She wants her freedom…

Clara Whitney is desperate to leave London and return to her native Virginia. She’ll do anything, even if it means striking a deal with the most notorious earl in England, to get what she wants. How could she anticipate just how much his melting kisses and knowing hands would tempt her?

He wants her…

The Earl of Ravenscroft is infamous for his prowess in the bedchamber and for earning his living by entertaining bored society widows and wives. When the innocent and lovely Miss Whitney seeks him out with the daring proposition of a marriage in name only in return for a generous share of her dowry, Julian accepts. After the vows, however, he isn’t ready to part with his prickly Southern belle. At least not without taking her to bed.

A restless rake no more…

Julian knows the game of seduction all too well, but this time, the rules are different, and he just may lose the one thing he thought he no longer had to give. His heart.

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“I wanted to come out here alone, you know,” Clara said then as they stopped before a perfectly trimmed hedge. Not tall enough to serve his purpose, but a green slash of boxwood nonetheless. The sun was blotted out by fog, and the air was far from fresh. But the garden was, somehow, rebelliously green and alive in their city of filth.

A casual glance over his shoulder confirmed the wraithlike face of his chaperone on the other side of the pane. Blast. She was true to her word, Lady Bella. He turned his attention back to his betrothed’s profile. A perfect, petite slash of nose. A high cheekbone. A smattering of freckles. How de trop. How refreshingly real. He hadn’t noticed before. Nor had he noticed the way her left brow winged out in imperfection. “You sought to avoid me, little dove? Why, I wonder? Do you not trust yourself with me?”

She made an impatient sound, almost a harrumph, keeping her gaze trained on the hedge. “You flatter yourself, Lord Ravenscroft.”

“Did you not enjoy my touch yesterday?” He couldn’t resist goading her with the question. Some devil within him wanted to see her cheeks filled with roses once more, to shake her from her nearly flawless equanimity. “Tell me, love, when you lay alone in your chamber last night, did your thoughts not stray to our carriage ride at all?”

Her lips compressed into a firm line, hammered out by irritation, he had no doubt. “No, my lord, to both impertinent questions.”

He grinned. Perhaps there was something to be said for being watched in a garden while he conducted a proper courtship. He’d never aroused a woman with mere words before.

“You didn’t even think of me once, darling?” he pressed, stepping nearer to her with a subtlety he hoped would spare him notice from the hawk-like chaperone at his back. His trousers curved into the voluminous fall of her gown, their sides almost touching. Yes, there was something to be said for the wait. Somehow, their lack of intimate contact only heightened his desire. That gilded scent of citrus wafted to his nose, and his cock went as hard as a marble bust.

She turned her head toward him at last, rewarding him with the full effect of her beauty, the high forehead, delicate tawny brows, luminous eyes, the lush mouth, slightly retroussé nose. Even her ears were lovely, goddamn it, the plump little lobes calling for him to bite and lick.

“I didn’t think of you at all, Lord Ravenscroft. I thought of my home, the place where I belong. I thought of freedom, of the scent of the earth in Virginia after a summer rain, of the sun rising over Richmond. I thought of the call of whip-poor-wills and a sky that isn’t blanketed in noxious fog and endless drizzle.”

Her impassioned reply had him knowing a sharp pang of jealousy. What would it be like, he wondered for a fleeting moment, to be thought of with as much unadulterated passion as the woman before him directed upon a place on a map? The urge to usurp her homeland in her affections rose within him, as ridiculous as it was unrelenting. Tea was not a panacea, it seemed. Nor was an eight-minute turn in the gardens with a grim, window audience.

He leaned nearer to her, just near enough to maintain propriety but capture the full attention of the woman before him. The woman who expected him to believe she carried a mere place in the same regard as a man’s touch.

“Perhaps I was remiss in my efforts.” He allowed his gaze to dip to her lips. “Next time I shall use my tongue.”