Chapter One

Berkshire, England

O phelia Ashcombe, the Countess of Ramsgate, stood in the rather rundown chapel where she was about to ditch her title, along with her status of widowhood. The latter did not bother her that much. Being a widow had its charms. But the first? She despised, detested. Worse, abhorred.

She looked at her eye candy of a groom. Five years her junior, Sir James Heathcote held the looks of an Adonis in colouring and proportions. No one in their right mind thought him less than a specimen they could look at for hours on end. Like a painting in a townhouse gallery, for example. One could stare and stare, and never get tired of it. As for having it, well, many were keen on possessing a beautiful trinket, unlike her. Her reasons for having moved heaven and earth to get the bishop to allow the wedding did not include the possession of decorative ornaments. But she did not admit it to said Bishop, of course.

So, there were several advantages to ditching her more than abhorrent title. Not that she'd always despised being the Countess of Ramsgate. Far from that. For a while, she'd relished it along with the husband included in the package. For a short while. A very short while. Like, really short.

One night, to be exact.

One night, long eight years in the past.

Said husband, upended, and left before dawn; before she'd awoken. Before she could ask why and at least say goodbye.

The despicable title, however, stayed.

And now she stood an inch from crushing it, too. And be done with that part of her story. Bury it. Allow it to rot where it belonged. Hell. No, even hell was too good for it.

The priest cleared his throat, attracting her attention to him. "We are gathered here today…" Ophelia's mind wandered away.

The ‘we' the cleric referred to consisted of four servants from Sir James' derelict estate, located not far from London. The peeling-plaster place had its door open to the warm summer outside.

"… to join in matrimony," the priest continued.

Granted, she, the wealthy widow, accepted the suit of an impoverished country buck. What a cliché. Ha! Better a cliché than a bride abandoned on the wedding night. Or shortly after a perfunctory wedding night. Rich widow, poor groom. Who cared? She had her unshared reasons to stand in this church today. She turned her head and offered a pleasant smile to her new ornament, oops, new husband-to-be. He looked back at her and returned it with a bright one of his own. The smile might be bright; as for the man, yes, nobody was perfect now, were they? He suited her for what she intended, though. In all honesty, he more than served her purposes.

Ophelia heard footfalls entering the chapel and rejoiced for one more person to witness the new chapter, better, new book, even a new library about to begin. The new Ophelia being born this morning.

"Much as I appreciate the irrefutable advantages of variety in and out of the bedchamber," the newcomer said. "The law fails to be that smart and to condone bigamy." A scoff echoed in the chapel. "Stupid, I know." A pause and then a mocking, disappointed tone. "But alas, I do not make the law."

Ophelia's teeth gnashed at the sound of that voice. She would recognise it even if she were half-deaf. Half-dead. And hoped she would never, ever, hear it again. From the grave. Or in her sleep, no, nightmares. Because this had to be it. The one blasted, insufferable Earl, come to spoil one more thing in her life. To spoil her life even further.

Unfortunate as it seemed, the voice came not from beyond the grave. It rang very much alive.

Her head swivelled in its direction so fast she might have whiplash. And there, in the middle pew, he stood, not Adonis, not Ganymede, the wine-pourer of the Olympus. No, a god himself, large, exuding power and command. Leonard Ashcombe, the Earl of Ramsgate's falcon eyes looked at her as though inciting her to contradict him.

As her glare clashed with him, a tidal wave of reactions assailed her. The silly youthful illusions, the sense of abandonment, the resentment of being left without so much as a word. The lost dreams and the newfound freedom of widowhood. Everything sloshed in her.

Not a widow, after all.

The mind-bogging bafflement eliminated the breaks from her tongue. "You were supposed to be dead."

"Pity, I am not, isn't it?" he crossed his arms, which appeared to have grown in muscle and sinew for his mouth to pull in a humourless smirk. It vanished in the next second to give way to dead seriousness. "No one is marrying my wife."

Oh, but Ophelia was not about to allow the insufferable Earl to get away with this with such ease. And even less would she allow him to destroy her life yet again. Thrusting the wilted bunch of flowers into the groom's hands, she turned full body to the man she wished never to see again. Unless he came from beyond the grave, that is.

