CHAPTER ONE

      LARA TEMPLETON WAS glad of the delicate black lace obscuring her vision and hiding her dry eyes from the sly looks of the crowd around the open grave. They might well suspect that she wasn’t grieving the death of her husband, the not so Honourable Henry Winterborne, but she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of confirming it for themselves. So she kept herself hidden. Dressed in sober black from head to toe, as befitting a widow.

      A grieving widow who had been left nothing by her husband. Who had, in fact, been little more than an indentured slave for the last three months. A detail this crowd of jackals would no doubt crow over if it ever became public knowledge.

      Her husband had had good reason to leave her with nothing. She wouldn’t have wanted his money anyway. It wasn’t why she’d married him, no matter what people believed. And he hadn’t left her anything because she hadn’t given him what he wanted. Herself. It was her fault he’d ended up injured and in a wheelchair for the duration of their marriage.

       No, it wasn’t your fault. If he hadn’t tried to—

      Lara’s churning thoughts skittered to a halt when she realised that people were looking at her expectantly. The back of her neck prickled.

      The priest gave a discreet cough and said, sotto voce, ‘If you’d like to throw some soil on the coffin now, Mrs Winterborne...’

      Lara flinched inwardly at the reference to her married name. The marriage had been a farce, and she’d only agreed to it because she’d been blackmailed into it by her uncle. She saw a trowel on the ground near the edge of the grave and, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do, because she felt like a hypocrite, she bent down and scooped up some earth before letting it fall onto the coffin. It made a hollow-sounding thunk.

      For a moment she had the nonsensical notion that her husband might reach out from the grave and pull her in with him, and she almost stumbled forward into the empty space.

      There was a gasp from the crowd and the priest caught her arm to steady her.

      Unbelievable, thought the man standing nonchalantly against a tree nearby with his arms crossed over a broad chest. He fixed his gaze on the widow, but she didn’t look his way once. She was too busy acting the part—practically throwing herself into the grave.

      His mouth firmed, its sensual lines drawing into one hard flat one. He had to hand it to her. She played the part well, dressed in a black form-fitting dress that clung to her willowy graceful frame. Her distinctive blonde hair was tied back in a low bun and a