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Silvester stared at her. “I do respect you,” he said, forcing the words out from a throat that felt as if it had been sliced by knives.

Even in dim light, he saw the apologetic smile on her face and the embarrassed flush on her cheeks. “Of course you do. I know it. I just . . .” She turned to the side and tipped Specs out to the floor. “I’m merely asking that you continue the charade that you enacted after our wedding. That you pretend in public that you . . . that you feel more for me and less for her. Please.”

Curse words echoing through his head, Silvester swung himself at the window. Stella fell back as he slung a leg over the sill.

“There was no charade,” he barked.

She looked not only unconvinced, but disappointed. “All right.”

“I love you.” The words cut through the room. “You smell like cat piss, and I love you. You smile at me and frown at me, and I love you. You’re beautiful, but I don’t care. I love your secrets.”

“‘My secrets’?” Stella repeated, sounding stupefied.

Silvester pulled the window shut, just in case Specs did decide to jump out, and took a step toward his wife.

“The way your glasses hide your lashes. They curl, did you know that? The way you love my hairy chest, rather than my chin or my title. The way you love with such bravado, defending your aunt and uncle, loving them despite absurdities and—and gourds. I love the shape of your arse, and your mouth, and your eyes. I adore how intelligent you are, and the way you try to hide it with wry comments.”

Stella clapped a hand over her mouth, but after all these weeks of marriage he could read her eyes. He saw hesitant joy.

“I love the way you say ‘No’ to me,” he said gruffly. “The way you say ‘Yes’ to me. No other woman would take me as I truly am.”

“That may be true,” Stella said, a germ of laughter in her voice.

“They like me for the suit of armor I fashioned as an apprehensive boy of eight years old. You like me despite my armor.”

Stella took one step forward. “I love you despite the armor.”

“I truly don’t give a damn about Yasmin. I was irritated that some damn Frenchman was flirting with you because it turns out that I am ridiculously possessive of the wife I love. Then I started talking to Giles and trying to be the man you want me to be.”

Her eyes were swimming with tears again. “You were?”

“I argued against my own interests. Giles condescended to say that I should take up my seat in the House of Lords.”

She shook her head. “You’d hate that.”

“I thought I would . . . if you wanted me to. But not as a competition. Not to win.”

“No?”

“Yasmin was a prize in a competition that I never should have entered. If there was one thing that you taught me, Stella—and there have been many—it’s that I have to stop throwing myself into any competition that presents itself. I could and did make another fortune by buying gold before Britain was informed that it was moving to the gold standard.”

“I know,” she murmured.

“Should I have? Likely not. Probably not.”

He saw agreement in his wife’s eyes.

“My love for you didn’t stem from competition,” he said hoarsely, cupping her face in his. “You are the only person in the world for me. You are the most beautiful woman in the world, and the most sensual, and the most intelligent, and the funniest—”

He stopped because her mouth covered his lips.

He could say it all again, later.

Many times. For example, late that night when they stole down to the kitchens. After toast and hot chocolate, when Silvester pulled open his wife’s wrapper and uncovered the body that fired him with lust. When he tipped her back on the kitchen table, the better to ravish her. To whisper his love against her bare skin.

“You are a hammer,” he said when they were back in bed, his voice gruff from exhaustion and contentment.

Stella draped herself over him, silken hair falling like a curtain around his face. “More insults?”