"Everyone here can vouch for my name and position." The defying tone underlined the tilt of her chin. "Whoever can vouch for yours?" She meant that everyone in this chapel would state her to be who she said she was.

As for her resurrected, inconvenient husband, no one would remember him after all these years.

Those dark falcon eyes narrowed, ditching the mocking tinge they'd held a minute ago to dye with unmistakable annoyance. "You just recognised me, wife."

A delicate scoff came from her lips, drawn in a smirk. "I never said your name, sir." Her eyes travelled over every slab of new muscle, making themselves visible through his impeccable attire before she returned to his narrowed gaze.

The priest eyed the lady and the newcomer in baffled turns. "Indeed." He muttered under his breath, in a soft tone so as not to reach the man dominating the rundown chapel; lest he be punished should his claim as the Earl prove to be authentic.

Another man darkened the chapel's door. "My lord," he called. Ophelia darted her gaze to him, dressed as a coachman. "The horses need—" he started but cut his sentence short as if sensing the tension in the place.

Her very-much-alive husband twisted his head to the entrance. "Cornell," he said with that pinch of command only a lofty nobleman would use. "Come in, will you?" Hesitant, the Cornell man approached as his middle-aged stance investigated the tableau in progress. "Please, tell these good people," the disdain in the nobleman's tone contradicted his words, "whom you serve."

Cornell took off his worn-out hat and scratched his balding head as though trying to make sense of the rather stupid request. "Why, my lord, you, the Earl of Ramsgate."

Her insufferable husband turned to her with arched brows and a victorious stance. "Remember now, my lady wife?" And accompanied that with a look that raked her in the same way hers had.

"That settles the matter," the priest proclaimed as he snapped close the book from which he read. And closed Ophelia's only door to the one destiny she'd effectively chosen so far.

"We can't get married?" James' forlorn question echoed in the ensuing silence. His perfect face dimmed with disappointment as he asked the unnecessary question.

Ophelia swivelled to him to retrieve her flowers while she took his hand in hers. "My poor dear." She hoped the territorial snort that came from her resurrected husband to be a hallucination. "I will make a donation to your state so you can get on your feet." That brought an open smile to Adonis' face. Her new acquisition of a husband would not become a new trinket after all.

Resolute steps neared the altar and Ophelia did not need to look to confirm it was her newfound husband. "Lady Ramsgate."

Her flawless coiffured head snapped to him to register his arm positioned for her to take it. She eyed the arm, then lifted her contemptuous gaze to him. She could ignore his show of gentlemanliness, but she was not that eighteen-year-old blushing debutante any longer to display such childish behaviour. Her left hand smashed the flowers and what they represented, while her gloved right hand gave a reluctant twitch to move onto his coat sleeve. But as her fingers rested on his arm, reluctant might not describe it. Beneath all the layers of fabric resided unyielding muscle flexing under her limb. The flush that coloured her cheeks defied definition. Contrariety mingled with the sort of sensation she could not catalogue, so out of her world it set her on edge.

Outside, the glaring sun received her with a glee that bellied her mood. The cool breeze and the birds chirping would have been perfect for her splintered second wedding. As for what she encountered instead, the pleasant summer day got on her nerves.

In the driveway, the sleek carriage and six awaited, with Cornell already on the block. With no footman in sight, the Earl pulled the door open without ceremony.

Ophelia's lungs filled to the brim as the view of the conveyance hit her with a blow to her plans. Her entering it felt like she turned her back on everything she'd envisioned for her future. She lifted a glare at the man by her side before she closed her mind to what would fall behind as she gained the interior. But the winning glint that had shone in his eyes as she entered would be impossible to ignore, even after she took her seat on the opposite side.

He hefted himself up, causing the vehicle to sway with his massive height and breadth. A leather-gloved large hand went to his head and tore his top hat off it. The movement ruffled coal hair a little too long for fashion, falling in waves around his face. From the corner of her eyes, she observed the tanned skin of someone used to the outdoors. Where this outdoors might be, she had not the faintest idea. She jerked her head to the window at her side. Or she would become tempted to explore more of a man she'd not set eyes on for the best part of a decade.

