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He sighed, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “I know, Calliope,” he said softly. “I don’t care if you follow the rules, either…unless it’s about your safety. And yet, you keep pushing and pushing against the boundaries I set. My only wish for you is to be safe. I don’t want to be a tyrant. But I don’t know what else to do.”

Her heart broke for him, and she stepped closer, cupping his warm, handsome face with her palm. “You have to trust me to be able to protect and defend myself. I think we can be very happy, Nathaniel. But this marriage will never work if we don’t trust each other.”

He closed his eyes and leaned into the palm of her hand. When he opened his eyes, they were sad but resolved. “You’re right. It’s just, every time I think of you alone, in the darkness in the streets swarming with criminals and highwaymen…” His voice shook and trembled. “I am returned to that night with my mother…where I can’t defend her and she dies. If you die… If my sisters—”

His voice broke, and Calliope felt as though she’d been struck in the stomach, all of the air kicked out of her.

“I won’t be able to live with myself.”

She planted a gentle kiss on his lips, and he leaned into her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing her against his hard body. “You just defended me,” she said.

“But I can’t be with you or with the girls every minute of every day.”

She leaned her forehead against his. “Exactly. And that’s why you should trust me.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. They just stood there, with their foreheads pressed together. Then he nodded. “I will try, Calliope. I promise I will try. But you must do something in return.”

“What?”

“Promise me you won’t go investigating without me.”

She saw the ache, the pain, the fear in his eyes. He promised he would try. She should do the same…no matter how hard it would be to try to trust him in return. But she knew why he was like this. Why safety and control were so important to him. And why trusting was so hard.

It was also hard for her.

“I promise,” she said, her voice surprisingly small.

“Thank you,” he said, relief softening his features. “And to show that I will indeed try, I have an idea.”

* * *

The next morning, Nathaniel took his pistol from the case Calliope held stretched out for him.

Hampstead Heath was beautiful and quiet this early. After Nathaniel had taken Calliope back home last night, and made love to her twice, he’d woken her up before first light. Normally, duels were fought here in the early morning, so this was an isolated enough place for what he had in mind.

Calliope was a vision. The memory of her the previous night, clad in his old breeches that clung to her shapely legs, was undeniably alluring. Today, her hair was elegantly pinned up, accentuating her striking face under her high riding hat, which was decorated with feathers and silk flowers. She wore a green dress adorned with bright yellow ribbons cinched at her high waist and delicate lace roses on the bodice. She resembled the huntress Artemis, her expression focused, eyes fixed on the tree some distance away where he had set up a round target marked with charcoal rings.

He detested the circumstances that brought them here, that compelled her to learn self-defense. The ever-present fear for her safety cast a shadow over his soul, tearing him apart.

But he had to be a better man. In his mind, he knew she was right. He had to trust her. He couldn’t protect her every minute of every day no matter how much he wanted to. She had been trained by her brother to box, and she could protect herself—to an extent.

So in lieu of giving her what she needed—her independence, her freedom—he had to fight down the terror in his soul and teach her to protect herself even more. No matter how much it hurt him to do that.

She was right; he knew it. She was an independent woman, and that was what he admired so much about her—it was incredibly attractive. And yet…

He despised it at the same time. He was afraid of it.

But she was right. If he insisted on locking her up, taking away her freedom, what chance did they have?

What he had thought would just be a transactional marriage wasn’t anymore. Not after he had tasted her lips and not after he had started to learn who she really was. No. He wanted all of her or none at all.

And if he wanted them to be happy, he couldn’t be like his tyrant father had been to his mother.

He had to be better. He’d promised her he would try, and here he was. Trying.

The cool, solid weight of the pistol felt familiar in his palm, each contour fitting into his grip like a memory. He opened the hammer with a practiced flip of his thumb, revealing the small pan.

“You pour a measure of gunpower here,” he said as he did so. “In combat, you don’t have much time to reload your pistol, so make every shot count. Take your hand and put it in the pouch at my waist and take out one of the bullets.”