Which left only one course: “Nicholas, will you teach me what pleases you?”

* * *

Nick could not form an answer, for his mind was whirling, robbing him of coherence.

Why, why in the name of sweet, squalling baby Jesus, did his wife have to be the first woman to ask him how she might please him?

Women who were intimate with Nick were safe with him; they could take and take and take to their hearts’ content, and that was how he wanted it. He’d learned, to his eternal heartache, that when he took, misery followed.

So he gave generously and skillfully, and got his pleasure that way.

He wanted to give to Leah—had planned on years of that very martyrdom—and here, she wanted to give as well.

For the first time, he experienced the subtle rejection of the pleasured by the pleasurer who would not yield to her own desires. She sought to make love to him, not with him, and the distinction made his heart shrink even as his cock began to stir.

And between bewilderment and arousal, Nick felt fear licking through his veins.

He wasn’t going to be able to keep his distance from her, to offer her pleasure and companionship and the kind of fondness he offered most any woman who sought it. She was going to wind herself around his body, and around his heart, and he’d be reduced to begging, breaking a promise he’d made to himself on Leonie’s behalf, and regretting and regretting and regretting.

God help him, if he wasn’t careful he’d be falling in love with his own wife.

“Nicholas?” Leah peered up at him, concern in her pretty brown eyes. “Are you all right?”

“I will be fine, though tonight would serve us both best if we used it to get some rest,” he said, his voice sharper than he intended.

Leah peered at him briefly then stepped away. “If you say so. The day has been long.”

Before the hurt in her gaze had him howling on his knees for forgiveness, Nick turned and ducked into the adjoining dressing room.

“Here.” He held out a robe, a deep blue velvet, the smallest he had, but it still pooled on the floor at Leah’s feet, leaving inches of hem trailing on the ground. Leah shrugged into the robe, regarding him with puzzlement.

“Thank you.” She belted the robe as best she could. “Shall we to bed?”

He would rather have crawled over hot coals. “A capital notion.” And worse than hot coals was the uncertainty he’d put in his wife’s eyes. “The footmen will deal with the tub tomorrow.”

“A cricket pitch of a bed,” Leah remarked, eyeing the vast, dark, canopied wonder where Nick slept. “Do you prefer one side or the other?”

“I sleep in the middle. But we’re both probably so tired we won’t know we’re sharing. And tomorrow night, your things will no doubt have arrived in your chambers.”

“So we are not to share a bed regularly?” Her tone was perfectly casual; Nick wasn’t deceived for a moment.

“Our bedrooms adjoin,” Nick said, moving around the room to blow out candles. “I will be happy to accommodate you when you desire it, Leah.”

“I see.” Leah’s voice radiated with suppressed hurt, but Nick steeled himself against it and turned in the dim light to face her.

He was going to burn in hell for this day’s work. Slowly, while every neglected wife in the realm jabbed at his parts with a hot, rusty pitchfork. “Shall I pleasure you now, Wife?” he asked softly.

“I think not. Fatigue is catching up to me.”

“As you wish.” Nick took a candelabrum down from the mantel and blew out the last of the lit candles. He cursed himself for hurting his new wife, cursed her for being so damned desirable and good and lovely and married to him. He cursed marriage as an institution and the Creator for making conception so pleasurable for the child’s father, and he cursed himself again, because he hadn’t seen this disaster looming.

Val’s words came back to Nick as he eased the robe from Leah’s shoulders then accepted her chemise when she pulled it over her head. She paused for a moment, naked beside his bed, illuminated only by firelight.

“In you go,” Nick said. “I could lend you a shirt, but it would likely strangle you.” He did not dare pat her bottom, lest he then tackle her and doom them to further miseries.

Leah climbed on the bed, and Nick tried to recapture the admonition Val had left him with—something about Nick’s heart breaking when he disappointed Leah.

“You don’t sleep in anything?” Leah asked as Nick moved around to the other side of the bed.

“Typically, no,” Nick said, unbelting his robe. His cock was still more than middling interested in the woman sharing his bed, and so Nick mentally cursed his simpleminded organ for good measure too. “One of the characteristics of great size is an ability to conserve heat, so I’m more comfortable without yards of nightshirt around me.”

