Moonlight spilled across the mansions that marched along Upper Brook Street as Dara waved her coachman off and stealthily slid her key into the lock of No. 3. Pushing the door open a scant inch, she peered into the front hall. As she'd hoped, Higgins and the rest of the servants had retired for the night.

She slipped inside, silently closed the door behind her, and tiptoed up the long staircase. At the doorway to her bedchamber, she hesitated, wondering if her devoted maid had decided to await her return despite Dara's instructions. Deciding she dare not risk opening the door to find out, Dara hurried down the long hall, which was bordered on both sides with guest bedrooms. At the end of the hall a staircase led up to the next story; and she tiptoed up the steps and along the hall, stopping at the last door on the right. Silently, she turned the handle and peered into the dark, empty room that had been used long ago by the family governess, then slipped inside.

Smiling with delight at her own ingenuity, she pulled off her gloves and tossed them onto a shadowy object she identified as a small chest of drawers. She had not broken her word; she had come directly home.

Except when her husband marched into her bedchamber tonight, intending to meet out whatever punishment he had in mind, she would not be there.

A chill crept up her spine as she imagined how angry he was going to be, but the alternative of presenting herself to suffer God-knew-what fate tonight was too repugnant to consider.

Tomorrow, she decided, she would take whatever money Penrose had obtained for her grandfather's watch, and as soon as Jordan left the house, she and her two faithful old friends would leave Seoul. Stripping off her gown, Dara stretched out on the narrow bed, which had no linen on it, and closed her eyes. Weariness and confusion closed over her as she went over Jiyong's behavior tonight. How could he be so murderously angry with her, and at the same time try to spare her public embarrassment, she wondered. She would never understand him. All she was sure of at that moment was that she was reduced to hiding from him in his own house hiding in fear and anger from the same man whose disappearance had once made her want to die in order to be with him.

Top had arrived at the ball just as Jiyong was leaving, only to discover that Bom had already left. Politely refraining from showing the slightest surprise when Jiyong suddenly recalled that he'd sent his bentley home an hour earlier because he'd intended to ride home with Dara,Top obligingly offered him a ride home. Top's car drew up before the house at No. 3, and Jiyong bounded down. His mind on Dara, who would by now be awaiting him in her room, Jiyong paid scant attention to the lone driver who waited in the shadow of a house across the street, hat pulled low over his face, but his presence registered somewhere on the perimeter of Jiyong's preoccupied mind. As if he scented danger, he the second step to say goodbye to Top, but his gaze flicked to the slender driver just as the shadowy figure raised his arm.

Jiyong dove down and to the left just as the gun fired, then came up in a running crouch, charging across the street in a futile attempt to give chase to the assassin who was already running away, wending deftly between vehicles making their decorous way along Brook Street the same crowd of cars that prevented Top from giving chase in his own.

Psy, a ruggedly built gentleman who specialized in handling delicate matters for a group of very select clients who did not want the authorities involved, glanced at his watch. It was nearly one o'clock in the morning as he sat across from Jiyong, who had employed him yesterday to investigate the two attempts on the Jiyong's life and to learn who was behind them.

"My wife and I will depart for Hawthorne in the morning after we arise," Jiyong was saying. "An assassin can melt into the streets and alleys of Seoul far easier than he can conceal himself in the country. If it were only my own life that is in jeopardy, I'd stay in the city. But if my cousin is behind this, he won't be able to risk my producing an heir, therefore my wife is now also endangered." Psy nodded his agreement. "In the country, my men will be able to spot an unfamiliar person on the grounds of Hawthorne or loitering about the village. We can watch him."

"Your primary job is to protect my wife," Jiyong said curtly. "Once we're all at Hawthorne, I'll think of some plan to draw whoever is doing this out of hiding. Arrange for four of your men to ride guard around my car tomorrow. With my own people, that will give us a total of twelve men."

