“Who? Peony?” Jamie yawned, sounding surprised that such a topic could come up. Perhaps, Bliss reflected, he was one of those who believed it behooved a man to have a mistress as well as a wife. Lord knew, the idea was common enough.

Bliss was having trouble controlling her temper, not to mention the raging jealousy that was building within her. She swallowed and nodded her head, unable to speak.

“Yes,” Jamie said, flatly and without hesitation.

Bliss felt as though she’d just been run through with a spear, but couldn’t honestly say she’d been unprepared for that answer.

Telling herself that she had no real right to the feelings she was having, Bliss began folding and refolding the petticoat. Jamie had not become her husband by choice; she could not expect him to hold their marriage sacred.

She had been so busy searching her mind for something sophisticated and worldly to say in response that she was totally unprepared when Jamie gripped her shoulders in his hands and turned her to face him.

He laid an index finger to her lips, and his pale blue eyes danced with mischief and affection. “I don’t think you understand about Peony,” he said.

Bliss’s throat ached. If things were as she suspected, she didn’t want to understand. “I realize that our marriage is a—is a sham,” she told him, in a miserable whisper. “I c-couldn’t expect you to b-be faithful—”

Jamie’s hands had returned to Bliss’s shoulders, where they lay heavily upon her, making it difficult to stand. “A marriage is a marriage, Duchess,” he said, in a voice that was, while gravelly, remarkably tender as well. “I’ll ’ave no other woman in me bed.” He paused to give her a playful swat. “Now, dress yourself in the finest gown you ’ave.”

Bliss’s indigo eyes widened. She had scarcely allowed herself to hope for a chance to wear the evening frocks Jamie had helped her to select. “Are we going somewhere?”

Jamie took his time in answering; first he smiled briefly and sadly, then he kissed her, his lips touching hers as lightly as the passing of a butterfly’s wing. “To supper and, God ’elp us, the opera.”

Heart hammering with excitement at the prospect of such an adventure, Bliss was already lost in a welter of momentous decisions. After all, there were at least five gowns that would be suitable for such an evening, and this was no time to be saving the best for last. There might never be another night like this.

Jamie kissed the top of her head, and there was amusement in his voice, if not in his eyes, as he crossed to the door and took his hat and coat from the brass tree beside it. “I’ll be back in an hour or thereabouts, Duchess,” he said in a curiously hoarse voice. “Do something with that wild tangle of ’air, will you?”

Bliss’s hand rose to touch her hair as she watched the door close behind Jamie. For a change, she wasn’t insulted by his remark, for she knew that he hadn’t meant to hurt her.