“I don’t know,” she managed to say. “Either.”
“Well, to tell the truth I don’t care for either,” he told her. “You see, I don’t like to sleep in anything but my skin, but I am trying to be sensible of your sensibilities. Wait a moment, I think I have just the thing!”
He disappeared into the dressing room, and came out holding his hands out as though he’d just pulled a rabbit from a hat, like a magician on the stage about to take a bow. Now he wore a colorful red silk dressing gown, sashed in gold. “Voilà!” he said. He turned for her, head high, nose in the air, like a fashion model at madame’s shop. “What do you think?”
She didn’t know what to say.
“I agree,” he said sadly. “Outrageously opulent, not my style at all.”
He turned, very dejected, to go back to the dressing room.
“Wait!” she said. “Do you really think what you wear to sleep is important?”
He looked at her in shock. “My dear,” he said, “a man of taste never slacks off, even in his slumbers. And, I remind you, I can’t have you thinking your new husband is careless, can I? It’s obvious this doesn’t impress you, but I have a blue satin one that I thought was too simple. Now I think perhaps it will be the very thing.”
She just sat and stared at him. That was how she saw his lips quirk. “Good God!” he said. “Your expression!” And then he began to laugh.
She joined in, as relieved as she was amused. He came over to the bed. “Well, I had to think of something to unknot you,” he said with a tender smile. “You looked as though you expected me to come out with whips and chains. You don’t, do you? I’d hate to disappoint, but I wouldn’t care for that at all.”
“Oh my,” she said, between the giggles she’d subsided to. “That’s exactly what I was thinking you meant.”
“Hence the look of a trapped rabbit when I came out of my dressing room,” he said, nodding. “So relieved to know it wasn’t just my presence that made you freeze. Now, for some entertainment.”
She stopped laughing.
“Daisy,” he said patiently. “Please believe me. I won’t touch you until you want me to. It’s most unsettling to see you look at me like that. All I meant is that we can play some cards,” he said, extracting a deck of cards from his robe’s pocket. “Or dice, if you wish,” he said, dropping a pair of dice on the bed. “I thought we could while away our hour together that way until it’s time for bed. Is that all right with you?”
She breathed again. “Yes,” she said earnestly.
Then she dropped her head to her hands and bent double. “Oh, Lord!” she moaned, “How can I ever be ready? What have I done? This is terrible, if only because the more I like you, the harder it will be for me to submit.”
He put the pack of cards down on the bed, and came to sit beside her. He placed one large hand on her back; she could feel the warmth of it through her thin gown. “Daisy,” he said softly. “That’s the point. I don’t want you to submit. I want you to enjoy.”
She looked up, and he could see her misery. “I don’t know if I can. I honestly do not know. I’m not a cheat. I never thought this would happen. I thought I could, but when it comes to it, I freeze, as you said.”
He smiled. “We haven’t come to it. Relax. I know your past, and you know mine. What we have here is a rake, and a lady who has been abused. If I can use my knowledge, and you can forget yours, we may yet come to it, as you say, and find all is well. I think we will. Now, ecarte, piquet, or whist?”
She sniffed, and dried her eyes with the back of her hand. “Piquet, I think,” she said. “But beware! I’m very good at it.”
“Good!” he said, and drawing his robe around his long legs, he sat on the bed with her.
They played piquet for an hour, and declared it a draw.
Then they played whist, and he won, by a wide margin.
She sat up on her knees, and studied her cards with such seriousness that he teased her for it.
He sat, legs crossed like a tailor, his robe correctly draped to spare her blushes, and himself from stray breezes, or so at least he claimed.
They laughed as they played. He told her the origins of the names of cards, how the jack of clubs was Sir Lancelot, and the queen of hearts was first Helen of Troy, now Queen Elizabeth. He told her how the games were played in gentlemen’s clubs and in secret gaming hells. She told him about incidents at card games back at Botany Bay and the truly cutthroat way the games were played there. She sometimes forgot it was her wedding night, and the fellow beside her was the husband she was depriving of his rights. He didn’t seem to mind.
He couldn’t forget it for a moment. Leland watched his new wife with tender enchantment that made him ache as much with pity as amusement, and thought that if he could tame her and bring her to his hand, his would be the best marriage he’d ever seen, and this, a better relationship with a female than he’d ever dared imagine.
He was almost overcome with the urge to hold her close and tell her she’d nothing to fear from him. But he had to do it with quips and laughter, and hope the rest would follow, in time. She looked more beautiful than ever to him tonight, in her simple white gown. Her hair, in a night braid, made her seem younger and more vulnerable. Her beautiful firm, rose-tipped breasts, clearly visible in her thin gown, made him more vulnerable still. He yearned for her. And all he could do tonight was try to win her trust.
She looked up, saw his expression, and paused, cards forgotten, and stared at him. He held his breath, and leaning forward, touched her mouth with his. Her mouth was as soft and yielding as he’d hoped. Cards fell from her fingers like leaves in the autumn breeze. He put down his cards, put a hand on her waist, drew her closer, and she yielded, clinging to him as they kissed. He murmured a word to her, and that word was “love,” and ran his free hand lightly down her neck, only letting his fingertips touch her. He felt her shiver. He kissed her neck after his fingertips had grazed there, and then kissed her lips again. She murmured something he couldn’t hear.
He touched her cheek, and then lightly cupped her breast.
She shivered again, and then went rigid.
He stopped and looked his question at her.
She lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry,” she said unhappily. “I’ll try not to let it happen again.”
“No,” he said, drawing away. “I don’t think so. It’s like trying not to sneeze. If you can’t help it, you can’t. So,” he said, sitting back. “Was it anything I did? Or something you thought? You can tell me.”
“I don’t know. What you did was lovely, but then I thought about what we’d do, and it happened.”
“Well, then we won’t do it,” he said. “It’s actually quite late now. Let’s go to sleep, if not to bed.”
He rose from the bed, went to the dressing table, and turned down the lamp. Though it was dark, she could see him in outline as he drew off his robe, and climbed into bed beside her.
“You’re sleeping here?” she asked in surprise.
“Why yes, it is my bedchamber,” he said as he laid his head down on a pillow. “I mean,” he corrected himself, “our bedchamber now. I’ve always disliked the idea of a man and his wife having separate rooms. It leads to estrangement. Don’t you agree?”
“I never thought about it,” she said, honestly. Tanner would have murdered her if she had demanded a second bed, and anyway, it would have been foolishness in a house the size of the one they’d shared.
“We have this huge bed, and separate dressing rooms, and there are a dozen other bedrooms you can retreat to if I snore,” he said on a yawn. “But I’ve never been told that I do. Excuse me,” he added. “One is not supposed to talk about previous experiences.”