“You want proof?” Outrage seized me in a red rush. I’d never touched my husband before, except the gliding of our palms in the grave measures of the basse-danse at our wedding, but now I took him by the sleeve and dragged him away from the row of stalls, back to a darker alcove out of sight of all but an inquisitive old mare at the end of the row. I could still feel the tingle along my fingers where Cardinal Borgia had stroked them, and I scrubbed my hand along my skirt to banish it. I was Orsino’s wife, and I had no business thinking of such things. I faced my husband resolutely, taking a deep breath as I took his hand and hooked it through the laces of my bodice. “I am as much a virgin now as I was on our wedding night,” I said. “And if you like, I will prove it to you.”

His head jerked up, and that blue gaze held mine. “Prove—”

“You’re my husband,” I said. “Even if you haven’t taken me yet, you have the right. I’m yours. Or at least, I’m supposed to be.”

Hesitantly his fingers touched my bodice ribbons. “You’re so beautiful,” he breathed. “I couldn’t believe my eyes, looking at you across that banquet table—”

It took a real effort to leach the exasperation thoroughly from my voice. “Then do something about it! Be my husband, in more than just name!”

“You want me?” His eyes pleaded with me. “You really do?”

No, I thought. Not at all. But what did wanting matter, or love either? Girls like me took the husbands chosen for us; we went to their beds and bore their children and managed their households and did it with good cheer, too. It was what I’d been taught all my life; what I’d been bred and raised for. What did it matter if the wedding vows had been a lie from the start? I’d said them in good faith; made a vow to God as well as Orsino, and wasn’t that more important than what I wanted?

I looked at Orsino’s narrow, handsome face, his blue eyes and his fair hair still speckled with dust, and I felt no desire at all. But I did feel sorry for him, sorry and guilt-sick that I’d even been tempted to throw my holy vows aside all because a man with a voice like a roll of thunder told me he wanted me naked in the grass.

Besides, another voice whispered in my mind, give yourself to Orsino, and Cardinal Borgia won’t want you anymore. And that would be one way to solve this whole guilt-laced mess. “You’re my husband,” I repeated firmly, making myself put my arms around Orsino’s neck. “And I keep my vows.”