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other women when he had become betrothed to Emma but Dev knew that he was not really reformed at all. He might as well admit it. This dangerous attraction he had to Susanna was proof enough. Given half a chance, a quarter of a chance, he would like to ravish Susanna, to take her with merciless abandon and revel in the experience. Never had chastityseemed so unappealing an option. Never had his betrothal seemed so dull and colorless in contrast to the appeal of his treacherous former wife.
    He could feel Susanna’s pulse hammering beneath his fingers. The silk of her glove gave her no protection from him. He knew that she wanted him as much as he wanted her.
    And yet he was also ready to strangle her. Disloyal, deceitful Susanna Burney, who had seemed so radiantly innocent, had taken him royally for a fool. He had thought that he had seduced and wed a naive young girl. Instead she had been using him to gain a little worldly experience.
    Dev exerted absolute self-discipline to keep himself under control. He felt a raw edge of anger as cutting as a blade. A moment before, when he had challenged Susanna about her family’s duplicity, he had felt a fleeting uncertainty. He had seen the shock in her eyes and thought that she must have been in ignorance of their vile pretence. Her mocking words had swiftly put paid to that idea. Instead of being a victim she had been at the heart of the plan to deceive him.
    He looked at her. She was watching him and despite that fierce attraction that locked them together there was also a derisive glint in her green eyes. He wondered how it was possible to be so mistaken in a woman. The Susanna Burney he had known at eighteen had seemed so shy and sweet. It was difficult to see how she could have changed into this brazencreature. On the other hand he had to accept that it was almost ten years ago, he had been eighteen years old and perhaps not such a man of the world as he had liked to imagine. Doubtless he had been the one who was naive. His judgment had certainly been spectacularly flawed when it came to his adoring bride.
    “There was no need to wed me if all you wanted was to be rid of your virginity,” he said grimly. “You should have told me. I would have been happy to oblige you—without the benefit of clergy.”
    Their eyes tangled. He saw the sensual heat flare again in hers, turning them a darker green, bright as emeralds. In a split second he was transported from the bustling ballroom to the intimate darkness of their marriage bed. They had had one night only, one night of sweet desire and passion richer and deeper than his most vivid dreams. She had been the first and only woman he had loved. That sense of intimacy had been more frightening than the reckless pleasure he had found in her arms. That emotion had been strong and profound enough to bind him to her forever. Then she had run out on him the next day and ripped everything apart.
    Now she stood looking at him with cool disdain, the desire banished from her eyes.
    “You misunderstand,” she said. “Marriage was a necessity. I had no wish to be a whore.”
    Dev looked her over with studied contempt. “Inyour case I am struggling to tell the difference,” he said.
    Susanna’s eyes narrowed to an inimical gleam. “Then let me explain it to you,” she said. Dev watched her slender, gloved fingers trace a pattern on the windowpane. “It was so tediously dreary in my uncle’s house,” she said, “and we were poor and I did not care for it. I knew I was pretty and clever enough to seduce a rich man into marriage but I needed experience as well as beauty. No one was going to look twice at me buried away in that village, the dull schoolmaster’s little niece.” She moved slightly and the diamond necklace at her throat sparkled, rich and malevolent. “I was afraid that I would be stuck there forever, expiring with the boredom of it all.” Her hand moved to caress the glittering stones at her neck. “So I contrived a