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  She put her hands on his shoulders for balance, mesmerized by the play of muscles beneath his shirt as he slipped the shoe from her foot. He repeated the process with her left shoe, then, still kneeling, ran his fingers slowly up her legs, gathering the shift in his hands as he went.

  “You have done this before.”

  He lifted his face to look up at her. “Never with you.”

  He stood and slowly drew the shift up past her hips, over her waist, above her breasts, and over her head. Her first instinct was to cover herself, but seeing the hungry, devouring look in his eyes excited her more than even his intoxicating kisses. His hands slipped around her waist, his warm, sure grip setting her afire. “My God, Victoria,” he murmured, trailing his gaze down her length and up to her face again, “you are…the word beyond beautiful that hasn’t been invented yet.”

  Victoria chuckled, more willing to let him take his time now that things were proceeding. “You wax poetical.”

  “You are poetry.”

  She shivered, her breathing ragged, as he slowly circled first one breast, then the other, with his thumbs. Closer and closer he circled, until with agonizing gentleness he brushed across her nipples.

  She gasped, arching her back as the sensitive buds hardened in response to his touch. Something new awakened inside her, secret and hot and yearning. “Sinclair,” she breathed, and reached for his loose shirt.

  He helped her remove it and his cravat, and she ran her hands along the hard, smooth planes of his chest once more. “I think my legs are going to give way.” She leaned against him for support, and the feel of her bare breasts crushed against his chest increased her light-headedness.

  “Perhaps you should lie down,” he suggested, his own voice a low, sensuous growl.

  He swept her up in his arms with no noticeable effort at all and carried her to her bed. The bed was covered with an artistic profusion of green and gold pillows, and he set her down among them.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed beside her, Sin pulled off his boots and tossed them over his shoulder with a flourish.

  “Now, where was I?” His gaze drifted along the length of her body again. “Ah, yes. Right there.” Leaning over her, he ran his lips feather-light along the sensitive skin of her round, full breast, tracing the path his thumb had made.

  As he reached her nipple and drew it into his mouth, she gasped again. Victoria twined her fingers into his hair, arching her back as he caressed and suckled first one breast, and then the other. Nothing had ever felt like this, so fulfilling and yet so full of hints that much more was to come.

  She slid her hands down his back to his waist. He still wore his breeches—it was completely unfair that he should be clothed while she was naked, and it must have been terribly uncomfortable for him as well.

  She found the top fastening of his breeches and opened it. Sin stopped his delectable trail of kisses and lifted his head.

  “Did I do something wrong?” she asked unevenly, barely able to keep her thoughts straight, much less speak them aloud.

  He grinned. “Absolutely not. Surprising, yes—proceed at will, Victoria.”

  She wanted him to keep calling her Victoria. Being known as the Vixen was fun and wicked, but Sinclair made her name sound so intimate that she couldn’t imagine him calling her anything else. Not here, and not now.

  “Kiss me again,” she said, lifting her head to meet him. At the same time, she managed to open the second button.

  He chuckled against her mouth, a sound of pure delight and lustful passion that made her grin, as well. He propped himself up on one elbow, and his free hand drifted down her stomach to the dark curls below.

  “My goodness,” she groaned as his finger slid down between her legs.

  “Fair is fair.”

  She yanked the third button open. One more to go, and it didn’t stand a chance. He shifted his hips to make himself more accessible, and the last button gave way. She hesitated, not quite certain what to do next, but then a second finger joined the first, and she knew exactly what she wanted from him.

  Sin settled his weight closer along her body. Slipping her hands beneath his waistband, she inched the tight breeches down. She felt him come free, the hard length of him brushing the inside of her thigh. Victoria drew a ragged breath, instinctively lifting her hips and parting her legs at the sensation of his hand intimately moving at the very edge of her secret place.

  “Sinclair,” she gasped again, and he took her left breast into his mouth and suckled, thrusting his tongue against her nipple in the same rhythm his fingers were adopting.

