As his mellow voice boomed his promise to love her daughter until death did they part, Melly couldn't resist looking over at Lady Seedham-Jones, whose three single daughters—all of whom had come out in the last four years—were sitting next to her. The lady in question had the look of a wrinkled prune about her face.

That was when Melly noticed the Italian gentleman who seemed to know her aunt Eustacia quite well. Maximilian someone-or-other—since he didn't have a title, Melly hadn't bothered to learn his last name. "Whatever does that Maximilian person have in his hand?"

Winnie turned to look at the tall dark-haired man with the arrogant face. He sat in the back row of the chapel, looking rather bored, and as Melly watched he slipped something—a long, pointed stick—from the sleeve of his jacket. He hefted it in his hand, then slid it back into the starched white cuff. More than once.

"How very odd," Winnie murmured, fingering the crucifix that dangled from her neck. "It almost looks like a stake one would use to impale a—"

"Don't say it!" Melly hissed. "Do not even breathe your foolish thoughts here at my daughter's wedding!"

"But, Melly, you know—"

"Hush! They are about to be presented as husband and wife!"

Winnie complied and closed her mouth, but her eyes darted back to the Italian gentleman sitting in the last row. Melly pretended not to notice, but she did keep a wary eye on the man for the rest of the wedding celebration.

However, he remained on the outskirts of the revelry and never once left the fete. So it was most certain that Winnie's imagination had run away with her yet again.

Silly woman.

Victoria had never seen the bare chest of an adult male, but she found it exceedingly captivating when, late on the day of her wedding, in the privacy of his bedchamber, her new husband whipped off his shirt.

The starched white broadcloth fell in a crumple on the floor and Phillip stepped over it, moving toward her outstretched hand. She wanted to feel the smooth skin that had been hidden under his shirt. Who would have known that such a proper gentleman had such firm, golden ridges dusted with dark hair, of all things! But the curls felt soft and interesting when she finally touched them, and if the gentle intake of his breath was any indication, he did not mind her questing fingers at all.

Not at all.

Victoria was still garbed in the night rail that Verbena had hustled her into, after all of the guests had left St. Heath's Row. The faintest sounds of clattering dishes and servants ordering one another about during their effort to clean up did reach her ears, up there in the suite of rooms that belonged to her husband, but Victoria's attention was quite focused elsewhere. In particular, on the hands of her husband, which were industriously unbuttoning the tiny buttons that Verbena had done up a mere fifteen minutes earlier.

She held her breath when the flimsy cotton lawn, trimmed with an abundance of lace and satin that she was certain had gone wholly unappreciated by her new husband, fell away, baring her shoulders and a great deal of her bosom.

And whilst Phillip, the man she loved, carried her to the bed they would share, if she happened to think, ever so briefly, that he was not the first man to see her breasts bared… well, that thought was immediately driven from her mind when he replaced smoothing hands with his lips.

It felt quite delicious, and Victoria was gratified that the pleasant tingle between her legs grew stronger and moister under her husband's ministrations. And that she was feeling his warm skin under her hands and nails as they ruffled the scattering of hair that grew in so many unusual places—on his muscular arms, over the flat expanse of his chest, down a long, thin line that disappeared into his trousers.

He'd left off kissing her breasts to move back up to her mouth and then along the most sensitive area of her neck, where the vampire bite was all but gone. For the first time in her memory, his hair had moved out of place and fell forward on the sides, brushing his sideburns and the edge of his jaw.

Phillip moved back, away and off, and shucked off his breeches. With a covert glance, as if to check her reaction to the bulge thus revealed, he took a bit longer to slip out of his drawers and then stood looking down at her.

Victoria felt hot and trembly all over when she saw the part of him that most obviously wanted her.

He came back toward the bed, where she'd hiked herself up on one elbow to watch him undress. Sprawling next to her, his nakedness lining the length of her night rail, he trailed a hand along her body, from her throat down along between her breasts and into the deep vee from the part of her gown he'd impatiently left buttoned. But not for long.

His fingers deftly slipped the remaining buttons from their loops as he bent forward to kiss her. And then, as his hands brushed over the newly exposed skin, he stopped.

"What… ?" He sat up, away, and pulled the edges of her nightgown aside to expose the soft rounding of her stomach and the glint of silver that lay there. "What is that?"

Of course. She'd realized he'd ask about it. He wouldn't recognize a vis bulla, as Verbena or Sebastian would. But she hadn't expected the expression on his face to be one of such… displeasure.

