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ragged. 
    Feeling oddly bereft, Margaret sat up herself and leaned against the bed’s wrought iron headboard. Her mind whirled, her thoughts a jumbled mess. Dazedly she bought her fingertips to her lips. They were already swollen, testament to the ravishment they had received. A ravishment she was rather disappointed had ended so soon. 
    “Henry?” she said hesitantly when he continued to sit in silence.
    His eyes opened. He stared at her, his expression unreadable. “Yes?” he said after a moment’s pause.
    “Is that… Is that all then?”   
    One eyebrow quirked. “Were you expecting more?”
    Margaret blushed and looked down. Her fingers fell away from her lips to twine absently in her lap as she considered what to say next. “Well,” she said finally, taking a deep breath. “I rather did enjoy myself. You are… You are quite adept at kissing. Not,” she said quickly as her cheeks turned bright pink, “that I am an expert judge on the matter. Quite the opposite, in fact. But if I were to judge, I would say that was a most excellent kiss and not at all overdone.”
    “Overdone?” said Henry in a strangled voice.
    She nodded. “And if you wished to kiss me again, I wouldn’t mind at all.”
    “An excellent thing to know.”
    Silence hummed between them. This time it was a companionable kind of quiet that Margaret quite enjoyed. She took a moment to discreetly study her husband beneath her lashes, noting for the first time the way his nose curved faintly to the left as if it had been broken a long time ago and the tiny silver scar that traced down from the corner of his mouth. He was not as handsome when one studied him up close, she realized. His beauty faded away to reveal the rugged man underneath. A man she was coming to understand a little more. A proud man, who shouldered his problems without complaint. A foolish man, too, for not thinking she would help him if he had but told her the truth.
    “I forgive you,” she said impulsively.
    “What?” said Henry, looking up.
    “I said I forgive you. For marrying me for my dowry,” she explained. “It was not a kind thing to do, but I understand why you did it and I forgive you.”
    The hint of a smile captured his mouth, pulling it up to one side in a half smile that did funny things to her heart.
    “You are nothing like I thought you were,” he said.
    Margaret sat up a little straighter. “Oh? In what way?”
    Henry stretched out on his back and settled his head on Margaret’s lap. One booted foot swung off the side of the bed while the other tangled with her right leg, hooking around her ankle and holding it firmly in place. It was a decadent position, to be certain, but neither Henry nor Margaret thought to complain.
    “For one,” he began, his eyes flashing with amusement, “you are stubborn as an ass.”
    Margaret’s mouth dropped open. “Stubborn as an… Stubborn as an ass ?” she cried, glowering down at him.
    “Yes, but much more beautiful.”
    “Well as long as I am prettier than a donkey,” she sniffed.
    “ Much prettier. I have never seen hair the same shade as yours before. It reminds me of a tomato,” he decided. “A big fat tomato, ripe for the plucking.”
    “My hair reminds you of a fat tomato?” she repeated in amazement. “You, sir, are certainly not a poet.”
    “Far from it,” he agreed.
    “Henry?” said Margaret a few moments later, breaking the silence that had settled back over them, snug and comfortable as a blanket on a cold winter’s night.
    He looked up at her. “Yes?”
    Absently she twirled a lock of his hair around her finger, spinning the soft curl round and round as she said, “Perhaps, since we are, in fact, married we might try to get to know each other… That is, more then we do now.”
    Henry propped himself up on one elbow and smiled wryly. “We do not know each other at all.”
    Margaret nodded. “Precisely my point.”
    “And what pray tell,” he queried, arching one eyebrow,