“Are you telling me that my mother urged you to lure me from the ballroom and remove my gown?” she gritted.

“No.” His hooded gaze swept over her pale face. “But, I have never disguised the fact that I desired you from the moment I first held you in my arms and we waltzed across the floor of Almack’s. By the evening of Lady Granville’s ball I was nearly mad with my need to assuage my hunger for you.” As if to prove his point, Justin wrapped his arms around her and hauled her roughly against his aroused body. “And in all honesty, if we had not been interrupted, I am not entirely certain I could have halted my urge to take your innocence regardless of the discomforts of our surroundings, or the obvious danger of discovery.”

Her mouth went dry at the potent feel of his erection pressed against her hip, his warm scent teasing at her senses. A melting heat flowed like lava through her veins, pooling in her lower stomach.

“Then how can you possibly blame my mother?” she rasped.

As if sensing her grudging reaction to his touch, Justin skimmed his hands down her back, his eyes darkening to molten gold. “If nothing else, your mother has always been a clever woman capable of taking advantage of any situation.”

She could not argue the truth of his words. Her mother possessed a calculating mind and a ruthless lack of sentimentality when it came to using her daughter to achieve her own social ambitions.

“My mother wanted me wed, not get involved in a scandal that might very well have ruined me,” she protested.

“Correction, my love, she wanted you to capture a title. The greater the title the better.”

“Why you …”

He easily caught the hand she lifted to slap his face, pulling it to his mouth so he could press his lips to her palm.

“Steady, Amelia,” he murmured.

“Are you implying that my mother assumed that the only means for me to acquire a husband was by trapping him with public humiliation?” she hissed.

“Calm down and listen to me.”

“Have you not insulted me enough for one evening?”

“I am well aware you had received any number of proposals before we were introduced.”

She curled her lip in disdain. “Worthless fortune-hunters.”

He ignored her insult. “And that you refused them all.”

“I had a ridiculous hope that I might actually discover a gentleman who could care for more than my dowry. Stupid, of course.”

He grimaced, as if her jab had struck a nerve, but his expression remained grimly determined. “It is my belief that your mother learned that my estates were heavily mortgaged and suspected that once you learned the truth of my need for …”

“My money?” she sweetly supplied, startled by a small pang of regret as his cheekbones darkened with a humiliated flush.

“For a loan,” he corrected in a raw tone. “Your mother no doubt feared that you would turn away my impending offer of marriage as well.”

“As I most certainly would have.”

“Consider, Amelia.” He peered deep into her eyes, as if willing her to believe his words. “Your mother was quite anxious for you to acquire a title and it was unlikely that there would be a nobleman greater than an earl to court you. Would she have meekly allowed such an opportunity to slip away without making an effort to push you into marriage?”

Amelia frowned, suddenly recalling that it had been her mother who had first entered the conservatory and promptly screamed to ensure that everyone at the ball was aware of Amelia’s humiliation. She also recalled that her mother had not been nearly so shocked as she should have been when Amelia revealed Justin was a common fortune-hunter. Indeed, her mother had pressed even harder for a swift wedding.

At the time, Amelia had assumed that her mother was motivated by her horror at having an unwed daughter who was tarnished goods. Now, she realized that it might very well have been an obsessive desire to have her daughter wed to an earl.

“This is all conjecture,” she muttered. “You have no proof.”

“No, I have no proof,” he readily agreed, “but I have spent many long nights recalling our brief courtship and the events leading up to our fateful tryst in the conservatory.”

“Even if what you claim is true, it changes nothing.”

“You are mistaken, Amelia, it changes everything.” With a smooth movement, he swept her in his arms and headed back to the bed. “You can no longer accuse me of deliberately causing our scandal. It was never my intent to force you into marriage.”

Amelia felt a dangerous crack in the ice she had built around her heart. What if he spoke the truth? What if he had never led her into the conservatory to compromise her? What if he had been as overwhelmed as she by the heady passion that even now swirled through her body? What if …

She shook her head. Damn him.