"Is it possible the person who shot at you tonight could have been your cousin?" Psy asked. "You said he wasn't at White's or Shin's party tonight." Jiyong wearily kneaded the knotted muscles at his nape. "It wasn't him. The driver was much smaller than my cousin. Moreover, as I told you, I'm not completely convinced my cousin is behind this." Until today, when he learned Sohee's husband was dead, Jiyong had hoped he was the one. After all, the first attempt had been made the night Jiyong met Sandara only two days after he wounded Lee in a fight. After tonight's episode, however, Jiyong could no longer hold on to that hope.

"The two most common motives for murder are revenge and personal gain," Psy said carefully. "Your cousin has a great deal to gain from your death. More now even than before." Jiyong didn't ask what he meant; he already knew it was Dara.  Sandara”? His face paled as he recalled the vaguely familiar, slender figure who'd shot at him tonight. It could have been a woman "You've thought of something important?" the investigator said quickly, correctly assessing Jiyong's expression. "No," Jiyong snapped and surged to his feet, abruptly concluding the meeting. The idea of Dara trying to kill him was ludicrous. Absurd. But the words she'd hurled at him this morning came back to haunt him: Whatever it takes, I'll be free of this marriage

. "Just one more thing, Sir," Psy said as he also arose. "Could the person who shot at you tonight have been the same one you thought you'd killed on the road near Morsham last spring the one you left for dead? You described him as being of small stature."

Jiyong felt dizzy with relief. "It could have been. As I said, I couldn't see his face tonight." When Psy left, Jiyong climbed the stairs to his own room. Tired, angry, and frustrated at being the target of some unknown lunatic who wanted him dead, he sent his sleepy valet off to bed and slowly removed his shirt. Dara was in the next room, he thought, and his weariness began to dissipate as he visualized awakening her from sleep with a kiss.

Walking over to the connecting door, he strode through her dressing room and into the dark room. Moonlight sifted through the windows, casting a silvery beam across the perfectly smooth satin coverlet atop her bed.

Dara had not come home. Striding swiftly into his own room, he jerked the bellrope.

Thirty minutes later, the entire sleepy-eyed household staff was lined up before him in the drawing room answering his questions with the single notable exception of Penrose, Dara's elderly servant. He, too, was mysteriously missing.

After intensive questioning, all Jiyong had learned for certain was that his driver had watched Sandara walk up the front steps of the house and safely reach the door. Then she had waved him off  an action which the driver confirmed was unprecedented.

"You may go back to bed," he told all thirty-one servants but one old man with spectacles, whom Jiyong identified as Dara's footman, hung back looking worried and angry. Jiyong went over to the side table, poured the last of his port into a glass, and with a cursory glance at Filbert, instructed him to bring up another bottle. Negligently tossing down the liquid, he sank into a chair and stretched his legs out, trying to calm his rampaging fear. Somehow, he didn't quite believe Dara had come to any harm, and he would not let himself consider that her absence incriminated her in the attempt on his life tonight.

The more he concentrated on that inexplicably bright smile she had given him when she promised to come directly home after the party, the more convinced he became she'd simply gone somewhere else after tricking the driver into believing she'd come inside. Before she actually left the ball, she'd undoubtedly asked some cicisbeo of hers to follow her home and then take her up. Since Jiyong had threatened to beat some sense into her tonight, that wasn't at all surprising, he thought. She had probably gone to his grandmother, Jiyong decided as the port began to soothe his raw nerves.

"Bring the bottle over here," he ordered, eyeing the sour-faced, elderly footman, with ill-concealed belligerence. "Tell me something," he said shortly, addressing a servant on a personal matter for the first time in his life, "was she always like this, I mean Sandara?"

The old footman stiffened resentfully, in the act of pouring port in the duke's glass. "Miss Dara" Filbert began, but Jiyong interrupted him in a glacial voice: "You will refer to my wife properly," he snapped.

"And a lotta good it's done her!" the servant flung back furiously. "Just exactly what is that supposed to mean?" Jiyong demanded, so taken aback by this unprecedented display of temper from a mere servant that he failed to react with the outrage one might have reasonably expected from a man of his temperament and rank.

"It means what it says," Filbert snapped, slamming the bottle down on the table. "Bein' wife of a Kwon ain't never brought her nothing but heartbreak! Yer as bad as her papa was no, yer worse! He only broke her heart, you broke her heart and now yer tryin' to break her spirit!"

