Page 47 of A Rogues & Gentlemen Christmas

“I’m too nervous to eat. And I don’t say that very often,” she admitted, with a self-deprecating laugh that sounded a touch brittle. She laid her coat on a chair and clutched her arms about her stomach, blushing before looking away from him.

She was nervous, he realised. Well, of course she was. This was her wedding night, and… Holy God, she was a virgin. Not that he hadn’t known that. Of course he’d known that, but… but he hadn’t really considered that… that she’d never… that no one had ever….

He’d be the first.

Damn that, he’d be her only.

Oh, Lord, what if he hurt her?

What if she cried?

Panic gripped him.

“Perhaps some champagne, then?” he suggested, darting from the room the moment she nodded. Ludo hurried through the bedroom and flung open the window to retrieve the champagne bottle he’d left there to chill. He slammed the window shut again before the room grew cold, but a merry fire blazed in the hearth and it was warm and welcoming. He eyed the bed with misgiving.

Don’t be a bloody fool, he cursed. Anyone would think you were a bloody virgin.

Idiotically, he wished that he was. He wished he could redo the past and make it so he wasn’t the man he’d become, but then he’d never have met her. Stop it, he scolded himself, clutching at the cork of the champagne bottle. Have a drink and calm down, for the love of God.

“What a cosy room.”

Ludo leapt from his skin as he heard Bunty enter the room, and the cork flew from the bottle with a resounding pop.

Champagne gushed from the neck and Bunty gave a laugh and snatched up the glasses he’d left on the dresser, placing first one then the other beneath the torrent. Well, he hoped that was the last of the humiliations in store for him this evening and not an omen. If not, he’d best just throw himself from the window and have done with it.

“And you call yourself a rake,” he muttered crossly.

“Pardon?”

“Would you like some cake?” he said in a rush, improvising wildly and hoping to God there was some.

“No, thank you, this is splendid,” she said, raising the glass.

Ludo watched, fascinated, as she licked her lips, and everything south of his navel grew taut.

Oh, God.

Please let him get through this night without making her cry or shaming himself.

He only prayed that some forgiving deity was listening with a kindly ear and did not seek to make an example of him. Well, in that case… it looked like he was on his own.