“But it’s half nine,” she stammered. “Why haven’t you eaten?”

“I was waiting for you,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Oh.” She swallowed. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I wanted to.”

She tightened her arms around her body, feeling strangely as if she had to protect herself, or cover herself, or something. She felt utterly out of her element. This man had seen her naked. Granted, he was her husband, but still, the things he’d done to her . . . and the way she’d reacted . . .

Her face flushed crimson. She didn’t have to see it for herself to know just how deeply red she’d gone.

He quirked a brow. “Thinking of me?”

That was enough to strike her temper. “I think you should leave.”

“But I’m hungry.”

“Well, you should have thought of that earlier.”

This made him smile. “I’m to be punished for waiting for my wife?”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

“And I thought I was being a gentleman by allowing you your slumber.”

“I was tired,” she said, and then she blushed again, because they both knew why.

She was spared further embarrassment by a knock at her door, and before she knew it, two footmen entered with a small table and chairs, followed by two maids carrying trays.

“Good heavens,” Iris said, watching the flurry of activity. She’d been planning to take her tray in bed. But, of course, she could not do that now, not if Richard insisted upon dining with her.

The footmen set the table with quick precision, stepping back to allow the maids to bring forth the food. It smelled heavenly, and as the servants filed out Iris’s stomach growled.

“One moment,” Richard murmured, and he walked to the door and peered down the hall. “Ah, here we are. Thank you.” When he stepped back into the room, he was holding a tall, narrow vase.

With a single iris.

“For you,” he said softly.

Her lips trembled. “Where did you—they’re not in season.”

He shrugged, and for the briefest second he looked almost apprehensive. But that could not be true; he was never nervous. “There are a few left,” he said, “if you know where to look.”

“But it’s—” She stopped, her lips parted in an astonished oval. She looked to the window, even though the curtains were now drawn tight. It was late. Had he gone out in the dark? Just to pick her a flower?

“Thank you,” she said. Because sometimes it was best not to question a gift. Sometimes one simply had to be glad for it without knowing why.

Richard placed the vase at the center of their small table, and Iris stared at the bloom, mesmerized by the thin inner streaks of gold, delicate and bright in the soft violet petals.

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

“Irises are.”