He was halfway across the room when Jiyong's voice boomed like a thunderclap. "Get back here!" Filbert obeyed, but his gnarled hands were clenched into fists at his sides, and he glared resentfully at the man who had made Miss Sandara's life a misery from the day she met him.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Filbert's jaw jutted belligerently. "If you think I'm gonna tell you things so's you can use them agin' Miss Dara, then yer in fer a shock, yer high holiness!" Jiyong opened his mouth to tell the incredibly insolent man to pack his bag and get out, but more than satisfaction, he wanted an explanation for the servant's startling revelations. Reining in his temper with a supreme effort, Jiyong said icily, "If you have anything to say that might soften my attitude toward Sandara, then you'd be wise to speak out now." The servant still looked balky. "In the mood I'm in," Jiyong warned him honestly, "when I get my hands on her, she'll wish to God she'd stayed out of my sight."

The old man paled and swallowed, but he remained mutinously silent. Sensing that Filbert was wavering but that intimidation alone would never get him to talk freely, Jiyong poured some port into a glass and in an action that would have knocked Society onto its collective face, Jiyong held the glass toward a lowly footman and invited in a man-to-man voice, "Now then, since I apparently hurt my wife unintentionally suppose you have a drink and tell me how I'm like her father. What did he do?"

Filbert's suspicious gaze shifted from the duke's face to the glass of port in his outstretched hand, then he slowly reached for it. "D'you mind if I sit whilst I drink?"

"By all means," Jiyong replied, straightfaced. "Her father was the lowest scoundrel what ever lived," Filbert began, oblivious to the way the Jiyong's brows shot up at this added insult. He paused to take a long, fortifying swallow of his drink, then he shuddered, glaring at the stuff in the glass with unhidden revulsion. "Gawd!" he uttered. "What is this?"

"Port a special kind that is made exclusively for me."

"Probably ain't no call fer it from no one else," Filbert replied, wholly unimpressed. "Vile stuff."

"That opinion is shared by most people. I seem to be the only one who likes it. Now, what did her father do to her?" "Do yer happen to have any ale about?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Whisky?" Filbert asked hopefully.

"Certainly. In the cabinet over there. Help yourself."

It took six glasses of whisky and two hours to drag the story out of the reluctant footman. By the time Filbert was nearly finished, Jiyong who had felt challenged to switch to whisky and match him drink for drink was slouched in his chair, his shirt ed halfway down his chest, trying to keep his head clear.

"And one day, about six, seven weeks after her pa dies," Filbert was finishing, "this fine carriage pulls up and in it is this beauteous lady and her pretty daughter. I was there when Miss Dara opened the door and the lady who weren't no real lady announces bald as you please that she's Park's wife and the gel with her is his daughter!"

Jiyong's head jerked around. "He was a bigamist?"

"Yep. And you shoulda seen the helter-pelter argument atween the two Mrs.Park. But Miss Dara, she doesn't get mad. She jest looks at the girl and says in that sweet way o' hers: 'You're very pretty.'

"The girl don't say nothin', she sticks her nose up in the air. Then the chit notices this tin locket, shaped like a heart, that Miss Dara was wearin' round her neck. It was gived to Miss Alex by her pa on her birthday, and she treasured that locket like you wouldn't believe always touchin' it whilst she wore it and worryin' it'd get lost. The girl asks Miss Dara if her pa gived her that, and when Miss Alex said he had, the gel pulls out this gold chain hangin' round her neck, and on the end o' it is this beautiful gold locket in the shape o' a heart.

" 'He gave me a valuable gold one,' the girl says in a way that made my hand itch to slap her. 'Yours is jest old tin.' " Filbert paused to have another swallow of his whisky and smack his lips. "Miss Dara didn't say a word, she jest lifts her chin like she does when she's tryin' to be brave but there's so much pain in her eyes, it would have made a grown man cry. I cried," Filbert admitted hoarsely. "I went to my room, an' I cried like a babe."

Jiyong swallowed against the unfamiliar aching lump in his throat. "Then what happened?" "The next mornin' Miss Dara comes down to breakfast, jest like always, and she smiles at me, jest like always. But for the first time since her pa gived it to her, she weren't wearin' that locket. She never wore it again."

