Innocent in the Regency Ballroom. Christine Merrill

you manage the rest?’ His voice was annoyingly clear and untroubled.

      She swallowed. ‘I think so. Yes.’

      ‘Very well, then. Goodnight, Penelope.’

      And she heard him returning to his chair.

      She squinted at him from across the room, until she was reasonably sure that his eyes were closed and he would see nothing. She hurried to remove her clothing, throwing it all to the floor and diving into her nightgown and under the sheets, safely out of sight.

      She settled back on to the bed, pulling the linens up over her and waiting for sleep that did not come. The fire was dying, and the chill was seeping into the corners, though her skin still tingled with the heat from his touch.

      It probably meant nothing to him. He was familiar with women’s garments and the removing of them. He had done what he had done many times before, albeit with different results.

      Her unwilling mind flashed to what it would have been like, if she was anyone other than who she was. His hands would be as slow and gentle as they had been while undoing her dress. Only, when the laces of the stays were undone, he would not stop touching her. Instead, he would lean forwards, and his lips would come down upon her skin.

      She stared at the canopy of the bed, eyes wide, unable to stop the pictures playing in her mind and the phantom feeling of his hands and his mouth. Her body gave an uncontrollable shudder in response.

      Across the room from her, her husband stirred in his chair, and rose, moving through the darkness towards her.

      Without warning, the comforter dropped upon her body, and his hands smoothed it over her, tucking it close about her. Warmth flooded her, the warmth of his own body, left in the quilt. She sighed happily.

      He returned to his chair, stretched out and slept.

       Chapter Eight

      When she awoke, light was seeping through the cracks in the bed curtains, which had been drawn at some point during the night. She could hear movement, and hushed voices from the other side. She sat up and placed her ear to the crack, so that she could listen.

      Her husband. Talking to a servant, who must be his valet. Arranging for someone in the staff who would serve as a lady’s maid, temporarily, at least. Perhaps permanently, since he was unsure if her Grace had servants of her own whom she wished to bring to the household. He had not discussed the matter with her.

      The valet hurried away, and the door closed. She could hear her husband approaching the bed, and she pulled back from the curtain.

      ‘Penny?’ He said it softly, so as not to startle a sleeper.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘May I open the curtains?’

      ‘Yes.’ Her voice was breathless with excitement, and she cleared her throat to cover the fact. As the light streamed in and hit her, she rubbed her eyes and yawned, trying to appear as though she had just awakened.

      Adam was wrapped in a dressing gown, and she could see flashes of bare leg when she looked down. She must remember not to look down, then, for the thought that he was bare beneath his robe made her feel quite giddy.

      ‘Did you sleep well?’ He was solicitous.

      ‘Very. Thank you. Your bed is very comfortable.’ She glanced in the direction of the chair. ‘I am sorry that you did not have the same luxury.’

      Which might make it sound like she had wanted him there. She fell silent.

      He ignored the implication. ‘I slept better than I have in a long time, knowing that the financial future of my property is secure. Thank you.’ The last words were heartfelt, and the intimacy of them shocked her.

      ‘You’re welcome.’ She was in the bed of an incredibly handsome man, and he was thanking her. ‘And thank you. For yesterday. For everything.’

      He smiled, which was almost as blinding as the sunlight. Why must he be so beautiful, even in the morning? A night sleeping upright in a chair had not diminished the grace of his movements or dented his good humour. And his hair looked as fine tousled by sleep as it did when carefully combed.

      She dreaded to think how she must appear: pale and groggy, hair every which way, and squinting at him without her glasses. She reached for them, knocking them off the night table, and he snatched them out of the air before they hit the floor and handed them to her, then offered the other hand to help her from bed.

      She dodged it, and climbed unaided to the floor, pulling on her glasses.

      ‘It will be all right, I think,’ he said, ignoring her slight. ‘We have survived our first day in London as man and wife. It will be easier from now on.’

      Perhaps he was right. She went through the door to her own room to find it bustling with activity. Her clothing had arrived, and an overly cheerful girl named Molly was arranging a day dress for her, and had a breakfast tray warming by the fire. When she went downstairs, the first crates of books had arrived and were waiting for her in the sitting room. She had marked the ones that she expected to be the most important, opened those, and left the others lined up against a wall to obscure the decorating. The rest she could arrange on the shelves that had held the china figurines. She handed them, one piece at a time, to a horrified Jem to carry to storage, until his arms were quite full of tiny blushing courtiers, buxom maid servants and shepherds who seemed more interested in china milkmaids than in china sheep.

      Jem appeared torn, unable to decide if he was more horrified by the overt femininity of the things or the possibility that he might loose his grip and smash several hundred pounds’ worth of antique porcelain.

      She waved him away, insisting that it mattered not, as long as they were gone from the room and she could have the shelves empty.

      She gestured with the grouping in her hand, only to glance at the thing and set it down again on the table, rather than handing it to the overloaded servant. The statue was of a young couple in court clothes from the previous century. The man was leaning against a carefully wrought birdcage, and had caught his lover around the waist, drawing her near. She was leaning into him, bosom pressed to his shoulder, her hand cupping his face, clearly on the verge of planting a kiss on to his upturned lips.

      And Penny’s mind flashed back to the previous evening, and the feel of her husband’s hands as they had touched her back. What would have happened if she had turned and pressed her body to his?

      Jem shifted from foot to foot in the doorway, and she heard the gentle clink of porcelain.

      ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘You have more than enough to carry. I will keep this last one for now. Perhaps it can serve as a bookend.’ She placed it back on the shelf, pushing it to the side to support a stack of books. The Maid of Hamlet. The Orphan of the Rhine. She’d kept the Minerva novels. Her lust-crazed Germans were supporting a shelf full of fainting virgins.

      She sank back on to a chair, defeated by rampant romance.

      There was a commotion in the hall, breaking through the silence of the room, and coming closer as she listened, as though a door had opened and a dinner party had overflowed its bounds. She could hear laughter, both male and female, and her husband by turns laughing and attempting to quiet the others.

      At last there was a knock on the closed door of her room before Adam opened it and said with amused exasperation, ‘Penelope, my friends wish to meet you.’

      She did not know how she imagined the nobility might behave, but it had never been like this. The crowd pushed past the duke and into the room without waiting for permission to enter. The women giggled and pulled faces at the great piles of books, and one man leaned against a pile of open crates, nearly upending them on to the floor. Only the last to enter offered her anything in way of apology: he gave an embarrassed shrug that seemed to encompass the bad manners of his friends while saying that there was little he could do about it one way or the other.

      ‘So