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understood you’d been neatly snared inside his trap.
    As ridiculous as it seemed, she’d clung to the faint hope that Harry would dig himself out, that he would arrive on her doorstep to tell her he’d found the money and had paid off the debt. But a look at him last night, when she’d gone to the family townhouse for dinner, had shattered her illusions.
    Dark circles had ringed his worried brown eyes, a sickly pallor adding a faint green undertone to his usually swarthy complexion. Then there’d been his drinking as he tossed back glass after glass of wine, swallowing it the way a thirsty man would guzzle water.
    She’d realized then that their salvation would be up to her.
    But could she do it?
    Did she really have the courage, the conviction to put herself, her body, quite literally in the hands of a man like Rafe Pendragon? Did she have the strength of will to become The Dragon’s mistress?
    She could always marry, she supposed. Her friends were continually urging her to find a new husband. She was young, they said. Attractive. Look how the men flocked to her. It was a running joke how Lord Summersfield kept proposing to her—a half dozen times at last count. And there were at least two other gentlemen, wealthy men both, who were always tossing her hints. Any one of them would offer her a ring tomorrow, she knew, if she’d only say the word.
    But she didn’t want to say the word. The plain truth of it was she’d had a husband, and she didn’t want another.
    Unlike the married women of her acquaintance who had to beg and cajole their husbands for every farthing in their purse, she had her own income. Her stipend wasn’t large but it was comfortable, allowing her adequate money for necessities, a few servants, and the occasional luxury or two. And she owned her townhouse on Upper Brook Street, a property that had come solely into her possession after her husband Basil’s death.
    No, Julianna reasoned, being a widow isn’t so bad. The status gave her an immense amount of freedom, a rare independence that she cherished and had no desire to give up.
    Marriage, of course, would be the respectable way out of her present dilemma, a choice most women in her position would make. But she’d been forced into marriage once, and by God, she would never let herself be forced again.
    Many would condemn her if they learned of her bargain with Pendragon, would shun her for consorting with a man not her social equal. But in spite of the risks and the indignity of letting such a man use her body, she would rather spend six months as his mistress than a lifetime trapped in another empty marriage to a man she did not love.
    Nerves ate at her stomach at the thought of what she would have to do in only two days’ time, together with an odd tingle in her blood that she could only describe as an innate sexual awareness.
    Jittery as she might be, there was no denying the fact that Rafe Pendragon was an incredibly handsome man. The mere memory of him—his penetrating green eyes, the sculpted line of his jaw, the dimples that would send a nun into a swoon—made her go all hot and shivery. The idea that she would soon be granting him the right to kiss and touch her, to explore her body in the most carnal of ways, left her throat dry and her pulse alarmingly unsteady. She’d never particularly enjoyed the mating act, but with a man like Pendragon, who knew what might transpire?
    Gracious! she thought, feeling warmth spread over her cheeks.
    A movement from the far side of the shop interrupted her musings as Maris emerged from the fitting room. Her young sister looked a picture of vibrant youth and beauty, the new dress and its color genuinely flattering despite Maris’s poor opinion of the pale shade.
    Julianna smiled, more determined than ever to see Maris enjoy all the things she herself had not—a carefree Season filled with innocent joy and fun. And most of all the freedom to choose her own spouse, and to marry for no more