The sooner the better?"

Oh, goodness! "Yes," she said, and then she cleared her throat and spoke more firmly. "Oh, Duncan, this is very ridiculous. I am /embarrassed/. I am thirty years old and embarrassed. We ought to have gone upstairs as soon as everyone left. By now it would all be over." The laughter in his eyes, far from fading, actually deepened. He turned his head to plant a kiss on her palm before releasing her hand. /"All over?"/ he said. "As /in forever and ever, amen/?" "And now I feel stupid as well as embarrassed," she said, "and I do not like the feeling one bit. I am going to bed whether you are ready or not." She got firmly to her feet and shook out the folds of her wedding dress. "Maggie," he said, getting up to stand before her. He took both her hands in his and set them against his chest, palm in. "You were not ready when our families left. Neither of us was, actually. We needed some wine and some conversation. We have had both, and now I believe it is time for sex." Oh, she /wished/ he would not use that word. Did he not know that it was not an everyday part of a lady's vocabulary? She could feel her cheeks grow hot. Her inner thighs were aching, and something was pulsing deep inside her.

And it was all the fault of /that word/. "Yes," she said coolly. "Yes, it is." And she lifted her face and kissed him on the lips. Open-mouthed and none too swiftly. She darted the tip of her tongue across his lips.

The pulsing became a throbbing. "Come, then," he said, and he offered her his arm.

It seemed strange – oh, very strange indeed – to walk upstairs with him, to stop outside her private apartment and have him open the door into her dressing room – her inner sanctum, her private world. No longer private, though. There would /be/ no private space for her ever again. Even her body would no longer be her private sanctuary.

Her wedding day had turned into her wedding night. "I shall return in fifteen minutes," he said, stepping back to allow her to enter the room and then closing the door behind her.

Stephen had given him the use of a guest dressing room. His bags had been taken there earlier.

Her apartment already seemed different, Margaret thought as she undressed and her maid unpinned her hair and brushed it out – though nothing in it had changed. There were, of course, her trunks and bags, almost completely packed and standing against the far wall.

This was the last night Merton House would be her home. Yet even tonight her rooms were not her own.

She was waiting for her bridegroom.

For the consummation of their marriage.

For /sex/, to use his disturbingly graphic word.

She dismissed her maid with a few of her fifteen minutes left and went into her bedchamber. Two candles burned on the side tables. The curtains had been drawn across the window – usually she left them open. The bedcovers had been turned back – on both sides.

Margaret clasped both hands about one of the bedposts at the foot of the bed and rested a cheek against it.

She was a married lady. She was Margaret Pennethorne, Countess of Sheringford. It was quite irrevocable now.

This one day, which had seemed quite wonderful as she lived through it, had changed her life for all time.

Oh, /let/ her have done the right thing.

There was a light tap on the bedchamber door and it opened.

18

/A WONDERFUL day/! /Had/ it been?

It had certainly had its high points, Duncan conceded. If it had not restored him to complete favor with the /ton/, at least it had allowed him back into the fold. No one could attend his wedding today and then refuse to receive him tomorrow, after all.

It had certainly delighted his mother. He could not remember seeing her as genuinely happy as she had been today. It had restored the belief he had taken for granted as a boy, before his father died, that she loved him totally and unconditionally. Perhaps he had been right then and wrong more recently to think her merely vain and shallow.

And today had brought his grandfather out of Claverbrook House. He had looked quite his old self too – older, it was true, and just as fierce as he had ever been, but with that indefinable look in his eyes that was almost, but not quite, a twinkle. He had never used to be a recluse.

Duncan wondered suddenly if his running off with Laura and abandoning Caroline had had anything to do with making him into a hermit. Perhaps he had done more than disappoint his grandfather on that occasion – perhaps he had crushed his spirit. Perhaps his grandfather loved him after all.

Perhaps tomorrow morning, his grandfather's birthday, he should tell him at least as much about that elopement as he had told Maggie. Perhaps he should tell his mother too. A promise made to Laura was one thing. His family – and their bruised love for him – was another. /Make sure you cherish her/, his grandfather had said when he was leaving. /… cherish …/ And that brought him back to the original thought – /a wonderful day/. He had not married her in order to cherish her. And of course he felt guilty about that even though he had been almost completely frank with her about his motives. What he had /not/ told her – what he had deliberately withheld – did not really matter.

