marriage. She had been so angry with Nat last night for his mercenary acceptance of Gregory Scarlet’s bribe and even more so because he had not told her about it, and he had been equally angry with her for her wildness and her outrageous behavior. They had been pushed as far apart as the poles. That such mutual fury had erupted into equally mutual desire had not surprised her in the least. That was the way that it was between herself and Nat.
And it was not enough for her.
Oh, she knew that sex without love was possible. Hundreds, thousands of people had sex without being in love with one another and evidently Nat was one of those people who had no difficulty in separating out the two things. She was not. And now, finally, it had broken her heart and she knew she could never do it again.
She looked at Nat now as he approached her across the grass. He was in no more than shirt and breeches and he looked casual and disheveled, as though he had pulled on his clothes carelessly. The breeze flattened his shirt against his muscular torso and ruffled his dark hair. He looked troubled and harried, and the love she had for him pounded through Lizzie with every beat of her pulse. She knew it was a catastrophe to feel like this but she could not help herself. She could not deny her love or fall out of love with Nat simply because he was unable to return her feelings.
Last night she had wanted to be able to provoke him and to know that she could rouse a response from him. She had done so. But this morning she faced the hard truth that it was not the response she wanted. She wanted to know him properly, to feel as close to him emotionally as she was physically. She wanted his love, and he could not give that to her. Each time they made love it became more difficult for her to hold back her feelings because although she could respond to him and take pleasure-great pleasure, she admitted-in the act, it left her feeling cheated and desolate, more acutely aware than ever that outside their bedroom they barely spoke.
“This has to stop, Nat,” she said. “I cannot bear it any longer.”
She saw the expression of bewilderment deepen on his face. “I don’t understand,” he said.
No. And she could not explain to him, not completely, because in doing so she would lay her feelings beneath his feet and he would crush them, not deliberately, for she was sure that he would never seek to hurt her on purpose, but simply because he could not match her love for him.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I am sorry about last night. I was very angry and upset to discover that you had taken money from Cousin Gregory to marry me. It made me behave very badly.”
Nat rubbed his forehead. “I am sorry, too,” he said. “I treated you very badly. Your anger seems to fuel mine and then it is madness between us.”
Lizzie chose her words with care. “I think that we need to get to know one another better,” she said. “We have barely spoken since we wed. It feels as though we are strangers to one another now. And until we have resolved our difficulties I feel we should not sleep with each other again.”
The look of bewilderment on Nat’s face was replaced by a rather comical look of horror. If Lizzie had not felt so wretched she might even have laughed.
“Not sleep with one another?” he repeated.
Trust a man to pick up on that point first, Lizzie thought. “Not have sex with one another,” she elaborated. “A sex ban,” she said, warming to her theme, “like the Lysistrata in Ancient Greece. No touching, no kissing until we know one another better.” Her classical education had been somewhat neglected-in fact, her entire education had been somewhat neglected since governesses had not stayed long at Scarlet Park and even less time at Fortune Hall-but she had a vague recollection of a play in which the women had withdrawn their sexual favors.
“Lizzie, we have known one another for nine years,” Nat said. “It is not as though we are strangers to each other.”
And you do not really know me at all, Lizzie thought, nor do I know you. She started to walk slowly across the lawn toward the house.
“I realize that,” she said, “but for almost all our acquaintance I was no more than Monty’s little sister to you, and you…”
He had been. Nine years older and with all the glamour that age and experience could bestow, he had always seemed out of her reach.
“There is a vast gap between the friendship we had before,” Lizzie said, “and being husband and wife.”
“Many people who marry are practically strangers to one another when they wed,” Nat said. “It is accepted.”
Lizzie thought of Flora Minchin. Flora and Nat had been virtual strangers who would have wed and perhaps Nat would have been more comfortable with a wife he did not need to know well. All he had wanted was someone who was rich and could one day fulfill the role of Duchess of Waterhouse with aplomb. Instead he had got her, rich, it was true, but a complete hoyden.
“I know,” she said. “Unfortunately I cannot live like that.” She looked him in the eyes. “It makes me unhappy to give myself to you with such abandonment and yet to feel so remote from you the rest of the time,” she said. “It feels wrong to me. I need to know you better, Nat. I need time.”
She trembled a little at the thought. Perhaps she was mad even to imagine that she could turn his caring and his desire for her into something deeper and more profound. She did not know; all she knew was that she owed it to herself to try and that she was determined that she would give them this chance.
“I understand that you might need time to adjust to your new situation,” Nat said. “This is strange for you and new, and you are young and have experienced so much loss lately…” He stopped, frowning more deeply. “If I hurt you last night…”
Lizzie knew that he thought she was shocked at the physical demands he was making on her and so she was withdrawing because she needed time to come to terms with them. In an odd way, although he had misunderstood her reasons, she loved him all the more for trying to give her what she wanted even when he did not understand.
“You did not hurt me,” she said, “but I do need some time. I am sorry. It is true that I am in mourning and I feel very angry and resentful all the time and that is why I go a little mad and do such scandalous things…” She stopped. She knew that one day soon she would need to talk to him about all the pent-up anger and frustration and misery that was inside her or it would poison everything. This morning her hurt was too fresh and new to try, and she felt so weary, but she would explain as best she could very soon.
“Will you do it for me, Nat?” she appealed. “Will you try to know me better, do things together, talk to one another?”
She could see that he still did not understand why she needed it to be this way but that he could also see how passionately it mattered to her. He took her hand and she tried not to shiver with hope and longing.
“Very well,” he said. “I know you are angry and unhappy.” The lines about his eyes eased as he smiled a little. “Indeed I would have to be blind not to have noticed and I am sorry that I have been angry, too, and not more patient with you.”
Lizzie felt almost winded with love for him in that moment. “You would have to be a very complaisant husband indeed not to be infuriated by my behavior,” she whispered, and he smiled at her again, looking tired and sad, and she wanted to soothe that sadness away.
“Would you like to go riding with me later-take a picnic, perhaps?” Nat said. “We could make a start on getting to know one another better.”
“I should like that very much,” Lizzie agreed, smiling with dazzling pleasure. A tiny seed of hope was unfurling in her heart, so new and delicate that she was almost afraid to put too much trust in it.
Nat’s thumb moved gently over the smooth skin on the back of her hand. “But this idea of not touching,” Nat continued. “Perhaps you could reconsider?”
Lizzie looked up at him. The soothing movement of his thumb and the warm clasp of his hand on hers were very seductive. She was tempted to compromise. But that way lay danger and weakness. In no time they would kiss and then they would make love again and she would be back where she had started having lost the chance to win the thing that she so desperately desired, Nat’s love.
She removed her hand from his. “I am sorry,” she said. “No compromises.” Despite herself, her voice came out a little huskily from the effect of his proximity. Nat heard it and immediately his eyes narrowed to a predatory
