Poor Eloise! She had spent years trying to talk Sophie out of her passion for languages. Eloise had probably fought Latin the hardest. “Latin is as unfeminine a decoration for the inside of a woman’s head as a beard is for the outside,” she had protested, her lips white with fury. But George had stood up to his wife, and consequently Sophie’s mornings had been filled with the conjugation of verbs.

Sophie’s grin faded as she remembered what most of her mother’s admonishments added up to. Eloise’s favorite statement was “Young women need only study how to find husbands.” Braddon’s Madeleine would truly have to study if she had a hope of carrying off his scheme. Sophie dismissed the plight of Braddon and the horse trainer’s daughter, pulling up her grammar book again. With luck she’d have time to get her mind around the complications of the past tense before Patrick returned.

When Patrick let himself into the stateroom, he expected to find an irritable wife waiting for him. Everything he knew of women had led him to believe that newly married wives were never to be left alone, particularly when one has rudely separated them from the pleasurable pursuits of taking tea and shopping. He had been absent three hours, discussing the sea currents around the tip of Cornwall and the crew’s lack of a second mate.

He felt a mild surge of shame for his uncharitable thoughts when he found Sophie sitting in an armchair, looking sweetly peaceful, wrapped in a silky negligee. His surge of shame was followed by a surge of something else. Lord, but he’d married a beautiful woman! Sophie’s hair fell in glistening honey-pale curls about her shoulders and down her back, still damp from her bath. Her eyes looked mulberry black in the candlelit room.

“Where’s your maid?” Patrick’s voice sounded rough even to his ears.

Sophie looked at him in surprise. “Simone is suffering mightily from mal de mer. I sent her off to her cabin for the night.”

Patrick swallowed. He knew Sophie must be sore, far too sore to continue the kind of activity they had carried on that morning. He walked over and dropped to a crouching position next to her chair.

Sophie smiled. She was filled with overlapping pools of happiness. Marriage was possible, even wonderful, and she’d mastered the Turkish past tense. Buried in her memory was an unspoken sentence: “Seni sevdi: I loved him.”

Deliberately she leaned forward, allowing the diaphanous silk to fall open at her neck. “Do you know, Patrick, that there’s no English equivalent of déshabillé?”

Patrick’s eyes darkened to an ink smudge below his eyebrows. “My French is getting worse by the moment.” His breath warmed the skin on her neck as he pushed the negligee open with kisses. “What does déshabillé mean?”