Tomorrow I am to be presented to the queen. Then I will be attending Cecily's come-out ball and introducing Meg and Kate to the /ton/. And then a thousand and one other such events. Am I frightened? Yes, of course I am. But am I going to do it all? Absolutely." He pursed his lips. "I think," he said, "we will not be going to Greece anytime soon." "No, of course we will not." She turned her head to smile dazzlingly at him. "For there /is /duty, and I know I must learn that this new life does not mean total and endless freedom. But we must not be oppressed by duty, Elliott. I think perhaps that is what you have allowed to happen since your father died. There can be joy even in a dutiful life." He wondered suddenly if that was a description of her first marriage.

Had she not really been happy, but had forced herself to be joyful? And if he was not careful, he was going to become as tortured by words as she was. What /was /the difference between happiness and joy? "And one of these days," she said, "when there is nothing urgent to keep you at home and Stephen is capable of looking after his own affairs, we will go to Greece and meet your family and have a second honey-moon. And if we have children by then, they will simply come with us." She had her head turned to look at him. She blushed suddenly, realizing perhaps what she had just said. Though why she needed to blush after almost two weeks of regular intimacies with him he did not know. "The carriage is stopping," she observed, looking out through the window beyond his head. "But we are not home yet." "We have arrived at Gunter's," he told her. "We are going to have an ice here." "An ice?" Her eyes widened. "I thought you might like refreshments after trudging about the museum looking at cold marble and breathing in old dust for a whole hour," he said. "Though you actually enjoyed it, did you not?" "An /ice,/" she said without answering his question. "I have never tasted one, you know. They are said to be absolutely divine." "Nectar of the gods?" he said as he handed her down to the pavement. "Perhaps. You may judge for yourself." It was easy to become jaded with the luxuries and privileges of one's life, Elliott thought over the following half hour while he watched his wife taste and then savor her ice. She ate it in small spoonfuls and held the ice in her mouth for several seconds before swallowing. For the first few mouthfuls she even closed her eyes. "Mmm," she said. "Could anything possibly be more delicious?" "I could probably think of a dozen things /as /delicious if I set my mind to it," he said. "But /more /delicious? No, I doubt it." "Oh, Elliot," she said, leaning toward him across the table, "has not this been a /lovely /morning? Was I not right? Is it not fun to do things together?" /Fun?/ But as he thought of the morning at White's as it might have been, he realized that he did not feel unduly deprived. He really had rather enjoyed the morning, in fact.

As they were leaving Gunter's, they ran into Lady Haughton and her young niece, who were being escorted inside by Lord Beaton.

Elliott bowed to the ladies and nodded at Beaton. "Oh, Lady Haughton," his wife said, "and Miss Flaxley. Are /you /coming to have ices too? We have been to the British Museum to look at the ancient sculptures there, and now we have been here. Is it not a /beautiful /day?" "Ah, Lady Lyngate," Lady Haughton said, smiling - something she did not often do. "It is indeed a lovely day. Have you met my nephew, Lord Beaton? Lady Lyngate, Cyril." Vanessa curtsied, smiling brightly at the young dandy. "I am very pleased to meet you," she said. "Have you met Viscount Lyngate, my husband?" She laughed. "But of course you must have." "The female population of London has just gone into collective mourning, Lyngate," Lady Haughton told him. "And you must expect many envious glances during the coming Season, my dear. You have stolen one of the most eligible bachelors from the marriage mart." Vanessa laughed. "My brother is in town too," she said, looking at Beaton. "He is the new Earl of Merton and is only seventeen years old. I am sure he would be delighted to make the acquaintance of a somewhat /older /young man, my lord." "I shall look forward to the pleasure, ma'am," he said, making her a bow and looking gratified. "Will you be attending the ball at Moreland House tomorrow evening?" Vanessa asked. "I will introduce him to you there, if I may. Are you /all /planning to attend?" "We would not miss it for the world," Lady Haughton said while Beaton bowed again. "/Everyone /who is anyone will be there, Lady Lyngate." "I can see," Elliott said a few minutes later, when they were inside the carriage and on the way home, "that you have made several acquaintances already." "Your mother has been taking me about with her," she said. "I have been trying to memorize names. It is not always easy, but fortunately I remembered Lady Haughton and Miss Flaxley." "It would seem," he said, "that you do not need me for company after all, then." She turned her head to look steadily at him. "Oh, but, Elliott," she said, "they are all just /acquaintances/. Even your mother and Cecily and Meg and Kate and Stephen are just /family/.

