“What?” He could not have heard correctly.

Anne wrapped her hands around a bedpost, like a woman clinging to a treetop as floodwaters rose around her. “Lord Whitney. He put a letter for me in the carriage.”

“When?”

“Several days ago.”

Leo went very still. “Why have you said nothing until now?”

Her hands tightened around the bedpost. “I wanted to forget.”

“Show it to me.”

“I burned it.”

He strode to her, and though she did not shrink away, he saw the smallest wince in her face. “Tell me what it said.”

At this, her wide gaze slid away. “I cannot remember.”

Leo knew a lie when it was spoken. He witnessed many of them on the Exchange. Never did he expect to see the same prevarication from his own wife. Something in his chest hurt, and he spoke around its cutting edges. “Anne.”

She was no hardened man of commerce, no gamester. Of everyone he knew, including himself, she was the most truthful. And falsehood could not last long within her. Firelight gleamed in her eyes as she returned her gaze to him.

“Mad allegations,” she finally admitted. “Too outlandish to be believed.”

“Tell me.”

“He said ... that you and the other Hellraisers had made a bargain with the Devil. That you each gained powers in exchange for your souls, and ... you’ve unleashed a terrible evil upon the world. A growing danger. But that is all ludicrous. A Bedlamite’s ravings.” She forced out a laugh, hollow as a husk.

Fire coursed through Leo. His heart slammed inside his chest, and every inch of him tensed, ready for battle. A momentary paralysis. It did not last, for he had to act.

He strode to the bedchamber door and threw it open. “Munslow,” he bellowed, calling for the head footman. The hour was late, the remains of the dinner already cleared away, the house put to rights. Leo shouted again for the footman.

The servant appeared a moment later, buttoning his waistcoat and smoothing his wig. “Sir?”

“Have you seen Lord Whitney?”

“No, sir. Not recently, sir.”

“Or a Gypsy woman?”

“Not her neither.”

Leo could not feel any sense of relief. Simply because Whit had not been seen did not mean his threat was any less present. He’d put a damned letter in Leo’s carriage. For Leo’s wife to find. Fury tore through him, his body shaking with it. Leo’s fears were coming to pass. No. No. Whit would take nothing from him, especially Anne.

“He isn’t welcome in my home,” Leo said. “If any servant sees Lord Whitney, even a glimpse, they must tell me immediately. I want at least three footmen to accompany Mrs. Bailey whenever she goes out. The biggest and strongest we have. Hire more, if necessary. I can apply to my boxing salon. I want bruisers, brutes. If I am not present, they must be with her at all times when she leaves the house.”

From behind him, Anne spoke. “Leo, I—”

“And if Lord Whitney should attempt to approach her, he must be stopped. You understand. There is to be no communication between him and Mrs. Bailey. None. Do whatever is necessary to keep him from talking with her.”

The head footman nodded. Like most footmen, Munslow was young, tall, and strong, and the ready shine in his gaze showed that he welcomed the chance to brawl.

“Tell the rest of the servants to keep a watchful eye. Housemaids, coachmen. All of them. And if anyone sees anything, I am to be notified at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

Leo sent Munslow off with a jerk of his head. It did not matter to Leo what the head footman told the rest of the servants. If they thought him mad, or wondered at his reasoning. All that mattered was keeping Whit away. From Anne, above all.

Turning back to her, Leo shut the door behind him. Locked it. The protection offered by the lock was minimal, but he would seize any means of warding off the man Leo once considered one of his closest friends.

Leo advanced on Anne. She continued to hold fast to the bedpost, her features drawn tight.

“Should Whit attempt to contact you again,” he said, “tell me. If I am not here, send a running footman to Exchange Alley. Swear that you will do it.”

Her eyes were round, her cheeks pale, even in the hot gleam of the firelight. “He speaks nonsense, doesn’t he? There is no Devil. Not truly.”

“Swear it.” He stepped closer.

She released her death’s grip on the bedpost, and though he could see the furious beat of her pulse in her neck, and heard her agitated breathing, she did not shrink away. “This is not what we have built together.” She tipped her chin up. “All this time. We’ve made more, you and I, than a husband who threatens and a wife who meekly obeys.”

“Whit is dangerous, Anne. Understand? He is a threat to everyone. You and I, especially.”

