“Should I tell Langley you are unavailable?” Grace asked, setting a basin of water on the small table beside the bed.

Langley. Christiana grimaced, her shame increasing at the thought of talking to Robert. Here he had been trying to get her out of her miserable marriage and she had ensured that there was no way that she could. Dear God, she wished she’d never . . . well, she wasn’t sure what she wished.

Having tasted such pleasure, it was hard to wish she hadn’t. God, her body ached in places she hadn’t known it could, but she’d never felt so physical y replete. Christiana supposed the truth was she wished this was the first morning after her wedding and that the last year hadn’t taken place, that she still had a chance of happiness, of enjoying the pleasure she’d experienced last night again and again and sharing a life full of laughter and joy with Richard . . . who would have to be Richard for certain, of course.

“I shall tell him you are still asleep,” Grace decided for her and turned toward the door, but Christiana forced herself to sit up.

“No,” she said on a sigh as she pushed the blankets away. There was no sense putting off this meeting. She may as well get the unpleasantness over with and out of the way and see what could be salvaged from it.

“Are you sure? I could—”

The way Grace’s words died so abruptly as Christiana rose from the bed, made her glance toward her curiously. The maid was staring at the bed and the small splotches of blood that had been revealed when she’d pushed the bed covers aside to get up. The evidence of what had taken place last night, Christiana realized with a grimace and felt herself blush when Grace’s sharp eyes turned her way.

“I knew he’d slept in here, his bed was ruined by the ice, but—” She paused, anger filling her face. “He took advantage of your inebriated state?”

Christiana grimaced and turned away, aware that she was blushing. Having no idea what to say, she moved to the basin of water and simply murmured, “He is my husband.”

Grace snorted angrily and began to strip the bed. “This blood proves he has been less than a husband this last year. I suspected he had not visited your bed since the wedding, but I thought that night, at least, he’d done his duty. The devil!” she added with disgust. “Why could he not stay dead?”

Christiana bit her lip as she picked up the clean bit of linen, dipped it in the perfumed water and began to wash herself. She’d wondered the same thing many times last night. Well, at least she had before Richard had kissed her. She suspected she would have protested vociferously at his dying in the middle of their exploits, but she was certainly now thinking it would have made things much simpler.

“And look what he did to you!” Grace said with dismay, leaving the bed for now and hurrying to her side.