"And you think I'm like her father?" Jiyongn bit out furiously.

"Ain't you?" Filbert said contemptuously. "Ye break her heart every time yer around, and then it's left to me 'n' Penrose to try to pick up the pieces."

"What are you talking about?" Jiyong insisted, clumsily splashing more whisky into his glass. Filbert stuck his empty glass forward and Jiyong obediently filled it, too. "I'm talkin' about the way she cried when she thought you was dead. One day I come upon her standin' in front o' yer portrait at yer big country house. She used to spend hours jest lookin' at you, and I think to myself she's so thin you can see clean through her. She points to you and she says to me in that shaky little voice that means she's tryin not to cry, 'Look, Filbert. Wasn't he beautiful?' " Filbert paused to sniff distastefully an eloquent expression of his private opinion of Jiyong's looks.

Slightly pacified by the astounding news that Dara had apparently cared enough to grieve for him after all, Jiyong overlooked the servant's unflattering opinion of his face. "Go on," he said. Filbert's eyes suddenly narrowed with anger as he warmed to his story: "You made her fall in love with you, then she comes to Seoul an' finds out you never meant to treat her like a proper wife. You only married her for pity! You meant to send her off to Devon, just like her papa done to her mama."

"She knows about Devon?" Jiyong said, stunned. "She knows about all o' it. Sir Youngbae finally had t' tell her the truth 'cause all your fancy Seoul friends were laughin' at her behind their hands for lovin' you. They all knew how you felt about her, because you talked 'bout her to yer ladybird, and she talked to everyone else. You called it a marriage of inconvenience. Ye shamed Miss Dara and made her cry all over again. But you'll not be able to hurt her again she knows you for the lyin' cad you be!"

Having said his piece, Filbert shoved to his feet, put down his glass, drew himself up to his full height, and said with great dignity, "I told her, an' I'll tell you: She shoulda let you die the night she found you!"

Jiyong watched the old man march off without displaying any effects from the astonishing quantity of liquor he'd consumed. He stared blindly at his empty glass, while the reasons for Dara's complete change in attitude since his disappearance slowly began to crystallize. Filbert's brief but eloquent description of a painfully thin Dara staring at his portrait at Hawthorne made his heart wrench. Across his mind paraded a vivid image of Dara coming to Seoul wearing her heart on her sleeve and then facing the cold disdain Sulli had apparently instigated by repeating Jiyong's thoughtless, joking remark.

Leaning his head against the back of his chair, Jiyong closed his eyes while regret and relief flooded through him. Dara had cared for him. The image he had cherished of the enchanting, artless girl who had loved him had not been false, and for that he was suddenly, profoundly overjoyed. The fact that he had wounded her in countless ways made him wince, but not for one moment was he willing to believe the damage was irreparable. Neither was he fool enough to think she'd believe any explanation he could make. Actions, not words, would be the only way to make her lower her guard and love him again.

A faint, preoccupied smile played about his lips as he contemplated his strategy. Jiyong was not smiling at nine o'clock the following morning, however, when a footman returned with the information that Dara had most assuredly not gone to his grandmother's house; nor was he smiling a half hour later when the Yejin herself marched into his study to tell him that he was entirely to blame for Dara's flight, and to deliver a stinging diatribe on Jiyong's lack of sensitivity, his high-handedness, and his lack of good sense.

 Clad in her dress from the night before, Dara combed her fingers through her tousled hair, peeked into the upper hall, and then walked swiftly along the corridor and down the staircase to her own rooms. If Jiyong followed the same morning schedule as the previous two days, he would be locked away in his study with the men who came to discuss business with him in the mornings. Carefully considering ways to get herself, Filbert, and Penrose out of the house without being noticed, she walked over to the wardrobe and opened the door. The wardrobe was empty, save for a single traveling costume. Turning, Dara surveyed the room and noticed that all her perfumes had been cleared from the dressing table. The queer sensation that she was in the wrong room made her turn slowly round just as the door opened and a maid let out a stifled scream.

