But they had both been so young when they married. Young and full of dreams.

She’d wondered more than once if he’d accidently fallen into the Thames that stormy night or whether he’d jumped from Westminster Bridge.

Her unconscious sigh shattered the silence, jerking her back to reality and her fast-approaching deadline.

She glanced at the clock. Two fifteen.

She put pen to paper, the nib fairly flying over the page. She didn’t have time for maudlin introspection or reflection on what might have been. She had to finish ten pages by eight in the morning. And that was that.

She was paid by the page.

It was piecework, pure and simple-like a seamstress who was compensated for the number of garments she completed in a day.

Rosalind smiled.

This was easier.

She’d never learned to sew despite her mother’s best efforts to make her a genteel young lady who could embroider her husband’s slippers or sew a fine seam. Fortunately her father had taken her side and she’d studied his favorite subjects instead: botany, anthropology, history, Latin, and Greek.

Even more fortunately, she’d quite by accident forged a new market for her steamy novels. Her publisher was ecstatic-his delight measured in increased fortune for her and less agreeably in persistent demands that she write faster.

Her stories ran counter to the accepted male narrative of domination bolstered by various fantastic devices with which to restrain female characters. Not that she was averse to an occasional bondage scene. After all, their bookstore had always sold books by Anonymous that were kept behind a screen in a back room. The risquй books and magazines bound in innocuous bindings had generated excellent sales.

But when she’d first undertaken the task of continuing Edward’s secret work, she’d instinctively penned tales appealing to her feminine sensibilities. Almost instantly, word of mouth had translated into a tidal wave of eager customers. Women readers, a major component of the bookstore’s customer base as well, had quickly heard of her writing-not that they knew it was hers-and had taken to indulging themselves in sexual fantasies tailored to female imaginations and passions.