“Not if you like the green ones,” he said, choosing one with a twist from the stem.
“I don’t mind the color,” she answered, watching him. “I like when they are small. The big ones lose a bit of texture and rarely taste as pleasant.”
He wasn’t sure why this charmed him, but it did, and he found himself smiling as he bit into his own grape. It might have simply been that he never would have expected her to confesssuch a preference to him, or to speak it aloud at all. It felt like the oddest little victory, soaked in grape juice and color.
“I decided I am going to throw a ball,” she said, pulling one of her legs up from where it dangled over the edge of the bed, and tucking it up under the satin skirt of her nightgown. “A charity ball, to raise money for girls like me, who rely on scholarships to attend school.”
He tilted his head, suspicion stirring in his bare chest. “I see,” he said carefully, “and for no other reason at all?”
She bit into another grape and gave him a sharp, wicked little smile over the split fruit. “None whatsoever,” she lied, making him chuckle.
“And who will we be eviscerating this time?” he wondered, cutting off a sliver of cheese and breaking it in half, offering her the larger piece. “More alumnae?”
“My headmistress,” Vix answered, accepting the cheese with an arch of her brow. “Shall I tell you all the ways she was horrible?”
“I think you already did, just a moment ago with that business about trusting amorous men,” he said, raising his brows in question until she gave him a quick nod of affirmation. “Right, how shall we do it, then?”
She blinked at him, a flicker of surprise passing over her face, though her little devious smile did not falter.
“Ambrose,” she said, reaching across the grapes for his hand. “Are you agreeing to be my accomplice again?”
“Of course,” he answered, twisting his fingers through hers. “I think that was in the vows, wasn’t it?”
She laughed. She laughed properly, not a stifled titter or a hysterical melting break, just a woman letting her amusement out unguarded.
“If it wasn’t,” she said, popping the remainder of her grape into her mouth and settling in to scheme with him comfortably from the rumpled blankets, “it ought to have been.”
CHAPTER 17
Vix occupied the days following her marriage with a great deal of errands. There was much to do and, as far as she was concerned, never quite enough time in which to do it.
She still had not managed to move into the bedroom she’d chosen in her new house. Ambrose had found various ways to prevent said migration from occurring, always in such obvious, ridiculous ways that she had a hard time feeling anything but flattered by it.
“I’m sorry, darling, I honestly do not know how your new pillows ended up outdoors,” he’d say one night. And then the next, “It is only that Bear has struggled to find a bed he likes, and your new duvet is finally the thing. Look how peaceful he is.”
She smiled to herself, shaking her head as she took the steps up to Holy Comfort, trying not to feel disturbed at how warmed she was by her husband’s foolishness.
It was also that she was enjoying sleeping next to him as well. He would chatter to her about the day, about idle thoughts, andabout nonsense from the past in the dark hours before they slept. Sometimes he would hold her hand or turn and gaze at her, but he had not, to his word, attempted a consummation.
Not until she asked.
That was enough to make her smile fall away.
Ambrose. How was he so perfectly intolerable?
“Vix!” cried Matthew Everly from the pulpit, where his ink-stained hand was poised over the week’s sermon, holding a quill like a sewing needle. “You’ve come for the register entry?”
“No,” she said, gesturing down at the puppy trotting by her side, “I’ve come to force you to baptize the dog.”
Matthew grimaced, slapping the quill down and coming around the pulpit with a wary look at Bear. “New congregant, is he?”
“Very devout,” she assured him, giving a smirk at the way he flinched. “Yes, I’m here for the register. Is it ready?”
“Of course it is,” he said with an offended little sniff. He glanced around behind her, peering beyond the door. “No one else with you today?”
She blinked. “No. Someone you wanted?”
He grinned at her, scratching at one of his frizzy curls. “Of course not. You’re just always in such delightful mixed company.”
