He had barely begun sipping his port when he heard a soft clearing of a throat behind him. Turning, he saw his wife standing there almost expectantly.

What in the world could she want now?

“Port, my lady?” he offered with an impertinent tilt to his head. He chuckled to himself, taking another long drink.

“I rather like port, as it happens, though only after six,” Adelaide quipped, surprising him. “I just wondered, Basset, if you might let me know when this marriage of ours is consummated.”

The port Harrison had been preparing to swallow suddenly came spewing out of his mouth in a stream of burning mist. He wiped his mouth and looked at his wife in horror. “What?”

“Consummated,” Adelaide repeated without batting an eye, giving his reaction a disgusted look. “I’m told a marriage is not valid until it is consummated. So let me know when it is. I do not like to be left wondering.”

Of all the things they were to discuss upon their arrival to Trevadden, this was what she had selected?

His ears began to burn like the fires of hell. “Adelaide… do you know what consummation is?”

She reared back, either at his use of her given name or of the question itself. “Obviously not, or I would not need you to tell me when it is done.”

“Of all the bedeviled, addlepated…” Harrison trailed off, muttering under his breath as he set his port down and ran a hand over his face.

“Mother told me it is unpleasant and to think of the coast,” Adelaide went on, oblivious to Harrison’s agony. “I have no idea why I would need to, but I will endeavor to do so. Particularly now that I have actually seen the coast, so thinking of it will be all the more accurate.”

“Right…”

Oh, gads, what was he going to do about this? Of course, he planned on consummating the marriage eventually, but he’d rather expected… he’d rather planned on…

Dammit, he barely knew the woman! And she could not stand him! And here she was, discussing when consummation would be completed?

The blessed innocent did not even know of what she spoke.

“If you wish to… engage in the consummation so that our marriage might be valid,” Harrison ground out, forcing his tone to stay even and composed, “we need only settle on when would be convenient.”

If she had any idea, surely she would tell him the long side of never, but seeing how she did not…

“As soon as possible, I think,” she told him, speaking his fears aloud.

Harrison wasn’t given to blasphemy, but he certainly did his best in that moment. “This is not happening,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“It must happen, Basset,” Adelaide insisted, as though she knew anything at all. “I will not have my marriage invalid! What will people think?”