met, and Nick’s unfortunate word choice reverberated in the silence.
He sat back. “About last night?”
“What about last night?” She tied the shirt closed at her throat, but it still dipped below her collarbone.
“I have a very clear idea how I do not want to go on with you,” Nick said slowly. “But that doesn’t tell me much about how we should go on, or what you’ll need to be happy as my wife.”
I need you. Leah wondered where that ridiculous sentiment could have come from. Nick was providing her safety in exchange for an untroublesome, virtually white marriage. They could be friends, eventually, if she were very determined and Nick amenable.
“What is it that you don’t want?” Leah asked, but Nick’s answer was preempted by the arrival of breakfast and a parade of footmen intent on draining and then removing the great round tub.
“Gentlemen.” Nick raised his voice slightly. “If you could wait until my wife and I have absented ourselves from the chamber?”
“Very good, my lord.” The head footman bowed and waved the other three away.
“They all wanted a peek at you,” Nick groused when the room was once again devoid of servants. “Let me prepare you a plate. There’s more food here than Napoleon needed to reach Moscow.”
“As much as all that?” Leah gathered the shirt up and craned her neck to see the tea cart Nick had wheeled to his side of the bed. Luscious, bacony, toasty breakfast scents assaulted her nose, and her stomach reminded her audibly that she hadn’t eaten much on her wedding day.
“Eggs and toast,” Nick said, “bacon, ham, scones, butter, jam, fresh oranges, forced strawberries, kippers, sweet rolls, muffins, and what’s this? A pot of chocolate for my lady, and perhaps for my lord, if she’s willing to share. What can I get for you?”
He was back to being his smiling, charming, agreeable self, but there was something off about the performance. For it was a performance, a very good one, in a role Nick adopted as easily as a second skin, but a performance nonetheless.
“Let’s start with bacon and eggs, toast with butter, and some of that chocolate,” Leah replied. “What will you be having?”
“All of the above.” Nick filled a plate for her, the portions generous but reasonable. “And some ham, and an orange or two, as well as the inevitable cup or three of tea.”
Leah built her breakfast into a sandwich.
“I take it,” she began between bites, “we shared this bed last night to create the appearance of consummating the marriage?” Her tone was casual, but she had the sense it took Nick a heartbeat or so to comprehend the substance of the question.
“Just so,” he said, studying the chocolate pot. “I trust my staff, but they do gossip, and Wilton can hire spies as well as the next person can. I wouldn’t want Wilton using any doubts to his advantage.”
“If I am asked,” Leah said, pausing in her consumption of the sandwich, “I can honestly say I made love with my husband.”
He bristled beside her, the chocolate pot returning to the tray with a sharp little clink. “Meaning?”
“Aaron Frommer assured me he was my husband in fact,” Leah said. “I made love with him, or consummated the marriage, in the necessary fashion.” She took a sip of her chocolate, keeping her expression placid. “I think every marriage takes some getting used to, just like the first time you ride a new horse or sail a new boat. I will not render all you’ve done for me pointless, Nicholas.”
Her words did not have the intended effect of putting him at ease.
“Nor will I allow my efforts to keep a promise to my father be shown as an empty exercise,” Nick said. “So like the good English folk we are, we will maintain appearances, but, Leah?”
She was Leah this morning, not lovey, not lamb, not sweetheart.
“I hope we can do more than that,” Nick said. “I don’t know how, not when the entire business of the marriage bed is going to be complicated, but please know I want us to be at least cordial.”
“Cordial.” Leah blew out a breath, hating the word. “I can manage cordial, if that’s what you want.”
“I think it for the best. Shall I peel you an orange?”
A cordial damned orange. Despair reached for Leah’s vitals with cold, sticky fingers. The sandwich she’d eaten abruptly sat heavily in her stomach, and the chocolate less comfortably still.
“No, thank you,” she said, feeling her throat constrict again. She