Evie nodded.

The maid left, and Evie stayed in the bath until the heat began to dissipate. Reluctantly she stepped from the tub and dried herself. The thought of going to bed aloneagainfilled her with melancholy. She was trying not to pine for St. Vincent. But she woke up every morning searching for him, her arm stretched across the empty place beside her.

St. Vincent was the opposite of everything Evie was…elegant, dazzlingly articulate, cool and self-possessed…and so wicked that it had once been universally agreed he would be an absolutely terrible husband.

No one but Evie knew how tender and devoted he was in private. Of course, his friends such as Westcliff and Mr. Hunt were aware that St. Vincent had reformed his former villainous ways. And he was doing a remarkable job managing the gaming club she had inherited from her father, rebuilding a faltering empire while at the same time making light of the responsibilities he had assumed.

He was still a scoundrel, though, she thought with a private grin.

Standing from the bath, Evie dried herself and donned a velvet robe that buttoned along the front. She heard the door open again. “Back to w-warm the bed?” she asked.

But the voice that answered wasn’t the maid’s.

“As a matter of fact…yes.”

Evie stilled at the sound of a deep, silky murmur.

“I passed the maid on the stairs and told her she wouldn’t be needed tonight,” he continued. ” ‘If there’s one thing I do well,’ I told her, ‘it’s warming my wife’s bed.’ “

By this time Evie was fumbling to push the screen aside, nearly pushing it over.

St. Vincent reached her in a few graceful strides, folding her in his arms. “Easy, love. No need for haste. Believe me, I’m not going anywhere.”

They stood together for a long, wordless moment, breathing, holding tight.

Eventually St. Vincent tilted Evie’s head back and stared down at her. He was tawny and golden haired, his pale blue eyes glittering like gems in the face of a fallen angel. He was a long, lean-framed man, always exquisitely dressed and groomed. But he had not been sleeping well, she saw. There were faint shadows beneath his eyes, and signs of weariness on his face. The touches of human vulnerability, however, only served to make him more handsome, softening what might otherwise have been a gleaming, godlike remoteness.

“Your f-father,” she began, staring at him in concern. “Is he …”

St. Vincent cast an exasperated glance heavenward. “He’ll be fine. The doctors can’t find a thing wrong with him, other than indigestion brought on by rich food and wine. When I left, he was leering and pinching the housemaids, and welcoming a score of obsequious relations who want to sponge off him for Christmas.” His hands moved lightly over her velvet-covered back. His voice was very soft. “Have you been a good girl in my absence?”

“Yes, of course,” she said breathlessly.

St. Vincent gave her a disapproving glance and kissed her with a seductive gentleness that sent her pulse racing. “We’ll have to remedy that immediately. I refuse to tolerate proper behavior from my wife.”

She touched his face, smiling as he nipped at her exploring fingertips. “I’ve missed you, Sebastian.”

“Have you, love?” He unfastened the buttons of her robe, the light eyes glittering with heat as her skin was revealed. “What part did you miss the most?”

“Your mind,” she said, and smiled at his expression.

“I was hoping for a far more depraved answer than that.”

“Your mind is depraved,” she told him solemnly.

He gave a husky laugh. “True.”

She gasped as his experienced hand slipped inside her robe. “What part of m-me did you miss the most?”

“I missed you from head to toe. I missed every freckle. I missed the taste of you…the feel of your hair in my hands…Evie, my love, you are shamefully overdressed.”

And he picked her up and carried her to bed. The velvet robe was stripped away, replaced by firelight and his caressing hands. He kissed the new rich curve of her stomach, fascinated by the changes in her fertile body. And then he kissed her everywhere else, and entered her with teasing skill. Evie jolted a little at the feel of him, so hard and heavy inside her.

Pausing, St. Vincent smiled down at her, his face flushed with desire. “Sweet little wife,” he whispered. “What am I to do with you? Such a short time apart…and already you’ve forgotten how to accommodate me.” Evie shook her head, straining to take him in, and her husband laughed softly. “Let me help you, love …” And he courted her body with careful, wicked thoroughness, until he had entered her fully and brought her, sighing and trembling, into helpless rapture.

Afterward, as Evie reclined on her side and tried to catch her breath, St. Vincent left the bed and returned with a large, rattling leather case. He set it on the nearby table. “I brought the family jewels,” he told her.

“I know,” she said languidly, and he laughed as he saw what she was staring at.

“No, love. The other family jewels. They’re entailed to the future Duchess of Kingston. But I told my father I’m giving them to you now, since he’ll obviously live for a damned eternity.”

Her eyes widened. “Thank you, Sebastian. But I…I don’t need jewelry …”

“You do. Let me see them on you.” He pulled out ropes of priceless pearls, sparkling necklaces and bracelets and earrings wrought of gold and every imaginable jewel. To Evie’s squirmy, giggling embarrassment, he sat beside her and began to adorn her, clasping a sapphire bracelet around her ankle, tucking a diamond into her navel.