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He frowned at that. “I don’t follow.”

“You staged a theatrical production in front of the cathedral in order to convince society that you wished to marry me.”

“You could say that,” Silvester said, his eyes wary.

“No matter how much money you spend on me,” Stella said flatly, “I will never be an adequate partner in your theatrics.”

His eyes lightened, and he gave her that crooked smile that she was irrationally fond of. “I know.”

Stella winced inside. Yasmin would have been a perfect party to his machinations. But was there any point to bringing up her name? Silvester had failed to win Yasmin’s hand. After which, he went the opposite direction.

“This marriage will be very good for me. Being as I’m a swollen bullfrog,” Silvester said. “Just look how many times you’ve said no to me in the last half hour.”

“If that’s my role, I will do my best,” Stella said demurely. Then she sat upright. “Where’s Specs?”

“She’s following in the carriage with your maid and sufficient provisions. I had to send the cook at the Grange to London, as the staff there is not used to the influx of guests anticipated for the breakfast we are not attending.” Silvester glanced out the window. “We’re almost at The Swan.”

Stella gulped. There was one question she had to ask him, because it had been beating in her mind since the moment she woke up. “Have you ever deflowered a virgin?”

Silence.

Then a roar of male laughter.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Silvester couldn’t stop snorting with laughter, even though his bride frowned at him when he wouldn’t stop chortling. He swept Stella into The Swan, not giving her a chance to admire the lavish gardens surrounding the inn.

Happily, his wife overcame her irritation enough to greet the nervous innkeeper’s wife with a smile before she stalked up the stairs.

He followed. That’s what husbands did, didn’t they? They followed indignant spouses wherever they went, enjoying the way said spouse’s hips swayed as she climbed the stairs. He couldn’t help it. He was focused on one thing, the very thing she had inquired about.

In a vulgar parlance that no one in society would believe him capable of: the old in-and-out.

The belly bump.

The marital polka.

With a wife who seemingly had doubts about his prowess in the bed.

He managed to be patient as the innkeeper’s wife raved on about the built-in bathtub with its privacy screen, the small room with a door that housed a privy, the bed made up with the duke’s own bedding, including a mattress, which had been delivered the day before.

Stella rolled her eyes at that detail, and he shrugged, unrepentant. He’d be damned if he and his wife caught bedbugs on their first night in Cupid’s Alley.

In Lover’s Lane.

While deflowering a virgin.

Finally, the innkeeper’s wife realized that his eyes were burning into her back because she pointed out the uncorked wine delivered from the Huntington cellars and skipped herself out the door and down the stairs.

“Where do you suppose my maid is?” Stella asked, drifting over to peer out the windows over the gardens, not meeting Silvester’s eyes.

“An hour or two behind us,” Silvester said promptly. “Perhaps more.”

Stella sat down to one side of the fireplace, looking entirely composed. Though when he looked closer, a delightful flush warmed her cheeks. Silk puddled around her feet.

“May I give you a glass of wine?”

Her brow puckered as she looked about her. “I had better not. I wouldn’t want to spill wine on my gown. I have trouble judging the distance between myself and a side table, so I often drop glasses.”