He started to disagree, but she hadn’t finished. “That’s not quite right. You do enjoy your work, don’t you?”

Work? He enjoyed the delicate curve of her cheek, the deep rose of her lips, the way her eyelashes curled. Even the way she was dissecting him.

Edie leaned forward and gave his knee a little poke. “Gowan, are you listening to me?”

“Why would I work if I didn’t enjoy it?”

“Because you have responsibilities,” she said promptly. “My father would much prefer to play the cello, and yet he is unable to find more than a few minutes here and there in which to practice.”

“There’s only one thing I’d prefer to be doing,” he said, shaping the words with the controlled urgency of a man whose body was hard and aching.

“Gowan! That is not what I meant.”

He dragged his mind back to the subject. “You meant that I’m a tedious bastard and unfit to be in a lady’s company. I think,” he said apologetically, “that might just be the way I am, Edie. I can assure you that Bardolph and I do not exchange witticisms.”

“Bardolph is a stick,” she said, turning her little nose into the air. “And you, my dear duke, must be careful yourself in that respect, because you have displayed some stickish tendencies of your own.”

“I am not a stick.” He gave a bite of laughter. “Though, hell, we’d be better off if I were less sturdy and more stickish.”

Edie’s answering smile was just a bit wobbly. She took a deep breath. “It does still hurt some, Gowan.”

All amusement drained out him. He leaned forward and took her hands. “I know. I’m so sorry—but it is getting better, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

“It means everything to me that you are finding pleasure in the act.” He grinned at her. “My lack of experience was embarrassing enough, but if I’d failed you in that respect, I would have had to relinquish my claim to manhood altogether.”

Edie frowned. “That’s absurd.”

A ridiculous wave of relief washed over him. “I never felt more happy than when you came last night.” He brought her hands to his mouth and kissed their palms, first one, then the other. “I just wish that the first few minutes weren’t so painful.” His sweet bride was still so shy that she kept her eyes on their entwined fingers. “Look at me?” he coaxed. “We must talk about these things, Edie. A husband and wife shouldn’t have any secrets between them.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s why I . . .” But her voice trailed off.

She looked so miserable that Gowan couldn’t bear it. He half rose, bending his head to avoid the padded ceiling, pushed aside her hat, and sat down beside her. “Shakespeare makes the very true point that a standing prick has no conscience.”

At first she didn’t understand. “A standing what?” she asked. The words had scarcely left her mouth when he watched, fascinated, as her cheeks took on a faint color, like the blush of a peach. “Gowan!” She gave a little explosive laugh. “A standing prick?”

“Much better than a falling one,” he pointed out. “But what I’m trying to say is that I have a conscience, even if other parts of me are ravenous for you. Edie, mo chrìdh, if it hurts too much to make love, you merely have to tell me. You do know that, don’t you?”

The color in her cheeks stained darker, as beautiful as the first plum of the season. “Of course I do,” she said. “What does mo chrìdh mean?”

“My heart.” He picked her up easily and put her on his lap, pulling her into the crook of his arm. “You’re exquisite,” he told her. “The most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”

“I feel the same about you.” Her honesty always startled him, the way she so easily said things that others hid or doled out in meager doses.

Her arms came up and around his neck and he had an odd lurching sense, as if the carriage—or the world—tilted. She gave him that secret smile, the one with the tucked-away kiss. “When I looked up and saw you coming toward me at Fensmore, I thought you were the best-looking man in the room. And now,” she said, giving him a mischievous little smile, “I even like red hair. If it’s yours.”

Gowan had never given a damn how he looked—he was well aware that his title commanded admiration that had nothing to do with his physical attributes. But the look in Edie’s eyes gave him a shock of pride.

She liked his looks. Edie wasn’t the type of woman who cared much for titles. Nor for money, either.

She rested her head against his shoulder. “Still, I do worry about you, Gowan. My father has a tendency to be far too serious. I think life can be very difficult if a person hasn’t a sense of joy.”

He felt a little chill. “You think I don’t?”

“Of course you do! You can even make Shakespeare’s plays seem funny to someone like me, who’s never managed to read one all the way through. I’m just worried that your life may be smothered under a hundred daily reports.”

“I doubt it. For one thing, I lose my self-possession around you,” he confessed, running a finger along her cheekbone. “I stop giving a damn about work. Bardolph suggested I bring the ledgers in the carriage because he knows I didn’t truly absorb them.”

She sat up straight, her brows drawing together. “Mr. Bardolph is not endearing himself to me.”

“Don’t bother about him. More to the point, am I endearing myself to you?” Gowan scarcely believed that bit of foolishness came from his own lips. Something about her was eroding his independence . . . his manhood.

“I think you may well be,” Edie said.

Still, a shadow of anxiety clung to her eyes. “Don’t worry,” he said, dropping a kiss on her lips. “We will work out this marriage business. It’s unfortunate that neither one of us has a very good example to go by. My parents would have been vastly better off had they never met.”

“I can’t say the same for my father and Layla. They genuinely love each other. It’s just that my father has forgotten how . . .” She trailed off and started again. “He has stopped appreciating Layla for all the things he fell in love with in the first place. It’s as if he wants her to become him. And he is quite stiff by nature, I’m afraid.”

Gowan nodded.

“It makes him behave in a rather ill-tempered fashion, when in reality he isn’t.”

“I’ve seen him retain his temper in truly vexing circumstances, as when dealing with the idiots from the Bank of England.”

“But he doesn’t laugh at her jokes.”

“I promise to always laugh at your jokes,” Gowan whispered.

“If only I knew some to tell,” Edie said with a sigh. “I have only a passing and distant acquaintance of the sort of puns you like, the ones about pricks and bawdy clocks.” She snuggled her head back against his shoulder.

“I’m happy to provide definitions,” he said, his voice growing husky.

But she wasn’t listening. “I’m not used to staying up late, and then drinking wine at luncheon,” she said, yawning in a ladylike way. “Could we not find some potable water, Gowan? Wine at midday makes me feel so drowsy.”