez chewed her greens, which were fresh and delicious. “How did your Grand Tour change you?”

She knew what she saw—more polish, more assurance. He was quieter since his return, and at the same time sharper. He hadn’t affected any new fashions; his fobs held no more than his watch with its key and a small enameled miniature of his parents—she’d sneaked a peek on more than one occasion, curious about the pair who had given birth to and shaped this man.

He was still temperate, even abstemious in his ways; he never drank to excess, he rarely used tobacco, and he didn’t keep a mistress. He didn’t even visit prostitutes, that she knew of. Not that he was likely to boast of such activities, as some men did.

“My tour? It cured me of Susannah Pettigrew, to begin with.”

Inez turned her attention to her own soup so she could avoid probing the stab that name delivered to her heart. Susannah Pettigrew, the woman he had resolved to marry, the woman he had escorted to Gloucestershire. With whom he had spent hours and days in the post chaise, just like this, taken meals at inns, just like this, and planned a future, which she and Joseph did not have.

She spooned the soup into her mouth and found it thick and bitter.

“Cured, you say?”

“Indeed. I won’t be foolish in love again. I will be wise next time.”

The dear, darling man. Inez snorted around her spoonful of soup. “Whoever is wise in love?”

“Do you wish to be married again?” he demanded. “To another man like your husband was.”

He had his eyes on his meat, not on her, and Inez was glad he could not see how the words landed like a blow. In an instant she was there again, in the dark room because he wanted the curtains drawn and the candle out. One hand at her throat as he held her down, the other hand holding himself as he poked and prodded and then found his way in, grunting his way to release. She burned on the inside, as if she might physically erase the memory.

If only she could.

“No,” she said, the words harsh and low. “I don’t want that ever again.”

“Then you see my point.”

“But you wished to marry her.” Her throat ached around the words. “So you do wish to marry.”

“I wish to have a family of my own. More than anything, I confess.” An expression chased across his face, a pained shadow. Longing. And guilt, as if he weren’t allowed to ask for the basic comforts that even the poorest peasant in his hovel could ask of life.

“But I will be more careful of my choices, hereafter,” he said, and tore a piece of rabbit from the bone with his teeth.

Something about that gesture, the primitive look to him at that moment, made Inez catch fire with a sudden, deep need she could no longer ignore. A craving like she’d never known sank its fangs into her. She wanted his teeth on her, biting, consuming. She wanted his body, his weight holding her down. She wanted him to kiss her until she couldn’t breathe and all her memories vanished.

She wanted him like a blaze of fire that could tear through and empty her, and leave nothing but a shell behind, ready to be reformed.

“And what of pleasure?” she asked, her voice husky with need.

He halted, fork halfway to his mouth, and if he’d been checked by a halter. His eyes darkened.