To Tempt a Saint by Kate Moore

the unfamiliar bed, in the restless city. Apparently, neither her money, which he now controlled, nor her person, which he refused, had the power to move him.
    In the night his footsteps had paused outside her door and passed, and the blaze of light in his house had gone dark.
    Now he sat over an untouched plate, reading a pamphlet from a stack in front of him, looking sartori ally splendid and entirely too rested. She, on the other hand, in an old green wool dress, looked as seductive as a dusty yew tree. And she did not have the first idea how to coax her husband to her bed. She would have to relearn the arts of allurement.
    His gaze met hers briefly. “You don’t have to rise for breakfast.”
    “Would you rather I lay abed in silks, sipping chocolate while you go to the bank?”
    He returned to his reading, and Cleo stepped to the sideboard, loaded with platters of eggs and ham, toast, and pots of jam. She filled a plate and took her place at the table.
    Her husband quirked one dark brow upward.
    “Am I looking with too much longing on the ham?”
    “I won’t let you or your brother starve.”
    “I suppose I am so used to our lacks that it will take me a while to grow accustomed to abundance.”
    He handed her a week-old issue of the morning paper, folded open to a three-line announcement of their union under the heading “MARRIED.” The paper listed their nuptials with singular appropriateness in a long column of commercial transactions between “PARTNERSHIP DISSOLVED” and “DIED.”
    Cleo put down the paper. “It’s official then. I may confidently take up my wifely duties.”
    He did not look up. “Would you consider attending a dinner sufficiently wifely?”
    “Will it stop Uncle March?”
    At the mention of her uncle, his cool gaze met hers. Nothing betrayed his feelings about her question.
    “It will help.”
    “I have nothing to wear. How is that for a wifely response?”
    “I’ve sent for a dressmaker.”
    Ahead of her again . “After our trip to the bank, of course.” Cleo had a long list of plans for her funds.
    He put down his pamphlet. “I’m not going to the bank today.”
    “But we agreed. My brother needs clothes and a tutor for his entrance exams. He needs a haircut.” Cleo’s plate clinked as she put it down. Now that he had access to her money, her husband was going back on their bargain. She had pinned too much hope on a solicitor’s papers and that kiss in the church.
    Once, she had accepted kisses, as if she were collecting tributes to her desirability. Her entrance into London society had been managed by a widowed cousin of her father who had been careless at best in her approach to Cleo’s debut. Cousin Lydia’s advice had been— You’re greener than grass in May, and they’ll all be about you for your papa’s money, so mind your step— a fair warning that Cleo herself would be of little interest to men.
    But oh, how London could go to a girl’s head. To Miss Cleopatra Spencer it seemed that the whole glittering city was present and took notice when she entered a ballroom. She knew better now, or thought she did. Xander Jones was teaching her still more lessons in her own insignificance. London loved money even more than beauty and would flatter and court those who had it as long as they had it, and drop them when it was gone.
    The morning room door opened, and Will Jones sauntered in, unshaven and ripe-smelling. “Did you find it?” he asked his brother without any acknowledgment of Cleo’s presence.
    Xander Jones held up the pamphlet. “A plasterer named Harris died at Number Forty Bread Street last November.”
    “That confirms only one part of Cullen’s story.” Will turned to the sideboard.
    Cleo stole a glance at the pamphlet. The Bills of Mortality. Xander Jones was reading the weekly printed record of those who died in London. He had a stack of them beside him on the table. Her breakfast congealed on the pretty plate. She put down her fork. Uncle