She'd already decided how to explain it. "A Gardella family tradition," she told him, reaching for the squared-off roundness of his shoulder to pull him back toward her.

He resisted, and though she was strong enough to keep him moving toward her, she released him.

"Why?"

"It's believed to offer a kind of protection. As I said, it is a family tradition that Aunt Eustacia requested I follow."

"It is… unusual. Does it hurt?" He reached a finger to touch the silver cross.

"No. Not at all." She flicked the cross and its small hoop to demonstrate.

"I'm not at all certain I like it, or that it's appropriate."

Victoria stared at him for a moment, then told herself it was her wedding night and she did not want it to be spoiled. "I can take it out for tonight, if it would make you feel better."

"Feel better? I'm, not certain I agree with your choice of words… but, yes, Victoria, I think I would rather look only at your beautiful body without any adornments."

"I will be right back, then." She had no intention of removing the vis bulla and leaving it in his bedchamber to be lost. Pulling on a robe she'd discarded almost as soon as she entered the room, she hurried to her adjoining chamber. In the low light she untwisted the silver ring and slipped it from its mooring at the lip of her navel. When she pulled it out and placed it on her dressing table, she had to sit for a moment. Its absence left her light-headed and clammy, and she found she needed to rest her head on the table for a moment.

She could put the vis bulla back in, in the morning. And perhaps Phillip would grow used to it.

She turned toward the door that joined their bedchambers, and started… for he was standing there, her husband, in all of his naked beauty. Dark hair, heavy blue eyes… lean limbs shadowed with the glow from the candle on her dressing table. Her breath caught for a moment and she felt muzzy-headed again… and this time it was not from the removal of her vis bulla.

"Come here, darling," Phillip said, holding out his hands to her. His shoulders flexed easily in the flickering candlelight. "I hope I did not spoil the mood." He smiled in a manner that reminded her uncomfortably of Sebastian—a bit wicked, edged with promise… yet there was a tenderness there in his eyes, something she'd never seen in Sebastian's golden ones.

And why was she comparing him to Sebastian? Her husband, on their wedding night? Perhaps it was only normal for one to compare and contrast when confronted with something unfamiliar… and exciting.

She stepped into his arms, glad that he'd come to her and apologized. She felt the warmth of his body, long and textured against hers, and the prod of his erection was gentle against her hip. Her half-donned robe gusted around them, and she slipped it off her shoulders. It collapsed onto the floor, pooling at her ankles as her naked breasts pressed against his chest.

Phillip kissed her along the side of her neck, where her skin was the most sensitive, and where the bare brush of his lips made her toes curl and her breasts tighten. Somehow his mouth didn't stop its tasting of her as he brought them to the bed—her bed, not his—and tumbled her onto it.

"So beautiful, my darling," he told her, propping himself up on an elbow above her. His body cast a shadow over half of hers, and she watched in fascinated interest as he drew his finger gently down between her breasts, along the irregular line of dark and light. The tingling that had begun in her belly, then between her legs, tightened almost painfully as he bent to draw her nipple into his mouth.

As he sucked and tugged, the sensation grew and ebbed with the rhythm of his mouth and the slide of his tongue. His breathing became deeper, warm and moist over her skin, and when he slipped his fingers between her legs, Victoria didn't know whether to press her knees together… or let them fall away.

"Let me, Victoria, my wife," he whispered against her neck, drawing his mouth along her jaw as he positioned himself over her. "I will be very gentle… and after a moment, you will feel only pleasure."

She did. She let him, and opened her legs in a wanton manner, one that would have horrified her if she'd thought about it… but she did not. She let him. Let his fingers stroke and slide, dip and delve, until she did not know what was happening… only that it was pleasure beyond anything she'd imagined.

And then… the pain. The sharp, quick pain as he moved his hips between hers, and then, as he had promised, only pleasure.

Only easy, rising, fulfilling pleasure.

Chapter Twenty-one

Wherein the Marchioness Proves Herself an Excellent Storyteller

Victoria felt better when she reinserted her vis bulla the next day. It took a little bit of jimmying and tugging to get the silver hoop back in place, but she managed it with a bit of help from Verbena, and once that was done she finished dressing.She was pleasantly sore from the activities of the night before, and, so far, quite delighted with her new marital status. Over breakfast she and Phillip ate kippers and eggs, sausages and biscuits, preserves and clotted cream. And then they boarded his traveling coach, which had already been loaded with their trunks, and embarked on a two-week honeymoon.