He’d seen her naked a thousand and one nights, in his dreams.
“We were naked in our thoughts and feelings, though,” she went on. “That has been one of the hardest things about coming home:notsaying what’s in my heart.”
What was in her heart was not his concern. What was in his was not her concern. “You don’t need to say anything,” he said. “You show it.”
“That, too, is a difficulty here.”
“You’re happy,” he said. “That shows. This was what you wanted—the life you would have had if those swine hadn’t torn you from it. Today that life begins, with royal blessing.”
She folded her gloved hands in her lap and looked down at them. “My heart is too full for words. You think I’m ungrateful and capricious, but that isn’t so.”
“I never thought you ungrateful,” he said. He remembered the light kiss on the top of his head and the whisperedthank youand the sweetness of that moment.
“But capricious?” she said. “Because I flirt with your friends?”
“Oh, that.” He waved his hand. “Perhaps I was overprotective.”
“Oh, Marchmont, is that what you call it?”
Jealous and possessive and selfish was what he’d called it the day after.
Then he’d told himself,Out of sight, out of mind.
“What do you want me to call it?” he said lightly.
“What it is,” she said. “Not what’s convenient or witty or agreeable to your pride. But you’ll never do that, will you?”
To his consternation, she began to cry.
Zoenevercried.
She brushed away the tears. “Never mind. I’m too excited. I need some air. I’ll walk.”
“You can’t walk.No onewalks in court dress, from court.”
She flashed herIs that a dare?look and reached for the carriage handle.
The carriage, which had stopped for the hundredth time, lurched into motion as she was leaving her seat and leaning toward the door. She lost her balance and fell on the floor in a heap of hoops and waves of satin and lace and net, her plumes tumbling forward.
She reached up for the door handle. He grabbed her hand.
“Let go of me!” she said. “Let me go.”
“Don’t be an idiot.”
She tried to pull free.
“Stop it,” he said. “If you open the door you’ll fall out onto your head.”
“I don’t care!”
“Zoe.”
She was trying to pull away, still.
He kept his grip on her hand and got his other arm under her shoulder and hauled her up.
She struggled all the way, squirming, feathers flying and diamonds flashing.
