“Do you really think this is the place to test your theory that you look like a boy in those breeches?”
She flushed and subsided.
Wine arrived, and Luke poured her a glass. She took it, but before she could drink, he clinked his glass against hers and said, “To our marriage.” His gaze bored into her.
What did that mean? she wondered. To the success of their marriage? Or was it an ironic toast, a sort of “to-the-millstone-around-my-neck”?
His face was as expressive as a stone statue. She didn’t understand him in the least. He looked like a man set to carry out some ruthless course of action, and the leashed tension in his body unnerved her.
Deciding to take his toast at face value, she sipped the wine, then seeing his expression, she drained the glass and said, “I want a separate bedchamber.”
“Bad luck.”
“You promised you’d give me time.”
He poured some more wine into her glass. “You promisedto obey, and yet I spent most of today—sidesaddle!—combing the mountains searching for your body.”
She bit her lip. “I’m sorry to have worried you. Nevertheless—”
“We’re married. From now on it’s one bedchamber, one bed.” His tone was implacable.
The first dishes arrived: tender slices of local ham, small spicy sausages still sizzling in their own juice, grilled mushrooms fragrant with thyme and other herbs, gleaming black olives, and fresh, crusty bread.
Hunger, salted by years of convent austerity, swamped her. The food smelled delicious, and she only just remembered to murmur a quick grace before diving in.
“What did you ask the landlord to do?” she said as she served them both some mushrooms.
“Are the sausages to your liking?” he asked. “They’re a little spicy.”
“I love spicy food,” she told him. “In the convent our food was mostly very simple and very bland. The landlord?”
He speared a sausage. “You’ll see.”
He was a stubborn man, but to her surprise, the prospect of sharing his bed wasn’t at all… objectionable. Far from it.
Sometime during that last ride in the moonlight, riding pressed against his broad, strong body, her arms wrapped around his waist, inhaling the scent of him and warmed by his heat and strength, her body had decided: this was her husband.
Their marriage might have been a mistake, but it was a mistake she, at least, could live with. If he didn’t love her, so be it. Mama had made herself miserable pining after Papa, yearning for him to love her, and he never had.
It was a waste, Bella decided; a waste of a life. She wouldn’t make the same mistake.
She watched Luke tear a piece of bread apart with long, elegant fingers, then eat it, his face partly shadowed in the dim light, his eyes dark mysteries, the blade of his cheekbones gilded by lamplight… A strong jaw, dark with rough stubble.
He was one beautiful man. And he was hers.
Or he would be, tonight. Excitement thrummed.
The rest of the meal arrived: roast lamb with potatoes, chicken stew in a rich sauce of red peppers and tomatoes, and a salad of boiled green beans tossed with a lemony dressing. It was a feast fit for a king. Or a queen.
Bella ate till she was full to bursting, tasting something from each dish, then going back for more. Everything tasted delicious; the lamb was melt-in-your-mouth tender, and the potatoes were baked crispy-skinned and golden. The chicken stew was rich and full of the flavors of her childhood.
They ate without speaking, but it was not an awkward silence; each of them was intent on the meal. From time to time Luke would refill her glass or pass her some bread.
Occasionally, in the passing or pouring, their fingers brushed, and each time, Bella’s pulse leapt.
She wasn’t sure what this night would bring, but she longed to become a wife, instead of a half wife. And to finally know. She was woefully ignorant of the relations between a man and his wife. It was ridiculous.
Luke drank the last of the wine, and she watched his strong, tanned throat move as he swallowed. She knew how horses and dogs and chickens procreated, but as for what she was expected to do on her wedding night…
