Marchmont stood over the servants, giving orders, moving a dish a fraction of an inch this way and another that way. She watched him for a moment and remembered what Priscilla had told her: that Marchmont bothered about nothing and nobody.
But he’d bothered this time. He’d thought about this and planned it and decided what it ought to be.
For her.
She looked down at the great diamond on her hand, the wedding ring nestled alongside, and a lump formed in her throat.
Oh, heaven, he truly could be sweet, like the Lucien she’d known long ago. How was her heart to withstand such sweetness? And if he captured her heart, how would she bear it when he grew bored with her?
Never mind. She’d survive somehow. She always survived.
And that day was sometime in the future.
Now he wasn’t bored.
And for now, she knew how to make sure he stayed not bored.
At last everything seemed to be in order. Marchmont knew he couldn’t fault Cook, for the man had done exactly what he was told to do. If it all added up to too much or too little, the duke had no one to blame but himself.
He waved the parade of footmen out of the room and waited until they closed the door behind them. He poured the champagne, took up the glasses, and turned toward the center of the room, where he’d last seen Zoe, slowly going round and round, taking it all in.
He had no idea whether she approved or not. He tried to tell himself he didn’t care. She had her own rooms, which she could furnish as she pleased.
Yet he couldn’t help wondering whether she found his bedroom old-fashioned and cluttered, with its odd assortment of furniture from various generations. Some of the pieces came from other houses, and had belonged to the earliest holders of the title. Other pieces had been his grandparents’ and parents’ purchases, and a few, his own.
She wasn’t there.
“Zoe?”
No answer.
He set the glasses down on the table. He looked toward the door that led to her bedroom. She couldn’t possibly have…
Then he heard it, a faint rustling from behind the Chinese screen.
He’d had one of the nightstands containing a chamber pot moved behind the screen. She must have found it while he was busy with the footmen. For his bachelorhood, it had stood in the open, near his bed. But now he was married, and he knew that women tended to be more circumspect about such things than men.
He turned away and began to whistle.
He heard a giggle.
He turned toward the sound.
She stepped out from behind the screen.
She was wearing a smile. And the great diamond ring. And a great deal less clothing than she’d been wearing when she first entered his bedroom.
Then she’d worn a lace-trimmed nightdress under an embroidered, lace-trimmed wrapper of fine muslin.
Now she wore only the wrapper.
He couldn’t see through it. While fine, the muslin was not transparent, and she was not standing in front of the fire. Where she stood, firelight and candlelight and shadows danced on the pink and green and gold embroidery, making the garment a shimmering veil.
The shadows and shimmer outlined the curves of her body, not fully revealing but calling attention to every alluring undulation.
He swallowed hard.
She began to sing. Her voice was low, barely above a whisper, and the melody was in a strange minor key. He felt it, like a touch, skimming over his skin. He couldn’t have understood the words even if she’d sung louder, but his body understood the message and every fiber of it came fiercely alive.
