“Would you mind terribly if I brought down the blankets and lit a candle?” asked Peter, giving voice to his true desires.
Lucy, ever a game girl, immediately lowered the bedclothes and then watched as he struck a match.
She was looking his way when the light illuminated her face and hair. Shocking, really, how he could finally see her after a few words in the dark.
“I never noticed,” he said, his voice full of wonder, “just how much your hair resembles gold.”
He reached tentative fingers for a curl that hadn’t made it into Lucy’s nighttime braid.
“My papa always said that his steam looms could turn it into cloth of gold,” she said shyly. “Fit for a king. Or a duke, I suppose.”
“How I’d love to drizzle such a treasure,” he whispered.
Lucy sat up in bed. Oh no, had his mention of drizzling ruined a tender moment? “So youdoenjoy the fiber arts?” she asked.
Peter regarded her in shock. He’d assumed she was a reader. Now it occurred to him that perhaps she enjoyed both things.
“Well, yes!” exclaimed Peter, his heart giving a little flip at the possibility that his bride might appreciate something about hishobby. Or at least not be bored by it. “Like Prince Leopold, I am an avid drizzler.”
Lucy slapped the blankets as if this were welcome news. “I didn’t know — you didn’t tell me!” she fairly shouted in excitement. “I spent hours in my youth drizzling!”
Peter paused. “Why did you stop?”
“Oh, my chaperone thought that reading might be a more suitable diversion for a debutante. She said drizzling has a…well, a rather dowdy reputation.”
“Ah,” said Peter, not surprised.
“But I’m glad to hear that my husband does not share her feelings,” she said, bouncing on the bed. “After all, how could it be unfashionable when Prince Leopold prefers it to all other pastimes?”
“That’s precisely it!” cried Peter, warming to the topic. “It’s a noble, nay, royal pastime brought to these shores by our French cousins! And a dashed good way to spend a day, if I say so myself.”
“Here, here,” said Lucy, sounding pleased.
“I could show you my collection,” he said tentatively. Despite the odds, he had something in common with his bride!
“I would love to see it.”
Peter made to rise from the bed, but Lucy put a hand on his chest. It was lovely to have her palm resting there, and he collapsed back against the pillows under her warm spell.
“But perhaps tomorrow? I was wondering if…tonight…”
“Yes, Lucy?”
“It’s just that we haven’t…”
“No, we haven’t,” he replied, understanding exactly what she meant. The blood suddenly coursing through his body felt like it had nothing to do with fear.
“And I wouldn’t want to importune—”
“Nor I you.”
“You are very kind,” she said. Were her cheeks rosy? It seemed unfair that she could get prettier when he was already facing something of a crisis below the sheets.
And then Lucy set a hand on the blankets just to the left of his throbbing cock. “I was wondering if you might be willing to consummate our marriage.”
Chapter 5
Lucy had grown tiredof waiting for her husband to visit her chambers. She’d always imagined that one of the chief benefits of marriage would be a way to — within the legal and moral confines of the day — test all of her book learning.
