Free Heaven in His Arms by Lisa Ann Verge

further. She probably was— God forbid! —a virgin.
    Andre took one step away from her. "I think we should have a talk, you and I."
    Her fingers had replaced her tongue on her lips, but at the sound of his voice, she dropped her hand. "Long overdue, that."
    "Is it?"
    "I want to know your plans." Her gold-tipped lashes curled up as she met his gaze. "For us."
    She sounded so sure of herself, so sure of him— as sure as he was that he had never before laid eyes on her. "Do you know who I am?"
    Her brows twitched with sudden uncertainty. "You are Andre Lefebvre?"
    "Yes. Do you know that I already have a wife?"
    She looked at him as if he were crazed.
    He spread his hands and sighed. "I married only recently."
    The girl's bosom heaved. A fiery flush infused her cheeks. Her eyes glowed with new flames, reducing to ashes any hopes he had of spending the night with her. When she finally spoke, her voice was full of incredulous fury. "You don't know who I am, do you?"
    If she could shoot venom through her eyes, he'd be dead a hundred times over. He shrugged helplessly. "It's been a few years since I've been in Montreal... ."
    "You wretch!" She wiped the back of her hand against her lips. "All this time, you thought I was just some whore throwing herself upon you—"
    "Would that all women be so passionate," he interrupted. "I wish I were the man you're seeking . . . but you've mistaken my identity."
    "Mistaken!'' She planted her fists on her hips. "You didn't mind pretending you were the man you thought I mistook you for!"
    "You're too tempting a morsel not to bite."
    "Oh!" She sucked in her breath through clenched teeth, then swirled in a swish of skirts. "I shouldn't be surprised at all!"
    "You shouldn't, not when you enter a strange man's bedroom after dark."
    "You're married!"
    "I'm not dead."
    "You've got the morals of a stray cat!"
    "You dropped into my lap like manna from heaven, cherie. " He glanced with appreciation at her body. "And you're a creature that would test a Jesuit's own chastity."
    "Am I?" Her fists slipped off her hips and she leaned forward, tantalizing him with a glimpse of deep cleavage. "That's good to know. You'll be easy to cuckold."
    "I told you, I'm already married—"
    "I'm your wife, you fool!" Andre choked on the word.
    "Yes. Wife."
    Impossible. Impossible. This couldn't be his wife. His wife was a pitiful little thing with red-rimmed eyes and dark freckles against gray-tinted skin. She didn't have hair like burnished copper ... but then again, she had been wearing a linen headrail when he'd married her, and her hair had been soaked with perspiration. He struggled against the fog of memory. She had been half dead that day in Madame Bourdon's house, a weak, tiny thing clinging to his arm for support and slurring her vows. Undoubtedly, she was still at the Hotel-Dieu, recovering from her illness ... if she weren't already dead.
    Illness. What had this woman said about illness when she first arrived?
    "Has your memory returned yet?" She swayed closer to him, emboldened by his silence, clutching the edges of her cloak. "Let me refresh it for you. My name is—was—Marie Duplessis. We married in Madame Bourdon's home in Quebec, in the presence of Philippe Martineau and about a dozen other couples. Then you abandoned me at the Hotel-Dieu."
    He stared at her. With a start, he noticed a spattering of freckles across her nose, paler now against skin that had flushed an angry rose.
    His blood ran cold when he realized how close he had come to consummating his own marriage.
    "That's more of the reaction I expected from a man caught cheating on his wife with his wife."
    "Last time I saw you," he argued, stepping back and meeting those sparkling green eyes with a new wariness, "you were retching at my side."
    "It was nothing more than shipboard fever, my husband."
    "You're supposed to be at Marietta's."
    "I didn't come across the ocean to be the governess to another woman's children. Yes, yes, I went to