Before Dara could stop her, the servant her heel and fled along the balcony. "Mam Sandara is back!" she called over the balcony to Higgins. So much for escaping without first encountering Jiyong, Dara thought with a tremor of fear. She had not completely expected to avoid a confrontation with her husband but she had rather hoped to do it. "Marie," she called after the maid who was already rushing down the staircase to spread the glad tidings. "Where is Jiyong? I'll announce my presence to him myself."

"In the study, mam Dara." Raking his hands through his dark hair, Jordan paced the length of his huge, book-lined study like a caged tiger, waiting for Dara to appear from wherever she had spent the night, refusing to consider that she had come to harm, and unable to banish the gnawing fear that she had.

Anticipating that G dragon was going to unleash his wrath on her the moment he clapped eyes on her, Dara stepped quietly into the study and carefully closed the door behind her before she said, "You want to see me, I gather?"

Jiyong jerked around, his emotions veering crazily from joy to relief to fury as he beheld her standing before him, her face fresh from a night's sleep that he hadn't had.

"Where in the hell have you been?" he demanded, striding to her. "Remind me never to take your 'word' again," he added with blazing sarcasm.

Dara restrained the cowardly impulse to back away. "I kept my word. I came directly home and went to bed."

A muscle jerked ominously in his taut cheek. "Don't lie to me." "I slept in the governess' room," she clarified politely. "You did not, after all, order me to go to my own room." The desire to murder exploded in Jiyong's brain, followed instantaneously by the opposing urge to wrap his arms around her and shout with laughter at her incredibly ingenious defiance. She had been upstairs, blissfully asleep, the entire time he'd been prowling and drinking down here in an agony of uncertainty. "Tell me something," he said irritably, "have you always been like this?"

"Like what?" Dara said warily, not certain of his mood. "A blight on peace." "Wh-what do you mean?"

"I'll tell you what I mean," he drawled, and as he advanced upon her, Dara began cautiously retreating step for step. "In the last twelve hours, I have rudely walked out on my friends at White's. I've been involved in a public quarrel on a dance floor, and I've been chastised by a footman, who incidentally can drink me under the table. I've had to listen to a lecture from my grandmother, who for the first time in her life so forgot herself as to raise her voice to what can only be described as a shout! Do you know," he finished darkly while Dara fought to hide a wayward grin, "that I used to lead a reasonably well-ordered life before I laid eyes on you? But from that moment on, every time I turn around, something else'

He broke off his diatribe as Higgins raced into the study, without stopping to knock, his coattails flapping behind him. "Sir Jiyong!" he panted, "there's a constable here who insists on seeing you, or mam Dara, personally."

With a quelling glance at Dara that warned her to remain where she was until he returned to finish with her, Jiyong strode swiftly from the study. Two minutes later he returned, an indescribable expression of amusement and annoyance on his tanned face.

"Is something wrong?" she dared to venture when he seemed not to know what to say. "Not much," he drawled dryly. "I'd say it's just another ordinary little event in what seems to be a typical day with you."

"What event?" Dara persisted, aware that he seemed to be holding her accountable for whatever had just happened.

"Your faithful old butler has just appeared on my doorstep in the custody of a constable." "Penrose?" Alexandra gasped. "The very same." "But what did he do?"

"Do, my dear? He went to Bond Street and was caught red-handed yesterday trying to sell my watch." So saying, Jiyong  lifted his hand, from which hung Dara's grandfather's gold watch and chain. "Attempted bigamy, larceny, and gambling," Jiyong summarized with a twitch of ironic humor at his lips. "Do you have any plans for the immediate future? Extortion, perhaps?"

"It isn't your watch." Dara's eyes were riveted on the watch, her only hope for purchasing her freedom. "Please give it to me. It belongs to me."

Joiyong's brows drew together in surprise, but he slowly held his hand out. "I was under the impression you had given it to me as a gift." "You accepted it under false pretenses," Dara insisted with angry obstinacy, reaching for the watch. "My grandfather was a man of noble virtue a warm, caring, gentle man. His watch ought to go to a man like him, not like you."