  She arched again, on fire everywhere he touched her. With a desperate keening sound, she kneaded her hands into his hard, muscled buttocks and pulled him over her.

  “Now!” she demanded.

  His breathing was as unsteady as hers as he shifted atop her. “Victoria,” he murmured, and entered her.

  Victoria would have screamed at the intense flood of sensations, but his mouth over hers muffled the sound. She clutched his shoulders convulsively while he held very still, most of his weight on his arms.

  “Shh,” he whispered. “Give it a moment.”

  The low, melodious voice shook, and she realized how difficult it was for him to be patient right now. She eased her grip a little, hoping she hadn’t drawn blood, and smiled up at him. “Proceed.”

  He chuckled breathlessly, and she felt his laugh all the way through her being. Then he began to move his hips against her, and she moaned again, closing her eyes.

  “Look at me,” he commanded. “I want to see your eyes.”

  Her eyes flew open again, watching the lustful passion in his amber gaze. She arched her hips to meet each thrust of his, and her breath caught. Deep inside she began to pulse, and then, with a rush unlike anything she’d ever imagined, she exploded. Sinclair tucked his face against her shoulder, moving hard and fast against her, and then shuddered as he planted his seed deep inside her.

  “Now,” he whispered, lowering himself slowly on top of her as she welcomed his strong, warm weight, “now we’re married.”

  Chapter 8

  Sinclair couldn’t help feeling satisfied that he was the first man to have had Vixen Fontaine. And the only man, if he had anything to say about it. The chance for an annulment no longer existed, unless they cared to tell a very tall tale, but it didn’t matter. He was beginning to think he didn’t want to let her go. “I should have begun pummeling William Landry weeks ago,” he murmured into her hair.

  She chuckled. “I wish you had. I would have liked to have done this with you before we were married.”

  He lifted his head. “That’s somewhat frowned upon.”

  She looked like a disheveled angel, and her smile would put sunlight to shame. “I know. It would have been very wicked.”

  Chuckling as well, Sinclair shifted off of her and onto the cool coverlet. “Is there anyone else I can clobber for you?”

  To his surprise, the light in her eyes dimmed a little. “Just the man who killed your brother.”

  Sin sighed, twining her long, curling hair around his fingers, distracted by the thought of lying with her like this every morning for the rest of their lives. “Eventually. Not today, though, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ve been thinking. About what you’re trying to do.”

  “And?”

  “I want to help you.”

  His breath stopped. “No. Absolutely not.” A little information here and there was one thing; her active participation…he didn’t even want to think about what might happen to her.

  She sat up, naked and beautiful in the afternoon sunlight that shone through the window. “It makes sense. I know these people far better than you do, and I’m good at finding things out.”

  “Things like what?” he asked skeptically.

  Her gaze traveled from his nether regions up to his face again. “Well, for example, I know you’re a spy for the War Office.”

  He sat bolt upright. “Wha
t?” He forced out a belated, incredulous laugh. “Good God, what gave you that idea?”

  Victoria nodded. “I also know that you couldn’t return to England when Thomas was killed because you were pretending to be smitten with Marshal Pierre Augereau’s daughter, and that you were about to find out from her where Bonaparte’s forces were massing.”

  Someone was talking too damned much. “Just who told you that nonsense?” he asked slowly, anger curling down his spine to replace the sated lust he’d enjoyed only a moment ago.

  She looked at him evenly. “You did, Sinclair.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said hotly. Seeing the wariness in her eyes, though, he stopped. Being too insistent would only confirm her suspicions. He leaned closer, trying a different tack. “Don’t you realize that this could be the clue I’ve b—”

  “I’ll show you,” she said and scooted off the bed.

  Moving fast, Sin lunged after her and grabbed her wrist. “Victoria, this is not—”

  “Sinclair, I’m telling you the truth,” she replied in a calm voice, obviously assumed for his benefit. “The proof is in the sitting room. Come with me if you want.”