“Why?” she cried. “What is it that he threatens?”

Leo’s jaw tightened. “Everything.”

He would not allow it. He refused. Leo had built his entire life with his own hands. From the foundations laid by his father, he had constructed an existence, borne the weight upon his own shoulders, his hands scraped raw and bloody. Whatever he possessed belonged to him on the strength of his will. A foolish, lazy man would have squandered the Devil’s gifts on ephemeral pleasures, but not Leo. He took the granted power and became even stronger, more ruthless, more determined.

Like hell would he sit idly by as Whit tried to steal from him.

Anne. His own wife. The woman he had come to know almost as well as his own heartbeat. By revealing the truth, Whit wanted to take her away.

Leo’s rage knew no limitation. Never.

“Nothing,” he amended, his voice barely more than a growl, “and no one will take you from me.”

“I am not leaving.”

To keep her, he would commit any crime, destroy anyone who sought to tear them apart. For now that she was in his life, he could not imagine it without her. He would bind her to him, as he was bound to her.

“I cannot ...” He struggled to speak. “No one means more to me than you do.”

The wariness in her gaze sifted away. “Leo—”

Words were not enough. He was a man who spoke plainly, and had no interest or skill in constructing artful webs of words. There was nothing he could say that could equal what he felt within the innermost reaches of himself. So he had to use his body to do what his words could not.

He closed the remaining distance between them. Their bodies pressed close, and against his abdomen he felt the swift contraction of her own stomach as she drew in a sharp breath. He threaded his fingers into her hair, cradling the back of her head, and tipped her chin up. Her lips parted. For a moment, they only stared at each other, gazes locked. Her eyes were the shifting hues of forest shadows, holding depths few ever realized.

But he knew. He saw and he understood.

On a groan, he brought his mouth down onto hers. Fear of losing her sharpened everything, and he wanted all he could take. He was ravenous, his hunger sudden and unchecked. She tasted of almonds and sweet woman. And she met his kiss with her own need. Their tongues stroked as their mouths opened. Each velvet touch spread desire through him.

She had lost her tentativeness. They both had. Over the course of the week, they had gained knowledge and confidence. How to touch each other. How to make demands and how to satisfy those demands.

She gripped his shoulders, rising up on her toes to press tight against the aching length of his body. They swallowed each other’s breath as the kiss went even deeper. A desperation in both of them, straining toward something, as if by the heat of their desire, they could burn away doubt.

Needing more, wanting all of her, he walked her backward until her legs met the edge of the bed. One hand he slid from her hair, down her neck, feeling the softness of her flesh and the thrum of blood beneath. He urged her down to sit on the edge of the mattress, though his mouth never left hers as he bent over her and she leaned up into him.

Pins and ties lined the front of her gown. His hands became huge and clumsy as he fumbled with these tiny, feminine fastenings. They seemed deliberately designed to bewilder and confound a man. Yet he had an ally. Anne also worked at her gown, her fingers making quicker labor of the fastenings. Until, with a sigh, the green silk came open, the stomacher peeled back like a fruit ready to be savored.

Beneath were her stays and chemise. He growled at these impediments, wanting the touch of her bare skin. He took his lips from hers and trailed hungry kisses down her throat, over the bows of her collarbone, and along the floral, lush flesh of her breasts, rising in silken curves above the stiff stays. She gasped into his hair as he touched her with his mouth and hands, dipping below the top edge of the stays to find, like treasure, the tight points of her nipples.

He’d never known greed like this. Not for a person. It filled him with dizzy madness, his body hard and aching in its hunger. And he needed her pleasure, too, with a voracity that outpaced his own demands for sensation.

Whit would not steal her from him. Leo would ensure it, branding her with his body.

They pulled at each other’s clothes. Her hands were quick and clever as she shoved his coat to the floor, as she plucked at the silk-covered buttons that ran down the length of his waistcoat. Each brush of her fingers against the tight muscles of his torso sent knives of pleasure through him.

He found the ties of her stays. Loosened them just enough to tug the stays down, so her breasts were free and luxuriant beneath the tissue-thin cotton of her chemise. He broke the narrow ribbon threading through the chemise’s neck, and pulled this down, as well. Baring her breasts.