You are my /husband/. There is a difference. An enormous difference." "Because we go to bed together?" he asked her. "Oh, you foolish man," she said. "Yes, because of that. Because it is a symbol of the intimacy of our relationship. The total intimacy." "And yet," he reminded her, "you do not like me walking into your private apartments without knocking. You have insisted that you need some privacy, even from me." She sighed. "Yes, it is a seeming contradiction, is it not?" she said. "But the thing is, you see, that two people can never actually become one no matter how close they are. And it would not be desirable even if it were possible. What would happen when one of them died? It would leave the other as half a person, and that would be a dreadful thing. We must each be a whole person, and therefore we each need some privacy to be alone with ourselves and our own feelings. But a marriage relationship /is /an intimate thing for all that, and the intimacy ought to be cultivated.

For the relationship ought to be the best of all relationships. What a waste to live two almost totally separate lives when the chance is there for one of the greatest joys of life together." "You have obviously given a great deal of thought to this subject," he said. "I had much time for thought when - " She did not complete the sentence. "I have had much time for thought. I know what a happy marriage is." She turned her face away from him and gazed out the window. She spoke so softly that he could barely decipher the words. "And I know what a happier marriage could be." How had they got onto this subject? How did he get onto /any /subject with his wife?

One thing was becoming very clear to him. She was not going to allow him to settle into any comfortable sort of married life that might somehow resemble his bachelor existence.

She was going to force him to be happy, damn it all.

And joyful.

Whatever the devil difference there might be between the two.

Heaven help him. "Elliott," she said as the carriage drew up before the house. She set one gloved hand on his sleeve. "Thank you so very much for this morning - for the museum, for the ice. I have enjoyed myself more than I can say." He lifted her hand to his lips. "Thank /you,/" he said, "for coming." Her eyes twinkled with merriment. "This afternoon you may be free to do whatever you wish," she said. "I am going shopping with Meg and Kate. Cecily is coming too. I will /not /suggest that you accompany us. I will see you at dinner?" "You will," he said. He spoke impulsively. "Perhaps you would arrange to have it served early. You may like to go to the theater this evening.

Shakespeare's /Twelfth Night /is being performed at the Drury Lane.

Perhaps Merton and your sisters would care to join us in my private box there." "Oh, Elliott!" Her face lit up with such pleasure that he was dazzled for a moment. "I really cannot think of anything I would like more. And how /good /of you to invite my brother and sisters too." He was still holding her hand, he realized. And his coachman was standing beside the carriage door, holding it open. He had already put down the steps. He was staring straight ahead down the street, the suggestion of a smirk on his lips. "I shall be home in time for an early dinner, then," Elliott said after he had climbed down and held out a hand to help Vanessa descend.

Her smile was warm and happy.

And she did indeed look rather pretty in pink.

Just a couple of months ago an assembly at Throckbridge had seemed the pinnacle of excitement. Yet now, Vanessa thought as they all took their seats in Elliott's box, here they were, she and her brother and sisters, attending the performance of a Shakespeare play in the Theater Royal, Drury Lane, in London. And tomorrow there was to be her presentation to the queen and then a grand /ton /ball in the evening.

And this was all just the beginning.

Sometimes she /still /expected to wake up in her bed at Rundle Park.

The theater was filling with ladies and gentlemen who were dazzling in the splendor of their muslins and silks and satins and jewels. And she and her siblings actually belonged in such company. Vanessa was even sparkling along with everyone else. She was wearing the white gold chain with a multifaceted and indecently large diamond pendant that Elliott had brought home with him during the afternoon and clasped about her neck just before they left the house. The diamond was catching the light whichever way she turned. "Even without the play," Katherine said to Cecily, though her voice carried to all of them, "this would be a memorable evening of entertainment." "It would indeed," Cecily agreed fervently, fanning her face and gazing down into the pit.