She gazed raptly into Richard’s face as he bowed over her hand. He gave her the blinding smile he usually reserved for attractive females and entranced her. She wouldn’t be out for a while, but she was forming well. Ruth was Lizzie’s full sister, and it looked as if she would inherit her mother’s blonde prettiness; the prettiness my mother hadn’t possessed, and so I didn’t have either. I exchanged a glance with Martha, who was watching the small performance with a cynical eye. She had her reservations about my choice of husband because of Richard’s fearsome reputation in society as a philanderer. We read about it in the newspapers for years before we actually met him, and it would take some time for her to trust him.

I’d always thought of myself as an unremarkable brunette, too tall for beauty, too shy for flirting, until the startling events of the previous autumn disabused me of that notion. I still found it hard to believe, but here I was and here he was. Richard had signed one of the most punitive marriage settlements I had ever seen without a murmur, and declared himself perfectly content.

Richard left me to greet Martha, who had a few quiet words with him. Gervase moved to my side. “He missed you very much, you know.”

I looked away, feeling my cheeks flush with heat. I was one of the only two people Richard allowed inside the barrier he’d built up for himself—Gervase because he couldn’t hide anything from his twin and me because I had stormed barriers I never noticed at the time. But I was a newcomer, and although I loved Richard, I felt I didn’t know him well.

“I missed him,” I confessed. “I feel stupid really, because it’s only been a month, but I can’t be completely content without him.”

“Don’t worry. Soon the circus will be over and you’ll have time to yourselves.” Gervase smiled reassuringly at me, and I smiled back.

Not for the first time, I thought how strange it was that Richard should arouse such strong emotions in me, and his twin brother engendered nothing more than the sort of warmth I felt for Tom Skerrit.

“I’m not happy about all of it,” I confided to Gervase now. “I don’t suppose you understand because you’ve been in the public eye all your life, but I’m nervous. The only thing I’m sure about is Richard.” It would have been difficult enough getting married to a local man in the local church, because I hated to be the centre of attention, but a public marriage to such a well-known figure as Richard made me deeply apprehensive.

Half polite society had promised to attend the wedding and Lizzie was more excited than I was. I didn’t know if Richard knew about my nervousness; I had tried hard not to show him.

“You just do as you are bid, look beautiful, and everyone will be satisfied,” Gervase whispered to me. “Tell Richard how you feel; no one else will comfort you like he will.” I laughed at him, foolish man, but at least he had made me forget for a time what was to come the next month, the thought of which made my stomach contract.

Richard came back to join us, and we let the others climb the steps to the front door before we followed them. To my surprise, instead of following the others going upstairs to the drawing room he turned aside, and took me into the breakfast parlour at the back of the house.

He closed the door behind us. “Your estimable sister-in-law has given us half an hour, and then she says I must go upstairs and meet the rest of your prodigious family. I need some sustenance to see me through that. So will you come and greet me properly?”

His smile made the warmth increase inside me. “With pleasure.” I put my arms around him under his coat and turned my face up for his kiss.

The first touch of his lips on mine gave me the bliss I’d missed this past month, and I lost myself in him. He pressed me close, letting me feel how much he’d missed me, and I responded, trying to show him I’d missed him too, letting my hands roam over his body, holding him tight. After the first, tentative touch, he took my mouth like a man starved and I feasted along with him.

I was breathless by the time he drew away and looked down at me. “So you didn’t miss me at all?”

“Not at all.” When he looked at me with that warmth, he made me wonder how I could wait another month before I gave him all he asked for and more. And all I wanted, too. Once, an afternoon out of time, he’d taken me in his arms, undressed me and loved me but since then, none of our diligent chaperones had given us the opportunity.

His eyes were a bright, cold blue, but I saw the warmth he reserved just for me.

“I didn’t expect you so soon.”

He smoothed his hands over my back. I felt his touch through the layers of clothes, through my stays, as though he was touching my bare skin. “Without you I found our guests too tedious for words. My mother doesn’t approve of my choice, you know that, but she knows better than to quibble. I told her it was you or no one. She tried—” He broke off and took another kiss, effectively confusing my mind so I forgot he hadn’t finished his sentence. “Lady Hareton volunteered to let us stay here, though where we’ll sleep is a mystery to me. This house seems to be stuffed as