“My kind?” Marcus sounded bewildered. “What have I done for centuries? Lillian, what the hell are you talking about?”

Her woeful voice filtered out from behind her hands. “Lady Kittridge.”

There was a short, shocked silence.

“Have you gone mad? Lillian, look at me. Lillian”

“I can’t look at you,” she muttered.

He gave her a little shake. “Lillian…Am I to understand that you think I have a personal interest in her?”

The note of genuine outrage in his question made Lillian feel the tiniest bit better. No guilty husband could have feigned such baffled anger. On the other hand, it was never a good idea to provoke Marcus. He was usually slow to anger, but once it started, mountains trembled, oceans parted, and every creature with an instinct for self-preservation fled for cover.

“I’ve seen you talking with her,” Lillian said, taking her hands down, “and smiling at her, and you’ve corresponded with her. And” She gave him a look of miserable indignation. “You’ve changed the way you tie your cravat!”

“My valet suggested it,” he said, looking stunned.

“And that new trick the other night…that new thing you did in bed …”

“You didn’t like it? Damn it, Lillian, all you had to do was tell me”

“I did like it,” she said, turning scarlet. “But it’s one of the signs, you see.”

“Signs of what?”

“That you’ve tired of me,” she said, her voice cracking. “That you want someone else.”

Marcus stared at her and let out a string of curses that shocked Lillian, who had a fairly good command of filthy language herself. Seizing her arm, he pulled her with him out of the bedroom. “Come with me.”

“Now? Like this? Marcus, I’m not dressed”

“I don’t give a bloody damn!”

I’ve finally driven him mad, Lillian thought in alarm, as he tugged and pulled her along with him, down the stairs and through the entrance hall past a few bemused-looking servants. Out into the biting December cold. What was he going to do? Toss her off the bluff? “Marcus?” she asked nervously, hurrying to keep pace with his ground-eating strides.

He didn’t answer, only took her across the courtyard to the stables, with their central courtyard and drinking fountain for the horses, into the warm central space with rows of superbly appointed horse stalls. Horses stared at them with mild interest as Marcus pulled Lillian to the end of the first row. There was a stall with a large, cheerful red bow tacked at the top.

The stall contained an astonishingly beautiful Arabian mare about fourteen hands high, with a narrow, eloquent head and neck, large lustrous eyes, and what appeared to be perfect conformation.

Lillian blinked in surprise. “A white Arabian?” she asked faintly, having never seen such a creature before. “She looks like something out of a fairy tale.”

“Technically she’s registered as a gray,” Marcus said. “But the shade is so light, it looks like pale silver. Her name is Misty Moonlight.” He gave her a sardonic glance. “She’s your Christmas present. You asked if we could work on your riding skills togetherremember?”

“Oh.” Lillian was suddenly breathless.

“It’s taken me six damn months to make the arrangements,” Marcus continued curtly. “Lady Kittridge is the best horse breeder in England, and very particular about whom she’ll sell one of her Arabians to. And as this horse had been promised to someone else, I had to bribe and threaten the other buyer, and pay a bloody fortune to Lady Kittridge.”

“And that’s why you’ve been communicating so often with Lady Kittridge?”

“Yes.” He scowled at her.

“Oh, Marcus!” Lillian was overcome with relief and happiness.

“And in return for my pains,” he growled, “I’m accused of infidelity! I love you more than life. Since I met you, I’ve never even thought of another woman. And how you think I could have the desire for someone else when we spend every bloody night together is beyond my powers of comprehension!”

Realizing that he had been mortally offended and his outrage was increasing by the second, Lillian offered him a placating smile. “I never thought you would actually betray me that way. I was just afraid that you found her tempting. And I”

“The only thing I find tempting is the idea of taking you to the tack room and applying a saddle strap to your bottom. Repeatedly. With vigor.”

Lillian backed away as her husband approached her menacingly. She was filled with a combination of giddy relief and alarm. “Marcus, everything’s settled. I believe you. I’m not at all worried now.”

“You should be worried,” he said with chilling softness. “Because it’s clear that unless there are consequences for this lack of faith in me”

“Consequences?” she squeaked.

“this problem may arise again in the future. So I’m about to remove all doubt about what I want, and from whom.”

Staring at him with wide eyes, Lillian wondered if he was going to beat her, ravish her, or both. She calculated her chances of escaping. Not good. Marcus, with his powerful but agile build, was superbly fit and accomplished. He was as fast as lightning and could probably outmaneuver a hare. Watching her steadily, he removed his waistcoat and tossed it to the hay-covered floor. Picking up a horse blanket from a folded stack, he spread it over a pile of hay.