“You alarm me,” Jemma said, grinning at her.

“Did you see the new print by George Townly Stubbs called His Highness in Fitz?” Poppy asked.

“In Fitz?” Jemma asked. “Do you mean to say, in Mrs. Fitzherbert?”

Poppy nodded. “He is clothed. But Mrs. Fitzherbert isn’t.”

Fletch chimed in with a print he’d seen of the prince called The Morning after the Marriage, and Poppy, feeling that she’d proved herself less than a idiotic innocent, went back to watching her husband.

He still had the little beard, just enough to cover the dimple in his chin, but she actually liked it. He looked more manly with it. Not at all pretty, as her mother used to call him.

Fletch wasn’t pretty. Not a bit. His eyes were black in the center, but with a ring of odd gray-blue color around them. With his hair pulled back, and no powder, he looked as wild as the men who roam the American forests, wrestling with alligators and catching possums.

Suddenly Poppy realized that the servant bringing their dishes was sending Fletch a kind of signal. She kept brushing her bosom against his shoulder, for example, and leaning down next to him to offer a spoonful of this or that, so that even Poppy could see straight down into her bosom.

Her breasts were much bigger than Poppy’s. Huge, really. And the way she kept licking her lips was absolutely revolting.

Finally the girl managed to pry herself away from Fletch long enough to come around to Poppy’s side of the table and offer her a pyramid cream. The creams were shaped in mounds, and looked just as shaky as the girl’s breasts, to Poppy.

She took another drink of her wine while she thought about it. Meanwhile the girl brushed some crumbs off Fletch’s lap—his lap! And Fletch didn’t seem to mind.

The girl came again to her to pour her some tea, her distaste barely concealed. And why?Because Poppy didn’t immediately understand the phoenix joke? She bent down and Poppy looked straight into her enormous breasts.

It was the work of a moment to scoop up her pudding and drop the rounded thing straight down her bodice.

The girl shrieked and leaped in the air.

Poppy stood up and smiled sweetly. “Oh my goodness, it must have slipped right out of my hand,” she cooed.

The innkeeper came to the door, took one look and grabbed the girl by the arm. They could hear him all the way up the corridor. “I’ve told you and told you,” he was shouting. “Save those Bartholomew wares of yours for them as wants them. You’ve disgraced me one too many times.”

Jemma was laughing again. “It’s like the phoenix, hatched out right before my eyes!”

Fletch stood up and stretched. He could almost reach the ceiling. And that put his crotch level with Poppy’s eyes. His breeches were tight as possible. They outlined his muscled thighs as if they’d been painted on.

“Wife,” he said lazily, “you’re frightening me.”

Poppy stood and tossed her hair. It felt wonderful to feel her hair move with her body. She flounced down the corridor before him until a large warm hand curled around her waist.

A deep voice said in her ear, “I really should give you a scolding, Perdita.”

“That girl deserved what she got!” Poppy snapped, looking over her shoulder.

He laughed down at her and the blood raced recklessly through her veins. “There’s hardly room in your bodice for a pudding,” he observed, looking down. “Though it would be interesting to use them as a plate.”

Her gaze followed his. From this angle, her breasts didn’t look meager. Oddly, she felt a prickling all over as if he might touch—

But he took her arm and started walking down the corridor as if nothing had happened.

The one thought in Poppy’s head was that she was too late. She was no fool. The depraved warmth between her thighs meant desire. And she would quite like Fletch to eat pudding from her breasts.

She’d found it.

She’d found that desire for her husband that Jemma talked about, and it was only her stupidity that meant she’d found it four years too late.

Chapter 43

Poppy thought there was a chance—all right, a remote chance, but a chance—that Fletch would come to her room that night. Perhaps just to say goodnight? She took out her curiosities to show him, in case he knocked on the door.

But no.

So she lay in her bed and examined the crystalline structure of her geode again. Then she picked up the little statue of Cupid and Psyche. When she bought it, she thought only of the outspread wings of the butterfly. It was a marvel, the way an insect made of stone could look so airy, as if it were on the verge of flight.

But now she looked at Cupid, kneeling before his beloved Psyche. This was no plump, pouting Cupid as is often depicted, but a lithe youth with tumbled hair and long, lean flanks. She found herself running a finger along his naked back, over the muscles in his legs. His wings were not stone lacework, but powerfully muscled, thickly feathered, ready to carry him straight from the ground to the sky.

She couldn’t help thinking that in choosing the piece because of the butterfly, she had overlooked something far more interesting than a stone insect.

Even when she put the statue and the geode away, she couldn’t sleep, but lay awake and had the most peculiar thoughts. It was as if she couldn’t live in her own skin. Her mind kept skipping off to Fletch’s room, and thinking of him without his shirt on, the way she saw him when he took a bath. And in her imagination he would stand up from the bath and shake himself, and water flew in all directions.

Poppy wiggled around in the bed, trying to get comfortable. Even thinking of Fletch made her feel most—

He would stand up and water drops would slide down his chest, down, down to that private place. In truth, she rarely looked at him, not for at least the first year of their marriage, because she was so afraid that she would throw up, the way her mother assured her she would.

But after all, what was there? An odd thing, a thing that stood out like—like a bar from his body. That looked pink and yet felt hard.

But remembering how it felt between her legs seemed utterly different now. It felt as if she were all melting there, and as if she would quite like Fletch to—

She turned over again. What was happening to her? Even licking her lips made her feel a bit feverish. And she was all damp under the covers. She pushed back all the quilts. She still felt boiling hot, so she pulled up her nightgown.

But that was all different too. For there her body lay in the moonlight. She stared down at herself. It felt almost as if a fairy had come along and exchanged her body for another, like the old stories about baby swapping. Those were definitely her breasts. Except they looked plumper, somehow. And her nipples were a very nice color, she thought. She’d seen the kitchen maid’s nipples because of the way her dress hung open and they weren’t nearly as nice.

Plus her legs were long and—she sat up—they were a nice shape, as these things go. Her mind kept skittering all over the place, and now she was remembering Fletch kissing a line up the inside of her thigh. Except when he did it her head was itching so much that she felt as if it was on fire, and all she could remember was staring down at his head and thinking, please finish, kiss faster, please kiss faster!

Now…She let her leg fall open a little bit. She wished he was kissing her right now. Her hair was all loose and she’d brushed it out herself. She was developing a bit of an obsession there, and had to brush it over and over herself every night. But it wasn’t bad. She liked the way her hair felt soft and silky under her fingers, not the way it used to when her maid was crimping it every day and gluing things into it, and rubbing it with tallow to make it the right shape.