She had always possessed the power to incite masculine desire, but under his tutelage, Brynn developed the skills to purposely drive a man wild. Her newfound mastery worked even on Lucian, whose legendary tastes had become jaded and acutely discriminating.

Within a few days of commencing her lessons, she was able to demonstrate the extent of her expanded powers. They lay in his bed, with Brynn draped over her husband, lazily pressing kisses along his naked chest, his hard, flat belly, his swelling erection. When she eventually took him in her mouth, Lucian quivered like a stallion. Moments later, he clenched his teeth and drew away with a groan.

“What is wrong?” she asked curiously, though not with any real concern.

“You know very well what is wrong, wife. Enduring your torment is an agony.”

Brynn smiled, triumphant to know this man trembled for her. Deliberately she smoothed her hands up his torso and drew her tongue along his throbbing sex, teasing the sensitive ridge. “Pray tell, how do I torment you?”

Taking her by surprise, Lucian rolled over her, pinning her lightly beneath his weight. His eyes dark with desire, he gazed down at her with unexpected seriousness. “Your very remoteness, love. Even when you are provoking me to savage hunger, you remain distant.” His frown deepened as he brushed a flaming tendril from her forehead. “You hide your passion behind a deliberate coolness, which only makes a man burn for you all the more.”

Brynn forced a smile, not at all convinced that her attempt at coolness was succeeding. “Is that not what I am supposed to be learning? How to make you burn for me?”

“Devil it is. And it’s damned effective,” he murmured against her lips.

Drawing him down, she surrendered to his kiss, eager to distract him from his probing scrutiny. She was indeed desperately struggling to repress any emotion, any feeling for Lucian, yet maintaining a strict detachment was proving lamentably arduous.

Making love to him was no longer a duty she resented. No longer merely a means to achieve her goal of conceiving his child. She wanted Lucian. She wanted to arouse his hunger. Wanted to feel the hot rise of his desire, the hot tremor of his flesh between her thighs, moving inside her. She had begun to crave his touch with a dismaying intensity.

If she managed to hide her response, it was only due to years of practice, presenting a chill facade to her admirers. But he had only to caress her to send blood rushing through her veins, filling her with hot yearning. She had only to glimpse the passion flaming in his eyes to feel an answering passion burning deep within her own body. She could feel his enchantment, drawing her ever closer, tugging on her heartstrings, pushing her toward the dark inferno of an impossible dilemma.

The magnitude of the danger became even clearer a fortnight later when her dearest friend, Meredith, finally arrived in London with her husband, Viscount Audley, and their new infant son. Meredith had retired from society when her pregnancy became obvious but had returned in time for the Little Season.

For a duke’s daughter, Meredith was not at all arrogant or highbrowed. In both disposition and looks, she resembled a cheerful, pretty Cupid, with her pleasantly plump figure and laughing mouth and short blond curls. Brynn called on her at the first opportunity and received a fervent welcome. After catching up on Meredith’s account of her pregnancy, they went upstairs to admire the napping baby Rupert, who promptly woke and began fussing.

“May I hold him?” Brynn asked.

“Of course. Although don’t be upset if he spits on your gown. I cannot tell you how many bodices he has ruined.”

“I won’t mind. Theo regularly spit up on me when he was a baby.”

Brynn took the mewling infant in her arms and immediately began rocking him, reminded of the countless hours she had soothed her baby brother after their mother’s untimely death in childbirth. To Brynn’s delight, Rupert shortly stopped his fretting and gave her a gurgling smile.

She winced, unprepared for the sweet, responsive pangs in her breast as she cradled the darling child or the powerful maternal instincts he stirred. Perhaps her reaction was because she missed her youngest brother so dreadfully. Or perhaps because the thought of conceiving Lucian’s child had been so much on her mind of late…

“You should see yourself, Brynn,” her friend observed quietly. “You are positively glowing.”

Pressing a tender kiss on Rupert’s silken forehead, Brynn smiled. “I have always wanted a child of my own.”

“But not a husband?”

“No, not a husband.”

“Well, marriage obviously agrees with you.”

Brynn didn’t reply.

“So do you ever mean to satisfy my curiosity? I was never so shocked in my life as when I received your letter informing me you had wed Wycliff. I gather he proposed because of the curse, but I thought you meant never to marry. I am simply dying to know how it came about. Especially since he was considered such a profoundly elusive prize.”

