A gentleman on bended knee, flowers—roses, for preference—a glass of champagne in her hand and a string quartet somewhere… She had visited Venice once and had been quite taken with the idea of being serenaded on a gondola. Not that her purse had stretched to it.

  Not standing in a dank, almost-bare room with a man behind her tapping his foot in a very tangible reminder that she was, by not replying immediately, wasting his time.

  Rose drew herself up. “I… I will marry you if—”

  “There is simply no room, or time, in this matter for you to set conditions,” Samuel said, in a tone that told her quite clearly that this was not a man accustomed to negotiation.

  She smiled, pouring as much prettiness into the motion as she could. “Would you deny me even the possibility of a request?”

  That was when she saw it: the flare of the nostrils, the shifting of the feet to give enough space between his thighs. Yes, he was attracted to her. Interesting.

  “A… A possibility?” The man’s voice was hoarse.

  “Come on in,” Rose said sweetly. The last thing she needed was an audience for this. “It’s just one request. You can deny me, of course.”

  There it was again, those hints of desire at the word ‘deny.’ Most interesting.

  Samuel glanced over his shoulder, presumably at a man he had waiting in a coach, but evidently considered his own time more important, for he stepped into the room. He even made to wipe his boots, Rose noticed with a grin, though to his evident surprise, there was no mat. He settled for scraping them along the wooden floor, as if to cover his blunder.

  “Well, then?”

  Rose stepped around him and closed the door. Tempting as it were to lock it, she was not certain she would achieve much more by penning him in.

  No, this had to be asked delicately—most delicately.

  She inhaled deeply. “I need to know if there is any attraction between us.”

  Perhaps she should not have been standing so close to him. Rose had not taken in that her position by the door meant that she was mere inches from the man, and when he whirled around with wide eyes, it was a mere coincidence that his hip did not bump into hers.

  “‘Attraction’?”

  Rose nodded. “If we are to pretend to be husband and wife—”

  “No one will need to know about the—the lack of consummation,” Samuel said hurriedly, cheeks pinking as though this were simply not the right sort of conversation between a gentleman and a lady.

  And perhaps it wasn’t. But Rose wasn’t a lady.

  Not anymore.

  The walls appeared to creep in as she looked up and said, “We are agreed this is no love match—”

  “I sh-should think not!” Samuel choked. Then he grinned awkwardly. “No-No offense meant.”

  It is always just when a man had given offense, Rose thought darkly, that he will inform a woman that she is not allowed to take offense.

  Outwardly, she smiled sweetly. “Of course. So I repeat, this is no love match, and yet we will need to convince not only your family, but Society at large that this is a true marriage, and most of all, this solicitor of yours.”

  Ah, that got his attention.

  Samuel tried to step closer to her. As it was, there wasn’t a full step’s gap between them. So he shuffled. “I need Mr. Todd to believe this—and he will, because there will be a marriage certificate.”

  Damnation. Rose had almost forgotten. His kind—his own phrasing—were accustomed to loveless marriages. Marriages made for convenience, for alliance, for wealth.

  She should have remembered.

  Though she wondered how such a supposedly whirlwind courtship and marriage he’d kept secret from his family would have occurred without a romance. Still, he was clearly embarrassed to even discuss the matter. The details of their supposedly weeks-old marriage’s origins would have to wait.

  “Oh, well, that’s all right, then,” Rose said lightly, stepping around Samuel toward her trunk. “I will just merely pretend attraction should it ever become necessary.”

  She picked up her trunk and turned to face him, ready to leave—at least, that was what she wanted him to believe. And damn Ted and the whole pack of them because this Samuel was obviously taken in.

  Taken in by her acting genius, naturally.

  “You cannot do that,” he said woodenly.

  Rose raised an eyebrow. “Cannot do what? Carry my own trunk? I quite agree, it is beneath the new Marchioness of Aylesbury, but if you are not willing to carry it, I shall have to or you can summon your coachman.”

