London, 1838

Lady Kathleen Carhart had a secret.

Truth be told, she had more than one—but the secret she had in mind as she sat across from her husband at breakfast had arrived only today. It was wrapped in paper and had been set carefully atop her chest of drawers. And if her husband knew what it was…

She suppressed a faint smile.

Across the table from her, he set the paper down and fixed his gaze on her. His eyes were a liquid brown, three shades beyond her breakfast chocolate. They stood out, uncannily dark against the sandy brown of his hair. He had no notion what it did to her when he looked at her like that. Her toes curled. Her hands clasped together. All he had to do was look at her, and she found herself wishing—wanting—no, desiring. And therein lay the root of her problem.

“I had a talk with my cousin a few days ago,” he said.

Around London, a thousand couples might have been having a similarly prosaic conversation. Kate’s mother had cautioned her to be practical about marriage, to accept that she and her husband would share a genteel, friendly politeness.

But then, Kate hadn’t married the average London gentleman. Mr. Edward Carhart did nothing properly or politely—nothing, that was, except his newly acquired wife.

“What did Blakely have to say?” Kate asked.

“You know that some of our holdings are in the East India Company?”

“Aren’t everyone’s? It’s a good investment. They trade in tea and silk and saltpetre….” Her voice trailed off into roughness.

If he’d known what flitted through her mind when she said the word silk, he’d not sit there so sanguine. Because she’d purchased a filmy night rail on Bond Street. It was made of imported silk and fastened together in front by means of lavender ribbons. Those scraps of opaque fabric were perhaps the garment’s only concession to modesty. It lay on her chest of drawers, simply beseeching Kate to wear it one evening.

“Silk,” Ned said, looking off into the distance without seeing her lean forward, “and other things. Like opium.”

“Opium was not on my shopping list.”

He didn’t smile. Instead he glanced away as if uncomfortable. “In any case, Blakely and I were talking about the recent events in China.” Ned shook his paper at her. “And we decided it would behoove someone to personally inquire into what was going on over there.”

For once, he sounded serious. Kate frowned at him. “By someone, you mean Mr. White, and by over there, you mean the office on—”

“By someone,” Ned said distinctly, “I mean me, and by over there, I mean China.”

He set the newspaper down and bit his lip. The morning sun suddenly seemed too bright. It blasted in from the window behind him, casting his features into shadow. She couldn’t make out his eyes. He had to be joking. At any moment, he was going to grin at her.

She gingerly relinquished her hold on her teacup and essayed a small smile. “Have a lovely journey. Will you be home in time for tea?”

“No. The Peerless is leaving St. Katharine’s at noon, and I intend to be on it.”

Not just the light was blinding. She raised her eyes to him, and his sincerity finally penetrated. “Oh, God. You really meant it. You’re leaving? But I thought—”

She’d thought she had time for that silk night rail, folded carefully in paper.

He shook his head. “Kate, we’ve been married three months. We both know that the only reason we wed was because people found us alone together and imagined more had happened. We married to stave off the scandal.”

Put so baldly, her impractical hopes sounded even more foolish than she’d supposed.

“The truth is,” he continued, “neither of us is ready to be married, not really.”

Neither of them?

He stood and pushed back his chair. “I’ve never had the chance to prove myself to anyone. And…” He trailed off, his hand scrubbing through his hair. “And I want to.”

He set his serviette atop his plate and turned around. The world swirled around Kate.

He was walking away, as if this had been normal breakfast conversation on a regular day.

“Ned!” Kate vaulted to her feet. The word seemed as like to hold back the breaking floodwaters of her marriage as the insubstantial silk gown waiting upstairs.

His shoulders tensed, two sharp blades beneath the wool of his coat. He stopped in the doorway on the verge of escape.

She didn’t have the words to capture the cold tremor that ran through her. She settled on “I wish you wouldn’t. I wish you would stay.”

He tilted his head, just enough to see her over his shoulder. For just that one second, he looked at her the way she’d dreamed about: with a deep hunger, an almost open yearning, as if she were more to him than a name written under his on their marriage license. He exhaled and shook his head.

“I wish,” he said quietly, “I could, too.” And then he turned and left.

She wanted to run after him, to say something, anything. But what rooted her in place was a realization. He was as restless as she’d once been.

And she knew well enough that she couldn’t fill that up, not with any number of silken gowns.

At least this way he could imagine her quiet and practical, not hurt in the slightest by his leaving. She’d kept the secret of her attraction all too well, wrapped up in paper.

She’d kept all her secrets, and it was too late to explain.