Teaser: Will Patience's secret be too much for Damien to take in all at once...or ever?

Summary: Damien insists his estranged wife Patience tell him why she’s masquerading in the ton as Countess Fraser, but he is in no way prepared for the secret she reveals. Will Patience’s secret be Damien’s undoing...or her own?

***

Damien presented himself at precisely one of the clock at his wife's small Mayfair establishment. He handed his card to the squat-faced butler, who sniffed in a manner that twitched the whiskers on the side of his face.

"Follow me, my lord." The butler led him down the narrow hallway of scuffed black and white marble and showed him into a small room done up in fussy, shabby floral chintz and knick knacks on flimsy side tables. He eased into a tiny chair to wait, wondering what had brought his wife to the city, and in the guise of "Countess Fraser" no less.

He could not deny, after seeing her last night, trading quips with her, holding her lush curves in his arms, he hoped she'd come to conceive the child he offered to give her three years ago. Preferably with him. Women wanted children, did they not? The thought of Patience conceiving a child with anyone else made him cross.

The shock of sudden jealousy popped him out of his chair as if he'd been scalded by it, just in time to greet his wife, who burst through the door.

"My lord. I am sorry to have kept you waiting." Patience curtseyed in greeting.

"My lady wife." He bowed, averting his gaze from the pale swell of bosom revealed by the neckline of her gown. Did she display her charms on purpose, to discombobulate him? Last night she'd promised him an explanation, and bedamned if he left without it! "Perhaps today you can answer the questions you so deftly avoided last night."

"Tsk, tsk." She rang the serving bell and positioned herself on the settee opposite his chair. Her peach muslin clung to her figure, the tiny puff sleeves the height of fashion. She moved with assurance and poise--a far cry from the hoydenish miss who'd practically been dragged to the altar and subsequently refused to partake of the honeymoon his Aunt Viola and sister had planned for them. "Shall we move directly into business instead of pleasure? How rude."

Damien remained standing, feeling foolish and somehow in the wrong, even though he had done exactly as his wife requested after their wedding: he had departed, post haste, and never returned.

But now here she was.

"Do not loom over me like that," Patience commanded. "Tell me, husband, have you enjoyed my dowry the past three years?

He returned to his seat. "My estate in Kent is much repaired. My tenants thank you. May I ask why you are using the title Countess Fraser when your family bought you a perfectly serviceable one--Coulter?"

"You are a crosspatch today." The butler entered and placed a tea tray laden with small cakes, biscuits and a teapot with three cups on the table between them.

"Perhaps I am a crosspatch every day. How would you know?"

"I would not," she agreed. "Let us assume you are cross every day, though I had heard otherwise. Thank you, Reggie." The butler nodded and left, shutting the door softly behind him.

He watched her slim white hands as she prepared their tea, not spilling a drop. Who was the third cup for? "I thought Reggie was your Aunt's dog?"

"He is."

"Your dog is named for the butler?"

"Not exactly." She handed him a porcelain cup of amber liquid, steaming hot. He accepted it gingerly. He'd not noticed the addition of any poison, but to be safe, he wouldn't taste it until she drank her own. "Would you care for a savoy biscuit?"

"Not until you eat one first." He set down his cup.

Patience sipped her tea, her blue eyes dancing merrily as she watched him over the rim. "Oh, Coulter, surely you cannot hold that against me still?"

The flux one of her concoctions given him prior to the wedding, in one of her several attempts to drive him away, had not been pleasant. "I can."

"I had my reasons."

"And I'm fast losing patience with this charade."

She grinned, an engaging show of teeth that invited others to share in the joke. "You cannot say you have lost me, husband, when we are in the same room."

"Why are you here and why have you deceived the ton about your identity?"

Patience sighed and set her own cup carefully onto the saucer. "Very well. It is necessary no one beyond our families know of our...relationship, and I am sure you do not want it known you are wed."

"Why would I not?" Some of the old confusion and resentment he'd tried so hard and long to ignore bubbled to the surface. Though theirs was a marriage of convenience, such was not rare. Why had his bride refused to further their acquaintance? Why had she not wished to marry him?

"It would not be wise if our connection were known to certain individuals."

"Who?" he asked, recalling her strong reaction to Snydley last night. "And why?"

"That does not matter." She waved a graceful hand. "You agreed to a marriage of convenience. Our family needed the safety of a respectable title, and you needed the money. You agreed to leave me alone...in all ways."

"Nevertheless, I am your husband, and I demand answers." He frowned and felt a headache tweak his temples. Bloody hell, the chit was infuriating!

Her mouth tightened, but she did not respond to his statement directly. "There is still the matter of our family."

"I told you three years ago I had no overriding need for an heir." He raised his teacup to his lips but did not drink. "I have a perfectly good heir in my nephew Bernard."

"He is three years of age."

"And I am young and healthy," he countered, raising an eyebrow quizzically. Had his guess, or was it a fantasy, been correct? Did she wish to make their marriage a real one?

It did not seem nearly as unappetizing as it had three years ago.

Patience nibbled her enticing lower lip, a task he longed to replicate. "Nevertheless, it is not your family in question." She took a deep breath, which inflated her bosom enticingly. "I have a confession."

"I suspect Snydley is involved in this confession," he guessed, both satisfied and annoyed when her eyes widened. "For...what did you say...reprehensible crimes against women?" A horrifying thought struck him. What if she'd already conceived with that axe-faced idiot and intended to seduce him so he would believe the child his?

"That rat! Blast him and all his kind. I have come on a serious matter concerning...my cat."

Damien blinked. "Pussywillow?"

"No, Penelope."

"What has your cat got to do with Baron Snydley? And my family?"

"Not your family--mine," she corrected gently. "It's really quite simple. The Baron is a rat, I am a cat, and he's captured my sister Penelope. The longer he has her, the longer she cannot change back, and soon she will be lost to us."

"What?" He stood, despite her dislike of his looming, and glared down at her. "My wife is a Bedlamite. I should have guessed when you put your nasty feline in our marriage bed."

"Actually," she said with a tiny smile, "that was me. And now I need your help to rescue my sister from Baron Snydley, who means to use her in a transfiguration ritual to gain the ability to shift into something besides a disgusting rat. I have come to town both to flush him out and gain your assistance."

"This is a farce. I am leaving." He stomped to the door and rattled the knob but found it locked.

"I knew you would require further proof." Patience poured a cup of cream--the third cup--and set it on the floor. Then she rose and began undressing.

Annoyance changing to anger, Damien returned and grabbed her hands. Her skin was heated and silken, almost as soft as a cat's fur. Her faint lavender scent surrounded him, reminding him she was his wife. His wife and a highly attractive...Bedlamite. "What the bloody hell are you doing?"

"I find it challenging to extricate myself from all these clothes once I'm in cat form. Trust me."

Damien backed away, unable to take his eyes off his wife. With a modicum of twisting, she stripped to her lacy white chemise and crouched on the floor next to the saucer. If she hadn't been completely mad, she would have been utterly desirable.

"Cream tastes so much better in cat form," she said to him before the air shimmered around her person, blurring her outline.

Damien rubbed his eyes, hard. When he glanced at his wife again, a red tabby--one he recognized all too well--shook itself out of Patience's chemise and blinked its sapphire blue eyes at him before turning its attention to the cream.

"That's deuced unsettling," Damien said to the cat before the floor rushed up to greet him.