  “I mean, you cannot just—just pretend attraction! It is either there or it is not,” spluttered Samuel, his eyes wide. “You cannot be in earnest!”

  Rose carefully lifted her other eyebrow. “I am sorry. Are you doubting my acting skills?”

  Samuel snorted as she placed down her trunk. “I have never seen your acting abilities, Miss Morgan.”

  “You are seeing them right now as I continue to smile at you and not look as though I wish to stab you through the eye with a pencil,” she said sweetly.

  His eyes, if possible, widened even further. “Y-You are?”

  Rose almost laughed. Goodness, she had always known that gentlemen were absolutely foolish when they were in the presence of a beautiful woman—like herself—but to see it so clearly played out before her… She was rather enjoying it.

  And now to make absolutely sure…

  “I am,” she said calmly. “And when I say that I can convince the world that I am deeply, passionately attracted to you, Samuel Chance, I speak the truth. I am Cleopatra. I am Juliet. I am Helena and Hermia and if you are not careful, I will be Katharina.”

  It should not be so attractive to see how the man immediately understood her implication. An intelligent man—at the very least, a well-read man—however, was always going to be alluring to someone like her.

  “I…I don’t believe it. Such things… Such emotions are pure. They cannot be aped on a stage,” said Samuel, his voice hoarse.

  Rose shrugged. Was he no fan of the arts, then? Had he never seen a play with lovers? “Love? Love is different. But it is not of love which I speak. I speak of attraction, Samuel. I am sure you know what I mean.”

  His throat bobbed.

  For some reason, her own throat wished to swallow, but Rose did not permit it. Instead, she tilted her head to one side, mimicking the motion in reverse with her hips. She did not grin as Samuel’s gaze darted down then immediately back up, as though desperately trying to pretend he had not looked.

  But she had him.

  Rose knew this was wrong—probably. It was wrong to use one’s feminine wiles in this way, and most certainly wrong to use her acting ability to tie the silly man in knots.

  But this man had power, and money, and friends clearly in high places. An in with the Archbishop of Canterbury, indeed!

  No, she would need some power of her own and there was only one way she knew how to do that.

  Short of taking a pencil to his eye, obviously.

  “Desire,” Rose breathed, and she heard with satisfaction how Samuel cleared his throat with a rough cough. “Need. That is what I speak of, and that is most certainly something that I can create. All I need to do is channel the right skills and act accordingly.”

  She shrugged again as though this were merely a formality and turned once again to pick up her trunk.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  Rose froze.

  Samuel’s words, though brief, had encapsulated a great deal of something that she could not quite explain. There was a…a request buried in there somewhere, but Rose would be damned if she was going to help him articulate it.

  Straightening up once again, she turned to face him and raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  This time, when Samuel swallowed, it was more of a gulp. “Prove it.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Rose asked in her most silky tone.

  She knew what he meant, and in a way, she should have expected it. Despite her best attempts to make clear to the fool that she was not about to offer…offer those sorts of services, she should have known no man could be trusted to keep his wits about himself when she was displaying her most potent skills.

  Yet despite her most potent skills, Samuel was still able to speak. She must have been slipping. “I said, prove it. Our love story—it will have to be a love story to explain my impulsiveness. So you shall have to seem attracted to me. Show me this attraction of which you speak—which of course you do not feel. Neither of us is attracted to the other.” He swallowed thickly.

  Of course. Rose nodded curtly, glad that she did not have to trust her tongue to deny it. Who would be attracted to tall, dark men with more money than sense?

  “But you say that you can act attraction, that you can pretend it? Well, that, I would like to see.” Samuel crossed his arms and looked expectant.

  It was all Rose could do not to roll her eyes. The man had spent the last two days moaning about there being no time for decisions, and now he wanted to loiter in a room that, truly, had seen better days—and debate about her acting skills!

  Well, she would have to put this to bed, as it were, once and for all. One single performance, and the man would never doubt her abilities again.

