“Nevertheless,” he said, “we will be visiting a lawyer within the next few days, Wren. I will not have you totally dependent upon my trustworthiness. Besides, some things need to be in writing and properly certified. I could die at any moment.”

“Oh, please do not,” she said.

“I shall try not to.” He smiled at her and raised one hand to push her hair back over her shoulder. She had small breasts, but they were firm and nicely shaped. He moved his hand about the one he had exposed, cupped it from beneath in his palm, and set his thumb over her nipple, which hardened as he stroked it lightly. “Are you very sore?”

She thought a moment and shook her head.

“Will you think me very greedy?” he asked, feathering light kisses over her forehead, her temple, her cheek, her mouth.

“No,” she said.

She was wet and hot when he entered her this time and closed inner muscles about him while she raised her knees and set her feet flat on the bed. He moved swiftly in her, his eyes closed, the bulk of his weight on his forearms again, feeling greedy despite her denial, and came to a quick climax. He brought her with him this time when he moved off her, not withdrawing from her, keeping his arms about her, and he felt the soft warmth of her body as he settled the covers about them once more, and knew that she was relaxing into sleep, her head nestled on his shoulder.

Yes, he had settled for less than the dream. But so, probably, did almost every other man and woman who married. There could not be very many who were at leisure to search for love, and even fewer who found it. His mind touched upon Anna and Netherby and even upon Camille and Joel Cunningham, but he was not going to start making comparisons. He did not know anyway, did he? One surely never did know anyone else’s marriage as it really was. No one would know his except the two of them. They would make of it what they chose. It was actually a good thought with which to begin a marriage.

He slept.

Sixteen

“I should perhaps have thought of taking you on a wedding journey,” Alexander said the next morning, holding both of Wren’s hands. “To Scotland. Or the Lakes. Or Wales.”

“We,” she said. “We ought to have thought of it. But I do not want a wedding trip. Do you?”

“No,” he said. “But it feels wrong to have been sitting here composing a letter early in the morning following our wedding and now to be going off to the House of Lords and leaving you alone.”

They had been jointly composing a letter to the steward at Brambledean with instructions on what they wished him to do immediately. Wren supposed it was a bit odd to be thus employed, but why not? Working together like this made her feel as much married as what they had done in their bed last night. And she liked the feeling of being married.

“I never mind being alone,” she told him. “Besides, I have work of my own to do too. There have been reports and queries from the glassworks in the past few days and I need to respond to them without further delay, as I always do. One of them has detailed sketches of a new design for my approval. I am not sure after one quick glance that I do approve. I need to give the matter far more concentrated attention.”

She must write a few other letters too, one to her housekeeper at Withington, another to the house in Staffordshire, a third to Philip Croft, her business manager, about the change in her name and status.

“What you are really telling me,” he said, raising one of her hands to his lips, “is that you cannot wait for me to leave for my work so that you can get to yours.” His eyes were smiling.

“Ah,” she said, “the gentleman begins to learn.”

He laughed outright. “You can probably expect a quiet day,” he said.

“Yes.” But she did feel a pang of regret a few minutes later as she watched him leave the house. She would have liked to prolong the sense of togetherness just a little longer.

A quiet day. It seemed ages since she had spent a day alone. She would enjoy this one with the thought that her husband would be coming home later. And that must be one of the loveliest words in the English language—husband.

Her day alone started well. She wrote the letters first and then studied the sketches from the glassworks. She still could not make up her mind about the multicolored curlicues that would be cut into the glass on a new batch of drinking glasses if she gave her approval. They would look dazzlingly gorgeous, but would they also be elegant? It was the final measure by which she judged all designs and the one slight difference between her and her uncle. Both of them had liked vivid beauty and both had liked elegance, but while Uncle Reggie had tended to put more emphasis upon the former, she had leaned toward the latter. Usually, of course, the distinction between the two, as now, was such a fine one that a decision was not easy to make.

Half the morning had gone by in total absorption in her work before she made the simple discovery that if the yellow curlicues were omitted—or, better yet, changed to a different color—the whole effect was transformed. Total elegance. But even as she thought it and smiled, the butler appeared with a silver salver piled with the morning’s post and, behind him, a maid carried in a tray of coffee and oatmeal biscuits.

“For me?” Wren asked the butler. From whom could she possibly be expecting all these letters?

“Yes, my lady,” he said with an inclination of the head. “And I took the liberty of setting the morning paper on the tray too.” He and the maid left the room.

Wren picked up the pile of letters and looked quickly through them. Most surely must be for Alexander or for his mother or Elizabeth. But all were addressed either to the Countess of Riverdale or to both the earl and countess. And almost none of them had been franked, she noticed. They must all have been hand-delivered. She picked up the paper, which had been opened to the page of society news before being folded neatly. The announcement of her wedding was there as well as a gossip column about who had attended. In the column Wren had been identified as the fabulously wealthy Heyden glassware heiress. Oh goodness.

The letters were all invitations—to a wide variety of ton entertainments over the coming days and weeks, from balls to routs to a picnic to a Venetian breakfast to a musical evening. Oh goodness again. This was the stuff of her worst fears. It was the reason she had withdrawn her offer to Alexander on Easter Sunday. But he had promised … Well, she would simply hold him to it. She had gone as far as she intended to go in sociability and further than she had originally intended. She had met most of his family. She had gone walking a few times in Hyde Park—once without a veil. As much as she enjoyed his family, she had been exhausted by those efforts. She craved her privacy now in a visceral way. She would not further expose herself.

She was going to have to reply to all these invitations, she supposed, though she would wait and show them to Alexander first. She sat down, her tranquillity severely ruffled, to drink her coffee. She had taken only two bites out of one of the biscuits, however, when the door opened again to admit Cousin Viola—all the family had urged her yesterday to call them by their given names. So much for her quiet day, Wren thought as she got to her feet. But she could wish some of the others had returned first. She felt extremely awkward this morning greeting the lady who just over a year ago had held the title that was now hers and lived in this house with her children.

Cousin Viola looked just as uncomfortable. “Am I the first to return?” she asked. “I am so sorry. I thought to find Althea and Elizabeth here and perhaps Harry and Abby too. I expected that you would have gone out somewhere with Alexander.”