“Did you ever intend to tell me the truth?” she demanded as he lowered her on to the mattress and stretched out beside her, his fingers tangling in her hair.

“What truth?” he asked, a savage hunger tightening his features. “That you fascinated me from the moment we met? That I treasure our time spent together? That I desired you beyond all reason and that the thought of you carrying my child filled me with a need I could barely control?”

His child? Amelia quivered at the compelling thought of Justin’s baby growing inside her.

“The truth that you wed me for my dowry,” she forced herself to say, as much to remind herself of this man’s treachery as to continue the argument.

His head lowered, his eyes blazing with sensual intent. “I wed you for many reasons, some of which I am still attempting to comprehend.”

“Justin …”

Her protest was ignored as he crushed her lips in a kiss that demanded her response.

For a heartbeat Amelia stood poised on a precipice. She understood the significance of this moment. She could turn Justin away and continue with their cold, distant relationship. Or she could give in to her desires and risk opening herself to yet another betrayal.

Perhaps sensing her fear, Justin lifted his head to reveal an expression of undisguised vulnerability. “Amelia, please,” he pleaded, his hand trembling as he brushed his fingers over her cheek. “I have hungered for you for so long.”

His hunger could not be any greater than hers, Amelia acknowledged. But trust was a fragile thing.

“Have you …” She bit her lip in embarrassment.

“What? Ask me, my love,” he urged. “I swear I will tell you nothing but the truth.”

“Have there been other women?” she demanded bluntly.

“No, Amelia.” A dark, possessive expression settled on his beautiful face. “You are my wife. I want no other.”

The remaining ice that encased her heart shattered at the soft words and, with a small moan, she lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck. She did not know what tomorrow might bring, but for this night she could not deny the desire that had plagued her for so long.

“Yes,” she sighed.

As if the soft word was what he had been waiting for, Justin wrapped his arms about her and buried his head in the curve of her neck.

“Amelia, if you do not want me to make love to you then you must tell me now,” he muttered. “Very soon I will be unable to halt.”

Her arms tightened about his neck. “I want you, Justin.”

The words had barely tumbled from her lips before he was pressing restless kisses over her face, his fingers tugging at the buttons that lined the back of her dress.

“Thank God,” he rasped, then with a muttered curse he roughly tore the fabric.

“Justin?”

“You have no notion of how desperately I desire you,” he growled, pulling off the ripped gown and managing to tug down her corset and thin shift with exhilarating haste. Pulling back, he swept a smouldering gaze over her body that was now naked except for her silk stockings and slippers. “God, you are so beautiful.”

Amelia blushed, but oddly she felt beautiful beneath the burning intensity of his gaze. Justin had always been capable of making her far more assured in his company than she had ever been before. It was the reason she had been so drawn to him from the moment they had met.

Well … one of the reasons, she ruefully acknowledged, staring at the dark, beautiful face that had made her heart halt the moment she caught sight of him.

Shuddering with an excitement she could no longer deny, she moaned as his hands impatiently traced her curves, his mouth trailing a path of fiery kisses down the line of her throat. She forgot about the guests who no doubt were questioning her strange disappearance and her servants who must be shocked by the sudden appearance of Lord Spaulding.

In this moment nothing mattered but the feel of Justin as he gently cupped her breast and nuzzled her tightly furled nipple with shocking intimacy.

“Dear Lord,” she muttered, stirring restlessly beneath his caresses.

She needed something. Something only Justin could offer.

As if sensing her impatience, he abruptly pushed himself upright, jerking off his attire with unsteady hands. Amelia watched in awed silence as he revealed his hard, muscular body. She had never seen a naked man before and she was astonished to discover the pleasure she found in the width of his chest lightly sprinkled with raven hair, the slender line of his waist and the powerful thrust of his legs.

Then her breath tangled in her throat as she caught sight of the proud thrust of his arousal. She had assumed she would be frightened in this moment, but oddly she felt nothing but anticipation as he slowly moved to cover her with his warm body, her hands tentatively stroking down the curve of his back.