But Adrian shut the door and hit the lock before it became necessary. He offered her a smile she knew was meant to be reassuring.
It chilled her. Io, darling, have I warned you about what he’ll expect of you?
He placed the bottle carefully on the floor and walked over to the bed. “You look lovely. I’m sorry about the silliness outside; it’s the custom here. They don’t mean to offend.”
She was silent. He reached out a hand and touched her shoulder tentatively. “Have I said you look lovely?”
She tried to endure it, but she could feel herself clenching like a fist. He stepped back thoughtfully. “It’s been a long day, I guess.” He retrieved the bottle of wine and plucked a glass from the sideboard. “Here.”
She took it. Maybe he was right; sometimes doctors got their patients drunk before painful operations, didn’t they?
He knelt beside the bed, so they were at eye level. “Io …” His expression startled her; it was the look of a man screwing his courage up to do something awful. She clutched her gown involuntarily. “Io … I’ve, uh, been wondering … have you … did, uh, they talk to you about … well, sex?”
His skin, she noted, had flushed with embarrassment. She let go the grasp of her gown. “Of course they did, Adrian.”
“They did?” Relief suffused his face. “Thank god! So I don’t have to … discuss it with you?”
“I’m not a child, sir.”
“No, of course not.”
“And I’m fully ready to perform my duty, however disagreeable.”
He froze. From the look on his face, this didn’t reassure him as she’d thought it would. He lifted the winebottle and took a swallow directly from the mouth, j licking his lips uncomfortably. “Io … sweetheart, do you know, many people actually enjoy the act itself.”
“I know,” she said. “Men.”
“Armed with wit,” he said ruefully, sipping again from the bottle. Io, who had meant no witticism, was startled.
“Forgive me,” she said at once, for that sort of thing was not encouraged at home. “I only wanted to assure you that I’ve been prepared. My cousins and my mother told me everything. Although I would feel better, I confess, if I knew which sort you were.”
“Which sort?”
She felt her own face get hot, and said nothing. Adrian took her empty glass away—she had no memory of drinking it—and poured her another. “Beloved wife,” he said, “I give you my most sacred word of honor, that all my experience tells me that ladies take as much pleasure from this act as gentlemen.”
“Perhaps in some spiritual, or philosophical sense … suffering can ennoble—”
“Dammit, in the physical, here-and-now sense! I tell you, every woman I’ve bedded has expressed this sentiment to me!”
“Perhaps they were being polite.”
He stood and began to pace in frustration. “They were not being polite.”
Io, who had thought they were discussing a philosophical point, was surprised at his tone. She fell silent again.
He approached the bed and knelt once more. “Dear heart, I really believe I could convince you of my argument if you would let me.”
She examined his face, the sincerity of his expression. “Will you strip?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Will you remove your clothes, sir?”
He stared at her. Finally he said, “With a dedicated heart, madam.” He stood and methodically unbuttoned his shirt. He unwrapped the satin sash from his waist and dropped it, then peeled off his breeches and underclothes. He straighted up, facing her. “Well?”
She looked him up and down as though determining his species. Then she said, unsteadily, “I believe I’ve been misled, sir.”
“Misled?” He glanced down at his anatomy.
She began to snort, to chuckle, and to blush fiery pink, simultaneously. Misery and humor warred for supremacy. There was a touch of hysteria in the laughter, but she couldn’t hold it back. “They told me …”
“What?” He looked down at himself again, worry in his tone.
“… that there was … a corkscrew … oh, I’m such a fool—”
Tears and laughter mingled. She was horrified at her own honesty and wondered whether he would mock her or be offended. He sat on the bed and put his arms around her.
She said against his neck, “Never tell anyone. Never, never—”
“I never will.”
A little later, when Adrian slipped into bed beside her, she asked, “What were you just doing?”
‘Turning on the recorders,” he said.
She sat up. “I beg your pardon?”
“Turning on the recorders. For the archives.”
She threw back the spread, covered with white lace roses. “Our wedding night is going on the record? Sight-and-sound?”
Adrian pursed his lips like a man wondering how to get out of this one. “I guess … this is another thing Opal didn’t tell you.”
“Well, I’m telling you right now, Adrian Mercati, that if you want a record of this, you can record yourself. I’ll be in the chair over there.”
“Sweetheart—” He reached out.
“Don’t you dare touch me while that thing is on!”
He folded his hands. “Darling, nobody is ever going to see it. It’s just for legal purposes—to protect you, in fact, if I ever tried to annul the wedding. It goes into the archives, locked, and when we die, it’s destroyed. It might as well never have existed.”
“If it might as well never exist, why make it?”
“Sweetheart, Opal would never acknowledge the marriage without it. They insisted on it, it’s in our contract—I told you, it’s for your benefit.”
She sat miserably on the edge of the bed.
“Nobody will ever see it,” he said again.
Eventually she said, “Promise.”
“I promise. The only reason it would ever be taken out would be if I tried to annul the marriage, and why would I even try since I know the proof is there? That’s why these records are never used, Io.”
She still sat there, looking unhappy.
“Can I touch you now?”
She shrugged, and he put an arm around her shoulder. “You know, we’re actually pretty lucky. There was a time a few centuries ago when they insisted on having live witnesses to the consummation.”
She gave what was almost a laugh. “I’ll bet they begged