  Rose did not immediately smile. Smiles were distrusted, she knew, and rightly so. A smile could hide anything; it was a basic technique used by beginner actresses who had no other strings to their bow.

  So she allowed her eyes to soften, slowly, slowly, until her face was a blank slate.

  Then she poured warmth into it. Warmth and heat, and hunger—something that thankfully she did not need to pretend.

  “Wh-What are you doing?” Samuel asked in a low voice.

  Rose said nothing in reply. Instead, she inhaled. Slowly. This gown was particularly convenient for such a display, low in the bust as it was. Samuel’s gaze, as she knew it would be, was immediately drawn to her décolletage. She may not have had much as some other actress she might name who merely thrust out her chest and let her nipples do the acting, but it was on full display, and she had yet to meet a man who would complain about the size of the view as long as he had one.

  When the inhalation was over, she sighed, allowing her lips to part—once she had wet them, naturally.

  “You… You’re just standing there,” came Samuel’s words.

  Just standing there, indeed—the man had no subtlety!

  Rose took a hesitant step forward, then another. She allowed herself—just for a moment—to glance up at Samuel’s eyes but darted her eyes away quickly, as though she had been burned.

  When Samuel spoke again, it was in a hoarse voice. “Miss Morgan.”

  Ah, she was getting somewhere then. Rose said nothing but gently allowed a hand to rise until it was a mere inch from his own, resting on his elbow as his arms remained folded.

  They did not remain so for long. Taking care to move slowly, slowly, Rose interlocked her fingers with his own and carefully untangled his arms. One fell to his side. The other remained lifted by her own hand.

  Rose slowly turned it over and stared down into his palm. Remember, heat, hunger, desire… Three, two, one…

  “What are you—Miss Morgan.” Samuel exhaled her name with such surprise and yet such longing that she was almost distracted from what she was doing.

  She finished kissing his palm, however, and when Rose looked up, curling his fingers inward as though capturing the kiss between them, Samuel’s expression was a picture.

  There it was: heat, hunger, desire. But instead of her drawing them up inside of her to display on her face, they were in his eyes.

  “M-Miss Morgan,” Samuel said in a jagged voice. “That is quite enough.”

  Rose made her breath falter. “Is it?”

  The distance between their lips was almost nothing, and it was nothing when she pushed herself up on her tiptoes and pressed her mouth firmly against his own.

  For a heart-stopping moment, nothing happened. Had she lost her touch?

  And then Samuel’s free hand was around her waist, pulling her in, the hand grasping hers was pulled forward, trapped between her breasts and his wide chest as Samuel’s tongue plunged through her lips and into her mouth, demanding pleasure, not asking for it—and Rose surrendered.

  Dear God, this man was incredible. The hesitancy, the dryness of his words at times, they were nothing compared to the appetite and heat pouring between them. Bliss sparked as his tongue trailed a teasing line through her mouth, and his powerful frame surrounded her petite one as she was swallowed up within him.

  But of course, she had to reply. Rose pushed the man back and Samuel stumbled, his back hitting the door, and she was pinning him between her quivering body and the unyielding wood and he groaned, tilting his jaw to deepen the kiss.

  And Rose opened her eyes wide in panic.

  Dear God, this was not supposed to happen! She was not meant to feel pleasure—she was not supposed to feel attraction. She was supposed to be acting!

  She broke the kiss, tugged herself free, and tried to say in a calm voice, “There.”

  Samuel blinked as though he had been struck by lightning. “Wh-What?”

  “There,” Rose said resolutely, looking away from the handsome man to smooth down her skirts with fingers that were not quite shaking. “That is how I would act as though…as though I were attracted to you.”

  He was leaning against the door as though his mere legs would be insufficient to hold him. Rose would have been flattered, if she were not attempting to quieten her frantically beating pulse and tell it that she was not aroused by the man.

