And again.

He did it four times, five times, six . . . It felt as if he were a metronome, counting off staves.

“How long does this go on?” she gasped. Seven, eight . . .

“I can go as long as you need me to,” Gowan said, his voice strained but calm. “Don’t worry, sweeting, it will improve. Any moment you’ll start feeling a wave of pleasure.”

She didn’t. Her brain presented her with the opening chords of a funeral dirge put to the rhythm of Gowan’s thrusts. Nine, ten, eleven . . . fourteen, fifteen. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Excuse me,” she whispered, “I would truly appreciate it if you could finish now.”

He paused for a moment. “I’m not coming until you are.” He sounded stubborn and Scottish.

“Maybe next time, Gowan. Please.”

“I’m sorry it hurts so much.”

“It’s just the first time.” Some sort of instinct came to her and she arched against him so he penetrated even deeper inside her. “Do it, Gowan. Go faster.”

He pulled back and then thrust again and again. Sixteen, seventeen . . . twenty . . . twenty-seven, twenty-eight. It hurt and hurt and hurt, and she could no longer imagine a time when it wouldn’t.

“Gowan!” she cried, on the very edge of informing him that if he couldn’t get where he was going, they would have to try tomorrow.

“Oh, Edie,” he groaned, and then she felt him pulsing deep inside her.

She actually gasped at the relief of it; it must be almost over. But it wasn’t.

Twenty-nine.

Thirty.

Thirty-one.

Finally, his body slumped, and he collapsed on top of her, shuddering all over. Edie patted him on the shoulder, discovering he was positively slick with sweat, which was rather disagreeable. So she picked up a corner of the sheet and dried his shoulder with it, and then patted him again.

Then, mercifully, he braced himself on his hands and withdrew.

Even that hurt so much that she felt tears stinging the back of her throat. When Gowan rolled to the side of the bed, she lay frozen for a moment, afraid to look down.

There must be blood everywhere. It would be soaking into the mattress. At home, the maids would have whisked it away and a new mattress would appear by the evening. But they were at a hotel, and how was she to explain it? With all her heart, she wished she were home.

There must be something wrong with her, because Layla had said it wouldn’t hurt. Or there was something wrong with him. Or both of them. She didn’t know what to do about it. She couldn’t imagine telling a doctor about something so intimate.

Then Gowan raised his head, his eyes still dazed with pleasure, and asked, “Edie, was it horribly painful?”

She swallowed and knew, in that moment, that she couldn’t bear to disappoint him. And so she told her first lie, because she said, “No,” when she meant, Yes. And when he said, tenderly, “We won’t do it again tonight,” she said, “All right,” when she meant, We’ll never do it again.

She looked down at that huge part of him and blurted out an observation. “I thought you were supposed to grow soft afterwards, and smaller.”

He looked down as well. “I believe I could pleasure you all night long if you wished, Edie.”

She must have turned pale, because he didn’t offer.

And even after she discovered that there wasn’t as much blood as she’d feared—though a good deal more than Layla had described—she couldn’t bring herself tell him that she might have suffered serious internal damage.

Instead, she let Gowan wash her, which he did.

When he finally fell asleep, she moved his arm from her waist and turned to face the other way. Then she curled up into the smallest possible ball and cried, very quietly, so he wouldn’t wake.

And he didn’t.

Twenty

When Edie woke up, she jumped out of bed, leaving Gowan sleeping, and fled into the palatial bathing chamber attached to their suite. She was feeling much better. It was over. Yes, it had been horrible, but now it would all be different. Not that she was precisely looking forward to their next encounter, but obviously, with the virginity business out of the way, things would improve.

Still, she had absolutely no inclination to return to the bedchamber and test that hypothesis, and when Gowan knocked on the door to ask if she would care to stay in London for some time, or leave for Craigievar, she chose the castle.

“After all, Susannah is waiting for us,” she said, putting her head out the door.

From his expression, Gowan had forgotten all about his sister, but he nodded readily enough. “I’ll send a groom ahead to reserve our rooms. We should begin our journey immediately if we are to make Stevenage in time to have luncheon at the Swan.”

He stepped forward. He really did have the most beautiful eyes. “Good morning, wife,” he whispered, towering over her.

Edie stayed in the doorway, feeling that her position signaled that she would not welcome a return to the bed, in case he contemplated something of that nature. He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her so sweetly that she felt ravished. “If only . . .” she said, looking up at him when he drew away.

He ran a finger down her cheek. “If only what?”

But she couldn’t voice, If only one got children from kissing, so she went up on tiptoes and gave him a little buss by way of answer, and then retreated back into the bathing chamber.

A mere hour later, they were on their way. Edie was rather surprised when Gowan’s factor, Mr. Bardolph, joined them in the magnificently appointed ducal coach and briskly wished her a good day. Given her druthers, she would have uninvited him, but the moment passed when she might have done that without seeming rude.

It certainly wasn’t a matter of space. Though four service carriages had left already, the carriage that would follow theirs contained a solicitor, two estate managers, and her maid. After a bit of explanation she understood that the men would take turns consulting with Gowan. A third carriage brought her cello, under the care of Gowan’s personal servant, Trundle.

She had been hoping that perhaps she and Gowan could talk in the carriage. She even thought that perhaps she would describe what it had really felt like last night. After a night’s fitful sleep, she felt less frightened, but even so, she would like to talk about it.

Obviously, she could not bring up the subject in front of Bardolph. “It’s like a Star Chamber,” she told Gowan as he, too, entered the carriage, pushing away her hopes for the day. “As if you are the sovereign of a smallish principality.”

Bardolph cleared his throat, and then, practically before the carriage had rocked its way around the first corner, he had three or four ledgers open and was droning on about a particular kind of wheat that only sprouted in winter.

What’s more, Gowan acted as if this was entirely normal, this conducting of business the morning after one’s wedding, and sat in his corner listening as Bardolph enumerated the acres of wheat that were sown versus those that were harvested.

“Must you really itemize these things?” Edie asked, after about an hour. London lay behind them now, and Gowan and Bardolph had moved on to baskets of butter and milk. Or lard. Something like that.

Bardolph paused. She couldn’t help but notice that his nose looked like a flying buttress on a cathedral.