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“Easily solved,” he said, rising and walking across the room to a small table positioned before the window. He tossed the lace doily on a chair and carried the table to her, placing it next to her armchair.

Her smile made Silvester feel distinctly giddy. He poured out wine and gave her a glass before taking a huge gulp from his own.

He was figuring out how to bring up the fact that he was on the verge of leaping on her like a frenzied satyr, when she asked, “Have you made love to many women?”

He had thought brides felt fear. Panic. Stella was peering at him through her spectacles with a curious expression.

“A few.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Not many.” He took another hearty swallow of wine. “No virgins, before you ask again. My mother was characteristically forthright about her opinion of men who ‘deflower’ women without marrying them. She not only made her opinion clear: she dragged me and my sisters through an orphanage, once we were old enough to understand what we were seeing.”

“How many women is ‘not many’?”

“Seven.”

“That seems like a great many lovers to me. Do most gentlemen rack up larger numbers than that?”

“I’ve heard men boast of one hundred or more.”

Her brows knit. “At what age does a man become active, so to speak? How many mistresses could one support in a given year?”

“One might visit brothels for an hour or a night,” Silvester explained. “Brothels in which one pays for the privilege of a night’s encounter.”

“I forgot about that,” Stella said, rather surprisingly.

“I would have thought that Mrs. Thyme would keep knowledge of such establishments far from her innocent charge’s ears,” Silvester said, pouring Stella a little more wine. He felt like a horse straining at the opening gate, longing to scoop her up and pin her to the bed.

“I read about them,” Stella explained.

That was interesting. “What have you been reading?”

“Have you read anything by Thomas Nashe?”

Silvester had never heard of him.

“We have a great many books in the library at home that are bound in vellum and leather, not plain cloth. My aunt has always made the mistake of judging a book by its cover.” Her eyes ranged over him, a smile curling her lips. “As do so many.”

Silvester’s heart was thudding in his chest. “I would guess that Mrs. Thyme believes that a book describing a brothel would be bound in cloth?”

“If not cardboard,” she said, nodding. “Aunt has formed the inaccurate belief that tawdry creative works are always clad in cardboard. Miss Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, for example, appeared in paper-covered board with a paper spine.”

“I am fairly certain that Miss Austen does not portray a brothel. My mother proclaims that she has no time for fiction, but she makes an exception for Miss Austen. Based on scenes she has read aloud at the dinner table, the stories are irreproachable.”

“Not so,” Stella said, her eyes sparkling at him. “In Pride and Prejudice, for example, the heroine’s sister lamentably runs away with a man—whom she doesn’t immediately marry. Learning of that detail led my aunt to ban clothbound books from the house.”

Silvester nodded, eyeing his new bride. Stella wore an expression of innocent virtue that he entirely mistrusted. Those eyes hid sauciness. Audacity. Mrs. Thyme hadn’t had a chance of stopping Stella from reading whatever she wished.

“I find it hard to believe that you have not read Pride and Prejudice, given your knowledge of the plot.”

“Luckily for me, it was re-published a few years ago in three volumes bound in calf leather with gilt titles on the spine,” Stella told him. “The set has a positively Shakespearean air.”

“Let’s return to Thomas Nashe,” Silvester said.

“You haven’t read The Choise of Valentines?”

“No, I have not. The title seems innocuous.”