Page 53 of The Duke of a Thousand Desires

“Could you put me back in one piece?”

He expelled a sigh. “I ought to confess regret, but it isn’t in me to lie. You will feel sore for some days. I’ve never known such bewitchment. I hope you don’t resent me.”

“My recovery is imminent.”

“I can’t say the same for mine.”

She could not resist another smile. She felt possessed and replete. “Why did you avoid me the last few times you came to the castle?” she asked curiously.

He traced his fingertip from her nose to her chin. “No one could accuse me of avoiding you now. Nothing but water, you said?”

More of you, she thought ruefully, and even though she felt half-broken and indecorously pummeled, she would not refuse him what remained of her. She wished she’d understood that his virility concealed such complicated tenderness. She might have chased him to the chapel years ago.

He stirred. “You can bathe before breakfast. Whenever we decide to eat, that is. I’ll have hot water brought to the room. Or we can take tea and cake in bed.”

“I’d like that. However,” she added in embarrassment, “there is a dampness between my legs that is unsettling. It needs immediate attention.”

“It is my seed and your virgin’s blood,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll fetch a cloth to cleanse it from you. In the meantime you should take the chance to rest.”

Which, after his candidly disarming description of her lost maidenhead, was unlikely.

On the way to the antechamber he passed a cheval glass that cupped a pair of unlit beeswax candles. He paused to stretch his arms above his head, a beautifully fashioned and unselfconscious creature. His absence of inhibition seemed appropriate in view of the intimacies they had just shared. He was not admiring his body. But she was.

She was transfixed by the angular symmetry of his reflection. The poor light prevented her from a detailed perusal of his form. She could not distinguish his exact proportions. But she had taken him inside her. The dull pressure of their union echoed in her deepest regions. A fullness, a connection. He was agile and well-formed.

He moved past the mirror in silence and disappeared into the antechamber. She made an attempt to tidy her hair, the bedclothes, and then drifted into a daze. What a night. How would she describe her rite of passage if she recorded the experience in her diary, to look back upon when she grew old? Assuredly not in Simon’s blunt language.

Instead, she would employ flowery euphemisms, delicately embroidered half-truths such as, “He used me gently through the night,” and, “From the moment he parted the bed curtains, I became insensible to all but his will. The details are obscure. I only know that when I awoke, I was a woman without a memory.”

She grinned. How untrue. She remembered every torrid detail; every demand he’d made of her and won. There was no doubt that she’d lost a weak-willed boy in David and was married to a full-blooded man. One who only minutes later gently drew her from her repose and back into the crook of his shoulder.

She sighed. “I almost fell asleep.”

His fingers drifted down her arm. “Should I retire to the other room?”

She nestled her face in the hollow of his neck. His hair felt damp, as if he’d washed, and his skin smelled clean, of Castile soap. “Whatever for?”

“For your sake. You can barely keep your eyes open.”

“That is because I can barely keep my eyes where they belong,” she admitted. “But yes, I did stay up late last night with Jane and Isolde, discussing the wedding.”

“Ah,” he said with a knowing smile.

“And fashion,” she added unnecessarily. “Aunt Glynnis has advised me that I should begin to dress as befitting my rank.”

“You need not follow the latest fashion to please me. But if it pleases you to do so, I shall open my purse to oblige.”

“I don’t want you to spoil me. I wasn’t mollycoddled as a girl. No one expects you to indulge my slightest whim.”

“I shall if I want to,” he said with an authority she decided it would be disadvantageous to challenge.

A woman could swim against the tide or allow it to carry her to undiscovered shores. Considering her husband’s abilities, Ravenna saw no reason to question the order of things.

Simon had not goneinto the antechamber solely to fetch his wife a glass of water. He had retreated to make use of the washstand and compose himself. Even so, he felt like a beast about to spring fangs as she sat up in bed to drink from the pewter goblet.

“Better?” He took the vessel from her hands and placed it on the bedside table.

“Except for the one unbecoming complaint I mentioned.”