Even so, he felt guilty, for there /was/ more to tell. And she was his wife. /I wanted the whole world to look at me and rejoice with me/.

Those words had given him a nasty jolt.

And now he was jolted again when Smith cleared his throat. "Do you want a nightshirt, then, m'lord?" he asked. "Or just your dressing gown?" Duncan gave him a hard look. He supposed he possessed a nightshirt or Smith would not have offered it. But when had his valet ever known him to wear one? "The dressing gown," he said. "The new one, m'lord?" Smith asked. "Of course the new one," Duncan said, getting to his feet and checking his jawline to make sure his face was smooth – not that Smith ever left any stubble behind when he shaved him. "Do you think I bought it just to sit in a wardrobe until the moths get at it?" He was feeling irritable, he realized as he pushed his arms into the sleeves and then slipped out of his breeches and drawers. Irritable and lusty. Irritable /because/ he was lusty. It did not seem right somehow.

One ought to feel more than just lust for one's bride. /Did/ he? He searched hopefully in his mind for some tender feelings and discovered with something bordering on relief that indeed there was /something/ there. He had grown to rather like her as well as admire her. He could perhaps grow fond of her if he tried – and try he must and would.

If the truth were told, he had felt something like a lump in his throat when she had spoken those words earlier – /I wanted the whole world to look at me and rejoice with me/. He had wanted to gather her up into his arms – rather as he always did whenever Toby, during his insecure moments between play and mayhem, tugged at his breeches and asked him if he really, /really/ loved him. "I'll see you in the morning," he told his valet, his voice abrupt and still sounding irritable as he left the dressing room and made his way back along the corridor to Maggie's bedchamber.

He was certainly feeling lusty. Guilt had not affected him there. She was delicious even when she did not taste of wine. But when she did – as she had in the drawing room a short while ago – she was quite intoxicating. He did not suppose she realized how close she had come to being tumbled on the drawing room carpet when /she/ had kissed /him/ and traced the seam of his lips with her tongue.

He had not been expecting it. He had always found her rather inhibited, even prudish, sexually. The typical and perfect lady, in fact. But she had kissed him downstairs, and it had been a definite invitation.

Dash it all, he hoped she would not live to regret this marriage.

He was going to have to see to it that she did not, was he not? He owed her that much. And even apart from that, he could not really contemplate a marriage that he made no effort at all to make into a decent one. He had not wanted to marry, it was true, but he had done it and now he must live accordingly.

He was still feeling that curious mingling of irritability and lust as he tapped on her door and let himself in – it would be mildly absurd, he thought, to wait for her to answer his knock.

She was standing at the foot of the bed, hugging the bedpost. She was wearing a white nightgown, which shimmered in the light from two candles and looked somehow more gorgeous than the most elaborate of ball gowns.

And – oh, Lord! – her hair was loose down her back, and it reached almost to her bottom. It was dark and thick and shining. And that gorgeous nightgown, though perfectly decent, did absolutely nothing to hide her even more gorgeous curves.

He fought the advent of an early arousal. "The canopy will not stay up without your assistance?" he asked.

She gazed blankly at him for a moment, looked at the bedpost to which she clung, glanced up at the canopy over the bed, and smiled as she dropped her arms to her sides. Then she laughed and looked more vibrantly beautiful than ever. "I daresay it will," she said. "Perhaps it was I who could not stay upright without the bedpost's assistance. I /did/ drink that glass of wine." "I thought," he said, "that perhaps you would be fast asleep from its effects." "Oh." She laughed again. "No." "I am delighted," he said. "Are you?" He was delighted that she was awake so that he could bed her, though he had not really expected she would be asleep. Was he also delighted to be here with his wife? With the woman who would be his companion for the rest of their lives? Was he delighted that tomorrow morning, his lust sated, he would not simply walk away from her and forget her but would take her with him to Woodbine and into the future?