"I see," Jiyong replied quietly, his face suddenly wiped clean of expression as he put the watch into her outstretched palm. "Thank you," Dara said, feeling somehow as if she had actually hurt him by taking the watch back. Since he had no heart, perhaps she had hurt his ego, she decided. "Where is Penrose? I must go to the authorities and explain."

"If he followed my instructions, he's in his room," Jiyong dryly replied, "meditating on the Eighth Commandment." Dara, who had leapt to the understandable conclusion that her cold-hearted, autocratic husband would have let the authorities haul poor Penrose off to be hanged, stared at him in confusion. "That's all you did? Send him to his room?"

"I could hardly have the closest thing I have to a fatherin-law carted off to a dungeon, now could I?" Jiyong replied.

Utterly dumbfounded by his odd mood this morning, Dara stared searchingly at him. "Actually, I thought you could and would." "Only because you don't really know me, Sandara," he said in a tone Dara could have sworn was conciliatory. Briskly, he continued, "However, I intend to remedy that, beginning” he glanced up as footmen came trooping downstairs bearing several trunks, including here "in one hour, when we leave for Hawthorne."

Dara swung around, saw her trunks and turned back to him, her eyes blazing with rebellion. "I won't go."

"I think you'll agree to go when I set forth the terms for your consideration, but first, I would like to know why Penrose was trying to sell my... your grandfather's watch."

Dara hesitated, then decided silence was best. "The obvious answer to that is that you wanted money," Jiyong continued in a matter-of-fact voice. "And I can think of only two reasons why you should need funds. The first reason would be that you've been placing more scandalous wagers against me, which I forbade you to do. Frankly, I doubt you've done that." He held up his hand when Dara looked angry at his supposition that she would meekly accede to his orders. "My reason for discounting the possibility you've placed additional wagers against me since yesterday has nothing to do with the fact that I forbade it. I simply don't think you've had the time to defy me again."

His lazy grin was so unexpected and so contagious that Darahad to fight the urge to smile back at him.

"Therefore," he concluded, "I would assume the reason you suddenly want money is the same reason you gave me two days ago, you want to leave me and live on your own. Is that it?"

He sounded so understanding that Dara reversed her former decision and nodded in the affirmative. "Just as I thought. In that case, let me offer a solution to your predicament which should also appeal to your penchant for gambling. May I?" he politely asked, motioning her to a chair in front of his desk. "Yes," Dara agreed, sitting down while he leaned against his desk.

When she was settled, Jiyong said, "I will give you enough money to live out the rest of your life in regal splendor, if after three months you still wish to leave me."

”I don't entirely understand," Dara said, scrutinizing his tanned face. "It's quite simple. For three full months, you must agree to be my most obedient, loving, biddable wife. During that time, I will endeavor to make myself so shall we say 'agreeable' to you that you no longer wish to leave me. If I fail, you may leave at the end of three months. It's as simple as that."

"No!" Dara burst out before she could stop herself. The thought of Jiyong deliberately trying to charm and entice her was more than she could bear to contemplate, and the intimate implications of being his "loving" wife made her face burn.

"Afraid you'll fall under my 'spell'?"

"Certainly not," she lied primly.

"Then why should you not agree to the wager? I'm betting a fortune that I can make you wish to stay. Evidently, you're afraid you'll lose, or you wouldn't hesitate." He slid the challenge in so smoothly that Dara scarcely saw it coming before he'd hit home. "there are other things to consider" She stalled lamely, too shaken to think of any.

"Ah, yes there's the possibility that in the ardent performance of my husbandly duties, I might get you with child, is that it?" Speechless with dismay and horror at that heretofore unthought-of possibility, Dara simply stared at him, pink-cheeked, as he idly picked up a paperweight from his desk. "I intend to do my utmost to bring that about, my sweet," he baldly promised. "Moreover," he continued, balancing the weight in his palm, exactly as he was balancing her future, "our wager is contingent upon your granting me your favors in bed without resentment. In other words," he finished with smiling bluntness, "if you shirk or protest or fail to cooperate you lose."

"You're mad!" Dara burst out, leaping from her chair, but her frantic mind could come up with no better means of ending this unwanted marriage.

