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why I’m telling you except that you are only the second person to ask. I was shanghaied to York by the Duke of Barforte’s son, accused of raping the Duke’s daughter.” He put down his cutlery and grimaced. “Do you feel so sure about your decision now?”
    “Is it true?”
    “I—I beg your pardon?” he stammered.
    “Is the accusation true?”
    His smile held total admiration.
    “What a question!”
    She shrugged. “It would appear to be the only question to ask.”
    “At first, I could not recall.” At her puzzled expression, he continued. “The nightmares … I cannot always remember everything that I do during them.”
    Sarah’s face flushed. Like last night. Now she was certain he did not know she’d been in his room.
    “But with time my memories have become clearer. I know with certainty that I did not have Harriet Barforte in my bed. I’ve never even met her.”
    Sarah blanched. Harriet! That was the very name he’d called out in the throes of his nightmare last night. “But you did have a woman in your bed?”
    He nodded.
    “How can you be so sure it wasn’t Harriet?”
    His face flushed scarlet and he squirmed in his chair. “Because I remember paying for my usual girl. Carla was in my bed that night.”
    Sarah felt her heart clench in her chest. She couldn’t understand her inner response to these words. Why would the idea of him with another woman upset her so? She wiped aside the realization that she was jealous—how ridiculous. “Paying?”
    He laughed harshly. “For a woman who only moments ago wanted to maintain propriety, this conversation seems to be spiraling into the unseemly.”
    She waited politely, determined to get her answer.
    He threw down his napkin. “Damn it, I was at the Honey Pot.” Seeing her frown, he swore under his breath. “A high-class brothel I frequented on a regular basis. My last mistress couldn’t leave me quickly enough when she saw my burns. I had not foreseen that evenmistresses have standards. My wealth did nothing to mute the ugliness of my body, it would appear.”
    Anger radiated from him, his temper barely contained. Before she could think of an appropriate reply he went on, “Now it’s my turn. How did a woman who grew up in the Duke of Hastings’s household end up in York, Canada?” His eyes blazed with suspicion. “How did you meet your husband, and why did he bring you here?”

Chapter Five
    Fear flickered in her eyes, real gut-wrenching fear. Yet he’d attacked out of a sense of self-preservation only.
    Having to admit he had had to pay women to come to his bed shamed him. Prior to his injuries, he’d had to fight off the ladies. He’d rarely kept a mistress, hardly ever needing a permanent arrangement. There were plenty of widows and unhappy wives willing to share mutual pleasure whenever he required it.
    His gaze did not waver from her face. Sarah was a widow, and he’d love to share his body with her too. Her response to him in his bedchamber last night was an incentive he could not forget. He knew she relished the prospect of coming into his bed. Last night she had not hidden her desire.
    If only he’d been more awake, then she would not be playing this aloof “I’m too respectable” game. She would already be his mistress.
    Why, indeed, was she playing with him, when last night it had been so obvious she wanted him?
    Christian drank in the pallor of her cheeks. More to the point, why was Sarah so afraid of his questions?
    His senses went on high alert. His intuition made him prickle with unease. What was she hiding?
    “My husband didn’t bring me here. After we married, we moved to Virginia. He had land there. However, instead of starting a new life, he died. It was his appendix.”
    “How is it that you came to be in York?”
    “I had a friend in York who was going to help me find a position.”
    He waited patiently while she apparently debated with herself about how much more she should reveal. He knew before she