I am not at all lovely or sophisticated or - " "Has no one ever called you lovely?" he asked her before she could think of another derogatory word to apply to herself.

She was silent for a moment. "You," she said, "at the Valentine's ball." She laughed. "And then you added that every /other /lady was lovely too, without exception." "Do you love springtime?" he asked her. "Do you think it loads the world with a beauty not found in any other season?" "Yes," she said. "It is my favorite season." "I called you a piece of springtime this evening," he said. "I meant it." "Oh." She sighed. "How lovely. But you /have /to say such things to me.

You are my husband." "You are determined to see yourself as ugly, then?" he said. "Has anyone ever called you that, Vanessa?" She thought again. "No," she said. "No one in my world would have been so cruel. But my father used to tell me that he ought to have called me Jane since I was his own plain Jane. He said it with affection, though." "With all due respect to the late Reverend Huxtable," he said, "I do believe he ought to have been hanged, drawn, and quartered." "Oh, Elliott." Her eyes widened. "What a dreadful thing to say." "If I were still unmarried," he said, "and had to make a choice among you and your sisters based upon looks alone, I would choose you." Her eyes filled with laughter again, and her lips curved into a smile. "You are my gallant knight," she said. "Thank you, sir." "I am not a simple mix of coldness and irritability, then?" he asked her.

The laughter held. "Like all humans," she said, "you are a dizzying mix of things and you ought to take no notice of me when I say you are all one thing or even all of two or three things. I daresay you are thousands of things and I will discover hundreds of them during our marriage. But not all. We can never know another person completely." "Can we know even ourselves?" he asked. "No," she said. "We can always take even ourselves by surprise. But would life not be dull if we were all unfailingly predictable? How would we ever continue to learn and grow and adapt to new conditions of our life?" "Are we talking philosophy again?" he asked her. "If you ask questions," she said, "you must expect me to answer them." "You know how to change me for the better," he said. "Do I?" She looked uncomprehendingly at him. /"I will think of ways. I am endlessly inventive." /He quoted the words to her, just as she had spoken them at the theater earlier. "Oh." She laughed. "I really did say those things, did I not?" "While you were lying here just now," he said, "not sleeping but resting your eyes, were you /thinking/? Were you being /inventive/?" She laughed softly. "If you were not," he said, "I believe I am doomed to be cold and irritable for the rest of the night. I shall lie here and see if I can sleep." He closed his eyes.

He heard her laugh softly once more, and then there was silence - until he felt the mattress sway and he heard the unmistakable rustlings of a nightgown being removed. She had worn it for the last several nights, just as he had worn his nightshirt.

He was instantly aroused. He lay still as if he slept.

After a while he felt her hand against his chest, her fingers circling and caressing, moving up to his shoulder, down to his navel.

But the use of one hand did not satisfy her. She lifted herself onto her knees beside him and leaned over him, using both hands to caress him and then her nails and her lips and breath and teeth.

He kept his eyes closed and concentrated upon keeping his breathing even. She was marvelously skilled after all.

She blew warm air into his ear before licking behind his earlobe and then drawing it into her mouth and sucking and pulsing her teeth about it.

Her hands circled his erection and circled until they touched him, featherlight, and stroked him and closed about him. The pad of her thumb rubbed lightly over the tip.

It took all the power of his will to lie still.

She was exquisite. She was pure magic.

And then she was straddling him, her thighs hugging his hips, her small breasts brushing against his chest, her fingers twining in his hair, her mouth kissing his eyes, his temples, his cheeks, until she reached his lips.

He opened his eyes for the first time.

Her own were shimmering with tears. "Elliott," she murmured, her tongue licking his lips and then sliding inside. "Elliott." He caught her by the hips then, found her entrance, and pulled her down hard onto him even as she pressed downward.

She cried out, a high, keening sound, and there followed a hot frenzy of thrusting and riding that took them both over the edge of passion before there was time to settle to any rhythm.

She was weeping openly, he realized when he had stopped throbbing and his heart had stopped thundering in his ears. She was sobbing against his shoulder, her knees still hugging his waist, her hands still buried in his hair.

