Bought By Her Husband

Because no one had. Well, certainly not a man like that—not in a way which had made the breath catch in her throat and her stomach curl into a warm mush of pleasure.

But she’d deliberately turned away—and that had been the necessary reaction to him. Because Victoria had long ago accepted the unrealistically romantic side to her nature, which she reined in as if it were a dangerous animal for fear of what havoc it could cause were it released.

For Alexei, the back turned on him—with the fold of fair hair pleated against a long, slender neck—had been tantalising. The very gesture of rejection had been as appealing as the woman herself. Later—much later—he would reflect on the significance of this, but for now his hormones were raging around his bloodstream in a torrent of longing.

He had waited for her to come to him—as come she must. Not simply because she was there to provide a service for the hosts, but because he had compelled her to do so. And it was working. It always worked.

Her face had been flushed and almost defiant as she’d drawn near.

‘At last,’ he murmured.

‘Canapé, sir?’

He waved he plate away impatiently. ‘What time do you finish?’

‘That’s a very impertinent question, sir.’

‘I’m a very impertinent man,’ he breathed, and smiled a smile which would have been perfectly at home on the face of one of his forebears—those gods of myth and legend. ‘If I promise to behave like a … gentleman—’ his black eyes mocked her ‘—and to deliver you home before the break of dawn, will that make a difference?’

Victoria hesitated, sensing he was trouble, and yet …

‘Nine o’clock,’ she said crisply. And she turned and walked away, telling herself that he wouldn’t bother turning up and that it was probably a party game he played to pass the time—seeing how many women would agree to meet him.

But he was waiting for her at the staff entrance, looking sombre and yet enticingly dependable in a dark overcoat with its collar turned up against the unseasonably chill wind.

‘Shall we eat something?’ he questioned. ‘Or does working with food spoil your enjoyment of it?’

It was a perceptive question, which naturally only added to his appeal. ‘Sometimes. But I’m not hungry,’ she said.

‘Me neither.’ Well, not for food. But you couldn’t tell a woman whose name you didn’t even know that the only thing you wanted to eat was her.

It had none of the ingredients for a suitable romance—certainly not from Alexei’s point of view. She was English, and poor, and not particularly well educated. On the plus side she was very beautiful—and still a virgin. But that incredulous discovery carried with it the burden of responsibility. To his astonishment and annoyance, he discovered a nagging conscience—realising that he could not simply bed her and then abandon her! In fact, she had none of the qualities he was looking for in a partner—and he wasn’t even looking for a partner!

But Alexei was failing to take into account something he hadn’t thought could happen to him—for emotion wasn’t high on his list of priorities. And when it did finally happen, he didn’t recognise it. He tried to deny it. Until his denials sounded hollow—even to his own ears.

He had fallen in love.

The most overwhelming feeling of his life—passion which defied description. And—perhaps because he had always been cynical about its existence—it hit him harder than most. He was too much in its thrall—and hers—to even try to fight it.

One night he buried his face in her scented hair as she clung to him, both of them aching and frustrated as they broke off from kissing.

He knew that she wanted him just as much as he wanted her—and he knew what he had to tell her before that happened.

‘I love you, Victoria, agape mou.’

Her heart gave a wild leap of joy, but she looked up at him crossly. ‘You don’t have to tell me that just because you want to go to bed with me! I’m going to sleep with you anyway.’

‘Are you?’ he murmured.

‘You know I am.’

He dipped his head and his lips tingled as he brushed them provocatively against hers. ‘Then perhaps I will make you wait.’

‘Wait?’ Flagrantly, she pressed her body against his, freed by his declaration to start to explore her sexuality properly. ‘Wait for what?’

‘Until I make you my wife,’ he said a little unsteadily—not sounding like himself at all—and Victoria stared at him with hope and disbelief. Afterwards she would realise that he hadn’t actually asked her to marry him, and that he had used the word wife possessively—but at that moment she was too shocked and thrilled and in love to care.

‘Your wife?’

He felt compelled by some primitive desire to tell her—some need which ran bone-deep. He had discovered the powerful lure of love and romance and its novelty made him want to plunder it to its very depths. ‘Yes. We must,’ he said simply. ‘For it is rare for two people to feel this way—of that I am certain.’

His parents tried to stop the marriage—they summoned him home—but he resolutely ignored their demands. Even Victoria’s own mother was against the union. Her proud trip to Cornwall to show him off had ended with a tearful tussle between mother and daughter after Alexei had been dispatched to buy a bottle of champagne.