How to Seduce a Bride

Daisy stepped through another doorway in the hedge and stared. The sun shone brightly on the center circle, a clearing of some twenty feet all around. The centerpiece was a larger-than-life-sized statue of a nude Venus being held by an equally nude and obviously passionate Mars. They were ringed and applauded by a host of nude cherubs. It was so grandly presented, it was hard to equate with the fact that it was positively pornographic.

The statue was framed by four curved marble benches placed at equal distances at the side of the circle, the perimeter was solid hedge, and above them, a clear blue sky.

“It is,” Daisy said carefully, “certainly not conservative.” And then she put her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggles.

“Yes,” Leland said, sounding very pleased. “It drove my poor father mad, I understand. He wanted to take it down, but venerated his heritage too much to touch it. Lucky me. I mean, of course, lucky us. Would you care to sit down a while before we go on?”

He led her to a marble bench, waited until she was seated, and then sat beside her. He stretched out his long legs and gazed up at the sky. “The idea behind the centerpiece, of course,” he said casually, “was that it would inspire whatever lovely creature my ancestor brought in here with him to romance, or a reasonable version of it. After all, she couldn’t leave until he told her how she could. So I suppose he made it a forfeit. And I understand, from ancestral memoirs, that this was a very popular place. Well, but they were freer with morals in those days,” he murmured. Then he turned his head and looked down at her. “Inspired?” he asked with interest.

He was so close that one of his lean, well-muscled thighs almost touched hers. She felt he was even closer. She smelled lavender and lemon, and something else, something intangible, something of sunlight and darkness, sweet and thrilling, which was his very essence. Her body thrummed, knowing he was so near.

He wasn’t a handsome man, not remotely so. But he was compelling, which was fascinating. His eyes were truly beautiful, though, she thought irrelevantly: a different, darker, more intense blue than the sky, filled with intelligence and… desire. She’d recognize that anywhere. His skin was clear, his mouth was well shaped, and he was vital and real, and waiting here beside her. And now he was her husband.

She swallowed hard.

He looked at her lips, then her eyes. He hesitated, and then sighed. “No,” he said with sorrow. “You’re not inspired. Ah, too bad. I suppose you’re listening to the cautions of the ghosts of too many foolish ladies who were lured here. So am I. It was a bad notion. Forget it and forgive me. I don’t want to remember them, either. Well, rested? Ready to go on?”

“To what?” she asked nervously.

“Not to heights of sensual bliss, alas,” he said with such mock sadness, she had to smile. “That’s clear. No, we should go back to the house. The sun is sinking; it will be twilight before long. On the way I’ll show you a lovely brook, and the home wood. There’s a doe that comes to the edge of the wood at sundown; I confess I encourage her to. I carry a small block of salt in my pocket whenever I’m here, and the silly beast thinks it tastes better than anything in the whole wide meadow she grazes in.”

He rose, and so did she. For a moment, standing there, looking up at him, she felt the urge to rise up on her toes and kiss him, so she’d know if what she’d experienced before had been real.

But a kiss could lead to unpleasantness, frustration, and the feeling of captivity she hated, and she found she liked him too much to dislike him so soon. So she simply put her hand on his arm and walked out of the maze with him, head down, watching her steps, thinking she was a coward, and then thinking she wasn’t, she was a realist, and so she said nothing at all. But neither did he.

“Tell Cook she has exceeded herself,” Leland told his butler as he rose from the dinner table. “She was inspired. I’d applaud, but I’m too full to exert myself.”

“She’ll be pleased, my lord,” the butler said, bowing.

Daisy smiled. Dinner had been delicious, but it was just simple, well-cooked English food. Surely a world traveler and sophisticate like Viscount Haye had eaten better.

“I know,” Leland whispered in her ear as they left the room together, “But Cook excels at simple country fare. She does it better than any French chef could. I don’t ask swans to sing, or nightingales to be beautiful: to each his own expertise. A wise man shouldn’t expect more than a person is capable of. The trick is finding that skill and appreciating it.”

“You read my mind,” she said simply. “You do that a lot.”

“Good,” he said. “See you remember that when you sigh over another gentleman, will you?”

“I won’t,” she said. “Sigh over another gentleman, I mean.”

“Don’t be so sure. I don’t mind the sighing. I would, if it were anything more. Now, we could go to the salon, or the library, or wherever you choose. But it is past dinnertime, and our wedding night. I think the staff would be horrified if we didn’t repair to our bed. I didn’t mind one whit what anyone said about me before, but I find I’d be dismayed if we did anything to inspire gossip now. It’s odd how one becomes a slave to one’s servants, isn’t it? Don’t worry, if you’re not sleepy,” he said. “Neither am I. But never fear, I’ll find something for us to do.”

Daisy stiffened. She knew he would. Well, she thought, better now than later. They could get it done, it wouldn’t take long, and then she could act more naturally with him. It wasn’t as if it was something she hadn’t done hundreds of times before. In fact, she didn’t have to do anything but endure it, and try to remember men were men, and so it shouldn’t change her feelings about him forever. Because she did like him, very much.

It would be best to get it over with. She realized she was too on edge now, waiting for the moment, it made her nervous and her conversation stilted. She missed the way they’d been before they’d married. They’d certainly laughed more.

“Go on up,” he said, pausing at the foot of the stair. “I’ll follow, soon.”

She trudged up the stairs, and then remembering the omnipresent unseen servants, raised her head, pasted on a smile, and went bravely to her bridal chamber.

Chapter Twenty

Daisy had brushed out her hair and braided it, when her maid, all a-giggle, held up a fine night shift for her to put on. It was made of the sheerest linen, so it was thin and transparent. Daisy hesitated. But she didn’t want to be fully dressed when Leland came to her, because then there’d be the awkwardness of undressing. And she didn’t want to disappoint her maid and cause more talk, because the shift really was quite suitable for a wedding night. So she put it on. She dismissed her maid as soon as she could, climbed up into the huge canopy bed, drew the coverlet up to her chest, and sat, waiting for her new husband to appear.

It was an awkward moment that would become worse, and so she’d brought a book with her in order to be doing something when Leland arrived. She’d thought about it long and hard. She refused to just lie there like a sacrifice on an altar. Or sit up, rigid, tensing at every creak in the floorboards that might signal his approach. She plumped up pillows behind her back, drew the coverlet up again, and pretended to read while her every sense strained to hear his footsteps.

He came into the room a few minutes later, fully dressed.

She gaped at him. He smiled at her.

“Something amiss with my shirt?” he asked in surprise.

“No,” she said, and couldn’t say more, because she couldn’t tell him she’d expected him to be in his nightclothes.

“Gads!” he said, stretching. “It isn’t really late, but I feel as if I’d been up for hours. I suppose that’s because it isn’t every day that I’m up so early, and out associating with so many people. I might as well get ready for bed, too,” he said, as he shrugged off his jacket. “You look so comfortable, you inspire me,” he said, as he unwound his neck cloth. “Then we can find a pleasant way to while away some hours, because exhausted I may be, but I’m not tired. I never go to bed this early. I’m sure if I did it would be a tremendous shock to my constitution.”

Daisy blinked, and then stared. Because now he pulled his shirt over his head, so his voice was muffled as he added, “We have some hours before I’m ready to sleep, but I never asked you. How rude. Are you used to such early hours?”