The horses clopped their way out of Sir James' estate, the lush green landscape rushing past her eyes, unseeing as her thoughts crammed one past the other. She'd put her frilly bonnet back on and, with her face towards the other side, it hid her expression.

"Are you not going to thank me?" His low baritone echoed in the cramped space.

Ophelia smothered a startle as her stare swivelled at him. The abrupt motion caused her bonnet to fall to her back. His observant eyes seemed to pierce every layer of her person. "For souring my plans?"

From where she stood, she seemed the one in a position to ask the questions. She'd harboured hundreds of them in those first months with no clue as to what happened to him. As time went by, however, she gave up the wait for answers and strove to fit in the role society assigned her, that of a widow. She could not have imagined a more distorted label for a newlywed, abandoned bride on the wedding night. She'd hung in a hazy spot where she lacked information, maturity, or accuracy to define her own life. At last, she'd found widowhood served her purposes as it afforded her freedom in ways she'd not imagined when she stood with this very man, stars in her eyes, in a church brimming with their peers.

"For avoiding you to face the consequences of committing bigamy," he clarified.

She made herself look at him sitting at ease, long legs in black leather breeches and broad torso in a black coat, the snowy lawn and cravat contrasting with his sun-drenched skin.

Oh, yes. The law would have been harsh on a woman daring such a feat, even if a married man with a mistress and eventual bastards on the side got scot-free every day. A humourless little grin drew her lips. "You could have done that by staying two more years wherever you hid all this time." She cared not a whit that a caustic hue painted her retort.

The law stated that someone must disappear for ten years for the spouse to be in official widowhood. It had been her influential friends who had convinced the bishop to allow for a marriage license in her eighth year of being a virtual widow.

His closest friends had told her he'd boarded a ship to India. But no document or a mere letter confirmed it, not giving her even that as a fact. She stopped caring long ago, therefore.

Leonard stared at the woman he married without much of a commitment, taking in all the beauty he'd never forgotten. He deserved all her bitterness and resentment. Of course, he did. But what was he supposed to do in the circumstances he'd seen himself in? For starters, he'd not been hiding—well, not exactly—even less under the rock as her words implied. Things were more complicated than that, or else things had become ugly very fast, faster than he'd had the time to send word to her.

For the record, he regretted nothing he'd done in these past eight years, though he'd not been in control for most of it. He did what he had to, even if he strived not to get his Countess involved, much on the contrary. The less she knew, the happier she would be.

But as he scrutinised every inch of her stunning face, he understood it had not gone down as a smooth wine for her. If the haste with which she'd been willing to get rid of their marriage was anything to go by, she must hate his guts. No one had to be a Newton to see that. Contempt emanated from her in waves. And he did not blame her for that. He more than commiserated with her state of mind. That, however, did not give her the right to renege on their union.

His carriage jolted, along with the afternoon sun flooding in. It fell on her honey-blonde hair and made the twists and rolls of her coiffure turn it almost ethereal. The debutante his memory always conjured had turned into a woman of overwhelming beauty. Those large hazel eyes launching fierce scorn at him stood out against her milky skin and luminous hair. They plunged him into an abyss as torturous as the one he'd been in these past years.

"Ouch," he mocked her barb, as his gaze pinned her. "Would you have been happier with that hollow shell of good looks?" She and the less-than-bright Sir James made for an attractive couple, he would give her that. And nothing else, the territorial cad that he would always be.

"Anything would have been better." Better than her actual husband, she no doubt meant.

"I regret to tell you that life can be hard, even for the privileged few." He coated his reply with nonchalance. If he was to speak his mind, though, he would never tire of pointing out that the English aristocracy swam in ease and advantage compared to other parts of the globe, or even other parts of town. Not that anyone would give him a half-ear; they knew zero of what transpired elsewhere. Because of that, they did not value what they had. Took it for granted on top of it.

"Arranged marriage and all?" The inoffensive question carried a world of meaning and grievance.

Leonard tilted his head. "If you mean you did not wish to marry me, you were lucky I got scarce pretty soon, would you not say?"

