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“I will not, not when I have a husband.” She had not waited all these years for Roman, only to find out they would not have a wedding night. Possibly for weeks.
“I’m your wife,” she said meekly. Her hot blood usually simmered before it boiled.
“Shelene, I’m not spending our first night together in a cramped, uncleanly, ordinary box. And worse, on a bed that is barely large enough for one, let alone two.”
“You’ve used every excuse the past week. We have had seven days to consummate our union. And now this.” For seven days he’d been busy with travel arrangements,he said. A change of his will,he said. Talking with so and so,he said. But he’d spent every morning with her at breakfast, for an hour, and every evening after dinner, he’d sat with her in a private room at the inn, not in his room or hers. He’d read a book to her in French, while she’d held his free hand and played with his fingers.
They’d played chess. He’d feigned a few not-so-strategic moves, thinking to make the game appear competitive, until she actually beat him then he’d sat back in surprise. They’d whispered. They’d laughed. She drew a portrait of him with charcoal. And he talked. Questions, really. All about what she had done for the past years. They didn’t touch intimately except for his knee which, with his long legs, rested against hers. Such a touch was hard to ignore. It was all she could think of as they tried to converse. He did it on purpose, of course, since he did nothing she considered husbandly.
More and more, she was reminded of all those doubts she had about Roman and them together.
She had promised to trust him but refusing to consummate their marriage did not inspire confidence.
“There is time. We need to renew our friendship, before we…you know.” He wagged his brows and tightened his grip about her waist, pulling her uncomfortably close. They were standing near the ship’s boarding ramp, within view of the entire crew and the rabble on the docks. Now he decided to embrace her.
“Idon’t know, and that is the point of my argument,” she said.
He leaned toward her. “And you wish all Brest to know this also?” Roman smiled, a brief, knowing smile that irritated her. Why did it seem he held all the cards, all the time? “I am a patient tutor, and a tutor never rushes,” he said.
She flushed, he grinned more broadly.
“But…if we don’t…that means we aren’t…really married.” She had lowered her voice and he leaned toward her listening intently. He made her weak.
“I know what it means, but we are married and no one can say differently.” He waved Joaquin over. “Joaquin, the trunks, please.” Roman had taken over the traveling household and the boy jumped to pull trunks and valises from the carriage, then hauled them aboard the ship.
“Some teacher. We could have a private classroom and yet you are willing to keep the door closed to our lessons.”
“All in good time,” he promised. “Come, let us board and settle for the trip.”
She wrapped her arm in his. “After Nantes, where do we go?”
“First the Caribbean then Buenos Aires.”
“Several weeks then?”
“Yes, depending upon the weather.”
Later, they stood at the deck railing. The sails snapped as the wind filled the canvas and the noise of humans was muted by sounds of the sea: the gulls squawking, thethwapof water against the hull.
“How did this happen?” Shelene asked. “We don’t see each other for two years and now we are married.”
“Living right, I suppose. I don’t want to believe in something as random as luck,” Roman said. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“Second, third and fourth thoughts.” She covered his hand, wishing she wasn’t wearing gloves. Wishing that marriage to Roman didn’t seem like marriage to a stranger.
“I admit it’s a bit unconventional, but I have reasons,” he said.
“Which I wish you would share with me. Tell me a secret, Roman. Something about your life that I don’t know. Tell me a secret every day, because I feel like I don’t know the man you’ve become.”
“Secrets? I have plenty of those. Don’t you?”
She laughed, her brows winging in surprise. “Me? Have a secret? Martina has guarded me for the last two years, at Mama’s urging. Which I never understood. I didn’t know anyone in London and if I did, I certainly wouldn’t give the family cause for concern.”
“No one? There wasn’t some young earl who took an interest in you? A wealthy merchantman’s son? You didn’t walk in Hyde Park? Attend the opera?”
“Of course I did.” She felt heat rise through her chest and up her neck, but hopefully he wouldn’t notice. He couldn’t know anyhow.
“So, the Earl of Chadwick didn’t ask you to marry him?”
