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“I would never despise you,” Miles said, clearly irritated. “We should join our guests. Did you dress like the pillar of salt in a reference to Mrs. Lot’s rebellion?”

She swallowed hard. Apparently the subject was closed. She felt a jolt of pure terror. This marriage threatened to break her, break her heart and her spirit. She tried to summon up a witticism. “Would you sulk if I had cast you in the role of Lot?”

“I’m more likely to run back to the city limits.” One of his hands settled on the small of her back as he steered her through the chapel.

“No more depravity for you,” she reminded him. If he left her and came back smelling of another woman’s perfume? That would break her. She could not become her mother.

He stopped and looked down at her. Daisy felt a little wobble in her knees at his expression. “No public depravity,” he confirmed. “But in our bedchamber?”

Just the sight of his lips was like running silk over her body. All of her body. When his lips landed on hers, she gasped. His tongue met hers, licked her delicately, withdrew.

Her heart stuttered. “That wasn’t a real kiss.”

Miles let out a crack of laughter. “Are real kisses required by new wives?” he asked.

Daisy didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely.”

A proper kiss, a drugging, deliriously sensual kiss, followed. Daisy’s body turned molten with desire. Her fingers curled against the column of his neck, feeling the muscled power there.

How could a mere neck be so seductive? Her mind blurred as Miles drew back and nipped her bottom lip with his teeth. Instead of pushing him away, as any gently bred young lady would do, she pulled him closer. Satin panels crushed as he moved to stand so close to her that their bodies touched.

“Oh,” Daisy squeaked.

“Mmmm,” her husband said. One of his hands curled around her bottom. “Your arse is a thing of beauty, Daisy. Did you know that? I wanted to marry you the moment this gown fell off. In fact, there’s a satisfying symmetry in your wearing it this morning.”

He began kissing her again, his tongue flicking around her mouth. Daisy’s hands slid down to his sleeves, hanging on, her entire being focused on his kiss.

“I look forward to consummating our marriage, but we must wait until evening,” Miles said. His eyes were hot as he rocked his hips forward again.

“Wait until—” Daisy lost track of the thought because that hand on her bottom was caressing her improperly, and it felt so good.

“Tonight,” Miles said firmly, stepping backward.

Daisy looked at him, dazed.

“Perhaps I shall tear that gown off you, if only for nostalgia’s sake.”

Her eyes followed the movement of his hands at the front of his breeches. He rearranged himself with brutal casualness.

“I don’t even have to worry about you enjoying yourself,” he said with a distinct edge of anticipation. “I can tell that you know how to take your own pleasure.

“No,” Daisy said breathlessly.

“No, you don’t know how to take your pleasure?”

“Are you asking whether I have had an orgasm?” she asked.

“I take it that that sensation is not new to you,” Miles said dryly.

Dairy felt her face turn even redder. “We mustn’t have such an inappropriate conversation in a chapel.” She began to shake out the satin panels of her gown, but they were hopelessly crumpled, hanging around her hips like the curled petals of a dying flower.

Embarrassingly, Miles was as elegant as when he’d first sauntered into the room with that ridiculous excuse about changing his cravat.

Other than the tent in the front of his breeches. That wasn’t quite so elegant.

He bent to sweep up a few hairpins, handing them to her. “Frederick showed up at my place and offered to stand in as groom, by the way.”

“When you didn’t arrive on time, he proposed to me,” Daisy began poking the pins into her chignon at random, hoping most of her hair would stay aloft. “You couldn’t think of a better excuse than a cravat, Miles?”