  The very idea! Despite his evident attraction to her, he had made it clear he had no plans to make her his marchioness for life. No doubt he’d take his time to find a more suitable bride after they parted, one with a doting father with wealth or title. Or both.

  “That… That was acting?” Samuel asked weakly.

  Rose cleared her throat as she looked up at him.

  She was not a liar. Despite what her father had said—and he had said a great deal on the subject—acting was not lying.

  But in this particular circumstance, she could think to do nothing but lie.

  “That was acting,” she said, completely falsely as her body thrummed and ached for another kiss like that.

  Samuel tugged a hand through his hair as though wildly attempting to remember his own name.

  It was flattering, in the main. If only I did not want to throw myself at the man again, Rose thought bleakly.

  “Well, that… That will certainly be sufficient,” Samuel said brusquely. “If needed. Which it probably won’t be. I mean, certainly not that. I’m sure doe eyes in the presence of others will do.”

  “‘Doe eyes’?” Rose had to stifle a chuckle as she forced herself to nod in as much of a business-like manner as she could. “Excellent.”

  She ignored the small part of her—the very small part of her—that railed against the idea that they would never share a kiss like that again. How could they not? When one found someone whose body was so in tune with one’s own…who could spark such sensuous decadence in mere moments…surely, it was a crime to walk away from such a connection?

  Rose cleared her throat again. “So we are agreed? A fake marriage for you to gain a fortune, absolutely no more kissing in any circumstance—”

  “Not at all,” agreed Samuel, his breathing still a little ragged.

  “—and in a year and a day, we’ll part ways, never to see each other again, with a fortune in my pocket and a greater fortune in yours,” Rose said decisively.

  Her gaze sought his out and she wondered…hoped he would disagree.

  Samuel nodded curtly. “Agreed.”

  Chapter Six

  January 6, 1841

  “You,” Samuel told his reflection sternly, “are going to be absolutely fine.”

  There was a giggle behind him and he whirled around, trying not to flush at being caught.

  Miss Morgan—soon his wife, soon Lady Aylesbury, Samuel reminded himself sternly—was placing a pair of pearl earbobs in her ears. “Do you always start your mornings with such a lecture?”

  “No,” lied Samuel with a wry expression. “Sleep well?”

  It had been the first point of order when the carriage he’d hired had arrived at the Regent’s Hotel last night. He had chosen that time of day—while his family would be dining—so he could hurry Miss Morgan upstairs through a servants’ corridor. It was a wonder how much a few shillings could do.

  “Sleeping arrangements,” Miss Morgan had said. “Ah.”

  “I’ve got it all sorted out,” Samuel had said hurriedly. “You’ll take the bed—”

  She had grinned. “Most generous, for your wife.”

  “And I’ll take the sofa. It’s only for one night, after all,” he had added with a shrug. “I’ll speak to the hotel manager about getting you your own suite.”

  If she had been surprised at the ease at which he could spend money, Miss Morgan had not said anything. “I see.”

  “And, Miss Morgan—”

  “Rose, I think, is best,” his soon-to-be temporary wife had said as she had placed down her trunk she had insisted on carrying herself and looked about his hotel room. “And you are to be Samuel to me, are you?”

  His stomach had twisted last night, and it twisted now as Samuel looked at the woman with whom he would be spending the next year in close quarters. Strange. In all his schemes, and in truth he had spent far too much time thinking about this, he had never quite considered just how much time they would be spending together.

  A great deal of time.

  A great deal of time not kissing Rose Morgan…

  Rose Chance. Soon enough. Even if just for a short while.

  Pushing the thought, and the memory of that toe-curling kiss, far from his mind at once, Samuel nodded. “I am glad you slept well.”

  “I do not think I have slept well in all my life.” Rose yawned.

  Samuel grinned. “And yet you yawn.”

  “Well, I am about three weeks’ short on sleep,” she said with a shrug. “Which, by the way, is how long we will be telling your family we have been married?”

 

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