Bardolph was learning, Gowan realized. Edie had somehow put the fear of God in his grumpy factor.

Thirty-one

Edie was playing something low and languorous; as he climbed the stairs, he heard notes spilling out into the corridor.

Gowan climbed faster, prodded by guilt. She had been waiting for at least two hours. Perhaps three. He couldn’t remember when Bardolph had first asked him if he was ready to break off for the day.

That was the life of a nobleman. She would simply have to endure it, just as he did. The alternative—to be the sort of desultory duke his father had been—was unthinkable.

Still, she would likely be angry. Ladies were not happy when their arrangements were disrupted. He walked into the bedchamber and stopped short. The room had been transformed. The blue walls had been hung with saffron-colored silk that seemed to ripple in the light of the candles. And candles crowded every surface—on the tables, on the mantelpiece, on the table. The illumination was superfluous, because Edie wasn’t using a score.

Instead, her eyes were closed, and she was playing something so low and soft that it felt as if she were humming it. He listened without moving, his back to the door, as notes built and subsided, as if a giant were softly breathing them, as if each note was a drop of water going down a stream filled with rocks.

Then he entered into the room. He took the book of poetry out of his pocket, put it to the side, and dropped into a chair. Edie didn’t open her eyes, but surely she knew he was there.

The stress of the day seemed to slip away with the music. It took him to another world, away from numbers and reports and stocks, giving him a feeling that he had only occasionally, when standing deep in the loch in the Highlands, fly-fishing. Those were his happiest moments . . .

This made him pretty damn happy, too.

Even with all their problems in bed, he and Edie had a deep, thrumming awareness between them, a tension so taut that it overtook the music. Her bow quickened and he thought she went straight into playing something different, a piece less melancholy.

When she lifted her bow, he said, “Was that played allegro?”

“Yes, it was.”

“And the first was largo. Was that last written by Vivaldi?” he asked, trying out the new names that he was just beginning to store in his memory.

She beamed. “Exactly! The Vivaldi piece is one of the first I learned as a child.”

“It sounds as if they were written by the same person,” he said. “As if he was trying to capture birdsong.”

“What a lovely thought.” She put the bow aside and hoisted up her instrument.

Instantly Gowan was on his feet, reaching out for the cello.

“Careful!” she cried. Then she fell back with a shamefaced smile as he placed the instrument face up in its padded case. “I love my cello. I don’t know what I’d do if it was injured.”

She said injured, Gowan noted. As if it were a living being.

“Are there differences between one cello and another?”

“Absolutely. Mine was made by Ruggieri. My father and I think he is the finest cello maker in the world.”

“Was it costly?”

She named a sum that made his jaw drop. “You could buy a house in an excellent area of London for that.”

“That’s why I’m so fussy, and why it travels in a padded case.”

“I should have suspected when Bardolph informed me that the cello required a carriage of its own.”

“And a footman to keep it steady during the journey,” she said, nodding. “It’s an expensive business, being a musician. But I imagine we won’t travel for some time.” She looked up at him, a smile glimmering in her eyes. “I have to warn you, Gowan, that I may spend the rest of my life playing outdoors, in the orchard. It’s so quiet except for the river, and the acoustics are wonderful. It’s everything I ever wanted.”

Everything she wanted?

She picked up a glass of champagne and took a sip. “May I give you a glass? I thought we might celebrate our . . . well, arriving home.”

She poured a glass for him. He accepted it, but set it down on the table without tasting it, and curled a hand around her neck. He kissed her openmouthed, and the taste of her struck deep into his body. He already had an erection; these days he lived in a constant state of readiness. By the time he pulled back, in need of air, she was trembling in his arms and making little stifled noises in the back of her throat.

“You should eat,” he whispered, running his teeth down the slender column of her throat.

She pulled back. “No.”

“No?” Was she rejecting the cold food, or dinner altogether?

Edie had an endearing gleam of uncertainty in her eyes, and he swooped to kiss it away.

“I don’t want to follow a plan,” she said.

“Ah,” he said, remembering their wedding night. He wrapped her even more tightly in his arms, sliding one hand down onto her beautifully rounded rump. “In that case, my lady, would you mind if we took an indirect route to dinner via our bed?”

“I think you should drink your champagne,” she said, a little wildly. She turned to the side and groped for hers, found it, and then tossed down the glass.

Gowan didn’t like champagne. It was the kind of wine that tried to claw you in the throat. He couldn’t imagine why anyone liked it, but then he felt that way about most spirits. He took a sip.

Edie picked up the bottle and refilled her glass. He watched her and wondered. It seemed he wasn’t the only one who had a plan for the intimate side of their marriage. Then he gave a mental shrug. With luck, her plan would work better than his had.

When she turned back, her eyes shone from the wine. “I thought I might play for you. I mean, just for you, since you were unable to join us this afternoon.”

“I would enjoy that.”

“But I forgot, and now my cello is put away.”

“I would be happy to retrieve it for you.”

“Thank you,” she said, beaming as she finished her second glass. Or perhaps it was her third? He glanced at the bottle, but the glass was too thick to tell if it was half empty. The butler had probably opened the bottle for her some three hours ago.

Edie fussed with a chair as he brought out the cello, putting it directly in front of the couch. “You sit there,” she ordered, pointing. He sat.

“You forgot your champagne!” she exclaimed. She handed it to him and then apparently realized that her own glass was empty.

He was out of his seat before he knew what he was doing, stopping her hand as she reached for the wine. “Don’t. Please don’t.” He uttered a silent curse, hearing the note of pleading in his voice. This marriage was turning him into a bloody infant, begging for what he could not have.

“Oh,” Edie said. And then: “Do you think I’m tipsy yet?”

“Absolutely.”

She sat down on the chair and reached for her cello. “Good. Oops.” She popped up again, holding her instrument around the neck. “Will you hold this for a moment?”

He was already standing, the command to rise with a lady so ingrained that he felt like a jack-in-the-box. The cello’s wood was satin-smooth under his fingers, as smooth as Edie’s own skin.

As he watched, she untied what seemed to be some sort of robe and tossed it away. Underneath, she was wearing a nightdress of thin lawn, trimmed with lace at the bodice, and the elbows, and the hem, and . . . She sat down, a slit fell open, and there was Edie’s utterly delectable leg. The lace fell on either side of her thigh, like a ribbon on the best cake he ever saw. Her thigh was plump and luscious and—