Her hazel gaze slapped him. "Living in limbo for eight years was no fun, I assure you."

"That is a conversation we will have to leave for a more convenient occasion." He drawled. "We are almost there."

As if remarking on their surroundings for the first time, her head whirled to the window. "Where are we going?"

She did not need to inquire; the mess and stink of town were already noticeable. "The official residence for the Earl and Countess of Ramsgate." He delivered that as the clearest evidence on the planet. That had been where he came as he arrived in London. Only to hear in the famous grapevine that she'd travelled to the country to get married, causing him to rush to the run-down chapel.

"My townhouse?" Her question emerged drenched in indignation.

"Ours, if memory serves." Another mocking smile graced his mouth.

Ophelia had become used to arriving at the townhouse to search and find peace and silence after a round of social functions. She'd learned to view it as her haven whenever her social interactions went awkward in what concerned her marital status.

In the beginning, it felt strange to live here all on her own. With the passing of the years, though, she took possession of it little by little until she made it hers to do as she pleased. The decoration she encountered here had been new and refined, making her decide to keep everything in place and enjoy its fruits.

As the butler opened the door, the Earl gave her precedence. "Good evening, Knott," she said. And then observed as her husband took over a place she'd learned to call hers alone.

Knott bowed, and when his gaze fell on her companion, it lit up. "My lord!" It was an exclamation stricken with questions, even if full of wonder.

"Knott," his greeting came coated in affability. "The years favoured you."

The Earl filled the entrance hall with all the entitlement owed to him. Tall, broad, and muscular, he invaded what she'd come to view as her personal space. Annoyance dominated her as she hastened to give the butler her bonnet and gloves.

"I will make sure everything is in place to receive you, my lord."

Goodness, the butler was falling over himself with his sincere admiration.

"That would be perfect," her newly arrived husband thanked the other man.

Unable to linger a minute longer here, she excused herself and marched to her chambers. At her back, the men fell silent, and she feared the Earl's gaze would burn a hole in her back.

Ophelia closed herself in her ample chambers and leaned on the door, head falling back, breath rushing from her.

She'd resisted seeing herself as a widow. And now that she discovered she was not, she wished for that former status, regardless. The perception made her feel restless as she pushed herself from the wooden panel and paced the Aubusson in her sitting room.

Her thoughts flew to what her life looked like eight years ago. She'd been out in society a matter of weeks when she first set eyes on the new Earl of Ramsgate, whose father had passed away a few months earlier. Twenty-eight, tall, and full of that confidence young lords exuded, he'd caught her eyes and her romantic imagination. A match with him, though, had not crossed her mind as the ton abounded of candidates. Her eighteen-year-old self had been the toast of the season and the bucks surrounded her at every function.

The Marquess and Marchioness of Ashfield, her parents, had put a tempting dowry on her even if her looks used to attract eyes everywhere. When the Earl came to request a dance, her mother's eyes sparkled. Not more than Ophelia's, however. In that waltz, she'd floated on fluffy clouds as Leonard offered what seemed to be sincere smiles and carefree conversation.

Behind her back, her parents approached Ramsgate with the possibility of a match. Despite the ten-generation tradition of his name, his finances were not as healthy. Her considerable dowry and her looks must have convinced the newly minted Earl. They signed a contract without consulting her.

Of course, she understood she would have to make a choice sooner or later, but she was enjoying herself too much to be in a hurry. Her options had been open and plenty.

Her father, Charles, called her to his study and dropped the news. The shock had floundered her mind. She felt betrayed by her parents and robbed of a choice. Not that she did not fancy the Earl, the catch of the season. She'd just wanted to do things in her own time.

Marion, her mother, showed keenness for a huge wedding. The preparations took months and that had been her chance to know her betrothed better. In the functions they met, Leonard treated her with respect and regard. Dark gardens and secret assignments never happened to them. Even so, she believed herself in love with him and ended up accepting her parents' arrangement as the right one.

