“I don’t think I shall do that,” Sophie replied calmly. “A cicisbeo ought to be able to string more than two sentences together, don’t you think?” There was a twinkle in her eye that made Patrick feel much better.

Sophie walked to the door of the morning room. “One always has one’s husband,” she teased, “if one wants to have a muddled conversation!”

Patrick gave a mock growl and reached out to catch his giggling wife, but she whisked through the door and was gone. Patrick caught up Braddon’s letter, which she had left behind. It was a decidedly un-lover-like note: “I need to see you. I’ll pick you up in the landolet tomorrow at four.” “Landaulet” was misspelled.

He was being unreasonable, Patrick admitted. It was just … it was just that Sophie had not uttered a word about being in love with him. In fact, she didn’t seem even to be thinking of it. Here they had spent well nigh two months together, in the closest of quarters, and his wife had shown no sign of declaring herself.

Just then Sophie popped her head back into the room. “What’s more, I shall expect all my cicisbei to speak excellent French!” she said saucily. As Patrick stood up he met her eyes, which were looking at him with wicked suggestiveness. It had been an enormously gratifying realization, the discovery that he could turn his wife into a melting, wild seductress simply by whispering a few throaty words in French.

Then her smile faded. “Are you reading my letter, Patrick?” Her voice was suddenly cool. Patrick looked down and realized that Braddon’s note was still in his hand. He dropped it as if it had caught fire.

“Why does he need to see you?”

Sophie’s backbone straightened. “Not because we are setting up an assignation. Given that, it is not your concern.”

Patrick’s mouth tightened to a thin line. The guilt he felt reading Sophie’s correspondence made his tone much harsher than it might have been. “It damn well is my concern! You are my wife, and your reputation is my business.”

“Are you implying that my reputation will be tarnished by driving with Braddon?”

“Well, your reputation is already not the best, is it?” Patrick said rashly. “Now that you’re married, everyone will be expecting you to lead me a pretty dance!”

“A pretty dance,” Sophie said, pausing on each word. Her heart was pounding in her throat. “You think that my reputation is so … tarnished as to make me notorious?”

“Your reputation isn’t really a concern,” Patrick said, reversing himself. “Braddon’s intentions are the important thing. I fail to see what business a known rake could possibly have with a young married woman, besides the obvious.”