  He wasn’t about to let her out of his sight now. While she pulled on her shift, he grabbed his breeches and yanked them on. The cat stalked into the room as soon as Victoria opened the door, but Sin ignored Lord Baggles’s expression of wounded annoyance as he followed his wife back into the sitting room. Something had gone damned wrong. Someone had talked—and until he found out who’d done it, he couldn’t determine how to protect her.

  She headed for the chair nearest the fireplace, then abruptly stopped, her shoulders heaving with the deep breath she took. In her bare feet she came just to the top of his shoulder, but when she turned to face him, he refused to be softened by the hesitant, almost apologetic look in her eyes.

  “What is it?” he demanded instead.

  “It’s just that I realized you’re going to be angry with me, and I was rather hoping for more of”—she gestured toward her bedchamber—“that.”

  Good God. No wonder they called her the Vixen. “I’m not likely to deny you that, whether I’m angry or not,” he said dryly, surprised out of the worst of his annoyance.

  “Can you do that when you’re angry?” she asked curiously, tilting her head at him.

  “Yes, though I wouldn’t recommend it. Don’t change the subject.”

  “Very well, then.”

  She bent down and dragged a bulky package from behind the chair. About the size and shape of an end table without legs, it was wrapped in what looked like her green visiting shawl.

  “Here, let me get it,” he grumbled, stepping forward.

  “I can manage,” she retorted, heaving the bundle onto the couch and plunking herself down beside it. “I carried it up here on my own.”

  “Why?”

  His wife flushed. “Because I didn’t want anyone else to see what it was. Now sit down, and please, try to remain calm.”

  This was sounding worse and worse. He sat in the chair facing her and the package. “All right, I’m sitting. Now, what in the world led you to believe I’m a spy, of all things?”

  With a half-annoyed look at him, she lifted a corner of the shawl, dug through what sounded like papers, and then extracted a handful of them. “This leads me to believe you’re a spy.” She opened one of the papers and perused it. “Ah. Here we go. ‘Though I appreciate your regaling me with your misadventures picnicking with Miss Hampstead, Thomas,’” she read, “‘in your next correspondence please refrain from any further mention of fine wines. Despite their lovely coloring, I find myself overly saturated with references to them—this being Paris, after all.’”

  Sinclair stared at her, the blood draining from his face. It took two tries before he could force himself to speak. “Two questions, Victoria: first, how does that make me a spy? And second, where in damnation did you get that letter?”

  “You probably don’t know,” she began in a matter-of-fact tone, despite the wariness in her eyes, “that before my debut I was tutored by Alexandra Gallant, who—”

  “Is this pertinent?” he snapped, wanting to snatch the letters and the parcel from her and demand an explanation.

  “Yes, it is. You know Alexandra as the Countess of Kilcairn Abbey.”

  Kilcairn again, damn him. “And?” he prompted.

  “Lex followed the Peninsular War very closely, and insisted that I do so as well. I read the London Times every day. I remember in particular reading about how, in the spring of 1814, Le Compte de Chenerre, arrested by Bonaparte’s supporters, vanished from a Paris prison and reappeared two weeks later in Hampstead together with several documents pertaining to France’s alliance with Prussia. And before you ask, the Chenerre estate boasted one of France’s finest vineyards.”

  To give himself a moment to compose his thoughts, Sinclair stood and stalked to the window. “So. To clarify, because I happened to mention wine and Miss Hampstead in the same—”

  “And Paris,” she interrupted.

  “—and Paris in the same correspondence, I had…something to do with Le Compte de Chenerre and his misadventures.”

  For several seconds she sat quietly, while he forced himself to keep breathing. She couldn’t possibly know how much it hurt to hear her read those words, penned to his brother in utter ignorance of the fact that a year later Thomas would be dead.

  “You date your letter to Thomas the ninth of May, 1814, a week after Chenerre’s reappearance; and your brother never went on a picnic with any female named Miss Hampstead.”

