Free Bride by Midnight by Linda Winstead Jones

there to steal something, are you?” she asked, horrified.
    “No.”
    “I know you’re not above thievery,” she argued. “The uniform you’re wearing proves that much.”
    “I swear to you that I have no plans to steal anything from the palace.”
    That was a relief. She wanted no part in thievery.
    “So, your room or mine?” he asked again.
    Lyssa’s mind spun. “Tonight I’ll return to my house alone. My parents will be alarmed if they awake in the morning and I’m not there. They would also be shocked to find a man in my bed. I can only imagine the commotion that would ensue. It would be best if you came to the house later in the day, at which time I will make proper introductions.”
    “I suppose that will work. And then?”
    A witch’s prediction, a string of bad luck, and years of nightmares had spurred her to this point. But there was more. She didn’t want to be a burden to her parents; she didn’t want to be underfoot when the new baby arrived. She certainly didn’t want her father and her stepmother to look at her with pity because she couldn’t find a husband and make a home of her own.
    And she wanted her own home, at least for a while. She and Blade might not have the time she’d planned to have with her husband. If they lived in her father’s house... No, even if it was a hovel, she would have her own home.
    “We will live in your room.”
    “You haven’t even asked what the place is like. What if you find it unsuitable?”
    “No matter what your living circumstances may be, we will manage. You’re much too tall for my bed. Kyran, the man I was supposed to marry this afternoon, isn’t much taller than I am, so it would not have been an issue, but you simply will not fit . Yes, your room,” she said with a determined nod of her head. No matter where it might be, it would surely not be as dark as the inside of a tomb or as quiet as a nunnery where everyone had taken a vow of silence, and no matter how unsuitable it was, she would not be living there alone.
    ***
    Blade watched Lyssa walk carefully and quietly through the door to her small but more than satisfactory home. Though he could not see anything of the interior from where he stood, he was certain it was much nicer than the room he rented by the day, even though that rough room was much better than most of the places he’d slept in the past four years.
    Lyssa would soon regret marrying him. But not before she served her purpose and got him into the palace.
    He’d sunk to new lows in order to do what had to be done, but that realization that did not make him regret his decisions. It wasn’t as if Lyssa got nothing out of the deal. She had the husband she’d been so desperate for, and the deed had been done before midnight. Who was he to say that her reasoning was invalid? He would make sure she wasn’t entirely sorry before he finished his business here.
    He and his wife would lie together again, and he would show her what pleasure could be had when a man and a woman came together. Not entirely unpleasant , she had said. She had no idea... and it would not be a sacrifice on his part to teach her.
    Late as it was, as unexpectedly satisfied as he was, he didn’t feel like sleeping. It wouldn’t be the first sleepless night he’d passed. Nor the last. He walked past the tavern where he’d left his half-empty bottle of whisky sitting unattended. It would be long gone, and while there was more to be had, he did not want to dull his senses. Not now.
    He kept walking. This was an unsavory part of town, and he passed more than one other tavern along the way, and also a rutting couple or two. Drunk and totally without shame, they did not even bother to slip into an alley, not at this late hour.
    Not far beyond one loud and ill-kept tavern, he passed the two-story inn where he’d been renting a room, and as he watched a rail-thin prostitute and her customer fumbling with one another near the front entrance, he knew he could not