Wolfe’s eyes narrowed at the certainty in Jessica’s voice. She would sooner die than couple with a man.

Any man.

«But you want me to marry you,» he said neutrally.

A smile trembled on Jessica’s lips. «You would never touch me like that. Men marry because they must have heirs. Women marry because they want wealth. You have no need of an heir and I have no need of wealth.»

A dangerous stillness came over Wolfe as Jessica’s words sank into him. «Even a bastard has…needs.»

«What doesbastardy have to do with it?» she asked with exasperation.

For a few taut moments, Wolfe said nothing. Then his breath rushed out in a soundless sigh as he understood that Jessica had meant no insult to him by assuming that a bastard wouldn’t want to couple with his wife; she simply didn’t realize that men wanted more than heirs from a marriage.

«Dear Wolfe,» Jessica said softly, touching the sleeve of his nightshirt. «Do marry me. We are good friends. We would have such fun living in America, hunting and fishing and eating by the campfire.»

«My God, you really mean that,» he said, stunned by the magnitude of her is understanding of what marriage was.

«Oh, yes.» She smiled as the cage of fear loosened around her heart. «I have never enjoyed being with anyone so much as you, my Lord Wolfe. Now we can be together again. What could be better?»

He said something profane, then ran his hand wearily through his black hair. «Did you set me up, Jessi? Did you send your maid to fetch Lady Victoria as a witness while you ran to my room looking like a girl on the way to her lover?»

Jessica shook her head vigorously. The motion made lamplight twist and run through her long hair like streamers of fire.

«No. I didn’t plan this.» She drew in a long, ragged breath. «But now that it has happened, I will swear on my mother’s grave that we have lain together. Then you’ll have to marry me. Then I’ll be free.»

«What of me? What of my freedom?»

Jessica looked up at Wolfe with clear, brilliant eyes. «I’ve thought of that, too. I won’t ask anything of you. You will be free to come or go as you please. If you want a shooting companion, I’ll hunt with you. If you want to travel alone, I won’t complain. If you want a special fly to lure trout, I’ll tie it for you.»

«Jessi —»

She talked right over Wolfe. «If you want my conversation, I’ll be there. If you want silence, I’ll leave the room. I’ll see that your house is well run and that only food you like is served. And when dinner is over I’ll warm your brandy glass in my hands until fragrance fills the crystal globe and then I will give it to you and we will sit together and no storms will ever come inside…»

The silence stretched and shimmered like a candle flame pulled by wind. Finally, Wolfe turned his back to Jessica because he couldn’t trust himself to look at her any longer and not lose his temper in a way that he had never done with any living creature.

«Jessi,» he said finally, softly. «The life you’re describing is the life of an English lord and lady. I’m not a lord. My wife will live in America. She won’t live the life of an aristocratic lady.»

«I love America. I’ve been sick with longing to see the tall grass and great buffalo again. I’ve missed the endless sky. Betsy has taught me American ways. When I’m with her, you can hear my British accent hardly at all. I’ve worked very hard at being American,» Jessica said earnestly. «I knew you wouldn’t want to live in England.»

Wolfe spun around. «Youdidtrap me!»

Jessica bent her head and looked at her tightly laced hands. «No, my Lord Wolfe. When I understood that Victoria meant to see me married, I tried to imagine belonging to a man. And I simply couldn’t imagine belonging to any other man but you, so I had to learn how to belong to you. I’ve thought about this quite a lot, you see.»

When Wolfe said nothing, she looked up at him again, her eyes luminous, pleading. «I don’t want to disappoint Lord Robert. I don’t want to lie to Lady Victoria. I don’t want to trap you into marriage.»

«But you will.»

«Only if I must.»

Wolfe said something shocking under his breath, but the words were lost in the sustained howling of the wind. Trembling despite her determination and straight spine, Jessica waited.

When Wolfe finally moved, it was so suddenly that she flinched. He went to the bedroom door, jerked it open, and was confronted by two pairs of anxious eyes. Betsy and the sleeping Gore had disappeared. Glancing from Wolfe’s shuttered expression to Jessica’s desperate composure, the Stewarts came into the bedroom and closed the heavy door behind them.

«Well?» Robert demanded.

«Lady Jessica is prepared to swear I’ve had her,» Wolfe said coldly. «I haven’t.»

Robert looked at Jessica. «Is that true?»

«I will marry Wolfe,» she said in a low voice, «or I will marry no man at all.»

