She tied the cord of her robe firmly about her waist and sat down opposite her husband. He looked dangerously magnificent, relaxed in a chair. Since he was temporarily ignoring her, Gabby let herself stare at him. Quill hadn’t changed into black clothing yet. His thighs were large and muscular in his fawn-colored pantaloons. In the sunlight she could see red tints in his hair as it tumbled forward. Those large hands—they had done amazing things to her in the library, when he asked her to marry him. She felt a delicious tremor in her knees.

Gabby flushed and shifted slightly in her chair. She had a rising sense of confusion interlaced with an uncomfortable wish that Quill would look at her again.

But when he did, there was none of that wicked pleasure with which he sometimes looked at her. His eyes were flat, unspeaking.

“I feel we should discuss our marriage.” He cleared his throat. “We should…make a beginning. Begin as we mean to go on.”

Quill ground his teeth together. He sounded daft. No wonder Gabby looked so bewildered.

“I mean to say that we ought to be frank with each other.”

Gabby nodded. Her stomach was curling into knots. It didn’t sound good, all this talk of frankness. Her mind darted desperately in several directions at once. Perhaps he regretted the marriage. Oh, why was she wearing such a thin shift when he walked into the room! Perhaps he didn’t like her hips. Perhaps …

“There will be times when you will say the same to me, my dear, and I will accept it with equanimity. With luck, after all, we will be married for years.”

Gabby didn’t understand what he was talking about. She knit her brow.

He kept talking, calmly speaking of separate chambers and marital courtesies.

By a moment later she was quite certain that Quill was regretting their marriage. She stared at him, flabbergasted, and then blurted out, “No!”

Quill lifted an eyebrow.

“I had no idea that you were looking forward to this event so eagerly, Gabby. I would prefer to sleep alone, given my father’s impending funeral. But if you insist?”

Gabby felt a hot wash of humiliation. Of course she wasn’t looking forward to it to that degree. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t find words. But she was…she was … Be frank with each other, he’d said. But how can one be frank about things that weren’t spoken out loud?

“I have no objection.” Then she couldn’t think of a single comment to add. Having no experience, she could hardly make a slighting remark about the expendability of the act.