Three Nights with a Scoundrel (Stud Club #3)(73)

A question danced on the tip of her tongue. She shouldn’t ask it. They’d been married all of an hour, after all, and it wasn’t fair to put him on the spot. But she couldn’t help herself. “So, now we’re here. Together. And am I enough?”

He stared intently into her eyes. “You’re everything.”

Oh, dear. Thrilling and romantic, those words, but also intimidating. Being a man’s everything was no small task. Especially when that man was Julian, with his fathoms-deep capacity for passion and devotion.

“Am I doing it right?” she asked, raising her hands and spelling, I. L-O-V-E. Y-O-U … Feeling the need to lighten the moment, at the last instant she added an R.

He chuckled and gave her a naughty look. “You love my what?”

Your heart, your mind, your complex, wounded soul.

She took her time with the letters, teasing him. Arching her back to thrust her br**sts for attention and forming the signs just below her right nipple.

B … I … G.

H … O … T.

H … A … R … D.

S … T … R … O …

She could have gone on all day and all night, stringing adjectives together. But before she could start on the fifth, he had her tipped flat on her back, pressing his big, hot, hard, strong body to hers.

She didn’t fault him for interrupting.

Chapter Eighteen

Bells.

Bells, bells, bells. More bells. Church bells.

Jesus God, no.

He was late. Mother was late. He’d fallen asleep when he should have been listening for the bells, and now it was too late for them both. The man with the ginger hair had wagged his finger at them Tuesday last, shouting himself bright red. If Mother was late to her post one more time, he’d said, she would be sacked.

They would have no more money. They would have to leave this rented room, which, even without a hearth, had been a far sight warmer than huddling under the steps. And perhaps their place under the steps was taken now. It was a plum spot. This was all his fault. He hadn’t been listening, and now it was late, too late. Where would they go? What would they eat? The Italian butcher’s scraps would all be claimed by this hour, gone to feed the dogs of noblemen. He couldn’t risk nicking bread from the market again, not so soon after—

Something grabbed his arm. Julian lashed out in panic. He kicked, only to find his leg restrained, too.

He opened his eyes. Daylight blinded him momentarily before revealing his enemy … the tangled nest of bed linens. He was not in a barren, rat-infested rented room in Spitalfields, but a richly appointed bedchamber in Mayfair. He was, undoubtedly, late to wake his mother—by more than twenty years.

He took deep, rasping breaths, struggling to calm his racing heart.

“What is it?” His wife of two blissful days turned to him, rubbing her eyes and rising up on one elbow.

“Nothing but church bells.” He hastily wiped the sheen of sweat from his brow. “Go back to sleep, love.”

“Bells?” She smiled. “Perhaps they’re tolling in celebration of our wedding.”

A nervous laugh rattled free of his chest. “I doubt that.”

Her brow creased with worry, and Julian scrubbed his face with his palm. They’d sent a brief announcement of their marriage to the newspapers yesterday, thinking it best to get it over with before the gossips did it for them. Over dinner, they had joked and teased, imagining the shocked reaction of their friends and peers. They’d even devised an imaginary screed from Aunt Beatrice. Despite all their concerted effort at levity, however, Julian worried that she worried about public reaction. Hell, he was worried about it himself.

She put a hand against his rapidly thumping heart.

“A bad dream,” he admitted. “That’s all.”

She laid her cheek to his chest. “It’s Leo, isn’t it? Are you thinking of him? It’s five months today.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Evidently it wasn’t scandal weighing her brow this morning, but a much more serious concern. Reclining against the headboard, he pulled her to his chest and hugged her close, wrapping his arms around her willowy body and stroking her long, dark hair.

“I know it’s hard for you,” she said. “Giving up the search. But just because you haven’t found them, it doesn’t mean Leo’s killers will go unpunished. Men who are bad will end badly. I have to believe in that.”

Julian understood why that thought might comfort her. But he didn’t find it especially reassuring, since he knew he fell into the “men who are bad” category himself.

He stroked her back in a soothing rhythm, in time with the distant still-tolling bells. Yes, darling. You believe in that. Just don’t stop to ask yourself why it is I’m here with you, and not jailed or worse.

Holy Christ.

Jailed.

The word was a blow to his skull, and his whole mind reverberated with the meaning. How stupid he’d been. How utterly, unbelievably dim. Where had Julian himself been, the one time in his life his friends and family had searched for him with no success? He’d been jailed, of course. Forced to spend a putrid, shivering month in Bridewell Prison, with all the other bad men—and boys—who had ended badly. Perhaps this was the reason his hunt for Leo’s killers remained fruitless all these months, even after an exhaustive search of London’s streets. Because they weren’t on the streets. They’d been incarcerated for some other crime.