The match seemed set to be one for the ages. St James' Church filled to full capacity with anyone who was someone. Her dress had cost more than the wedding breakfast for the hundreds of guests. Full of hope and anticipation, she walked down the aisle on her father's arm, a dreamy smile gracing her nubile lips. With her friends and all the extended family as witnesses, she landed the husband coveted by every debutante in the ton.

As if…

She had to wait for interminable hours until he brought her to this very house, this very chamber.

In the best nightgown and robe her mother had included in her trousseau, she paced the chamber assigned to the Countess of Ramsgate. The frilly lace floated around her at every turn.

What seemed like an eternity later, the connecting door opened to reveal the Earl in shirtsleeves. He prowled into the room, eyes fixed on her, intent on claiming his wedding night.

Ophelia had learned the basics of the act in wisps of conversations here and there. The marchioness' directions—to lie down and let the husband go about it—helped very little.

Speaking the usual niceties, he took her hand and guided her to the bed. As she lay on the sheets, he came over to her, saying what he would do next so she would not become scared.

No, scared did not figure in the whole affair. Neither pain, for that matter. Just that nagging underwhelming sensation when everything finished without her ever feeling a thing.

At last, he came to lie by her side. But the busy wedding day with her on her feet took a toll on her and she fell asleep in a question of seconds, thinking that the next morning the entire affair might get better.

As she opened her eyes with full sunshine defying the drapes, silence and loneliness haunted her bedchamber. Bathed and dressed, she went down to the morning room where Knott informed her that the Earl had left before dawn. She asked when he would be back and the only answer she obtained was that the butler could not say.

Baffled, dazed, and lost, Ophelia spent the weeks ahead waiting for her scarce husband and hoping to at least hear from him. Not a single note was forthcoming. Whenever her parents met her at some function, they pressed her about the groom. Up to the point they tired of asking and returned to their country seat. It meant they would offer no support in her awkward circumstances. They were not the warm kind, so she counted not on such gushy sentimentality from them.

It took a darned long time, but she learned to live her life without expecting anything from anyone.

Time was a great healer, they said. Since there had been nothing to heal, zero, nought; she just went about her days doing whatever countesses did. Until she went about doing whatever the Dowager Countesses did.

Looking around the chambers she'd occupied for the last eight years, the fervent wish that she could continue as that Dowager Countess infiltrated her mind. Even if the Earl in question were alive somewhere in the wilderness, she preferred he'd remained there and left her alone.

When she emerged from her trip down memory lane, the evening had descended over the town. She did not feel prepared to sit at dinner with her surprise-surprise husband. So, she requested a bath and a tea tray and then sat with a book from which she read not a single line.

As even a child would have predicted, she did not sleep a wink. She watched the sunrise grow outside before she made herself throw the covers and face the day ahead, not as the new Mrs Hamilton.

She did what she'd been doing every single day and took her place in the morning room, a cup of tea and the papers spread in front of her. Mrs Whitby, the housekeeper, made sure she received all the periodicals doing the rounds.

The scraping of a chair caused her to look up. Her heart made a little acrobatic number at the sight of the Earl just entering the room. These last years had put him on a level all his own. Hardened muscles filled his clothes, a jaw cut by the sharpest chisel, and the tan that bathed his skin had brought him into a stark magnificence that her eyes seemed to enjoy too much.

Before he caught her in the act of ogling him, she plastered a sardonic expression on her. "Breakfast in the morning room?" Her brows arched. "I do think you are late by a few years."

His dark gaze pinned her, and she concluded he also wore a mask. That of the lofty nobleman, not giving away any of his thoughts. "Good morning to you too, my lady Countess." His damp hair fell just those unfashionable inches over his collar, inviting fingers to sift through the ebony tresses.

Ophelia did not deign that with an answer as she made a show of going back to her paper.

"Could you pass me the papers?" His rasp grazed her entire skin as she fought not to lift her eyes to his person.

"Of course," she muttered with her head bent to the reading. With an economic move, she pushed the pile towards him across the table.

With a covert—and yes, a covetous—glance, Leonard observed his wife. Even in a simple morning dress, she caught him with her beauty. Her dryness towards him set over her every inch. Her spine had snapped straight the minute he sat across from her, those hazel eyes never flickering from the page she read, the delicate face set in grimness.

