“I believe you once told me you weren't overly fussy about such things,” he ground out.

She crossed her arms. “That was before I was a wife. Now I am expected to be fussy about such things.”

“God save me from wives,” he groaned.

“Then you shouldn't have married one,” she snapped.

“Ellie, if you don't shut your mouth now, God help me, I'm going to wring your neck.”

Ellie rather thought that she'd made her opinions clear on the possibility that God was going to help him, so she contented herself with muttering, “One curse is understandable, but two…Well, two is really too much.”

She wasn't certain, but she thought she saw Charles roll his eyes to the ceiling and mutter, “Take me now.”

That did it. “Oh for the love of God,” Ellie snapped uncharacteristically taking the Lord's name in vain. After all, she had been raised by a reverend. “I'm not so bad that death is preferable to marriage with me.”

He leveled a look in her direction that told her he wasn't so sure.

“This marriage doesn't have to be permanent,” she burst out, humiliated fury making her words shrill. “I could march out that door right this second and obtain an annulment.”

“What door?” he drawled. “All I see is a charred piece of wood.”

“Your sense of humor leaves much to be desired.”

“My sense of humor— Where the hell are you going?”

Ellie didn't reply, just continued on her way past the charred piece of wood she preferred to think of as a door.

“Get back here!”

She kept going. Well, she would have kept going if his hand hadn't found the sash of her dress and yanked her back against him. Ellie heard a ripping sound, and for the second time that day, she found herself pressed up against the hard length of her husband's body. She couldn't see him, but she could feel him intimately against her back, and she could smell him—she would swear she could smell him, even through the lingering smoke.

“You will not get an annulment,” he ordered, his lips practically touching her ear.

“I'm surprised you care,” she retorted, trying to ignore the way her skin was tingling where his breath warmed her.

“Oh, I care,” he growled.

“You care about your blasted money!”

“As you care about yours, so we had better make the best of this.”

Ellie was saved from having to admit that he was right by a loud “ahem” from the direction of the doorway. She looked up to see Claire, who was standing with her arms crossed. A huge, irritated frown covered the girl's face.

“Oh, good day, Claire,” Ellie said with a tight smile, trying for all the world to appear as if she were quite pleased to be standing in this extremely awkward position in the middle of a burned-out kitchen.

“My lady,” Claire replied flatly.

“Claire!” Charles said with a fair amount of feeling, releasing Ellie so quickly that she bumped into the wall. He walked toward his cousin, who beamed at him.