Breksby bowed. “I will be most happy to have you with us, my dear sir.”

“I know Grant,” Quill said rather grimly. “He is, in fact, one of the reasons that I sold my East India shares some years ago. He’s a buffoon, and whatever business he’s involved in is likely to be discreditable.” In the last few years Charles Grant had become the dominant figure at India House. It was a pity, since he held the fervent belief that the only way to repay the company’s huge debts was to acquire more and more Indian territory. One hardly needed to add that Grant increased company holdings any way he could—by fair means or foul.

“My feelings precisely,” Breksby said cheerfully, standing up. “Lady Dewland, I shall look forward to tomorrow evening with unabated pleasure.” He bent and kissed Gabby’s hand with a flourish, swept Quill a bow, and left the room.

Gabby didn’t dare look Quill in the face.

“You must be overset by these events,” Quill said. “I am very sorry that Kasi has been taken into custody, Gabby.” He watched his wife with a puzzled frown.

“Yes, I am distraught,” she replied, rather vaguely.

When she didn’t say anything further, Quill added, “Tomorrow I will make inquiries as to how Kasi Rao is faring. I still have friends among the East India Company I can call on.”

Gabby nodded, still mute.

For his part, Quill stood by the door, trying to make himself leave. But his eyes kept drifting to Gabby’s body. It was too easy to imagine pulling down her little cap sleeves and running his hand down—he wrenched his eyes away. He would never, never take an unwilling woman. And that’s what she was. Unwilling.

He’d given it long, hard thought during nights of unhappy celibacy. Gabby’s naïveté made her unwilling to have a sexual relationship with him; he judged that it would take him perhaps a week to cure her of her distaste for messy bedsheets and naked skin. But they hadn’t a week. They could have another night, but after that the migraine would make him unavailable again. Try as he might, he couldn’t think of a way around her shudder of distaste.

So he stood in the library doorway, cursing the lust that tied him to a female. Cursing the burning urge in his loins to bed his wife, to take her, to make love to her.

To never let her go.