“Well, then.” Leah let out a soft, gusty, unhappy sigh. “Good night, Husband. Thank you for marrying me and keeping me safe from my father.”

She sounded so forlorn, Nick’s chest began to hurt.

Damn it, damn it, damn it…

“Good night, Wife. Thank you for marrying me and allowing me to keep my promise to my father.”

And thank you, he silently went on, for even asking what pleases me. He shifted on the bed, and with one more hearty curse directed at his whole, stupid life, Nick linked his fingers through Leah’s and gently squeezed.

He fell asleep like that, cock throbbing, heart aching, fingers entwined with the hand of the wife he would protect with his life, but whose body he would never fully know.

* * *

Only slightly comforted by the feel of Nick’s fingers closed around her own, Leah struggled with her thoughts long after her husband had drifted off. What had she said; what had she done? Something had put Nick off, had shifted his mood from playful and intent on marital intimacies of some kind, to remote, edgy, and out of sorts.

At least Nick didn’t intend to torment her by sleeping beside her each night. No doubt, this initial night of sharing a bed was for the sake of appearances, to further ensure their marriage was unassailably valid.

Leah eased her fingers from Nick’s. This marriage was going to be long and lonely, probably for them both. She’d be safe from Wilton, at least. But his pure, unrelenting malevolence was a simple source of pain compared to the complication that was Leah’s marriage.

Morning arrived with sunlight bursting through the bed curtains and a pervasive sense of warmth flooding Leah’s awareness. Nick’s scent enveloped her, bringing with it associations of safety, affection, and… frustration. Opening her eyes, Leah eyed the room in which she’d spent the night. The world’s largest tub in the middle of the room was the only jarring note in an otherwise elegant and luxuriously appointed bedchamber.

Nick’s scent, Nick’s house… Nick’s bride.

“You’re awake.” Nick’s voice rumbled from behind her, and Leah realized she was wrapped in his arms, tucked on her side against his chest. His lips grazed her neck, and then she felt those arms withdraw. “I’ve been down to the kitchen.” Nick’s bulk shifted as he bounced over to the far side of the bed. “Our breakfast is being brought up. This is the smallest shirt I could find.” He passed her a linen shirt that could have fit four of Leah inside it, and lifted his velvet dressing gown from the foot of the bed.

“One doesn’t want to scandalize the help,” Nick said, shrugging into his dressing gown while he presented Leah with a fine view of his muscular backside. “Do you need help with that shirt?”

“I’m fine,” Leah reported just as her head emerged from the shirt. “But if for any reason I can’t locate my arms, please notify them that a search has been started.”

Nick smiled and tugged the shirt down. “Arms in sight, and all is well.”

Their eyes met, and Nick’s unfortunate word choice reverberated in the silence.

He sat back. “About last night?”

“What about last night?” She tied the shirt closed at her throat, but it still dipped below her collarbone.

“I have a very clear idea how I do not want to go on with you,” Nick said slowly. “But that doesn’t tell me much about how we should go on, or what you’ll need to be happy as my wife.”

I need you. Leah wondered where that ridiculous sentiment could have come from. Nick was providing her safety in exchange for an untroublesome, virtually white marriage. They could be friends, eventually, if she were very determined and Nick amenable.

“What is it that you don’t want?” Leah asked, but Nick’s answer was preempted by the arrival of breakfast and a parade of footmen intent on draining and then removing the great round tub.

“Gentlemen.” Nick raised his voice slightly. “If you could wait until my wife and I have absented ourselves from the chamber?”

“Very good, my lord.” The head footman bowed and waved the other three away.

“They all wanted a peek at you,” Nick groused when the room was once again devoid of servants. “Let me prepare you a plate. There’s more food here than Napoleon needed to reach Moscow.”

“As much as all that?” Leah gathered the shirt up and craned her neck to see the tea cart Nick had wheeled to his side of the bed. Luscious, bacony, toasty breakfast scents assaulted her nose, and her stomach reminded her audibly that she hadn’t eaten much on her wedding day.

“Eggs and toast,” Nick said, “bacon, ham, scones, butter, jam, fresh oranges, forced strawberries, kippers, sweet rolls, muffins, and what’s this? A pot of chocolate for my lady, and perhaps for my lord, if she’s willing to share. What can I get for you?”