“Your marriage began…problematically.”
“As in she entered my office, pilfered confidential information from our clients, and I then publicly ruined her to force her hand in marriage?”
“Yes.” Argyll seized on the answer with more relief than he cared to admit. So this…thisdisasterof a wedding night was not entirely unprecedented. Quite normal even.
That did nothing to ease the discomfort of his next question.
He tugged at his cravat. “Given all of that, your wedding night. That is to say, the night you married her.”
“Technically, I married her during the day. And at night—”
Argyll latched on. “Came the wedding night.”
“No.”
Relief struck with startling force.
“It did not?” Argyll asked, barely failing to keep the eagerness from his voice. If it’d happened to a fellow like—
DuMond frowned. “No, as in, I am not discussing my wedding night with you, Argyll.”
“I am not looking for details,” Argyll said, surging forward.
DuMond cleared his throat.
Argyll followed his gaze—down.
Only then did he realize he had seized his friend by the front of his lapels. Heat flooded his collar. He released him at once.
“No need for particulars,” Argyll said curtly. “I merely require confirmation that consummation does not necessarily occur on the wedding night.”
“Two days.”
Relief nearly bowled him over. It’d been but a day in Argyll’s case. He still had an entire morning and afternoon to seduce her before he had a story like DuMond’s to tell.
Or as the case would have it—never tell.
Argyll took a more measured drink. “Virgins,” he muttered under his breath. “They are…tricky.”
Here they were, men of the world, seasoned rakes with innumerable conquests, and yet the innocent women they had taken to wife proved curiously impervious to their charms.
“In what way?” DuMond’s hesitant question snapped Argyll’s eyes open.
Argyll fixed him with a pointed look. Then he nodded.
DuMond’s lashes swept low.
Argyll nodded again.
Confusion lingered stubbornly on the other man’s face.
“You know,” Argyll said carefully, “we need not venture into particulars regarding our wives.”
DuMond’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again. “What, precisely, is it you expect me to know?”
So much for friendship. He would make him say it.
“That they are not necessarily…agreeable to the whole consummation business.”
