AFTERWARD I DARE NOT HOLD her for too long. Two minutes sprawled atop her, my hand caressing her side, and I force myself to pull away. I dress and untie her from the headboard. The blindfold I leave on for her to remove at her leisure: I do not want her to see me as I am—a man utterly ruined by having at last made love to her.
“Thank you for an excellent and memorable wedding night,” I say, my tone light and sardonic, as if my heart has not been pulled halfway out of my chest. “I wish you a good night and the most pleasant of dreams.”
She is silent, her breasts rising and falling agitatedly. Then she turns her back to me, pulls off the blindfold, and tosses it to the floor. A defiant gesture, but in that enormous bed she looks both lonely and defenseless.
I leave before I let slip that I feel exactly the same way.
Chapter Two
I OPEN THE CONNECTING DOOR between our rooms the next morning just as the sun rises. Her room is dark and gloomy, the shutters closed, the curtains drawn, everything swathed in shadows. I barely discern her outline beneath the rumpled beddings, her person still turned away from me. Approaching the bed slowly, I find her sound asleep, her breaths slow and even.
I have often imagined being married to her, provided she not only acquires the superhuman ability to peer directly into the innermost citadels of my heart, but also—miracle of miracles—adores what she sees. Invariably, in those reveries of mine, the two of us would be affectionately intertwined the morning after, slumbering in each other’s arms after a night of vigorous lovemaking.
I never thought I would still be separated from her by the same old chasm of all the stupid things I’ve ever done in order to keep my hopes secret and my pride intact.
I should incite her body to betray her again. I can almost see myself climbing into bed and holding her from behind. I can almost feel her long, lithe person fitted to mine, her skin soft as silk. And I can almost hear her sleepy moans as my hand closes around one firm breast, gently teasing her nipple into a sharp point. My cock leaps at the thought.
But I do not move an inch closer to the bed. Unless I am very much mistaken, she has had a long, restless night, haunted by the prospect of a lifetime with a man who, by all appearances, considers her a plaything. And perhaps she is even more haunted by the pleasures she derived from the touch of this husband for whom she feels nothing but scorn.
I leave and let her sleep.
SHE DOES NOT COME DOWN for breakfast, but at midmorning requests a tray in her room. I keep glancing at the clock. Minutes pass. Then a half hour. Then another half hour. She is not a woman who devotes herself to her toilette. The current standard may be five changes a day among ladies of our class, but she has often been one to dress simply in a shirtwaist, a jacket, and a skirt.
What is taking her so long? Does she plan to remain in her rooms all day?
I wait another few minutes; then, swearing under my breath, I leave my study, climb up the stairs—and find her in the bath, up to her neck in hot water.
The tub is enormous, almost capacious enough to berth a frigate. Upon the steaming surface of the water bobs an armada of flowers: lavender, chamomile, pink rosebuds, interspersed with bright green peppermint leaves. My bride sits with her arms stretched along the rims of the tub, her hair in a loose knot on top of her head, the rest of her neatly obscured by the floating garden.
At the sound of my footsteps she opens her eyes, the lashes of which have clumped into spikes in the hot mist of the bath. “Lo and behold, my lord and master. Here to drag me back into bed?”
Her tone is arch, but beneath that sophisticated defiance, I hear something else. Anxiety, perhaps. Or possibly even the beginning of panic. That I can pleasure her at will is a shocking new reality to her, one for which she has not yet devised a counterstrategy.
“Of course,” I answer. “Why have a wife if I am not using her hourly?”
I cannot admit that I already miss her—there has been a constant dull pain in my chest since I woke up this morning.
I lift her hand. Her fingers are long and pliant, her wrist slender. There are no freckles on her face but a smattering on her forearm. From the water I pluck a rose petal and set it in the crook of her elbow. Her skin is as soft as the petal—or is it the other way around? “Pretty,” I murmur. “So very pretty.”
My fingers trail up her arm to the hollow of her collarbone. Her flesh is hot from the heat of the bath, but her gaze—straight ahead—remains cool and blank. It would seem she has decided to ignore me harder. The ache in my chest turns into a bright pain. How do I get through? How do I make my case?