“Are you about to throw a s-slipper at my head?” he asked.
“I would probably miss and feel foolish,” she said.
He folded his arms and tipped his head slightly to one side.
“It is to be amarriagefor seven days, then, is it?” he asked.
“Oh, you are not going to get off that lightly,” she said. “It is to be a marriageforever, Flavian. You married me. It does not matter why you did it. Youmarriedme, and you will jolly well live up to that commitment. I will not allow younotto. And I married you. It does not matter why I did it. For better or worse, we are married. People marry for all sorts of reasons. It is not those that matter. It is what theydowith their marriages that counts. We are going to make this agoodmarriage.Bothof us.”
Good heavens, where hadthatall come from? Her heart was thumping so loudly that she was half-deafened.
He had not moved or changed posture. But his eyelids had drooped half over his eyes, and his mouth had curved upward slightly at the corners, and he was watching her keenly.
“Yes,ma’am,” he said softly—and advanced on her.
And so they made love—tentatively, sweetly, slowly, and finally with fierce urgency. When they were done, she lay on her back half across the bed, minus her lovely new nightgown, Flavian heavy on top of her. They were both hot and sweaty and relaxed. Her legs were stretched on either side of his. He was still inside her. He was breathing deeply and evenly. She was about to follow him into sleep. He would wake up soon and move off her with a murmured apology, but she did not mind the slight discomfort of his weight. She would not mind if he slept on her all night.
Some things could never be stopped once they had been allowed to start, she thought. Passion could not. She had married him very largely because she wanted him. But having him on her wedding night had not slaked her appetite except very temporarily. Quite the opposite, in fact. She wanted him more and more.
She was deeply wedded to him—a strange thought.
But passion was not to blame, she thought, for what people did with their lives. If she had met Flavian while she was still married to William, she would not have given in to her attraction to him. Sheknewshe would not. Which was another strange thought to be having when she was on the verge of sleep and utterly sated with passion.
“Mmm,” Flavian said against her ear, tickling it with his breath, “I am not exactly a feather cover, am I. S-Sorry.”
And he disengaged from her and rolled to her side, his arm beneath her bringing her with him to lie against him from head to toe. What a glorious creation the male body was, she thought as she relaxed against him again and drifted off.Thismale body, anyway.
***
Flavian awoke with a crashing headache and a panicked urge to lash out at all about him. He got up off the bed, groped around on the floor for his dressing gown, belted it about his waist, and staggered to the window. He pushed the curtains wide and gripped the window frame on either side of his head before touching his forehead to the glass.
He gazed into the near darkness of the outdoors and counted his breaths. His hands gripped harder. He dared not release his hold yet. He might start laying about him with his fists if he did. He felt as if someone were pounding a drum inside his head, though the pain was receding gradually.
What the devil...?
He remembered that trouble loomed.
And that he had been almost happy when he fell asleep. She had decided to stay with him, to work on their marriage. They had made love, and he had been happy.
With trouble looming.
Caused, he was almost sure, by Velma. She had gone digging, and she had found gold. Yet it seemed so out of character for her. She was all sweetness and light.
The drum pounded at his head from the inside again.
“Flavian?” The voice came from just behind him. “What is it?”
He had woken her. But, dash it all, was it surprising? His grip on the window frame tightened again, and he closed his eyes.
“I could not sleep,” he said. “Go b-back to bed. I’ll be with you shortly.”
He felt her hand come to rest against his back, between his shoulder blades, just below his neck. For a moment he tensed. And then a door opened in his mind, and he knew it was what had woken him. Memory had come bursting in upon him—a whole set of memories that had been closed to him for years to such a degree that he had not even realized there was anything missing.
“God!” he said.
“What is it?” Agnes asked again. “What woke you in such a panic? Tell me. I am your wife.”
“She schemed and lied,” he said, “and broke his heart.”
