Half past two.
At some hour past three, he found himself wondering whether Violet Linton was awake.
Chapter five
Ten O’Clock
Henry
The wedding had taken twenty-three minutes. The chapel had been small. The witnesses had been few. The breakfast had been a single dish in the small dining room at Cavendish Square. By three in the afternoon, he had walked his wife up the steps of Iredell House and into the entrance hall and presented her, by her new name, to the staff arranged in a row. They had curtsied. They had bowed. Mrs Greer had said,Welcome home, Your Grace, and Violet had said,Th-thank you, Mrs Greerin a voice that Henry could barely hear.
By five she had been taken upstairs to her rooms by Mrs Greer and Sarah Baker. By seven a small supper had been laid for her there. By eight he had asked Greer whether his wife had eaten. The reply had beenA little, Your Grace.By nine he had bathed. By a quarter to ten he had dismissed his man and was in his shirt in his own dressing room with one connecting door closed.
He sat on the small chair beside the washstand and he listened.
In the room beyond the connecting door, he could hear the small movements of two women. Water was being wrung. Then the sound of water falling repeatedly. Then voices again until a door opened and closed, and he understood that Sarah had withdrawn.
A quarter of an hour passed. He did not know what he was waiting for. This was his fourth wedding night. The protocol was not mysterious. The husband goes through the connecting door. The wife is in bed. The thing is done. He had managed it once with shaking hands and once with steady ones and once with no feeling he bothered to label, and he would manage it again tonight.
He stood and took the small candle from the washstand. Once he crossed to the connecting door, he knocked once with the back of one knuckle.
“Yes,” she replied.
The door opened without a sound.
The room was as the staff had left it. Stripped, empty, polished. A small bed had been brought in for her until she chose her own furnishings, and it had been made up with white linen. The candles on the small table and the fire in the grate lit the room.
She sat upright against the pillows in a white nightgown that buttoned to the throat. Her hair was down. Her hands were clutching the blanket up to her collarbone, and the knuckles were white.
Their shared door closed behind him without a sound.
With his back to her, he removed his shirt and folded it over the chair beside the table. The trousers followed. The cold of the room met his bare skin, and he did not turn to learn whether she was watching. From the drawer, he took a glass vial of sweet oil.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I shall be brief.”
Her breathing was audible from where he stood—shallow, nervous. Without looking at her, he drew back the linen.
She lay flat on her back without being asked, her hands still grasping the blanket. Her nightgown covered her ankles. She kept her eyes upon the canopy.
The thought arrived, unwelcome, that he ought to say something to his new wife. It would be his first. Margaret had been the most experienced out of the three women. He had not seen the necessity for tender words. Catherine had been vocal, had asked for it, and he had said what he could, which had been barely more than a grunt. Elizabeth, his first, had known his heart and had not needed it. They were both young and stupid with love.
Henry took the vial, uncorked it. The oil had a musty scent to it. He lifted the hem of her nightgown to her knees. He lightly stroked her thigh, announcing his presence. Her legs closed together briefly then opened again. He set his palm upon her knees to part them.
He had not touched a woman in almost two years.
He poured oil on his fingers and reached between her thighs. She gasped but stayed open for him. Her hands came to her sides, gripping the sheet.
Using two fingers, he spread the oil between her legs. The softness of her skin beneath his hand was a thing he had not been prepared for despite being familiar with it, and he held still until he could proceed without losing control.
Without looking at her, he told her to open more for him. She did. The trembling in her thighs was constant against his hands.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Her voice was barely a sound.
At her opening, he positioned himself, already hard with the need of two years pressing against her entrance. When hepushed into her, she cried out, sharp and involuntary, her eyes flying open.
He registered it, had expected it from someone less experienced. She tightened around him and the sensation wiped out any thought. It had been too long, and his body, which had not forgotten what this was, threatened to take over from whatever remained of his mind.