"I must be," he agreed without rancor. "Three months doesn't give me much time. Six months would be more fair, now that I think on it."

"Three is more than fair!" Dara exclaimed. "Agreed," he smoothly said. "Three months it is. Three months of wedded bliss for me, in return for shall we say 500 million KRW?"

Dara clenched her trembling hands and hid them behind her back, her mind whirling with a dizzying combination of jubilation and resentment. A 500 million A fortune! In payment for services to be rendered in his bed. By offering her the money, he was reducing her to the status of one of his mistresses; offering to "pay her off" when they were finished. "Don't think of it in that way," Jiyong quietly suggested, watching the reactions play across her expressive face and correctly interpreting them. "If I lose the wager, then consider the money as a belated 'reward' for saving my life."

With her pride somewhat soothed by that, Dara hesitated and then nodded slightly, noncommittally. "It's a highly irregular proposition in most regards"

"Our marriage has been 'highly irregular' in every regard," Jiyong said dryly. "Now then, do I need to put our wager in writing, or shall we trust one another to keep to the terms?" "Trust!" Dara repeated scornfully. "You told me yourself you don't trust anyone." He had told her that in bed, and she had asked him to trust her. She had told him that love could not survive without trust. Watching him, she knew he was recalling the conversation.

He hesitated as if coming to an important decision. Then he said with gentle solemnity, "I trust you." The three quietly spoken words carried a wealth of underlying meaning that Dara adamantly refused to believe he intended. She tried to ignore the warmth in his steady gaze, but she could not sustain her animosity when he was behaving in this odd, almost tender fashion. Deciding that the best way to deal with her enigmatic spouse was to remain calm and reserved at all times, she politely said, "I'll consider your wager."

"You do that," he urged, a gleam of amusement in his eyes as more footmen came trooping downstairs with their trunks. "Will two minutes give you enough time?" He nodded toward the crowded hallway outside his study.

"What!" "We're leaving for Hawthorne within the hour." "But"

"Sandara," he said quietly, "you have no choice." Reaching out, Jiyong ran his hands up her arms while he silently fought the urge to pull her to him and seal the victory he already knew was his. Inwardly, Dara bridled, but she knew he was right. Wooyoung's words came back to reassure her. We are not a very prolific family "Very well," she agreed ungraciously. And the rest of Wooyoung's sentence hit her. Although it is not for want of trying.

"You're blushing," Jiyong remarked, his eyes smiling into hers.

"Any female would blush when baldly presented with the prospect of spending three months of a...  " splendor in my arms?" Jiyong provided helpfully.

She gave him a look that could have pulverized rock.

Chuckling, he said, "Consider the risk I am taking. Suppose I lose my head entirely and become enslaved by your beauty?" he corrected belatedly, positively oozing good humor. "And then you go off, taking my money and all hope of a legal heir with you."

"You don't for a moment believe I could do that, do you?" Dara snapped irritably. "No."

It was his insufferable grin, as much as his arrogant confidence, that made her turn on her heel. Jiyong caught her arm and pulled her firmly back around, his voice calm but authoritative. "Not until we reach an agreement. Do we have a bet, or do I take you to Hawthorn under guard if necessary and without promise of remuneration if you decide to leave me in three months?"

Put in that context, Dara had absolutely no choice. Lifting her head, she looked him in the eye and declared with unconcealed dislike, "We have a wager." "You agree to all the terms?"

"With great reluctance, master," she said stonily and, jerking her arm free, started to leave. "Jiyong," he said to her back.

Dara turned. "Pardon?"

"My name is Jiyong. In future, please call me that."

"I prefer not to."

Raising his hand in an exaggerated, mock warning, he said, "Sweetheart, be cautious lest you lose your bet in less than five minutes. You agreed to be my most 'obedient, loving, and biddable wife.' And I bid you call me by my given name."

Her eyes shot daggers into his, but she inclined her pretty head. "As you wish." She had already walked out of the study before Jiyong realized she had simply managed not to call him anything at all. A smile swept across his features as he absently rolled the paperweight between his palms, contemplating the impending, highly satisfactory sojourn in the country with his enticingly pretty albeit reluctant wife.