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“You’re the one who was beaten and held at gunpoint.” Her voice trembled, despite her brisk and efficient nursing. The events of the night were catching up to her. All the ways it could all have gone horribly wrong.

He touched her wrists, stilling her until she met his gaze. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“There’s blood all over you.”

“It’ll wash off.”

“Your head must ache.”

“Not for the first time, and not the last.”

She scowled. “Stop being so reasonable. I want to march right back to the cloakroom and smash things over those footmen’s heads. Heavy things.”

He moved his hand up her arm, clasping the back of her neck, angling her head back for his kiss. It was deep and stirring, a claiming. She sighed into his mouth, and he pulled her closer, settling her between his sturdy thighs, pinning her there. His tongue stroked, tangled, tasted. Heat pooled in the center of her. His big hands gripped her hair, her hips. He was taking everything: her breath, her desires, her worries. All that was left was want and need. When he finally pulled away, they were both panting.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight now, pirate.”

“Won’t the magistrate or the others need you?”

“You need me,” he said as if that was all there was to it.

She took his hand and led him to the bed as the morning light pierced the clouds and gilded the treetops, finally reaching the gold thread of the coverlet. Water dripped from Bram’s hair and ran between the tattooed swallows on his bare chest. He pulled her down to the mattress, dragging his mouth under her ear and down over her breasts, sucking lightly at her nipples. She was already wet for him, pulling him closer, exhausted by the evening’s events but trembling with energy.

They rode each hard, mercilessly. Desperately. He refused to give in until her pleasure claimed her, and their gasps rang out together, like music.

*

Several hours later, Clara bolted awake.

She recognized the handwriting on the paper-wrapped copy of her new book.

She knew it was familiar, but there had been too much to sort through for her mind to catch up to the uneasy pit in her stomach.

She dressed quickly, taking in the sight of Bram sprawled naked in her bed the entire time she fussed with her stays and her dress. A warm mountain of a man who wore his story in the scars and ink across his body. She desperately wanted to crawl back under the covers and curl into him. For the rest of the day. The week. The entire year. They could eat nothing but scones and tea while they devoured each other.

Instead, Clara marched down the stairs, bleary with lack of sleep and aching all over with time better spent in her bed. There was beard prickle on the inside of one thigh and faint pink marks on her throat, hidden by a wide ribbon. Red, naturally.

Selene was in the parlor, drinking coffee. A huge tray piled with half the food in the kitchens sat next to her. Bram had not exaggerated. There were at least four different types of scones and more marmalade than any family could safely consume in a week.

“The strawberry rose jam is my favorite,” Selene said, putting down her copy of the newest Nightingale book. Blue and gold paper was folded neatly on the table. “Mrs. Meadows even spoke directly to me directly this morning,” she added. “That’s thanks to you.”

Clara shook her head. “She knows what you did to help us stop the marquis.”

Selene shrugged. “I don’t usually bother much with people’s opinions of me, but I’ve been trying to crack that old chestnut for a week.” She lifted her cup in a toast. “And you had a good morning.”

Clara tried not to blush. The Nightingale would not blush.

Selene laughed. “Good for you, Lady Clara.”

She cleared her throat. “Thank you for helping us.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed it. I seldom get to balance the scales, you know. I have to be beautiful and charming and sensual. I never get to show my teeth.”

As a woman who had to maintain the opposite, Clara commiserated deeply.

And the idea formed in her head almost immediately.

Priya had her network of spinsters and housemaids. Emmeline knew practically every governess in the country. Matilda was friends with most of the bored, wealthy daughters of bored, wealthy men.