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Black hair tumbled over his collar as he pulled off his hat and handed it to a butler. But he didn’t take his eyes from hers. His skin looked warm, a honey-dark color that no one could call weather-beaten.

Without saying a word he swept into a deep bow. Isidore’s lips parted to say—what?—as she watched him bow and then she curtsied, a moment too late. She felt as if she were caught in the acts of the play. He was—

If Cosway were Mark Antony, Cleopatra would have fallen at his feet, rather than the other way around. He didn’t look like an English duke. He didn’t have powdered hair, or a cravat, or even a waistcoat. He looked untamed.

“My duchess, I presume,” he said, catching her hand and kissing it.

Isidore managed to pull herself together enough to introduce him to Harriet, but her mind was reeling. Somehow in all her imaginings, she’d forgotten to imagine—a man.

Not a nobleman, with delicate fingernails, and powdered hair. Not a ruffian, like many of the men attending Lord Strange’s house party. But a man who moved easily, like a lion, who seemed to swallow all the air in the entry, whose eyes ranged over her face with a sense of ownership…Her heart was beating so quickly that she couldn’t hear anything.

He wasn’t one-legged, or toothless. He was probably one of the most beautiful men she’d ever met. She had lost track of the conversation.

“The duchess and I leave in the morning,” he was telling the butler.

In the morning? Isidore was gripped by a sense of fear so great that she couldn’t imagine even walking to the carriage. If she were utterly honest, she had imagined a man who would be slavishly grateful to discover that his wife was so beautiful. But now…

She thought she had all the power. She didn’t.

She had to take command. Cleopatra, she thought desperately. Cleopatra would not allow herself to be transported like a piece of luggage.

“I myself do not plan to leave for several days,” she said, smiling at him even though her heart was thundering in her chest.

It wasn’t just that Cosway wore no cravat. He wore a gorgeous jacket of pale blue, but it was open straight down the front. Long cuffs fell over his hands, the wrist button undone. He looked as if he were ready for bed. The very thought stoked her nerves.

He took her hand in his, and raised it to his lips again. Isidore watched his lips touch her glove and felt herself shiver.

“Ah, but sweetheart,” he said, “I am all eagerness for our wedding.”

For a moment, Isidore just thrilled to the sound of that sweetheart, to the way his eyes warmed her, to the secret shiver she felt in her legs.

But then she realized what he had said. “We are wed,” she pointed out, withdrawing her hand from his. He looked amused, so she added: “You may have ignored the fact for years, but I assure you that it is true.”

That’s where it all went wrong.

It started there…and it ended with Isidore alone in a bedchamber that night.

Not to mention, Isidore, still a virgin, on her way to London the next day.

He might as well have labeled her, the way they did trunks:

Isidore, property of the duke.

Chapter One

Gore House, Kensington

London Seat of the Duke of Beaumont

February 21, 1784

“He’s a virgin.”

“What!”

“He’s a virgin and—”

“Your husband is a virgin?”