He pulled the day's papers to his side and picked the one on the top, not minding which one it might be. His request had intended to start a conversation even if an inane one. A total failure if her blatant ignoring of him was anything to go by.

His long fingers ruffled through the numerous publications. By the time he'd taken over from his father, he also inherited the usual Times, the stalwart, conservative newspaper echoing his aristocratic view of the world. As views of the world went, he had gone through a dramatic transformation. Said paper, however, found itself between her delicate fingers, prompting him to choose something else.

"You have made a respectable number of subscriptions," he commented as another attempt at a conversation, eyeing her with his entire focus.

Her attention did not waver from the paper. "Hm." She emitted, her head lowering further down the page, as an interminable pause ensued. "Mrs Whitby is in charge of the subscriptions." The answer could not contain more indifference if it tried. Her turning of the page summed the single noise in the room.

He'd also inherited the no-nonsense housekeeper, making it unnecessary for the lady to specify who she might be.

Chafed by her non-acknowledgement of him, he opened the top periodical on the pile, not minding which he chose. His stare jerked to it and saw it was a scandal sheet. A particular piece of news attracted his reading.

At last, Lady R settled for matrimony. In her lengthy and gleeful widowhood of sorts, said lady became a social butterfly alighting on several flowers. If you, my dearest reader, get my meaning. Her colourful garden already included a certain cotton mill magnate and several lords of the highest ranks. It is refreshing indeed to see the future Mrs Hamilton so divested of preconceived notions. We send well wishes to the newlyweds.

If Leonard were not in the company of the very subject of the gossip, he would have sprung from his chair and tossed the dirty thing in the fireplace. And the trouble would be the reason, or reasons to be more precise. It could be because others tasted what he'd had, only the scarce once. Or because she threw her marriage status into the mud without a second thought. Or, the most probable, because dark jealousy squeezed his guts in its treacherous grip. Not to mention that he would become the laughingstock of his peers as soon as he revealed his return. That his pride as a man entitled to a meek wife played a bitter role in his very threadbare marriage bore no shame in him. Why should it, when he was the product of a conservative society and expected a conservative lady to go with it?

Before he could think better of it, he cast the vulgar scandal sheet at her side of the table. "What is this supposed to be?"

In no hurry, no hurry at all, her blonde head lifted, her gaze touched the sheet then flitted to him with a glint that said loud and clear he had not a shred of a right to ask. "You do not like this kind of publication?" Her hand floated to the pile. "Pick the Morning Herald instead, will you?" She did not have even the sense of blushing just a tiny bit. Not on those elegant cheekbones of hers.

"You know very well that I am referring to what is written on that." His austere growl did not extract that blush from her either.

Again, she glanced at the sheet and back at him as though it meant not a damned thing to her. "What of it?"

"It says you are far from being faithful." He would not apologise for his accusatory statement.

Her perfect brows arched just as they did with her non-good-morning greeting. "Does it?" The mocking question indicated it to be no news to her.

Leonard's teeth gnashed with her lack of a proper response to it. And by proper, he meant ashamed, guilty, added to a healthy amount of grovelling on the side. "How many; how often?" he spat it as though the information was his due.

Straight up spine, she placed The Times by her cup with meticulous care. Then she looked at him. And laughed; an entrancing peal so filled with derision that he beat himself up for finding it mesmerising. Because she laughed at him, at his stony face, with not a drop of awkwardness. The moment lasted too little—or too long, depending on the point of view. The next heartbeat she stopped and speared him with a deadly seriousness. "As much as you, I suppose."

He'd sowed his share of wild oats, to be sure, but that was neither here nor there. That she dared claim the same rights almost made him beat his chest and roar in a vain protest. The insidious thought that he had no business throwing the first stone hit him with full force. So, he swallowed his caveman act in the same breath as she stood up.

"Have a nice day, my lord." Even silky, the wish fell as a barb between them, with the further affront of her curtsy. Her skirts twirled as she gave him her back and sashayed out of the morning room.

And he watched her disappear along the hallway, not with the aggravation he wanted to feel. But with a covetous gleam for the wild cat his wife had grown into.