“I won’t,” Gabby repeated.

“Right. Well, then, I think we have reached an understanding, Gabby.” He turned about and rocked back on his heels. “As I said, it’s best to begin as we mean to go on.”

There was a moment’s pause in the room. Gabby took a deep, unsteady breath. Quill looked as if he was about to leave, and she couldn’t allow it. She might not have known Quill very long, as he had pointed out, but she knew that his unpleasant tone was not normal.

“Wait!” she half shouted.

Quill turned about as his hand reached for the door handle.

“What is it, Gabby? I have a number of arrangements to make.”

She stood up and walked toward him, ignoring her shaky knees and stopping only when she stood a hairbreadth away. Then she put her hands on his chest, spreading her fingers against his warmth.

“I think we should talk further,” she said carefully, ignoring the churning sensation in her stomach. “Not”—she shook her head when he opened his mouth to protest—“Not about when we consummate this marriage. I have no objection to your plans in that regard.”

Gabby’s mouth curved into a faint smile. “I am no siren, Quill, to lure you into bedding me when you are distraught by grief for your papa.” She paused, but Quill said nothing, just stared at her with his shadowed eyes.

“Sometimes grief is easier if one shares it.” Gabby lowered her eyes and twisted one of the silver-plated buttons on the front of Quill’s coat. “I realize that my father is still alive, and so I can have no true understanding of your feelings. But I did lose a dearly beloved friend, in my childhood. His name was Johore, and I loved him very much. And after he died …”

Quill was hardly listening. Gabby’s friend Johore had died of a fever. He heard that. But she was standing too close for rational thought. He could smell drifts of jasmine rising from her perfumed skin, like airy promises of delight.

“You see,” Gabby was saying with sweet earnestness, “we are married, Quill. And I don’t believe it matters when we consummate the marriage. What matters is that we speak without anger to each other.”

Quill gave his head a brutal shake. How the hell did Gabby turn the conversation into a discourse on marriage? “When one is angry, one speaks with anger,” he pointed out.

“It is best to keep that anger where it belongs,” Gabby said. Her beautiful brown eyes were warm with sympathy. “You are not really angry with me, Quill, and yet you sounded enraged, as if I had done something wrong.”

Quill felt like a five-year-old hauled in front of a nurse to admit his shortcomings. Yet common sense agreed with her. “You are likely correct,” he said, breaking the silence. “I should not have spoken angrily to you, Gabby, and I apologize.”