  “This is ridic—”

  “I have five more of your letters which, if one reads them carefully, in some way refer to events in France and elsewhere in Europe where England had an unexplainable turn of good fortune. Sinclair, I understand your need for secrecy and discretion. But please, don’t treat me like an idiot. Please.”

  He kept his gaze fixed out the window, though the curtains might have been closed for all the attention he paid to the view. “Where did you find those letters?”

  “Your grandmother had them.”

  He whipped around to face her. “What?”

  “She also had your brother’s sketches.” Moving aside her shawl, she lifted a large, flattened wooden box onto her lap. “Come look at them.”

  Clenching both fists, he remained by the window. “Don’t think you can distract me, Vixen. You went—”

  “—behind your back? Snooped? You left me no choice. And don’t say you trusted me, because obviously you didn’t. You still don’t.”

  “I don’t trust anyone. I’ve found it to be dangerous, both for me and for everyone else concerned.”

  “Because your brother knew?”

  “Because my brother knew—and now he’s dead.” He gazed at the box in her lap. “I suppose you gabbed all about it to my grandmother. You had no right to do that, Victoria.” The thought of losing someone else to their unknown assassin had haunted him for the past two years. He should have known better. He should have gotten the hell away from Lady Victoria Fontaine the moment he realized how attracted he was to her.

  “I know that now. Honestly, I didn’t know what I would find out about you until I found it. Would you have expected me to do nothing if I discovered you were a traitor or something?”

  “No,” he said grudgingly, making himself return to the couch and seat himself beside her, close enough that his thigh brushed against the thin material of her shift.

  She put her hand, shaking a little, over his clenched fist. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  “Not from me. I won’t tell anyone, Sinclair. And I think you already know that your grandmother won’t either.”

  The difficult part was, somewhere deep down, he did trust her. He’d trusted her the moment he set eyes on her, with no logical explanation for it at all, especially considering whose company she’d been keeping. “Obviously, you’re n
ot going to let this go. But you have to remember, Vixen; it’s not just a secret. It’s a dangerous secret.”

  “I’m not five years old. I know that. And I still want to help. I need to help, Sinclair.”

  Forcing himself to relax, he touched her cheek. “You’re far too lovely to risk at a game like this. And I have enough to live down already. I don’t want to add your death to that list.”

  Her violet eyes narrowed. “And what am I not ’far too lovely’ for? Parties? Dances? Sharing your bed? That leaves me with a great deal of unoccupied time.”

  “Victoria, y—”

  She stood, dropping the box onto the couch. “Don’t try to humor me. I found you out, Sinclair. What makes you think you can keep me from finding the killer?”

  This was getting out of hand. People did not argue with his decisions—especially not the petite, fearless sprite who had for some reason married him. “Tying you to the bedpost would keep you from just about everything. I won’t risk it.”

  “That is so typical!” Victoria snapped. “Just because you’re some huge, looming…male, you think you can tell me what to do. I won’t—”

  Someone scratched at the sitting room door. “Lady Althorpe?”

  “Drat,” she fumed. “Milo. I can’t answer the door looking like this.”

  Sinclair stood. “I can.”

  “But you—we—”

  Despite his frustration and anger, he enjoyed seeing her flustered. It didn’t happen very often. “We’re married. It’s allowed.”

  As he strode over and pulled open the door, he had to admit that seeing the butler’s startled expression was rather satisfying. With bare feet and breeches, the rest of his wardrobe nowhere to be seen, few could doubt what he and Vixen had been up to.

  “What is it?”

  “Er, the—that is, Lady Althorpe’s dinner guests have arrived.”

  “What dinner guests?” Sin asked.

  “Oh, no!” Victoria squeaked, and fled in a blur of white back into her bedchamber.

  Sinclair looked after her, then back at the butler. “I’ll inform the marchioness,” he said, and closed the door in Milo’s face.