At first he was alarmed, even angry. For of course she had made love to him - up to a point - as she must have made love to her first husband, whose desperate weakness had rendered him virtually unable to perform. She had taught herself all those marvelous skills for the benefit of a dying man whom she had loved.

Except that she had not been /in /love with him. She had not /desired /him. She had pleasured him because she loved him.

He was beginning to understand something of the fine distinctions of meaning.

How blessed it must be to be loved by Vanessa Wallace, Viscountess Lyngate.

His wife.

He did not grow angry. For he recognized the tears for what they surely were - happiness that all the work she had put into foreplay was rewarded by the pleasures of full intercourse both given and received. And if there was some grief mingled in for the husband who had not been able to enjoy the completion of what she had done for him, well it would be petty to take offense.

Hedley Dew, poor devil, was dead.

Elliott Wallace was not.

He hooked the sheet with one foot and pulled it up over them both. He dried her eyes with one corner of it. "Elliott," she said, "forgive me. Please forgive me. It is not what you think." "I know," he said. "You are… oh, you are so very gorgeous." /Gorgeous? /Well.

He lifted her head from his shoulder and held her face framed in both hands. She sniffed and laughed. "I look a dreadful fright," she said. "Vanessa," he said, "I want you to listen to me. And I insist that you believe me. I will make it a command, in fact, one you must obey. You are beautiful. You are never to doubt it ever again." "Oh, Elliott," she said, sniffing once more, "how very splendid of you.

But you really do not need to - " He set the pad of one thumb over her lips. "/Someone /needs to tell you the truth," he said, "and it might as well be your husband. You have been coy with your beauty. You have hidden it from all except those who take the time to bask in your smiles and look deeply into your eyes. Anyone who /does /take the time will soon uncover your secret. You are /beautiful/." Good Lord, where was all this coming from? He could not possibly /believe /it, could he?

Her eyes had filled with tears again. "You are a kind man," she said. "I would never have suspected it until this moment. You can be cold and you can be irritable and you can be kind. You /are /a complex man. I am so glad." "And gorgeous?" he said.

She laughed and hiccuped. "Yes, and that too." He drew her head down onto his shoulder again and then straightened her legs on either side of his. He caught at the blankets and covered them more warmly.

She heaved a sigh of apparent contentment. "I thought you were not coming tonight," she said. "I fell asleep worrying about tomorrow." Tomorrow? Ah, yes, her presentation to the queen. One of the most important days of her life. And then that infernal ball in the evening. "All will be well," he assured her. "And I thought you were just resting your eyes." "Mmm," she said. "I am /so /tired." She yawned out loud and was almost instantly asleep.

They were still joined.

She weighed almost nothing at all. But she was warm and smelled enticingly of soap and sex. /Beautiful?/ /Was /she beautiful?

He closed his eyes and tried to picture her as he had first seen her, standing with her friend at the Valentine's ball, dressed in a shapeless lavender gown. /Beautiful?/ But then he remembered that as soon as he had led her into the dance and the music began, she had smiled and glowed with happiness. And when he had made that sorry joke about /all /the ladies, as well as her, being dazzlingly lovely, she had thrown back her head and laughed, not at all chagrined that the compliment did not apply to her alone.

And now she lay naked and relaxed and asleep in his arms.

Beautiful?

Certainly there was /something /about her.

He followed her down into sleep.

Because she was a married lady and not simply a young girl making her debut into society, Vanessa was not compelled to wear white. It was a good thing too. She looked a positive fright unless there was /some /color in her clothing.

Her satin skirt, falling from her natural waistline and arranged over huge hoops, was a pale ice blue. So was her stomacher, though it shimmered with reflected light as it was heavily embroidered with silver thread. The lace petticoat worn over the bodice and skirt and pulled open to the sides to reveal the latter, was of a slightly darker blue, as were her long train and the lappets that fell behind her from the silver-embroidered band she wore about her head. Pale blue and silver plumes waved above her head. Her long silver gloves reached above her elbows. "Oh my," she said, looking at herself in the pier glass in her dressing room when her maid was finished with her, "I really am beautiful.