She wondered what it would have been like to make her wedding journey with Edward. There would have been no uncomfortable silences, of that she was sure.

She watched her husband surreptitiously. It was getting dark. In a few hours they would have to stop and take rooms for the night.

Would Lord Bedlow find it tiresome to have to tutor a virgin? Would he expect her to know things she didn’t? What if she turned out to be a poor study?

And yet, he had seemed happy with her response, the one time he had kissed her. She closed her eyes and replayed the moment for the thousandth time-his lips descending on hers, his body warm and close. Again, that uncomfortably tantalizing ache started in her-well, down there-and moved throughout her body. His hand on her breast had burned through her dress, her corset, and her shift. What would it feel like on her skin?

It was getting too dark for Nev to see much out the window. He turned his gaze to Miss Brown, who was leaning back in her seat with her eyes closed. Since she couldn’t see him, he let himself ogle the swell of her bosom above the black muslin of her gown. He remembered the feel of her breast in his hand. Soon Miss Brown wouldn’t be obliged to wrench herself away when he touched her.

He recalled abruptly that she wasn’t Miss Brown any longer; she was Lady Bedlow now. That sounded deuced odd. Lady Bedlow was his mother. “Can I call you Penelope?”

Her eyes flew open. She flushed and shifted in her seat. Was there something improper about his request? “Um-yes, of course.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes, of course,” she repeated quickly. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

Nev could think of only too many reasons.

“What shall I call you? Bedlow?”

“I suppose so.” He grimaced. “I haven’t got used to it yet.”

“Your friend called you Nev at Lady Ambersleigh’s.”

“You remember that?”

She smiled. “It isn’t every day the heir to an earldom offers to choose my hors d’oeuvres,” she teased.

“Really? Even with a hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds?”

Her face fell.

“Oh, Lord, how tactless of me! I didn’t find out about your dowry until later, truly.”

She shrugged. “It’s quite all right. It is irrational to object to the truth. I should rather thank you for not feeding me Spanish coin.”

She really had a way of making him feel small. “I never feed anyone Spanish coin. I’m not clever enough.”

One of her brows arched in delicate skepticism, but she smiled. “I don’t know quite how these titles work. Would it be improper for me to call you Nev, still?”

Nev had been determined to leave every scrap of his old life behind and start anew, but-his nickname sounded so right on her lips. It sounded comfortable, and intimate. “I don’t see why. No one new will be Lord Nevinstoke until-until we have a son.”

“ Nev it is, then.” She sighed. “I’m ashamed of being so frivolous, but-there is something about a title, isn’t there?”

He felt faintly self-conscious. “In my experience, girls prefer a scarlet coat.”

Her eyes narrowed. “It would put you in your place if I agreed with you.”

Nev smiled. “It would, but I suspect you would rather die than be suspected of being officer-mad.”

“I hope I am not so immoderate. However, I have always felt that choosing a pleasing form, easy address, or an attractive costume over sense and character is unpardonably foolish.”

“But can’t one choose both?”

“Surely a good, sensible man must always be pleasing.”

Nev was opening his mouth to scoff when he realized he could not do so without sounding like the worst kind of cad. The full extent of her innocence crashed down on him. It really had never occurred to her that there might be a good and sensible man whom she did not wish to take to her bed. Apparently she never thought of taking men to her bed at all.

And tonight he had planned to deflower her. He had never been with any woman who did not know exactly what she was doing. How painful was it, the first time? He knew there was often blood, but how much? What if he hurt her? What if she found the whole business unsanitary and repulsive? What if she cried?

Worse yet, what if she endured his lovemaking with the same expression of patient forbearance she sometimes wore when he talked? What if she said, Never mind, I expect it will not be so very bad when I am used to it?

Nev wished that he were a man of good sense and character. Then he would know what the devil to do.

When they finally pulled into an inn yard for the night, Penelope was starving and exhausted. And there was another whole day of this to endure on the morrow! Her remark that a good, sensible man must always be pleasing had effectively silenced her husband. He had looked very doubtful, but refrained from contradicting her. How did he contrive to make her feel a puritanical schoolgirl, when she knew that it was he whose too-lively mind had been led astray by bad company and worldliness?

She sighed. She could hardly give herself airs of superiority when she herself had chosen a pleasing form over every dictate of reason.

Feeling penitent, she said nothing when he left her standing in the hall while he saw to the stabling of his horses. By the time he came back, she had fallen half-asleep leaning against the wall.

She opened her eyes to find her husband regarding her with an unreadable expression. “How much did you sleep last night?”

“Not very much,” she admitted, then realized that might not be politic.

He gave her a crooked smile. “Come along, I’ve engaged a room and a private parlor. Supper should be along at any moment.”

Supper! She gazed at him gratefully.

Supper was a silent affair. The food was good, but as the meal drew to a close, Penelope’s nervousness increased. She could hear her abigail in the next room, laying out her night things. In an hour, or perhaps two, she would no longer be a maiden.

She glanced at her husband, but he was not looking at her. He hadn’t been looking at her any of the admittedly hundreds of times she had glanced at him throughout the last half hour. That didn’t seem to bode well. Several times he’d been eying the decanter of wine with a peculiar expression on his face, but he drank only tea, as he had done at her parents’ home. Was it for her benefit, or had he really given up drinking since his father’s death? Penelope was not sure whether to approve or to think the gesture theatrical. She didn’t let herself look at him again until she had finished the last of her apple tart.

This time, his eyes were on her face. She was reminded, somehow, of the way he had looked at the wine.

“I-I think I’ll get ready for bed,” she said, and went into the next room.

Molly was waiting, looking distressingly energetic. Penelope was sore and tired, but she let Molly help her into her nightdress. Then she got her copy of Mansfield Park out of her trunk and sat down in bed to read.

This would be the way to Fanny’s heart. She was not to be won by all that gallantry and wit and good-nature together could do; or, at least, she would not be won by them nearly so soon, without the assistance of sentiment and feeling, and seriousness on serious subjects…

But she must not have been as absorbed in her reading as she thought, because when her husband put his hand on the doorknob, she heard it immediately.

Nev looked her over. Penelope felt her soreness and weariness fading. Now-now, he would-

“You look tired out,” he said.

“Not too tired.”

“I’ve been thinking.”

For some reason Penelope really, really didn’t like the sound of that.

“Do-do you know what goes on between a husband and wife?”

Penelope’s lips went dry. “My mother explained it to me.”

He nodded. “What did she say it was like?”

“She said it could be uncomfortable and awkward the first time, but that it got better with practice.”