Brynn bit back a sigh, knowing she couldn’t avoid her dearest friend’s pointed questions, no matter how intimate. “I did not have much choice. My family’s financial circumstances had grown dire. And Lord Wycliff offered to fund Theo’s education.”

“Are you happy, then? I couldn’t deduce a thing from your letters.”

“Happy?” Brynn went still, dismayed to realize her feelings of late had indeed bordered on happiness. Dangerously so.

“I am happy enough,” she murmured. “At least now. The initial weeks were… exceedingly disagreeable. We fought all the time. Lucian purchased me for a broodmare, and I resented his high-handedness-so much that I fear I became a shrew. We were both miserable.”

“But it is better now?”

She looked away. “We no longer quarrel, thankfully. We came to a truce of sorts.”

“Well, you could not expect two strangers to get along perfectly. And I should think you wouldn’t find the marriage bed in the least unpleasant. Wycliff is rumored to be quite a passionate man, for all his elegance and sophistication. You don’t mean to tell me the rumors lie?”

Brynn felt herself flush. “No, they don’t lie.”

“And that is what worries you?” Meredith asked. “It’s only natural that you would be swayed by his legendary charm. Wycliff has never had the least trouble winning female hearts. But there is real danger if you come to fall in love with him.”

“Yes,” Brynn agreed. She was finding it more and more difficult to battle the unexpected threat to her heart. She was becoming ensnared in Lucian’s potent spell, just as she’d feared she would be. “I admit,” she said in a low voice, “that terrifies me.”

Meredith gazed at her in sympathy. “So what do you mean to do?”

“I don’t know,” Brynn murmured. “I don’t dare let myself become too enamored of him. That is why I… We made a pact. Lucian agreed that after I bear him an heir, we can go our separate ways.”

Meredith’s expression showed dismay. “Separate ways? Does that mean you would have to give up your child to him?”

Brynn felt her heart lurch. Absurdly, she hadn’t considered that far into the future, although she certainly should have. Lucian wanted a son so badly, he would never allow her to keep their child if she left him.

“Could you endure that?” her friend asked quietly.

Brynn’s throat tightened. “I’m not certain I could.”

“Well,” Meredith said with sudden cheerful briskness, “there is no use stewing over that bridge until you must cross it. And perhaps by then you will have found a way to break the curse.”

Brynn stared, struck by her friend’s casual remark. Was it possible the curse could be broken?

“Perhaps so,” she murmured slowly, not daring to let herself hope.

Her defenses, however, suffered yet another blow the following week. Brynn was about to descend to breakfast when she heard a commotion issuing from the floor above. Curiously mounting the service stairs, she followed the din to the serving maids’ dormer. To her dismay, she found her maid, Meg, on her knees, sobbing, while the housekeeper stood over her, railing at the frightened girl.

Both women ceased their clamor when they caught sight of Brynn, but almost instantly Meg burst into renewed weeping.

“Oh, milady,” she pleaded, “don’t let her turn me out!”

“Be quiet, you disgraceful girl!” Mrs. Poole snapped.

“What seems to be the problem?” Brynn asked coolly.

“She is in the family way.” The housekeeper pointed at the maid’s stomach, adding in a revolted tone, “Look at that!”

The thin nightdress did nothing to disguise the girl’s thickening belly, while a chamber pot stood beside an unmade cot, attesting to at least one bout of morning sickness.

With effort, Brynn swallowed her shock. The sweet, timid Meg was the last person she would have suspected of bearing a child out of wedlock. She had never noticed the girl’s condition until now, perhaps because she’d been so wrapped up in her own affairs.

“I found her lazing abed, too ill to work,” the housekeeper went on. “Then I discovered this and dismissed her.”

“I beg you, milady,” Meg entreated, “don’t let her-”

“I told you to hush!” Striking savagely, Mrs. Poole slapped Meg’s face, making her cry out.

Outraged, Brynn moved between them. “That will be quite enough, Mrs. Poole!”

“A box on the ears is not nearly enough! She deserves to be soundly thrashed for her wicked behavior.”

Brynn narrowed her eyes. “If you dare strike her again, you will be the one dismissed.”

Mrs. Poole pointed again at the quaking maid. “I won’t have this shameless wanton in my employ!”