Val threw down his knife and fork with a clatter.
“Explain it to me, this thing, love. Why would a
perfectly intelligent girl want to marry a man so beneath
her? She could take him as a lover if she wanted—I
certainly wouldn’t care. Why marry the fellow?”

Mrs. Crumb carefully placed her fork and knife upon her
plate and folded her hands in her lap. She turned to face
him. “Love is the best of all human emotion. It separates
us from the beasts and brings us closer to God and to
heaven. There is no greater gift than love between a man
and a woman.”

He looked at her a moment, studying her earnest
expression, and then grinned. “You’ve never loved a man,
have you?”

She pursed her lips, looking not a little irritated.
“No.”

He took up his knife and fork again, feeling more
cheerful. “A woman?”

“Pardon, Your Grace?”

He waved his knife, a bit of the beef skewered on the
end. “Have you ever loved a woman?”

She pursed her lips and for a moment he thought they’d
have another round of tedious prevarication. Then she
sighed—audibly this time. “I was fond of my mother but I
doubt that is what you mean. I’ve never loved another
woman romantically.”

He smiled and ate the bite of beef. She came from the
country. Yet she was rather more sophisticated than he’d
first thought her.

“Then…” She stared at him very seriously, almost shyly.
“You’ve never loved another?”

“Good God, no.”

“Not even your intended fiancée?”

He threw back his head and laughed at the very thought.
“No. Oh, no. I think that one must have some essential
part to love.”

She knit her black brows again, quite severely, and the
resemblance to some stern saint was very strong. “What
part?”

He shrugged, twirling his fork in the air as he thought.
“I don’t know? A belief in goodness and God? Or maybe
godliness? Perhaps innocence?” He smiled and looked at
her. “In any case, whatever that essential thing is, I
don’t have it in me. I never had it.”

Her brows were level. Her dark eyes intent on him. He
might be the only man in the world to her right now. Oh,
heady, erotic thought. “Never? Not even when you were a
child?”

He shook his head slowly, aware of the soul-deep
blackness that had seeped into his skin, been driven
through his muscles, and embedded in his very bones. “Not
even in the womb.”

He rarely told the truth—why bother? It was so dull—but
when he did, most mistook it for jest.

She did not.

She looked at him soberly, and despite her martyr’s eyes,
she seemed to make no judgment of him, which, if nothing
else, was refreshing.

He leaned a little forward and took her chin, her skin
soft and warm under his fingers. Alive. Human. Womanly.

Her dark eyes widened.

“Now, you, Mrs. Crumb, you aren’t like me at all. You
have that part, whatever it is. You can love, which
raises the question: Why haven’t you?”

She made a movement, like a mare trying to shake a
bridle, but he held her, squeezing her face tightly.
Perhaps he even left bruises.

He enjoyed that thought, imprinting his fingertips on her
face for all to see.

“Why, my gentle housekeeper?”

Her nostrils flared and she stilled, glaring at him. “I
like my job. I like doing as I please. Falling in love
with a man would inconvenience me, Your Grace.”

He caught his breath in admiration. “How very practical
of you, Mrs. Crumb.”

He drew her forward, making her half rise, his gaze fixed
on that wet, reddened mouth and her angry dark eyes, his
cock beating, bold and insistent, against the placket of
his breeches. Perhaps he’d mark her further. Perhaps he’d
see to what depths a saint could fall.