Ah, well, he was finally married, and perhaps he should lay aside cynicism and look no further than that fact. Yesterday, whilst riding toward London, he’d begun to wonder if he’d left off returning for too long. What if Miss Fleming had grown weary of being ignored? What if she didn’t even bother showing up at the church to give him his congé? He’d been detained in Oxfordshire far longer than he’d planned. There always seemed to be something more to delay his return there—another field his land steward wanted to show him, a road that badly needed repair, and, if he was honest with himself, the very steadiness of his fiancée’s gaze. She seemed to see right through him with those tilted brown eyes, seemed to look beyond his surface laughter and saw what he hid in the depths of his soul. At Lady Eddings’s musicale, when he’d turned and saw Melisande Fleming watching him and Matthew Horn, he’d had a moment of stark terror—fear that she knew what they talked about.
But she didn’t know. Jasper took a swallow of ruby wine, reassured on that point. She didn’t know what had happened at Spinner’s Falls, and she would never know if, with God’s grace, he could help it.
“Jolly good wedding, what?” an elderly gentleman leaned forward to shout down the table.
Jasper hadn’t a notion who the gentleman was—must be a relative of his bride’s—but he grinned and raised his wineglass to the fellow. “Thank you, sir. I rather enjoyed it myself.”
The gentleman winked hideously. “Enjoy the wedding night more, what? I say, enjoy the wedding night more! Ha!”
He was so taken with his own wit that he nearly lost his gray wig laughing.
The elderly lady sitting across from the gentleman rolled her eyes and said, “That’s quite enough, William.”
Beside him, Jasper felt his bride still, and he cursed under his breath. Some of the color had finally returned to her cheeks. She’d gone quite white at the ceremony, and he’d prepared himself to catch her should she faint. But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d stood like a soldier before a firing squad and grimly recited her marriage vows. Not quite the expression a bridegroom hoped for on his bride on her wedding day, but he’d learned not to be particular after the last fiasco.
Jasper raised his voice. “Will you tell us the story of your own wedding, sir? I feel we shall be quite entertained.”
“He doesn’t remember,” the old lady said before her husband could recover enough to speak. “He was so drunk he fell asleep afore he even came to bed!”
The guests within earshot roared.
“Aw, Bess!” the elderly man shouted above the laughter. “You know I was plumb worn out from chasing you.” He turned to the young lady beside him, eager to recount his memories. “Courted her for nigh on four years and . . .”
Jasper gently replaced his wineglass and glanced at his bride. Miss Fleming—Melisande—was pushing her food into neat piles on her plate.
“Eat some of that,” he murmured. “The duck is not nearly as bad as it looks, and it’ll make you feel better.”
She didn’t look at him, but her body stiffened. “I am fine.”
Stubborn girl. “I’m sure you are,” he replied easily. “But you were as white as a sheet in the church—for a while, you were even green. I can’t tell you how it shattered my bridegroom’s nerves. Indulge me now and have a bite.”
Her mouth curved a little, and she ate a small piece of the duck. “Is everything you say in jest?”
“Nearly everything. I know it’s tedious, but there it is.” He motioned to a footman, and the man bent near. “Please refill the viscountess’s wineglass.”
“Thank you,” she murmured when the man had poured more wine. “It’s not, you know.”
“What isn’t?”
“Your jesting.” She looked at him, her tilted eyes mysterious. “It isn’t tedious. I like it, actually. I only hope you will be able to bear my own reticence.”
“If you look at me like that, I shall bear it most admirably,” he whispered.
She held his eyes as she sipped from her wineglass, and he">
The thought was strange at this highly civilized breakfast. Strange, and at the same time pleasantly arousing. What a very odd thing marriage was between people of his rank. Like breeding horses in many ways. One picked out the dam and the sire based on their bloodlines, put them in proximity to each other, and hoped nature took its course and produced more horses—or aristocrats, depending on the parties.
He smiled as he watched his new wife, wondering what she would say if he told her his thoughts about horses and aristocratic marriages. Alas, though, the topic was too risqué for virginal ears.
But others were not. “Is the wine to your liking, my lady?”
“It’s acidic, tart, with just a tiny bit of sweetness from the grapes.” She smiled slowly. “So, yes, it’s to my liking.”
“How delightful,” Jasper murmured, his eyelids drooping lazily. “It is, of course, my duty as your husband to see that your every desire, no matter how small, is fulfilled.”
“Indeed?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Then what is my duty as your wife?”
To bear my heirs. The reply was too blunt to voice. This was a time for pretty flirtation and banter, not the cold realities of a marriage such as theirs. “My lady, you have no more onerous a duty than to be lovely and grace my home and heart.”
“But I believe I may soon become bored by such light duties. I’d require additional tasks to fulfill than merely looking lovely.” She sipped her wine and set the glass down; as she did so, her tongue darted out to slowly lick a droplet from her bottom lip. “Perhaps you can invent a more exacting duty?”
He inhaled, for his entire attention had become focused on her wet bottom lip. “My lady, my mind is awhirl with possibilities. It dances hither and yon, brushing many but alighting on none, though several tantalize. Have you no examples to give me of what a wife’s duties should be?”
“Oh, examples abound.” A smile was playing about her lips. “Should I not obey and honor you?”
“Ah, but those are light duties, and you specified an exacting one.”
“Obeying you may not always be a light task,” she murmured.
“With me it shall be. I will merely bid you to do such things as smile at me and make my day brighter. Will you obey me in this?”