When I set aside the empty brandy snifter, he does the same with the empty plate, and I curl into him, my head on his shoulder, his fingers toying with a lock of my hair.

“I promised you a bath, and I will deliver,” he says.

“The bath and more?”

A soft chuckle. “Definitely a bath and more. If you are not in a hurry, though . . .”

“Rest,” I say. “We had a long and treacherous evening, and I am not about to expect you to start hauling hot water to a tub.”

“It is not that. I would like to talk first, now that we are safe and fed, and I have had a bit of brandy to loosen my tongue.”

I snuggle into him. “Talk all you like.”

“I know I have been teasing about . . . where we go from here. About marrying you or taking you to Martinique with me, and I may be demonstrating a disappointing lack of my usual confidence, but I must ask . . .” He takes a deep breath. “Would you like me to continue pretending that I am entirely teasing?”

I stiffen. I don’t mean to, but I do, and he nods.

“That is what I thought,” he says. “You are comfortable with it as teasing.”

“It’s not that,” I say. “There’s something . . . There’s something I must tell you.”

I expect him to tense or to look confused, but he only nods again.

“I thought there might be,” he says. “That was my impression, at least. I have been trying to decide what it might be, and I have begun to suspect there is a reason you joked about not wishing to marry. You are already married, are you not? Unhappily wed to one of the men who has proven such an inadequate lover?”

“Certainly not.” I sit up. “If you think that my lack of virginity means I am clearly married, or that my lack of interest in marriage clearly means the same—”

He presses a kiss to my lips. “I only thought it was a possibility. I know there are men and women who find themselves in such a situation and lead separate lives, which I thought might be the case.”

“I am not married. I was never married—or even engaged—to the lovers I have had, and while I am not adamantly opposed to marriage, I do not feel it is the necessary institution that society claims. I believe in unions of a deeper sort, and while I have seen happy marriages—my parents and my sister—I have also seen ones that are cages rather than places of love and safety.”

“I do not disagree, and I am sorry if you are insulted by my supposition, crécerelle.”

“I am touchy on both matters, as you can see, and I did not mean to snap.”

His arms tighten around me. “Yet that leads us back where we were before I interrupted. You have something to tell me?”