“Ambrose?” came her groggy, muffled voice. “Are you leaving?”
“Leaving?” he said, turning back to her with immediacy. “No, my love. I thought perhaps you would want something to eat or drink, is all.”
She sat up, clutching the blanket to her chest and rubbing her knuckles over her eyes. “Don’t leave,” she said. “But water.”
It made him chuckle, shaking his head. “How am I meant to accomplish that?”
She only frowned at him from across the room, looking somehow impossibly small and delicate over there against his headboard.
He sighed. “All right.”
He opened the door and bellowed down into the night, hoping that someone was still awake down there to hear him. It didn’t appear all the lights were snuffed yet, so it seemed hopeful. He stood and waited, and after a moment, starchy Mrs. Jenkins puffed her way up the stairs with a tray and a smile.
She’d brought fruit as well. A cluster of grapes and a little wedge of cheese to go with it.
“Thank you, Mrs. Jenkins,” he said at a more reasonable volume as he accepted it. When he turned back into the room, Vix had transported herself to the foot of the bed somehow, and was now wearing the satin nightgown.
Sadly, those pretty stockings were discarded on the rug next to the chemise.
“How did you do that so fast?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her as he kicked the door shut behind him.
“I rarely dally,” she said, her voice still a bit smaller than usual, hesitant somehow. She watched him cross the room and set the tray down, her dark eyes following his hands as he filled a glass for her and passed it into her grasp. She blinked twice, the corners of her mouth still sagging, and seemed to steel herself before sipping it.
He waited, ready to offer her more should she need it. He suspected that if he moved now or spoke too soon, he would spook her. It felt like something very fragile was floating between them here, and he could not see or grasp it, so his only move was to avoid knocking it over.
She finished the glass and held it empty in front of her, drawing in a few little breaths before she raised her eyes to him. “Have I made a fool of myself, Ambrose?” she asked.
“No,” he said, rather than demanding to know what the hell she meant. “You didn’t.”
Her expression flickered, her fingers coming up to twist at her hair. “I do not think that was a customary encounter,” she said,averting her eyes. “I may not be experienced, but I think I know enough to know that was not normal.”
“What was the word I used?” he asked, taking the glass from her and kneeling between her legs, waiting until she turned to look at him. “What did I say?”
She pressed her lips together but did meet his eye, her brows drawn close together over them.
“Extraordinary,” he informed her. “Extraordinary is not customary or normal, no. It is exceptional. Better in every way.”
She exhaled, a tentative relief tugging at the lines of her face. Her hand came up, just short of touching his cheek, settling to stroke the tips of his hair instead. “At school, they told us men would try to seduce us into their beds,” she said softly. “The charity girls got a different speech, I think, than the others. We were told about temptation and pleasure and empty promises, but that as soon as a man got what he wanted, his sated appetite would turn desire to disgust when he looked upon us, and all we would be left with was shame.”
He reached up, taking her wrist and pulling that tentative hand down to kiss her palm, holding her wrist against his thumb. “And you believed that?”
She shook her head. “Not at first. Not until I saw it happen over and over again to girls I knew. Pretty girls. Kind girls. Worthy ones. Men would write them poetry and sing them songs and swear eternal love until they were ruined. Then they would disappear.”
He nodded. “You thought I was leaving tonight.”
She made a face, shaking her head. “No, not … I knew you couldn’t just vanish. I live in your house now. You married me. But I thought the disgust might have arrived, even though you didn’t … well, we didn’t … I know I didn’t perform …”
“Vix,” he said, as seriously as he could, his voice as somber as it got. “Even if things had progressed the traditional way, I would not have left. I do not think you understand how impossible it would be for you to sate my appetite for you in a single encounter. I do not think it possible for you to do it at all, truth be told.”
She scoffed, trying to pull her hand away, but he tightened his grip.
“I am serious,” he said. “Look at me.”
She clenched her jaw, but she did it, her dark, dark eyes locking onto his with a brittle glint.
“You saw my desire too,” he told her. “Are you disgusted now? Do you want to flee me because of how I wanted you? How I touched you?”
“Of course not!” she hissed, trying and failing again to jerk her hand away. “That is ridiculous!”
