He led Vanessa up the stairs, well lit by the candles in the wall sconces. She was his wife, he thought. He would bed her tonight - within the next hour, in fact - and for the rest of their lives there would be no one else but her.

It was a private vow he had taken very recently, though he was surprised that it had taken him so long to know his own mind. After his marriage, he had decided even before his return from London, he would be unswervingly monogamous, no matter how satisfying or unsatisfying he found his marriage bed to be. There was too much pain in the alternative.

He had only to look at and listen to his mother and his grandmother to understand that. His father and his grandfather had done them irreparable harm. And both ladies feared he would follow in the footsteps of his ancestors.

He would not. It was as simple as that.

It was not necessarily a happy resolution considering the identity of his bride. But it was a firm one nonetheless.

He stopped outside her dressing room and bowed over her hand as he raised it to his lips before opening the door. Her maid was busy inside there, he could see.

He turned in the direction of his own room.

13

VANESSA'S room overlooked the lake. The moon still shone across it in a wide silver band. The view was really quite breathtaking. And the house itself - the little she had seen of it anyway - was lovely.

But her mind was not really on either the moonlight or the house, which she would explore tomorrow.

She was in /her /room.

As opposed to /his/.

Or /theirs/.

She and Hedley had shared a room from the day of their marriage. She had assumed that all married couples did. With Hedley -

But she would not think of him tonight. She must not. She belonged to someone else now.

He had actually called her pretty on the way here. /Very /pretty, to be precise. He had almost joked with her, telling her that her clothes were pretty too - meaning that /she /was prettier, that it was /she /he had noticed first.

What a thorough bouncer! She sighed even as she smiled.

But he /was /capable of humor, even if only of a very dry kind. He was not inhuman.

Well, of course he was not.

She set her forehead against the cool glass of the window and closed her eyes.

The bed behind her had been turned down for the night. She was very aware of its presence. Perhaps she should be lying in it. But she kept remembering how he had accused her a month ago of offering herself like a sacrificial lamb. She would look like one - she would /feel /like one - if she lay there waiting for him.

She felt like a virgin awaiting the deflowering, she thought in some disgust. She was /not /a virgin. She was an experienced woman.

Well, /almost /experienced anyway.

And if her brain did not soon cease its incessant chattering she would surely go mad.

There was a tap on her door and it opened before she could either cross the room or draw breath to call out.

He was wearing a wine-colored dressing gown that covered him from the neck to the ankles. He looked menacing. And gorgeous too, of course.

His face was blank of any nameable expression. His eyelids were half drooped over his eyes, as they had been the first time she saw him. He was looking steadily at her and she could not help thinking of the very different reaction she must be provoking in him.

She did not often wish for the impossible, but just /sometimes /she wished she were beautiful. As she did now, for example.

She was wearing the ice blue silk and lace nightgown that had been chosen specifically for tonight - by her new mother-in-law, not by her.

She thought its low neckline too revealing. And she very much feared that if she stood just so to any particular candle, a beholder would be able to see right through it.

She might not have minded so much if there had been something worth seeing.

She hated being self-conscious about her figure - or her lack thereof. "I suppose," she said, "we will grow accustomed to this." His eyebrows rose. "I suppose we will," he agreed as he stepped into the room and came toward her. "You are not /nervous /by any chance, are you? You are the experienced one, are you not? The one who knows how to please a man - in bed." If that was a joke, she was in no mood to laugh. "You know that was a boast," she said. "I admitted as much. It would be unkind of you to throw it in my teeth at every turn." Strangely, he looked even larger and more powerful in dressing gown and slippers than he did in his great-coat and boots. Or perhaps it just seemed so because he was in her bedchamber and it was their wedding night. "Well, Vanessa." He lifted one hand and cupped her neck and one side of her face with it. "It is time to discover just how much of a boast it was." He had shaved. She could smell his shaving soap or his cologne. Whatever it was, it was a masculine scent that made her want to keep on inhaling.

She swallowed.

And his lips touched hers. Though it was not really his lips. It was the soft, moist flesh inside them. His tongue pressed hard against her own lips, and she parted them. It pressed deep inside her mouth.

She inhaled sharply through her nose. Sensation darted like an arrow into her throat and downward through her breasts and her abdomen to set up a throbbing between her inner thighs.

She recognized the feeling for what it was - pure, raw sexual desire. She had felt it out by the lake at Warren Hall the day she asked him to marry her. She had denied it to herself then. It was impossible to do so now.

He drew back his head a few inches, and she realized in some shock that he had not yet touched her anywhere below the neck. He had hardly even /started/. "It is to be hoped," he said, "that you /do /know how to please me since you are my wife and my bedfellow for life." His eyes were still heavy-lidded, and the voice he used was a bedroom voice if ever she had imagined one. It was pure velvet. "The master has spoken," she murmured. "It is to be hoped that /you /know how to please /me, /since you are my husband and my bedfellow for life." He looked steadily at her for several moments, his face expressionless.

And then the hand that had been cupping her face and neck slid lower and along her shoulder beneath her nightgown and on down her arm. The nightgown, having nowhere else to go, went with his hand until her shoulder and breast were exposed.

And then his free hand pushed the garment off her other shoulder, and since it was a loose thing that was anchored in place only at the shoulders, it slithered its way down all the way to her feet.

Only her feet were covered. It was small comfort.

He held her just above the elbows and took a step back.

And looked.

Well, she supposed she had asked for this. She had challenged him and he was giving his answer without the medium of words.

A man's way.

She gazed steadily back into his face as she raised one hand and pulled loose the sash of his dressing gown. It fell open.

He was naked beneath it.

He raised his head to look directly into her eyes again and lowered his arms to his sides. Ah, an invitation. She lifted both arms to push the dressing gown off his shoulders. It fell to the floor without even having to slither its way down. /Oh, gracious heaven./ He looked like a classical sculpture of idealized Greek manhood, except that he was no sculpture. He was bronzed from head to toe. His broad, firmly muscled chest was lightly dusted with dark hair. And he was alive and warm - she could feel his body heat even though they stood several inches apart. She could see his chest rise and fall with each breath.

He was slim-hipped and long-legged. His thighs were powerfully muscled.