“Go to sleep, Anne.” His voice was gruff in the darkness.
Did that mean they weren’t going to ... “I have displeased you.”
“No. You please me fine.” He let out a sound partway between a sigh and a growl. “But I’ve decided I can’t behave as the gentry does, not when it comes to marriage. We barely know each other, and if I were to take your maidenhead on only truly a few hours’ worth of acquaintance, then that makes me as cold and heartless as them.”
She was gentry, but was far too stunned by his declaration to take umbrage. “Are we to have a chaste marriage?”
His laugh was rueful. “God, no. But I think it’s for the best if we wait a little. Get to know each other more.”
“Oh.” Relief poured through her. Relief and ... disappointment. Mainly, however, she felt a great burden lift.
He settled deeper under the covers, and it felt very odd, sharing a bed with a man—the size of him, his weight upon the mattress. Several inches separated their bodies, but she felt his ambient heat. Caught the traces of his skin’s own scent.
If this weren’t so strange, she might enjoy sleeping beside him. Unless ... he didn’t want to share a bed at all. She began to slide out from beneath the bedclothes, but his hand stopped her once more.
“Where are you going?” he demanded.
“To my bedchamber.”
“This is your bedchamber.”
Even in the darkness, she blinked at him. “I don’t have my own bedroom?” Her parents slept apart. If her circle of friends was to be believed, all husbands and wives did.
“The idea that a husband and wife should sleep apart is ridiculous,” he rumbled. “That’s for aristos, not peasants like me.” He tugged on her wrist, and she had no choice but to edge back beneath the covers. “Whatever our arrangement for now, know this, Anne. You are my wife. I am your husband. We will always share a bed.”
Simple words, yet her heartbeat raced when she heard them. “As you like.”
He released his grip on her, and exhaled. “Don’t like it at all. Not now. But I will ... at some point. Now sleep.”
He continued to baffle her. Yet he was her husband, and according to the law and to the Church, that made him her master. “Good night, Leo.”
“Good night, Anne.”
He rolled over heavily. Within a few minutes, his breathing slowed and deepened. He slept.
Leaving her alone and awake, staring into the dark.
It didn’t surprise Anne to wake up alone. She had slept alone her whole life, and to stretch in bed and find the space beside her empty was no different than any other morning. Except, as she stretched, her arms wide, her fingers did not meet the edge of the bed. And the sheets smelled of tobacco and spice, not lavender.
This was not her bed. She suddenly remembered: she was married now. Married, but a virgin. Leo had touched her, and it had been both wonderful and terrible, until fear had overtaken her with humiliating ferocity. He’d been kind, and stopped. They had then spent the whole of the night together, chaste as schoolfellows. Now he was gone.
Her eyes opened to images of menacing flowers and vines tipped with thorns. The bed hangings. She pushed the fabric back to reveal the room. Someone had come in during the early hours to tend the fire, but now Anne was by herself. The drawn curtains kept the chamber dark, and it seemed that shadows congealed in the corners, trying to take shape.
She shook her head at her foolishness. Merely an adjustment to life in a new house.
The gilt bronze clock on the mantel showed the time to be well after nine. Not an unusual time for her to awaken, but perhaps Leo liked to rise earlier. He probably waited for her to join him for breakfast downstairs. Though their marriage had begun in a rather ... unconventional manner, she did not want him thinking her indolent and spoiled. He was a man of business, of industry. As his wife, she should be just as industrious.
Anne slid out of bed. As she padded toward the closet to make use of the close stool, the chill of the floor seeped into her feet and up her legs. Baffling, that. The fire should have taken the cold from the room.
After tending to her needs and washing up, she emerged from the closet and found the curtains pulled back and an apron-wearing girl waiting for her.
“Good morning, madam.” The girl bobbed a curtsy. She couldn’t have been more than a year younger than Anne. “I’m Meg, your maid.”
Anne had always shared a maid with her mother, as the family could not afford the expense of two, so to have one all to herself seemed a tremendous luxury. It seemed odd, though, that Meg had appeared without being summoned. Perhaps things ran differently in a household that never went into arrears and paid their servants on time.
“Has my clothing been unpacked?” Nearly all of her garments had come straight from the mantua maker, but some were hers from before.
“Yes, madam. Is there a particular gown you want?”
Anne realized she had no idea what constituted her new trousseau. Everything had been purchased so quickly, with hardly any consultation on her part. Still, she didn’t fancy the idea of the servants knowing that she’d come to their master nearly penniless.
“I trust you, Meg,” she said.
The girl brightened and hastened to the other clothespress. Eventually, she emerged with an open gown of peach-and-green Indian cotton, as well as all necessary undergarments. Anne resisted the impulse to peer into the clothespress to see what other gowns had been purchased for her, just as she fought the urge to admire the quality and newness of the gown Meg now helped her into.
As Meg fastened the dress, Anne looked at herself in the cheval glass and felt as though she put on another woman’s skin. The thought made her shudder, thinking that a woman’s flayed body lay somewhere, its muscles and innards exposed as the corpse cooled. She had a sudden vision of an attic chamber, perhaps in this very house, where other brides’ bodies hung.
You haven’t married Bluebeard, for heaven’s sake.
As if to counter her own fears, she said aloud, “Do hurry, Meg. I want to join my husband for breakfast.”
The maid blinked up at her. “He’s gone, madam.”
Now it was Anne’s turn to look blank. “Gone?”
“I only started working here last week, making ready for you, but the master always leaves the house by seven.”
“Where does he go?”
“To Exchange Alley, I reckon.” Meg glanced at her from beneath the frill of her mob cap, perplexed by Anne’s ignorance of her own husband.
“Of course,” Anne said, far more brightly than she felt. She pasted on a smile. “I’ll just take chocolate and rolls in here, then.”
“The master had Cook fix you a proper breakfast. Eggs, bacon, seed cakes. It’s waiting for you downstairs.”
She couldn’t refuse, not without possibly insulting the cook. Since Anne would be responsible for consulting with the cook about meals, she must be politic and make herself eat a meal she did not truly want. “Sounds delightful.”
After Meg finished her toilette, Anne quit the bedchamber. The hallway was very quiet, almost sepulchral in its stillness, barely interrupted by the sounds of servants attending to their daily tasks elsewhere in the house. If Anne had not left Meg in the bedchamber only a moment prior, she might believe herself completely alone. Maybe even the last person alive in the entire world.
Stop this ridiculous ghoulishness! She never indulged in thoughts of the macabre—she stayed clear of the hangings at Tyburn, and even went out of her way to avoid the occasional traitor’s head piked on Temple Bar.
It was simply nervousness at her unfamiliar surroundings, and trepidation as a new wife. Last night had been very tumultuous, so there might be lingering emotions. But there was truly nothing to fear. These awkward first days would soon pass.