«Bloody hell,» muttered the lord. He looked at Wolfe. «What are we to do?»

«Just what you’ve always done — give the spoiled little aristocrat what she wants.»

«You will marry her?»

«After a fashion,» Wolfe drawled. «Lady Jessica has some girlish romantic fancy about living in the West.»

«Hardly a fancy,» Jessica said. «I’ve been beyond the Mississippi. I know what awaits me.»

«Like hell you do,» Wolfe said. «You think it’s going to be one long hunting holiday. It won’t be. I can’t afford such things, and even if I could, I wouldn’t.»

Victoria looked from her stubborn ward to the savage planes of Wolfe’s face. She smiled and then began laughing softly. «Ah, Wolfe, your mind is as quick and sharp as a rapier. But Jessica is also quick, and as stubborn as Scots granite.»

Wolfe grunted. «I’m a hell of a lot harder than stone. Lady Jessica will soon realize that marriage to me isn’t some long hunting expedition complete with china, silver, and enough servants to curry the buffalo before they’re shot. If she lasts until we reach my home at the edge of the Rockies I’ll be surprised.»

Jessica’s back became even straighter as she heard the rage and derision in Wolfe’s voice. The look he slanted at her out of his dark eyes was no kinder.

«When she gets over her foolishness,» Wolfe said curtly, turning back to Victoria, «I’ll have the marriage annulled and return her to you the same way she came to me — completely untouched.»

«Oh, I hopenotcompletely,» Victoria said with amusement. «Teach the stubborn little nun not to fear a man. Then you will both be free.»

Wolfe turned his back on Victoria and looked at Jessica with cold indigo eyes. «It’s not too late to stop this farce, my lady. You’ll soon tire of being the common wife of a common man.»

«I shall not tire of being your wife.» It was a vow, and Jessica said it as such.

«Yes, you shall,» Wolfe said.

And that, too, was a vow.

1

St. Joseph, Missouri

Spring 1867

«Do be reasonable, my Lord Wolfe. It wasn’t my idea to dismiss Betsy and the footmen.»

«I’m not your lord. I’m a bastard, remember?»

«I find my memory improving with each moment,» Jessica said under her breath. «Ouch! That pinched.»

«Then stop wiggling like a worm on a hook. There are twenty buttons left and they’re as small as peas. Damnation. What silly idiot made a dress that a woman has to be helped into?»

And out of.

That was the worst of it. Wolfe knew the time would come eventually when he would have to undo each of the glittering jet buttons, and each undoing would reveal more warm, fragrant skin and fine lace lingerie. She was an elf who barely came up to his breastbone, but she was bringing him to his knees with raw desire. Her back was supple and elegant as a dancer’s, graceful as a flame; and like a flame she burned him.

«I’m sorry,» Jessica whispered unhappily as Wolfe’s words scorched her ears. «I had hoped —»

«Stop whispering, damn it. If you have something to say, say it and damn all this aristocratic foolishness about talking so softly a man has to bend double to hear you.»

«I thought that you would be glad to see me,» Jessica said with great clarity. «Until this morning, I’ve not seen you once in the months since we exchanged vows. You haven’t asked me how my voyage was, nor about the train trip across the United States, nor —»

«You said you wouldn’t complain if I left you alone,» Wolfe interrupted curtly. «Are you complaining, Lady Jessica?»

Jessica fought against a wave of unhappiness. This wasn’t how she had imagined her reunion with Wolfe. She had been looking forward to riding over the Great American Desert with him on eager blooded horses. She had been looking forward to long days of comfortable silence and lively conversation, to nighttime fires beneath the blazingly clear American sky. But most of all, she had looked forward to seeing Wolfe.

«When your letter came asking me to meet you here,» she said, «I thought you had gotten over your pique.»

«Pique. Now there’s a mincing, aristocratic kind of word.» His fingers fumbled and touched warm flesh. With a savage curse he jerked his fingers back. «You don’t know me verywell, lady. I wasn’t piqued. I was bloody furious. I will remain that way until you grow up, agree to an annulment, and return to England where you belong.»

«Nor do you know me very well. You thought I would give up and beg for an annulment at the prospect of traveling alone to America.»

Wolfe grunted. That had been precisely his thought. But Jessica had surprised him. She had arranged for her own passage and that of her maid, hired two footmen with the small inheritance that had come at her marriage, and crossed the Atlantic alone.